Our visitors think we're aliens......................

We've visitors at the moment - which is really great. I think they are finding our behaviour a bit on the extreme side - you forget don't you how much you do to recycle food/things/etc when you've opted for this type of life. Now when I was told that they put the scraps of food into the bin when tidying up - I guess I might have thought first and acted later - um - not me - there I was diving straight into the bin to retrieve the scraps and popped them into the hen bin. I think they think I'm from another planet......................

'You don't keep the old food do you?' - yeah we feed it to the hens or we re-use it

'You don't keep envelopes surely? What do you do with them?' - we actually reuse them

'You don't keep paper do you.............?' - again we, do - handy for alot of things

after a few days

'I guess you keep the tins?' - yup we use them to scoop out washing powder etc and for plant pots

'I guess you keep this food?' - ah you're getting the hang of this now!!

after a few more days

'What do you want me to do with this......................?'

(Hooray - success!!!!)

You just forget that these days you don't just pop into town at the drop of a hat - when asked if you'll drive out to the shops in town (again) when you're just home - it uses too much petrol (£3.85 a trip)- can't it wait until tomorrow when we will go into town anyway. We combine journeys and with petrol at um about £1.28/litre we need to, we just can't afford it. If its not essential - we don't do it.

You forget that you only tend to shop on nights your daughter has something on in town - or the night you are teaching - after 8-9pm at night to get the reduced bread/milk/bits that you don't get if you go during the day. If things don't have a reduced label they don't often get into this house.

You forget that people find it odd that the cupboards are stacked full to bursting the freezer can hardly shut because you have a stockpiled all the grub of the universe into the house. When told we've run out of milk and we NEED to go to the shops - you can happily say - um no - there's milk in the freezer and dried in the cupboard if we run out - a dash out for a pint of milk here is an expensive business when you add on the petrol......................

You take the funny looks about eggshells in the oven - (to be dried out when you're cooking something) - well the hens are better off with the nutrients recycled to them aren't they. After they are baked we crush them up in a pestle and mortar and put it back into their food - they break down alot easier if they are baked when the ovens on.

We all know it makes alot of sense to boil up a whole pot/bag of pasta/rice etc if you're making some and popping the remaing stuff into tubs for the freezer - its not really that you can't figure out quantities and you're feeding an army - its just more sensible and helps out when you need a quick dinner sometime.

And the fact that we've enough loo roll to probably wrap around the world several times. It was on offer alot when we were stocking up!

You don't find the phrase 'we can't afford to do that' embarrassing - these days I say it with utter pride.

We're lucky we live in an amazing place, we've a decent sized house and we're a pretty happy family - we've more than enough for our needs - maybe folk only see the 'comfort' of it all and think we're well off - which makes me giggle!!! We aren't particularily well off - we're just a bit frugal about money to enjoy our lives to the full. Or we might actually we aliens..............................either way I don't mind much.

My alien moustache, very colourful.............!