LOWERING STANDARDS OF LIVING.

 

CHOSING BETWEEN AN ELECTRIC FRIDGE, OR A SLATE MEAT SAFE?

During my trip south last month it didn’t rain at all. Since my return it has done little else but rain. Well perhaps I exaggerate, for I do remember a couple of fine days when I was able to stack the surprisingly dry peat up into cones, and get most of the caorains bagged. However I seem to have missed the window of opportunity to bring them home. My fear now is that if the rain keeps up the moor will be too wet to get a tractor down to the peat bank. Such are the worries for my energy supply and source of winter heating. For many this winter it will be how to pay the energy bills, and maybe some will look at how they can consume less. There is even talk of a lower standards of living. I suppose it depends on whether those standards are related to our rational needs. Do we derive pleasure from keeping up those standards or have they become a way of life that we can no longer afford?

One of the benefits of having been on this planet for the best part of seven decades is being able to remember when motor cars were a luxury, and for those who had them, going out for a Sunday spin was regarded as a very affordable pleasure. I had thought that during my evening walk with Donald we would see an end to people taking that spin to the end of the road, but there are still a few who presumably derive some form of pleasure in driving there and back. By the time I was in secondary school people were taking their summer holidays abroad. I had even been on a sixteen day summer school trip around the Baltic on the Devonian (long since scrapped I’m sure), to include visits to Copenhagen, Gotland, Helsinki and Leningrad, all for the princely sum of £46. Most people now had a telephones, but we had to wait another two decades before the mobile phone started to take off. Unwieldy great things slung over the shoulder and now the young with their slim smart phones can’t imagine how I survive without one. As a child we didn’t have a television and any daytime viewing when staying with my grandparents would only reveal the test card. On Saturday there was Grandstand sport in the afternoon, and I remember well sitting through the interminable football results accompanied by my grandfather’s delightful whistling snore, while waiting for Circus Boy or the Lone Ranger to come on. There were only two channels and now there are hundreds, including playback and films on demand, but all that comes at a price. Today we can be entertained 100% of the time, no time for boredom or creativity.

 My Grandparents had no refrigerator but an outside larder always had a chicken or game birds awaiting plucking. Today my fridge is a slate Eureka meat safe made by Goddard and Son of London, which keeps things cool enough although ice creams and frozen foods do not figure on my shopping list. Some would say my refusal to change with the times has resulted in me missing out on life, but watching the antics of man from the safety of the side-lines has at times been hilarious. I still laugh, but not at the same things. The 21^st century was going to be wonderful; hard labour would be a thing of the past, automation and computer technology would permit us to have more free time for amusements. It turned out that playtime would come with a monthly subscription, and that we were no longer human beings but consumers. Life has become serious, no longer a laughing matter and for many it is a case of survival. Certainly our expectations of health care have taken a knock. We are learning to put up with aches and pains in the hopes that they will eventually disappear rather than develop into something more ominous. My neighbour still displays a large rainbow sign, saying stay safe and save the NHS, despite there being little signs of life and I’m left wondering if it might more to do with gay pride.

Living alone means I am able to carry out cut backs without worrying how it will affect anyone else. If the Rayburn oven is hot then bake a cake or make soda bread.  When I was recently told by one 84 year old neighbour that I should get a fridge, I had to remind him that he doesn’t have a washing machine and still treads it in the bath. We all have our eccentricities as well as our little excesses, but how we chose to cut back or adapt them is down to us. Some would say I carry little fat in all respects, but I prefer to look on that as simply another creative challenge. For more than thirty years now I have not bought any pickles, chutney or jam, and wherever I have lived a productive fruit and vegetable garden has been important.

  

Having no fridge means occasionally at this time of year the milk will turn. That doesn’t mean it’s wasted, and will often lead, via a little improvisation to something as yet I’ve never tried. So it was this week, when half way through a 4 pint container of turned milk that I made the remainder into cottage cheese. The whey separated with a gentle warming and I left the curds to drain. The following day I was making soda bread and decided to chuck in the cottage cheese. The resulting ugly loaf was a beautiful thing to behold, and a perfect accompaniment to the board bean soup for my Sunday lunch guests.