Just Humans Being...

Smile. Breathe. Go slowly. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh  Two years ago, we took part in the  No Impact Experiment  & at the end of the week we wrote about  Giving Back & Eco Sabbath . Spending time giving to others is something we've thought a lot about lately - we clean for a lovely, intelligent & kind man who finds life incredibly difficult. He masks his problems with alcohol, has tried on several occasions to stop & has even gone into rehab, but he is so lonely - as soon as he's back at home, the cycle starts all over again... We have come to really care for this chap & look forward to catching up with him each week, we always do a bit extra because we want to & he is always very grateful. So when people say - you're running a business, not a charity... We say - we wouldn't do it if we didn't want to... As long as we're happy to do it & it's brightening someone else's day - that's all that matters! We are often asked if ...

We may not have taken part in the last No Impact Week, but we continue to live as simply as we can. Now there are only 3 of us in the house, our rubbish & recycling has gone down & we only put it out once a fortnight. The water is heated with oil & is on much less now - 45 minutes twice daily, which gives us more than enough hot water. We haven't put the oil heating on yet & hope to get through this Winter without it! We have our open fire, still haven't got around to buying a wood burner & have thought now that maybe we won't bother here - we'll see. We're using eco logs on the fire, which we have bartered for in return for some cleaning & use hot water bottles & the kitties to keep us warm if we want to settle in the dining room for the evening. This Winter we hope to really get full use of our freezer & stock it up with plenty of home made food. We still buy from  The Granary , our local wholefood wholesaler, so rarely set foot...

We have been asked to take part in the  The No Impact Experiment  again. It's good to remind ourselves of how lightly we wish to live & to feel encouraged to do so. Work tends to make us lazy & we find ourselves talking about living simpler as a future event... It's crazy, because both of us are passionate about living with no or very little impact. We continue to dream of life being simple - living off-grid, no mains electricity or running water. Having land to grow our own food & generate our own power. We want to live as far away from other people as possible, to be somewhere very remote. A place away from disrespectful tourists & silly neighbours... To be in control of our lives, support ourselves & be truly happy, fit & healthy would be wonderful! Our journey to simplicity begins on Sunday September 18th.  It would be great if you would come along too! Click here to register:  No Impact Week Registration   And Join our group "Jus...

We've been home for a couple of days now & started work again yesterday. The weather has remained awful - drizzle & grey skies, but amazingly, we've had lots of energy. Our customers have been glad to see us, which is nice & tomorrow we'll meet up with local friends for a family quiz night in the village cricket club. We're surprisingly getting back into the swing of things... Sime's band are here jamming in our back room - practising for their gig next Friday & as usual the house is vibrating!  The view from our first job yesterday! I'm really keen on starting some of the projects we'd vowed to do during the  No Impact Week  - preserving food, eating as locally as possible, using less energy, etc, etc. Haven't been able to buy yeast on our return for bread making, will have to look at making sour dough again, although previously - it's been a bit vinegary! We have yet another job on tomorrow & we're getting lots of enquiri...

Today is all about giving back - things that we do or can do to help others, so we were thinking about what we do & were struggling until I read  Karin's Blog . Karin has written about what stops her from doing good things, but all along - she actually is helping others! We cared for my Nan for the last 2 years of her life, she came to live with us when her sheltered housing closed down. Sime & I both felt that she & my Grandad were always there for us when we needed them & thought it was the least we could do for her. It was hard work, as she had vascular dementia (amongst other ailments), but we are so glad we did. During her time with us, we joined a local  Transition Group , we couldn't devote much time, but enjoyed going along to the monthly meetings. It's been over a year since Nan died & since then we have been able to give to our community so much more. Our group has about 7 main members & we try to come up with ways of bringing our neighbo...

Day 6 of our No Impact Experiment  is about water consumption & having had a go at the  Water Footprint Calculator  this is how we score: Food = 139 Domestic = 46 Industrial =73 Total = 259 Cubic Metres Per Person Per Year! We have no idea if this is good or bad, as there are no guidelines on the website... All I can say is that we are very careful with water. When we first moved to Cornwall - we lived on a smallholding which had it's own well water pumped into the house. During dry periods the well would get really low & so we got used to being incredibly frugal & that behaviour has stayed with us. We never leave taps running or over fill the kettle, we use a bowl to wash our dishes, our washing machine has a AAA rating - so is both energy & water efficient. We don't use our bath (it usually gets filled with vegetable plants in the summer) & always take quick showers (not only to save water, but because when we have spent too long - the water ...

Today, we have been asked to think about the energy we use... Well, we already have reduced our usage of electric & heating oil  over the past 12 months, which we wrote about in a previous blog. Infact, we have halved our electricity consumption & when the oil company came to top up our tank on Tuesday, the delivery guy said it was still 85% full, so we didn't need any extra! Sime made the quick video above about the the light bulbs he wired up in the kitchen to replace the expensive spot lights. We've always switched lights off when exiting rooms & electrical equipment gets switched off at the mains when we've finished using it. As appliances break down, we haven't replaced them & are always on the look out for manual versions. We were persuaded by the kids to buy a second-hand dishwasher for £20 when we moved into this house & it lasted for 3 years (even though it was already 22 years old)! We haven't replaced it & feel happier washing ...

  Oh dear, we've been vegetarian (mainly vegan) for over 20 years & our kids have been veggie all their lives, so what a shock we have had over the last couple of days - discovering that even though we buy all our organic grains & pulses from a wholefood wholesaler in bulk, not a lot of it is from the UK... All we have is: wheat grain, oat groats, oat flakes, cornflour & green split peas. The rest are all mainly from China, India & Turkey... Some months ago, we had long discussions about whether it would be possible for us to live on just Cornish produced food & we realised just how difficult that would be. We debated whether it is better to eat locally grown non-organic vegetables, instead of organic food from further afield & for us the organic food was more important, still is. There is a farm shop just a mile away from where we live, but most of it isn't organic. The farmer's market is 16 miles away in Truro, so we buy a veg box, which is d...

Today, we decided to try out our local public transport, instead of using the car. It took us nearly 30 minutes to get to the bus stop in the nearby village & had the bus been on time - we would have missed it! It wasn't an enjoyable experience, but we're glad we did it. We always try to do as much as possible when we do go into town - which is usually no more than once a week. We have our own business, providing a green housekeeping service to holiday & private homes in the area. Our work is all within 2 - 5 miles from where we live, but we do use the car, as we have to transport lots of laundry & cleaning equipment. Perhaps one day we'll have an electric vehicle! Here's Sime's take on our day... "Of the two, which one is the more eco-friendly form of transportation? Correct, it's public transport, in this case the bus that Kay and I took to our nearest town St.Awful, sorry, St.Austell today. What makes it more eco-friendly than the...

Yesterday was our first day of our No Impact Experiment - here's some info from YES magazine, which explains all about it:   http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-new-years-resolution-for-the-whole-planet?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=socmed&utm_content=Staff_NewYearsResolutionForPlanet&utm_campaign=110101_NoImpact We've thought about consumption, things we can cut down on or cut out altogether - we're pretty sorted with that one & don't really do a great deal of purchasing, none of us are into fashion & we wear our clothes until they can no longer be repaired, most of which are from charity shops. Our furniture is mainly second hand or really old & we're not into gadgets (although we do have computers). We have a very old television that we can watch DVDs on, but we don't have a TV signal. We have an old radio from the early 1960s, which allows us to listen to Radio Cornwall or Irish & French stations! We also have an old record player ...

We've been reading "The Art of Happiness" again, it's just nice to remind ourselves of what the Dalai Lama has to say & this has led us to sign up to "The No Impact Experiment" , which starts on Sunday January 2nd. No Impact Project » The No Impact Experiment We already live by most of these principles, but it's good to continue challenging ourselves to live with less & think about ways of improving how we do things. This is what makes us happy! We got very excited before Christmas when we received a letter from Ecotricity (our electricity provider), saying that our usage has halved over the last year, so our monthly direct debits are being reduced & we got a refund for an overpayment! We've also cut our heating oil consumption too & have all got used to wearing extra layers when it's been really cold. Yesterday, was our local rubbish & recycling collection day & it never ceases to amaze us just how much "stuf...