Poor poor drivers.

I have a hate/indifference relationship with cars.
On the one hand they are very good at getting you somewhere clean and dry and not smelling a bit (ok, a LOT)sweaty about the old armpit area.
On the other, my lack of driving skills means I have to rely on other people to drive me about.

I cannot drive, at all.

I started lessons at 17 with a really fat guy who really wasn't interested in teaching me to drive and then announced that he couldn't be bothered anymore.
The next instructor was going through a marriage breakup and seeing a girl half his age on the side. He basically used our lessons as therapy and more than once tried to come onto me.
Looking back with adult eyes I should have kicked his arse, but I was 17, he gave me my lesson on the cheap and as it was I could only afford them once every two weeks which wasn't enough.

So after failing my 3rd driving test and running out of money I decided to just leave it.
On the whole this hasn't affected me in the least.
I cycled, used public transport, got lifts off friends and family when needed.
It was only when we moved to Scotland that we began to rely on the car.
The public transport that I had taken for granted down south just wasn't there.
Instead of a daily (every hour)bus from town to town we now only had a once a week bus that only gave you 2 hours in town.
Instead of being able to walk a few miles we were faced with long fast roads with no pavements.
You can see why its taken us a while to get back into the car-less mindset. Its like trying to be Vegan in Greenland ;)

Anyway, today I cycled into town.
I was in a bad mood. We had tried to take Alfie (who was home with a cough) in the bike trailer with us, but a way up the road it became apparent that the trailer was going to need some looking at and adjusting, so I continued on to town while Kim turned back.

The wind got up as I left the village and by the time I reached the long downhill run I was peddling the whole way just to keep moving.
So I was tried and out of breath and my legs hurt because I'm out of shape.
I dropped some videos and books off at the charity shop (and picked up some more *heehee*), then nipped into the shop for some bread, a paper, some cookies and a bottle of water.
(Yeah..should probably deduct 10 green points *sigh* I have at least kept the bottle and will fill it from the tap nest time, I promise!)
So I started the ride home and guess what?
That wind that I fought against on the way down the hill was now making my life just as hard going up hill. I don't know HOW it does it but there must be some freaky funnel thing going on up that stretch of road, the wind is ALWAYS in your face.
So I got about half way up and decided to stop for a drink (So thirsty today, I think I'm getting Alfie's cold).
I stood on the side of the hill sipping my drink and looked back the way I'd come.
I could see Dunnydeer hill fort and behind it the glens, still thickly covered with snow. I could see the cloud rolling in with the threat of rain, or maybe more snow. I could hear the tentative bird song from the trees behind me, as though the birds where optimistic of spring as the temperature had crept up to 8oC.
A Car shot past me, then another.
I finished my drink and set off again.
Nearing the top is a field that has half a dozen yearlings and two year old horses in it for the winter.
I called to them as I came up to the field and curious, they came over, one at first them in two and threes, ears pricked, tails high.
Even though my legs hurt I put the bike up a gear to go faster and chirruped to them. A big bay Irish Draft popped into a clumsy canter trying to keep up, the others following. I clicked to him. He went faster, then slipped a little, frightening himself and shot off to the side, bucking and snorting and took the rest with him.
I laughed and shouted goodbye as I hit the top of the hill.
Coasting down I opened myself up to everything. I could hear the streams as I passed them, the birds, the leaves. I could see the trees, the mountain, the sheep who flinched away for two strides as I passed before ignoring me again. I could feel the wind on my face and the bumps in the roads.
And I realised this is why I can't drive. Look at what I miss by being in the car. The bike becomes a part of you, artificial for sure but it reacts to a lean of your body, a movement of your leg.
The car on the other hand removes you from everything.
Is this why there are so many accidents?
You sit in a little bubble, protected from the elements, shielded from rain and wind and dirt. But you also loose most of your senses, you trust your cars ability to read the road because you can't.
The very thing that made me scowl at the beginning of the ride made me smile and laugh out loud by the end.
I need that connection to my environment and maybe more people do as well.

New chickens and meatless Monday.

Just a quick post to introduce you to our new ex-layer rescue hens, Wavey, Petal and Agnis ( I just finished reading "The Shipping news" so...)

We got them from the same private hen rescue home as the last lot but what a difference! These girls are fully feathered, friendly and laying already! In fact we just picked up the hens that came and sat on the box! Last time it took us ages to catch the skittish girls.

Pauline, who does a fantastic job of rescuing and re-homing these birds, had thought she wouldn't have any more birds as the usual farmer had started charging her £2 a hen and insisting she take 2000!!! Obviously as someone who does all this out of her own pocket, this is ridiculous, and an unhappy reminder that people who make money out of animals want only to squeeze every last drop they can from them.
If he sold them in the normal way (to be ground up for pet food) he would make a MAXIMUM of 25p a bird, and if the market was slow he may even have to pay to have them taken away as farm "waste".
He could have charged 50p a bird and still made twice as much profit.



Anyway, the girls are settling in. They will spend a couple of days in the small run talking to Lloyd, Emily, Victoria and Sally through the fence and then we will let then all in together.


For those who are muttering about my laxness, I have come up with a Meat-less Monday for you!

Butternut squash and potato bake.

You will need.

1 butter nut squash.
@ 6 potato's.
1 onion thinly sliced.
1/2 and 1/2 of soya milk and stock, enough to cover the dish.
chives.
salt and pepper.

Peel 1 squash and slice thinly.
Peel and thinly slice @ 6 medium potato's.
Thinly slice the onion.
In a large dish make up layers of squash, potato and onion finishing with a layer of potato.
Mix the stock, soya milk and chives in a jug and pour over the dish. You should have enough to just cover the whole thing.
Place in a moderate oven (@ 180oC) for @ an hour until the potato is soft.If you find the top browning too quickly (Like I did..oops!) pop some foil over the dish and leave n until the last 20 mins or so.
Serve with warm baby spinach and bread :)

Re-use EVERYTHING!!

So its my own personal project at the moment, the re-use of everything possible!!
I want to share these ideas with you and so here is my first one....

Your own re-usable loose fruit/veg bag!

To make your own all you need is one of those natty little plastic string bags that oranges and lemons come in.
Cut it open carefully then thread some string or yarn in and out the holes at the top to make a little draw string and VOILA! Your own re-usable loose goods bag.

WARNING!!!
This also has the added bonus of foxing checkout girls while they try to work out why there are onions in a lemon bag and can't find a price.

Be kind and explain, they're not used to people taking initiative ;)

I REALLY want to hear your ideas so, if you have a great one and want to share, send it to me with a picture (no more than 500 pixels please!) and I'll pop it up with your name on it!
Send your idea and pic to,

kim.basford@btinternet.com

Winter riding..thank you Mr Gritter man :)

My new cycle hat!

Got out on the bike today for the first time since ..wow..well before Xmas really. If you remember back a long I was hit bad with some nice funky asthma and as soon as I recovered from that the snow and ice came, so we're probably talking nearly 6 weeks!!!

Anyway, checked out the roads on Tuesday as we had to go into town to pick up some upholstery webbing for the sofa talented husband is building (you will see ALL soon!) and figured the roads were nearly ready to go on again with two wheels.

Apart from having to go up the main village road, rather than cut through the housing estate we usually do, and having to walk gingerly up our new ice rink (or lane as we used to call it) the rest of the ride was fine.
The gritters had done their job and the temp had stayed just above freezing last night so there was no sneaky ice patches waiting to get me.

The COLD lonely road home.

It would have been a lovely ride into town had it not been for some IDIOT in a silver Astra complete with *cough*penisextension*cough* spoiler on the back who very nearly wiped both me AND Kim out. He passed so fast and so close that he nearly pulled me into the road.
Kim kept a beady eye out for his car in town but didn't find him.

We seriously have no trouble on the roads. We know a lot of the people using them, at least to raise a hand to, and 99% of people pass us at a sensible speed and give us space, even without the kids with us. But there is always the idiot. As I said to Kim though, you get the idiot factor when you are in a car as well.

Kim waiting for me to take pics, what a trooper :)

Ce la vie.
What you gonna do? Turn for home and never set foot out your house again? Probably more chance of getting killed in a car crash than getting killed on a bike.

Anyway, idiot aside, we got to town in one piece and I set to my mission.

My plan today was to note down prices for fruit and veg in the local shop and the little farmers cabin and compare them with the supermarket prices.
I'm hoping there will be little to no difference as once I get the trailer up together I want to do as much of our shopping in the little town rather than drive all the way to Big town or have to get it delivered.
The cabin especially uses a lot of local produce so is doubly green!

The basket, part of my arsnel for leg powerd shopping!

So after spending a few minutes scribbling down prices like some demented vegetable spotter, we cycled home again.

Dunnydeer Hill Fort, as seen from the Insch/ Auchleven road.

I was really pleased to feel not that unfit considering.
I didn't need to stop, could still talk while cycling up hill and felt good when I came home.
I do need to get fitter I know I've put on weight, even though me and the scales have not been on speaking terms since before Xmas (my jeans declining to do up though said more than any words could). So back to cycling :)

Winter reflections on life and all that jazz.

Well the snow is going.
For the while at least.
In a usual year we have a bit of snow late November/ early December and then a large fall around February time, so it will be interesting to see what happens between now and Spring.

Although to be fair today was almost spring like.
Enough snow has melted to be able to do some work on the veggie garden, and I spent an hour forking over and adding much to the bed that the garlic is going in (late but..well). When the sun came out I actually had to take my fleece off!
Be moaning about heatstroke soon ;)

Anyway, today we took the kids out to the Bennachie Centre on the other side of the mountain.
Now to be honest we have all gone a little stir crazy the last month, what with being snowed in and all, and as the weather had broken and the temp was up we decided to go for it.
The child grill, I mean DOG grill of course..essential bit of kit ;)

Am I the only one who's kids moan and whinge about going for a walk but when you make them they have the best time?

They love this place because of the free visitor centre, a huge open plan modern wooden cabin with lots of tree and animal related information, interactive touchscreens, webcam hides the works.



.



The walk as always was great, and the higher up the mountain we got the more snow was still about!
We stuck to one of the lower trails as it was late in the afternoon by the time we got there but the kids went free running through the woods at the side of the trail, jumping over ditches and logs and generally running off 4 weeks of house arrest





We talked about our car-less plans while out.
Obviously we had driven for this trip, the ice still thick in places, the daylight fading, the kids...well, being kids.
The plan had been to try and live car-less over the winter with a long term view of going completely car-less had we got on ok.
I think on reflection this is an un-realistic plan.
Don't get me wrong, our commitment to cycling and public transport remain, but the factors that rally against us, the isolated location, the lack of affordable public transport, the yucky winter weather (and lack of infrastructure for clearing roads etc) all conspire against winter car-less-ness.

There are also the kids to take into account.
If it was just me and Kim many things would be simpler. For example we have a wedding to go to in the spring. For two adults it would be easy and cheap to bus down south. With the kids though? For one thing it is a horrible HORRIBLE journey (14 hrs, late night wait in Glasgow bus station, no security and lots of drunks. toilet too unspeakable to think of ..and that's is it all goes well!), but the big issue is not our lack of "adventurous spirit" but pure finances. Seriously, it is cheaper for us to hire a car for a WEEK than it is to take 5 people on a bus.
There is something fundamentally wrong with that I think.
This same problem crops up locally as well.
Two train tickets to Aberdeen is do-able, five is beyond our means.

Bottom line is we can't keep the kids cooped up all winter only going from home to school and back again.

Our revised plan is this.
Our commitment to cycling spring through Autumn (and on suitable winter days also) is still strong. There are lots of places available in the locality to visit and we plan to do the lot this year.
The landrover stays. In the depths of winter when snow and ice are on the ground and daylight appears around 9.30 am and goes away just after lunch, we need a life line to the "outside world".
We already spent more time on bikes since we started than in the landrover so we still have credit as it were.
A once a week trip to a nice walk with some chips for dinner on the way home are surely not too much for kids to ask?

So its all good.
Our plans evolve and bend and change as needed.
After all, who wants to be so pure that your kids grow up to be raging consumers and petrol heads because they never got to do anything when they where growing up.
If it was just me and Kim we could hibernate for the winter, watch DVD's listen to the radio, chat, read.
But we have to remember that we share our house with three other people, lively curious, insatiable children who will not rest for winter and are not easily fobbed off with another game of snap.

Roll on spring :)

Not QUITE at the stage of cannibalism, but.....

The weather goes on (and on, and on, and on.....) but in a masochistic way I'm kind of glad.
I'm a big fan of the "no coincidence" rule (there may actually be a rule but I kind of made this up myself.). When I dithered about going vegan I got asthma and was led down that road for health. When we spent years debating about going car-less our car made the decision and blew up. So when we get snowed in (well almost. We make sure someone always stays home in case the snow gets worse so the animals are taken care of!)it gives plenty of time to reflect on what we could do better.

Since the power off weekend we have spent a lot of time thinking about power consumption and how to do without such everyday items as the fridge and freezer. We didn't miss it at all during the weekend and certainly in this weather there is no need for either.
For Xmas my parents brought me the book Root Cellaring which explains the principles of storing food through the winter without the aid of fridge, freezer or having to jar/can/bottle everything.


An important thing I learned from the book was that you DON'T have to have a cellar!! A revelation to me! Although a cellar with correct humidity is an ideal, it shows you that it is perfectly acceptable to make varied storage in your own house and in sheds.

The one thing we have learned these few weeks is that we really should be more prepared. I no longer feel silly for thinking we should have a basic winter larder for emergencies. Even if its just a hundred tins of baked beans and some pasta!

In planning the veggie garden this year I am placing an emphasis of crops that store well, can be preserved (ie jam and pickle) and also be earthed up and left in the ground (like parsnips and swede).I also want to try and have SOMETHING always growing in the garden, so the little hot bed will be planted with early salad in February and be covered and insulated to grow spinach over winter.

Is this not the BEST root cellar EVER!



The biggest worry we have and is feeding the horses.
The snow is too deep and hard for them to dig for grass and so for the last 2 and 1/2weeks they have been fed their entire rations, which means a big bale of hay which would last us up to a month is now being eaten in less than a week!
The main problem we have here is storage. Without a barn we can only keep in 2 bales at a time which means we are always on tender hooks worrying about if we can't get any hay because of weather or even worse, people not having any to sell.
Next year we will get our field cut and keep half of it. IN the past we have no bothered because of the storage issue, but now we plan to build a shelter, even if its just a roof on legs with some tarp, at least we won't have to worry.

Well UK people, hope your getting through the winter OK...and the rest of the world? You either don't have the weather or are used to it right?

Now, excuse me while I test the kids for tenderness ;)

Snow pictures.

Well, we are in the grip of the worst winter weather for 30 years here in the UK. We are pretty much snowed in and the Met office predicts no let up for at least TWO WEEKS!
Luckily we have enough rice, pasta, chickpeas and tinned tomato's to last us a while.
Think of us ;)

The perfect depth to hide small children. Note Alfies ice "Harry Potter" wand lol.




Bennachie in the snow.




Me looking into Ollies Igloo!




Ollie in his Igloo, built with the aid of the turtle shell lid off the old sandpit!




The view from the computer..Brrrrr!




The chickens took a vote and asked to go back to a life in the battery cage!

Winters (s)now fun..(see what I did there?)

I have been reading, with a greener than green envy, bike blogs that praise the virtues of riding in the snow.
Lovely blogs like Girls and Bicycles have wonderful pictures of winterised bikes ready to hit the road what ever the weather.

I wondered for a while if it was just another hang up I would have to get over, another "scary monster" in the road of living without a car, but sadly I really don't think it IS the case.

Most of these hardcore carfree blogs are city or town dwellers not middle-of-nowhere rural like me.
Gritters do our road last, clearing the main commuter routes first or often not getting to us at all. If we are lucky a snow plough will wind a path through the white stuff.
The problem though is not the snow (knobbly tires would sort that out) or even the ice, but the traffic.

UK roads, especially rural roads are very narrow, much narrower than US rural roads.
On a good day cars can pass each other and a car will have to creep past anything bigger. Put the snow plough through though and all you are left with is a single track with nowhere to go.
The traffic travels as fast as it always does and all of a sudden a fairly safe run becomes something akin to jumping out of a plane sans chute shouting "BANZAIIIIII!".

The thing about town and city riding is there is nearly always the option to get out of the way of traffic. You can pull into parking spaces, driveways or even the pavement in an emergency, but on the rural road you don't have this safety net. The roads we have to cycle either have hedges or fencing all the way to the road or (even nicer) steep drops to fields below where the road has been dug into hillsides.

So you can imagine, with roads like this, the added "excitement" of ice and snow and 50% less space means that staying home or cranking up the old Land Rover seem very tempting.

How annoying to be stuck indoors when I have a bike and basket and bike trailer waiting for me in the shed.

Any tips?