Sobriety and second hand

Or, sobriété, in French, and if you happen to listen to podcasts by Jean-Marc Jancovici, which we quite often do, this word often crops up in his lectures and echoes a lot of what I've had a creeping feeling of dread about for many years - hence the dystopian (with hope) writing. His broad theory is that we have to exercise sobriety or face enforced poverty, and when one thinks about the monumental amount of wastage of everything we as humans have achieved in the last decades, well, maybe it is time stop or at least drastically reduce the overconsumption. 

As our plumber said yesterday with a gallic shrug and wry smile - 'We've partied for far too many years, especially those higher up the food chain, and now we're going to hit the wall.' He drank his coffee and went off whistling to finish fixing up our water-collecting system, which - with my future proofing hat on, and now no well or river, like in our last house - I'd decided an investment was important.

We're still doing renovations at this house - smaller ones now, so inevitably there are trips to DIY places, but we're trying to cut down the trips, or at least join them up with other tasks. One thing we were missing was a pick axe, so after checking the local vide greniers (car boot sales) I found there was one about 6 km away - our new vide grenier rule - no going to any beyond 10 km, preferably even nearer. French boot sales are great for finding old tools, and usually ones that people have taken care to do up - a new handle, the metal polished or painted.

And it was worth the trip: a sturdy old pick axe for five euros, a young tree, a dog lead with Very Important Dog written on it (and she is), old handles for the cellar door Mark is reconstructing (see later post for door in all its glory), a small engraving of a horse by someone who had possibly never seen a horse, and a pair of elegant 1920s? hands which had lost their mannequin body somewhere. I need to justify this purchase really but they were only four euros - price of the hot dog I didn't buy.

Tutored by my mother throughout my early years about waste-not, want-not and making do, I've followed her advice throughout my life and am happy to buy everything possible second hand, although both me and Mark jointly decided that pyjamas might be added to pants and pressure cookers on the might-have-to-resort-to-new list, or make them ourselves - not a bad idea as Mark's leg length always poses a trousers of any sort buying conundrum.

Plastic rant . . .

I have to have these from time to time, and THIS really warrants one.

We all (or most of us) now realise that endlessly producing billions of plastic containers every day is totally unsustainable and polluting - to say the very least.

We all use plastic  - this keyboard I'm typing on, the car bumper I tied back on with wire this morning (rather proud of that), train seats, plane seats, televisions, audio-equipment, fridges, washing machines, guttering, drains, food containers, the everywhere water bottles and just about everything else. Should we not be cutting back on unnecessary products rather than producing more and more CHOICES, to thus use plastic for essentials like medical equipment?
Yes, there is an argument re jobs in such sectors as body-care products but maybe there just isn't a choice any longer. Hair = a shampoo product, and it's now possible to buy solid shampoo in a cellophane wrapper. We have some and it's great. Clothes = a need to wash them. Get a refill at your local eco store. It's less expensive and does the job.
And we move on to the subject of this particular rant. Fabric conditioner - with a big CON. This must be one of the cleaning companies most heralded products. An extra substance to dunk clothes in for really no reason. Meadow Sweet, Island Oasis, Snuggle, Final Touch - quite an appropriate name, perhaps - Downy, Fluffy, Fleecy, Comfort, Lix (ugh), Purex, and of course the massive Lenor range.
One or two products might suffice? Nope. A whole new range in even more shiny thick plastic bottles has appeared in our local supermarket.
I only went in to get a cube of yeast and some dog chews but stopped transfixed by the in-your-face and will-be-in-your-bag display featuring (bizarrely) a wolf and an erotic version of Little Red Riding Hood - I think.
Imagine the meetings, the trays of Danish pastries, the gallons of coffee consumed while ad-execs agonised over the names and colours of these useless and planet-knackering products.



The perfume of secrets - whaaat? Covering up some old poo stain on a toddler's trousers? Séduisant - seducing fabric softener? I Suppose they are trying to move away from cosy, soft and comforting?

                           

                                                                            Kiss.
              This really should being in Ann Summers shop and be called Sweat Liqueur

                                          

                                                             Charm and mystery.
Come on . . . you could have been a little more imaginative, surely? Alien-craft sex-chamber; the lost jewels of the Queen of the great oceans?

                                          

                                                                           Blush
                                                And you should, Proctor and Gamble.

Governments should ban this water-polluting, land-fill garbage. Iron clothes if you want them soft, and if they smell a bit unlike a spring meadow, a woman dressed in a red cloak or a wolf (?) so what.

I've just found an old Lenor ad I recall from way back featuring a housewife wracked with guilt over her daughters' prickly nightdresses. Will post for a comparison . . .