Inspiration from the Dame.

I am not the fastest reader in the world so it was with some relief that, this morning, I finished my latest book.  I have been reading Ellen MacArthurs 'Full Circle'  on and off for the last five or six weeks.   The first part of the book deals with her round the world racing achievements before transitioning to a more environmental focus. All the way through the 'Ellen MacArthur Trust' is a constant passion for her. The book finishes strongly on the matters of sustainability and the 'Ellen MacArthur Foundation'.   I have to say, as much as I admire Ellens achievements I do find her writing a little hard work, but still worth the read. She appears to believe strongly in her work and, having finished the book and feeling inspired, I decided to look and see if there was anything I could do to improve my contribution sustainable living.    I already compost and recycle as much as possible, collect rainwater in water butts for watering plants, washing cars etc.  I recently started mulching the fallen leaves from the trees that border my garden and during the summer we had a log burner fitted to help reduce our fuel bills.  Our walls are cavity insulated and many of our lamps are energy saving.. we still have some work to do here.  

As for vehicles, well I am a petrol head but even here I have a tried to do the decent thing.. I refuse to have a Prius as apart from being dull they arn't all that when it comes to economy.  I have an Alfa Romeo Giulietta diesel which returns over 50mpg and is still fun to drive.  My other car, which my son drives, is a 46 year old Triumph Herald, which returns over 30mpg.  Not great but then again it only does short journeys and even better than recycling has got to be keep using... hasn't it?

Most of my sustainability decisions are based around outputs, what to do with the waste and reducing consumption but as Ellen argues, the answer lies not in doing less and less until we die of boredom as in the take, make and dispose linear model, but by doing more or different things in the circular model.   So instead of going out the front door to work on Ciao Bella I slipped out the back, put my wellies on and dug a vegetable plot.   Hopefully next year I will benefit from home grown spuds, onions, Garlic, peas, carrots, runner beans and what ever else I can coax to grow out back.  So instead of just using my compost to spread around the borders it will go towards next years groceries... waste goes to produce.  There is nothing new here, my Dad used to compost, grow veg and made or repair all kinds of things from what ever he could find, we've just stopped doing it and many people, including myself don't have the skills our parents had.

Ethically renewed, I did venture out to Ciao Bella. progress is slow at the moment. I drilled a drain hole through the outboard well as someone had put some plates on for the outboard clamps but hadn't left anywhere for the water to drain out. I need to put some kind of feed through pipe on though as it is not a solid piece of grp and the water now drains into the bilge :~(

 During the week, in line with sustainability , I did managed to pick up two second hand anchors, a 20kg danforth and a 10kg plough,  along with some chain , for the grand total of £30.