Next week's challenge

Hello, dedicated blog-watchers. I thought you might like advance notice of next week's challenge. It's going to be all about 'Keeping clean, keeping green': housework, the eco-friendly way. If you have any tips to share, please do send them in! I'm hoping Wise-Egg will share her '101 Uses of Borax', at the very least.

Of course, I may have missed the point a little...

...with my 'list of things I have thus far refrained from purchasing'. For the most part, they are things I will buy at some point, just not while the challenge is on. (I know, I know!) Still, I have discovered that one can live without buying all that much and that a lot of the stuff I buy is not strictly necessary. Plus, I have got more enthusiastic about charity shops. TR and the Mouse are clad mostly in hand-me-downs and charity shop gear, because they look cute in the kind of clothes we find that way, but I didn't used to shop that way much for myself. I never thought I could find much that I liked, but I now realise I was just being lazy and did not want to search through the racks. (I'm like that in 'new' clothes shops too - if it's not facing out, I can't be bothered to find it.)

Anyway, although I'm not promising never to buy new again (and I really do want to buy a new washing-up bowl!), doing this week's 'challenge' has made a difference to my outlook, I think. How about you?

Not buying new stuff in Alton

On Wednesday, TR, Mr and Mrs Gramps and I ventured to the self-proclaimed 'friendliest town in the Hampshire countryside,' Alton. And what a pleasant little place it is! We travelled there by train. This was TR's idea and he was richly rewarded with a glimpse of some steam engines at Alton Station. From there we walked to Lantern Foods; in part because Mrs Gramps and I are suckers for nice little organic-type shops, but also because both she and TR have to follow a gluten-free diet and Lantern Foods has a good selection of suitable foods. I think whoever came up with the 'friendliest town' tagline might have been here, as its proprietors, John and Mary-Anne Barber, are two of the friendliest shop-keepers around. Not only that, but they are just about the south-east's only stockists of Teff flour, with which I am hoping to make TR some gluten-free breadsticks.

After stocking up on food (and Ecover dishwasher rinse aid, but Mrs Gramps says that's OK because it is a consumable), we went for coffee in the excellent Botega dei Sapori, Italian shop and delicatessen, where Mrs Gramps enjoyed a generous slice of gluten-free polenta cake. Unfortunately for TR, he fell asleep in Lantern Foods (he has a man's approach to shopping) and so missed out on the cake.

We then made our way up the High Street to explore the charity shops. Alton seems to be a good place to do this, as it has enough reasonably wealthy people to ensure that the goods passed onto to charity shops are of pretty good quality in the first place. I emerged with a T-shirt, a long-sleeved top and a pair of curtains for TR's bedroom. TR did well, having fleeced Mrs Gramps for a Buckaroo-style Bob the Builder game ('Barrow Up Bob', which sounds a tad uncomfortable for Bob, now I come to think of it) and a Thomas the Tank Engine book.

I am very pleased with my not-new purchases and TR and the Mouse are delighted with Bob and his unfortunately placed barrow.

Among the things I have thus far refrained from purchasing are...

1. New bedding for TR.

2. Black-out linings for TR's bedroom curtains (see next post)

3. A new slotted spoon for the kitchen

4. A new washing-up bowl

5. Knee-high brown boots for me (OK, I'm not going to buy them, anyway - I just fancy a pair)

On the downside, I did forget my mission and bought a wedding anniversary card. I could have made one really, couldn't I? We are awash with craft materials in this house, which just goes to illustrate my point about not buying new stuff. Or would do, had I remembered.

Hurrah! Mrs MacGregor is back!

Welcome back, Mrs MacGregor! I am overjoyed to know that I now have an audience of three! So pleased, in fact, that I gave you your very own post.

Popularity, swingometers and the new challenge

How very thrilling - not only are two people following my blog, but three people have voted in my poll! I suspect one of them of taking my previous post's title literally and voting more than once, but I'm not complaining - two people read my blog! On the downside, we have something of a hung Parliament, with regards to the results, and my Peter Snow swingometer shows that each of the three options have an equal 33% of the vote.

Still, in the best tradition of autocratic dictatorships, the poll has been rigged and I'm happy to tell you, with my outsized military cap in place, that I've decided to go with the 'don't buy anything new for a week' option. And I'll tell you for why: my cupboards are quite well stocked with food at the moment, so 'not visiting a supermarket' would be too easy and not worth blogging about. Refusing all surplus packaging sounds good, but I'll do that one another time. In truth, this coming week falls between two niece's birthdays, so I know I can avoid buying anything new for at least this one week!

If you'd like to join in, here are the rules...or maybe I should call them 'ideals', so we don't feel quite so bad when we don't achieve them!

1. Aim not to buy anything new for a whole week, except for food (you don't have to forage in the

bins behind the Kentucky Fried)
2. ...but you can buy second-hand or use Freecycle

You're not banned from acquiring stuff, you're just aiming to reduce what you buy and not to buy new. No need to worry about the economy finally going belly-up, because there appear to be only three of us doing it!

I'm also going to keep up the kitchen-roll thing to, as that turned out to be quite easy and did, I think, make a difference.

Disclaimer: Mrs Ruby and the 'Do One Thing' blog do not endorse the idea of autocratic dictatorships.

Vote early, vote often!

Ooh look - I have managed to add a poll to the blog! (Scroll right down to the bottom of the page - even I couldn't find it at first!) Please cast your votes on what you think the next challenge should be. Oh - and feel free to suggest other potential challenges, because I am running out of ideas.

Today's non-use of kitchen roll...

...after cleaning the guinea pig cage, I used an old baby vest of TR's (stained beyond even charity shop donation) to dry the base of the cage. I thank you! The press-studs made a funny noise though, on contact with the plastic cage-base. Note to self: cut off he press-studs, if using baby vests as rags.

A friend told me her son used kitchen roll today as part of a craft model. I feel that is a good use of the stuff. I'm sure he would have gained fewer housepoints, had he presented his teacher with the same model, only with one of TR's manky old vests substituted for the kitchen roll.

Good news about pig bins!

For those of you unable to sleep last night, owing to your curiosity concerning the apparent demise of pig bins, I have good news: they are still feature at Guide and Scout camps! I can't substantiate this claim, unfortunately, but I have it on good authority, from a friend whose children are in the Scout movement. You'll just have to take my word for it.

For those of you more interested in what I did and didn't do with kitchen roll today (you poor sods!), I am happy to inform you that I didn't use any to mop up a puddle of water on the kitchen floor - indeed, no, I used a microfibre cloth.

Speaking of microfibre cloths, what did we do before they were invented? They are truly marvellous! Last week I cleaned a good deal of my conservatory with one of them. Yes: one microfibre cloth and a bit of water and the framework is still shining, which is a vast improvement on how it was before. (Minging and mouldy, in case you were wondering.)

As ever, I became completely distracted while finding links for this blog entry. I read all about Rainbows, via the Guiding link. I can't wait until The Mouse gets her call up papers for Rainbows! It looks like so much fun!

Kitchen roll-free since... yesterday

Yes folks, I managed it: a whole day without kitchen roll. I was tempted to reach for it after scrubbing the birdfeeder, but managed to find an old towel Mr Ruby had left lying around and used that to dry the bird feeder, instead. How very resourceful of me!

In other news, my mum has signed-up for the challenge and reminded me of 'pig bins'. Whatever happened to them, I wonder? (Commercially available 'complete' pig food, I imagine.) What do modern-day Girl Guides do with their food waste, in the absence of pig bins?

Oh yeah - and Tech Support tells me it was golf he was watching, not cricket. (It's all balls and sticks to me.)

Time for a rethink!

So, even I have to admit that this blog lacks a little pizazz. Actually, it lacks any pizazz and is completely pizazz-poor!

A good friend of mine suggested I change the format slightly and I like her idea, so here it is (cue fanfare) I'm now going to attempt one new challenge per week. Yes, folks: one a week. Without further ado, I shall announce that this week's challenge is...

A week without kitchen roll!

Well, think about it: it is pretty wasteful and there really is only so much of I can compost, so most of it goes into the bin. Here is what I currently use kitchen roll for:

1. Patting dry food, e.g. potato wedges, before cooking - actually I mostly use a clean tea towel for this, but it sounds more of a challenge if I pretend I use it more often than I do!

2. Wrapping otherwise inedible gluten-free food before microwaving to 'refresh' it. Not sure what I will use instead, but will give it some thought. TR will thank me for it. (The thoughtful alternative I shall come up with - not the dried-out, inedible gluten-free food.

3. Wiping up random spills from kitchen floor. I guess I could use rags or a microfibre cloth - appear to possess quite a few of either.

4. Blowing noses when I can't be doing with getting a hanky or tissue. Let's face it, this is not nice or kind - kitchen roll scratches your nose, something awful.

5. As a place to put compostible items, because I can't be bothered to get a bowl out of the cupboard. (How lazy am I?!)

6. Sometimes use it to grease baking pans. Could equally use an off-cut of baking parchment, because greasing a pan usually means there is some of that kicking about.

Well, I think that's about it, but we seem to get through a lot of the stuff, so goodness knows what other uses we have for it. I did recently ask my mum what her mother used, instead of kitchen roll. Her answer was, 'I have no idea, although I have wondered about that myself.' Will try and get my mum to sign up for this challenge too!

By the way, sorry for the bunched-up post. I need the advice of my tech-support department, but he is sleeping on the sofa, pretending to watch the cricket.

Back Again!

Oh dear. This blog rather ground to a halt over the summer, didn't it? Sorry folks. Children to look after, holidays to go on...etc. etc.

So, how did I do in the garden? We-ell, not so bad for a beginner, I guess. Actually, not that well at all but I did manage a nice crop of Pink Fir Apple potatoes. Admittedly some were tiny, but they were delicious. I'm still growing my corn, although I am starting to despair of it ever being ready for harvest, and we've had cherry tomatoes all summer long. I'm also still waiting to harvest TR's remaining carrot.

Next year I have far grander plans for my potager, which is a fancy-pants name for a vegetable garden. I'm hoping for a bean hide (tipi-like structure, made out of canes and runner beans), some peas, more potatoes and tomatoes, herbs and maybe some onions.

And now for the next challenge... I'm not sure what to go for, but I'm thinking something about housework, as I'm newly inspired to keep the house tidy. Or I might take up the challenge of 'Buy Nothing New for a Month'...but that actually might be genuinely difficult!

Something else to consider, perhaps?

Have a look at this link about cutting out plastic packaging. A journalist called Christine Jeavans has pledged to do without plastic for a month - and she's even going to blog her progress. You can amuse yourself by reading her active blog, while I take a brief summer break from it all.

I did think about doing this for my challenge, as I reckon plastic packaging takes up a lot of space in my bin. I recycle as much as I can, but that still doesn't do much about all the meat-packaging trays and strawberry punnets. However, then I remembered it was the strawberry season and that it is miles to my nearest 'Pick Your Own' farm. Selfishly, I decided to hold back on that one, so I could enjoy my (UK grown) strawberries.

As stated in an earlier post, my hanging basket is just not cropping at a rate to encourage me to give up on the supermarket-bought strawberries. We're still waiting for the second berry to ripen! Let's face it, if ever I decided to indulge my latent fantasies regarding living on a seventies-style hippie small-holding, my family would starve! It's no good having your barefoot urchins waft about the fields in their Clothkits if there's no dinner for them to return to!

Right, well I need to go for a lie-down now: before googling 'Clothkits' for the benefit of you, dear readers, I had no idea the iconic seventies company had been revived! Imagine my joy when I discovered that my own children can now wear lovingly hand-crafted corduroy pinafores and dungarees, as my brother and I did when we were small! Also, check out the Aga in the link. [green with envy emoticon]

Praise be - I have corn!

Yes, my 'shamba' has a success story (other than the fabulously productive hanging salad basket, that is): I have some ears of corn! Dear readers, I cannot tell you how very proud this makes me feel. Admittedly my corn may not be as high as an elephant's eye, but it could maybe give an average sized-goat a thing or two to look at and I do at least feel that somethings are goin' my way!

In which I mainly apologise

Firstly, an apology for not writing anything on here. In particular, I must offer my apologies to Mrs Wise-Egg and the newly-wed Mrs. Macgregor, as I think they are my only readers. I expect you think I've been too busy labouring in the garden to blog, don't you? Ah, would that it were so, but in fact I've been busy doing...well, I'm not sure what I have been doing, actually!

The garden isn't coming along as well as I might have hoped. I put this down to three factors:
1. My inexperience
2. Very poor soil (it's all very sandy around here - we live on what was heathland, which is hardly the fens)
3. Erm...not enough watering

On the plus side, I have a very nice pot of chard and an impressive hanging basket of herbs, tomatoes and strawberries. Well, more accurately, strawberry. We ate it the other day (I carved it, so we all had a taste) and it was delicious. As the Mouse commented, 'Ooh - so much nicer than the ones you get in the shops!' Bless her - she says all the right things. TR just points at the basket and says, hopefully, 'Lorberry?' every time we pass it.

The radish never really troubled themselves and are now being used to supplement Elsie's (the guinea pig) diet. The salad leaves all got eaten one night, by marauding slugs and snails (the slimy bas-...) and the sweetcorn suffered a similar fate, although I do have one ear of corn still left. The carrots all got dug up by TR and replanted in assorted places. I'm probably the only person of my acquaintance to be raising entirely free-range carrots! As for the pumpkin seeds I lovingly planted... well, let's just say that it a good thing the Rubettes don't celebrate Halloween, because we definitely won't have any home-grown pumpkins from which to carve Jack-o-lanterns! For some reason, the pumpkin seeds all came up as Forget-me-nots. My garden soil may be sandy, but it is also capable of radically altering a seed's DNA, evidently! Scary stuff!

Grow Yer Own!

Time for a new challenge, I think! This month I shall be growing vegetables and then blogging their progress. I would warn you that it won't make for a thrilling read, as most of them have already been either dug up by TR or ravaged by slugs, but by now you are used to the standard of blog I churn out. In fact, Mr Ruby has just remarked that this whole thing reads like the private diaries of an Edwardian lady: 'Nothing much happened today, but I'm going to write about it anyway.' Ha-ha - harsh, but true.

So, anyone fancy joining me in a bit of veggie growing? It's a bit late to start really (mine are already in) but you could grow some cress...?

It didn't rain and we did walk!

Not only that, but the following week TR and I finally got our acts together and caught a bus. We walked to the library and then caught the number 48 bus to Farnborough, nipped round Wilkinsons and Sainsburys and caught the bus back.

True to form, TR wasn't that taken with the whole idea of bus travel. I think he is so used to being strapped into either the car seat or the buggy, that the idea of just bouncing about on a bus or train seat makes him feel very insecure. Trying to cling onto TR, fold a buggy and not obstruct the gangway, all while the bus moves on is, I would say, a bit of a challenge! My mistake was to take the hefty 3-wheeler buggy: comfortable to push all the way to the library, but a b***** to take on a bus! I had dim memories of large luggage/buggy storage areas on the buses I used to ride with my mum when I was little, but either they were bigger buses, or age has dimmed my memory! Also, I hadn't accounted for the sheer numbers of tartan shopping trolleys travelling by bus. Next time I will take either the sling or stroller!

Buggy struggles apart, I found bus a good way to travel and would do it again. TR has enjoyed pointing out any buses he's seen since, so I think he might be up for it.

In other news, my parents have just returned from a holiday in Cornwall. They took their car (because how else are they going to tow a caravan, I ask you?) but my mum proudly informed me that they hardly used the car once they were there. Has she been reading my blog, I wonder? My dad now has his bus pass, which meant that he was able to travel for free. The dog, however, had to pay her fare like anyone else.

Woo-woo!

I had better luck with the car-free thing this week. Today, TR and I took a trip on the train to Guildford, for a spot of clothes shopping. TR is very much into trains, or 'woo-woos', so I thought the train trip might be a real treat for him. He enjoyed waiting on the platform and waving to any departing trains, but he found the actual ride quite alarming, bless him. After a litany of 'Oh dear', 'Oh no' and 'requests to go 'Back!' he asked to sit on my 'lack' [lap] and made sure I had both 'hand' firmly around his middle. Only then was he, if not actually happy about the train ride, suffiently relaxed to look out of the window for tractors and other points of interest.

Poor TR - that's the second time he's been disappointed by modes of transport. The other great loves of his life are 'rac-racs' [tractors] so I recently took him on a tractor and trailer ride, at Longdown Activity Farm. He was very excited about this, right up until the point where the driver bounced us all over a very bumpy field. TR cried the whole way round!

Whilst in Guildford, I bought myself a sandwich for lunch. It was made by Foo.Go: a darned silly name, but a rather nice sandwich. I had salmon with lemon mayonnaise. I mention it here because it came in packaging that the manufacturers assured me was fully biodegradeable and compostable. I confess I bought it because it looked tasty, rather than because of it's eco-credentials, but, it still seemed worth a mention.

The Mouse has also been doing her bit for the planet. This week is 'Walk to School Week' and her school is taking part in the 'Golden Boot Challenge'. We usually walk to school anyway, although I did rather regret that last Thursday morning, when we did so in a torrential downpour. Despite a rain coat and umbrella, the Mouse was soaked to the skin by the time we arrived at school and it took me several days to dry-out TR's buggy. Tomorrow's weather forecast doesn't look great, so we might not feel quite so virtuous by then. We'll see!

Speaking of biodiversity...

...and I seem to remember that, at one stage, we were. I recently discovered that possibly my most favourite animal is now so endangered that its future looks decidedly uncertain. The Bonobo chimp lives only in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has never been on my wishlist of 'Places to See Before I Die.' (Although if ever I do want to fully realise that list title...) This is such a great animal and it is just unthinkable that it may soon go the way of the dodo.

You may be wondering what makes the bonobo such a cool animal. Googling it will provide you with all sorts of information on the topic, but to save yourselves acquiring an education normally gained only by channel hopping late at night...in a motel room (they are extraordinarily randy, apparently!), either follow the bonobo link above, or stick this handy quick-ref guide to your refrigerator door:

1. Bonobos are smaller - and cuter - than regular chimps
2. They look - and act - in ways that are so human, it is almost uncanny
3. They live in matricarchal, or female-dominated, societies
4. They are experts in conflict-resolution (ironic, given their location!)
5. They care for and nurse their babies for up to five years

If you want to donate to the Bonobo cause, apparently you can do so through the link above, or you could buy your dog a Bonobo T-shirt. I don't know what would possess you to buy dog apparel in the first place, but there we are.

The Mouse did her bit for biodiversity yesterday. The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day and played at being indoor explorers. We set up a tent, packed a picnic and sat waiting for wild animals. I had furnished the Mouse with a toy camera, so that she could photograph any interesting specimens. However, when 'a lion' passed close by the tent, she instructed me to, 'Shine the torch on it so I can shoot it!' After a few loud 'bang!' noises, she informed TR and myself, 'Good - I got it! Now, light the camp fire so we can eat lion meat for our supper.'

Clearly, the next Dian Fossey is not in our midst.

In summary, I've yet to have a car-free day this week. I blame the fact that TR has a terrible cold. It's not actually illegal to use public transport if you have a cold, but TR simply isn't in the mood for waiting around at bus stops. I promise to try harder, once he's feeling better.

Let's be 'avin You!

It's very quiet around here. I mean, I know this is the most tedious blog in all of blogdom, but where are my fellow pledgers? In the words of a tired and emotional Delia Smith, 'Where are you? Let's be 'avin you!!!!!!!!!'

So far, about the only comment I've had is that someone likes the colour of my blog (why, thank you, Mr Badger) as it matches the colour of his VW Camper.

As it turns out, going car-free once a month is not that inspiring - I find I keep doing it by accident, so do sign up for a dead easy 'challenge' before this one expires and I replace it with something more difficult. I'm warning you all - those yaks are going to take up more lawn space than you imagine!

Eco-driving

Can there be such a thing? I hear you ask. Well, no, probably not. However, I have been trying to put into practice the eco-driving tips I mentioned in a previous post.

I'm going to use a slightly smaller font now, so Mr Ruby doesn't see this confession. (He's older than me and the eyesight is always the first thing to go.) That 'change gear before 2,500 revs' thing is really hard to do!

But I am working on it and I'm getting a lot better!

I've also been a lot more circumspect about using the in-car air conditioning. Apparently it guzzles fuel like nobody's business. However, if you're bombing along and it's hot outside, using the air-conditioning is actually more fuel-efficient than opening the windows, as open windows increase drag.

See? See what has happened to me since I started this blog? I am obsessed with dull trivia like that!

Speaking of eco-driving, I've managed two car-free days this week, although since both were largely due to me not going anywhere, it doesn't make for rivetting reading. I pledge to make it more of a challenge next week, by using public transport at least once.

Biodiversity

I know: this has apparently little to do with going car-free (except maybe fewer bugs getting squashed on the windscreen...), but there have been a lot of interesting bugs in my garden recently. One flew into the conservatory the other day and I got quite excited at the prospect of it being a Red Mason Bee, these being the trendy ones to have (doncha know?). However, it wasn't a Red Mason Bee, or indeed any kind of bee. It was a Syrphus ribesii, or a hoverfly. Luckily these are also on the bug 'Wall of Cool'. (See - knew I'd get a car reference in there somewhere!)

Good grief, I sound like some kind of Jeremy Clarkson-Ross Geller hybrid!

The Mouse has been less enthusiastic about anything creepy and crawlie. In fact, she's been near hysterical on the topic. However, we found a way around this: we've named them all. No, not in any kind of entomological fashion; we've just given them all first names. 'Oh, that bug? That's just Harry the Hoverfly... Bessie the Bee,' etc. You get the idea! On the downside, any that now meet a natural death are almost mourned.

If you are interested in the biodiversity of your own backyard, the Natural England website is very good.

This month I pledge to...

Having not quite got over the shock of the scale of my apparent eco-terrorism, I had a good think about what I could do which would a) improve things and b) provide an at least vaguely interesting read. After becoming quite nerdily engrossed in the eco-driving tips section of the Direct Gov website and realising that my own driving has been, quite frankly, appalling (oh, how I hate it when Mr Ruby is proved right!), I thought maybe something related to transport...

Then today a moment of scattiness from Mr Ruby decided it for me: I am going car-free this month! OK, so that would genuinely impressive, but steady on there - I live in a small village with few amenities. If I didn't drive at all I'd become a recluse! So, my scaled-down version of this lofty aim is to go car-free for one day a week, during the next month.

In case you were wondering how Mr Ruby's senior moment contributed to this, he went to work this morning, taking my car keys with me. Myself and the Rubettes relied on the following alternative modes of transport:

1. Dora the Explorer Scooter (the Mouse)

2. 3-wheel buggy (TR)

3. Pram (TR)

A much younger TR, in the pram

4. Kiddy Board (the Mouse)

5. My feet (me)

If the truth be told, I wasn't actually planning to use the car today, but anyway... I did have to walk to school and back three times today... and run round a park after TR, while the Mouse had her tennis lesson. Goodness - if this carries on for much longer, I shall be almost athletic! Now, where did I put my biscuits?

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Yes, dear readers, that is the sound of me stomping all over our carbon-depleted planet, with my outsize carbon boots on. I calculated my carbon footprint here and was a little shocked to discover that the total CO2 emitted by our household, for the year, is a whopping 16.25 tonnes. To put that in context, the UK national average is 10.22 tonnes per year. (Source: Direct Gov Act on CO2.) What have we been doing? Doing the school run via Lear Jet?!?*

Well, as it turns out, aeroplane usage did rather contribute. Last year we flew to the USA to visit Mr Ruby's brother and family and Mr Ruby has notched up a few business flights lately. Also, since our fridge and freezer are over 12 years old and I own a tumble dryer (which I rarely use, by the way!) we are apparently not very green: barely chartreuse, in fact. Initially I felt quite put out about this: after all, is there really any serious eco sense in discarding a working fridge, just to buy a new, A-rated appliance, what with all the implications of disposal and manufacturing, etc.? Surely not! However, once I'd got over feeling persecuted by a faceless entity, I decided to give some serious thought to reducing my 16.25 tonne footprint into something a little more svelte and sexy... but what, exactly?

* Actually I usually walk there and back.

How hard can it be?

Right, after scarcely any thought at all, I have decided to try and reduce my carbon footprint. I could go all-out and move to a yurt, compost my own bodily waste and raise organically reared yaks, but it all seems a bit of a faff and, anyway, the lawn is far too small for the yaks. Accordingly I have come up with a sort of dumbed-down and, yes I know, largely token-effort version of this:

I am going to... ... do one thing. A month. And see how it goes. That's one lifestyle change a month - nothing too arduous, nothing too radical. Then I'll sort of randomly blog about it - my successes, my failures and whether or not I think it's made a blind bit of difference. I'll also keep you up to speed on what the rest of the family make of it. Oh, and I'm hoping some more people might join me. I'll post my good intention for the month and you can pledge to try the same if you like. You could also suggest good intentions for subsequent months and, if I think I can attempt them with a cup of tea in one hand, I might take you up on them.