The Inspiration
It was pretty much two years ago, sitting in a pub close to Uffington in Oxfordshire, that we made the decision that we would go all-out for a lifestyle that is as simple, and which has a minimal an impact on the environment and the land on which we live, as we could.
Of course, these decisions never come ‘out of the blue’, and this one had been sneaking up on us for some time, largely driven by our Pagan values and John Lane’s excellent book ‘Timeless Simplicity’, in which he points out the futility of pursuing a lifestyle which assumes ever-increasing economic growth, fueled by ever-increasing consumption, driven by ever-increasing advertising.
How It Began
A few ‘first steps’ were easy to make. We dumped our television and 50+ channel Sky subscription, to the consternation of the Sky ‘operative’ who still calls us periodically to see if we want to return to the fold! That meant a whole lot less advertising ‘input’. It also meant the start of a running battle with TVLA, who don’t believe that anyone can not have a television. It seems you either have a licence or you’re a dodger. Still ongoing with that one.
Secondly, I took the decision to try to drive everywhere at a maximum of 50 mph, in the interests of decreased fuel consumption and emissions.
The Garden
One of the big plus points for us when we moved into our present home was the 20 metre garden, and we never intended that it should be for flowers alone! Since then, and up until now,we’ve had two Springs and Summers of ‘growing our own’ in the knowledge that we will probably never be able to meet all our own food requirements, but an equal determination to give it a go!
We’ve had two fairly unsuccessful seasons of tomatoes, a runner bean hoard which attracted enough wasps to put our bee colony at risk, and some pumpkins which provided a useful meal for the local mice. So we’re learning as we go, with what works, and what doesn’t. We’ve become fairly accomplished growers of salad and minimalist carrots though!
The Bees
And then there are the bees. A fairly early decision was to keep bees, so the winter of 2008-09 saw me attending the local Bee Keeping Association’s basic knowledge course, and our first colony of bees arriving in May of last year. We had set ourselves the goal of merely getting the colony through their first Summer with totally ignorant keepers, so we were delighted when they gifted us with roughly 20 pounds of honey! This year we plan to go to two hives if we can separate off a colony from our existing hive. And chicken keeping is also on the horizon……
A Long Road To Less Consumption
Much of this, we recognise, is taking small steps along a very long road, but we’ve started, and we’re determined to take this as far as we reasonably can! Underpinning it is the knowledge that we really have no choice…that one day soon we won’t be able to drive as far (or as fast) as we would wish to. That ever increasing consumption really isn’t an option. And that we had better learn and adapt if we want to be able to live our lives the way we want to – and we had better change the way we want to live our lives if we’re not going to be disappointed.
