Organic-Ally

The following from an article  ( Why is hay fever so bad this year? The pollen bomb’s to blame ) in   The Times . I am not happy with the way many phenomena are now described as a 'bomb' when innocents are suffering from real bombs somewhere. The less important bits have been struck out, while the important bits are magnified, to make it easier for you to read. Dr John Bostock had tried everything — cold baths, opium, doses of mercury and even bloodletting — but he could get no relief. Every year at “about the beginning or middle of June”, the 46-year-old would be struck down by “the most acute itching and smarting, accompanied with a feeling of small points striking or darting” into the eye. It was March 1819, and Bostock, a doctor from Liverpool, was describing the first recorded case of hay fever to the Medical and Chirurgical Society. Nowadays the symptoms are far from unusual.  According to Allergy UK , one in four adults and one in eight children suffer from allerg...

When I started Organic-Ally years ago, I had wanted only to change the world, that we learn to "dispense with disposables". Seriously! One string bag at a time. One organic cotton hankie at a time. Here's what I did:  Organic-Ally Hankie Gift - Father's Day Special I found suppliers of organic cotton string bags, and organic cotton hankies. I placed my orders. I set up a "free" website, but this lacked a lot of functionality. So I paid for a website. I bolted on a free shopping basket software, but this only allowed me to take cheque payments. Imagine my shock when the first order dropped into my Inbox. We had gone away on holiday and I came home to find an order with a cheque enclosed. I did not even have the right type of envelope to despatch the order. So I migrated to a paying service. Then I integrated payment service providers and had been doing much the same since then. How did we find customers on the internet? At that time there were a number of ...

Since I started Organic-Ally  to reduce paper usage by using cloth hankies instead, there has been many developments, some good, some not so good, with regards to protecting our environment. Reducing the use of paper has been one of the effects of numerous campaigners. This post shows how one person tried to make a point and people have become very aware of how we are mis-using paper. Stock picture (Office365) However, I do wish to note how there has also been a reversal , again as a result of a successful campaign to reduce the use of plastic. Many of the mailers I once received that came wrapped in plastic now comes in paper envelopes. Is this a good result? I hope to be saying more about this later. Meanwhile, let me take you back to 2008 to show what we can continue to do to make a difference where paper is concerned. Let me also plug the use of my cloth gift bags here!! 😃 Adapted from:  https://www. independent .co.uk/climate-change/news/how-to-cut-your-paper-footprint-...

  Growing up in Singapore, I never went to bed without my laam jaam . It's a long cylindrical pillow which translates from Cantonese as "hug pillow" (or "hugging pillow"). My mum had a more sophisticated term for it. She called it a "Dutch husband", her take -- as a woman -- of what was known in colonial Singapore as a "Dutch wife" (feel free to google this term). I don't remember how or when I outgrew it. When heavily pregnant I requested my dear sisters who were visiting to bring me one, and they did. Recently I had been waking up every morning with pains down my thighs. They always seem to be on what appears to be "acupressure" points. Poke your finger or thumb at the correct spot and the point goes right through you. So began a daily ritual of finding/discovering where those points are on waking, and massaging with my fist until the pain eased, before getting out of bed. While hunting for some missing bedding last week, my s...

  I was just wondering whether to have a rant about this and came across (yes, it is a Mailonline article)  I booked a seat in a train's quiet carriage to work and was disturbed by a mother who let her two-year-old run around screaming - was I wrong to ask them to keep it down? On long journeys I always book on a quiet coach with the aim to either relax and have a snooze, or do some serious thinking/reading work. Why on earth would people with young children book on the Quiet coach, you might well ask.  On the last occasion, I first found someone sitting in my Reserved seat. My son tells me this happens to him very often on GWR. This man, doing a crossword, was sitting in my window seat. A young woman was sitting in HIS Reserved aisle seat. When I got on the train the young woman looked apologetic and asked if she was sitting in my seat. Well, yes, and no. She moved, but the older crossword gentleman was living up to his hobby, "Do you want me to move?", he asked gruffly....

  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...