Single parent survival camping techniques

And re-enacting camping with devils Children!

So, after five years it was about time I made a little costume for the babe and go to a multperiod event to do some 'group shopping'.

Learn from my mistakes and my successes, it doesn't have to be hard even if you don't drive.

Do................

• Buy a camping trolley!  OMG, this was such a good purchase, the best thing in the world.  My tent, the sleeping bags, airbed and the kitchen equipment all fit into it. Face it, unless you have some strong kids, they will not be able to carry much and I had enough to carry on my back with such the clothes.
  
• Invest in a good quality tent and if possible, go and see it first.  My weekend weather was badly affected by two periods of torrential downpours, we were very dry even though the outside of the tent was absolutely soaked, the seams and all parts of the tent were totally dry.   I went to Decathlon in Surrey Quays and got to walk though a range of different tents, including the newfangled 'air tents'  which IMHO are just a gimmick but you know some people always want the 'new' type of thing. But you know I have never really fussed about putting tents up, it is taking them down which I have always hated and those air tents don't pack themselves! Regardless I settled on a nice two room mid priced tent and had it sent to me.
  
  
•  Thoroughly investigate your route beforehand and check it out on google maps.  One thing I had to budget on for example, is that I could take a bus TO my event, but coming back from it there is no safe space to cross a busy A road, especially not with a young child and a trolley.  Yes, I definitely would have taken the chance were I alone without a trolley, but I am insane, however I will not put my child at risk for the sake of saving some coin.
• Related to the above, make sure you order a black taxi if you have a trolley because the minicab place, despite you telling them specifically what you need, will not care in the slightest and will send a standard care, necessitating you to take everything out of the trolley and fold it down.  
• Brioche, brioche and brioche.  Kids get through brioche like it is going out of lovely French fashion,   so don't waste your time buying whatever terrible rolls they are charging £5 at a time.
• Noodles for lunch, make sure you do not put as much water in them as they say to, that is the very best way to end up with a much of MSG flavoured mess all over the tent.
• Save your money for dinner, the best chips on site are not necessarily the most expensive, if you are at an event, buy from the people catering mostly to eventers and not the people catering to the public, the prices are often cheaper and the quality is better.  Also if you happen to have a particularly cute kid they might knock some money off....(whaaaa???  it is not my fault she is so bonny!).
• I found sticking her wellies into a thick pair of winter stockings made a nice fake period boot, but it totally ruined those stockings, in future I will remember to buy some appropriate sackcloth and do the same thing.  Don't buy kids re-enactment shoes unless you are a)wealthy and b) doing an impression of a wealthy child.  Most of the children I saw were either modifying modern footware or barefooted. 
• Fruit, please take some, it will stave off constipation after all the brioche, ramen and chips and fool you into pretending you are a parent who still cares about health. Face it ladies, you will not be making a spinach and avocado Quinoa salad, so just stop the pretence. Grapes are fine, as are apples, pears and all dried fruit, trail mix and fruit bars.  For petes sake though, avoid soft fruit at all costs!  
• Goes without saying but camp close to the loos and if you have little children with little bums, stick your old potty in the camping trolley, don't be like me and have to sacrifice one of my bowls.....phifft, I had three others.
• Don't forget your LED lanterns it will be very boring and hard to undress.  Yes, I am very, very stupid some times.
• Let the kids take some toys in their backpacks as long as they can carry it.

I hope these bits of advice can help you get through plastic camping with little ones.  Next year I hope to be on site more and in the camp less but it was a particularly wet weekend.

Alors....until next season!!!!

The Future?

I can't wait to get one here.

I am SO jealous of Devon. Link to full story

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Day 7 and the aftermath

Potatoes?  No change there...

Soooo, there you have it, my last meal of non plastic packaged goods.  it was mashed potatoes and some sort of soya thing in onion gravy, plus some rather nice H&B snacks. 

And what have I been up to since?  Have I brought any plastic?

I feel I brought ALL the plastic at the  Asian Supermarket buying up loads of vegetarian fishlike food (tbf to myself, one of them was in a can). I have brought plastic drink bottles and some biscuits but I have also found myself wondering aimlessly around the supermarkets, thinking of that nice snack or dessert and wondering why there is so much plastic packaging.  I go back and forth over it, thinking of how nice it will be to eat that tasty treat.

And I leave without it.

It has been a hard week, anything I buy in plastic comes with a pang of guilt but goodness I know how hard it is not to buy any at all, no lettuce, no kale, no berries, no grapes.  In the toss up between a chips and tinned soup road or a life of salads and sauteed kale, my health trumps the environment because my body cannot afford to take the hit, especially in a world where no one else is making that sacrifice.  But I yearn to live in a way where I don't HAVE to make the choice between kale packaged in plastic or no kale at all.

Think before you buy....always.

N
x

Day 6 - Shopping leftovers and some fruit

So, breakfast and lunch for myself was the last of the bread from the weekend loaves and since I was planning on making a soup with the last of the Squash I brought, I didn't HAVE To buy anything today, but I did fancy some chocolate, fruit and a soft drink so darn it, that is what I brought.

Today's disappointment, unlike the Cordial top from Tesco's which was fully metal, the Sainsbury's Sparkling Sicilian Lemonade had a plastic one.  Mea Culpa, that was upsetting.

Everything else was, of course, as expected.

Tomorrow is my last day.....I have no idea what I am going to do after.  But I am definitely more mindful of the plastic I use and I don't think you can put that Genie back in the bottle.

Days 3-5, shopping for the weekend?

So, I had my first 'big shop' on Friday Morning and went to the large Sainsbury's, came back with this haul..... ---->>

Note the Boursin, yes I finally got some cheese, albeit a soft one. 

First the disappointments,  I spent ages looking through the glass bottles of EVOO looking for one which might be without the plastic pippette.  I know, I was fooling myself but I settled on a shop brand organic bottle for £3.50, the label made it clear that the bottle was glass and the cap was metal, and indeed even the seal at the cap was a metal, I was thrilled until I twisted the cap off and saw the pipette.  

 My second disappointment was a pack of Graze bars,  the Graze brand is one of ethical, healthy snacks and the box for their (cereal bars really) were marked with being in a 'biodegradable box and to please recycle).  So imagine my vexation when I found out that the inner packaging for each 'cereal bar' is pretty much plastic lined paper.  That hurt 😒

Need my sugarfix

Thank the Gods for posh chocolate,  Green & Blacks is just carboard and foil, same with Lindt......don't judge me!!!!!

Frozen stuff is wonderful, both these savouries and sweet are packaged without plastic in cardboard. Along with tinned custard (yep, NOT my favourite either but beggers.....) I had a very traditional pudding for Friday night dinner and the fresh vegetables (parsnip, a winter squash, courgette, carrots, a red pepper and aubergine) made up a nice dinner along with some Linda McC soya thing.


Although I ran out of cordial pretty quickly, I had enough food for the weekend for myself and the Little one, I made two loaves of bread over the weekend and the baked potatoes made a nice Sunday dinner.   I actually had enough squash left to make a soup today (Monday) along with the last loaf of bread to come out of that bag of flour. The shopping was just under £30 but bear in mind that includes the EVOO and Washing powder which of course will last quite a while.

Day 2 - Takeaway, don't judge me......

So NOT healthy

I might not be winning any health awards with this meal but I did NOT cheat.....


Little one was sleeping when I picked her up, cue lots of 'woken early from nap' tears and some guilty mother offers of chips and other treats.

As we have already figured out, treats are pretty much off the menu, but then I remembered 'Krispy Kreme' don't they have paper bags and boxes to use?   First stop the stall but was crushed to realise that the boxes had plastic in them as well as the plastic window section on the paper bags.
LO wanted doughnuts dammit and I was stuck, then I thought, why not just use the paper?  And so I did, I wrapped each KK doughnut in two sheets of the handling paper and placed them carefully in my basket.....paper stayed on in the bag all the way home!  Sorted.

Second stop was my lovely local East End chippy.  I coyly explained that I did not want any plastic or polystyrene trays and he was so cool and made sure our whole order of two Gherkins and two portions of chips were in the boxes made of cardboard.
The gherkins are wrapped in the paper at the top of the chip boxes and although they SAY Fish and Chips on them  there isn't any fish because I don't eat anything with a face!!

You can see the frosting from my Chocolate custard doughnut bleeding a bit through that thin tissue paper.

I am so fat.

Roll on tomorrow......

First day - disappointments and misery

No I didn't blog yesterday,  I was busy on one hand with the usual cyber drama's that occur when women are involved (oooh catty 😉 )  but also, the truth of the matter was it has taken all this time just to process why I was feeling particularly miserable at the start of a project that did not rely on me starving myself.


Let me explain,  my diet projects almost always relied on me trying to find a way to reconcile my personality, my appetite (yeah, I love food, sue me!) and my desire to have a healthy body.  However, despite 30+ years of vegetarianism and being mostly dairy free for one reason or another, my body stubbornly refuses to release fat as if it instinctively knows that we will enter a massive famine at any second.

So as well as being on conventional diets, juice fasts and the like, I have also been more creative and lean into different sides of my being as a way of not only with the aim of possibly losing inches, but just being more natural and healthy full stop, so.....the vintage lass in me has done the Rationing diet,  the Victorian neo-traditionalist has eaten only from Mrs. Beetons and I have even leaned into my spirituality by eating a more Mediterranean diet  and my obsession with Tolkein-ite Elves

Figwit Lives

 by eating what I see as a 'Elf diet'  but nothing really sticks because in the end, who wants to give up Baskin Robbins and Cadbury's Whole Nut forever?

And it is kosher....

 















So this is perhaps the first time I am not doing this for my body, but for the body we ALL live on, the earth and FML, it is HARD AF!  I can't tell you have restrictive this MF is........!!!!!!!!

I just walked into two supermarkets after the school run and left both of them empty handed because I either couldn't buy anything or needed to do more research, for example, is the foil around @presidentbrie is it paper or plasticised?

Note, it doesn't matter as it is not vegetarian.

I will need to go out again later but thought I best update about yesterday, and so....yeah yesterday started off with that major disappointment as I realised that the lovely Illy tin I raved about last post had a plastic lining in the lid and yes, although I technically brought it before the project started I was ever so crushed.  I still have the 'Source' coffee from Planet Organic to consider, which appears to be a heavy paper packaging, but honesty, you never know so I am not getting my hopes up.

So, the day started off badly and that just continued, I met my girlfriend for coffee at Pret a Manger which claims..

Which you wish would extend to what they use, because after requesting I have a coffee to 'sit in'  I was given the usual sort of plasticised paper cup with a plastic lid.  I told her I asked for a coffee to "sit in" and was told they don't do proper cups!!!!!!!  What the blinkety blink??

I made her remove the plastic lid and my friend and I had a nice chat but sad to say she was hardly supportive and told me 'What's the point, you can't change anything?'   Which is upsetting, I mean what is the point of any of us doing anything on principle then? 
She took the cups and chucked them in a bin, the cardboard too,  I don't know why, but that has been making me angry all day, this mindless throwaway culture.  But of course I didn't say anything, because...I am weird enough, because, she wouldn't understand, because I was once like that, because, because, because.......she is right, nothing will change, how many of those pointless plastic lids are thrown in the bin every....single....day?

So we went our separate ways and I went to shop, first at Planet Organic to get that Ghee (£3.50) then to Tesco to get dinner and then to Holland and Barretts where I got a mix of dried fruit and nuts self selection with a paper bag packaging ,and a jar of chocolate spread.  H&B's shopping bags are also paper which is great,  but alas, outside of the jars, tins and bottles, H&B is awash in plastic, from all the food and snack items to ALL the vitamins they sell (FWIW, Solgar brand appears to be glass with a metal lid, but they seal it all in plastic so #pointless)

So in the end I got a rather Anglo Germanic meal planned as it was sausages, mash and Sauerkraut, which I love btw but rarely buy because the jars of Sauerkraut are just so big but this week, I am going to knock myself out with the stuff!!!

Also, to the back of the picture here we can see Linda McCartney sausages, the company has an ethical packaging policy and when you open up that box, all that comes out are six well formed soya sausages.....lovely!

Going back to a cordial after so long of having sparkling flavoured water is hard, I keep thinking of those extra calories but since I don't like drinking plain tap water, I had to get a drink and as we know, tea is still dicey. 

So, I spent £3.50 Planet Organic, £7 Tescos and £7 H&B (because of that ridiculous pick and mix)

£17,50 in total, which is not sustainable as far as I am concerned.

Roll on today's wonders....



Just remembered that Boursin has foil packaging inside the cardboard.........RESULT!!!

Plastic free week prep - The Supermarkets

After two days of wondering around the supermarkets doing plastic free reconnaissance, I am not terrified that we will spend the week eating baked potatoes, bread and jam.

Plastic is EVERYWHERE AND IN EVERYTHING!!!!!!! 

Dairy is totally out, so we will be vegan (as usual) as are all deli items like fresh meat substitutes, hummus and other dips.  Don't be fooled by the 'paper' that dairy butter is wrapped in, it is neither paper nor foil, it is 'mixed materials' and is not currently recycled and that went for every brand I looked at, Organic and imported also.

Pasta is out as it is entirely packaged in plastic.

Rice, mostly off the menu, there are a few brands of boxed rice but you have the ubiquitous plastic window in ALL of the boxes.

Pulses, dried are always plastic bagged (the exception being Marrowfat peas) but there are plenty of tinned pulses.

Some fresh herbs are available but limited in comparison to what is pre-bagged.  Mint, Parsley, Coriander and Dill were the only ones sold in loose bunches held together with a rubber band.
(On a side note, are these rubberbands actually real rubber?  Or elastomer?)

Frozen food is actually quite decent in some cases, with vegetarian sausages, fingers,burgers and pies, quite often they are simply packaged loose in the box or, in the case of pies, will have their foil pie base.  The same goes with a few sweet pies and other desserts.  Cornetto's are, as ever, packaged in paper but most other Ice creams have some plastic packaging.

With fresh desserts, look out for 'Gu' brand as they use little glass ramekins with foil lids.


Sainsbury's

 Yesterday I went up to Sainsbury's which is the largest supermarket within walking distance.  It has a great deal of loose fruit and vegetables which is helpful, including mushrooms (but alas no paper bags for them any more).  Off the menu will definitely be soft fruit i.e. berries and green leafy vegetables, which are always plastic wrapped.

What I needed?

I was looking specifically for coffee and walnut oil (not for cooking use).  I was considering buying my normal coffee and then dealing with NP packaging when I run out, but even instant coffee in glass jars are topped with plastic, the tins have this plastic cap on them, the ground coffee I buy is in bags that are not recyclable.  I was wondering if eventually I needed to look at some coffee beans and grinding them myself.
But  my discouragement at the lack of anything suitable turned to joy when I found Illy, this Italian brand is TOTALLY METAL packaged!!!!  It is sealed like a normal tin but the cap is also metal.  Ground coffee.....no plastic.

At £6.50 though it is three times the price of the normal ground coffee I buy and despite the size of the tin, don't be fooled, it is still only 250g of coffee,  which is only marginally bigger than what you get in a bag.  This is a case of it being a LOT more expensive to buy ethically.

Oils are plentifully available in glass bottles and as I was specifically looking for Walnut oil,  I went to Sainsbury's as the Walnut oil in there is sold in glass, whereas in Tesco it is sold in a plastic bottle. 
Regardless, of the fact that most of the speciality oils are in plastic bottles, there is no way you will escape the scourge that is the 'plastic dripper'  which is in every single oil bottle.

As this oil is for non cooking use, I still have the joy of looking for a (vegetarian) cooking fat without plastic come tomorrow but I saw none at this particular Supermarket.

I spent a while looking at the rice here and as I stated above, most are packaged in plastic, but they have a range of Thai/risotto rices that are in boxes but the boxes have a small plastic window so you can see  the grains.  The one exception being 'Gallo Risotto Pronto'  though this doesn't mean that there is no plastic bag inside it, though the product description makes no mention of one.

Looking for loose tea as teabags are apparently out, Twinings make a loose green tea in a small tin, but at £8.50 a tin. I think they are taking the ****. They have cheaper 'tea caddies' on their website but it seems they only have black tea, Chair or Rooibos tea, which I am not a big fan of.


Tesco's

 This morning was the turn of the smaller Tesco, but the shop I most often frequent as it is closer, I was only looking for some food and as it is the last 'plastic day' I was mindful that there is a lot I won't be able to get from here as it is a smaller shop and fewer loose greengrocery items.

No Gallo boxes here either, all the rice came with plastic. 
No loose tea.

Planet Organic

A place like this should be filled to the brim with ethical packaging eh?    Think again, plastic was everywhere, especially in the household and beauty section, this week will be hard when running out of dishwashing liquid I can tell you!!!

In the 'gluten free' pasta section there were a few boxed noodles and such, however still had the plastic window.

However, I did find what appears to be a paper bagged coffee called 'Source' however at £5.99 it is only marginally cheaper than my tinned Illy coffee.

Also, I might have found a solve for my cooking fat problem, they had glass jars with metal lids of both Coconut oil (available at Sainsbury's too) and of Ghee.  Now, I had not considered ghee before but I much prefer it to coconut oil as I really can't handle the underlying coconut taste it leaves behind everything it is cooked with.

............................

Some other things worrying me

Toilet paper - I did not see any Andrex wrapped in paper yesterday, though I admit not looking today, I just hope I am not close to running out and bear in mind as I usually buy a 9 roll bag of shop brand for £2/£3, it will really smart to have to spent that amount on only two rolls of fancy brand name paper.

Dishwashing liquid -  I just have NO idea of an alternative. At least laundry soap has a box alternative but dishwashing does not.

Other cleaners - I am well and truly buggered out of luck, everything bar none is plastic packaged. Aerosols were never an option in this flat but what with a lot of vinegar in plastic bottles or glass bottles with plastic caps,  soda crystals in plastic bags and disinfectant in plastic bottles, I am unsure what I am going to do and frankly, after doing my time with the soap bar grating, I don't fancy working with the gloop slime again.

Children's snacks -  I have no chance here without spending 7x the amount I currently spend on a 7 packet multipack of kiddie crisps.  This is afterschool succour for my LO and she is quite fond of it.  We will be ok this week I think, but next week might be dicey.

Bread,  I know, I will make my own and yes, flour is always packaged in paper but the yeast WILL be an issue if I run out of the stash I already have (crossing fingers).


Why is there plastic wraps behind my cardboard?

So, you brought the boxed item, be it cereal, sweeties crackers or biscuits and pleased with yourself thinking you have avoided plastic, only to find plastic wrappings galore inside that box.  Truth is, there is a fairly good reason for some of that plastic and that is, avoiding infestation. 

If you are a big social media user like I am, you know that not a season goes by without some 'There's a maggot in my X' viral video.  There was one of one of my favourite chocolates ever.....Ferrero rocher.   But this did not arise because there is an infestation at their plant, this happened because the box was stored somewhere that allowed an infestation to happen and believe me, having seen some truly appalling food hygiene, I can understand that can happen very easily.  Even myself, a couple of years ago my sister and I found mites in our dry goods (flour or sugar, I have forgotten which) and had to empty the whole pantry cupboard out.  Now I don't know which item the mites came in on, but the fact is, they came in and got out of one paper bag into another, the only thing that was safe were things sealed in strong plastic and THAT is why plastic is so ubiquitous (besides being very cheap and lightweight).  Frankly, after that event I went out and brought large Tupperware to store my oats, sugar and flour so these things can be separate and will not allow an infestation to happen to all my goods again, but it is fairly sad that I needed to BUY plastic to avoid this problem, since had I not unknowingly brought an item with mites in it, it would never have happened.  So, checking my rice, sugar, cereals and flour before storing them is a must for me from now on, but it is sad to realise,  even if my shopping is plastic free (or even plastic light) my life is far from it.

Upcoming experiment - Plastic free week

Apropos this article as seen on The Green Party social media, believing that Plastic is literally Satan, I have decided, like the author of the piece, to also try to live a week without buying anything plastic.



However, I can't really support the unnecessary consumerism of not using pre-existing plastic items and replacing them with new items like my toothbrush for example and considering I have just found out through this news item that there is even plastic in my Organic Green Clipper tea, tea bags, my work is going to be hard enough.

Besides, I don't think a pig hair toothbrush would be strictly kosher😅

What's concerning is that all the healthy foods we would normally want to have, pulses, grains etc are bagged in plastic, this is going to be REALLY hard. Goodness knows how I will get my coffee unless I buy it by the cup (non disposable of course) because even instant coffee comes in jars or tins with plastic lids.

My week without plastic starts 10th Jan. 2018.