Do you ever find yourself drowning in plastic bags? Plastic bags are EVIIIIIL! They don’t biodegrade, they consume valuable resources in their production and when they are’nt dumped in landfill they litter the streets, cling to trees, float around in ponds or take up space in the cupboard under the sink!

Did you know that in the UK, supermarkets give away 17.5 billion bags every year? That’s 290 bags for every person in the UK, EVERY YEAR! No wonder we’re swamped!

L and I have been trying very hard to cut down on the number of plastic bags we use and, as part of our mini campaign to ‘BAG IT’, we are perpetually buying reusable bags!

We’ve got jute bags, hemp bags, cloth bags, Sainsbury’s fold away bags, Tesco’s Bags for Life, you name it, we’ve probably got it!… and yet how often do we find ourselves in the supermarket, about to checkout, totally and utterly Bagless!?

I often have irritating exchanges with sales people when I tell them, as they are reaching for a bag (often 10 times larger than the item it will carry), I don’t need a bag. They usually stop in mid-bagging flow and look at me as if to say “What the? Huh? Why? Are you sure?”, then I have to repeat myself explaining I’m trying to ‘cut down’.

More often than not I get my way but there’s always one who will argue that I do, in fact, need a bag because how else will I carry what I’ve purchased? “Ahem! What are these two, flexible, dangly things attached to my shoulders?”

The other day I came across a bit of a bright spark, this was the conversation:
Me: “I don’t need a bag thanks”
Checkout girl: “Sorry?”
Me a little louder and more forceful: “I don’t NEED a bag thank you – the box has a handle” NB: its important to try and remain calm and polite
Checkout girl:
Me: “NO BAG PLEEEASE”
Checkout girl: “ok I’ll just tie a bag around the handle”
Me: I sigh, internalise my abusive comment and walk out of the shop with a plastic bag tied around the handle of my box!

And finally, just to drive the point home home, I wanted to tell you about my trip to Boots yesterday:

Before I reached the checkout, I conceded that I’d have to have a plastic bag because yet again I’d forgotten my cloth one. So as the lady starts to bag, I offer my credit card and realise she’s reaching for another bag!!!!! WHAT!!!?

I raise my hand in a STOP! DON’T DO IT! motion and half shout “I don’t NEED another bag”
“Its ok” she says, “they aren’t very good”
“That’s alright” I say, “I’ll carry them under my arm” (they were photo albums)

“No, they really aren’t very good bags, I’ll just….”
And before I could scream “BAGGIN HELL, you STUPID old BAG!” she’d whipped another bag on!

DOUBLE BAGGING! Oh the CRIME! Does anyone else feel this way or is it just the environmentalist in me?

We’ve just returned from Dublin where we had a short break before I’m officially a poor student (only 15 more days to go by the way!).

On landing at Dublin airport, we overheard two small boys talking excitedly:
“Are we in Ireland yet?” asked one
“No, we’re getting a car in Dublin then driving to Ireland” replied the other! Ah bless their little cotton socks!

So Ireland isn’t hugely different from England except of course for the Irish accent, the higher incidence of ginger haired people, and the quite conservative Catholic outlook on life.
We stayed with some friends who very kindly put up with our intrusion and I have to say ‘intrusion’ because, until this weekend, we hadn’t realised quite how tidy and orderly they were.

Their cleanliness went far beyond the realms of just good housekeeping… there wasn’t a speck of dust in sight, not a thing out of place, not a single sign of habitation! It was like one of those posh shops which make you feel uncomfortable for touching the clothes they’re trying to sell you because they’re too neatly folded and stacked. In fact, if we hadn’t known any better, we might have thought we’d walked into a show home when we arrived.

Whilst we were very grateful for the accommodation we certainly felt like hideous lumps of messy chaos in such clinical orderliness. The worst part was using the kitchen. The pressure of making breakfast or helping to prepare dinner was extremely stressful.

We were terrified of making a splash or a spill, or defiling the pure black work top with food of any sort. Basically any type of cooking related activity was almost as nerve wracking as disarming an unexploded mine. My heart skipped a beat, and I broke out in a cold sweat if the used t-bag I was carrying to the bin, dripped onto the large, cream floor tiles. L (as my other half will now be known) reckoned it was sterile enough to conduct open heart surgery – I think I’d have to agree.

Crumbs were wiped up (with a pristine cloth) before they had a chance to roll off your piece of toast, bounce from counter to the floor and shimmy into a gap between the fridge and the cupboard where the likes of old onion peel or a dried lentil might hide in a normal kitchen! It would be far easier to eat out at night or just not eat at all in order to keep the kitchen clean and the stress levels down.

But despite this, we were fed, the bed was comfortable, we had clean, fresh towels, nice company and there were no noisy youths shouting on the street during the night (like we have at home). We even converted the bedroom into our own little haven of clutter and mess!

Over the week, we only did a couple of the typically touristy things like visit Neolithic Tombs, the Guinness Brewery, and Temple Bar. We’d been sauntering around Temple Bar for sometime before I said to L ‘so where’s this bar?’ thinking we were going to a famous Irish pub. Durrrrh! – incase you don’t know Temple bar is just a trendy part of Dublin!

We managed two mammoth walks (Ok! mammoth for me). One was a lovely 10km hike along the coastal path between two small towns and the other was a fantastic 9km hike along the hills overlooking a grand lake (Glendalough). We had a very steep climb to the top but it was worth the view and I couldn’t help bursting into a rendition of ‘The Sound of Music’ when we reached the top.

The scenery was reminiscent of the Yorkshire Dales crossed with the Lake District – quite beautiful when it wasn’t shrouded in black rain clouds! I was of course very enthusiastic about photographing the herds of deer and the wild goats whilst L trudged behind holding the lenses and pointing out potential compositions.

All in all it was a good trip and I’m sure there’s much more to explore… perhaps on our return!

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman – is it just me or is there something ridiculous about Gillette’s new 5-blade Razor!!? Apparently it shaves 30% closer than the last Mach 3, which in my eyes does legs very well! I mean, THIRTY percent closer!? I just don’t understand! My legs are as smooth as a baby’s bum with the Mach 3 and if the shave got any closer I’d be walking around with exposed muscle.

Marketing is an extraordinary thing – take for instance babies nappies! Every so often you get a new type of diaper that helps your child walk better or crawl better while sucking it dry. They pull up and down, you can go swimming in them, mop the floor effciently… what happened to good ol’ fashioned fold-and-fix-with-a pin diapers? Anyway, if parents aren’t careful, by process of osmosis, they will have a prune crawling around their living room instead of a child.

Interestingly the slogan is always ‘The Best EVER’ – so the last ‘best’ wasn’t ‘best’ at all?? I suppose this is the sort of thing I’ll have to deal with when I’m a fully fledged designer working for a big corporation. I’ll be employed to come up with witty ways of selling a product that nobody really needs because the last one worked perfectly well. I suspect by the time I graduate, Gillette will be marketing the MACH 10-Blade with the slogan ‘Close to the Bone’.

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Just two weeks ago I handed in my resignation after making the decision to return to University as a Mature Student! Now I’m counting down the days before my life changes and I start out on a different path, to a different career and a whole new me!

For those of you who’ve ever had to decide whether to give up the security and comfort of full time employment or face the ‘unknown’ as a poor, beans-on-toast-eating student, then I tip my hat to you. It certainly isn’t easy! BUT I’VE DONE IT – ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Now, I’m sure there are much bigger, more difficult decisions to be made by other people, in other places with far worse consequences e.g. Blair and Bush sendin’ us to war but sorry, this is about ME … me and my decisions, me and my worries, me and my journey…. This is all starting to sound rather egotistical!