.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

The above photo shows the reason why I am finding it difficult to concentrate this morning - clouds. Yeaaaah, right. I'm finally losing it!

But seriously, no, I am transfixed by what's outside, which is another Reason We Moved. It makes sense... if you work from home and you're lucky enough to be able to live anywhere you like because you run an internet-based business, why not live somewhere with cool views (and hence never get any work done)? Indeed.

So anyway, this morning's massive 3D art display features rain and clouds, which seem to change every few minutes, and make me gasp in wonderment at the amazingness of nature. Excuse me if I sound like a complete townie, but I'm just not used to seeing things from so high up, alright?!

Another subject of my many obsessions has been recycling. I know me and C have tried to recycle as much as we can over the past few years, but it wasn't until we moved that I realised HOW important it was to me. We don't have our compost bins yet (they've been ordered) and weirdly, the thought of throwing away food makes me feel really sick, so we've created our own temporary system, including for recycling. The other day I realised we have no less than 8 different categories for recycling! Seriously. In case anyone is remotely interested, they are:

Compost
Glass
Plastic
Extra plastic (! see below !)
Paper
Card
Tin/cans/foil
Non-recycleable things for Freecycling

It's hard work at the moment because we've had so many things to Freecycle (you don't want to know!) and recycle, having to categorise things and put them in little piles, taking them to the recycling centre too because we aren't in synch with the local collections yet, etc etc. Am sure it will be easier when we get our new bins!

I moan about the extra work, but I am grateful to live here near the fantastic Ekko Centre, which recycles all the kinds of plastic that cannot normally be recycled (the snag is you have to de-label and wash and dry everything, which is annoying, but hey). The man who works there looked SO HAPPY the other day when me and Ce took him a big box of old mouse plastic bags for his plastic factory, fully easing my feelings of guilt about having bought them in the first place.

[That's another thing, you see. Living in plastic bag-free HB means you're meant to use a cloth bag or the 'bag ladies' will be after you, so moving here with 800+ bags that we weren't going to use because we closed down our business made me feel like The Enemy already. So, thank God for Dave at Ekko.]

Obviously, not wanting the bag ladies to get us, we've been using cloth bags as much as we can, when we remember anyway. Teemed nicely with my new Bid To Shop More Locally - i.e. go to 6 shops for basic groceries, rather than 1 - life is definitely more complicated at the moment. Am sure I'll get used to it all soon!

Do I sound obsessed? Probably. Whatever.

At least I haven't forgotten it's Friday! Hooray! Here's a flash game for your afternoon.