Shopping On Foot

Thursday, November 1, 2007
Bangor

The routine is slowly getting established: we wake around 7 am and get breakfast. Then Reed does some reading, writing, French, and music with me, after which I head out for the daily shopping run downtown. Then Reed and Walt do math, science, history, etc. Reed is still learning what is expected of him for this home school setup but despite a few hiccups he is relearning to play his violin after several months of no practice, seems to enjoy reading simple books, and did his handwriting practice without complaint today. He is still figuring out how to play nicely with the neighborhood boys, but he’s in a bit of trouble today for running into a neighbor’s garbage pail with the scooter Walt scrounged for him from a dumpster. It made a big crack in the side of it so later we’ll be going over for Reed to offer his apologies.

The shopping run is also my exercise. We aren’t using a car, and using the most direct route, it’s about a 15 minute brisk walk to the downtown from home. It’s a very pleasant walk, on a busy residential street. I love looking at the stuccoed houses painted grey or blue or yellow or white, with their colorful front doors, tiny front gardens, and tidy front steps. Going via the coastal pathway makes it more about ½ an hour. Each day one or both of us makes a trip into town; we’ve been checking out all the little shops to learn where we can buy good food at a reasonable price and learning which charity shops carry which types of things. We also go the library frequently to get school books for Reed. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I took Reed with me on the train and then the bus to go to Newtownards, about 5 miles away, to go to the great little produce shop that Anna shops at. It is indeed a nice shop. BUT it costs the two of us $16 just to get there, which we just can’t afford. So this morning I looked around carefully in Bangor and found some more convenient and thus more affordable options. Plus, I found the Health Store where we can buy some organic things like lentils when we like.

Shopping without a car is a natural way to reduce consumption. How much can I carry? Not as much as I used to buy at home, that’s for sure. Do I really need to eat that much? Well, no, and besides, the refrigerator is quite small. The other natural way to reduce consumption is for food to be expensive, which it is for us since the dollar is doing so badly. Can we really afford to eat ice cream? Not really, at $4 dollars a scoop. We’ve been eating soup and sandwiches and pasta so far. I’m looking forward to doing some baking soon as well. There are statistics, I’m sure, on how much Europeans spend on their food compared to Americans, and when I find out the general trends I’ll talk about that more. One thing I know after spending time in the Auvergne with the Colins and with the Magnanis in Nice, is that fresh organic food is pretty labor intensive to produce, and they’re barely getting by, despite growing the best food I’ve ever had. I may not be able to afford the most local and organic food at the moment, but I will certainly not complain about the prices ever again and I will buy it whenever I can, willingly.

The scale of things is simply smaller everywhere in Europe. Tiny shops, small houses, small packages of food, miniature cars, narrow streets. I love it. I don’t miss SUVs and 3 car garages at all. Add to that our low consumption lifestyle – since we know we have to get everything back into our backpacks in 5 months – and our carbon footprint is shrinking rapidly. Here, I don’t feel as if I’m hogging more than my share of anything in the world.