So it’s time for October’s resolution already! Where is this year going? We’ve been wondering what to do about our car use. In an ideal world we would get rid of the car and travel by foot, bike and public transport.
In short, we would BE MORE GRETA
It’s not an ideal world and we are not getting rid of our car. There are three main reasons for this; my health, the cost and time taken to use public transport and travelling to see our family in Hertfordshire.
When Colin was working I would get the bus and walk part of the way to work. Yes, I could probably manage that sometimes now but we’ve worked out the cost and it just doesn’t add up. The bus and the walk cost £4 return and takes an hour each way (not great if I start at 8am); the car costs less than £2 return and takes 10 minutes each way. Colin often combines the trip taking me in with other errands such as shopping at Cribbs which reduces the cost.
So we’ve talked about it and decided from 1 October onwards we will
Log our mileage and make a quarterly offset donation accordingly
We will donate to an environmental charity each quarter. That could be a project such as tree planting or it could be a to a campaigning group such as Friends of the Earth. I’ll have to do some research on this.
I will update the blog with our results and hopefully we’ll be using the car a little less. We haven’t been tracking mileage before but we’ve had the car since 28 February 2017 and our average monthly mileage is 1040. I guess that makes our first target 1000.
I am a woman of a certain age (not 60 yet!) who lives in Bristol. I’ve lived almost my whole life in Bristol, with a short sojourn in Cornwall in my teens. I am trying to lead my life in an ethical way in all areas and hope to explore what this means.
I have four passions and several interests so I hope I will have plenty to write about. My passions are my family, knitting, cricket and St Peter’s Hospice. My other interests are volunteering, the environment, reading, TV, films & theatre, fundraising, chronic fatigue, mental health and eating. My non-interests are animals, housework, football, rugby and cooking.
I come from a family of four – two sisters and a brother. Our parents dies a few years ago. I am married to my soulmate Colin, an amazing man who tolerates my funny ways and supports me in everything I do. We have three children and two wonderful granddaughters. I am so proud of my family – we must have done something right as they are all good people. I have two sons-in-law who I love like my own and together we all make up a family unit where everyone loves and respects everyone else.
I am a total hypochondriac but do have some genuine problems, some of which I may talk about at a later date. At the moment I am overweight and have just started to eat more healthily, which I think is the answer to weight loss. We were on holiday last week and enjoyed puddings and cakes every day.
I work part-time and Colin is recently retired. This means that we have been able to spend much more time together doing some of the things we’ve been meaning to do – some planned and some spontaneous. I love this period of my life – I just wish I had the energy to match the time and the opportunities available!
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