There are some things I still do which I guess I shouldn't do. Here in no particular order are some of them.
(1) We still do a small amount of shopping at Tescos.
(2) I rather like drinking sparkling water at breakfast and after dinner, especially when I'm in a no-coffee phase. The water comes in plastic bottles.
(3) I occasionally go somewhere by plane, even when it's possible to go there by train.
(4) I sometimes drive to Wales and back just for fun.
(5) I have a bit of penchant for lychees (I bought some yesterday).
Probably there are others. I'll let you know when I have qualms about something else.
Now the question is, shall I try to justify and rationalise these weaknesses, so as to be able to live with them? Or shall I "offset them"? Or shall I try to get rid of them?
Wednesday, 7 February 2007
Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Heating 4
In Cambridge we've turned down the thermostat on the heating from 20º (that's roughly where we had it mostly last winter) to 19º. So far, not a problem, except that the way thermostats work it has to get down to quite a bit less than 19º before the heat comes on again. When the weather isn't very cold, the process of going down below 19º can take a very long time and we seem to sit at about 18º for ages. Then you get chilly, especially since you hadn't put on your largest woolly jumper, since it was a mild day. So ironically, it's warmer and more comfortable in cold weather than in mild weather. And this winter has been mainly composed of mild weather.
In Norwich I typically keep the panel heater set quite low, and on a time switch, and then use the coal fire to make the main living room feel warm when I'm there. The rest of the house is generally quite cold. The bathroom is always very cold, hopelessly cold.
Is this an efficient way to do it, I wonder? In 2005/6 the cost of gas and electricity for the Cambridge house was £873.79 and for the Norwich cottage it was £366.12. In Cambridge we have 9 warm rooms for that price; in Norwich we have one warm room (some of the time).
Umm. This might have something to do with double glazing and other things regarding insulation. I think I need to do some experiments. Would it be worthwhile installing central heating in Norwich I wonder?
In Norwich I typically keep the panel heater set quite low, and on a time switch, and then use the coal fire to make the main living room feel warm when I'm there. The rest of the house is generally quite cold. The bathroom is always very cold, hopelessly cold.
Is this an efficient way to do it, I wonder? In 2005/6 the cost of gas and electricity for the Cambridge house was £873.79 and for the Norwich cottage it was £366.12. In Cambridge we have 9 warm rooms for that price; in Norwich we have one warm room (some of the time).
Umm. This might have something to do with double glazing and other things regarding insulation. I think I need to do some experiments. Would it be worthwhile installing central heating in Norwich I wonder?
Saturday, 3 February 2007
Heating 3
You'd think, with all those sources of heat, that my Norwich place would be warm.
After all it's only got one bedroom and one living room (and a bathroom and a little kitchen and a bit of a lean-to out the back that the estate agents fondly called a "dining room" haha).
So with eight heaters (not counting the oven etc, or the outdoor chimenea) that's about four per room, and you'd think I should end up being quite cosy.
Probably if I used all of them at once all the time it would be quite cosy, actually.
After all it's only got one bedroom and one living room (and a bathroom and a little kitchen and a bit of a lean-to out the back that the estate agents fondly called a "dining room" haha).
So with eight heaters (not counting the oven etc, or the outdoor chimenea) that's about four per room, and you'd think I should end up being quite cosy.
Probably if I used all of them at once all the time it would be quite cosy, actually.
Help! Chocolate mountain!
Too many chocolates have soya lecithin in them!
I have five useless boxes of chocolates here, one started and four unstarted.
Can't bring myself to give them to anyone, because I don't like to pass on rubbish. (But if anyone wants to volunteer to relieve me of one, let me know).
Even Green and Blacks organic ones have the dreaded soya-based emulsifier. I must write to them and complain. Funny how they don't mention the dreaded soya gunk when they describe how they make it.
More on what's wrong with soya in future posts. Watch this space...
I have five useless boxes of chocolates here, one started and four unstarted.
Can't bring myself to give them to anyone, because I don't like to pass on rubbish. (But if anyone wants to volunteer to relieve me of one, let me know).
Even Green and Blacks organic ones have the dreaded soya-based emulsifier. I must write to them and complain. Funny how they don't mention the dreaded soya gunk when they describe how they make it.
More on what's wrong with soya in future posts. Watch this space...
Bringing up children without a car
Two conversations yesterday evening prompt me to post on this theme.
A while back, cycling to work up Recreation Road in Norwich, I encountered a kind of mayhem even more extreme than the usual mayhem caused by people bringing their children to school at Heigham Park First School. Recreation Road is a steep hill, bottom gear variety. On this particular occasion I was struggling up this hill on my bicycle, but was brought to a halt due to the car in front of me having to stop. That was because a car coming down the hill had pulled up to stop and unload children where there were already parked cars on both sides, entrances to drive ways and other complications, in such a way as to prevent anyone from moving up or down the hill.
Stopping a cyclist on a steep hill is not popular. They say that whenever a cyclist is forced to stop and start off again it takes as much additional energy as if the journey were 100 metres longer, but that's presumably if you have to restart on the flat; I suspect that restarting on an up hill slope is quite a lot more.
In this case it wasn't just a matter of starting again. There wasn't actually room for me to continue my journey on the road. In fact I had to get off, walk my bike up the pavement, and get on again beyond the obstruction.
As I went past the mother unloading her child from the car, I asked her, in a rhetorical kind of way, why she didn't bring her children to school on foot. It's always struck me (on the times when I make the mistake of riding past that school at that time of the day) that the ones being unloaded from cars look fat and unhappy, while the ones being walked to school are chatty and lively with a lovely hubbub of conversation with their accompanying adult.
The mother with the badly parked car didn't offer me a reason for why she didn't bring her children on foot. She just said "you've obviously never had children!" as though it was obvious that if you had children you had to be late, in a hurry, shove them in a car, drive to school, yank them out of the car, drag them in to the school door and rush back to move the car, because it's causing an obstruction. No time for goodbyes. No time for conversation. No time to talk to the other parents. Just dump them and run. This is what bringing up children is all about.
Well, perhaps it was a bad day. But if you don't have a car at all, a bad day never looks like that. It may look like something else, but it never looks like that.
"Actually," I said, "I had two children, and we never had a car." By this time I was on my bike and gone. "Never once," I thought, "did my children go to school by car." In fact, of course, they never went to ballet by car, they never went to music lesson by car, they never went to orchestra by car.
Was anyone the worse off for that? Well, our life was not the life of a taxi driver, which seems to be what the life of many parents is these days. And their life was, as far as one can make out, certainly not worse for it. Perhaps, dare I say it, better? Some thoughts on why in due course.
A while back, cycling to work up Recreation Road in Norwich, I encountered a kind of mayhem even more extreme than the usual mayhem caused by people bringing their children to school at Heigham Park First School. Recreation Road is a steep hill, bottom gear variety. On this particular occasion I was struggling up this hill on my bicycle, but was brought to a halt due to the car in front of me having to stop. That was because a car coming down the hill had pulled up to stop and unload children where there were already parked cars on both sides, entrances to drive ways and other complications, in such a way as to prevent anyone from moving up or down the hill.
Stopping a cyclist on a steep hill is not popular. They say that whenever a cyclist is forced to stop and start off again it takes as much additional energy as if the journey were 100 metres longer, but that's presumably if you have to restart on the flat; I suspect that restarting on an up hill slope is quite a lot more.
In this case it wasn't just a matter of starting again. There wasn't actually room for me to continue my journey on the road. In fact I had to get off, walk my bike up the pavement, and get on again beyond the obstruction.
As I went past the mother unloading her child from the car, I asked her, in a rhetorical kind of way, why she didn't bring her children to school on foot. It's always struck me (on the times when I make the mistake of riding past that school at that time of the day) that the ones being unloaded from cars look fat and unhappy, while the ones being walked to school are chatty and lively with a lovely hubbub of conversation with their accompanying adult.
The mother with the badly parked car didn't offer me a reason for why she didn't bring her children on foot. She just said "you've obviously never had children!" as though it was obvious that if you had children you had to be late, in a hurry, shove them in a car, drive to school, yank them out of the car, drag them in to the school door and rush back to move the car, because it's causing an obstruction. No time for goodbyes. No time for conversation. No time to talk to the other parents. Just dump them and run. This is what bringing up children is all about.
Well, perhaps it was a bad day. But if you don't have a car at all, a bad day never looks like that. It may look like something else, but it never looks like that.
"Actually," I said, "I had two children, and we never had a car." By this time I was on my bike and gone. "Never once," I thought, "did my children go to school by car." In fact, of course, they never went to ballet by car, they never went to music lesson by car, they never went to orchestra by car.
Was anyone the worse off for that? Well, our life was not the life of a taxi driver, which seems to be what the life of many parents is these days. And their life was, as far as one can make out, certainly not worse for it. Perhaps, dare I say it, better? Some thoughts on why in due course.
Thursday, 1 February 2007
Beetroot in pink sauce
An old favourite from my childhood, rather less often used in our household for some years because our Elizabeth was always opposed to this kind of sauce.
Ingredients:
Beetroot, as many as you like.
Traditional white sauce, made by the roux method with butter, flour and milk, and seasoned with salt.
Method
No need to wash the beetroot unless they're thick with mud. If you do wash them don't damage the skin.
Boil the beetroot in sufficient water to cover them completely. About 45 minutes should be sufficient unless they're very large.
Towards the end of the cooking time, make the white sauce.
Drain the hot beetroot and find some way to hold them (e.g. a fork, or oven gloves, preferably some that are pink already) while you peel off the skin. If they're properly cooked this should fall away very easily with gentle rubbing. Cut off the ragged top and the long tail if there is one.
Slice the beetroot and add them to the white sauce. Warm them through, stirring until the sauce is nicely streaked with pink. Serve hot as a vegetable accompaniment.
This dish can also be made with left-over beets that have previously been boiled and peeled and stored in the fridge. In that case you'll need to warm them in the sauce for a little longer.
Ingredients:
Beetroot, as many as you like.
Traditional white sauce, made by the roux method with butter, flour and milk, and seasoned with salt.
Method
No need to wash the beetroot unless they're thick with mud. If you do wash them don't damage the skin.
Boil the beetroot in sufficient water to cover them completely. About 45 minutes should be sufficient unless they're very large.
Towards the end of the cooking time, make the white sauce.
Drain the hot beetroot and find some way to hold them (e.g. a fork, or oven gloves, preferably some that are pink already) while you peel off the skin. If they're properly cooked this should fall away very easily with gentle rubbing. Cut off the ragged top and the long tail if there is one.
Slice the beetroot and add them to the white sauce. Warm them through, stirring until the sauce is nicely streaked with pink. Serve hot as a vegetable accompaniment.
This dish can also be made with left-over beets that have previously been boiled and peeled and stored in the fridge. In that case you'll need to warm them in the sauce for a little longer.
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