Organic-Ally

UK's holiday waste smashes all records Too much packaging. Haven't we heard it before? These days I tend to walk away from stuff that I might buy, but don't, purely because there is too much unnecessary packaging. (Or if the packaging is not as eco-friendly as comparable products.) Of course this has its roots in 'stuff' travelling very long distances to come to us. Toys, fruit, cake, etc. Where food is concerned we also have the problems with preservatives . Take festival times. It used to be -- at least in my experience with Chinese New Year, Autumn Festival, etc -- that festive goods were made in our locality and we bought these as close as possible to the times we needed these items. My father was a pork butcher, and two nights before Chinese New Year the wet market would open in the evening instead of the morning. There the housewives gathered to 'fight' over the freshest seafood, pork and vegetables they could get their hands on. At home, in between ho...

We did something unusual this year. We took off to mum-in-law's the week before Christmas. It was a short, pleasant visit. Amidst the doom and gloom I had to fight my own battles. On the Friday before Christmas my GP told me rather nonchalantly that I have arthritis. Nothing much we could do, it seems. Physiotherapy was prescribed and if I am lucky (lucky??) I might be seen by a physio six weeks down the road and he/she might be able to prescribe exercises to prevent the arthritis from getting worse. Ouch! Surely I am too young to get arthritis? GP said he's had arthritis since he was 32. Was that supposed to cheer me up? Apparently my kind of arthritis has to do with 'things' growing from my spine affecting the spinal cord. This was causing numbness in my fingers, leading to an x-ray which confirmed it. Well, if my body can make boney material where there isn't supposed to be, does that mean that I am in no danger of suffering osteoporosis then? Dunno. Actually I w...

The news about the conviction of Shannon Matthews's mum -- although a foregone conclusion to many, it seemed -- left me quite sick in the stomach. Actually I WAS sick in the stomach. Having gone to the hospital on Monday for an X-ray it appeared that I picked up a bug. I was sick Tuesday evening and could not hold my food down for the day. Recovered sufficiently well on Wednesday I thought but there is still a constant discomfort in my stomach. There! Set the record straight. I revisited this blog and was a bit amused to then find this report: 'Educate girls to stop population soaring' . Basically it tells us that "the longer girls stay at school, the fewer children they have" and reducing the population is critical to the sustainability of the earth. And on Women's Hour this morning -- only because I was too ill to get to do what I normally do this time of day -- I learned that the cervical cancer rate is highest amongst women who come from the lower social...