Five things...

...I'm grateful for right now.
1. A sunny walk round a forest park with Son 1 and a soggy Raja on Saturday, while...
2. ...Ben and Son 2 had a perfect day's skiing!

3. Sunday afternoon spent crunching through a carpet of dried oak leaves at Ben's work, moving and cutting up dead trees which had fallen during the gales - and free wood to heat the house next year!

4. A sweet set of vintage rosy handkerchiefs from Relais Tout today. Did you know it was Rose Sunday yesterday?

5. My family and friends, in England, Scotland, France and Blogland!

A Fourth Pause in Lent - The Green One!

Every now and then I get a wonderful opportunity to share ideas with other mums – I get invited to speak at the local (and only existing French) group of MOPS. MOPS means Mothers of Preschoolers, and it’s a great idea which allows a local church to run a group which supports mums themselves, providing childcare and a chance for mothers to take time out to explore what being a good mum means in the very widest context. I’ve been asked to speak at MOPS three times and you’re going to recognise the themes – Celebrating Advent with Children and Celebrating Easter with Children were the first two. You can see how much the preparation and then our discussions influenced me, as I went on to explore those themes here on my blog.So it’s not surprising that last Thursday’s topic has influenced my Pause in Lent this week, and that last week’s Pause in Lent on Compartmentalising things was the starting point for my MOPS talk!The title I’d been given this time was Going Green in a Godly Way. I liked this, as it helped to overcome the ‘compartments’ I break my life into: yes, I am a Christian, yes, I am a mum, yes, I care about the environment. So here’s the big question – are those facts separate, or are they in fact, related? Do they, in fact, become stronger and more influential if I allow them to connect?I’m only going to tell you a tiny bit about what I said, because the really good things I want to tell you about came from the other mums. What I said was that, yes, those things I’ve listed above connect, because God has made a beautiful world and given us responsibility for it, that we have quite spectacularly failed to look after it properly, and that the responsibility now needs to be taken up by adults and by children, and particularly looking to the children as it’s their future we will be creating as we endeavour to look after the world better. There, that’s my bit. Now over to what I LEARNED! We focused mainly on the ideas of Reducing and Reusing, rather than recycling, as recycling is the least useful, most costly little brother to the two other Rs of green living.Two of the mums there were using washable nappies, and neither had tumble dryers. (Oops, a laundry reference!) One mum could get her nappies dry in a day and a half, and got by through having a lot of nappies. That’s how we used to manage it too, although, being in Newcastle upon Tyne, I have to admit that we did have a dryer for those rainy nappy days…. But the other mum has MICROFIBRE NAPPIES that dry naturally in 4 hours! Excuse me shouting, but this seems like the holy grail of washable nappies. You can see one, above. Too cute.She also told us about websites which sell second hand nappies – this is a great idea, as after both our boys, our nappies were mostly still in great condition.

On our list we ended up with: sorting toys with your children to donate them to charity, appreciating gifts that didn’t cost money, buying or exchanging second hand clothes and toys, buying organic, local seasonal food and starting up water recycling and a compost bin in the garden. All of these things are activities that the mums were doing along with their children, so that the children could pick up the idea of living an environmentally friendly lifestyle without effort.
A lot of the conversation the mums shared was about simplicity of life, and tied in so much with things I’ve been exploring through my Simple Abundance book. It seems that we recognise that a lot of the pressures on us to consume and to lead less environmentally friendly lifestyles are driven by the same kind of advertising I was talking about on Friday – we must have more, we must have newer, we must have better! One mum told us how they’d contacted Philips to have a chip repaired in a widescreen TV and had been told to bin the TV and a newer replacement would be sent, rather than the old one repaired.

Another told of how they’d moved to Japan and had been advised that they’d be able to furnish their new flat by collecting from the objects thrown away (like our Ramassage des Encombrants here in France) BUT that they’d have to go at midnight, as these relatively new and completely functioning items were destined for landfill only, and were guarded so that no one would take them away for re-use.Several mums discussed the pressure that people are facing at work to own and use BlackBerries at all times of the day and night, and how this erodes family and social time. One mum pointed out that anyone who turns off their BlackBerry at the weekend turns up at work on Monday morning to find themselves sidelined from their own projects, as decisions have been made over the weekend without them. We didn’t come to any hard and fast decisions on that one – the pressures of modern life are very hard and it’s not for us to tell other people how to respond to them. But it is a matter of concern, surely. You see we moved from ‘green’ issues as such to the wider issue of simple living – but the link seemed so natural to us all, and was a good example of connecting things rather than compartmentalising them, I think.

To sum up, I gave the mums a sheet of possible internet links. I’ll give you a few of them here. In the USA, the ‘Going Green in a Godly Way’ issue is really well addressed by the Evangelical Environmental Network, amongst others. This is important to me, as American Evangelicals have sometimes had a reputation for ignoring climate problems and environmental concerns, and I am really glad to see that, in fact, that’s not the real picture. In the UK, there’s a coalition called Stop Climate Chaos, which many big Christian charities have joined, along with other non-religious organisations – they have one goal, so they have united to make their voice heard.

The reason that the Christian charities are so active in calling for environmental action is that they realise that the poorest people in the world are the ones who are getting hit first and hardest by the climate change that our richer countries have exacerbated. They are following Jesus’ ‘Golden Rule’:

“Do to others as you would have them do to you”.

Luke 6:31

Chief amongst them is Tearfund, running a Carbon Fast for Lent like the one that Elizabeth has told us about. I’ll end with a prayer from the daily Carbon Fast emails:

"Father, show me where I need to change, where my life is burdening others and hurting you. Release me to worship you more fully and help me to strive for justice for the oppressed and marginalised."

A Trap in the Garden

Yesterday, during an afternoon lesson, I recieved an unusual phonecall from Son 1, returned home early (as planned), due to a striking teacher. It's unlike him to disturb a lesson, so I answered in case there was a problem.There was a problem, at least in his eyes. "Mum, was there a huge hole in the garden path when you left this morning?" No, there hadn't been... There had been a really fresh mole hill, though...
I reassured him, and phoned back during break time. "Does the dog have really dirty paws?" "Yes." "HAVE YOU LET HER ON THE SOFA???" "Yes." "Oh well..."
So, a Dog trap for Moles?
Or a Mole trap for Dogs?

Or as it very nearly was, a Mole and Dog trap for Cyclists?

Fortunately, Son 2 spent some time in the early evening filling it in with a trowel - unasked but most appreciated. Cyclists (including Daddy, coming home in the dark) and Heffalumps, both saved...

Absolutely my last post about drying (until the next one...)

This is my grandma! She's the woman who taught me how to bake, using traditional techniques, and nothing more labour-saving than a rotary whisk. She's also the woman who spent the 1970s thinking that adding violently orange 'breadcrumbs' to a piece of fresh fish from Brixham fishmarket could only improve the meal...

And I think I can understand where she was coming from. She'd grown up in a time when women who wanted something at home had to do it for themselves or make it from scratch, and suddenly, from the 1950s onwards, she was offered a world where women could choose to work at what they liked (baking, sewing, gardening, speaking and playing the piano at meetings and raising money for charity, in her case) and find an easier option for the things they's always hated (making breadcrumbs for her, it appears!)

In addition, life wasn't just getting easier thanks to the introduction of new technology, it was also getting very exciting indeed! Having read Bill Bryson's 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid', I can see why people in the 1950s were just deliriously thrilled by the technological possibilities opening up in the world.

Advertising took a lead in telling us why the new labour-saving devices were better than the old ways, and often, the adverts were right - this post may turn up a reader who has brooms and sweepers INSTEAD of (not as well as) a vacuum cleaner, but I doubt it - vacuum cleaners just do a better job, so we all use them now.

And I guess it was this combination of liberating technology and forceful advertising that convinced home owners' associations that outdoor washing lines were a sign of poverty and generally being behind the times!Fascinatingly, Andi's comment on my last post shows that washing lines were banned in some places in the UK, as well as in the USA - her uncle wasn't allowed one in the 1970s. And I find it very understandable. Wrong, when viewed from the long term, just like my grandma's orange breadcrumbs! But perfectly understandable.

j

Thanks for all your great comments by the way - I love the way Joy's grandmother: "had two clothes lines. One under in the back of her house that was more shaded for colors and the other out front where it was open to the sun." That's really handy! I could do with that here.

j

So, I promise you that tomorrow any post I do will contain no reference whatsoever to laundry...

j

..but Sunday's Pause in Lent is shaping up to have something to say about advertising! Joined-up-thinking, that's what it is...

The Line-drying sequel

Thanks for all your great comments about how you dry clothes, and why you like what you do! Feel free to let me know more on this post...What interested me most was something I'd already read about on the great Martha Stewart's website (yes, I scoff a bit, but I also admire greatly..!). I can't find the Martha link any more, but for those of you who are interested to follow up the issue that some American housing and community associations ban the drying of clothes out of doors, I have found some other interesting articles.
j
A charming journalist called Margi gives her personal account of going back to line drying in Pittsburgh. A really cute but informative read.
j
A discussion on the pros and cons of line drying, with comments from the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns(!)
j
Some practical information and links to other articles from Charles Hudson.
j
And my very own favourite clothesline blogger Sherri B, who has lots of lovely weather/clothesline stuff but you have to SEE THIS PICTURE! Go on, look at it. If you do nothing else with my links, look at that one! And then go and introduce yourself to Sherri.
j
Good grief, I'm in bossy mode today.

Drying Laundry!

I'd say about seven eighths of this laundry dried today, despite the remaining snow! The remaining eighth was frozen when I brought it in after taking this shot. Here's the rest of the laundry, on the balcony indoors, which gets lots of heat rising from the wood fire and the oil stove. We are very lucky in being able to dry things 'naturally' all year round.

How do you dry your laundry? Do you have any favourite methods, or "do"s and "don't"s?

What a difference a day makes!

Then. Now.
Hyacinths coming into bloom...

... in front of snowy clothes drying in front of the fire.

Rays of Sunshine (in the Gloom)

It's snowing here again! School transport has been cancelled and Son 1 is almost certainly going to miss a geology field trip this afternoon... Very disappointing. But here are some literal rays of sunshine! Each one is the image of the sun, created through our shutters yesterday morning. It's a lovely image to wake up to! Saturday was a really sunny day and Son 2 spotted this visitor on our primulas. It's a Hummingbird Hawk Moth.
We've never spotted one so early in the season!
They hover over the flowers very much like real hummingbirds.
Another ray of vintage holiday sun can be found in my blogshop (click on the button to your left).
I've got two of my 'Treasure Chests' and some sets of vintage postcards, new in.

A Third Pause in Lent

Compartmentalised!

When that word came into my mind, this picture from Lakeland Limited also popped in! We have some of these drawer organisers, and they are really great, and would be even better if we didn't have twice as many items as pockets...
The word 'compartmentalise' was introduced to my thoughts by Elizabeth Rimmer on her Lúcháir blog. She mentioned that the Pause in Lent 'brings together some strands of my thinking that I tend to compartmentalise - always a bad sign'. I hope you don't mind me quoting you there, Elizabeth - you really got me pondering!
It does seem to me that what the Pause in Lent is doing for me is similar - seeing the connections between different things that are important to me, instead of putting them into separate little boxes!It's good to have the contents of my kitchen sorted and compartmentalised, but how easily I seem to have decided that my family, my work, my faith, my emotions, my health, my blogging, my friends, my environment, etc, etc are also separate from each other and seem to get put into separate 'boxes' in my life.

Denise's recommendation of the book 'Simple Abundance' has been part of what's helped me to remember that each of these things is part of a bigger picture, rather than a separate element which has no effect on other parts of my life.
Denise can tell you more about how Morning Pages, which are a part of the Simple Abundance concept, help you to clear your mind of clutter and actually put down onto paper (and then forget/burn/otherwise destroy) the outpourings you'd normally bottle up. I'm not actually finding that I'm pouring out pages of misery or vitriol, quite to the contrary, but if I do have something bugging me or upsetting me, I'm finding that I can write it down and begin to see it in proportion, either to be left behind or dealt with. I'm beginning to see how the things I turn over and over in my mind are linked to how I face and deal with all the events of the day. There's no specifically religious idea behind the Morning Pages, but as my Big Picture includes Jesus, I find him here too.

j

So, instead of the compartments, I'm feeling freer to let God into all aspects of my life, and let him have a little look at the bits I'd rather hide - a bit of resentment here, a bit of laziness there, a bit (a lot!) of irritability there...

j

And it's not an unpleasant experience. It is very releasing.

A Modest Haul

I took a lot of filled bags, from our home and from my friend Penny's clearout, to the Secours Catholique shop yesterday. I came back with a leeetle bag of my own... I'd actually seen it in the linens section before, but passed on it because I don't 'do' retro synthetics. But today it seems I do 'do' them, if they're in my colours! I even like the kind of waffle-pattern on the fabric.

And the bag, with the contents I added, came to 3€50, so I think it wasn't a bad haul! Mainly napkins in the ever-popular Provençal fabrics (blue and the one yellow one, can you see it?) and a pretty vintage hanky. The Toulousaine young lady on the postcard has a fabric skirt and, like the retro synthetics, isn't really my type of kitch, but she was just sitting on the counter and the woman asked me if it was part of my selection, and I thought, why not? It was that kind of day...

This red napkin, which matches some others we've already had from the shop, turns out to have the sweetest initials embroidered on it. Perhaps in our house, CF can stand for 'clean face'?

Thanks for your lovely comments on our walk together over the last two days! Have a great weekend.