Green holiday

We are in the height of holiday season and I wish I could do a post about some fantastic holiday adventure, but unfortunately this is not the case - we are not planning any exotic time away this summer! There are several reasons for this, but lets just say that being green, lazy and out of money doesn't leave you many holiday choices. Question one to consider is what would make a holiday green?

Flying anywhere is kind of out of the question, so that quickly narrows down the destinations available. We could I guess make it to certain parts of Europe going through the Euro tunnel, but it would mean spending quite a lot of time travelling first down to London and then across the water, and I don't think the South of Italy or somewhere similar would be feasible to do with two young kids.

From that point of view it would make most sense to stay in Britain. I have nothing against Britain, we live in a generally nice place, but unfortunately the weather isn't always great and a bit of sunshine can be one of the important parts of a holiday.

The other thing is the price. I really want to think that it is cheaper to stay closer to home, but unfortunately that doesn't always seem to be the case. A recent survey I saw claimed that 1 week for a family of 4 in Bulgaria, Turkey or Cyprus is cheaper than 1 week in Brighton. OK fair enough I am sure there are all sorts of variations and the figures calculated included car hire, which I guess you are less likely to need if holidaying in Brighton - but never the less it shows that Britain can be just as expensive as going abroad. (Not to mention that psychologically you know instantly how much you are actually paying because you are not doing half hearted currency calculations). From an environmental point of view that is not very good.

There are of course ways to make it cheaper, camping for example should be cheaper than a stay in a hotel, but for me this is where the lazy aspect comes in - I am just not keen. I like the part of the holiday that means comfy bed and not having to think too much about cooking, but camping holidays with all inclusive buffets are just not easy to come by...


Some people have mentioned to me eco tourism. These are usually holidays where you show a bit of respect for the local environment and its people and it usually doesn't entail an all-inclusive holiday park with excess food/drink, swimming pools, loud music and general disregard for the local area, but is more likely to include hill walking or some interesting natural or cultural aspect. From a personal point of view I would prefer an eco holiday anytime to a package deal to Spain, but there are 2 things that make me uncertain about eco holidays. One is the price, despite the fact that I think you generally get good stuff for your money it can be quite pricey because these holiday operators mostly try to give you a good experience and it can costs a bit to arrange knowledgeable guides to take you up a mountain, especially as they can't take tours of 80+ people at the time, because that would go against the principle of respecting the local environment. I am also slightly in doubt about how green these things are. It might work if you are going on a trip to the Scottish highlands learning about the fauna and flora of the glens, because you hopefully wouldn't fly there and are unlikely to cause major upset to the local culture; but what happens when you fly on an eco holiday to Malaysia or somewhere else exotic. While I definitely think these holidays are better than the conventional hotel and swimming pool stays, I don't know if they really are green? I mean if you fly there you have already used up a lot of your CO2 quota.

Anyway eco holidays are definitely not an option for us this year, so I didn't really need to worry about where they sit on the green scale. But that brought me back to the question of a feasible green option and this was when I realised that if I wanted any kind of break this year I would need to defy my lazy side! Which is how I found myself buying a 1/2 price tent I suddenly spotted in a shop. I actually purchased a tent! After years of coming up with excuses and being perfectly content with a split in the household that meant my husband did the camping thing with the guys and I stayed nice and cosy at home, we are now owners of a tent and I am out of reasons to give my daughter when she yet again asks why we never go camping.Help!

I only have one hope left. Yesterday we attempted to put the tent up, but after 1 1/2 hours of trying to decipher the encryption code used when writing the instructions and matching the information with the actual bits in the bag, we had to give up. It just made no sense!So if I am really lucky this tent just might be 'unpitchable'. On the other hand that would be rather silly and knowing my husband he will get this tent up one way or another and me - I will probably hope for a break in the rain, dream of a hotel room, congratulate myself for taking a greener holiday and then hopefully join the kids in having some fun!

Annoyingly green

There is a question I have asked myself several times lately: is it possible to be green without being incredible annoying?!
The fact is that the more you become involved with green living the more you start noticing the behaviour of the people around you and sometimes I need to bite my tongue.

For example today on my way to pick up my daughter from holiday club I walked past a parked car where the driver had just got in. He switched the engine on, but to my amazement he didn't drive off, instead he got out his newspaper and a pie and started reading/eating. When I walked back again 15 mins later they guy was still there engine still running. Why? Why did he have the engine running for more than 15 mins if he wasn't going anywhere? I seriously considered knocking on the window to ask him, but eventually decided against that, especially considering I had 2 children with me.

The question I ask myself now is '12 months ago would I have considered speaking to the guy?' No, definitely not. 'Would I even have noticed that he had his engine on for that amount of time?' Probably not. Then why do I care now? I set the challenge for our family to be greener I didn't suggest going on a mission to save the whole world. Is this what being green does to you: you become this annoying person on a crusade who wants to challenge everybody about their behaviour?

I am not quite sure where to take it from here. The fact is I have never been the missionary type of person and I don't really fancy becoming one, but all the knowledge I have collected in my head about the environment, our planet, our ways of wasting and consuming and lots of other things make it difficult to just stay silent.

Ideally I want to be one of the people who do green things just because that is the most natural thing for them to do. There is one mum that I always meet on the walk to school on rainy days (trust me there are not many of us) and she doesn't make her kids walk due to some green anthem, she just thinks walking is the best way to get there.

I know a family who would definitely live up to the green label on many fronts e.g. they grow lots of there own food (and keep chickens), they often choose the ferry when going abroad rather than the plane, they don't use the car much; but I don't think they see themselves as green - it is just the way they are.

I wonder how things will look for us in 15 years time. Will I then be able to be completely relaxed about our lifestyle and just plod on with my vegetables, bike rides, solar panels and zero waste lifestyle without feeling the urge to challenge everybody about their choices (to which they have every right). Or will I have turned into some green eyed monster that annoys everybody with endless rants about vegetables, bikes rides, solar panels and zero waste. Fingers crossed it will be the first one.

Green inspiration

When I occasionally read a newspaper or surf the net I tend to be drawn towards environmental matters and as such I often pick up little bits of information that I think I could convert into something that would green up our household a little bit more. Usually this is good fun and spurs on all the little things we can do.

The other day I read that more trees in urban areas could be a good help to reducing air pollution and restore biodiversity. OK, we don't exactly live in the inner city, but it still reminded me that parts of the front garden could be used far more effectively than squares of grass and that I really need to think about redesigning it. I am sure we can create something far more friendly to bees and other helpful creatures, and with a bit of thought we should even be able to do it in a way that won't upset the neighbours...

Then there was a blog about somebody giving up supermarket shopping all together - a very interesting idea. I am not quite sure how I would cope with that, especially when it comes to getting stuff for the kids, but I will definitely go back and check how she is getting on, maybe it is feasible? If nothing else it was a strong reminder that I still haven't signed up for a veg box scheme! I wonder why this seem to be such a stumbling block for me - after all it is not exactly rocket science. I have a sneaky suspicion that I am scared I will end up with lots of 'funny' vegetables that I then need to learn to prepare and convince my children to eat... Frankly I am just making bad excuses - this will have to be my challenge for the week: get over the veg box phobia and order one (I think this is what is called cognitive behavioural therapy)

I also saw an article about a man in Brazil who built a solar water heater out of plastic bottles and milk cartons - how is that for doing your bit! I so admire people who actually do something about their ideas rather than just talk about it(no mention of veg boxes here please...)

Then came an article that made my heart sink: a woman wanting to be green should learn to do more DIY. Oh help! I totally support the idea that to be green also involves a higher level of self reliance and ability to sustain yourself - it makes sense, but do I really have to learn to plumb in toilets??? I probably shouldn't say this because it goes against everything I believe in when it comes to green living, equal rights and several other things as well, but frankly I find 90% of DIY exceedingly boring. I have absolutely no desire to learn to fix leaking taps or lay slabs. I don't even want to fix punctures on my bike if I can convince somebody else (read: my husband) to do it. It is not because I am scared of working - I did after all dig the vegetable plot from scratch, neither do I think it is above my abilities, I am sure I could learn - I just find it all so uninteresting. Does that mean I can never be a proper green woman?

Hmm, what to do. For now I think I will start with my veg box challenge, then maybe once I have done all the other things I need to learn as well, like successful gardening, cooking local produce, cycling with a heavy load without getting a heart attack, sewing something more advanced than table covers, making my own paper/candles/soap and turning used bottles into amazing energy saving features just then I might consider learning to fix that toilet.

Busy green bee

First of all my apologies to everybody for the extended silent period. I wish I could say it was due to some extreme green experiment that left me without access to my computer, but the fact is that I have just been extraordinarily busy these last few weeks and struggled a bit to squeeze everything in.

This rather stressful period has however been an interesting study of how well established our new green habits are, because when under pressure you are more likely to return to old ways. I am happy to announce that I think we can still declare ourselves on the green side.

We are continuing to be conscious of energy use - so much so that our energy supplier have just sent us notice that our monthly payments will be reduced by £20, not bad.

Separating all rubbish is now second nature and we don't really seem to think about it as an effort anymore.

Our car usage is still on a downwards trend and this was one of the areas I feared would suffer during busy times. This might have been slightly helped by the extremely nice weather we have been having, but never the less a good result. I surprised myself yesterday when cycling to a meeting in the rain getting rather wet and then realising I was actually enjoying the ride. There are definitely some hidden benefits to attempting a green lifestyle and cycling (and walking) more is one of them. It is great to get some fresh air and save money at the same time.

I should be honest though and admit that there has been some minor lapses as well.
There has been fewer trips to the local shops for food and imported produce has easily found its way into the shopping trolley. I have previously explained some of my issues with changing to more sustainable eating habits and that certainly doesn't get any easier when time is short.

Watering the garden has also been done with a hose a few times over the last weeks, the whole idea of spending double the time doing it with a watering can was more than my stressed out brain could cope with.

In fact the garden might have been the area suffering the most over this period. Although we have been very successful in some areas, e.g. loads of lettuce, handfuls of homegrown strawberries and peas almost ready to be eaten, the current state of the garden tells me that I simply cannot afford to ignore it for 2 weeks. (which also tells me that any degree of self sufficiency will be completely unobtainable for many years!)

When I finally got round to having a look at the garden I realised that a whole row of the potato plants I had been so proud of looked rather odd with brown patches on the leaves. Not good! I googled the issue and realised that some of my potatoes might suffer from blight. Not good at all! Even worse when I read that me using the hose to water the garden could have caused this- apparently you should always water potaoes at the stems rather than getting the leaves wet.

Then something odd happened - with me. I never considered myself a serious gardener, I was just having a bit of green fun, but realising my potato plants were ill turned me into some kind of Mary Knightingale of the veg world, completely ignoring all the other stuff I needed to do. I checked on several websites what action I should take and then immediately set about trying to save my remaining crop. I dug up the row that looked unwell and then proceeded to check every singly plant for signs of dark spots and then snipped and cut like a surgeon trying to save a life. Honestly if any of my old friends from before this green challenge had seen me, they would have thought I had lost plot. (The good part is that this action has given us our first homegrown potatoes - 15 of them, none of them looking like blight sufferers, so should make a tasty addition to tomorrows dinner...)

I am beginning to think that maybe I am much more committed to this green thing than I realised. Maybe the family has moved a lot further than we thought. Maybe, just maybe we will be able to declare this challenge a success...

Footprinting

Carbonfoot prints are funny things, I am not quite sure I fully understand them, and I am certainly not convinced by the accuracy of the calculations, but I guess some kind of measurement is better than nothing.

I remember in a previous employment I got tasked with collecting all the information for calculating the organisation's foot print. I was amazed that half of the stuff we used to do to be environmentally friendly, like printing on both sides of the paper, switching everything off and composting teabags, made absolutely no difference, it was simply not considered. Fortunately we still ended up looking extremely good, but that had more to do with the nature of our work (we only worked in Scotland so no flights round the World and we provided services, not goods, so no massive deliveries by articulated lorries), than to do with the measures we had taken. The experience didn't really fill me with confidence in the calculations.

My half hearted approach to carbon footprinting didn't stop me looking however, when I saw an article about a new book calculating the carbon cost of all sorts of activities. Fascinating reading although it did absolutely nothing to convince me that carbon footprinting is useful, but I still feel the urge to share the information.

Apparently one trip by plane has the same carbon foot print as 340.000 disposable carrier bags! That is a lot of bags. I wonder how many shopping trips that is the equivalent off?

The football world cup has a footprint of 2.8 million tonnes CO2, and that is not even including the power used for all those TVs tuned into the matches. I guess that makes watching football a not very green activity. (I might still sneak a match or two though)

I could spend some time texting in stead, but unsurprisingly that has a footprint attached to it as well. An average text that takes 1 minute to write and 1 minute to read means 0.014g of CO2 into the atmosphere. This obviously doesn't take into consideration people like me who are rather slow at texting, so my txts just might cause even more CO2. Of course if you are a teenager it wouldn't take you a minute to write a txt, you could do at least 4 in that time, so that might make up for it. I am secretly fascinated by teenagers and their mobile phone skills, most of them seem to do it automatically without even looking and they do it constantly - what is it they say to each other??? I know of a kid whose parents got him a contract with unlimited texting. It obviously turned out that unlimited wasn't really the correct term, there was indeed a limit and they got hit with quite a bill when their son had sent more than 4000 txts in a month! That would make a mark on your carbon footprint...

So if not watching football and not texting, maybe I should do the washing. Here was a pleasant surprise and confirmation that we made the right decision not to have a tumble drier. If you do a wash at 40 and line dry it it produces 0.7kg of CO2. If you turn the temperature down to 30 degrees the impact goes down to 0.6kg. But if you stick the same wash in a tumble drier the carbon footprint will be 2.4kg. That is quite a difference.

But before getting too pleased with myself I saw the carbon footprint of having children. Apparently the average child will cause 373 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the course of their life - I have 2 children, so that makes 746 tonnes. Thankfully it was estimated that a carbon conscious child will only cause 100 tonnes, so hopefully I will manage to bring my kids closer to 100 tonnes rather than 373 tonnes.

So what should I conclude from this - well my washing habits are not too bad, but the World Cup is out (can't really tell my husband that though...), I need to learn to txt faster and we are definitely not having any more children! Guess that is that sorted then...



If anybody is interested the book is called 'How Bad Are Bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. I got this summary information from the Ecologist: