I'm in the paper!

Read all about it here.

Okay, so it's a horrible photo. But I'm still happy that the whole Buy Nothing New got out there. Hopefully I didn't found like too much of a nutcase or like too much of a hippy.

Any thoughts?

Unfortunately, I forgot/didn't manage to get the radio show taped... In fact, I didn't even listen to it (who likes the sound of their own recorded voice?) Oops.

Day 14 - Farmers Market and a Birthday Barbeque

I decided, since it was the day after the Food for the Future event which had taken over my life AND it was a few days before my birthday AND it was the day of the Winchester farmers' market, that I would celebrate my birthday today and not stick to £2 for the whole day. Notice the bunting in the picture above demonstrating that this is not an ordinary BBQ, it is a birthday celebration BBQ.

In the end, I ate a perfectly reasonable breakfast and lunch, and then ate loads at dinner. Actually, the lunch was mostly supplied by the free samples of chutneys and cheeses and things (plus a bite of someone's water buffalo burger and a bite of a hog roast sandwich). I heart the Winchester Farmers' Market.

Some cheeses from Loosehanger farm. I'm glad they didn't make the guy who served me wear their silly cheese hats that they sometimes have. I bought the little wheel of goat's cheese that you can just make out in the front of the lefthand basket. About 250g for £4.50. Apparently that's a good price for their cheese because it's more expensive to cut and package the wedges.

Other highlights from the farm? We got two aubergine for half price (you can't barter with ASDA people... yet another reason to love the market) I finally got my 5L of rapeseed oil for £20--that's about what you'd pay at an ethnic food store for 5L of olive oil. It's also half the price of what I had been paying for the same oil in a 500mL bottle. Also, everyone I was with was super excited about the market and I think I have a dedicated group who are willing to go with me! I hope that the other people who live up in London start going more often to markets near them, too.

After going to the farmers' market, we went to relax in a local pub called the Black Boy (I find that name slightly strange.... It's behind the Black Rat). We read the paper, the boys amused themselves by drawing penies over pictures in the newspaper, and our butter started to melt (which of course we didn't realise until we were almost home. Oops.

Here's some of the local spread at the BBQ. You can just see in the corner my basket that I carried around the market and then Paul helped me carry back. By the end it was REALLY heavy. There was talk of doing a photo like a cornucopia showing off all the stuff we bought in an artistic way, but I totally forgot. Oops. Maybe next time!

Anyway, I'm not going to bother doing a breakdown because I know that we ate a lot more than
£2. However, what we ate was the following:

Breakfast: Mac had toast (?). Megan had toast with peanut butter and jelly
Lunch: We got lots of free samples from the farmers' market, and then came back and Mac had some more Moroccan stew.
Dinner: We brought a garden salad and strawberry shortcake to Hannah, Ed and Dan's for a BBQ. I ate a local Hampshire garlicky sausage, a bunch of Hampshire cheese with local sourdough bread and chutney, more than a pint of Hampshire apple juice, some potato salad, some garden salad, and then strawberry shortcake. It was a good pre-birthday party. Mac managed to eat two sausages AND two burgers. I think it's fair to say that neither of us are vegetarians.

Day 13 - Food for the Future!

Saturday was the Food for the Future event at the Down to Earth Community Farm. It went really smoothly, all the events went well, but we just didn't get nearly enough people throughout the day. I think it was probably about 80-100 (if you include families with kids) and the rest of the Fair Trade Group estimates about 50. Chances are it's somewhere in between. Which is a shame. We could have easily had over 100 at any one time without having it seem too busy.

Well, maybe next year.












Stalls


















The garden area (they had wheat growing on top of the normal potatoes, cabbages, strawberries, etc. and the farm area--they had brand new piglets which were really cute.




























Sunnyfields provided catering--they had local meat, own-made veggie burgers, their own salad leaves for a salad. It was great.
We're going to Sunnyfields July 3rd for a Mediterranean meal using local ingredients AND it's only 25.













This is how I got fed for most of the day. It was DELICIOUS. This is Kate Hughes on the left who did our cookery demos. She runs cooking classes from her business Cook Academy.

I'll have to try her recipes for myself and post them. She made an aubergine and cous cous fruited salad, a broadbean and pea pate, puy lentil and fresh soy bean salad, and a strawberry tart. It was all amazing.

I also ate a little bit of dried fruit that we were giving away as samples.


This is me giving a talk to people about the £2 a day diet. I didn't know quite what I should say, but I thought just giving general tips would be helpful to people. Plus I thought it would be handy because people kept trying to walk off with the two copies I had of the explanation about the diet on a stall.


It went well, although I was disappointed with the turnout (as were, I think, most of the stallholders). However, all the people who went as attendees seemed to really like it. I dont know how we get more people to turn up. Maybe if it was at a school? Billed more as a fete? I don't know....

Anyway, onto the food:
Breakfast: Megan had toast with peanut butter and jelly (12p), Mac skipped breakfast
Riverford: 85p
Lunch: Megan got free samples from the Food for the Future event (and they were DELICIOUS!) Mac had a few free samples and ate leftover Moroccan stew with chickpeas (21p + 3p cabbage)
Dinner: We were hurrying back from the Hobbit and Mac needed to get to his gig, so he didn't eat and ended up finishing off Andy and Nic's falafel from the place near the Joiners because they couldn't eat it all. Megan was happy to be lazy after an exceptionally long weekend and had leftover lentil and vegetable stew for dinner 26p.

£1.23 for Megan, £1.21 for Mac.

Our Fridge

Right, I'm going to cheat and backdate over a week's worth of posts. I apologise for not posting, but I've had the Food for the Future event (photos will be posted!), I was in the newspaper (hopefully a scanned copy of the article will be posted), I had a birthday (photos of BBQ on Sunday will be posted), and I've had three lots of minutes and a report to type up for various groups (none of which will be posted).

So I'm sorry!

Anyway, here's some photos of our fridge and cupboards. It's a TINY kitchen, and I didn't take a picture of the 5kg of rice, 5L of rapeseed oil, and 5kg of haricot beans that sit on the floor of our airing cupboard because there is no other place to put them. I highly recommend buying in bulk, but it IS a bit of a pain.












Here's our shelves. Flours and various things on the top, baked goods on the second shelf on the left, some random seeds and things on the second on the right, and the bottom is tins and condiment type things. There's wholefoods in the other one (nuts on top with some beans, then beans and pulses on the second shelf, and some pasta, rice on the bottom shelf)

We realised early on that we had a) too many oils and vinegars to fit in any convenient place, and b) that we had LOTS of herbs and spices (we often buy in bulk and keep the bags they come in ontop of the bread box. Mac found this drawer that had slots for . . . . stationary? cutlery? I don't know. We turned it on its side (you can see the drawer pulls on the right) and use it as a spice rack. It looks great.

The oils and vinegars sit on one of those things you're supposed to put in your bathroom. It wouldn't fit in our bathroom, but works well in the corner of our kitchen.







Here's our fridge (I couldn't get the door in the shot, and I cut off the mini-freezer that sits on top). It's about the size of a college dorm fridge. With a kitchen this small, nothing else would fit. On Wednesdays (when we get our milk delivered AND our vegetable box) it's a bit of a tight fit, especially if we have lots of leftovers, but we manage okay.

Later this day, I took the kohl rabi out as it turns out they shouldn't be refrigerated. I also keep tomatoes out of the fridge (pictures to follow many posts from now!).

We have a LOT of food at any one time, but 95% of it requires some kind of preparation. Apart from a box of falafel mix (to which you still have to add water, make the patties, and then shallow fry them) and a chocolate chip bread mix I got as a gift, and maybe a couple of sauces, everything is pretty much raw ingredients. It DEFINITELY cuts down on the bills.


Any tips?
BUY IN BULK! Set up a food co-op with friends and family, or see if you can order in bulk from an independent health food shop (Naturally Healthy on Bedford Place is usually willing to order in for people). Get at least 2kg at a time of things you use a lot (for us that's oats, cous cous, rice, and possibly one kind of bean) and 1kg of other things. We bought (months ago!) 800g container of vegetable stock powder. We'll probably have it for almost a year, but it means we won't run out and it was LOADS cheaper than buying those little cubs.

Spices are a MUST for buying in bulk. Find your closest world food/ethnic/halal whatever they call it shop and buy it in bulk. People say not to use spices after 6 months because they'll lose their flavouring, but if you cook them in oil it will usually perk them right up. Plus, if you get whole spices (cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, etc) and grind them as and when you need them, they'll keep a LOT of their flavour.

ALWAYS STOCK UP - If you want to save money, always have a lot of staples (and I include a range of oils, vinegars, spices, pulses, grains, pasta, cans of tomatoes, quorn/TVP mince, vegetable stock powder, ginger, butter, and garlic in the word "staples") on hand. It means you won't be so tempted to buy a jar of something or a frozen meal because you know you have at least something that you can make. Plus, it helps bring a bit more of a routine to your shopping so that you can start skipping certain aisles which will really help you save money.

Winchester Farmers' Market...

...is amazing.
I LOVE it. Rochester and Syracuse farmers' markets are a fading memory. Maybe they were cooler than I remember. Union Square (I think that's where I was?) was pretty cool, but it can't beat Winchester. Winchester's market is run by Hampshire Fare who requires the items sold to be from Hampshire (my county) or within 10 miles of the border. I think that they might stretch that some of the time. . . although my geography isn't great. . . but it would CERTAINLY qualify for a 100 mile diet. I kept forgetting to take pictures. And I missed a great opportunity to take a photo of everything I bought. I guess I'll just have to take more pictures when I go next time (it's every two weeks!)












What did I buy?
- A BIG bag of New Forest charcoal (it's to support people doing coppicing work)
- 5L of Cox & bramley mix apple juice by Hill Farm Juice (that now is just about too expensive to drink on this stupid diet) for £9.75 (better than Copella at that price!)














- bag of potatoes and over a kg of rhubarb from Sunnyfields (the people who are catering our ethical food day!)
- butter from Lyburn Farm--they also make the parmesan-style cheese that is dirt cheap and REALLY nice.
- organic sourdough bread.... which might also now be too expensive for our diet. But it's SOOO delicious (£3.00 for 800g) It's super pretty to look at. Dinner party bread, for sure.
- 500mL of Pratt's extra virgin rapeseed oil. Okay, I need to look into this. We buy it because it's a British alternative to olive oil. Less on the food miles. But then rape is supposed to be really bad for the environment (monoculture, lots o' pesticides). So I need to do some homework. Still, it tastes nice and is a nice bright yellow. And the maker/owner is "lusty" as Hannah put it. Two bargains of the day:
- 250g of asparagus for £1. And it was delicious (even if there wasn't enough of it...)
- 550g of chestnut mushroom stalks for £1.50. I feel like I shouldn't boast about this too much or he'll run out of them. A super bargain, and they worked just as well as whole mushroom caps.

Weekend away in Brighton

Yes, I know I haven't updated in two weeks plus. I am rubbish. In fact, I am SO rubbish that I've failed at my buy nothing new (I have bought a couple food things in addition to my horrible Snickers) AND I'm almost out of a month's worth of £74.65 and it's six days into the month (I started on the 2nd).

I suck. But, I'm leaving HSBC as a customer for the Cooperative Bank (hooray for banks that let you vote on their ethical policies!) rather than have my money and accounts split between the two. VERY good news. Also, I was away for the weekend and didn't actually spend that much money.

I went to Brighton for the weekend, mostly to see volcano! play an ejectorseat night (they only played three UK dates on this tour and one of them was for Ejectorseat!), but also to hang out with Andy, give him his Christmas present and see some Transition-related stuff.

Andy's Christmas present was that I was going to go to his flat for a weekend and make it a home. This meant cooking from-scratch meals, making him blueberry pancakes, and tidying up. I think I succeeded on all three counts! I arrived on Friday but hadn't told Andy what time I would arrive, so I had an hour and a bit to kill while he bought beer for the Freebutt, the venue where he works (this was an ongoing mission over the weekend).

I spent my time wandering around the laines, and ended up spending £2.30 on old snapshots from a box full of photos in Snoopers' Paradise. When leaving there, I bumped into our former couchsurfers, James and Becky who have been wondering around the world for the past few months. That day they were wandering around Brighton and had just purchased some fudge. We talked briefly about their involvement in Climate Camp in London as legal observers, what they'd been doing in Brighton, and my plans for the evening (I didn't have any). I left them to look for a pie plate as mine has gone missing, but couldn't find one. I was a bit upset that I couldn’t find a pie plate, but a trip to the (stony) beach and my fortune told by a lady who looked a little bit like this:

cured me. She told me to be wary of men with beards. I think that's extremely good advice.

Met up with Andy, but we didn't have time to get ice cream (everywhere was closed!) and I made soup instead. I also did the first of MANY dish washing sessions. I managed to go to bed at 11pm despite the club on the same floor as Andy's flat being open until 1. This meant that I woke up at about 8:15, so I started cleaning. I attacked his kitchen, part of the bathroom (it wasn't that messy), and was washing the kitchen floor when Andy woke up. We had french toast with a syrup I made out of heating raspberry jam and adding a bit of water. I did more dishes.

I had considered going to one or two community farms in Brighton on Sunday to work, but I was still so tired that I thought it wouldn’t be very enjoyable. Hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll head back to see Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and will bring gardening clothes to work then. I think I should also plan to bring cupcakes or something to woo them and convince them to play the Freebutt EVERY time they come to the UK.

Insetead, I also helped Andy start to get rid of all the piles of paper that were needlessly filling his office—mostly on the floor. Nic arrived and (after thanking me for helping Andy clear away so much crap), we took a BUNCH of stuff out to recycle. We picked up postcards and food for the band, (including Tofutti cream cheese—boy was Aaron happy!) tried to buy alcohol except Nic didn’t have any idea and could have been under 18. So Andy bought weird beer from LIDL instead while we stood in line buying other things and pretending we didn’t know each other just in case. We also managed to buy toilet paper, trash bags, tin foil, AND a trash can all for Andy’s flat.

We also got Mexican…. Glorious wonderful Mexican cooked by a really nice Lebanese guy with prices, portions, and quality to rival El Volcan back home. (That’s a SERIOUS compliment)

Getting back, Nic decided cleaning wasn’t sufficient, so she started rearranging things. All of a sudden boxes were unpacked, CDs were stacked and/or put away, shelving was put up, and Andy has a home!!! I wish we had before and after pictures. I made soup and did more dishes. We all ate it, and I did more dishes.

Mac ended up not being able to make a decent train to get to Brighton, so I acted as the better half of Ejectorseat for the evening. I sat on the door, swapping with Andy so I could see Esben and the Witch and Hind Ear (formerly Revenge of Shinobi) and volcano!. I also had to stay on the door while Andy went out again and bought more beer for the venue as they were running out. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although standing in front of one of the speakers was probably not the best idea.

As an aside, here is the story of Esben and the Witch. I loved reading the color fairy tale books (pink, yellow, etc)

The next day I made volcano! the vegan pancakes they specifically had mentioned in their e-mail (thus securing ejectorseat’s position as one of their favourite UK promoters. We had also managed to get just about everything mentioned in their rider, including postcards)

I called Cookability!, a programme that is running in Brighton where people learn to cook—often disadvantaged people. I want to come along to one of their sessions and would LOVE to have something like this running in Southampton—come on council or Primary Care Trust—get your preventative heads on! I thought I might be able to stop by their office or meet up for a coffee to chat about how it works, but she just talked to me on the phone for the next 20 min about it instead. I then had lots more time to help Andy tidy and do little tasks while we waited for gas to arrive so they could have beer on tap in the venue (FINALLY!) and for a guy to look at his hot water heater and proclaim that it was way more expensive than he thought and would take a while. . . . . But then we forgot the troubles of the freebut in a big bowl of frozen yogurt. It was delicious!!! We also went to Ransoms, a wonderful shop that should be an essential in every town—the kind that will cut your keys, or sell you paint, dish towels, hammers, or cake tins. They did not, however, have the right kind of pie plate, despite their selection of about 20 different kind of cake and tart and quiche tins. Oh well.

Monday evening I went to the Sustainability Partnership meeting because I’m weird. Why else would I go to a meeting of councillors, representatives of businesses and other “partners” of the council to listen to them talk about what they are doing in Brighton and Hove? Actually, it was pretty interesting. I learned all about the Sustainable Communities Act (I don’t really understand how this is going to benefit people in practice—it’s a bizarre piece of legislation that will make proposals go on and on for about 2 years) and the new assessment procedures for local authorities. Okay, I found it interesting—I guess it doesn’t translate well into a short summary.

Andy paid for both the Mexican lunch and the frozen yogurt, so apart from buying a pasty so that I didn't die of hunger on my way home, I didn't buy a whole lot of food over the weekend that I didn't make from scratch. This does make me wonder where all my money went, though. I resisted fudge and buying CDs, spent £2.50 that first afternoon, and didn't buy any drinks or even a ticket at the gig. . . . Hmmm...

Anyway, that’s my boring and incredibly long recap of my lovely weekend away. I kinda wish I had taken photos, but I’m rubbish with that.

First non £2 a day post.

I know I haven’t done an update in absolutely ages. In my eyes, it was a well deserved break from having to tediously write about every gram of food that I consumed. Mac and I are still finishing up the cheese from the farmers’ market. I must admit I’m not eager to make up the 11 days that are missing, but I have said that I’ll do it, so do it I will. We’ve also talked about doing it quarterly so that we can have each season represented in recipes. Then we’ll have a £2 a day year recipe book. I would want to do another in probably May so that we can have two months’ worth of recipes in time for the Food Open Day we’ll be doing (we being the Southampton Fair Trade Group and the Southampton & Waterside Women’s Environmental Network).
But enough about food. What else have I been doing?

I’ve worked on the allotment twice and we have 4 beds with one of them raked and onions and carrots planted. We have a rhubarb plant, apple tree and two fruit bushes planted, and we have two compost bins. I’m hoping to win the auction for a greenhouse on eBay, but I’ve lost one already and Chris and Natalie forgot to bid on one the week before. We’ll see how I do.

I'm really excited about the allotment and getting it going, but I am SOOOO sunburned. It was really warm in the sun so I was just wearing a tank top and the whole top of my neck/back/shoulders are all burnt. Luckily it's just the back of them because I made sure I wasn't facing the sun (I did NOT want a horrible sunburn on my face). I'll have to bring sunscreen next time.

Mac and I went to a chilli night at some friends’, we have been out to see bands a couple times, I had toast and jam at Barney’s Log Jam (they’ve started a blog…. ooooOOOOOooooh) and went up to St Albans to have lunch with Helen and Henry (I have GOT to start buying advance tickets). I’ve been to LOTS of meetings and have agreed to have the Transition Southampton social at our house. Luckily I suggested it be a pot luck, so I’ll only clean like crazy, not clean and cook.

I FINALLY cleaned off my desk (although halfway through the process it looked like a cyclone that only affected paper had hit in the room) and everything is now either organised in an accordion file (for my personal financial stuff) or in a box with folders and tabs (for all the voluntary group stuff). I stupidly did not take a before and after picture. I could still take an after picture, but it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive without the before. I’m buying some space from Emiliano online for a project management program called dotproject.net and he’s installing it for me (thank god). I also managed to go through my gmail inbox and got the 238 messages in my inbox down to 25. I know it should be less than that (it should be zero), but tough.

I’m planning to have a craft/soup night soon to use up some of my many many craft supplies and to encourage other people to help me use them up as well. I think that it will be a requirement that anyone who comes for soup has to make something. Maybe I’ll just think about who I invite beforehand.

As for the Buy Nothing New year, I bought a used cookbook off Amazon called The More With Less cookbook—it was written by Mennonites! It’s really nice basic food. I haven’t made anything yet, but I will soon. I’ve managed to only buy vegetables and seeds for the allotment so far, and if I pay for the greenhouse, that will be secondhand. I don’t know how I’m going to get secondhand seed trays, though.

Robin was very kind and sent me a care package with about a thousand pairs of underwear. She said it was in response to Karen who had said, “What if you run out of pants!?!?” when I told her about the year long challenge. It was really about 8 pairs of underwear. I think I might keep four pairs, because the rest are the super skanky kind that are just a couple of strings.

I prefer a tad more fabric. String thongs are just paying lip service to the idea of underwear.

I think I’ll finish here. I’ll try to come up with some interesting facts or information or ideas for my next post.

Finally! Something that ISN'T food related!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090205/ap_on_re_us/ice_storm_amish
It's all about how Amish neighbours helped out their non-Amish Ketuckians when an ice storm hit and everyone lost power. I wish we'd had some Amish in Fitchburg!


I LOVED this article. How awesome are the Amish? How great is resilience and grit (that the newspapers said all of England is lacking)? I love the fact that while things seriously sucked, there were some people to remind us that actually, it's completely manageable and people did it for a fair few hundred years, thank you very much.

It does make me want to take a couple courses so that I know how to do things for myself. If something went wrong in the flat, I wouldn't have a CLUE what to do without calling aprofessional--that's for repairs, plumbing, doctor visits, everything. I realised that my "skills" are all about talking and office skills. Put me in a jungle or forest or just away from electricity and I would probably die in a week. There is something for knowing that you don't rely on lots of gadgets or other people to get by. Or at least having that knowledge as a just-in-case. Maybe I will take a woodworking class or something. At least get used to using my hands. I guess the allotment will help loads with that!

AUGH!

Okay. I'm getting a little fed up with not meeting our goal. I think £2 is totally doable--we've done it more days than not.... It irritates me that I don't think we're putting enough thought into it. I think we are cooking pretty close to what we would normally do, and just assuming that it will be under £2. Probably not smart.

I'm also feeling a little bit stressed with the amount of stuff on my plate at the moment. My to-do lists seem never ending, and I keep having meetings! Maybe I need to calm down and make some more bread.

Resolution-ish things?

Right… what do I want to include in my “things I will try harder at” list? Hmmmm….

Successfully buy nothing new. Pretty self-explanatory.

Get back into crafts/art on a regular basis and don’t give up/stop whenever it gets hard. I need to have less half-finished projects around. (Mac would be ecstatic if I managed that one) Plus there are all sorts of things I want to try. Maybe with “buy nothing new” keeping me from buying new crafts stuff, I will start using up some of the stuff I’ve collected over the years.

Start a yoga routine at home and do it on a regular basis that is manageable.

Run! I like running, and I love how it makes me feel good after I’ve done it, but I don’t do it often enough. I either need to learn how to pace myself and get motivated to go by myself, or find time to go with Nikolai or plan runs with Nina. I think it would be awesome to be able to run 5 miles, like Robin, but NOT every day. Unless I could run 5 miles quickly. I think I’d get bored otherwise. Or maybe I’d just get better at appreciating my own company (not a strength of mine).

Keep in touch. I’m so bad about writing e-mails, meeting up with friends who live near me, and writing actual letters. I especially LOVE sending/receiving letters, but I’ll never get any if I don’t send any. I really liked being Pat’s penpal back in the day… he has enough time on his hands at work to write back… I wonder if I could send them to Mr. Patrick X Brown, something something department, MIT. (Obviously I’d need the name of the department first)

Keeping schedules up to date and actually LOOK at them when planning things. I am going to an awful lot of meetings nowadays, and I have a very bad habit of not writing them down, or not looking at my diary when I plan other things. I want to keep doing all of this, AND have a social life, so I’ll need to be better at using my diary/calendar/google calendar (I don’t know about google calendar… I don’t use it much) to keep on top of stuff. Although, saying that, I don’t think I’ve missed an appointment yet. Maybe my memory is improving because I’m NOT writing it down. . . hmmm….

Be more organised at home. I leave clothes piled up on my dresser, and my shelving unit, and most other places. My desk will get cleaned and then immediately starts getting messy again (probably because I don’t USE it…) Our flat as a whole has loads of paper scattered around and a lot of things don’t have a ‘place’. Maybe I need Paul or Nina to come and help me sort everything out.

Keep Mac informed. This is a pet peeve of his, and I know it’s just me being inconsiderate. I’ll stop by someplace and not tell him when I’ll be back. He’ll worry or try to call, and I won’t answer my phone because I’m a doofus. Or he’ll be trying to figure out when to make dinner, and he won’t know when to expect me. It’s just courtesy.

Have soup nights! I’ve only had one so far this year, and I think they were very enjoyable last year—both by the hostess-with-the-mostest and my guests. I think more are in order.

And related to soup nights are slightly-smaller-but-more-effort-involved dinner parties!! I LOVE dinner parties. I love having people over for dinner, and then sitting around and talking for hours. It’s cheap, it’s fun, and you can hear what everyone is saying. Plus, sometimes it leads to us playing board games. And I really love board games!


Maybe these are just all things I want…. I don’t know what I should actually change about myself—something I should resolve to do. I think I might need an external observer to give me some ideas. (Like the Mac one—that’s one I KNOW I need to do, but wouldn’t have realised it without him saying anything) I will not yell at people who make suggestions. Promise.

It is really nice to look at the list and realise that NONE of these will make me buy new things. I don’t need nicotine patches, or diet books or exercise gizmos. I won’t be buying storage units to keep our flat organised, or get any new crafts supplies (unless they are secondhand). I guess I’ll have to keep my running shoes for quite a while longer…. Maybe eBay in the future?