Chillingsworth Jen - Live green: 52 steps for a more sustainable life

Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Publishing Director Sarah Lavelle

Junior Commissioning Editor Harriet Butt

Senior Designer Gemma Hayden

Illustrator Amelia Flower

Production Director Vincent Smith

Production Controller Nikolaus Ginelli

Published in 2019 by Quadrille, an imprint of Hardie Grant Publishing

Quadrille

5254 Southwark Street

London SE1 1UN

quadrille.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Text Jen Chillingsworth 2019

Illustrations Amelia Flower 2019

Design and layout Quadrille 2019

eISBN 978 1 78713 319 8

Contents

Many of us are already doing what we can to adopt a greener lifestyle. We recycle, try to reduce our waste and plastics, choose organic food when we go grocery shopping, eat less meat and opt for environmentally-friendly cleaning products. And yet we often wish we were doing even more as we see news reports and nature programmes on television depicting the terrifying and long-lasting damage done to our planet by humankind. We try to make changes that we think will work for us and for the planet, and when the result is not as we might have wished, were left dealing with environmental guilt and a sense of failure. Ive been there and speak from experience.

When my son was young, I was working in a busy arts management job and constantly felt anxious and frustrated. Racing to get my son to school, enduring a stressful commute to work and then sitting in meetings with toxic people made me dread every single day. I knew I wasnt happy and that my way of coping with this sense of dissatisfaction and unease was to buy lots of things clothes, magazines, expensive skincare lotions, DVDs, chocolates, bottles and bottles of wine. Essentially, I loved to consume. The delivery man who brought parcels to my door visited so often that I saw him more than my best friends. When my husband had to make a career change due to redundancy, his new job in healthcare made childcare even harder for us as we would both be working late nights. We made the joint decision that Id leave my stressful job and try to find something more suited to our familys lifestyle.

At home I believed that I was doing what I could to help the environment. Id buy recycled products, organic milk and greener cleaning products. We separated our household rubbish and recycling, and took what wasnt collected by our local council to the recycling centre. We never left lights on in empty rooms or let the water run as we brushed our teeth. Any leftovers from dinner were eaten up for lunch the next day. I believed we were doing what we could, but at that time I never once thought about the sheer number of plastic bags we used doing our grocery shop, I didnt consider the single-use bottles and cartons for my sons packed lunches a problem as I could simply pop them in the recycling bin, and I ignored the fact that I possessed an extensive collection of laundry liquid dosing caps which continued to grow as I got a new one every time I bought the product.

I was lucky enough to find a part-time job in a market garden run by a local family only ten minutes from our home, and this proved to be a turning point. Being outdoors in the sunshine on a glorious summers day (as well as on the hard, wet, dark days of winter), I learned to grow fruits, vegetables and other plants, to understand when seeds needed to be sowed so they would be ready at the right time of year, and to harvest crops properly. These were great new skills to master, but it also taught me how much physical effort goes into creating the food on our plates and how important nature is to our wellbeing. Working outside all day left me appreciating how good it was to feel the sun on my face, indulging in the scent of fresh herbs that Id grown from cuttings and watching the bees forage for nectar on the perennials in the plant nursery. I would return home covered in mud, utterly exhausted yet happier than I had been in a long time.

The market garden became the place where I learned more about how to look after the land from an environmental point of view. We didnt spray crops with pesticides and wed regularly discover a caterpillar nestling in amongst the cabbage leaves. Weeds would spring up in the field surrounding the crops, and what originally had been neat rows of cauliflowers, kale and squashes would vanish from view. Time spent harvesting often meant getting an arm or leg covered in painful nettle stings, but it was always worth it. After a quick rinse in water, those vegetables, freshly picked from the field, had real flavour and tasted amazing.

My change of career gave me a happier way of working, but it also brought with it a significant drop in income, and with less money coming in I really needed to curb my spending habits. In many ways life had become easier as I only worked during my sons school terms and didnt have to pay for childcare. My job was within walking distance of home and our fuel costs were hugely reduced. My previous income had been three times what I was making at the market garden, meaning we were now in the position of not being able to afford luxury items and holidays abroad were out of the question. Yet the first school summer holiday I spent at home with my son provided me with some of my happiest memories and I know that they had a huge impact on how I choose to live my life now. We roamed around the woods and countryside, observing our local wildlife, flora and trees and foraging for blackberries and bilberries on the moors. We camped in sand dunes, listened to the waves lap the beach and gazed in awe at the constellations in the night sky. Our natural world was incredible. I started to appreciate a much simpler way of living and to document our family adventures and lifestyle changes on my blog.

From my experience of living a slower, simpler life came a greater understanding of our impact on future generations. I wanted to teach my son how to live with more intention less buying, more doing, less wanting, more enjoying what we already had. As a family we were embracing simple living and when we did have to buy something, we tried to make considered purchases that dovetailed with our new values and looked at ways we could make both our home and lifestyle greener. From walking to the supermarket and reducing food waste, to switching to bags for life and buying vintage clothing these were all relatively easy ways for us to help the environment. Even though we made these changes I still felt we had a long way to go. Reading books on the environment, watching documentaries and looking at websites dedicated to making a difference left me feeling completely overwhelmed, conflicted and guilty that I wasnt doing enough.