Warning! Cheese contains milk

It’s been one of those days today.

I took Honey and her best friend into town to see ‘Race to Witch Mountain’ – I enjoyed it rather more than I expected I would, which is a bonus, but it still wasn’t the greatest film I’ve ever seen – I thought that both The Last Mimsy & Nim’s Island were better both in terms of acting and storyline, but as an introduction to your general blockbusting thriller, it was pretty good. (The girls both had a wonderful time, which I guess is the main thing).

Anyway.

What bugged my bear was the immediate demands that we visit McDonalds, almost as soon as we’d arrived in the town centre. I was appalled. Not so much by Honey’s friend, but by the fact that HONEY wanted to go there – I’m blaming advertising and peer pressure on that one – and not all my arguments about the unhealthiness of the food, the environmental impacts of the production processes of that food, the unnecessary packaging &c held any weight with them. It got to the point where I thought that if I held out on them, then I’d have a major scene on my hands & I didn’t feel up to coping with it, so I caved in and we went in. It was every bit as bad as I remembered, and the handful of healthy options didn’t actually bear much resemblance to the cheery pictures up on the walls. They both had Happy Meals (I wasn’t happy, I can tell you) & I had a coffee. The coffee was like dishwater – just vile (the only coffee worse than that I have ever tasted, I had at Brooklands Museum last week) – and the food they got was horrendously oversalted (I use *no* salt in my cooking, ever) to disguise the fact that, actually, it had no taste. Honey’s friend wanted coke, and I actually phoned her mum to double check because I was so horrified by the request. IMO, children shouldn’t drink it, but her mum was fine & seemed a bit puzzled by my call. So, she had coke and I kept my opinions to myself. I don’t think Honey really enjoyed her meal (and she was hungry again 2 hours later), but I don’t think she’d ever admit that.

After the film, Honey’s friend came home to play for a while, and we were all out in the garden enjoying the sunshine. I was sowing seeds and generally puttering about in the garden, and Honey’s friend was watching me …. I invited them to help, and they both joined in quite happily with putting in the seeds and watering them and sticking in the plant labels on the end of each row. But I nearly knocked myself out falling over backwards when Honey’s friend announced that she didn’t realise carrots grew in the ground, and on that basis she wasn’t going to eat them any more ‘because they are dirty’. WTF?!?!?!? I know not everyone has the advantage of outdoor space to the same extent that we do, but we’re not a deprived inner-city urban area by any stretch of the imagination, and the school is quite hot on environmental issues and gardening etc – the children have their own veg garden at school, and suchlike. So it amazed me that the child was so ignorant of where food came from. And it took me aback that she viewed anything coming out of the ground as ‘dirty’ and hence not edible.

So, when it came to tonight’s dinner, and desert of apple-pie, with cheese on the side, and cream, and ice-cream, I was gobsmacked to see warning labels on the cheese, cream and ice-cream: “This product contains milk”. No kidding. (Do people really not know that?)

The whole sorry series of events has got me thinking, and drawing some pretty big pictures in my head. Firstly, about how detached we, as a society, are from food production, and secondly about a sort of squeamishness around dirt and food and our bodies which is, I think, connected to the first and not entirely healthy.

When children don’t know that carrots grow in the ground, something must be wrong with how we are buying our food. When food that is produced to the lowest possible cost, stuffed with fat, anti-biotics and growth-hormones, and then oversalted to disguise the bland taste, there is something wrong with how we are thinking about our food. When you can buy a whole chicken in the supermarket for £3 and no-one stops to think about how little it must have cost the farmer to get that chicken to the supermarket for so little money, there is something wrong with the way we produce our food.

All of these things make me feel that there has been, at some point, a fundamental disconnect between the production and consumption of food. It has ceased to be a means of fuelling our bodies, and has become …. I don’t know what. A leisure activity, that competes with other leisure activities for our time and financial resources? But somehow joyless, when flavour and texture and variety are replaced by some kind of homogenous paste calculated to be somehow inoffensive, rather than a healthful delight, and when it becomes more about consuming as much as possible of a given item, rather than anticipating and savouring rare and seasonal delights.

My asparagus is just starting to come up. I will have a month, maybe a little more, of asparagus frenzy, and then it will be over for another year. It’s worth the wait, and that single month of ecstatic gorging on my tiny harvest sees me through. I don’t get the same pleasure from supermarket-bought asparagus, forced on out of season and flown in from who-knows-where, and ultimately flavourless and unsatisfying, because it has been robbed of its unique rarity value. The same goes for strawberries, raspberries and the other soft fruit, and though I do preserve some of it, there’s little that can beat the joy of a sun-warm strawberry straight from plant to mouth. It seems to me that in our quest for instant gratification, we’ve lost both the pleasure of food, and the connection between ourselves and the earth.

The squeamishness and overly-fastidious obsessions with cleanliness seem to go hand-in-hand with that. Any number of friends think it’s appalling that I generate my own compost rather than buying it (sterilised) from the garden centre. Honey’s friend thinks it’s appalling that carrots grow in the dirty ground. My neighbour is appalled that I let my children pick and eat the (dirty) blackberries growing wild in the wood the other side of our garden fence. People don’t like to think about the food they eat coming from the ground, or walking about on it. They want it neat and clean and with no trace of a natural origin on it. They want it processed and neat, so that it gives no clue to its provenance. A friend of mine won’t handle raw meat unless she’s got latex gloves on her hands, won’t make stock because it means handling the bones.

These are not particularly enjoyable tasks, but they are not as disgusting as she makes them out to be, and what bemuses me is that her attitude is not untypical. The preference is for the ready-meal, so that the consumer doesn’t have to think about or handle the food in order to eat it; so that the food bears little resemblance to the plant or animal from which it came and the consumer doesn’t have to think about where it came from and what’s been done to it to get it to the table, totally divorced from the production process.

The fact that there even *is* a “production process” is appalling. Food is *grown* not *made*. It comes from the ground, not from factories, and the more steps there are between ground and plate makes it *worse*, not *better*. Just because these processes disguise the food so that our squeamish sensibilities aren’t offended by the identification of plant or animal matter on our plates doesn’t make it better – each step reduces the healthfulness of the food, both in the process itself, and in terms of the quality requirements of the original product. Arguments that there is insufficient land to support greater simplicity in the food chain simply don’t hold water – large-scale industrialised agriculture is massively inefficient in both land-usage and yields, and unsustainable in the longer-term because of the need to compensate the efficiencies with increasingly toxic chemical fixes.

The best food is the food that has not been messed about with, that comes off the land and onto our plates with the minimum of distance, time and interference, that has not been subjected to artificial growth enhancers and/or disease inhibitors and that takes account of natural growing rhythms, seasons and locality. I think we need to fundamentally rethink our attitudes to food and set aside our squeamishness to recognise that we cannot divorce ourselves from the growth of our food: we are all part of a great circle – from dust we came and to dust we return. The compost cycle is the quickest and easiest way to grasp that ….within a short period of time, plant matter is broken back down into earth, it goes into the garden and nourishes the food we grow that in turn nourishes us, and the plant waste is composted. And so it goes on. If it can’t be composted, then we shouldn’t be using it, IMO.

To make that connection again, to return to that sustainable cycle of knowledge and understanding  that the earth supports and sustains us rather than offering us a disease-ridden threat is something we need to do, urgently. To change our thinking so that we view food as an essential part of nourishing our minds and bodies rather than a leisure activity, is something we need to do, urgently. To turn away from over-processed zero-benefit food to fresh, healthful alternatives benefits us, and it benefits the planet. 

It’s time to change.

Cook from scratch, eat local food, in season, bought from local producers and *not* the supermarket.

It doesn’t take a lot of time, it will save you a lot of money, and it might just save your life.

Economy & ecology, home and heart

I’ve been a reader of Satish Kumar’s blog for a while now, and the current situation has reminded me of a post from last year, in which he examined “the relationship between Economy and Ecology. Just like Nature and Nativity, Economy and Ecology come from the same Greek root – oikos meaning home, nomos meaning management, and logos meaning knowledge”.

The level of related meaning suggests that we cannot manage our homes without some degree of understanding – both what we are doing within it, and how it impacts on the external elements with which it – and we – come into contact.

In a period of turmoil – in environmental, social and religious terms as well as purely financial - it feels increasingly as though we are attempting to manage a runaway train, with no understanding of the message that we are out of control. Rather than attempting to stop the train, we are throwing more track down in front of it, in a cartoon-like display of frantic fire-fighting. Will we realise we’ve gone over the cliff when it’s too late to turn back, when we have the awful moment of realisation that the world has dropped out from beneath our feet and we’re running on thin air, and there’s nothing more to do but face the camera with a rueful shrug and plummet into the abyss? Or will we recognise that we need to make some fundamental changes to what we are doing to address the situation, and save ourselves?

Have we mortgaged our future for a cheap rush of consumer satisfaction? It seems increasingly obvious that the current economic model is not sustainable: the jenga tower of resold debt and speculative derivative gambling is tumbling, resources are starting to run low, and the negative, destructive impacts of our energy addiction is poisoning our children. Here in the developed world, we live in a bloated and - both financially and morally -bankrupt society, and there is little if no recognition at government level, nor amongst senior business, financial and institutional figures, that there is a need for fundamental change.

Greed, growth and increased consumption are not clever evolutionary or economic steps, nor do we have some sort of fundamental, inherent right to consume FMCGs and processed food at the current astonishing rate.  Rights are not inherent at birth, nor are they a fact of existence. Rights come into existence as a result of human interactions and agreements, and are codified and given weight by the guarantees and sanctions of legislation. The UN Convention on Human Rights, the over-arching text on which most states and individuals would concur in terms of civil and political rights attempts to guarantee such basics as rights to self-determination, equality, privacy, liberty, freedom of thought, movement expression and association. The later Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights for individuals and nations include rights of entitlement to wages that support a basic standard of living, equal pay and opportunities, and rights to own, trade and dispose of property freely, not to be deprived of means of subsistence. Considering those terms, it is perhaps unsurprising that this Covenant has never been ratified: it would present a major barrier in the exploitation of third world labour and resources for the greedy developed world. It is interesting to note, though, that nowhere in these two declarations is there any mention of a right of consumption. It is also interesting to note that in certain developed countries, some of these basic civil and political rights are being eroded. Our freedom is not measured by how much we are able to consume, it is measured in terms of those rights. As we start to lose rights in terms of privacy, freedom of thought, movement, expression and association, increased ability to consume is inadequate compensation.

There are those who would argue that, from an evolutionary perspective, survival of the fittest is defined by those who can acquire, secure and consume the most resources. It is ‘natural’ to be competitive, and it is therefore ‘right’ to strive for a continual increase in the amount we can acquire, secure and consume. In a competitive world, with an exploding population, it is ‘right’ and ‘natural’ that those who do not have the economic power to acquire, secure and consume resources should fail. Even though they never get the opportunity to do so? Are we really no more than acquisitive hungry monkeys? Or, do we have these highly developed pre-frontal lobes that allow us to reason, to take control of our impulses and wants and self-regulate so that we take and use what we need, rather than what we want? Is it a clever evolutionary step to strip our territory of all the resources that can sustan us, or is it more sensible to manage our own behaviour and resources to secure our long-term genetic survival?  Is it a clever evolutionary step to gorge ourselves on the oversupply of convenience foods stuffed with chemical additives, sugars, salts and starches which we know have negative long-term health impacts, or should we move away from these back to a simpler, slower, whole-food approach to nutrition that is less ruinous to our health and to the environment, that requires less intensive farming and minimal processing, that requires a greater degree of integration and understanding between consumer and producer? Is it a clever evolutionary step to create vast social divisions, insurmoutable levels of exclusion and hatred, and then hope that disease, famine and war will address the resultant over-population problems, or is it more sensible to work to implement social, cultural and reproductive rights for all women, acting on the evidence from the developed world that improving social conditions, economic opportunities, education and life expectancy and reducing infant mortality actually lowers birth rates to sustainable levels?

I would argue that a more co-operative model is a fitter way to survive, a recognition that we are all a part of the same tribe, and that we are all in the same boat – we sail the seas of space on the same planetary vessel, and if it founders, we all go down with it. In that scenario, it won’t matter how many millions of dollars you have in your bank: it’s not the sort of crisis that you can buy your way out of. By that token, we should start to distance ourselves from the current financial/economic model and adopt a more egalitarian, compassionate, inclusive and sustainable approach to the overall management of our home – this planet.

What does this mean? I think that this means, by and large, that our governments should stop trying to prop up the failing banks and businesses that got us into this mess in the first place, and focus their efforts on stimulating areas of the economy that will reap long-term benefits. Yes, I think more banks should go to the wall, and yes, I think that, for example, at least one of the big car manufacturers should be allowed to fold rather than be propped up artificially with taxpayers money. To do so would be consistent, after all, with the capitalistic proposition put forward by Adam Smith, and it would be consistent with the evolutionary model as well – survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest.

And yes, I do appreciate the impact that this would have on countless individuals, those employed directly by the collapsed entities AND those employed in both vertically and horizontally integrated businesses. I don’t deny that such a measure would be drastic and painful in the short term, but where there is good historical evidence that suggests recessions and depressions trigger massive social change (Industrial Revolution, Great Depression & FDR), and we recognise that there is a need for vast social change, it might be prudent to take the pain and let it happen.

I read an article somewhere recently (and I apologise for not being able to give the appropriate credits) where someone said that they found it hard to feel sorry for Chinese workers losing their jobs (because the demand for Chinese manufactured goods has gone through the floor) when there was so much unemployment and hardship caused locally by the availability of cheap Chinese imports. I found this attitude hard to comprehend. Surely, a more appropriate and compassionate response is one borne out of understanding such hardships and recognising them as a bond that links us, a shared experience of our common humanity, rather than a vengeful satisfaction that they should suffer too? I think the same goes for all the big manufacturing entities currently experiencing pain. Those of us involved in the ‘green’ movement should not sit back and think that these individuals are suffering a well-deserved come-uppance for their involvement in an unhealthy industry. Instead, there should be compassion and understanding for a plight any one of us could experience – the pain of rejection, the fear of loss, the dread of being unable to feed and clothe and shelter one’s family.

The Chinese worker in question still had an ancestral pig farm in the grim remote province of Sichuan to fall back on – it would make no money, but it would feed him and his family. Such options are not available to all those in the urban, industrialised developed world, who have lost contact with rural roots, nor is the land available to all who might want it.  The puts an onerous requirement on us to address and mitigate the suffering that allowing the current model to fall away would generate. We could and should extend the hand of mutual aid to those who might otherwise fall by the wayside, recognising a wider familial and tribal boundary than we have done before. We should look to even out the peaks and troughs of the haves and have-nots to a more equal, balanced stability. And we should shift our stimulus activities into businesses, enterprises and initiatives that are more people-intensive than resource-intensive, that are labour-using rather than labour-saving, that work to propagate and nurture the earth that propagates and nurtures us, rather than stripping it of everything that gives it value.

We should make sure our inquisitive, acquisitive brains start to work towards constructive, sustainable solutions to the current crisis, rather than just blindly laying more track in front of the runaway train of consumption we’re riding into the abyss. What do you want to do?

(photo credits: greek villa, David Geddes (Picasa). Bedu Woman and child, Hugo (Flickr). Tree – Vista Sample)

Cucumbers don’t need condoms

and other waste-related grumblings.

One of the targets our family has set itself is to reduce our landfill waste by 50% this year.

That’s pretty tricky, because we did a major waste reduction last year (cutting 50%, from 2 refuse sacks a week down to 1) and I think we’ve therefore taken all the quick wins.

Everything we can recycle, we do – we’re lucky that we’ve got an excellent local site just down the road that takes paper, cardboard, alu, cans, plastic bags and P1/P2 bottles, and we looked very hard at how we could reduce what we generate – the ‘reduce’ part of the 3 R’s of environmentalism.

So, for example:

• We were already using cloth nappies rather than disposable ones, which would have been a really easy change to make, if we hadn’t already gone that road with Honey some 8 years ago.
• We switched from having carton milk to having milk deliveries. That has saved us so many plastic bottles, it’s just not true, and of course there’s an added benefit, because we are a) contributing to our local economy by using a local business (admittedly a franchise of Dairy Crest, but they do still have their own beef farm, actually backing onto our garden) and b) the glass bottles are taken back and reused.
• We stopped going to the supermarket, and switched instead to a combination of a local organic veg box scheme, a local farm shop for meat and dairy, and the co-op for dried goods. That saved us so much in packaging because we are buying so little pre-processed food. This year, we’re hoping to get much more in the way of home-grown vegetables so that the veg box is more a supplement than a staple, but the waste from that is minimal – the boxes go back for re-use, and obviously what’s left of the veg after they’ve been prepared is compostible. When we first considered the move, we were concerned that it would work out substantially more expensive to buy local/organic than it was to buy supermarket, but it’s actually worked out the other way – we’ve saved money and eaten far, far more healthily than we would otherwise.
• We refuse plastic bags wherever we go, always taking our own with us.
• We got separate bins everywhere, and taught the kids what is and is not recyclable, so even bathroom rubbish gets sorted at source.
• We switched cleaning to eco-friendly/natural products – sodium bicarbonate and borax come in cardboard boxes rather than plastic bottles, vinegar comes in glass bottles as do the aromatherapy oils I use for fragrancing and disinfecting, and of course we have far less products to generate waste in the first place. Ecover washing powder comes in 10kg paperbags, and we thought it better to get the big 5l fabric conditioner and have 1 big bottle that lasts for ages rather than lots of smaller ones. We still debate if we need the fabric conditioner at all.

Which brings us to this year. We were rather blithe about the target, given how relatively easy it was to reduce the waste last year. We’re starting to realise that it’s going to be much harder to achieve the same reduction this year, and have had to take a good long look at what we are throwing out. Broadly, it falls into 3 categories:

1. Food waste that cannot be composted
2. Plastic waste that cannot be recycled (i.e. not P1/P2)
3. umm, “clinical” waste (i.e. from the bathroom.)

1- Food waste that cannot be composted. Some of that can be addressed – for example, when I’m throwing food in the bin that the children have had on their plates but not eaten. Once it’s contaminated by saliva, it turns into germ soup. If I give them less to start with, and they can come back for more, then that reduces some of the waste. Bellaboo and I already do a nice line in lunchtime leftovers (bolognese sauce seems to taste better given a day to mature ) and I freeze a fair amount where there’s enough for small meals when we’re not all together for whatever reason. That could increase, and where I’m regularly getting leftovers, I can cut the amount I prep and cook and solve the problem at source. But there will always be things like the chicken carcass that went in this evening – boiled down for stock and stripped of all meat, and just a pile of bones and other revoltings, it’s still a bulky item. I don’t see how we’ll avoid that, and there are other things along the same lines that will always end up in the bin. I guess it’s just a question of addressing what we can and monitoring the rest.

2- Plastic waste that’s not P1/P2. This is mainly HDPE. We have relatively little of it, and what there is comes from (surprisingly) the veg box, as they’ll use the poly trays for tomatoes etc AND they deliver cucumbers encased in plastic condoms. I have no idea why that’s necessary. They could easily use compostible cardboard trays for the fruit/veg, and there’s no earthly reason why a cucumber needs its little condom. They’ve got pretty tough exteriors, and most people I know cut it off anyway before they eat them – they can be washed, in any case, and peppers, courgettes and other fruits & veg with similar skins are not treated in the same way. I have written to them to ask why, and whether they can change. Will be interesting to see if/when we get a response. The other big source of plastic is the farm. They vacuum pack all the meat and cheese, and I asked them about it today and was surprised when she told me that the plastic was recyclable in with other plastic bags. I will have to check this out, but if that’s the case, then I’ll be washing it out and dropping it in next time. The other big culprit on the plastic front hits us at birthdays and christmas, when my repeated requests for not-plastic encased/formed presents get ignored and we suddenly have a mountain of plastic packaging which is entirely non-recyclable and has to go to landfill. Drives me bananas. Maybe this year, I’ll get the message across . .  . .

3- The rubbish that gets chucked out of the bathroom I don’t think we can do much about. There’s not a huge amount of it (mooncup eliminated most of it), and the only other option I see for it would be to incinerate it when we have bonfires of garden rubbish – obviously excluding t’o-m’s cans of shaving foam/deodorant (I haven’t quite weaned him off aerosol power yet) – but I’m not sure about the environmental implications of doing that, and how much of it counts as hazardous waste. I need to look into it.

We’ll have to see how it goes. Hopefully, it will go well, and just by being a little more mindful of what and how we are both consuming AND disposing, we can hit the target.

Foraging, planting and other parsimony

We are enjoying some lovely late September sunshine here – would you believe glorious sun and 21 C today? I wouldn’t have thought it a week ago . . . but it’s fantastic and I hope it lasts a bit longer!

We had an early-ish start (just for a change – early starts seem to be a feature of having pre-teen children. I’m looking forward to the days when I can kick THEM out of bed), but we needed to be up and about today anyway, because today was the day of the NCT Nearly-New sale. Hooray! I’ve been waiting on this for a while now, because Minni is fast outgrowing all her clothes and urgently needs a winter wardrobe. Someone I know used to volunteer for them and she told me that they call it ‘Nearly-New’ rather than ‘Second-Hand’ because no-one used to come to buy secondhand clothes. Hmm. The human psyche is a funny old thing, is all I have to say about THAT. Anyway, I love the Nearly-New, because I can literally get an armful of clothes for next-to-nothing, like, less than the cost of a complete outfit from a standard generic baby-clothes retailer, and being as we live in Surrey, dah-ling, it’s usually all great quality and often designer. I do *try* not to be a label snob, but we are living in a material world and some of it’s bound to rub off although I try to decontaminate myself as much as possible! AND I just can’t afford the crippling prices of the eco-friendly organic baby clothes . . . pure extortion.  So there you have it. So, I return triumphant with the loot . . . and of course this now means I need to sort all the old stuff out and get it shifted. This is a big job, because I have to sort it into stuff that was given to me by two different people so I can give it back to them. Stuff I got that’s in good condition that can go on ebay. Stuff that’s not so good that can go to the charity shop. Stuff that’s trashed and needs recycling. And finally, the gorgeous, much-worn clothes that I can’t bear to part with that will go into Minni’s patchwork once she’s accumulated enough to make one up. Too much like hard work when the sun’s shining!

And the sun is *lovely*. I managed to de-weed the brassica beds and get another sowing of spring cabbage in. (My husband slightly spoiled the effect by making some fence repairs and dropping a fence panel on the cauliflowers. To say I was not impressed is a massive understatement.)

He and Rumpus made a sharp exit into the woods to forage some firewood. I’m impressed - a year ago he would have been horrified by the idea of doing something like that. But they were both pleased as punch with the half-tree they dragged back into the garden and it’s now neatly rendered into a log-pile. Yeay! With the cold nights setting in, I’m looking forward to firing up our wood-burning stove again. It is such bliss . . . especially with a glass of wine in hand.

AND, even though Missie had a riding lesson this afternoon, I still got almost all of the root/onion beds weeded – it all rather got away from me the last couple of weeks of the holidays – and I’ve got a row of spring onions in, and a row of early (very early) carrots. The fleece is on already, but I’m annoyed with myself because I recycled the polythene I used to make my polytunnel/cloche thing last year. Sometimes, my need to de-clutter gets ahead of me. I’m kicking myself over it. Now I have to see if I can track down someone getting a big delivery of something so I can snaffle their packaging . . .

I’ve had a cosy evening in front of the fire with the seed catalogues, dreaming of next year – which will, of course, be bigger and better than this year – and getting my vegetable lust under control. They all look so tantalising . . . but I must be strict and not indulge myself – we don’t have that much space so it all needs to be worked out – what will we actually eat, and what makes the best use of the space. I’ll give myself the old five-day rule on it. AND, of course, my Rodale’s companion planting guide won’t be here for another week or so, so I *must* hold off for that.

Tomorrow? Gah. I really can’t put off dealing with the compost heap any longer. I hate, hate, HATE that job.

Made in China?

So, the birthday season is on us once again . . . a whole spate of parties to go to, and, of course, presents to buy. It’s an endless dilemma . . . I don’t like to spend too much on these things, because the children all have so much that they really don’t need these, they’re nice to have and I think should be tokens. However, if you’re not wanting to spend too much, then you’re invariably faced with a mountain of cheap plastic tat. It feels like a no-win situation.

So, we braved Toys R Us this morning . . . me and Rumpus and Minni . . . the temple of tat, the palace of plastic, the castle of c….. you get the picture. I hate it. All this brightly coloured, loud STUFF, single-purpose, inflexible, non-imaginative rubbish, most of linked to some sort of marketing for tv, film, etc. Ughhhhhh. Of course, Rumpus thinks it’s wonderland, and as soon as we’re through the door he’s hooked, just unable to see or hear past the packaging shouting at him. Sadly, he recognises all the brands and toys even though he can’t read yet – I blame myself for letting him watch too much commercial tv, but that’s the topic of another rant. I feel immediately overwhelmed by too much choice, and totally lose the ability to think – I’m just stressed and want to get out as soon as possible. The trouble is, I have NO IDEA what an 8 year old boy might possibly be into . . . so I’m fairly stumped. We start trawling through, and whilst I’m musing over jigsaw puzzles and the like, Rumpus is transfixed by transformers, power rangers and star wars. He’s never seen star wars. but he’s sure he loves it and he *must have* that enormous plastic thing (I’m not sure what it is) rightaway. I’m onto a loser here.

However, one thing I’m certain of. I’m not buying anything that’s made in China. Do you know how difficult that is? EVERYTHING is made in China these days – clothes, electrical goods, anything that’s got plastic in it. I object to it on a couple of grounds: from a humanitarian perspective, China’s human rights record is so appallingly bad I can’t bring myself to support them, and on a second count, working conditions, unionisation and workers rights in these factorys are minimal to non-existent . . . slavery by another name. And then there’s the environmental aspects – not just of all that industrial activity degrading both China’s natural resources but those of its neighbours and on a global scale as well, and all that non-recyclable, oil-based plastic that’s being pumped out. Wasteful, harmful and useless. So I’m a one-woman boycott, having nothing to do with the stuff as far as humanly possible. Of course, it puts me in a difficult position with my children: they are really not interested in the environment (too young: Rumpus today on our walk home from school drop-off as I was talking about the big old oak tree and what changes it had seen and how many creatures lived in it: “cool. there’s a big stick. I’m gonna fight the brambles with it”. <shrug – what can you do?>) and of course want what their friends have. I’ve been buying pre-loved as mcuh as possible and kind of getting away with it. Not sure for how much longer . . . . But when it comes to other kids parties, of course pre-loved aint gonna go down terribly well.

Anyway. Back to Toys R Us. I’m starting to despair of finding anything that’s not made in China and not plastic and will appeal to 8 yr old boys . . . . and indeed despair is the place we’re going, because there is nothing! Nothing at all. In the end, stressed, depressed and desperate we fall into the lego . . . yes, it’s plastic, but at least it’s not made in China, and the resounding vote is that “Bionicles are cool”. So, that’s what we end up with.

I’m consoling myself with a nice cup of fair-trade coffee and the thought that at least the wrapping paper is made from recycled paper, the cards are home-made and both are recyclable. NEXT YEAR I am going to be more organised, research better and earlier and have all my ducks in a row. And I’m going to avoid Toys R Us as much as I avoid the supermarket . . . it’s a monument to excessive consumption, waste and greed. No thank you, not for us. It’s just a shame that there is so little alternative, and what there is seems dull and over-priced.