Saturday, January 6, 2018

Saturday 6th January - Time to take down the decorations!


Yesterday I made bread and then decided to look up the millers from where I got the flour from, well it is a farm in Spaunton not too far from Appleton- le-Moor.  Just down the road in fact, so locally grown. I had been reading about 'fat', what is good for you and what is bad. so 100% olive oil is good for you but anything with hydrogenated fat is bad.  Probably most biscuits and bought cakes.  My label chasing also excludes anything with palm oil, but need new glasses to read the small print!
Next week I have a birthday, my presents (ordered by me) are fountain pen and ink, and a book by Madeline Bunting about the Hebrides.  Not sure I look forward to birthdays, they come and go is the easy answer. A meal out is on the cards, strangely some of the restaurants round here have closed for the winter, they mostly  rely on the tourist trade, and I suppose paying a chef in the middle of winter comes at a high price, so it will probably be The Plough at Wombleton again.
The news this morning is getting very green centred, no to diesel cars, yes to electric (if you can afford them that is).  Then there is those coffee cups, plastic and cardboard which are practically non- recyclable.  Someone said on the radio take your own mug for coffee, which seems like a good idea but I am sure it will take a long time to actually being the thing to do.  But then we embraced car seat belts eventually.
The only fairly respectable ceramic closed cup I could find, the rest are mostly stainless steel

It is good news that China is refusing our rubbish, making us think how to overcome this terrible wastage of plastic rubbish that lasts for ever, and pollutes the sea destroying sea life with such ghastly consequences.  Even better news is that China is calling a halt to the sale of ivory in its domestic market, but note other countries are guilty of the same crime such as the UK, EU and Japan, should take similar actions so that their markets do not provide a cover for illicit ivory and perpetuate demand for ivory.


The fire has kept going all night, coal last thing keeps it ticking over and then a couple of logs in the morning, it is getting colder, the weather everywhere has been a roller-coaster, and now I read in an article that the sea bottom is sinking under the weight of all the extra water that is being melted by glaciers melting. ho-hum!  Of course there are beautiful natural photos of the icy conditions in America, which are very worrying and definitely not good for the people experiencing them.

Niagara Falls
I am not going to go on about climate change, each must choose their version of what they believe, and the present incumbent of the White House has little time for either climate change or environmental disasters, but luckily he is only human and the constant attrition that he is getting from all sides may hopefully remove him from office. (and hopefully from our airways).









8 comments:

  1. It's good to hear some positive news. Thanks for sharing.
    Arilx

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  2. I think David Attenborough has done a lot of good alerting people to what is happening in our oceans with the plastic overwhelming everything, and I'm pretty sure most of it is not coming from our shores. China has given us a wake-up call, but the answer to these unrecyclable coffee cups is NOT to put a levy on them, but to change what they are made of. Our son makes up coffee at home and has a good Thermos mug to drink it from on the way to work (although I do wonder whatever happened to getting up in time for breakfast and coffee BEFORE work . . .)

    Happy birthday and enjoy your gifts. The ones we chose for ourselves are usually very reliable!! I cannot imagine the extremities of cold being experiencedin N. America and Canada. The nearest we got was 2010 when it was - 17 in the valley bottom and our usually fast-flowing river froze virtually from bank to bank.

    Enjoy your birthday meal.

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    1. The young male is a law unto themselves, conventional time keeping is something else. Thanks for the birthday wishes, I have decided to cultivate my writing so that it appears more neatly.

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  3. I try to live my life with thoughts to the environment and what I can do to minimize my carbon footprint. It is very difficult what with all the packaging that comes with everything we purchase. I fear for my children and grandchildren and what will happen in the near future due to the ignorance and stupidity of the current creature in charge of the White House. He, too, will pass, but not without doing great damage.

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    1. In fact we have to start nagging the people who make packaging there are other ways around it, even if it means just reducing it. Plastic carrier bags in this country come with a price now, hopefully forcing people to take their own bags. It should all have been done 30 years ago.

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  4. The one down side of my bungalow Thelma is that there is no Aga in the kitchen and no log burner in the sitting room. I have gas central heating and even turned up to 21 or 22 degrees I still find it chilly. Your fire being kept in all night brought back fond memories.

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    1. A fire's red glow always makes the room feel warmer, as does an Aga in the kitchen Pat, but you have efficiency in gas central heating, and could always find a mechanical fire that gives out a glow...

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