Just Humans Being...

Taken From Here Happy Solstice folks! We're off to our Transition social gathering tonight & seeing friends we haven't seen for a while... It's going be great! See you later. Kay & Sime xx

We may not have taken part in the last No Impact Week, but we continue to live as simply as we can. Now there are only 3 of us in the house, our rubbish & recycling has gone down & we only put it out once a fortnight. The water is heated with oil & is on much less now - 45 minutes twice daily, which gives us more than enough hot water. We haven't put the oil heating on yet & hope to get through this Winter without it! We have our open fire, still haven't got around to buying a wood burner & have thought now that maybe we won't bother here - we'll see. We're using eco logs on the fire, which we have bartered for in return for some cleaning & use hot water bottles & the kitties to keep us warm if we want to settle in the dining room for the evening. This Winter we hope to really get full use of our freezer & stock it up with plenty of home made food. We still buy from  The Granary , our local wholefood wholesaler, so rarely set foot

Last night, we spent Earth Hour with members of our local transition group. These are the folks who are making good things happen in our community, who care about others as much as themselves & we are very lucky to be a part of it all... Around Sara & Dave's Bonfire at  Cotna It was a chilly night, so great to have the warmth of the fire. We shared a delicious candlelit feast & finished off with Margaret's yummy cake! Which she put put candles in for the birthday girl! Thank you M xx Dave's fire was brilliant! Jane & Richard - with a groaning table of food behind... Sheila (who wasn't really being sacrificed, she was just cold!) & Dave From the left: Margaret, Wendy, Ella, Patrick, Sara & Jane Ella, Patrick, Sara, Tracy, Jane, Richard, Sheila & Dave We had a splendid evening, great food, lovely people in a beautiful place... And power free too! Sime was the photographer so not leaving him out - here's one of him at the Eden C

Today is all about giving back - things that we do or can do to help others, so we were thinking about what we do & were struggling until I read  Karin's Blog . Karin has written about what stops her from doing good things, but all along - she actually is helping others! We cared for my Nan for the last 2 years of her life, she came to live with us when her sheltered housing closed down. Sime & I both felt that she & my Grandad were always there for us when we needed them & thought it was the least we could do for her. It was hard work, as she had vascular dementia (amongst other ailments), but we are so glad we did. During her time with us, we joined a local  Transition Group , we couldn't devote much time, but enjoyed going along to the monthly meetings. It's been over a year since Nan died & since then we have been able to give to our community so much more. Our group has about 7 main members & we try to come up with ways of bringing our neighbo