Snow in the city

It is so much easier to move about in the city in snowy weather.  Especially for me as I live two miles from the Victoria Line - all underground so as long as the drivers can get in it runs, and I work just over the road from the station at the other end.

I was brought up in a hamlet at the bottom of a steep hill.  One snowy day the taxi taking my mother into town to collect us all from schools closing due to the weather only took her as having reached her he wanted to get out of the village himself!

My father was very proud of his town and country tyres that meant he could get up hills on the few occasions it snowed, and up muddy slopes - much more frequently encountered in West Cornwall.

I wish I was able to feed the birds, but there are so many cats using my garden.  My neighbour once carefully put up a feeder where cats couldn't climb up to it, and found her cat bringing in birds - she was climbing up the other side of the tree to above the feeder and then leaping down!

fig whisky

I got some tidying done today, but, as I suspected, not very much got rid of.

I have started some fig whisky using a recipe from the December issue of Country Living, though missing out the orange rind.

I love country liquors.  I picked some lovely large sloes this year, but didn't have any gin.  By the time I remembered to get some I realised I should have left the lid off the container to give the sloes a chance to dry out, as some had gone mouldy and I dared not risk the rest.

The Country Living recipe says ready in a month, but I usually leave for 3.

Clutter busting

Tomorrow there is a tube strike in London.  Rather than risk cycling along the tow path in the dark or frost I am having the day off and hope to do some tidying.  I hope that I will find stuff to throw or recycle in my efforts to clear some of the clutter so living in my home will be easier, I will be happy having visitors without notice, that stuff I don't need but others do will find a new home.
I have been trying this for years and it doesn't feel I have got very far.  It doesn't help that the number of my books creeps, and sometimes jumps, upwards and upwards. 
I haven't got round to putting stuff on Freegle yet, but I have responded to wants.  On Friday someone wanted a sledge for her 3 young children for when the snow came.  I have had a sledge in the basement that came with me when I moved 14 years ago.  I hesitated, but the nearest usable slope is 3 miles away, my friends who would go sledging don't live locally, so I took a deep breath and responded.
I have two main problems.  One is all the stuff for the puppet show I have never yet produced.  I am not yet ready to admit I never will, so all the material and bits to make puppets are kept.
The second is all the stuff that is not rubbish enough for the bin, but too rubbishy for the charity shop or Freegle, especially it is not something that would be easily replaced if I did want it in the future.  I can sort through masses of stuff but get rid of very little.
But I will keep trying......

Why I have started this blog

I was brought up in a small village in Cornwall and moved to London for work.  Although I appreciate some aspects of London living very much, I miss the country.  I have a small vegetable patch, make elderflower champagne, slow gin, pickles, occasionally bread, etc.  I do crafts.  I like walking and cycling. I am interested in gardening for wildlife, particularly for insects (too many cats to want to encourage birds). I am trying to be green.  If we are to have a sustainable future we need to make cities become sustainable, healthy, interconnected communities.  The carbon footprint of individual city dwellers is lower than those of country dwellers.  Average US city dwellers' carbon footprint is 14% smaller than the average for country and city dwellers combined.  New Yorkers produce just 30%  of the emissions of the average US resident. (New Scientist 6 November 2010)
I hope this blog will encourage me to do things that are on my to-do list; that it will connect me with others doing the same things with similar ideas, so we can encourage each other and help each other.