Dreams can be very strange indeed. Last night’s saw me, my daughter and the two smallest children travelling back by train from a day by the sea. There was an announcement that our scheduled train was too full and was not stopping at our station. Another was going to be provided. We just had to wait. There then followed something resembling a visit to the railway museum, with trains of all types, some of them very impressive, trundling through our station. We were filthy from the smoke. I woke up before our train arrived so in dreamland we are forever stuck at the station.
Which brings me to smoke and pollution! Recently we have been for late afternoon / early evening walks around the village and have increasingly noticed smoke on the air. It must be at a time when those who have open fires are lighting them but it’s very noticeable.
When we moved into this house we had a coal-burning stove, similar to an Aga, in the kitchen, running the central heating for the house. We also had an open fire in the living room. We had regular deliveries of supposedly smokeless coal but we also burnt logs on the living room fire. And even with ‘smokeless’ coal, we must have been contributing to pollution.
Our stove was fine while the children were in primary school and I was working part-time. However, once both children were in secondary school, and became effectively independent latchkey children, as I then began to work full time, it became something of a problem. The stove needed banking up in the morning so that it wouldn’t go out and it needed “waking” by whoever arrived home first in the afternoon/evening - not really a job for young teenagers! The house needed to warm up, as did the stove before any meals could be cooked.
Eventually it sprang a leak and would have cost more to repair than we had paid for it in the first place. We had it removed and changed to an electric cooker and a boiler for the central heating. We kept the open fire in the living room for a few years more but even that has long since been replaced by a fancy coal-effect electric fire. We cannot claim to be pollution free or ecologically perfect but we no longer send smoke into the air.
And just the other day I came across this article about how wood-burning stoves and fires may be more harmful to the atmosphere than other forms of heating. A study on a small rural town shows that despite the inhabitants thinking their air is pure, in fact it is as polluted as the air if big cities, just because if all the wood they burn.
Oh dear, all those very trendy wood-burning stoves are bad for the environment!
Yesterday I wrote about essentials in handbags, including sewing kits. Almost immediately, Amazon sent me this advertisement:
AUERVO Travel Sewing Kit, Over 70 DIY Premium Sewing Supplies,Mini Sewing kit for Home, Travel & Emergency Filled with Mending and Sewing Needles, Scissors, Thimble, Thread,Tape Measure etc…
Big Brother is watching us! And sending advertisements according to what he notices we take an interest in! The same happens when you make purchases online or even when you pay for stuff with a card.
I shall continue to pay cash where possible!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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