The Power of the Pram

Let me introduce you to one of my pet peeves.

I hate walking in crowded or semi-crowded areas. Places like busy shopping malls or shopping streets are the bane of my life. If I want to get anything new to wear or to purchase gifts, then I grit my teeth and ready my "Om" mantra for the journey.

What do I hate about these areas, you ask?

My fellow pedestrians.

Or to be more accurate, the local chapter of "MeFirstites".
I'm sure you know who I mean. These are the shoppers who appear to have an unshakeable belief that they have full rights to the footpath and that you should step aside for them. They also appear in groups, sometimes two or three wide ensuring that the only place left for walking is going to be the shop doorway or the road.

You may now be asking yourself why I feel the need to mention this peeve.
Well, I've spent the last nine months being pregnant. Towards the end I figured that the fat belly would be an indication to other pedestrians that I was an expectant mother. I was rather hopeful that having the extra passenger on board would mean that there would be a improvement in the MeFirstites vision and that I would no longer have to engage in repeated speedy sideways shuffles.
As it turns out, pregnancy matters not a jot to the MeFirstites.

I have spoken about manners before, or rather the lack of them, so this whole dodgems thing is just another one of those things that gets my goat as a manners freak.

The question that this lack of awareness of pregnant women walking down the road raises for me, and it has only been raised over the past two days, is why does pushing a pram make a difference to people?

We have taken a stroll down to our local shopping street two days in a row now. This is to enable me to get out of the house and get a bit of very gentle exercise.
We have two roundabouts along the main street, neither of which has a pedestrian crossing anywhere within 500 metres. They have little traffic islands on each entry road into which pedestrians can walk and huddle for protection as they attempt to cross the roads.

These streets are reasonably busy, as both roundabouts link to commercial areas or lead to a motorway on/off ramp. Normally it takes a bit of timing and patience to cross, since Auckland drivers are not known for their courtesy or care.
Apparently waving a green pram in front of them does something strange to even the most die hard of Auckland drivers. I kid you not. I feel that someone at a university should set up a study about this phenomenon. Green Pram = Brain Explosions in Auckland Drivers.

What do the drivers do that is so unusual?

They stop.

Yes. I said, they stop.

In the middle of the roundabout.

With traffic behind them.

With traffic waiting for them to move on through.

With no regard whatsoever for the other road users who might not have Green Pram visions.

Personally I think they're all mad. It's not like I'm standing there waving them down or anything. Is it possible that green prams work on driver's brains in the same way as waving a red cape at a bull works for a Matador?
Mr OhWaily doesn't care, he thinks that it's a bloody good thing and that we should take advantage of it at all opportunities. In fact, he has mentioned that it does seem a shame that we did not know that this was the case earlier. Somehow he feels we could have been pushing the Green Pram around with a soft toy (or the grocery shopping) for some time and gaining all of these unexpected benefits. Yes, I can see us now...

Innocent Bystander: "Oh, how lovely, do you have a boy or a girl?"
Mr OhWaily: "Actually it's a pound of steak, but a great traffic stopper, thanks."

I have no idea why this works, but it does. And it goes some way to making up for my pregnant pedestrian dodgems, so all I can say to you is...

"Beware the Power of the Pram."

---

P.S.

The Green Pram also seems to bring out the best manners in prepubescent boys riding scooters. They appear to remember that scootering through people in a narrow space is not in the spirit of Good Manners. Now if only I could bottle this phenomenon, I'm sure I could become a millionaire.

Miss OhWaily joins the Family

Just a quick note that Miss OhWaily joined our family on Friday 17th August, at 7:35am in the morning.

We have been having a week of getting to know each other, and have only just arrived home from the hospital/Birthcare yesterday afternoon.
When I get the hang of the eating and sleeping routines, I will try to stop by and bring you up to date.

In the meantime here is an early photograph of the young madam.

Patience is a Virtue

Or so they tell me.

Maybe I'm getting to be a bit more virtuous under the guidance of the youngest member of the OhWaily family. You know, the one who hasn't actually been born yet.

In her defence, her due date was only yesterday, and we all know that small children have an entirely separate system of time and space from the rest of us. And I do know that the 40 week thing is a *guideline*. Still, after 40 weeks things do start to wear thin.

Mr OhWaily would just like to actually meet her, so he is impatient. Personally, I'd like to get more than an hour between bathroom visits at night and perhaps not have heartburn anymore too. But like your mother always told you: "You don't always get everything you want in life." So here I am, semi-patiently waiting for Miss OhWaily's Grand Entrance. I have to wonder if I have made life indoors just too comfortable for her.

Just so you know, I will be away from internet access for a little bit over a week once the Grand Entrance has been staged. After that, who knows when I will have enough matchsticks available to keep my eyes open long enough to type another entry. So, please be patient, I will return and no doubt with a few stories to tell. I promise no gory stories, honest. ;)

Gastronomy: Wild Blackberry Cobbler

Yummy stuff this.

We have a new computer in the OhWaily household, and that has meant transfering all the usual suspects from the old to the new machine.
In my case, this also means a huge array of recipes gleaned through email groups over the years. I re-installed my MasterCook program on the new computer and began the laborious task of importing text recipes into a formatted program.

This may be laborious, but boy does it help to inspire you to step into the kitchen and try out all the wonderful things you are reading and copying from one format to another.

Last night we ventured in to the To-Be-Tried file and pulled out a dessert:
Wild Blackberry Cobbler.

As usual, we had the base ingredients, but not the specific berry. So we improvised.
I hope you take the time to try this out, with your own improvisations in the fruit department. Don't forget the cream and/or ice cream to go with it though !

Enjoy!

Hobbits and Modern Housing

I'm not 100% sure which way to view this take on eco-housing.
I StumbledUpon this last night and was quite taken with the similarity to a hobbit hole from Lord of the Rings.

I cannot truthfully say that this would be my choice of living accomodation, but I am impressed with the dedication and inspiration that this family has shown in deciding to build and live in this home.

Hobbit Hole or Way of The Future - you decide.

Then again, after my apparent need to hog 8 global hectares worth of space just to exist, perhaps I shouldn't view it as something only a '60s hippy would aspire to.

Actually, I think not, but I also think that there are better ways of living that don't involve burrowing into a local hillside and living under a roof of grass. There are many sources of inspiration for adapting and improving existing buildings, and for creating new buildings that don't necessarily sacrifice comfort and design for the greater cause.

So, while I was thinking about this lovely little British Hobbit Hole, I did a bit of Googling and came across some interesting / scary statistics.

According to the Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation Authority (EECA) :

• Home heating, water heating and running appliances takes 12% of New Zealand's total energy use. That's NZ$ 1.1 billion.


• Heating, due to lack of insulation (regulations only came into effect in 1978, and how many of us live in 1909 villas!?), costs 20-30% of household energy bills.


• 60-70% of our energy comes from our Hydro-electric schemes, but 23-30% comes from gas or coal.

According to the Worldwatch Institute website:

• 55% of the wood cut for non-fuel uses is for construction


• 40% of the world's materials and energy is used by buildings


• 30% of newly-built or -renovated buildings suffer from "sick building syndrome," exposing occupants to stale or mold- and chemical-laden air

On the whole, not so encouraging. But there are positive stories, and positive actions that cost little (or nothing) to implement. I'll bring you a few of those over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I wouldn't want you to go away thinking that my 8 global hectares was any indication of my non-greeny-ness. Here are a few things that we have done, or do, to reduce our footprint:

• When we purchase a new appliance we balance the functionality with the energy efficiency rating it has.


• We recycle glass, plastic and paper waste (the council is about to change their collection scheme - not too sure if the 240 lt wheelie bins are going to work, but at least things can be stored cleanly outside rather than in our kitchen.)


• We replaced all of our old lightbulbs with the compact fluorescent lightbulb equivalents years ago now. (When they weren't 5 for $10 !! Aargh.)


• We often eat meatless meals. See the Gastronomy section of this blog for ideas.
  (I know. For carnivores who enjoy their steaks, this can seem like a sacrifice too far.)


• We installed a heat exchange unit as our primary heating device just before last winter - so no more gas or wood fires in this house.


• When we outgrow our clothes and shoes, but they are still in reasonable condition, they are bagged up and sent to the local St Vincent de Paul shop down the road.


• And I have, in the past, used the Freecycle network to pass on unwanted items. Although in recent times, our front verge seems to do an excellent impersonation of the Freecycle network. A broken heater, a set of drawers, and from up our driveway - our old washing machine, have all been claimed by random people. It's almost like having our own personal rubbish collection agency. Truly one man's garbage is another man's treasure.

So what are you doing? If you have ideas to share, feel free to leave a comment.

Making Money

There is a new Terry Pratchett about to be released, for those who may not know.

It is called Making Money and includes the reappearance of Moist von Lipwig from Going Postal.

Due out on September 18th, Moist moves into the Royal Mint and into trouble.
If you want to know more, visit TerryPratchettBooks.com and read the description there.

Something to look forward to next month then.
Happy reading everyone.

:)

Technology and Climate Change

I stumbled upon a rather nifty website last night and thought that it was worth sharing.

It is called Breathing Earth and it displays graphically and with statistics the carbon dioxide emissions made by each country. Thereby indicating who has, theoretically, the most impact on climate change. And just to round it out, the statistics also show the birth and death rates for each country too.

I thought it made for interesting viewing and reading. The statistics are naturally not 100% current, but it gives you an indication of what is going on in the world. It makes for interesting reading that there is a child born in China every 1.8 seconds. How many new humans have arrived on the planet in that country in the time it has taken you to read this blog entry?!

After you have visited Breathing Earth, take the time to do the quiz that the designer suggests at Ecofoot.org. It may be most enlightening.
According to my result I hog the following resources:

Food - 2.2 hectares
Mobility - 1.6 hectares
Shelter - 1.7 hectares
Goods/Services - 2.5 hectares

And my total footprint is 8 hectares. And according to the website:

In comparison, the average ecological footprint in your country is 8.7 Global Hectares per person.
Worldwide, there exist 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person.
If everyone lived like you, we would need 4.4 planets.

Whoops, greedy old me. :(

~~~~~~~~~~
P.S.
I would really be interested in seeing what other people's results on this ecological footprint is. If you do take the test, can you drop back and let me know your results? Thanks.

Noah's Ark - July Progress

As a result of now having more time for myself, at least for a little while, I have managed to spend a bit of it on getting Noah's Ark a little closer to completion.

Here is a reminder of what it was like in May, and below is what it now looks like.



And for those who like to know these things, it is being stitched on 28 count Quaker Antique Ivory. I still have a week and a bit until due date, so I am toddling along with this. Obviously I can't finish it until after Miss OhWaily arrives, as it is being stitched as a birth announcement for her. Hopefully I will finish the Ark section before she arrives, and then I can work my way through the animals while trying to figure out how best to add Miss OhWaily's name, birth date and sundry other details (should it all fit).