living lightly in ireland

There’s no Present like Time

I have been blessed with good organisational skills, or cursed depending on your viewpoint. Being organised in Ireland is like being loud in Japan, it’s just not culturally appropriate. People in Ireland don’t seem to like things to be well organised, it takes the fun out of it – ‘Sure it’s only a bit of fun it doesn’t really matter if it starts on time / ends on time / achieves any of the agreed objectives’.

Of course this view is never actually expressed, it’s just something that Irish people seem to ‘know’, which is why I think I’m genetically German or Japanese. Now those people know how to organise! Interesting that they both ended up on the wrong side of World Wars, wonder what that means for me ……

Review of 2017

Before I set off with my new year’s resolutions for 2018 it’s worth taking stock of how last year’s experiments went. I’ve always tried to live sustainably but it wasn’t until 2017 that I had the time and energy to invest in it. At first i was overwhelmed by the conflicting information out there and at just how much we’d need to change, but like everything in life, when done bit by bit it gets easier and easier and before you know it you’ve reached your target. That’s not to say that we are now totally sustainable, there are still many things that I’d love to change in our house but I’m part of a family not a dictatorship and so I continue to nudge people towards better choices and practice gratitude for the positive changes that we have made. Here are some of the planet positive changes that we’ve tested in 2017 and how they fared.

Our Christmas 2017

Well I had, and am continuing to have, a wonderful Christmas. I’ve purposely done less preparing this year and it’s paid off in terms of lots of downtime to slob around the house in my PJ’s eating lots of delicious cheese and chocolate and binge-watching Christmas TV and movies. I am generally a very active person with a million things to do, so I’m genuinely impressed at my ability this year to spend hour upon hour doing absolutely nothing. I can’t even be bothered to think of some New Year’s resolutions!

Christmas Wrap Eco-Style

This Christmas there is a new enemy in town; swaths of single-use wrapping paper. Why? Sure isn’t it recyclable? If you’ve read my post ‘Why Recycling isn’t the Answer‘, you’ll understand that recycling typically leaves us with an energy / resources deficit and isn’t a silver bullet to our waste problem. Plus a lot of wrapping paper on the market now isn’t even recyclable!

Support Christmas Gift Guide (2017)

Obviously the most sustainable gift would be one that doesn’t create any waste at all, like your time. Strangely this gift doesn’t always go down well with people, particularly in my family.

Next in line might be the gift of experience. I’ve tried experience gifts over the years and they’ve been met with mixed feelings. Some have been tremendously well received while others have dwindled on the shelf of the unloved.

The fall back option for many is the voucher but with virtually all companies adopting un-recyclable voucher cards I now avoid them like the plague.

Thankfully the days of obligatory gift giving are behind me and my family donate to charity in lieu of gifts for everyone but the kids. If you’re still in the market for physical gifts then you can still make your purchase more planet positive by buying it from a sustainable business. Here are some suggestions;