Carry a Christmas Shopping Bag

Last week was a bit of a milestone for plastic bags as the Welsh environment minister announced her intention to make it law in Wales for retailers to charge customers between 5p-15p (maybe 5p for useless bags and 15p for really smart ones?) for every plastic bag they use. She gets my vote - even though I'm not eligible to vote in Wales. Reading Lucy Siegel's column in the Observer yesterday I detected that she has moved on to greater issues and was a bit dismissive about the importance of refusing plastic bags in a saving the planet sort of way. It would be a shame if now that 'ordinary folk' have taken the idea to heart it has loses some of its momentum - I hope I misread between the lines. She did however remind us that each bag takes 1000 years to bio-degrade so we should re-use the ones we have over and over again. I'm with her on that and I have no doubt that if its raining and I've just bought some presents I will want the waterproof properties of plastic - so I'll be carrying the best of the under-sink stash from back in the day with me when I shop this Christmas instead of saying yes to any new ones.
Six weeks to go!
love & peace
Sally
xxx

New venture for Autumn.

I have neglected the blog for a very good reason - I've been writing a book - well not so much writing more 'putting together'. Three of us have formed a small publishing company called SeaSaw Books - because we live by the sea and this is what we saw. Our first book arrived back from the printers on Friday and we launched it last weekend at the local Seafood & Wine Festival. A whopping success it was too!
It is called the Little Hastings Fish Cook Book and it features more than fifty recipe contributions from family, friends, fishmongers and chefs with the focus being on the fish our local fleet brings ashore each day. They are not permitted to land any cod until March 2010 because of the EU quota system. It allows them to catch a certain amount of cod each year and because it is quite plentiful around Hastings they have already caught theirs! Now they have to throw back all the cod they catch - dead. How crazy and disrespectful is that?
Our idea was to encourage people to buy the less usual choices such as Gurnard, Huss, Squid and Coley as well as Sole, Plaice and even Lobster - which are all caught in these waters. We have had such fun reading and testing recipes and my husband Stewart has been doing the illustrations on the beach. Debi Angel our world famous designer has put all of this together to make a perfect little cook book for a fiver - Can't say fairer than that guv! Our website is up and soon there will be a Paypal checkout where you can get your copy - a perfect stocking filler. Oh I am SO proud of this! And dear friends ...on the inside back page I sneaked in a little message to ask people not to use plastic bags.

Happy Autumn
love & peace
Sally xx

SEAGULLS LOVE RUBBISH

I love nature and wild creatures but its so hard to love seagulls when you live by the sea. Especially on a Tuesday.
Tuesday is rubbish collection day and people put bags out on the pavement when they go out
to work. Seagulls know this. As soon as one bag is spotted the call goes out "Come on down guys and let's see what's on the menu!" They circle, they swoop, they strut about screeching while one of them attacks the plastic bag - it only takes a well-aimed peck or two and the contents are spilled all over the street. There are no secrets anymore - we know how many plastic bags they throw away each week at Nº6 and how many cans of strong lager the chap in the upstairs flat doesn't bother to separate out for recycling. We know who throws out their bills unopened and so many other things we didn't want to know about our neighbours.
By lunchtime the seagulls will have devoured anything they can eat and the wind will have picked up the empty plastic bags and blown them into the trees - the tin cans roll about noisily on the street until crushed by a passing car. The lorry comes along eventually and the heroic 'binmen' jump out with brooms and sweep up what's left and the seagulls move away to another street where the bins are collected on a different day. And so it goes.

THE FESTIVAL & BEACH SEASON

Followers of this blog will know by now that I simply cannot resist a long weekend in a tent in a field at a festival so I've been to Glastonbury and it was ....lovely. The family were with me and we all carried our bags, used sunscreen and wore wellies. If only everyday life was just a little more like Glastonbury where strangers smile and hold out a helping hand when you need help jumping over a puddle. The Love the Farm - Leave No Trace slogan is having an impact and there is far less mess than there used to be. Perhaps now that we recycle at home we are all more aware of the work involved
in collecting and sorting through litter. And when you've paid good money to live alongside 150,000 other music fans in a field you quickly realize the sense in keeping your space tidy.
I wish everyone on the beach would leave no trace. Instead they bring bottles and cans of beer that are lined up for pebble target practice, spare nappies that are thrown aside and polystyrene containers of fish and chips are abandoned to the gulls.

Perhaps our council should start a Love the Beach - Leave No Trace campaign.

love & peace
xxx
Sally

S U M M E R

I love the sunshine, it makes the flowers grow. While we've been stuck inside waiting for
warmer weather I have been hard at work making a huge new batch of vintage floral bags.
The colours and patterns are scrumptious and I'll be loading them all up onto my website tomorrow. They are very limited edition - sometimes just enough old fabric for one big bag
especially when the pattern repeats are huge I can't bear to cut into them so the bag sizes
are adjusted accordingly.
Take a peep at the Specials on my website in the next day or so and you'll also get a glimpse of my garden which I have to say is looking ravishing!
love & peace
Sally

CONRAN SHOP LOOKING C-A-B FAB

I've been super-busy making banners for The Conran Shop to use in their Summer Promotion called HOLIDAY AT HOME. It was the best fun job ever involving everything I love about vintage fabric patterns, printing and stitching.
And so rewarding to see them surrounded by great design.
I can't stop now and will be making banners to order from the website - so if you have a message that needs to be writ large like .......MARRY ME or DANCE TILL YOU DROP then email me sally@carry-a-bag.com and let's get this party started.
love & peace
xxx
Sally
via the website

Bags, Bottles and Bin Liners

In my last post I made a rash statement about trying to live plastic-free and I have to say that until I actually tried it I'd have thought it was do-able without too many adjustments. Dream on.
The next day I got up and into the shower reached for the shampoo and wondered what the alternative would be...I used to buy a solid shampoo bar from Cosmetics to Go but I think they've gone (I'll check that). Out of the shower into the bathroom where I reached for my toothbrush ... perhaps I could get one with a wooden handle next time? and the tube of toothpaste (I will buy metal not plastic next time). Picked up my comb (change to metal or wood?) and then moisturiser, foundation, mascara, lipstick ...oh dear and then there's the hairdryer. Dressed and downstairs in the kitchen I took the milk out of the fridge..............

I think you get the idea and it certainly would not be a good idea to throw this lot out and replace them before they have been used up or worn out, so I'm changing my commitment to something more manageable. I will look for alternative non-plastic versions of these everyday containers and products and definitely re-use my plastic then ultimately recycle it. And whenever I find a replacement that is less plastic and more natural I will pass the good news on.
In the meantime I feel better for 'fessing up to my failures.

love & peace
Sally
xxx