the practicing pauper

On the 19th I wrote my thought to you on Methane and the enviromental impacts from my milk consumption and promised an update. Since then I have continued to have my tea black, I have had two white (one because I forgot to tell my mother in law that I had changed the way I took my tea and secondly because I was half asleep and just reverted to the old norm!!) I have slashed my cheese intake and nolonger go for the cheese and crackers after the kidds have gone to bed, I'd like to day I had given up snacking but that would be a lie of pinnocio proportions So given that we were away for a couple of days last week it's not wholly acurate but just through the changes I have made, our milk consumption has gone from 18 pints to no more than 12 aweek and a 600g block of cheese appears to now last two weeks not just one. So going on my calculations last week, it appears that I have slashed the equivalent of around 20000 miles of driving from my carbon footprint. I feel thats a gre...

This last week I have been to Kent for a couple of days with the family, We have done the usual tourist stuff, had a day in Canterbury. Stayed in a pub just outside in a village called Chilham and then a trip on the Kent and East Sussex railway from Tenterden to Bodium and back. I can't say that we were overly lavish but when we are on holiday I try and leave the pauper behind and just enjoy ourselves. I have no assosiation with any of the places we went and I have no financial interest in any, that said I would like to give you a small review on a few bits First Canterbury, A lovely place to visit and if you have kids then there is a super playarea near the west gate park which is free and well kept. We went to a little tearoom called Shelly's Tearoom in Chilham which I reviewed on Google by saying that it is the sort of little gem that you just don't get anymore The place we stayed was the Woolpack Inn and the family room was superb, Food was good (maybe a little...

We are blessed with a small but beautifully prolific Rhubarb patch that started with a couple of crowns taken from my parents garden many years ago now. I love to make the rhubarb crumble and it is so easy. The recipe is below:- You will require:- Rhubarb to cover the bottom of a flan dish the one above is 9" diameter and requires 3 to 5 sticks 3 table spoons of caster sugar 1 tea spoon of ground Ginger for the topping 8oz of Plain flour 6oz of Demerara sugar 4oz of soften butter/margarine First cut the Rhubarb into lengths around 2" long and wash in cold water Next pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place rhubarb in the flan dish so it evenly covers the bottom and place 1/4" of cold water into the dish. Sprinkle the Caster Sugar on top evenly and place in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and mix in the ginger. To make the topping sieve the flour and Demerara Sugar in a bowl and stir together ...

We rarely have convenience food in our house and one of those items is shop bought bread. The kids love home made rolls for lunch and with all honesty it is easy to do. The recipe below can be done in a bread maker or by hand (I do both and neither is much effort) 50/50 Wholemeal/white bread you need  1/2 lb of wholemeal bread flour 1/2 lb of white bread flour 1 Sachet of yeast splash of Sunflower oil pinch of Salt pinch of Sugar 250ml of water/milk Weigh out the flour I first weigh out one then make up to 1lb with the other. Empty the contents of the yeast Sachet on top and place in the bowl (by doing it this way the yeast and the salt don't touch so much) Add a small pinch of salt and a slightly more generous pinch of sugar. Pour in a splash of oil and add the water/milk which is roughly 200ml of water and 50ml of milk. Mix with a wooden spoon to bring everything together. You want to have a mix which isn't to sticky if it is then add some more oi...

Just a quick one, It has come to my attention that my orignal blog doesn't work properly. So this new blog should allow everything to be readable. Over the next few days I will add in the old posts and then we can start a fresh with the new stuff Thanks Andy

I have always had a cat and in the twenty years my wife and I have been together we have had 4 cats two of which lasted well into old age. Without wanting to put to much detail we are now without any cats due to traffic related incidents for the first time in ages. So rather than wallowing in the loss we have decided to embrace the local wildlife that has given our garden a wide birth in recent years. In the true practising pauper style I have up-cycled a bird bath and feeder In the photo of the Bird Bath I must apologise for the mess around it, As you can see it is upcycled car parts The bottom is a Crankshaft, flywheel and clutch from a Renault Clio and the top comes from a good old Triumph Dolomite and an unknown lump which is probably Ford. I have split it so as the right side as you look at the picture is full of stones for butterfly's and the other is a shallow bath for birds.  Then I made a bird feeder I wanted something that was made from scrap and rubbish, t...

It's been a long while since I added to this blog (or any blog) as I have been busy doing other things. The thing is that I like an awful lot of the worlds population have been watching the television and reading the news reports on climate change. 18 months to save the earth etc,etc. Now I feel that I have a place in this argument, I have no formal qualifications and I don't profess to know too much about any one area, but what I do have is a passion to make things work on a sensible ground level and in a basic and uncomplicated manner. So from this point this blog will become a diary of my attempts to make our small semi-detached house on edge of our village in the Lincolnshire Fens self sufficient in a cost effective and enjoyable way. How am I going to do that? The honest answer is that I'm not we don't have enough room! But and this is the Big BUT, if I with the help of my wonderful wife and our 5 daughters can get some where near, reduce our carbon footprint, in...

Now as many of you will know but, I suspect many like I will not be aware of the full extent of the amount of methane that cows produce, not just a small amount but a massive quantity. This is a problem, I have in the last few years drastically reduced our electricity consumption, cut the amount of mileage we do in the car, started growing more veg in the garden and all this is a drop in the ocean compared with my methane contribution through my consumption of cow derived products. The BBC have a simple food emissions calculator on their website and it tells me that a 200ml glass of milk once a day is equivalent over the year to driving 585 miles in a normal petrol vehicle. So quick sums tell me that 200ml x 7 days is 1400ml but we as a household get through 18 pints that's 10228ml or 10.2litres So when you divided 10.2 litres down by 200ml you get 51 So now my 585 miles is actually 585 x 51 which is 29,835 Nearly 30,000 miles. I wouldn't dream of driving that t...