. . . that I decided to knock the Unit on the head. Last month I sold just two things, so took home £40.50. It cost me £30 in fuel to go and pack it all away in the car and bring it home. Rent was £150 a month, so I will draw a line under that and move on. I have decided to list furniture items on Marketplace and see if I can make a bit of much-needed room. I have also decided to call out my book-dealer friend and see what he will give me for surplus books, some of them Keith's militaria ones, some collectible ones virtually brand new and scarcely touched as they were gifts in the last few years of his life. I will give some a try on Ebay and Marketplace first.
I did a bit of shopping on the way there. I stopped at Chris Thomas's and got two giant cucumbers £1.20 each, a big cauliflower £1.50 (big for me anyway, for the same price I could have had one twice the size) and 3 big easy peelers for £1. The photos of good produce (OK some imported as not many Mango or Pineapple farms round here) are a positive in the current world where it looks like farms world-wide are going to be destroyed/covered over with solar or wind "farms" and data centres and meat is going to be grown in the lab . . .
Then on to Tesco for Trail Mix, peanuts, toothpaste and mixed wild and LG rice.
I am feeling very worried and depressed by - and trying not to read - posts about Data Centres and how they seem to be going up regardless of any environmental worries/considerations (to put it mildly). All of a sudden the reason for the bun-fight over wrecking the countryside from Land's End to John O'Groats with gigantic windfarms and pylons is all making sense as clearly this will be to feed the maws of the Data Centres. Us lesser mortals have no say in the matter as it is clearly a done deal long before we ever got a sniff about it, let alone having our noses rubbed in it. I don't really want to live in a world like this, and nor does anyone else I should think. But money - American money and power that is - speaks.
I think I will go for a long walk tomorrow to try and clear my head of negativity.
When we were coming back up the M5/M6 last week, we noticed how many fields seem to be covered in solar panels, very depressing. The fruit and veg shop looks wonderful, although we have a very good one here in Belper, who give us an OAP discount on a Tuesday. Just watching Help, We Bought A Village, can't decide whether they're mad or not. Managed to get some YS Steak Mince today, but the price of meat generally seems to have shot up. I'm buying the smallest quantities of better quality and adding more veggies to it. Doorbell has just rung (19.35pm), Battersea Dogs Home, I said No very politely. Xx
ReplyDeleteI feel it is being done because the new world order deems that farms and farmers are no longer necessary as they can now "make" food . . . hence solar "farms" on good farmland. If the farmer doesn't want to sell, then compulsory purchase does the trick.
DeleteI think anyone who buys a village has to be gaga, personally! Bad enough doing up one property.
I am doing the same as you, best quality I can afford, and add veg!
Putting it simply...Dale Vince has given the figures...UK power supplies have 10% "surplus" just in case.....the 10% that data centres would consume....
ReplyDeleteYes, a pity to lose the unit, but there comes a time when you have to pull the plug...
Figures can always be massaged . . .
DeleteI am going to try and sell as much of my "stuff" as I can on line, as I need rid, and need room.
I really liked the way Spain and Portugal handled solar when we were there. The parking lots had them built over top in a great many areas. Thus giving the vehicles some shade and not taking up precious farm land.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Well, they are clearly not trying to get rid of their farmers - yet . . . A sensible plan from them.
DeleteIf everyone at the antique place has such poor sales it's a wonder they survive. Hope you can sell your stock elsewhere.
ReplyDeletePlanning application in for covering 1,500 acres of arable land with solar panels not far from here. There are lots of objections!
I think sales are slow everywhere - unless you are selling jewellery. That always seems to sell.
ReplyDeleteI hope to goodness that planning application is turned down, but judging by the way things are going, such plans seem to be set in lead and I assume brown paper bags changing hands . . .
That's a shame about the unit, though you don't know these things unless you try. I suspect you might do well off Marketplace...it seems to the place to go! I know that's where I was looking this past summer when I was looking for a new(old!) desk. I can't let myself think of these data centers...not in a head-in-the-sand way, but in a not-good-for-my-mental-health way. I just read in our local newspaper yesterday of a petition about to go around collecting signatures against any data centers in our region. I'm pretty confident in our local politicians to do 'the will of the populace', it's the greedy toad of a provincial premier that I don't trust any further than I could throw him. Given his record of back-room deals -- all of them to the detriment of the environment -- it's a well-place mistrust. Needless to say, like yourself, I'm spending a lot of time walking outdoors (and working in the garden) right now! ~melanie
ReplyDeleteWell, I hope the few bits of furniture I have sell. The Windsor chair I've just put on Marketplace was one that Keith bought as we were selling one at that Fair, and it was just in the next building and he didn't want competition! I have been stuck with it ever since :) It's not a bad one as the legs aren't worn down to the bulbous turning like so many are, from being dragged across kitchen floors.
DeleteOh dear, it is happening everywhere. . . Like you I think I must not dwell on it.
The world is a scary and quite negative place at the moment, I think it's important to filter through what you watch and respond to on social media and try to look for the good things that are happening. There are quite a lot, but sadly they get drowned out by negativity. I'm still selling stuff on Facebook marketplace ... well it's better than having to pack it away and make room for it in a tiny bungalow. :-)
ReplyDeleteYes you're right Sue. Trying to look for good things is far more positive.
DeleteI could get rid of everything in the house if I practically gave it away. The hard part is trying to just get back most of what we paid for things and the special £50 militaria books we bought Keith aren't going to the charity shop, that's for certain.
Sometimes I really wish we had moved to France or Spain when we had the chance. This is a small island, when the land is given over to things like data centres it’s a sad day.
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing all the fruit and vegetables in your photo, a reminder of one of the good things in life.
Alison in Devon x
Yes, far too small an island to cover it in data centres, solar panels and windfarms just so Google can have a field day.
DeleteThat fresh fruit and veg did cheer me up, though I just bought what I needed. I'm not a great one for squashes, which was a pity as they looked so colourful.
You are not alone in your frustration. The high desert floor here is COVERED with solar 'farms', panels for as far as the eye can see. From a distance with the sun reflecting off the surface of the panels, the desert floor looks like an ocean. It is absolutely soul destroying to stand up on the hill and look down on this environmental disaster in the making. I no longer watch the 'news', I catch up here and there in sound bites then move on. I've decided that if a situation is something over which I have zero control, it does me no good to get worked up about it anymore. Is that a cop out? Most likely, but I was making myself ill with stress.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the beautiful autumn produce, it seems unusual for Britain, I never see it displayed [in pics] this way usually.
ReplyDeleteYour plan to work from home and sell! sell! esp books etc.seems a good idea, w/ price of fuel and hard work entailed in selling in person. You can also list books on Amazon tho there might be a big fee? You'd reach a worldwide customer base. I know you like to make a profit but it's wise sometimes to just move items on and gone, get some cash in hand instead... [my two cents]
Hope you and family are doing ok. Tam? Rosie?
love
lizzy
I don't watch the news either - only when there is/has been "weather". That sounds absolutely ghastly to cover the desert in solar panels like that. I will have to move my eyes elsewhere when I see AI anything and the things which distress me.
ReplyDeleteThere is a fundamental conflict between the rush to cover the country in solar panels, and the rush to build data centres.
ReplyDeleteData centres require a totally dependable 24/7/365 electricity supply, something that wind and solar are totally incapable of delivering. For this reason, some US businesses are actually buying nuclear power stations to get that dependable power.
But, of course, our supremely intelligent government is constitutionally incapable of recognising the conflict - like the Red Queen in Alice In Wonderland they believe multiple conflicting things at the same time!!!?
Always good to get some fresh air when our heads are in a negative space, helps me to appreciate my surroundings. I wish we got the orange pumpkins here, we mostly get the green and gray crown ones, have a nice weekend.
ReplyDelete