Green is the Colour!

My family and I are all very passionate about Global Warming and recycling, and the prospect of all the landfill sites becoming full up within the next few years, does not fill one with confidence!
I don't think there was ever a time in my own life, when there was no such thing as recycling or conservation, and I can think of things that go back even earlier than that! I know a retired couple who now live in Dorset, where the husband (now in his seventies) refused to learn to drive in his youth, on the grounds that he, personally did not want to be responsible for contributing to global warming and pollution! When i was a child, we had a Great Aunt and Uncle who lived at the other end of our home town, and every time we went to tea with them, we always used to take along a bagfull of milk tops and tin foil chocolate wrappers, because Auntie Elsie collected them for "Guide Dogs for the Blind". Even as a child, i was intrigued by the fact that they were then melted down to make new ones!
In the early 1970's came the first transmission of the Wombles as a popular children's T.V. programme. You could say that they almost introduced the idea of recycling! As early as then, schools, churches, etc, had Newspaper Collections, so i was well aware then that newspapers were being "pulped up" to make egg trays, etc.
In the present day, and since i first became a Christian, I have become more and more passionate about the idea of recycling and we are working our very hardest as a family, to ensure that we can slow down the effects that pollution is having on the world. My Brother and his wife have two allotments where everything is grown organically, so any chemical fertilisers and pesticides are a "no no". We also have a little vegetable garden at the back of our house, where everything is grown in the same way, and we have a weekly delivery of an organic box of fruit and vegetables.
Separating rubbish also plays an important part in our lives. Living in Norwich, we have a fortnightly rubbish collection, where the ordinary domestic rubbish goes one week, and the recyclables go the next. Our door to door scheme does not take glass, so all our bottles go to the nearby somerfields car park Bottle Bank! It is amazing how little we throw in the bin in the way of ordinary rubbish! Any non recyclable paper goes in the incinerator, and when it has been burnt, the ashes go in the compost bin, eventually to be dug into the garden. Needless to say, we compost all our fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and hair clippings, and we look aghast at the number of people in our vicinity who pay however much it is, per year, to have a brown wheelie bin for their garden rubbish!
Such is my passion for recycling and freeing the city of litter, that in my daily(hour long) walks to and from work, I invariably pick up glass bottles, cans, pizza boxes etc and either bring them home to put in our recycle bins, or i deposit them in the glass, cans, and paper banks that have recently been installed around the city. I wrote to Norwich City council and complimented them on the installation of what they call "bring banks" and suggested they put out more. I got a nice reply back, complimenting me on my passion for recycling, but telling me that it was not on their agenda to put out any more. it also grieved me a lot, to find out that all the recyclable stuff that goes in the street bins, or that the street sweepers pick up, goes to landfill!
Now to the ongoing issue of plastic bags! Working in Boots as I do, I very much support their principal of giving customers the option of not having a bag! I am pleased to see that more and more people are using re usable hessian bags (for sale in most outlets). i have twice written to Boots Head Office and suggested they jump on the Tesco bandwagon and award "green points" on the advantage card, every time a customer refuses a bag, or uses one from home. But I have never heard anything! Friday, March 28th was "Carrier Bag Free Day" in Norwich, where everyone was urged not to take a plastic bag unless it was vital. Inspite of the pouring rain, many people were very supportive of it. There was a choir of "Bag Ladies" outside the Forum, dressed in reusable bags on their heads, singing about their concerns, and free hessian bags were being given out in the same vicinity. i would like to see more campaigns like that, taking place, and it will be very interesting to see if Gordon Brown gets his way in imposing a complete ban on supermarkets giving out free carrier bags!
I hope that many will feel encouraged by these words, as i am sure a lot of you are already doing your bit to make a stand against global warming, to slow down the fillage of landfills and make the world a tidier and safer place.

I'm Dreaming of a White Easter!

As I write this, we are still very much focussed on Easter, and a very unusual Easter it has been too! For a start, this is the earliest Easter has fallen for 95 years, and of course, the weather has been somewhat unusual, compared to last year, when we were all going to church in tee shirts and shorts and worrying about the chocolate melting on all the easter eggs. Instead, we had the opposite extreme, namely our first "white Easter" since 1983.
Andrew and I spent Easter with my immediate family in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where we enjoyed watching Disco, who is mum's black cat, fighting with the snow, and seeing Lucy, my 9 year old Niece, building a snow bunny, and a snow cave, before it all melted. We shared Easter Eggs (non chocolate ones aswell as chocolate ones), and we walked along the local railway cycle route, where we met a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel wearing a Barbie Pink coat to match that which her (we presume it was a girl dog!) mistress was wearing. We had a Sunday off church (this was advised by the family, after I managed to faint in the middle of dinner the previous night!). Due to our work commitments etc, we had had missed the Maundy Thursday re-enactment of the Last Supper and the traditional Good Friday service at our own church, but I, for one, made sure i packed a bible for our mini holiday, so i could remind myself of how Jesus gave his own life for all of us, and having gone through all that totally barbaric torture, he rose again from the dead!
Now we are back in Norwich, and we are both enjoying our last day off, before the reality of work hits us again. When the schools go back, i wonder what the weather will bring? Will it be like Easter 1978, which fell only three days later than this year, and resulted us walking to school for the start of the summer term in deep snow?
I have just used up the test film in the new camera that my lovely husband got me for christmas (yes, I still use film!) and I look forward to seeing the pictures of our White Easter!