Crikey

Nearly a week's passed since my last blog and I just don't know where it's gone. Well, I do, actually, gruelling twelve hour shifts Saturday and Sunday, add in a couple of late nights, two sets of visitors, a state funeral and mid week wake, my community work and a sprinkling of disorganization is enough to consume a week.

I haven't even made the promised Jamaican Spice Cake yet for Hubby's birthday, but he did get a banana cake, so he's not too hard done by.

So I have Easter to look forward to this weekend, and as usual I've not done a thing. I really need to get some Easter things sorted out for our family and friends children - I guess it'll be another last minute rush. No one could ever say that leading an ethical life is easy.

So, I was thinking the other day about supermarkets. Whether we like it or not, there are some things that we all have to use supermarkets for as there is no where else to buy it from. Also, more people work these days, longer hours, so they don't have the luxury of being able to nip to a fruit and veg shop.

So when we have to buy from supermarkets, it's cost effective to be a bit clever. Think outside the box. Some products are available in multiple departments and by not using the most obvious department, we can save money.

For example, everyone knows I like a home made cake. If I was going to make a chocolate cake, I would need the wondrous brown stuff for topping if not for the cake itself. I could go to the baking isle and pick up some cooking chocolate, or, I could go to the sweets section and pick up some supermarket own brand actual chocolate, which is really pretty nice, (I, of course, would rather we all purchased a bit of Green and Black's Organic, but, let's be realistic - not many of us are going to cook with organic chocolate) and it's an awful lot cheaper, usually around 27p for 250g bar.

We all use cotton wool and cotton wool pads. You buy them from the cosmetic section you're going to be paying adult prices, but them in the Baby section, you're paying less. AND sometimes you get the option of organic cotton too.

So, the big ethical debate. Supermarkets are bad, we all know that. Profit does not stay locally, they destroy high streets the country wide. However, you sometimes get options to buy organic and Fairtrade products you wouldn't be able to pick up on the high street. So which it the right thing to do? In the long term, my thinking is that if you support your local producer/seller enough, he'll be able to stock Fairtrade oranges in his high street shop. But would that really happen? And how long would it take? The debate goes on, but I think as long as we make ethical choices of some description, that's the main thing.

God Gave Rock'n'Roll To Yoooooooooo...

Well, my Organic hair colourant has arrived today finally and it's currently "on-bonce". The only problem is the packaging says that it contains no Heavy Metals. Now that's not very rock'n'roll, is it?!

I remember the days when you had a choice of a whole 4 shades of Henna dye. Now there's, like, ten - maybe more. A paper packet containing brown weird smelling dust that had to be mixed into a cold paste and applied liberally to one's barnett with a paint brush, covered in foil and left for ever, it felt like.

It now comes in a very similar box, if I'm honest, but, what's inside that's changed. No messy dust, no mixing, no nasty niffs. It's ready to rock'n'roll as soon as you can say "orange ears", and the really great thing is that you can put the top back on and reuse at a convenient time. There's no chemical reaction induced by the mixing of two chemicals, and you can put your veggie colour on every day, if it so suits you.

Reading through the leaflet on the box was a bit of an eye opener, I must be honest. I had no idea, naive maybe, that conventional hair colour contained soooooo much bad ju ju. I won't be using another off the shelf conventional hair colour having read that. Even if I have to Henna every couple of weeks.

I think it's the botanics advert or something that has the logo "the power of plants" which always makes me laugh as I can't help but imagine a celery bunch in a superhero costume stood proudly, cape billowing, on the top of a sky scraper, but when you can get a product SO good and SO powerful completely naturally and predominantly organic, it makes me wonder why more people don't.

I've just mad home made product. A conditioning hair mask for after the colour. It looks and smells like sick sick, especially when it plopped in the sink, in fairness to Meg, who did actually retch, my stomach wobbled too!

An egg, a mashed banana, 3 tablespoons milk, 5 tablespoons Olive oil, mixed up and plopped on for as long as you can be bothered to keep it on. I've only used half too, so I'll put it in the fridge for another go in a day or two. God knows my hair needs it after all the messing with it last summer. Funnily enough, Meg turned down the offer of the other half.

I'm sure it'll be great. It contains Olive oil. I love the stuff. Been putting it on my hands every night when I go to bed, and then my hands in cotton socks. Hubby is now even more convinced that I'm barking but my hands are starting to improve. I swear that put Olive oil on my abdominal area stopped me from getting stretchmarks when I carried Meg. I just have a few little ones on my sides which didn't get as much oil as other areas.

The power of plants indeed! If I go blow dry my hair now will I get scrambled egg?