Ch...Ch...Ch...Ch...CHANGES

I had a dream about Bowie last night.

I've been having incredibly vivid dreams in the last 2 weeks. Last night I was at a party in a Gothic hotel owned by big Dave himself, where you were allowed to roller skate in the halls, and my old school friend was gluing cheese biscuits to a door.

Now, it felt tenuous, but I wondered if my strange and disturbed nights are stress related. I thought I would start with, of course, Google:

Please don't let me be pregnant. Please, please, please. WHY DID I GOOGLE IT!?

That's one theory according to a couple of the hokey listicles I found, but stress, along with illness, depression, the taking of certain drugs, and menopause can all apparently have the same effect.

Now, before I panic, I am going to assume that over pregnancy (and hopefully the others as well), my dreams are more likely linked to stress, if there is any link at all. You see, it's all change in camp St. George. 

As of the 14th November, I'll be leaving old London town and moving to Cambridge. 

Sorry if you were expecting something more grand, like I'm packing up my worldly possessions to go and live in Patagonia or something. But remember my post about starting small? Baby steps? Figuring out what I want to do? (No? Pffft. Go on, have a read).

Well this is a step. And actually it feels quite big as I'll also be moving in with my partner as well, and last time I did that it was the beginning of the end of a relationship and left me a little fragile. Also, as some of you will sympathise, leaving London is weird and hard. It tries to hold onto you, and you have to get a crowbar and prise yourself away from it's bright lights and promises. 

And even though you complain about it regularly, the smug sense of being a 'Londoner' will threaten to keep you here indefinitely and no amount of mocking from those outside the M25, laughing at your rent prices, will convince you otherwise.

I was one of these people, but in the last year London has started to feel less and less like my place.

Go on, get all Samuel Johnson on me, I know you want to.

I'm not tired of life, I'm tired of paying extortionate amounts of cash to live in a shoebox or with strangers with irksome habits. I'm tired of the traffic, the pollution, the tube, how long it takes to get everywhere, of dancing with death every time I cycle, of rudeness, and the sheer amount of people. I was walking out of London Bridge yesterday and it felt more like I was trying to battle my way through the hoards at Glastonbury than trying to get to work.

The bads have crept out in front of the goods, and although London will retain a big piece of my heart, thanks to it's kookiness, it's inimitable variety and charm, and all the ways it made me grow, it's time for a new chapter. 

So we have moving house, moving to a new city, moving in with a partner. The biggest contributor to my anxiety though is probably what I do about work. I've been dreading talking to my boss. But the transition has to begin, even though essentially I have no idea what I'm doing and what to do next. 

The arrangement I have now thankfully come to will give me 2 extra days a week to explore whatever paths I feel the need to explore, which I think will be food based. Food is something I'm passionate about, and the impact I'd like to have in my corner of the world is getting more people to eat healthy, tasty, local and seasonal food that is sourced ethically.

Cambridge has a wonderful but still growing independent food scene so it should be a good place to start. Also, look how pretty:

Photo credit: http://www.jamesappleton.co.uk/ 

Good job mate. 

My Hypocritical Life

I'm having a crisis about the world again.

I have regular internal battles, arguing with myself about things, about what's right and wrong, about who is good and bad, and how I should live as a result. It's why I think I often don't come across as very opinionated, but really it's more that I just change my mind on things too often or just plain don't know the right path.

Obviously there are things I find fundamentally wrong. Genocide, for example. Bullying. Torture. Oppression of minorities. Katie Hopkins.

But on other things I seem to face a daily dilemma, the biggest of which is animals.

I love animals. Truly. But I eat meat and dairy and wear leather.

'How can you love animals when you do these things?' I hear you ask. This is a fair question, and I see your point. I've grown up with pets, so I am one of these people who sees cats and dogs differently to how I see a cow, sheep or pig.

I do try and eat 'ethically sourced' and 'free range' where possible...does that help? No, you yuppie. I saw you in that greasy spoon that day you were hungover, and I doubt you asked for the journey of that sausage from farm to plate.

I am a hypocrite. I AM A HYPOCRITE. Because I know how meat and diary are produced on a mass scale. What happens to calves, what happens to chicks, how pigs are kept. And yet so often I reap the rewards of their mistreatment with a brie and bacon burger, sporting my leather boots and woolly jumper, while at the same time pondering how humans can be so cruel to the dogs they keep in horrific conditions for food in other parts of the world.

HYPOCRITE.

I'm not comfortable with this. I need to make more of an effort.

While taking an inordinate amount of time to write this post, my Googling snowballed and I came across a number of books, posts, essays about the ethical dilemma of eating meat, and generally the consumption of animal products, as well as the tangents then stumbled down concerning the effect of our massive population on the world generally.

Not to mention the horrific videos and images from, for example, PETA. I won't post links. If you are having the same concerns as me, you'll find this stuff easy enough and I'm not going to shove it in your face because you should form your own opinions.

So, this is a basic example of what self destructive nonsense goes on in my head:

'Free range sausage is it? But wait...where is your jumper from?? Do you know what they do to sheep?'

'Oh, so you've started buying ethically sourced woolly jumpers? Doesn't help the kids working in the sweat shops who probably made your pants does it?'

'Oh, so you're making your own pants? Well, did you know that the production of the cotton means the use of lots of harmful pesticides??'

And so on.

There's so much to look at, to debate and consider, I exhaust myself to a point of hopelessness sometimes. It's easy to just put your fingers in your ears because the amount of bad in the world is overwhelming, and you feel like you, tiny human, can make no difference against big, rich and powerful corporations.

A friend of mine said something very helpful though when we had a conversation in a similar area. That this attitude is unhelpful. It leads to disenfranchisement that means good people do nothing, and we know what that means - evil triumphs.

So, it's true that more widely, in terms of policy, animal rights laws, fairness for farmers, fairness for producers, affordability, responsible sourcing, and much more, that things need to change. But I can't look at that. It's like the sun. It's too big. What I need to do is personal, and through personal changes we can effect change.

It's key to remember here that there are wonderful people out there already doing this, and spreading the good in their communities and wider. Making a one person stand can make more of a difference than we think. Like the ladies on my street turning a wasteland plot into a community garden where we can grow veg - you're brilliant.

Something as big a lifestyle change as becoming vegan isn't going to happen at the moment. But the change I can make initially is to educate myself, and this is what I have started doing. Until recently, for example, I didn't know a lot about how wool was produced on mass and it's not pretty. So instead of buying the wool I want from Amazon, I've found a little shop in North London - Knit With Attitude - that ensure their wool is sourced ethically.

I have ordered the following books:

The Omnivore's Dilemma
Eating Animals
What Nature Does For Britain

And I will change what I buy, if I buy it at all, as and when my opinions inevitably evolve. I'll continue to make the effort to buy 'happy' meat, fish and dairy. And if the outcome of my research is that 'happy' isn't all it's cracked up to be, then I will reconsider again.

I want to rely less on supermarkets and am going to try and buy more from local producers and retailers. I already try to buy seasonal fruit and I don't understand why all of Tesco's apples are from far off lands when British apples are so damn good in season.

Some of you will think this isn't enough, while others of you will be thinking, 'shut up you damn lefty, liberal hippy'. I'll take it. But I hope that making small, personal changes, will not only reduce my anxiety about the whole thing, but perhaps lead to bigger changes and, maybe, inspire someone else to jump on the bandwagon. If so, winner. And I'll keep you posted :-)