Simple Living

I have been having an unusual day today. I was on facebook and my daughter said she had watched an M rated movie at her friend's house about paranormal and I got steamed really. I don't often do that. So all day I have been commenting a little on Facebook, but generally trying to keep myself quiet lol.

Last night it was the same, but not steamed, still annoyed though. Happens to me a lot about the same subject so it is not in isolation.

I was reading my book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes and decided to give it up. After reading my post yesterday, I was wondering (and there may be no answer) why Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall never say they are into simple living? Apart from being English?

This quote from Shannon seems right up their alley "Many people don't even know how to roast a chicken, let alone make a chicken salad from the leftovers or use the carcass to make a stock."

This is an aside, not why I gave up reading it. Another unrelated comment I have to make is that there are lots of very simple meals you can make to avoid Burger King that don't include fresh chicken, pulled apart and the boiling of bones and all the multiple refrigeration etc. that goes on with that.

I think the thing with me is that in the early 80s, I did the Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall thing. I'll give you an example. He goes rabbit hunting. We had an old Holden then. Good for rabbit hunting, you can throw the rabbits in the boot without fear of the lovely carpet, perfectly clean and ready for the grocery bags and other things people carry around in their boot.

We also had lino in the back room. I was very glad to stop rabbit shooting in some ways just because of the back room occasionally having rabbits in it waiting if we came home late or whatever happened.

Still I love rabbit, had a great recipe by Beverly Sutherland Smith for Rabbit with Onions. (Recipe at the bottom of this post.)

I also have done the corporate thing. That is the reason the other stuff stopped. The corporates closed down and moved away, beforehand we were moved on, to working class lives. Before corporate my husband had a year off. My step-children were living with us. He had been a teacher and at the time some were being asked to teach further afield to where they lived. I didn't think I could manage the house by myself under these conditions. We took redundancy. The social security system (which Julia hopefully is able to change) then allowed kids to say they couldn't get on with their parents and they could get their own money. Which meant that any person willing to but in, could encourage children to leave home. And lots of people do this. And they did (either rightfully or wrongfully that is not the point). Seriously before you get ideas, people have opinions on how others raise their children, I did once. But after this I never did again. It is not a game really. People can have opinions on whether teenagers could have a better life somewhere else, usually one sided, and sometimes it can even be girlfriends/boyfriends who suggest it.

So despite Shannon knocking university education, corporations etc. etc. I personally have left my hometown to have a reasonable wage so my kids cannot be influenced by others. I don't talk about it, it is one of those things people keep to themselves. Julia (our prime minister) herself says that kids do better under the family payment system, which means rather than getting their own money. At the moment they can choose, but if you earn too much they wouldn't get enough to live on on their own.

I know Shannon doesn't knock them as such though, well I'd have to give that some thought.

There are lots of other things, I seriously though am not going to align myself to the words simple living as much as I have before. I don't mind the 50s homemaker model, though understand it is not for everybody. I know I am not being fair, because I didn't finish the book. And Americans who have lived the middle class life more than us, would have a better idea how it all turns out.

Didn't I tell you I should have sat on my hands? Anyway, it causes stress to have an opinion about it especially when it isn't popular. But worth mentioning once why I think why I do. Having said that I don't like consumerism, and this journey has brought me accidently to a place that has little shops and is very far away from major chains.