Friday, September 25, 2009

'Living Differently' - our town thinks it over...

It's our town's Alternative Living festival this weekend. I can't take any photos of the publicity, because the town's name is plastered all over it, but here are some of my archive photos of the town with a translation of the programme:

Alterna'town

The theme of this year's event: "Economy: the ecological alternatives"

Exhibition, conference and organic food
Round table discussions:
Saturday: "Eco-taxes and social taxes"
Sunday: "Questioning the development of out of town hyper-centres"
Conferences:
Saturday: "AMAPs and group purchasing" (AMAPs are pairings/groupings between farmers and food vendors, to support the rural economy - I had a look at the website on the link to find out more )
"The Fair Economy and Micro-loans"
"Décroissance, what is it?" (Good question! It's about down-scaling everything back to a local level, I think)
Sunday:
"Eco-building"
"Negawatts"
"The economy"
A local organisation will offer you an original meal for 8 euros with, on Saturday lunchtime a countryside meal, and on Sunday lunchtime, a wild meal!
To reserve your meal, phone..... Drat, didn't think to book!
Now, you may or may not think that sounds like a fascinating day out, but here's the news: we've never been before, even though they have one every year. There are a few reasons. Firstly, it's always on Ben's birthday weekend, and we often have other plans. Secondly, it's all in French, and it sounds pretty heavy!Thirdly, although we do 'Live Differently', I don't know, we just live differently our way, not anyone else's way. It sounds a bit shaven head and fifteen ear-rings, although it clearly isn't, as no-one in our town looks like that!
So, should we go? Let me know what you think, and also, if you can be bothered, tell me which option YOU would go to (just for fun, you know!) Are you anti-out-of-town shopping, or pro-micro loans? Do you have an opinion on countryside issues or (dare I ask it) taxes? Have you experience of eco-building and alternative energy sources? And most importantly, which meal will you have? The traditional countryside one (a bit like a Ploughman's lunch) or the more adventurous wild one?
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I'm signing off for the weekend, as we'll be celebrating with Ben (with or without the help of "Alterna'town"). No price tag on those languishing apothecary bottles yet! Back on Monday...

15 comments:

Michela said...

Happy birthday to Ben!
Have a great weekend whatever you will do!

Apron of the Month Club said...

Good day Floss, I enjoyed taking a tour of your town. Very nice buildings, interesting topics of discussion. It is a small world. You mentioned that it was raining Monday & Tuesday, well same thing for me. Ain't life Wonderful!

Good talking to you again,
Yoli
http://apronofthemonthclub.blogspot.com/

Lululiz said...

Happy birthday to Mr. Floss!

Me being me would go for the wild meal anytime of course.
I very rarely go out of town shopping, We are only 1 1/2 hours train ride from London, but I only go when I absolutely have to, once every few years. I do occasionally ( once or twice a year ) pop into the town next to us ( about 3 miles ), because there is an abundance of charity shops!

The thing I love about France is that so much produce is really sourced locally, also, everybody has a vetegable patch, and buys other things from local farmers. Where we live, for example, one farmer provides the immediate neighbours with beef, another with pork, yet another with chicken, there is a bee keeper, goat cheese maker, even somebody who comes through the area every spring to turn the plums everybody had fermenting over the winter into eau de vie. Thats my kind of life.

A Bun Can Dance said...

Birthday Greetings to Ben!
Your town seems very switched on having all this to explore for the weekend. I'd love to go to those events - all of them! But if I could only go to one, at the moment it would be the out of town hyper centre one as I'd love to see towns blossoming with independent shops rather than huge multi-national hypermarkets! Rant over..... If however, we were closer to our dream of building our own, I'd opt for the eco-building.
As for the picnic, I'd opt for the ploughmans lunch, being veggie, I doubt the other meal would be suitable!
have a fabulous weekend, dear Floss, with lots of lovely birthday celebrations
Denise x

Unknown said...

I would absolutely love to go to that! Definitely! I am all for local shops, and am more and more anti supermarket, and for a few months now we have been trying to shop locally, and avoiding the all the same supermarkets! I love shopping about looking at all the bits and bobs, and I love it too because you end up chatting to people, and you dont in a supermarket! Suzie. xxx

Serenata said...

A very happy birthday for Ben!

Mami said...

Happy birthday to Ben!!And happy family celeverations!!

The Vintage Kitten said...

Beautiful buildings! Happy Birthday to Ben!

Mrs. Cozy Home said...

Oooh that sounds totally amazing ... I vote countryside one! I am hungry just thinking about it...

A Thrifty Mrs said...

Beautiful town. They all sounds like very interesting things to attend. I'd be very interested in the anti out-of-town-shopping bit. I am very, very much against it. I have now turned my back on the Trafford Centre. Gasp!

Lucy Pursglove-Jones said...

Happy Birthday to Ben! :)
I live in a rural fairtrade market town and we often have similar sounding events going on. I love getting involved. I tend to keep things 'local' as much as possible. x

Pomona said...

Well, I think you can guess what my reaction would be! I am glad these ideas are current across the channel - actually I suspect that localism is stronger in France than over here. And I avoid supermarkets like the plague - small independent shops make shopping so much nicer!

Pomona x

BadPenny said...

I don't drive & use local shops daily, but I think I am a rareity !

Sarah - Red Gingham said...

Happy late Birthday Ben! Hope you had a great day. Gosh I wish we had markets like you all do overseas. We have nothing like it here at all. Sure we get the odd fair but nothing like you. Glad you passed on those jeans Floss! I can feel the pressure to make more bags already. Been a bit put off the whole thing this morning due to a squashed slug - long gross story!! Have a good week, hope you're not working too hard.

Jackie said...

Hope you had a very lovely Birthday Weekend and that Ben had a good birthday ~ we had a birthday/anniversary weekend here too which was all a bit hectic but we all had a very lovely time :O)