G is for…

GARDEN!

I have utilised two of my recent blogging themes today (Trying To Be Useful and AtoZ) to tell you about the latest exciting developments in my garden.

Simon Gear, in Going Greener, told me to start a compost heap, which I love the idea of and have been meaning to do for ages anyway. Then my Abel and Cole deliveries started and there were little hints in their booklet, of what to recycle etc. One of the things they mentioned was composting. So it seemed like I was being nudged into finally actually doing it and I took the plunge and started searching around online for a good composting option.

Before long, I came across the Wiggly Wigglers and started to get excited. I’d heard about composting by using worms and on this site, I found a starter kit for £32 which would get me started on using worms to make compost out of my old scraps of food waste.

The basic principle is this. I put my old food in the top, the worms eat the old food, the worms do a poo, the poo is compost that I can use in my garden, to grow my tomatoes and herbs and chillies.

It’s like having a small farm containing only worms in a bin, kind of. So just the worms. And no other animals. And no eggs or milk. Just the compost. So sort of like a small farm. Sort of.

My next garden-related challenge from Simon Gear was a challenge to grow my own veggies. Now, the tomatoes, herbs and chillies are a standard summer installation in the garden so I decided to expand a little more, to step out of my gardening comfort zone.

A friend recently told me about a grow-your-own oyster mushroom farm thing so I checked it out again and decided it fitted well with my instructions and have ordered one. The idea goes something like this – soak a paperback book in water, scatter the mushroom seeds inbetween the pages, put it in the bag they send with the seeds, leave it on a windowsill, watch your mushrooms grow. Apparently I will get about three crops from it.

Books and mushrooms, what’s not to love?!

I shall report back on both the worm farm and the mushrooms. They are due to arrive in the post any day now. Oo, you should get some too! Then we can compare notes on how our baby worms are doing, like mothers in the playground.

P. S. Following on from previous posts, I have not been to a supermarket for 12 days. So for 12 days, I have only bought or eaten food that was grown locally, by people who I have taken the time to do some research about. It feels great. I have also not taken a bath, since I was told to shower instead.

Showering and shopping

Yesterday, I was having a working-from-home day. There’s a lot to be said for staying at home in your jarmies to work. But I also had my instructions from Simon Gear to follow. He had asked two things from me in his book, Going Greener.

Eat fresh fruit in season to avoid the air miles, flying things across the globe so I can eat it all year round.

Shower rather than bath to save on water.

I adapted the first one slightly, given that I was looking for vegetables, not fruit. But the message was the same. Buy as locally as possible to avoid the air miles, one of the most environmentally-damaging things I probably take part in, on a day to day basis.

I decided that, actually, I would shop entirely British for eveything I needed for my planned cottage pie. So I approached the vegetable section. I needed tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and herbs.

Well, I almost gave up on the tomatoes and the herbs! All the tomatoes were from Portugal and Spain. After searching all through the different varieties, I found one variety of vine tomatoes that was grown in Britain. Phew! The cottage pie could make a start.

The herbs were from everywhere but Britain. Jordan, Egypt, Spain, Morocco, Mexico… Nothing. As I wandered off, I saw pots of herbs with little British flags printed on their labels! Hurrah! My cottage pie could have flavour! I got myself some thyme and some chives and suddenly, the world of reducing my air miles and shopping British smelled fabulous!

Next was potatoes and these weren’t hard to find. The carrots were also British, not too much trouble there.

I didn’t need mushrooms but in my excitement that so many of them were British, I got some anyway.

I learned, at this point, that lots of vegetables are from Israel. The other British ones I saw were chicory and lettuce, neither of which I needed but will keep in mind.

The beef mince was easy enough because the nice stuff in Waitrose happens to be British beef so no compromises needed there.

Getting cereal bars was fine because I know Jordans is a British company but a surprising amount were from America.

I wanted to pick up some tupperware to keep left over cottage pie in (another instruction from Simon Gear is to freeze down individual portions for emergencies then you never end up eating rubbish takeaway or bowls of icecream for dinner) but the tupperware was made in Vietnam so that was out.

I must say, it was a bit of a faff checking the small print on everything I bought but I felt sooo much better leaving the shop and knowing I’d made the effort to reduce my personal environmental impact. I also didn’t wrap my vegetables in plastic and I brought my own bags to pack my shopping in.

And now for the second challenge. This one, I knew, would be more of a mental hurdle than anything else, due to the simple fact that when it is cold and wintery, I like to have a hot bath and listen to an audiobook and pretend I am a lady of leisure.

As Simon rightly points out in his book however, when taking a bath, you use more than twice the water of a shower and, disgustingly, all the dirt that was on your feet ends up in your hair, and vice versa. Now I know this, of course I know it. But I like to pretend I don’t, due to the lady of leisure thing already mentioned.

Yesterday, despite the current cold snap and flurries of snow, I resolved to stop being a water-hog (one who hogs water, not a pig who lives in a river) and get a shower instead.

I put the plug in, to test the theory about how much less water it uses, turned it on hot and danced around a bit to some music to stay warm. After a few minutes, I could stop dancing and just enjoy it because it was quite nice actually. The cold from outside was like a test of strength. If I was tough enough to handle the cold, I could do anything!

At the end of my shower, which took 5 minutes instead of the requisite 30 for my lounging around bath sessions, the water was only just approaching my ankles. It was barely a tenth of what I use for a bath. I felt great, tinged with guilt for all the other times when I had bathed instead of showering.

And that was that! Two more boxes ticked on my quest to become more useful!

A day in Bath

Yesterday, Danda and I went to Bath for the day. I had a day off work and neither of us have ever been so it seemed like a fun day out. We had a minor panic when one of the tube lines we needed to use wasn’t operating but we found another way without a problem.

After arriving in Bath, we just kind of wandered up a road in front of us, looking at stuff. There is lovely Georgian brickwork on all the buildings and there are an awful lot of shops. We stopped off briefly to get me a hat as it was pretty cold then came unexpectedly across this….

It is the building containing the new outdoor pool which uses the hot water from the thermal springs. It reminded me a bit of being in Rome, where the buildings and streets are beautiful and grand and you stumble upon fabulous things round every corner.

We decided to come back to the Thermae Bath Spa, which was opposite the outdoor pool, in the afternoon. For now, we wanted breakfast, which we found nearby, and the Roman Baths. We knew the Roman Baths were near Bath Abbey so we wandered down some side roads looking for the Abbey. After a little while, we found a tourist map and spent a few minutes looking on it trying to work out where we were and where the Abbey was.

“It’s just up the road,” declared Danda, having used his manly skills to deduce the correct direction. Then we looked out from behind the map and realised…

…we were practically standing in front of the rather large Abbey, looking at a map, trying to work out how to get to the Abbey … Fail.

Inside Bath Abbey is spectacular.

It is large and covered in carved stones memorialising Bath’s lost loved ones. Some were young men leading Indian regiments into battle against opposition in Afghanistan. It’s quite an odd concept to get my head around, these young men dying in such far flung corners of the worlds in wars that are long forgotten now.

Then there was this stone which challenged my existing ideas about what makes love so special…

As we left, I saw a sign saying the Abbey coats £2000 a day to run! Crazy.

Second stop, Roman Baths. Amazing amazing amazing. They are the UK’s only natural spa and literally steamed as we watched them…..

It was a work of engineering genius to see. My awe at the achievements of these people grows with each new thing I learn. The stones and coins and carvings on display here are fantastic. So many and so well explained. There was even a skeleton of a Syrian man found here.

Whilst at the main pool, I had a little feel of the water for a photo ..

…then noticed a sign sternly informing visitors that touching of the water is not allowed! Don’t tell!

After dawdling about here for ages being amazed, we decided to head for the spa and have a dip. On the way we stopped to watch a street performer display possibly the strongest arms I have ever seen.

We then headed to the spa and got in the queue. It was 3.15pm. We were still in the queue at half three and had our hearts set on a relaxing swim and sauna. 3.45pm arrived. 4pm. We were getting closer but veeerrry slowly. 4.15pm. We’d been in the queue an hour. It suddenly sped up and we had hope. Then it slowed and we lost hope. But we were so close by this point. It would have been silly to give up. 4.30pm. 4.45pm. Slowly. Slowly. Then suddenly a little flurry and it was our turn. Finally. At 4.50pm. An hour and 35 minutes after joining the queue. My toes were extremely cold by now and I just needed some hot water to defrost them.

We practically ran in, threw our clothes at the lockers and ran off to the rooftop pool. Plunging into it, the icy toes and nose and fingers melted immediately. Although we were outside, on the top of a four storey building, with a view of Bath for miles around, we were in a huge lovely hot bath. It was awesome. We swam to the edges and looked through the glass sides at the town and the beautiful Georgian architecture and the hills behind. It was surreal.

We had to run out of here as the fresh cold air hit us and we descended the stairs to the steam rooms. Inside there was a massive forceful power shower in the centre and four round glass rooms. You could enter any one of them and sit on the benches inside. They each had a different smell in the steam. There was lemongrass and ginger, lotus flower, eucalyptus and mint and sandalwood. I liked the lemongrass the best. In between each room, we power showered to wake ourselves up. Lastly, we went down to a pool where the water was warm and welcoming and had a jacuzzi in one corner and a little corridor with power jets pushing you through from one end to other. It was a little crowded but still lovely. After a second visit to the steam room, we then had to change out of our swimming gear and into outdoor clothes as our train was leaving in half an hour, hence the massive rush.

We got to the station in plenty of time and I finished the day sitting by the cafe drinking lemon and ginger tea, eating a flapjack and reading Wonderpedia, my new favourite magazine.

All in all, a wonderful day. I can fully recommend it.

Things I have learned whilst hiding from Danda

1. I do not fit behind the bath. Not even if I take out the end panel and crawl in backwards. My shoulders and head still stick out.

2. Make sure it’s actually Danda you can hear parking outside the house. Twenty minutes of hiding by the outside toilet in winter is not fun if it’s not even him.

3. Between the sofa and the bookshelf is probably the best place so far but it is quite uncomfortable and I get foot cramp if I am not found in the first two minutes.

4. Panic-hiding does not work. Despite my best hopes, Danda is not to be fooled by a girl standing in the middle of a room with a hastily arranged duvet over her head.

5. Positioning pillows over my body and laying on the bed would have worked, had Danda not been actively looking for a hidden Laura.

6. If you want to hide behind a door, make sure Danda cannot spot you through the gap next to the hinges.

7. Don’t accidentally press play on the audiobook on your phone just as Danda approaches to look for you.

8. Pre-plan hiding places. Some things really are worth the effort.

9. Don’t look out from your hiding place to check if you are being looked for. The likelihood is that you are being looked for and have just given your hiding place away.

10. Taking a phone call whilst hiding will give you away. Even if you’re just whispering.

The worst landlord ever

When I was in my second year at uni, my friend and I decided to move off campus into our own place. We looked at a few places but settled on a flat on a council estate, mainly because it was over the road from university.

When we looked at it, however, it was a little rough around the edges, to say the least. There were chips in the paintwork in most of the bedrooms. There was a huge hole with piping exposed in the bathroom wall. There were odds and ends of crockery in the cupboards. Nothing had been cleaned. There were no curtains or even a curtain pole in my room.

The estate agent confidently assured us that everything would be sorted by the time we moved in. There would be professional cleaners and builders etc who would get the place ready before we arrived.

We found two flatmates to fill the other rooms and, a week later, my friend picked up the keys and headed there with all her belongings, ready for the exciting new adventure. I was working until early afternoon so it would be a few hours before I got there.

I got a phonecall shortly after she had walked through the door, which I thought would be full of excitement and anticipation. Instead it went something like this:

“It looks exactly the same as when we viewed it the other week. There’s still a big hole in the wall and it’s a mess.”

She called the landlord and said there was still a hole in the bathroom wall and that it wasn’t safe. His response?

“What’s the problem? Are you going to climb into the hole?!” followed by a little chuckle at his own wittiness.

When I got there after work, we donned house clothes and yellow gloves and got to cleaning. We packed up all the bits in the kitchen which had been left and put our own stuff in the cupboards.

When the landlord eventually came round to sort out the hole in the bathroom wall, he brought a man with him who, I got the distinct impression, it seemed he’d picked up randomly on the street while driving to the flat.

At one point, the man was cleaning the oven which, we had insisted, needed a proper industrial clean out as it was so dirty. The man, who spoke no English, just kind of muddled through and my friend had decided to keep an eye on him. This was how she saved our cutlery from destruction as he reached for a knife to start scraping the dirt off the inside of the oven.

“No!” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, as though talking to a child. “We use these to eat with. You need a sponge or a scourer.”

He also tried using the oven cleaner he’d found, on the inside of the bath, which he’d been asked to clean. Again, Sophie stepped in, speaking slowly and clearly and handing him some bathroom detergent spray.

That was just a hint of things to come. He owned the flat upstairs too and the girls living there had some hilariously bad set up where he would pitch up every month and collect the rent in cash, all £1400 of it. We gave him cheques for a while before insisting he give us his bank details so we could pay him properly, by bank transfer. That honestly took about six months from first asking him before he gave us them.

When there was a water leak upstairs because someone left the tap on and water was flooding out through our light switches and down the walls, he said there was no need to get anyone out to look at the damage or fix anything because it would be fine.

He’d show up at odd moments and start talking nonsense. Like the time he turned up at my birthday party and started rambling on about this idea he had to store memories on a computer chip so as not to forget them.

He was from Sri Lanka and would just disappear off there without any forewarning, leaving no-one in charge of his business dealings. So, for no discernible reason, we wouldn’t be able to contact him for a month. He didn’t see what the problem was.

He once threatened to turn up, pack my bags and put them outside. When I pointed out that he needed to go through a court and have a properly authorised eviction notice to do anything at all, he flipped out, said he didn’t care about my ‘rights’, and said we owed him money. It’s all hilarious now, but honestly, it was quite ridiculous.

The more I think about it, the sillier it seems. After we moved out, he insisted two people’s rent hadn’t been paid and so kept the whole deposit (four people’s rent). When I called to ask for the other two people’s rent back, he said he’d ‘told the police on me’. I said the police don’t get involved with rental disputes as it’s not violent crime. He stopped picking the phone up when I called.

And that was my experience with the worst landlord I have ever had. It was like living in a comedy.

Rubbish captions, boobs on the loose and wellies on hangers

I can’t wait to show you guys what is in Chat this week. It’s got some real gems. Firstly, the obligatory animal photo inside the front cover with some extremely weak puns.

This time the pun is ‘he’s going bananas!’ And I am then asked ‘orang-you jealous?’ Poor. Even for Chat, that’s poor.

Then the worst man-to-woman transvestite photo I have maybe ever seen in my entire life.

I’m sorry if you are reading this and you recognise yourself. But really now. A little bit of work needs doing on that get-up.

Then we have some photos of things that no-one cares about apart from the people who sent them in – a girl and a dog, someone on their wedding day, a carrot that looks like a pair of legs, someone’s cat, someone’s granny etc etc.

Then my personal favourite, the ‘Blimey! That’s clever’ page. The top tips are fabulous, as ever. The best one is this. It’s basically, store you wellies upside down on a hanger.

There’s no real reason why, apart from it saves space. Does it? Does hanging a pair of wellies on a wall which looks, from what I can see, quite silly, really saving so much space that it’s worth it? I’d rather just have a little less room on the shoe rack and keep the wellies there, thanks.

Another tip is, keep the little dregs of paint in a small jar rather than in the tin it came in. It’s not even worthy of a response, is it?

A bit later, there is a story about a little boy who didn’t have a belly button. I don’t know why. I dost read the story. My eye was immediately drawn to the inset photo and the caption…

There is also an info box about a condition called bladder exstrophy. The title says ‘What is bladder exstrophy?’ This is followed by the words, “This congenital defect affects around 1 in 50,000 births and is more common in boys than girls, and the risk of having a second child with the condition is approximately 1 in 10. The problem occurs somewhere between the 4th-10th week of pregnancy.”

So I’m sorry, what’s bladder exstrophy again? I’m still none the wiser. That info box contained zero ‘info.’ If I find out I’ve got it and I rush to grab my nearest copy of Chat, something I do whenever a crisis occurs in my life, then I’ve actually no idea what’s wrong with me or what to do.

Next is an atrocious photo of a woman who’s had loads of surgery on her body, yet still can’t make sure her boob fits in her bikini before she has her photo taken for a magazine.

The next thing, which might make some of you laugh is a reference to the a previous time we checked in with Chat. Do you remember the story of the odd unsettling horror dolls a lady was collecting and sending as gifts? A lady has written a letter in to Chat to say she also has a collection of horror dolls and felt a real connection when reading the story. Fab.

The recipe this week is bangers and mash. O, sorry, that’s wrong. It’s actually called ‘Sausage Mash-Up!’ Cause they is well cool, innit.

Lastly, we finish on a disturbing story about a woman who collects rubber ducks. There is a huge, rather unflattering photo of 43 year old, slightly overweight Charlotte, in a bath surrounded and covered by some of her ducks. From her little naked knees poking out among the ducks, I think we are supposed to believe that she is naked and that it is an arousing thought. It is not arousing. Not at all.

A little game of Would You Rather

Ok, the rules of Would You Rather go like this. I ask if you’d rather do one or the other of two things. You pick which one. Simple. The answer ‘I don’t know’ is not allowed. ‘I wouldn’t pick either’ is also forbidden. There is a man with a gun to your head who will shoot you if you don’t choose one. There is no way to escape him. You MUST choose. If you need to ask questions to expand upon either choice, that’s fine. Ok, are you ready? Remember, you must choose one.

1. Would you rather… Have a five metre body and five centimetre legs OR a five centimetre body and five metre long legs?

2. Would you rather…. Have a perfectly spherical body, like an orange OR have skin that is the texture of popcorn?

3. Would you rather… Have hands that look like hooves OR hands that look like florets of broccoli?

4. Would you rather… Be made of paper OR be made of jelly?

5. Would you rather…. Be always too cold OR be always too hot?

6. Would you rather… Have a rare disease where you are allergic to everything except chicken livers so that’s all you’re allowed to eat OR have a skin condition where you have to apply face moisturiser made of drain water every day?

7. Would you rather… Bathe in the watery bit that you get on top of the mustard OR bathe in the water that chicken has been poached in?

8. Would you rather…. Have a nose like cauliflower OR facial skin like potato peelings?

9. Would you rather… Be gored in the stomach by a vicious bull OR have your face eaten by scorpions?

10. Would you rather… Have a disease where you always fall over and smash your face on the floor OR have a disease where you grow thick curly hair all over your entire body?