clogs

On monday ralph and I went on a special outing to camden. We were a bit excited, neither of us having gone over there since we wore road jeans wide like sails and globe skate shoes. What we thought was that we'd find some rustic army surplus camping gear.

On the way we stopped in at the city farm, kentish town maybe. It was very good there, a turkey.

Then we went on to camden. Did a bit of a trawl of the row of charity shops which was odd. There were all very busy, like there was more special staff in them than customers, lovely. I got a suede shirt, lovely. I also tried on some fantastic trashy high heel leopard printed suedeish mule clogs, great but alas too high for me to really wear around, and I think the plastic sole might have been a bit slippery and therefore trecherous.

Anyway camden was awful, we should have known really. Never going there again.

But I have gone about looking for some nicer clogs. I have been thinking about how clogs are pretty good on the frontier front. There is something wholesome about a shoe made of wood and leather. And I think they'd fit in nicely with my ongoing wardrobe improvement plan.

Here goes.

bjornclogs

bjornclogs

schwedenclogs

Berlin-Clogs

lottafromstockholm

sarenza

regard

Last week on women's hour there was some psychologists on talking about parenting. I can't remember now exactly what they were focussing on as it's taken me so long to talk about it. I remember that they were talking sense though.

One thing in particular that struck me was something said by the lady doctor about regard. She was saying how parents were failing to teach their children to have regard.

What a fantastic phrase. I think it covers much of what I have said previously about how people behave.

If I am to teach my future children anything I will teach them to have regard. And to wear stripes like this guy.

better living

I have been thinking about what the best house would be like, the best place to live. I have this idea of a smallholding in the woods.

I found a couple of examples of people who live in interesting set ups.

This is tony wrench and jane faith's roundhouse in wales. From reading about it on the website it seems they have had lots of trouble from the council which is silly. What a lovely house, they grow crops and make wooden plates and bowls. You know I love wooden bowls. This is what living should be.

They use the term earthright to describe the way they live, this is such a good term. I'm going to try to use it in conversation. Here is the lovely lady in their lovely house.

This is the house that simon dale has built for his family, again they built it from logs and mud. From the outside it looks like a hobbit house. I'm not that keen on the look of the house but I do like the way it was built.

It seems that one of the ways that people set up this kind of living is to start a community. This is what I do not like at all. This is what, like feminism, turns a sensible idea into utter rot. Here is a photo of the steward community woodland.

I haven't visited this place so I only have my opinion of the information on their website to peg my dislike on. But I'm sorry, to me this all seems like nonsence. This is what they say... "...a permaculture project which aims to demonstrate the value of integrating conservation woodland management techniques with organic growing, traditional skills and crafts and low-impact sustainable living."

What like some kind of living museum? I can't help but think this 'proving to the world' coupled with the safety of a democratic-compromising communtiy makes a joke of a valid way of life. It is just the same as an art exhibition "group show" put together by a gang of friends that can't really be bothered to take their art practice seriously enough to try hard enough to actually make good work and maybe have shows. Bloody hell. The point of living in the woods in a house you built yourself is not to end up cooking in a shared kitchen and showing everyone how earnestly you can stir a giant pot of root stew or have a patch of raised beds and a chive heart.

"Unfortunately black plastic has been the only totally successful mulch we've tried so far." My god, do some more pulling up of roots, you are supposed to be doing this sustainably.

Surely the point of moving to the woods is not to live in a shanty town with a tarp for walls. Is it not to live a life striving to live a good life full of beauty at every turn, not putting yourself  on anyone or anything, to take responsibility and to try your hardest to make it so? Not to be anywhere where your community buddy leaves out the shitty washing up bowl.

On my hunt around for some housing inspiration (I'm tentatively starting to think about the master plan) I came across radicalroutes. They say this...

 Our world is shaped by the forces of greed, capitalism and materialism, where maximum production and optimum profits are vigorously pursued, making life a misery for many and putting us and the environment at risk.

The system is ultimately controlled by the rich and powerful, the capitalists and bureaucrats, through the use of many mechanisms such as ownership of the economy (making people slaves to a job) and control of the media (creating a passive culture).

Urrgh. Honestly I do understand the point. However. IT IS THIS LAME CRAP THAT JUSTIFIES PEOPLE STAYING SHIT. Oh it's so hard, all the rich, keeping me down. Who is it that makes you have a 'slave job'? Do you honestly believe that? Take some responsibility you looser.


So, my ideal living is a little compound of buildings built from logs and mud and old bricks and super high tech insulating membrane or something, if it's appropriate/necessary/good. Some woods with all the great plants, chickens and pigs rooting about. Maybe a lovely little pond with dragonflies and toads living nearby. A cow and goat. A solar panel and wind turbine. Ocado deliveries every two months. And a bit of a job sharing my skills with whoever needs them if I have to. Children in stripy jumpsuits. Lots of wooden bowls.

Or maybe kinda what we have now, that's kinda ideal for now.

love lurex

Some things in the sale at people tree.

They have lurex stripes.

lawrence of arabia

I have been not looking at shops and mostly thinking how good it is not to do shopping. But I do like some clothes and shoes pictures on here. And I have gotten a little ranty as lee points out. So after a trip to ralph's mum's house and then seeing all the sisters vogues piled up I thought I'd just have a little look. And the guardian's fashion statement blog thing is nice to read, I like it.

And it appears that there are now leather dungarees in the world. Amazing!

This is the kind of dungarees I want. I think if I was to ever patronise a fashion house it would be chloe, again I like pretty much all of the winter clothes.

To go with my leather dungarees I would like to these, and I could actually save up for them as the are £90 rather than £gazillion like the things from chloe.

These are canvas and leather, from where. There are nice red shoes in the sale too so I'm hoping that they are still there come the end of the month.

We watched lawrence of arabia, maybe I like the boots because of that.



In looking up the film now to find a picture or something to help my boots-justification I was surprised to see how old the film is. I had assumed 70's but no, 1962. It really is a great film and with none of the dating that sometimes make old movies hard to watch. Some of the guys are sometimes a little to shiny but there is enough dusty to make it ok. I do love long films. So I put a long clip in here for us to watch, we chatted at the time how it seemed camels are crap at stopping and how in the film this looks great.

moral fail two

My second moral fail came in a conversation with our veg box people. Surprising.

 
We get our veg from organiclea and it is great. We don't have to choose so we don't end up with only broccoli and there is usually something really exciting. This week we got a cauliflower.

Every week I trundle down the road armed with a canvas bag and pick up my vegetables. They get handed over in a plastic carrier bag and I then put in in the cloth one as its easier to carry with the long shoulder strap. I law awake last week thinking about how this was a bit silly and why couldn't the veg come in a nice cloth bag? I figured that there would need to be two bags for each customer, with a few extra for spares, and each week we would return the bag from last week. We would have to remember to bring our bag back. But it'd be great, it could have a nice picture of carrots on the front.

We wouldn't be using the nasty plastic carrier bags.

I put this to the guy that dishes out the veg bags. I explained how this would be much better than using the plastic bags we do now. And he said that it was ok because they reuse all the plastic bags and they are not putting any extra bags into circulation than would have been about anyway and how it was a bit bad giving the shops all the free advertising.

But these bags come from somewhere!

Even if they are reused it means that someone involved in the operation has at some point got a bag from asda and then given that in to be used for veg. The point is we shouldn't be getting the bags in the first place. It is a bad thing if you go to the shops and have to get a plastic bag, there isn't really an excuse and you should feel really bad if you forget to take your carrier along. Just because you then give it in to the organic veg folk does not let you off of make up for what you did.

This is the point, if we continue to use the plastic it lets some crap people think their laziness is alright. It's not.

It really is very easy to take a shopping bag with you and if you get caught suddenly having to go and buy some lemonade and bread then it's a really big deal that you have to get a bag at the till. You should feel a twinge when the checkout persons asks you if you need one.

I would have thought that the veg folk would have understood this.

my morals make me look like a mad old biddy

I have been getting my formulating gear ready and building up to making some face stuff. I've been building up for ages now so it is time to get on with it.

I have had lavender hydrosol for a while now and have been using it plain as a toner but wanted to make something a little more sophisticated, so have been looking for recipies. It seems toners are either really simple or with lots of soluble botanical additives. I dont have these so simple it needed to be. I'd ummed and ahhed in wilkos over the witch hazel but in the end I put it back. And then I did some more reading and decided that I should actually add it.

I went off to wilko to get the witch hazel, but they had none. So I went to boots and bought theirs. Then I went to superdrug and they had some too that was much cheaper, so I got that too.

I thought that I'd go back to boots and see if I could return it as it was so much more money. So I asked and they said that maybe they could and they'd check and ask the supervisor who said that it was ok. I asked if it gets noted that I returned it as it was so much more expensive than elsewhere. She said, "well I don't think so, it prints out a little form that tells me how it has to be destroyed...".

So I asked if it was just going to be thrown away and she said yes. This surprised me.

I don't like the idea of just because I have decided to return something, as I had seen it cheaper elsewhere, it is going to get thrown away and be a total waste. I expected that they wouldn't aggree to do a return if it would have to be destroyed. I don't like the idea that they want my custom more than they dont want to waste products.

So I said that I would keep the product, thank you for offering the refund but I'd rather not waste the witch hazel. This caused confusion. I went red as I tried to explain that wasting this was bad. I asked if I could talk to the supervisor to explain how they should let customers know that this would be the consequence so we could decide if we wanted to be responsible for the waste of a product and she said that the wastage policy was not really to do with customers and how they didn't price match with superdrug.

She didn't understand my point.


I felt that I had totally failed in explaining why it was not a good thing for me to get my money back when a product that was not faulty would be wasted. It is this idea of waste that really upset me and I felt defeated that my issue with this was such an alien concept to the folk in boots. I just looked like a loony loser, somehow so embarrassed that I couldn't accept this gesture of good will from a generous store manager.

Being wasteful is the embarrassment, and boots should be embarrassed.

Anyway, I made my toner. Lavender hydrosol, witch hazel, glycerine.