Excuses, excuses

Trying to change your lifestyle to a greener colour can - surprise, surprise- be just as difficult as any other lifestyle change. Now I am not saying this to put anybody off trying, because even small steps are better than no steps, but sometimes it is difficult to keep the enthusiasm up and continue going.

Last week I felt we were doing quite OK, we had made some small progress and that was really nice. But now I am finding myself slightly resting on the laurels. The thing is that the weather has changed. Last week we had mostly dry weather and a fair bit of sunshine, so it was no problem walking to town or sorting a few things in the garden or not switching the heating on. This week has started off with rain, strong winds and generally depressing conditions. This is when your true green colour shows.

Today I was taking the kids to the library, and despite me making some kind of agreement with myself not to use the car for local trips, it obviously still happened. Grey weather can make you incredibly imaginative, it probably only took me a minute to come up with several 'good' excuses to take the car:

- with the wind and the possible rain the kids will make a fuss after 2 minutes if we are walking and we will have a nightmare trip,

- it will be quicker to go on bikes, but my daughter still struggles a bit on a bike uphill, so it wouldn't be safe, and oh, I still haven't had my own bike serviced,

-we could go on the bus, but I haven't got the timetable and we could end up waiting for a long time at the bus stop, which would again mean grumpy kids,

-and then of course there is the issue of my daughter saying this morning that she had a sore throat, so I can't risk her getting cold... (The sore throat did seem to have been miraculously cured by a cup of hot chocolate, but you never know).

All very valid excuses for pumping a bit more CO2 into the atmosphere...

I still felt slightly guilty when I got in the car, but convinced myself that one small trip wouldn't matter that much, and of course I did sign up for online billing last week!
Obviously we all have bad days from time to time, and I don't think one car trip makes me a green failure, but here is the problem: we are heading for winter and it will be cold, wet, windy and dark, how in the world I am going to keep myself motivated. Walking anywhere is not going to be particularly enjoyable, I won't be able to go out in the garden and feel all green and earthy while sorting my vegetable plot and I will probably be wearing at least 4 layers of clothing in an attempt to stay warm. OK I will always have my excuse of having signed up for online billing and we are managing fine with the 2 vegetarian days a week, but that is not exactly going to turn me into a green hero.


I need to come up with some kind a strategy. Something that can keep me going in the cold, or even better things that are completely independent of weather changes. Guess I could start by getting my bike serviced and finding the bus timetable, but it probably needs to be slightly more than that. I need to find a way to have a happy green winter - all suggestions welcome.