Friends You Can Count on

My other half and I are getting very good at turning the geyser off during the day. Or perhaps it’s more honest to say that my husband is. At five-foot-one, I can’t even try and reach the fuse box. At six-foot, it’s his responsibility. But I have to always remember to remind him.

We’re also beginning to get good at remembering to turn it on again. So far, we haven’t had a morning when we haven’t had hot water. There was one night a near miss – but my husband remembered in the middle of the night and got himself out of our cozy warm bed to flip the switch.

I sometimes panic and wonder if all this turning the thing on and off is going to put too much strain on the system, and we’re going to need to replace our very overworked geyser, but I’ll deal with that problem if it ever comes, and for now I’m feeling pretty virtuous.

It’s incredibly more difficult to think green than I ever imagined it would be. Everything I used to do without thought now requires a complete analysis. I have bought all the shopping bags I think I might need so I don’t need to ask for plastic packets, but I just haven’t perfected the cycle of taking them back out to the car after unpacking. If I do leave them by the front door, I just waltz merrily past them on my way out, completely forgetting to take them with.

Local Can Be Limiting

At the moment, the biggest issue I’m grappling with is trying to eat only local produce. This means eating seasonally, which is supposed to be healthier for you anyway, and frequently having to deny myself things that I feel like eating on a whim.

For instance, when is the Turkish asparagus season? Carrefour asparagus is imported from Italy, and the packet I found in the Supermarket came from Thailand. Asparagus is great in some of my dishes. I am having to rethink my entire recipe strategy to reduce my food’s carbon miles.

A very useful trick I have learnt is to use my local greengrocer rather than the big chain stores. This is a little less convenient, as the Carrefour and Supermarket are closer, and it means I have to make more stops when I’m shopping (which in itself is bad for the environment), but it does mean that I can have long meaningful discussions about the origins of my veggies with the grocer – and for a food obsessive like me, this is a wonderful idea.