An article I’ve just written for the Generous website

Spend less and be more Generous

In 1647, the English Parliament passed a law that made Christmas illegal. Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas festivities, considering feasting and revelry on a ‘holy day’ immoral. Anybody caught celebrating Christmas was arrested. The ban was only lifted when the Puritans lost power in 1660.

The reason for mentioning this rather random historical fact is that I tend to feel rather like Cromwell’s long lost distant descendant at this time of year. Not because I aim to be, please understand. More because the ideas I choose to promote sometimes paint me as a bit of a Scrooge.

In actual fact, I’m totally in favour of ‘feasting and revelry’ and am a huge fan of the season in general. In addition to the standard merriment, food and partying, it’s a fantastic opportunity to show hospitality towards those neighbours or work colleagues that we tend to ignore. Also for using the occasion to strengthen family ties.

But when it comes to presents under the tree, ‘giving generously’ doesn’t mean we ought to re-mortgage our homes. If anything, it might be more generous to give a less expensive gift, but give it a bit more thought.

For example, a voucher that says, ‘I’ll babysit for you once a month this coming year’. Or what about buying books, DVDs, CDs, games etc. second-hand off eBay or Amazon… or from a local charity shop? And any money that we then save – by getting less expensive presents – could be directed towards those who really need it. Those who won’t be enjoying all of the festivities that we will; who wouldn’t notice if their country made Christmas illegal again. (As Bob Geldof would have us sing: ‘Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?’)

So, what about spending half as much as we usually would on family members this year, and, with the money saved, buy a goat (or similar) for those in need… and tell the family on Christmas Day? Or did you know that for £60 you can twin your toilet with one built in Burundi, for those who aren’t used to such luxuries (toilettwinning.org)?

If you’re feeling very ambitious and have time on our hands, then to make a present is a generous yet cheap idea: knit a scarf, bake a cake, paint a picture, compose a song, write a poem. Go on, I will if you will! It’s not illegal, we won’t get arrested, and, if we do something generous with the money we save by not splashing out, we’ll be making a difference to those in need, which can’t be bad.

I am quite chuffed to be a part of the latest podcast on the Greenbelt website… all about Christmas and being ‘Generous’ etc.
You can listen to it here

It seems but a lifetime away, but before the memory fades altogether, being extinguished by thoughts of xmas and suchlike, just wanted to put in a couple of links:

here is what the GB website came up with this year. Interesting, as they’d asked for a biog, I’d sent them one… then they chose to ignore it and use one they’d had from 2005! Thus, it mentions that I work on the mags I used to work on, that are now extinct.
They had one back in 2005, when I was doing more literary stuff there, rather than eco (I’ve done ’something’ there every year since then I think, for my sins).

My this year’s talk has also been recorded, which is a 1st. Either they just got carried away and decided to record all talks this year… or it was my fair trade banana jokes that forced them to make my talk available to be inflicted on the masses. Hmmmm..
It’s available for buying here, should anyone be interested.

They weren’t really ‘fair trade banana’ jokes, as such things don’t exist, as far as I am aware. They were just ‘regular’ banana jokes, that I shamelessly used, and asked people to assume the bananas in question were, indeed, fairly traded… so that my jokes would bear some relevance on my talk.

There was also some toilet humour (that linked in with the concept of ’sponsoring a toilet’ in a developing country)…have a strong suspicion that next year I’ll be asked, nay, begged, to be on main stage, delivering my FT banana/loo jokes to vast crowds of laughing (or groaning) greenbelters.
Oh yes.

had a fab fab time!

was sooooooooooooo much better just doing one thing (Generous talk thingy) rather than lots of stuff. meant i actually felt like a normal greenbelter and could do lots of stuff!

did a generous talk/discussion/quiz and stuff with claire… lasted hour and 1/2 and we had over 150 people turn up! i like to tell myself they were attracted to my name in the programme, but it’s slightly more likely that they were attracted to the promise of free 2009 GB tickets to be won! it all went v well – totally enjoyed myself and it’s always a pleasure working with claire as she is fab!

went to and enjoyed:

a meditation thingy about happiness and chocolate (in ’soul space’)
Steve tomkins – speed christianity
rev gerald ambulance (aka steve tomkins)
fair trade panel
john archer
last orders
phillip yancy (secret of the universe)
simon morden (literature venue)
suzanne elvidge (lit venue)
Fightstar (charlie from busted’s new band… a bit heavy for me!)

a bit miffed that i didn’t get to:

jude simpson (sorry jude!)
woebegone brothers (band from long ago)
simon mayo (i’m sorry i haven’t a poo)
cider and carols (in organic beer tent)
several ’social justice/ethical living’ talks/workshops

but generally i just loved hanging out with the lush gang from our church and also meeting up with old friends: Claire Skinner, Jo Dafforn and Penny Culliford especially, and some Subwayers also (christian writers email list). and in their defense, my friends aren’t THAT old, in case you were thinking i was starting on some new OAP outreach programme or something.

finally, i v v much enjoyed:

that fried potato stuff from that french food stall (had this twice!)
paella (also cooked in those massive wok thingys, as per fried potato)
crepe with spinach, cheese, garlic and cream… yes, cream
hot chocolate with cream and brandy

didn’t manage to get a pie… must get one next year… bring it on!

see my piccies here.
(click on 1st one to enlarge, then again to move onto next piccie)

read about her life here

she was far more than just ‘the body shop lady’.

she spoke at greenbelt a couple of times (well, at least once)… i have read a few of her books -v inspirational.

mark interviewed her for ‘benchmark’ magazine a year or 2 ago… an amazing woman.

Last year i organised a panel for greenbelt… it was masses of work in the wks before GB and i vowed i’d steer clear of panels in the future.

This year i am on one (see post below) and now i’ve just found out that i’m chairing one too!

It’s one of the few things on the GB website that i’d seen and thought… that’s just my bag… i’ll be going to that, not knowing that i would be chairing it! It’s a panel on ethical consumerism, and you can find it here

if you’re at GB and free on Sat at 10am, insurance lounge… pop along… !!

it is an interesting fact (well, ish) that one of the posts on this blog that has received the most comments, i think, is one on raw potatoes. Well, it wasn’t on that topic, it was really on growing yr own veg, but in it i made a chance comment about not eating raw potatoes, and the whole world went wild!

well, not the whole world, obviously, but a few peeps who enjoy eating raw potato and aren’t afraid to say so.

the post is here

if you’re interested, or considering taking up raw potatoes as a healthy snack… lots of advice on the topic (in ‘comments’, not from me!)

funny how we can’t predict what posts will be picked up when people google certain things, and things us bloggers THINK will be interested are sometimes not, like this post, perhaps!

this summer we’re off around europe. yes, i have written articles on holidaying in the UK… but at least we’re not flying… our car runs on LPG, and we’re camping most nights.

i’m most looking forward to Venice and leaning tower of Pisa (and all the food, espec italian!)
mark wants to see a glacier in Switzerland, which i’m looking into.
most of my spare time is currently spent pouring over travel books, websites and maps, trying to suss out what to do, what we can afford, what we ‘need’ to eat (particularly important to Fraser and I!) and suchlike… and i’m lovin every minute!

when mark and i were off for a romantic wnkd in london earlier this year, i mentioned it on this blog and asked if anyone knew of good (cheap) places to stay. No one really had any good advice, apart from Jon , who said that when he last went to London he stayed with his aunt. He did, however, fail to give me the postal address of said aunt.

So, have any of you got any aunts (with spare rooms for 4!) in Belguim, France, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Austria or Lichtenstein?!!

or any advice re driving/camping/eating/taking kids around europe?

this is a link to a ‘Times’ eco-blog, where the writer isn’t buying new
clothes for a whole year, just 2nd hand ones.

i am all for this… great stuff.

thing is, it’s funny to see things like this presented as totally wild
and crazy… a real adventure… how will she ever cope (!?!) when it’s
how i live! i don’t remember the last time i bought a new item of
clothing for myself (perhaps some fairly traded underwear last year, i
think… but even that will last me quite a while!)

and i’m sure the same goes for many others out there!

still, i’m pleased that she is raising awareness re this issue and going
for it, etc.

yes, i am on page 3… no, not of the Sun (if you knew me at all you’d know i was far from qualifying for this anyway)

page 3 of ‘a view of Chard’ – our town’s free paper. My good friend Sarah and I are pictured running our monthly Fair Trade stall… oh how smashing we look!

it’s good to have advertising that you’ve not had to work hard to get… hurrah for the passing journalist (she even bought some choccie bars!)

At the news I was on page 3, hubbie smiled and started humming ‘Rock of Ages’ (the hymn). I smiled too (just to join in) but couldn’t see the connection. On inquiring, it turns out he was humming that tune, but with the words: Get your tits out for the lads (not that you can hum words, but you know what i mean).

i wonder if it’s this sort of breakdown in communication that results in marriage breakup.

i have no piccie to go with this post, you’ll be relieved to know.

This was read out at church last Sunday morning, by the people organising the ’samaritan’s purse’ project.
It made me cry:

A prayer for our children

Our Lord, Creator and Sustainer of all our lives,
We come before you today to pray for the children…
Who sneak biscuits before tea-time,
Who erase holes in math’s workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those who stare at photographs from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t run down the street in a new pair of trainers,
Who were born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
Who never go to the pantomime,
Who live their lives in an X-rated world.

We pray for children, who bring us sticky kisses, and a fistful of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry, and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those who never get pudding,
Who have no comfort blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can’t find any bread to steal,
Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s refrigerator,
And whose monsters are very, very real.

We pray for children who spend all their pocket money before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the supermarket
and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,

Who hide dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the bath,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don’t like to be kissed outside school,
Who squirm in church and yell down the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at, and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those, whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything their hands can find,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried, and for those who must,
For children we do not allow to be born, and for those who are born, but not allowed to truly live,
For those we never give up on, and for those who won’t have a second chance,
For those we smother, and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
We pray for all those children whom Jesus loves, and especially for those who haven’t heard.

All these prayers we offer in the name of Him who came as a little child, and became poor for our sakes,
Our Lord, Jesus Christ,

Amen.

Just in case my last post led you to believe that my other 1/2 is some sort of pink haired white-chested layabout (well, he does have a white chest)… here is a pic to show you how utterly fanciable he is… taken at GB, when he was modelling his new fairly traded t-shirt for me and friends (also it was only £10 which was 1/2 price as it is old stock!)… and you fort i married him for his brains…!

(which are also v attractive, espec when i am in need of info that’s not stored in my brain… which is a whole lotta stuff!)

yes, it’s true

the piccie of me (avec some other personages) in the generous area, as per here, i have now found on page 3 of the flickr greenbelt 2006 album… there are 20 pics per page… there are 2461 piccies altogether!!

this is when you put them in order of ‘most interesting’.

i’m not sure this piccie is v interesting, when all said n done (no offence Drew/Rachel) but who am i to judge the minds of the greenbelt online piccie viewers… !!?
(perhaps some of them have been smoking that ‘fried pot’; see below couple of posts for details!)

as Drew has kindly pointed out (in comment on last post)… more ‘generous at GB’ piccies can be viewed here.

Some are taken by Drew (who does the generous website) and his other 1/2, as far as i can see.

From these pics, i can see that i was actually in David’s talk (from Divine chocolate) rather than Paul’s (from traidcraft)… there is also a pic of me doing my talk on simple living (having just asked for a show of hands re who is wearing yesterday’s underpants) (not really). And also me interviewing janey lee grace (i am wearing same clothes in each of these last 2 pics, as my talk followed the interview… i changed ALL my clothing, every day… honest guv!

this rather gives the impression that i hung out in the gen area constantly, which i didn’t… Jerry and Sue Barr were the real stars when it came to manning the zone… hurrah for them!

It has been gently pointed out to me that my post 2 days ago mentioned me eating ‘fried pot’… i’m sure you know i meant the vegetable version, but just to confirm, in case there was any doubt… the only hemp i have handled recently is in the form of the bag and wallet i bought at GB!

piccie above is my kids lovingly consuming choc crepes… yum yum! (click on it to view it bigger – it really is amusing!)

thinking back to my ‘GB highlights’ post a couple of days back, i think my v fave thing about GB has to be the atmosphere… walking past the bubble stall… seeing that foam swirt from the machine and any nearby kids (and several adults) go totally crazy! Walking back to the tent on my own after the last Last Orders, knowing it’s the v last evening of the festival… taking it all in, smelling the food, hearing various snippets of music and laughter… nothing like it!

a friend (Graham) found this piccie of the generous area, on GB website somewhere… i’d love to say i’m the babe with ponytail and blue cardie… but that would be a lie.

i’m the one with grey vest-top and plaits, sitting between my kids, looking like i’m listening intently to Paul from Traidcraft (i think) when in fact i’m probably wondering:

if the mic is too loud
if the mic is too quiet
if he’s going to finish on time
if he’s going to need me to do the ‘roving mic’ at the end, for a q/a session
if i can take another TC pack of ginger biccies (that he brought with him) even tho i’ve already had one
what we’re going to do for lunch
when is hubbie going to turn up and take kids away

and so on!

(paul’s talk was actually v good tho, btw)

if you click on the pic you will see it bigger-er than wot it currently is, like.