Silver Lining

Compact update

A friend on an email list is thinking of doing a compact this year, and asked how I'd found it.  When I'd written the answer, I figured it'd be quite a good blog update, too.

To be honest, I think I'd have benefitted from planning it out a bit better.
I know you can't foresee every eventuality, but it did go awry on a number of occasions - it was surprisingly hard to stick to.  I did buy new clothes for my interviews, for example, which was against the rules, although on other occasions I found some very good online dress agencies and discovered the joys of clothes shopping on ebay (I got a Luis Civit satin dress and jacket in eau de nil for a wedding for £4.50, for example).

It was excellent for making me think of ways of getting round problems, without necessarily just buying a replacement - although ironically my best within rules get-around was the reconditioned washing machine which then made a pretty serious attempt to destroy the house!  It was also excellent for making me think what I can do without, and for using things up.  A lot of my sewing projects (Moo's quilt, Nibling's baby quilt, several dolls) have been made entirely from things I already have - not too great a hardship with a stash the size of mine, but nonetheless not something I've often done before!  And I've done really well at finding sources of hand-me-downs and stuff. 

Freecycle has been a disappointment, to be honest.  I did score a rather wonderful sideboard from it, which will have saved me upwards of £1000, but I think the local Freecycle is terribly cliquey, and I'm convinced (with absolutely no evidence) that things go to all the same people.

The things I've found most difficult are gifts.  To be honest, I have made very few gifts and bought *none* from charity shops.  I did get Dan's birthday present second hand on ebay, which was excellent - there's no way he'd have got it new.  But otherwise I found giving people other people's
stuff as gifts just doesn't work for me.  I'm not sure why.   

The garden has been both a benefit and a drain - I've spent a *lot* of money on the garden, which will last for years and years, but wasn't strictly necessary or within the rules.  On the other hand, it's created a beautiful environment for the family, and part of what I spent the money on was creating a vegetable garden which has gone some way to feeding us and will continue to do that forever.

I think if anyone else was going to think about it I'd say:

1)  be aware of your limitations in terms of time, expertise and equipment.
For example, one reason I didn't make gifts was that realistically I don't have the time to make everybody wonderful things.  Another example; when my toilet flush broke I fixed it myself using parts I obtained free.  However, I had to buy tools to do it, and sourcing the parts and actually fixing the toilet took me the best part of a month.

2)  be realistic.  There are times when it won't work.  Don't beat yourself up about it.  Sometimes it's worth compromising on the rules for the longer term benefits (this is how I justify new clothes for interviews!)

3)  There is little point saving £100 by not buying an outfit, if you then spend £85 on a haircut. Think holistically :-)

4)  Understand that promising yourself to do things yourself rather than paying someone else to do them often means that you are doing them *yourself*.  It seems obvious, and it may not apply to other people, but one of the things I found really, really difficult was that taking on the compact simply meant that I became responsible for even more stuff around here, and often felt that there was nobody else I could share the burden with, and that I really did have to do *everything*.  I did resent this.
Often.  Although when I got over myself and actually did the stuff it was also quite rewarding.

I hope that's helpful.  There are other things I might think about doing.  I like the Green As A Thistle idea - of either giving something up or changing something about our lives every day/week/month/whatever that makes a beneficial difference to the environmental impact we make.  But I'll think about it a bit harder this time, before I take it on... It has been an interesting experiment (though not technically over yet, LOL) and I'm glad I've done it.  But I will also be glad when it's over.

Think I might make this email into a blog post, now... :-)

Compact review revisited (with 50% extra schadenfreude. Free for every reader)

Well, it serves me right I suppose.  Pride coming before a fall, and all that.

There I was, so proud of my compact-friendly, totally within-the-rules washing machine.  So proud that I may have mentioned it a couple of times.  Positively dwelt on it.  Gloated, you might say.

And all the while, the washing machine was quietly conspiring against me.  Dripping its undermining malice into the foundations of my good intentions.  Quite literally, as it turned out.

This weekend, my kitchen sink ceased to drain.  It was blocked.  Somewhere.  Being a capable (albeit begrudgingly capable, see post below) kind of girl, I took the U Bend off.  It was clear.  The pipework from the kitchen sink, for ancient and arcane reasons, runs out of the kitchen and into Dan's bedroom before it exits the house.  This is more pipework than I have the wherewithall to clear.  So on Tuesday morning, having tried every environmentally unfriendly sink unblocking chemical known to capable womankind, I rang the plumber.

The plumber agreed to come and take a look this afternoon.  Usually, the plumber wants to turn the water off, and for the same ancient and arcane reasons mentioned above, the stopcock is in Dan's bedroom, behind some panelling.  So this morning, Dan and I tidied his bedroom sufficiently to be able to move the furniture, to get the panelling off, to reach the stopcock.  At one point, I was putting his scalextric back in his cupboard, and found myself overbalancing.  Off my hunkers.  Tipping forward, I put my hand on the back wall of the cupboard to steady myself.  Imagine my surprise when my hand came away wet.  I dried it on my dressing gown and tried it again - hand to wall, hand off wall, hand wet.  Another bit of wall.  Same story.  The wall between my son's bedroom and the kitchen is, quite literally, wringing wet.

As it turns out, so is the front wall of the house.  When I emptied the cupboard under the sink to let the plumbers look at that bit of pipework, I found that the front wall of the house is not only wringing wet, but growing mould.

When the plumber arrived this afternoon, he looked at the pipework.  Yes, it's blocked.  It needs moving.  No problem; they'll come back on Friday and knock stuff around and sort it.  But it's not leaking.  So where is the wetness coming from?

We pull the washing machine out of its tight little space.

Underneath it, and running the length of the kitchen, beneath all the beautifully fitted cabinets, is a pool of water.  Actually, when you look closely, you can see that the water is warping the kick boards of all the beautifully fitted cabinets. 

On investigation, the plumber declares that the lovely man who fitted the reconditioned washing machine that was so within the rules didn't actually trouble himself to tighten the hoses.  So, for the last five months, a steady trickle of water has been coming out of my washing machine, 24/7, and seeping around my kitchen and up the walls.

The solution?

Well, according to the insurance company, the worst case is that the kitchen will have to be taken out, the floor will have to be lifted, the walls will have to be dried in both the kitchen and Dan's bedroom, and then walls will need re-plastering and re-decorating.  They're sending a loss adjustor out on Friday.  But I'm to be prepared for de-humidifiers in the house for at least the next two weeks, drying everything out.

In the meantime, I have no water in the kitchen, we're washing up in the bathroom, and cleaning ourselves in my en suite.

And I'm rather less pleased with the washing machine, now.

Compact review

Someone asked how the compact was going, today.

Variably.

I have done really well with big things - the new washing machine was a reconditioned one.  When the lawnmower became unusable after I hurt my neck, it was replaced with a lightweight, A Graded electric one on a factory refurb.

I have bought lots of clothes from ebay, and got the only piece of furniture i still needed from my house from Freecycle.  I've also got rid of lots of things on freecycle.  Freecycle rocks.

However, I've spent a lot of money on totally new plants from the garden - as well as being given plants, and growing plants from seed and cuttings, to be slightly fair.  I've also bought some clothes - a new suit for my second interview when I probably could perfectly well have worn the same one twice and a couple of tops and jumpers.  I've bought cones of thread for my overlocker (which has allowed me to sew clothes from fabric I already owned...) and fabric for Sissy's quilt.

I've been reading some green blogs, though, partly to look for ideas, partly out of sheer interest and partly (although this part is retrospective) to make myself feel better.  So this year, I have achieved:

• turning down the washing machine (I only wash at 40 deg. now.  I did change to bio powder, to up the power, but DBO didn't understand this change, so I've got a big box of non-bio to use at the moment, and it doesn't seem to be hurting.  I should probably get some eco friendly powder, but don't like Ecover (soap based, and soap is bad for anything you need to be absorbent), and haven't found an eco-supplier for anything else, here.
• turning off the heating between March and October.  This year, we only used the boiler for water for 8 months.  Didn't tell the kids, and they didn't notice!
• not taking plastic bags.  I already had a collection of hemp/cotton/string bags and Sainsburys boxes, but rarely remember to take them with me, so took the carrier bags anyway.  Now, if I don't have my reusable stuff, I put the shopping in the boot loose, and pack it into bags to get it into the house.  I take stuff from other shops loose, on the whole, but have to 'fess up that I do take carrier bags occasionally from such as clothes shops,  etc.
• If I do take plastic bags, they're re-used. Usually for clearing dog poo out of the garden.
• greening my shopping - I have a veg. delivery from a local organic farm (not a national scheme.  Genuinely a local farm.  They pick on a Friday morning, and deliver on Friday afternoon).  I get very little other veg. now.

Things that seem to be exercising other people include:

• Re-usable menstrual products.  I've been using my mooncup for over 5 years, now. 
• Not having a fresh bath towel every day (really!).  Well, I'm a natural born skank.  I only wash my bath towels when they look dirty.  Same with bed linen.
• Hand washing rather than using the dishwasher.  I should do this, I know.  I really should.  When the dishwasher dies (not too far off) then I'll convert that part of the kitchen into another cupboard, and do it by hand.
• Turning off the fridge.  This one is tempting.  I could quite fancy making do without a fridge.
• Not using an oven.  Difficult, this.  I can see the logic, but would find it difficult to do big meals - I don't often do big meals but when i do, I don't necessarily want to do something on the hob only.
• Not using toilet paper (cloth wipes instead).  I wondered about this when the kids were in nappies, and I used cloth wipes on them.  But there's something about baby poo that is so much more acceptable than the adult variant.  I figure there's little virgin forest in toilet roll these days - although much of it is virgin fibre, it's from farmed forests. 
• Using hankies rather than tissues.  We do this for the most part.  My only problem with hankies is that they seem to go to that mysterious lost universe inhabited  by odd socks and teaspoons.
• Grey water collection.   I'd love, love, love to do this.  I think the cost of installing a collection tank is prohibitive for me at the moment, but it's definitely on my list.  I'd use it for toilets, showers, dishwasher, washing machine, and all but one sink.  It'd be fab.  Also on this eco-wish-list is a reed bed sewage system.  Think I'd actually need a bigger garden for this one!!
• Solar power.  Also cost prohibitive at the moment.  Also on the list.  Solar water heater, and possibly household heating.  Backed up with a wood burning stove...  yum.

Perhaps next on my list should be a resolution to use only eco-friendly cleaning products - hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach?  Citrus based rather than bleach based?  I should look harder for an outlet that stocks such stuff. 

And a more efficient household recycling system.  I compost all raw food products in my own compost heap, and garden weeds etc.  Grass clippings go in the council compost bin.  Most paper goes in the paper bin, but since the shredder died not all of it.  Cans go to the council.  Glass goes to the council.  At the moment, I'm throwing plastic away, bad Silver!  I need some recycling bin things that are good for being visible in the kitchen - any ideas?

Small Mercies.

I have been reluctant to update on the compact.  I have, truth be told, even been reluctant to update *myself*.  Even mentally.

It kind of slipped.  It's like talking to an old lady whose dentures are out of line.  You know they are, you can't help looking at them.  She must know they are, too, cos they can't possibly be comfortable like that.  But you don't mention them; and she doesn't put them straight.

That's been my compact, this month.  Like badly fitting dentures.

First, the bike ride.  I needed padded shorts, and a gel saddle, and new tyres (and inner tubes) and all kinds of other things.  Which I bought.  I told myself that I committed to the bike ride in February, before the compact started, and that getting my bike in shape would mean that I could ride to work and reduce my dependency on t he car.  Which was a good plan, until I trapped my nerve and lost the use of half a hand.  Now I can't ride my bike, and it feels like just deserts for breaking the rules...

Then I tried to play my flute, and couldn't move my fingers to cover the ring and little-finger keys on my right hand.  Which reduced me to tears, so I went comfort shopping.  Bought a pair of trousers (£12 in Tesco.  Not an entirely reckless extravagance...) and 3 albums  (Elliott Smith, Rufus Wainwright and John Someoneorother).  That was just bad.  And slightly pathetic.

So, I am feeling bad about my badly fitting teeth.  They are not pretty, and not what I wanted.

But now I am slightly redeemed by the washing machine.  My washing machine is very old, and has done sterling service.  I'm pretty sure I got it when the small people were both in (cloth) nappies.  But now it is dead.  And the engineer who looked at it today shook his head sadly, sucked his teeth and told me that it would cost more to repair that it would to replace.

A washing machine is rather essential in this house.  We usually do at least one load of laundry a day.  So that was Bad News.

Fortunately, the engineer can provide me with a refurbished machine.  And that is within the rules.  So I will manage with the launderette and the washing machines of friends for a week, and then a newly refurbished machine will come and live here, and my Machine of Redemption will go on freecycle, to be cannibalised for spares.

Challenges

The compact is still going well-ish.  I've sinned a couple of times. I bought some bedding plants and tomato plants for the garden.  I'm prepared to forgive myself the tomatoes as they sneak under the radar as food, more or less.  Flowers were just plain naughty, though. 

This weekend, my computer monitor died.  It's been on its way out for some time, flicking onto a white screen whenever it has too many graphics to process.  However, it chose Monday to expire finally.  I have a very tight PC setup in the living room, and have been looking for a replacement screen in a halfhearted manner for some time.

The university don't sell off/give away 'obsolete' technology - even though much of it works perfectly well - for fear of litigation if damage arises.  So that wasn't an option.

Freecycle have CRT monitors aplenty, but I don't have room for a CRT on my desk and I don't want to replace my desk setup (and anyway, that in itself would pose some problems). 

Ebay came up trumps, in the end.  I have spent £30 on a 17" LCD monitor.  It apparently has 2 dead pixels, but I'm happy to live with that.  Just waiting for it to be delivered, and sharing the laptop with Moo in the meantime.

Last week, my saxophone teacher told me I need a new music book.  That gave me pause.  Wasn't at all sure that would be resolvable secondhand.  But as it turns out, Amazon sell music, and so I've got one for £4 from their new and used sellers.  Used, obviously.

I bought a tin of paint for the outside of the shed.  That was a little naughty, although there was space in my compact for decorating the living area of the house, which I now won't do in penance (did I say penance?  Idleness and the relief of hating decorating is closer to it!).  Once I have given the shed a second layer, and painted the benches which will eventually house pots of cuttings outside the front wall of it, I will freecycle the remaining paint.

I *need* a water bottle holder and a water bottle for my bicycle for the ride in June (I'm doing the London to  Brighton, have I mentioned that?  Go here), but I figure there's a good chance of Freecycle giving me that.  And Trep is recommending a ladies' saddle, which may be beyond the ability of   Freecycle or Ebay, but I will put it out there, and see what happens...

Everything's coming up lovely

In the aftermath of carnage, there is nothing like a spot of quiet gardening.  I must be getting old.

We had a surprise 18th birthday party for Moo last night.  30 teenagers and assorted adults.  It didn't result in the kind of carnage that comes from advertising on MySpace, but even so this morning there were bodies everywhere, more or less attached to youthfully sore heads, and several trips to the recycling centre.

So after a large pub lunch, I tied up the peas.  I also planted the remaining bedding plants, relying  on the much predicted rain to water them in for me.  The sweet peas are doing well, despite the best attempts of the mice, who DBO noticed have dug even more holes in the window boxes in the last few days.  The cat protection people tell me they have had a run of feral cats being delivered recently, so as soon as the adults have finished nursing their kittens, I will have a chief  gamekeeper on the premises!

Sissy came to the party, too.  She looks very well and we made some elastic loops to keep her jeans fitting for a bit longer.  We've selected lots of baby patterns, so I have much sewing goodness to keep me occupied for the next few weeks.

The clouds are scudding over the back garden.  I bet it doesn't rain at all, and I have to get the hosepipe out...

Cistern of the Damned

I'm facing my first challenge, and I don't think I can do it!

The flush button on my toilet cistern has broken.  It's a dual flush, and works by compressing a spring within a small, sealed unit suspended under the cistern lid.  Well, the bottom has fallen out of the sealed unit.  I've tried fixing it with superglue and that holds for a while, but really not long enough...

I've posted on freecycle for a spare toilet flush button, but I'm not holding out much hope.  I don't think even freecycle can help with this one!  I know it's virtually impossible to buy buttons alone, as I've already replaced the entire flush unit, to fix the last button that broke!

Hmmm..... can I survive for 11 months with a broken cistern?  Undoubtedly, yes.  It's not life threatening.

Does the idea of surviving for 11 months with a broken cistern appeal to me?  Not even remotely, no. 

I'm in Homer Simpson territory ("You don't like my principles??  I have others...") and dangerously close to calling a plumber!

edit: 8:21 am

One hour and 20 minutes later, and problem solved!  I found the troubleshooting leaflet from when I plumbed the damn thing in, in the first place.  A quick call to the manufacturer, quoting the button reference number from the bottom of the leaflet, and a new button will be in the post today.  No money spent.  Hurrah for hoarding product leaflets!

Hmm.  I suppose there's little point in having a journal if you never update it!

We started the compact on 1st April.  So far, so good.  I can absolutely confirm that it is entirely possible to survive for 17 days on only the stuff you already own.  Totally possible.  No let or hindrance.  Absolutely nothing to report.

Except, except...  the ongoing battle with the mice?  My water paranoia?  The fact that the hammock in the garden is so much more appealing than the PC and the journal, nor even the working from home...

I dug a vegetable patch over easter.  There's a fenced off corner of the garden which was just ideal for putting something you need to keep the dogs off.   It was never a place of great beauty; there is a built-in thingummyjig for storing garden stuff, and it's the only bit of garden which is in shade for half of the day, so the lawn was substantially mossy, and anyway too small to to comfortably turn a lawnmower in.  So  I dug up the turf, used an old pallet to build a compost bin,  edged a path with some spare decking planks I found in the garage, lined it with opened out  potting compost bags topped with slate chips taken from the raised beds on the top tier of garden.  Then I dug over the rest, and planted.  So now we are waiting for french beans, carrots, peas, mangetout, beetroot, maize, and purple sprouting broccoli.  It is all pushing up nicely.  Except, except...

Every once in a while, in the first few days post planting, I'd come out and find a dint in the earth.  Mostly over the maize.  A dint like someone had poked a finger into the soil, up to the middle knuckle.  I'm not experienced in this vegetable growing malarkey, so it took me a while to figure it out, but eventually it dawned.  The cunning, burrowing, bastard little mice were digging up my maize!  And it's not on!  So I took to leaving the cat more outside than in.  And when that had no effect, I contacted the Warwick District Cat Protection League, and now I am on the waiting list to give a feral cat the position of head gamekeeper on my estate.  So the vegetables are safe. Except, except...

It has been glorious out.  Not a drop of rain for a fortnight.  Barely a drop of rain since I installed the little rain butt in the back garden.  No rain is not good for vegetable patches, leading as it almost inevitably will to a hosepipe ban, I fear.  And in the event of a hosepipe ban, my little rain butt in the back garden will not be adequate to the task of watering both the veggies and the new front garden, and the hedge which must not perish.  So what I need is a bigger rain butt.  I could put one at the front and one at the back of the house, and keep all my precious plantings safe.  Only, I don't have another rain butt.  And I can't buy one; no shopping.  No new stuff.  So that's a dilemma.  I begged and pleaded and debased myself on freecycle, but it appears that all that anybody wants this year is everybody else's spare rain butts.  And then I discovered a nice man on ebay selling recycled wine barrels (like these, but wine not whisky). Recycled, see?  Not new.  And with a tap fitted.  Ideal for water storage, and less ugly than a lump of green plastic, to boot.

So that's that problem solved, then.

Which leaves nothing to report, except the hammock.  Mmmmm...... hammock.......

 

I have bought seeds for the vegetable bed.  Peas, mange tout, dwarf french beans, tomatos, purple broccoli.  Also beetroot, borage, corn and carrots. 

I know where the vegetable bed will be.  I just need to build the frame for the raised bed.  Until I do that I can't get earth to fill it, so I will put one bag of earth in my compact as I doubt I'll be able to beg enough topsoil on freeserve to even nearly suffice.

This weekend I have taken out the 'water feature' which just eats electricity (or it would, if the mice hadn't eaten the cable) and doesn't tinkle nicely as water features ought.  I have left the reservoir in place, with its covering over it, and built a shallow alpine bed on top of it all.  It looks lovely, with a cyclamen, some saxifrage and a couple of sempervirens.

So next weekend we're away; I wonder whether now the clocks have changed there will be enough light in the evenings to build a vegetable bed after work.  I expect there might be.  I'm going to use wood that was left in the garage when i bought the place - left over decking and some bits of what might be an old child's bed.  I also need to build a compost heap.  Two pallets on the drive will give me enough wood for that.

But first, more turf must be removed.  It's never ending, this turf digging malarkey!  I have acquired a hippo bag for the waste.  And the side fence at the back of the vegetable garden needs fixing (or removing) as at the moment it's simply balanced on top of the retaining wall.  Oh, and I need to build a gate for the vegetable garden, to stop the dogs fertilising the carrots!

Daisy wants to build a scarecrow.  I can think of some old clothes which might do, but have no idea what we'd stuff it with.  A neighbour two doors along is clearing some scrub from his garden, and I'd beg some of the dead brambles to stick in my scarecrow shirt, but I'm afraid it'd be full of seed heads and completely bugger the whole project.

I've mulched everywhere, and planted sweet peas along the middle fence.  I've put a ribes speciosum into the raised bed where I cut out a flame tree.  It's been waiting patiently on the patio to be planted for weeks, and I swear it smiled when I dug the hole.  That bed has been dressed with slate chips, though, and the soil is incredibly stony so I'm not convinced anything will do well there.... Fingers crossed for the peony (Duchesse de Nemours) I put in in January...

I'm not at all convinced the water butt I've bought will be big enough (100L only) to give me watering water, if we get a hosepipe ban.  But it's too bad, I've bought it now, and short of anyone giving me a bigger one, it's the only one we've got!

A few weeks ago at Mum's, I read a newspaper article in The Telegraph.  As I read, I thought "oh, that's an interesting idea."

Then I thought, "but of course, we could never do it!"

And I got home, and cast my eye around the house and thought "Oh, I don't know, though..."

Since then, it has lingered in my mind.  I have discussed it with the children (no new toys for a year.  Slightly odd birthday and Christmas presents.  Growing some of our own vegetables.)  I have discussed it with DBO (no Lord of the Rings figurines, everyday wine rather than expensive bottles), and my thinking process has grown to "Why the hell not?!"

So we are.  We start on 1st April.  Our compact allows us to buy:

Food and drink - but to massively reduce our waste of both (and source as much as possible from farmers' markets and greengrocers)
Childrens' shoes
School Uniforms
medicine
underwear
utility toiletries (quite a lot of scope for 'cheating' here)
stuff Moo *needs* for uni (very little as she's mostly got it already)
having my garden shed/sewing room rewired
Insurances for house/contents/animals
car maintenance (with a desire to get us all to use the bicycles for recreational outings)
petrol

Otherwise, nothing can be bought new.  We must either use stuff we have, or make things.  And where we need stuff that falls outside the boundaries of possibility of those two options, we can buy pre-owned, or source from Freeserve, or barter.

The idea is to do it for a year.  I'm not convinced we'll last that long, but it'll be an interesting experiment.

So, in my last weekend of shopping, what have I bought?

Well, a water butt and a length of hosepipe.  Oooh, the glamour!