Organic-Ally

This is the first time ever that I’m spending Christmas at mum-in-law’s house. I was really looking forward to a 'restful' time as recent poor-ish health has made me irritable and quite depressed at one point. It was nice that we could look out of the window and see sheep wandering on the Devon hill-side. When we did go out, it was not unusual to see tractors (real ones, not Chelsea versions) holding up long lines of traffic. There was no internet service. Ah.... There was also a lot of food. We had brought with us a lot of fruit from our weekly organic fruit bag, not wanting it to go to waste. My ‘job’ on Boxing Day was to make a fruit salad. With all that rich food, ultra-sweet Christmas puddings and all that, husband and I thought a refreshing and detox-ing fruit salad might be a good idea. So it was a bit strange, as far as I am concerned, that mum-in-law kept asking whether she needed to make a (sugar) syrup for the fruit salad. No, I said. And thought, 'Syrup on fresh...

And peace and goodwill to all man (ie including woman). This is supposed to be 'the season to be jolly', but do you see a lot of jolliness around? Go into a supermarket carpark and you will find cars parked most indiscriminately. Shoppers do not bother to look for a space. They simply leave their cars where they think they should. Getting in and out of a tight space in a supermarket is difficult enough at the best of times. When motorists choose to park in a non-designated parking area behind you, it is even more difficult to maneouvre out of it. So I was stuck in a spot coming up to Christmas some years back because some moron was parked behind me. The woman driver next to me was trying to leave at about the same time. I indicated to her that she should go first as her path was not blocked by this other car. She glared at me and through the window I could hear her say, "What? You can't reverse?" I've lived with that for a few years thinking that my driving sk...

Husband and I hosted our annual champagne party last night. Sounds a bit posh, doesn't it? Actually it is a very informal 'champagne and Cornish pasty' party. Husband (who usually has more note-worthy role models) took the inspiration from a certain Jeffrey A. We had champagne and shepherd's pie one year, but shepherd's pie for 15-20 guests without a catering size oven was a bit difficult to manage. Last year we experimented with Cornish pasties, bought from the best CP shop in the area (supplied by makers in Cornwall). This year we voted to have the same. 'We' are the eight or nine church members meeting fortnightly at our house as a 'fellowship group'. The party (a Christmas celebration, if I hadn't made it clear) normally includes those members who cannot usually attend due to class schedules, invited guests of the members and members of their families. Last night started out alright. I had cooked the pasties in good time, unlike the previous ...

Son came home today with a card from every other boy in his class. To be fair, he also gave a card to everyone in his class. So we ended up with a pile of torn envelopes and cards that he is not likely to look at again. Why do we do this? This card-giving business? When I was growing up we weren't so much into sending each other cards. Certainly we did not give cards to people we saw all the time. What a waste of paper, especially of the envelopes which can't go into the recycling (because of the glue, unless your local authority specifically allows this). Perhaps we should just put out one card for each child in the class, and everyone gets asked to send greetings (ie sign) to everyone else except himself/herself. Then each child takes that one card home before Christmas. Personally I can't be bothered to send cards to people I see the whole year round. Why send a card when you could send personal verbal greetings? Back to Organic-Ally .

I remember once sitting at church in Singapore and felt myself getting hotter and hotter under the collar. After the sermon I marched up to the preacher to say, "There wasn't ANY thing in your sermon for the single person." The following week he told the congregation, "Last week, SP came up to me to say .... So this is what I have to say to the single person...." Living in a 'family-friendly' culture, the singles can be forgotten even at church. Last week I did it again, sort of. I've been having some health problems. My husband was sorting out the screen projector for the service. The topic for the sermon was: How does God heal today? "You're not going to give the example of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years, are you?" I asked the minister. "Uh, well, yes I could have chosen that story from about 3 million examples, but no, I'm not using that story." "Well, I was just saying to [husband], so many male preachers...

Do you, like me, take your children's uniforms out of the washing machine only to see them sort of 'stand' on its own and wonder what sort of material it is made of? No matter how much they have been wrung in the washing machine, they are still wearable without ironing. Convenience to you and me perhaps. But something about these uniforms scare me. To make anything 'iron-free' is to make it 'non-stick' so that creases do not set in. Non-stick means using that stuff they have been using to coat your pots and pans. My son is moving from short shorts to long trousers next year and I cannot bear to think of all that non-stick uniform next to his bare skin. But where can one get old-fashioned school uniforms these days? Well some 'research' came up with Clean Slate , for organic cotton (yay!) fair trade (better still) schoolwear. Parents should be aware (and wary?) of the PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) in the family of PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals) used ...

When you've spent most of your adolescent life (and your twenties, thirties and forties!) finding 'stuff' to rid your face of the grease that gives you zits, pimples or 'youth spots' ( qing chun dou as we call it in Mandarin), would you not, like me, be taken aback when you are then told that your skin is 'very dry'? So it was that when I used mum-in-law's birthday gift money to treat myself to a salon massage and facial, I was told, 'Your skin is very dry.' But I don't like the idea of slapping cream and stuff on my face. I was therefore chuffed to discover this helpful page from Lyrae's Natural. Lyrae's and Hankettes formed The Good Life Collective some years ago to market their natural and organic products. The advice here is to use oil, like jojoba oil which I happened to have, and work it into the skin with the help of water. Simple. So simple. I don't know if my skin has got less dry as a result, but it is much more shiny a...

Last Sunday at church I commended one of our oldest members on her very smart suit. 'O! Thank you, my dear! I bought this in America.' I knew she was recently in America. She's 90-something and she tells me she wakes up each morning saying, 'Thank you, God, I'm still alive!' She then went on to tell me how her son who is soon to retire had bought a retirement home in Palm Springs. He had arranged for her to fly first class with a companion to see his new home. She has one grateful son (amongst others) who is mindful of the sacrifices she made while he was younger. A successful businessman now, he has seen fit to make sure her mother travelled in the utmost comfort to visit him. She then commented on how my own son was growing. (She first saw him at two weeks old.) 'Look after him. He's your pension,' she said. The truth is I grew up in a family and generation where people had large families because 'our children are our pension'. My parents u...

Must be doing something right. Husband has decided that he will swap his gaz guzzler (not a Chelsea tractor) for a hybrid car. He's finally seen the light! Readers with a spouse/partner who does not seem to share your conviction about going green: hang in there! Back to Organic-Ally .

Everything in the house belongs to 'Mum and Dad'. But the car is 'Daddy's car'. Somehow I can never think of the car as 'our car'. It's long, it's wide, it's a gas guzzler. It also sits on our front drive for most of the week doing precious little. There's the weekly shop and the airport run for our hordes of visiting relatives ... well they do seem to visit all at the same time. When son was in a push-chair, I pushed him everywhere. Then he started school and I found myself driving everywhere, and putting on weight, and feeling a lot less fit. So I've started walking every where again. I feel much fitter and I get to meet more people, talking and chatting with my neighbours, etc. I hate 'Daddy's car' and avoid driving it as much as possible. I have not driven it through a width restriction as I am almost certain that I would bash the mirror in. Being rather short, I have the seat pushed up right to the front to reach the peda...

Husband and I went to see our accountant last week to sort out our tax. I'm a bit of what Singaporeans would call 'sua-ku', meaning 'mountain tortoise' with a very limited view of what life is all about. I don't often travel on the Tube now. (I used to have to Tube and bus to and from work. Tedium.) The thing that struck me was the sheer number of people, especially young people, walking about with their ears glued to a mobile phone. OK, a mobile phone glued to their ears, maybe. 'How soon,' I asked,'would we have babies born with mobile phones stuck to their ears?' 'Don't be silly,' said husband. 'You know that is never going to happen. What might happen is that they would be born with ears modified to fit with the shape of the phone.' 'Ha-ha,' and a few minutes later, 'What about babies born with elbows crooked to keep their phones in place?' People do not sit and wait any more. As soon as they sit down, out ...

After my last post I realized that some readers might think that I am really old-fashioned. What do you expect but for 13-year-old girls to be rowdy? I don't know about that. I wrote this next section in my son's school newsletter recently: ======= As I mentioned books for mothers last week, I should also mention a very good book for both mothers and fathers: Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph. Biddulph divides boyhood into three parts. Age zero to six: the boy ‘belongs’ to the mother; age six to thirteen: their father becomes the ‘hero’; from thirteen onwards, with the second surge in testosterone, boys wish to ‘declare their independence’ and look for influences outside the home. This division makes a lot of sense to me as a social anthropologist. We know in many ‘pre-modern’ societies, boys reaching puberty are taken away to undergo special tutelage by their fathers (and often mothers’ brothers). They go through a stage of ‘liminality’, of feeling ‘between and betwixt’. Then, w...

Been feeling a bit down with the cold. Husband has been working the weekends. Son has got a golf lesson to attend. So we decided to eat at the restaurant where the golf lesson was taking place. For the first half hour we could not hear ourselves think, let alone talk. A few metres from us were a group of 14 to 16 young girls at a birthday celebration. They were talking so loudly -- you would think it was a hen night party -- with the birthday girl's brother and parents looking on. Shrieks, screams, loud raucous laughter. Noise. The parents looked on and even joined in conversation, sometimes shouting across the table. I stared and caught the attention of one young girl, but she pretended that she didn't see me. Then I caught the eye of another diner and he shook his head in disgust. Our meal at this otherwise good restaurant was ruined. Girl's father came back with a bin liner of birthday presents. Girl opened the presents in turn. I saw a card which declared that it was he...

Finally, the new structure is 'sorted' and put in place. I hope customers are happy with this. I have 'agonized' over this for some time as you can see here . Occasionally I still get the odd combination of purchases that make the postage unfair to either the customer or myself. Thankfully, these are few and far between. Back to Organic-Ally .

The past few weeks went by in a bit of a whirl. I spent a lot of time looking through someone's doctoral thesis. His PhD and career depended on my input, so I felt I needed to give it some attention. Which meant a lot of other work could not be done. Including setting up the new P&P system for the Organic-Ally website. Never mind, things are 'slowing down' a little. It is less of a 'blur' now. Back to Organic-Ally .

It's been some time now since the new Royal Mail postage charges came into effect . According to their publicity, "over 80% of all mail will cost the same or less to send". Is it any surprise that over 80% of my mail to customers now cost more, quite a bit more, largely because they now fall into the 'Large Letter' (minimum 44p) or 'Packet' (minimum 100p) category even though something may weigh very little. I have had to stump up higher postage -- or 'post-rage' as I accidentally typed! I run a 'happy' business. I am happy that Organic-Ally sells only what I believe to be earth-friendly goods made in people-friendly environments. Customers are happy and they write to tell me how wonderful these goods (reusable hankies, cosmetic pads, gift bags, string bags, etc) are. My son is happy that Mum is working from home and is there to pick him up from school. And husband is happy that ... well ... husband is happy that I am happy. This new posta...

It makes me feel good whenever I read of someone else in the press sharing my point of view. The title refers to a column by Gerard Baker who is basically saying what I said in a previous post . Baker's full article can be found here . Back to Organic-Ally .

At one point I was hoping to make my name as the social anthropologist to make the study of 'anthropology of junk' fashionable. Yes, people will say at my funeral, 'She will be remembered for her rubbish.' As a mother, though, how does one respond to a six-year-old who is convinced that he is 'rubbish'? Son was clearly distressed when I picked him up yesterday. The Form was preparing for a football match against another school. My son isn't any good at kicking a ball. Offers to start him on lessons (like many of his classmates have done) were turned down. He was just not keen on football. The school requires him not only to play football, but in inter-school matches as well. He was not a happy bunny. Today they were supposed to have a first football lesson with the Games Master (or whatever his title should be). I was dreading the tears that would greet me at the school gates. We did think perhaps he should impress on the Games Master that he is utter rubbis...

Really pleased to read this piece 'Organic milk is healthier, scientists say' in The Times . My husband and I were just mulling over how my hayfever this year has been 'so good'. Apart from three really bad days, it has been tolerable. We don't know how much this is down to our 'detox' in the last six to seven years switching to organic food where possible. Back to Organic-Ally .

Our church missionary to Spain was bringing a group of young Spanish people to the UK and we were asked to provide accommodation for them. I had refrained from offering because I knew we were going to be just back from a trip and there will be lots of unpacking, laundry, cleaning, etc. But husband agreed when approached ('cornered'?) by the minister's wife. Our two young Spanish lads, the only boys in the team, came on Wednesday and left yesterday. They were no trouble at all and now I miss them. (I say 'lads' and 'boys' ... they are in their early 20s. Yeah, husband and I are well old enough to be their parents.) Though speaking little English (which was one of the reasons they are visiting the UK), we managed to communicate adequately, if slowly. They left early each morning and let themselves in whenever. On the first morning they were so shy they did not dare eat anything more than a bowl of cereal. On the second morning they learned to use the toaster a...