on living below the line - day 2

So, another day underneath the breadline draws to a close.


Today's menu consisted of... porridge and coffee for breakfast, broth, toast, an apple and two rich tea biscuits for lunch, an emergency half portion of rice (2p) when I got home from work, pasta and tomato sauce for tea... and... when me and my co-below-the-liners sat down and looked at the total for the day, we decided... we could afford... PANCAKES!  This has transformed my evening.  Today's total was 94p!


What I have mainly learnt today is that I still suffer from The Hunger Gap.  When I was very small, I used to occupy the time between waking up and having breakfast by generally being a grumpy, badly behaved brat.  Ma and Pa decided the answer was that I was hungry, and so used to leave two rich tea biscuits and a glass of juice by my bed, with strict instructions it was for the morning.  And that solved it.  Apparently, judging by today's performance, this is still an affliction I have to endure...


I have also started to look at waste in a different way.  I used much more of the onion than I usually do in cooking.  My lentil soup stuck, but that got scraped off and mixed into the soup anyway!  No pan, plate, spoon or tupperware goes to the wash without having every last morsel scraped or licked off; you realise that if you don't eat what's there, there will be nothing else.


Tomorrow, I am going to endeavour to be more JOYFUL.


Oh, and the Below The Line Headache has hit.

on living below the line - day 1!

If you follow me on twitter, are friends with me on facebook, or have spent any time with me in the past few weeks, you will know that I am taking part in the international challenge to Live Below The Line - the line being the poverty line, and that line being set at £1 a day.

The idea seems to be twofold - to raise awareness of what 1.4billion people in our world experience every day, but we in our 24hr supermarket culture are completely cushioned from - and secondly, to raise sponsorship money (my page is here if you'd like to sponsor me and I'm raising money for Christian Aid) for a whole range of charities who are all aiming to reduce this extreme poverty.

So, Monday the 7th of May was Day 1.  I woke up at a friend's in London (it was planned, I'm not a dirty stop out) and had porridge, but because it was pretty early and I'm not a morning eater, I couldn't really eat much.  As my friend Bex said later "you'll eat it when you're hungry!".  I skipped the tea/coffee allowance, and filled a bottle of water for the journey.  I was pretty hungry when I got home, and had a bowl of broth my housemate had made, two slices of toast, and two rich tea biscuits.  Wandering round town later, my stomach was grumbling by 3pm!  I had to let it grumble though, and just stocked up on water, until dinner when we had huge baked potatoes and lots of beans.  I costed this lot up, and together with the two further rich teas, it came to 98p.

I knew it was going to be hard as soon as I started to think about it - but I didn't know it would be this hard.  I know how important food is to me; it's a comfort, a nice brew warms, cooking de-stresses me, snacking distracts me.  I didn't realise how if you take all those things away though I'm pretty stuck!

I realised that on the one hand we're at a disadvantage doing this because, firstly we are not used to eating so little, and secondly we are constantly surrounded by temptation - the full cupboard, the pounds in my purse, the people offering me food.  On the other hand, if I did decide I just couldn't do it, I could give up and eat a full meal; if I took it too far, and fainted through lack of food, there's plenty of medical help available to me. 

So, that's just my musings from day 1!  I'll try and continue through the week!

on documentaries which blow me away

As you may have noticed, I have not blogged for ages. I have ideas but I never get 'roundtoit'!

However, this week I stumbled across something on the iplayer whilst shnaffling reheated roast dinner that I have not stopped thinking about and so want to share!

Samira Hashi is a 21-year old model in London. She was born in 1990 in Mogadishu, Somalia, and ten days after she was born her mum was forced to flee the city with five small girls as war broke out. They escaped to a refugee camp and lived there for two years, before moving to London.

The documentary showed Samira going back to Mogadishu, via Ethiopia to see her dad and Dolo Ado refugee camp.

I was completely blown away by the whole programme. The first few minutes showed Samira in London, packing and talking about her trip, and out with friends, and wide eyed and excited, and I was concerned it was going to be a bit 'fluffy', but as soon as she got to Africa, it was not in the least bit fluffy.

The first thing that struck me was the culture difference between her and her dad. Having seen a bit of African culture and noticed how different it is from my own (albeit it West African so I know it's vastly different), the clash between two people who were of the same nature, but very different nurture, was fascinating. Her dad was very what we may describe as stand-off-ish, he neither asked nor answered many questions, and he admitted he'd left her family because he wanted boys to continue the family name.

Samira's honesty with which she cried at the horrific conditions in the refugee camps was heartbreaking. Seeing her on the phone to her mum after one day of being there just sobbing 'I want to come home, it's too horrible' did not come across as at all self indulgent as it may seem reading it on the page. He reactions to the whole trip reminded me lots of Aled (from the Chris Moyles Show) when he visited Uganda. I loved the way he just had no idea what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised when he could tweet from Uganda... and was surprised when people seemed content in their lives, and shocked when he saw well-known multinational companies. I think it can be very easy for Africa-hardened westerners to monopolise the media and the information coming out of Africa; and so the language used to describe it will be the language of aid work. And it will assume prior knowledge. And it will ignore the things that we can identify with. And so it will miss engaging new people. What I think Samira and Aled had in common, is that they had no, or very little, expereince or knowledge of what it would actually be like. There was no frame of reference to start hanging their experience on; every sight, every sound, every interaction, was a totally new experience. Therefore, they both seemed to reference it back to UK experience, which the average viewer/listener can identify with. Somehow, this hit home so much more than a veteran journalist, or even Lenny Henry reporting for Comic Relief.

The other thing I was hugely impressed with was her bravery. There was discussion about the UNHCR (who she travelled with) being the top target but still she went with them, as she arrived in Mogadishu fighting was breaking out, she had to wear a helmet and a bullet proof vest and drive through town in a tank, you heard gunfire on film as she was talking. I don't think many people in the public eye would put themselves in such danger; I'm sure she could have taken a much more back seat.

So basically, watch, and learn!

As an aside; all these thoughts were really put into persepctive a day or so later when I saw the trend on twitter of the journalist who shot to infamy last month when she basically declared she was stunningly beautiful and it was a disadvantage to her. The latest article she had written took a pop at a TV academic, saying she was not attractive enough and had not taken enough time on her appearance to be infront of the cameras. I couldn't help comparing the two, and wondering who was actually behaving like the 21 year old fashion model.

clothes update...

This blog has become my accountability tool for my clothes buying!

So thus, I feel I should confess some purchases...

1) lovely pair of work shoes, to replace those which BROKE. They are Carvela, and so should last... and thus ethical, right?? (don't mention they were made in China...)

2) tights - within the rules... not good for the world, I'm afraid, in anyway, except for for my pocket, as they were considerably reduced.

3) PANTS. In the English (and not North-West England) sense of the word. Again, within the rules, and I have need of non-VPL pants. Girls, you'll understand. Maybe boys too, I don't know. Do boys worry about VPL?

Also, my lovely friend Lindsay sent me a belated birthday present of bamboo socks (ethical because it grows quicker...and they're beautifully soft) and a cute black linen tunic dress, from Nomad and organic and fairtrade and all that shenangans. Thanks Linds :)

on procrastination

I am the world's worst procrastinator, and the world's most disorganised resident. The other day, I spent the majority of the morning tidying my desk, and it's still covered in 10 piles of different 'stuff', set in opposite directions to try and provide some kind of a code for when I next tackle it. The shelves above my desk are still scattered with sheaths of paper and old diaries and CDs and I haven't even begun to tackle them.

The following day, I was mostly procrastinating, firstly cos of having to fill in 8 weeks of timesheets, which is in itself a result of procrastination, and then this afternoon because of a having to do a structural job (which I ALWAYS put off because I am basically scared of them).

So therefore, I know all about 'tau day' (oppositions of 'pi') and the fact that Kate Bush did a song called pi, and what tau (2x pi, 6.28) would sound like if it were made into music, and I've watched a funny vid of a man falling over the boundary trying to catch a ball at a cricket match, and a video of folkface (off of Chris Moyles) at Glastonbury, and Tina Daheley (off of Chris Moyles) 'scaling' the five storey Radio1 building in a cherry picker, and the fact that Alistair cook got out for 5 and then they went off for rain in the cricket.

In a bid to CONQUER this terrible habit, I have printed off an excel sheet marked out in half hourly boxes with Monday to Friday across the top to fill in with what I have been doing each half hour, in the hope that the guilt will hit me as I go to fill in each half hour and discover that I have to make stuff up for 'searching for Kate Bush tracks about mathematical symbols'.

So far, it has not worked, because since I decided to do it, I have spent the afternoon firstly making the table, drafts 1, 2, and3, and then putting off the structures job, by printing things out for jobs I need to do later in the week, washing up tea mugs, and attempting to descale the kettle.

I could go on and discuss my untidyness (as anyone who as ever lived with me for any time, however short, will be able to testify to) but that is just a bit too confessional. Anyway, I have decided that my gravestone should read 'lovely girl, but more than a trifle disorganised'.

on fruit eating

I have an ethical dilemma of how to eat a kiwi fruit. Well, it's not ethical at all, but never mind.

If one peels a kiwi fruit, with one's fingers, a little bit of skin at a time, it takes about five times as long to peel as it does to eat. Thus the effort is felt to have been wasted as the fruit is gone in two bites.

However, if one cuts the skin off with a knife, inevitably one loses a sizable fraction of the fruit. So you get less goodness but quicker.

clothes update

OK, so I'm rubbish at updating.

Anyway, it's time for an update on my Year Without Buying Clothes (almost)(yes there's a confession coming up).

I think I'm doing well! It was tricky when the seasons started to change and the weather started getting warmer, and the shops had lots of lovely summer floaty clothes in, as it's always nice ushering in the spring with new togs! However, I went to my mum and dad's a couple of times and discovered all last year's floaty clothes so I've restocked. And the housemate and I have swapped and shared a few bits (although I have to be careful at encouraging her to buy things I think I'd like to wear!).

I also found it a bit tricky when I was in a foul mood; that's the time I'd ordinarily buy some new clothes to cheer me up. Luckily, I was placated by one of the lads from work who, fed up of my moaning, bought me a starbucks cheesecake. Bless.

I'm also planning using different coloured ribbons in some shoes that are currently fastened with a black ribbon - instant new shoes!

I did say that if I needed new things, I would get them from charity shops. But only if I NEEDED them. With the warmer weather I discovered I could do with a new lighter weight cardi - so hit Goodramgate in York today, otherwise known as charity shop street. I think about every other shop is a charity shop! I think I have got a bit snobby about these places; a bit nervous about getting things from them. But I had my eyes opened today; I think when I am buying clothes again I will definitely spend more time here. I had to be really self-restrained; I could easily have bought a few bits, particularly a gorgeous Reiss short sleeved light tan sweater dress for NINE POUNDS. I shall be wanging on about that particular sacrifice for ages, so deal with it. NINE POUNDS. But, I did find a very cute Laura Ashley black cardi with a cute vintage frill and buttons on the cuffs for a fiver.

In other news, we have started composting and taking the proceeds to friends' who have a wormery!