Organic-Ally

  For those of you old enough to have watched the old TV comedy series Drop the Dead Donkey you might remember a character (the news presenter) who talked often of how she was abused by her grandmother. Image by wayhomestudio on Freepik I cannot understand how grandmothers could be evil, but then there are mothers who are evil, too. I was on the bus home from the university and feeling tired. As usual I whipped out my phone to read another instalment of the book on my phone. But there was a voice shouting, "Me want Mummy! Me want sit wif Mummy!" Where was "Mummy"? After faffing about for several minutes while the bus was stopped, she had proceeded to the back of the bus, sitting just behind me, facing towards the back of the bus. As "Me want Mummy" got louder and more persistent I looked up to observe that a girl, quite a big girl, about three years of age, was strapped to a push-chair at the front of the bus, in the care of her grandmother. Behind me set ...

I had some time on my hands. Looking at the pile of Christmas cards I was hoarding, I thought I should put my plan into action and made these.  They are not difficult to make and would keep some young ones occupied for a little while, if you do not mind cleaning up glue-y fingers. The materials required are: Old Christmas cards Ribbon which I had salvaged from Christmas crackers, some glue, a pencil, scissors and something to draw the circles with. I used a cake cutter. Then it is just a question of deciding which parts of a card or cards you wish to use. You will need at least three circles to make a 3-D bauble. I used up to five circles. Four circles seem the best compromise. When you have cut out the circles, fold them into half. When you have a good half circle, use this as a template to make it easier to fold the other circles into half. Then decide on which way you wish to glue them. I wanted one that included the names of the people who sent the card, but I made a mistake an...

  Writing this while still in the middle of reading Mrs Harris goes to Moscow , having been rather enchanted by her achievements in Mrs Harris goes to Paris , and New York  by Paul Gallico.   Together with her best friend Mrs Butterfield, they encounter a paper salesman in Moscow, after they discovered that loo paper was in short supply. The salesman grumbled: “Paper! … There ain’t enough of it to go round. Everybody wants paper! You can’t buy it, you can’t find it and there won’t be enough trees left to make it …. “Wrapping paper! Greaseproof paper! Wallpaper! Paperbacks! Paper towels! Nobody blows ‘is nose into a good old-fashioned ‘andkerchief any more. No, you got to blow it into paper what comes from those poor blinking trees. I tell you there ain’t no end to it! Blotting paper, legal paper, lining paper, paper napkins, paper cups and plates, …! Paper hats on New Year’s Eve!” Reusable Gift Wrapping So just in case you don't already know, you can can find subst...

The beginning of the year found me being employed on a zero-hour contract at a local university (there are two close to me). My job was to support hybrid teaching, making sure that online students were well looked after. Because the students (as well as faculty) were logging in from very different time zones, I was working rather strange hours.  Once we found ourselves being an hour late for lunch because the lecturer's "ten minutes" (he was in a totally different time zone) became a full "sixty minutes" by which time the catering staff were all anxious to leave. So, for the first time, as a zero-hour contract worker, I began to imagine what life might look like if employers simply change one's hours without warning. What protection do workers have? If I had spent x amount of money travelling to work and then the employer says I was only needed for three hours instead of six, would that be fair? I'm still working and thinking through this, for a conferen...

Today is a day of celebration for me. It has been since 1998 when I got married. Sadly as I pondered the blessing that my husband has been to me, I know of friends whose marriages have fallen apart. What appears to be common in these is that these friends are/were married to high-earning lawyers. As my son is just about to start on his law conversion course (after an undergraduate degree in Classics), I had spent many hours mulling over why some marriages hold and some don't. These friends and I also share another characteristic: we are all highly-educated women, previously with enviable careers working for some of the top multi-nationals, had kids, and we became stay-at-home mothers. Why did their lawyer husbands then decide to explore and then prefer relationships with other women, themselves also lawyers? I can only think that their ability to earn high incomes meant it was easy for their wives to remain at home. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. However, as I learned, stayin...

  On this day last year (2020), we first clapped eyes on our new home. We had driven through the rain and came across a signboard on the motorway that said something like “Tier 4 residents should stay home”. When I first stepped indoors I saw the space beside the staircase, which the owners had reversed from the original position, and thought, “perfect place to put in a lift”. Unbeknown to me, the husband was thinking the same thing! After a burglary in our previous home, I was really keen to move. We had also come to a point where we needed to think of moving while we still have the energy to form a new friendship network locally. Either that or risk being moved into a nursing home when our physical and/or mental health fails (usually after a triggering episode like a fall or serious illness). When this happens, we will not have a choice of where we prefer to go. Someone else will be making that decision. Dire, you think. But my research in ageing has led me to think the b...

PLEASE remind your friends to dispose of their face masks with care:   (see  " Correctly dispose of PPE to stop new wave of plastic pollution "  ) Source:  https://www.mcsuk.org/news/face-coverings What else is there left to say in a year in which everyone has been touched by some effect of the pandemic? Let me dwell on the positives. My husband and I spent the best part of six months straddling 2019/2020 making once/twice-weekly bus trips to the local hospital to support a friend whose   mental health , for no apparent reason, took a huge hit. Friends rallied round, prayed, and supported the family. We saw no apparent progress for weeks and weeks and weeks. Suddenly from about February he began to show improvement, to the point of being discharged -- just before the first lockdown. It would have been impossible to continue to make those visits post-lockdown. As Christians we are thankful to God for answered prayers. As ordinary human beings, we are thrilled to ...

An unusual year all round. January to March: Most of this period was spent in Singapore where I was officially an "academic visitor" with my own small but adequate flat. I had access to a dining hall with the widest choice of food, which resulted in my putting on five kg by the time of my return. April to July: Returned to the husband, now fully retired. Felt a bit remiss that I was not around for his numerous retirement celebrations. But as I had been writing about since Sociology 205 (Sociology of the Family): a spouse's retirement has a huge impact on the stay-at-home spouse. I decided to forgo employment to help us transition through this period and I think there was a lot that we had to learn. We've enjoyed many walks around the park -- brisk walks to lose some weight -- and I am delighted to see how he who was 'limping' has now acquired a more healthy gait and weight. I've also lost those five kg. We spent quite a lot of time planting, and ...

I'm feeling pretty relaxed now, and at the same time a bit excited. It's Christmas eve!! Just finished my annual felting project. I like to have a new bauble every year for the tree. Since I was gifted a felting kit a couple of years ago, I'd made a 'bauble' without bling to mark the passing of years. This year I left it very late and decided to do a baby Jesus, not on a sphere but like a little 'hanging pillow' -- I don't really know what else to call it. And did. Woke up this morning thinking: that old scarf of my husband's -- the one where the silk had become 'hole-ly' and the stitches to the wool part had become ragged and loose -- I could perhaps use that for my project. And did. Last year, I managed sort of felt a camel shape from a decoration bought from The Leprosy Mission (TLM). This year I looked for a clipart. Is it simple enough for me to transfer to felt? And it was.    I did the baby Jesus side. Then I started fel...

A few customers have taken me to task for using plastic when despatching orders. Let me explain. Some items are sold as 'Gift Packs' and so come in a presentation pack. They also contain instructions for use in the case of Pocket Pouches (how to fold the hankies back into the pouch). Sometimes, especially when the weather is wet, I wrap the whole order in re-purposed plastic. This is plastic salvaged from a dry-cleaning business. You see, when the paper envelopes are damaged and orders get wet, I also get complaints from customers. At other times this plastic is used to ensure that your orders do not exceed the one-inch depth as the postage jumps from 79pence to £2.95 (yes!) when it exceeds that depth. I trust that you will agree that if I am charging £1.20 for shipping, it is not fair for me to ship it at £2.95. If orders are not tied down this way and items move during transit to more than one inch, the recipient has to pay the difference (£2.95 - £0.79) plus a sur...

Update 1st January 2021:  Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts But a growing body of research reveals air pollution may be damaging every organ in the body , with effects including heart and lung disease, diabetes, dementia, reduced intelligence and increased depression . Children and the unborn may suffer the most. Update 23rd May 2018 : Scandal of 'killer' wood burning stoves and the question - is the political class’s obsession with global warming rotting their brains? "So generous was the Northern Irish scheme to businesses, offering £160 for every £100 they spent on wood chips, that firms used it to heat disused warehouses and long-empty offices, knowing the more they spent on wood chips the greater their profit would be. Some users of the scheme kept heating systems running flat out night and day because they made such a profit from the subsidy scheme." Update 26th January 2017 : Wood stove fad is blamed for pollution...

Dear Organic-Ally customers and supporters I imagine that, like me, you are getting loads of emails from retailers that you had bought from ages and ages ago asking for permission to continue to send you emails. The irony is some of these have not bothered you for some time but because of new legislation coming in on the 25th May, they are obliged -- or are taking the opportunity -- to ask anyone who is still on their database whether or not it is OK to contact you (but they  already have!) and please could you confirm by ticking a box or clicking on a button?? I am really stuck. I don't actually collect and store any sensitive information from my customers. I don't store credit card details. Third-party providers take care of this. Then once a year, before Christmas, I turn to PayPal and Nochex (payment service providers) for email addresses. As such, these are actual customers who had made a purchase in the previous year. (I do not harvest data by pretending to send o...

This post is long overdue. I am starting on a second round of reviving bak choy. So I hope you enjoy this. Step 1 Buy some healthy looking bak choy from a (Chinese) supermarket. Lop off the leaves about 1½ inches from the bottom. Immerse in little containers like these. If it's terribly cold, I use water that is just warm to the touch. Put them on a window sill or somewhere with lots of light. And warmth where possible. In the picture above, you can see bak choy in different stages of regeneration. The green leaves traps energy from the sun and soon you will find roots, or root nodules, at the bottom of the stumps. Be patient. It may take more than a week to root. Meanwhile, refresh the water at least once every two days. You will find some bits getting sodden and looking like it's 'rotting'. Remove those bits, clean up the plants under running water and return them to the containers with fresh water. Step 2 When the roots are visible and clearly thriving...

A friend complained about aches and pains and that all his doctor told him was to exercise. "I'm in too much blooming pain to exercise!" My GP too has been telling me to exercise from some six/seven/eight years ago when he decided that I was suffering from early-onset arthritis. Last year I suffered a frozen shoulder from which I am still recovering. I also suffered a pain in my thigh. Said to the GP, "If a pain in my upper arm was caused by a problem in my shoulder joint, does a pain in my thigh means problems in my hip joint?" He nodded. Bah! I thought. His advice? "Exercise." For some strange reason, I decided to do 'lunges', left and right, morning and evening. After several weeks, the pain eased. In July I resigned my membership at the gym at which I did aqua aerobics three times a week where possible. Started walking briskly round a nearby park instead. There is also an open gym and I do a few minutes on each piece of equipment....

Update 23rd May 2018 : Scandal of 'killer' wood burning stoves and the question - is the political class’s obsession with global warming rotting their brains? Update 26th January 2017 : Wood stove fad is blamed for pollution I have spent quite a bit of my younger life in cities full of diesel cars. The fumes from these cars made me quite ill. As such I could not understand why the UK government was giving incentives to drivers of diesel engines. "Diesel was supposed to be the answer to the high carbon emissions of the transport sector, a lower emitting fuel that was a mature technology – unlike electric or hydrogen cars. In the early 2000s the Blair government threw its weight behind the sector by changing ‘road tax’ (vehicle excise duty) to a CO2-based system, which favoured diesel cars as they generally had lower CO2 emissions than petrol versions. It inspired British car makers to invest heavily in a manufacturing process that most countries outside Europe have...

For personal reasons I would like to highlight invisible disabilities. I live with someone who has Ulcerative Colitis. Recently I was physically quite 'disabled' in that I could not move my arm very much in any direction. Yet I was too embarrassed to use priority seats on public transport. This link here is a good reminder: 10 things you need to know about Crohn’s and Colitis

My ex-colleague at Accenture came up with the best quip: is my husband tired of being given the cold shoulder? It was soon after Christmas 2015 when I noticed that the intermittent pain in my right arm was getting more frequent. I am right-handed. Went to the GP in January 2016 and for the best part of this year I had been suffering a lot of pain, loss of muscle strength and spent many hours in hospital and clinic waiting rooms. Not nice. I had to give up that bit of my voluntary work which required a lot of note-taking. My right hand was so weak that I could barely sign my name, let alone write. Even working at a computer took a great deal of effort and I had to stop after every hour or so to recuperate. (I took on a new voluntary role to teach 'laptop' to senior citizens. Instead of note-taking, all I had to do was point and talk, and occasionally pressed a button or two. It gels with my desire to help older people cope with loneliness by connecting them via the inter...

I have been helping out at a children's holiday club run by my church. I have been so amazed by some of the talent shown by my six-year-old charges. One played football very well. A couple of the girls showed superb abilities in their colouring. I was quite taken aback because my son was still drawing stick figures when he was eight or perhaps even ten. His colouring was quite atrocious. No amount of  'colour within the lines' had any effect on him. He dreaded doing art and sport most, I think. With the exception of three-dimensional art. He is fascinated by origami and has created some most spectacular origami structures. When I looked at them -- they connect and can be manipulated and transformed -- I realized that this was not origami as in 'folding art'. This was origami as in 'paper engineering'. Back to these talented young people. I hope that they have the space and support to develop those innate talents that they clearly possess. Jus...