Success!

I quite often wonder if our change to a greener lifestyle is failing. Like when I once again show up at the supermarket having forgotten my own shopping bags at home, or when my husband brings home an extra large container of chemical weed kill, or I stay in the shower just that bit longer than it really takes to wash my hair or I put Argentinian blueberries in the shopping basket or I do jump in the car for a short journey or I yet again forget to switch the modem off or ...

These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.

It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...

The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.

It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.

In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.

This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.