Saturday, 4 July 2009
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
A deeper layer
I thought that the whole simplicity thing for me began with discovering St Francis when I was fifteen years old.
But I’ve uncovered a deeper layer I had forgotten.
When the fretting and fretting to live in a shed finally got to the point of explaining to Tony the Badger that, though I love him with all my heart and certainly want to share his company and sleep in his bed, I just have to live in a shed, and plans were made to get a second shed for the garden I knew at once that my shed was to be called The Palace Flophouse.
Now I haven’t read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday since I was about 12 years old, so in all those years The Palace Flophouse has lain (as I thought) dormant in my imagination – but it’s obviously that that’s what's broken through to the surface. Until a week or so ago, I could have told you who wrote those books, but not a single character or happening or anything else about then. All forgotten.
When I thought of the shed as The Palace Flophouse, I felt two reservations. 1) I really dislike plagiarism and living on borrowed ideas. I would have preferred to make up a name of my own. 2) I like to call a place by a holy name – the Big House at Aylesbury is Hagia Sophia, the flat in Hastings was Gezellig, the tribe house in Hastings is Godsblessing House.
But I knew it had to be the Palace Flophouse so, intrigued, I re-read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, and how startled I was. Because with the top layer of my mind I had totally and utterly forgotten the content of those books, I hadn’t appreciated how formative they had been, or remembered what a resonance they had found with my soul.
The two books taken together are about the best treatise on simplicity, living simply, I ever read. I’m not sure why they don’t usually get a mention. Where Thoreau’s Walden seems to be a kind of set text (I haven’t read it all but enough to get the gist of where he’s coming from), I don’t recall ever seeing Steinbeck referenced as a simplicity guru which, in the best sense, he surely is.
Reading those books again has made something immense fall into place for me. I came to St Francis after I read those, when a certain view and understanding had already formed. The one place I part company with St Francis is over his extreme asceticism – mortification of the flesh, despising of the self. Steinbeck talks of liking yourself in the same easy way you might like anyone else, and he looks steadily at human weakness and idiosyncrasy with humour and compassion and understanding – which is surely less neurotic.
It’s not often I come across a book that makes a difference, that doesn’t leave me thinking ‘Yes, but...’ and wandering off after page 23. It’s not often either that I come across a book that can effect a healing in me, or that can create a tangible wise peace. Reading these two books forty years after I last read them has done just that.
Cannery Row. Sweet Thursday. If you know yourself called to live simply; I recommend them.
But I’ve uncovered a deeper layer I had forgotten.
When the fretting and fretting to live in a shed finally got to the point of explaining to Tony the Badger that, though I love him with all my heart and certainly want to share his company and sleep in his bed, I just have to live in a shed, and plans were made to get a second shed for the garden I knew at once that my shed was to be called The Palace Flophouse.
Now I haven’t read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday since I was about 12 years old, so in all those years The Palace Flophouse has lain (as I thought) dormant in my imagination – but it’s obviously that that’s what's broken through to the surface. Until a week or so ago, I could have told you who wrote those books, but not a single character or happening or anything else about then. All forgotten.
When I thought of the shed as The Palace Flophouse, I felt two reservations. 1) I really dislike plagiarism and living on borrowed ideas. I would have preferred to make up a name of my own. 2) I like to call a place by a holy name – the Big House at Aylesbury is Hagia Sophia, the flat in Hastings was Gezellig, the tribe house in Hastings is Godsblessing House.
But I knew it had to be the Palace Flophouse so, intrigued, I re-read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, and how startled I was. Because with the top layer of my mind I had totally and utterly forgotten the content of those books, I hadn’t appreciated how formative they had been, or remembered what a resonance they had found with my soul.
The two books taken together are about the best treatise on simplicity, living simply, I ever read. I’m not sure why they don’t usually get a mention. Where Thoreau’s Walden seems to be a kind of set text (I haven’t read it all but enough to get the gist of where he’s coming from), I don’t recall ever seeing Steinbeck referenced as a simplicity guru which, in the best sense, he surely is.
Reading those books again has made something immense fall into place for me. I came to St Francis after I read those, when a certain view and understanding had already formed. The one place I part company with St Francis is over his extreme asceticism – mortification of the flesh, despising of the self. Steinbeck talks of liking yourself in the same easy way you might like anyone else, and he looks steadily at human weakness and idiosyncrasy with humour and compassion and understanding – which is surely less neurotic.
It’s not often I come across a book that makes a difference, that doesn’t leave me thinking ‘Yes, but...’ and wandering off after page 23. It’s not often either that I come across a book that can effect a healing in me, or that can create a tangible wise peace. Reading these two books forty years after I last read them has done just that.
Cannery Row. Sweet Thursday. If you know yourself called to live simply; I recommend them.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Stepping Off 5
Recently at a meeting about climate change, a website was recommended to me for stimulating and encouraging changing our lifestyle to earthfriendly ways.
The approach taken - Calculate (your carbon footprint), Compare (yourself with other people), Compete (to improve your performance) - is not my style, but it did get me thinking about the whole question of Carbon Footprint.
I visualise Carbon Footprint a bit like Buddhapada or those paintings of the Footprints of Christ after the Ascension; the reminder, legacy, consequence, of how we have lived our lives.
But, I don't see how it can realistically be calculated in industrialised society.
Our family members in the Hastings tribe house run no car, work locally, shop from small local businesses, choose fair trade and organic options, take no foreign holidays, use the heating frugally, have no tumble drier or dishwasher, have insulated the roof - you would think their carbon footprint was minute.
Until you start to think about it.
Last night in the Hastings tribe house we had a (delicious) Indian meal delivered from the amazing Bay Spice kitchen, and then we watched a film that we'd borrowed on DVD from the library.
What was the carbon footprint of that? How could we possibly calculate it?
The food came in a van loaded up with many orders - what proportion of the vehicle fuel and the manufacture of the van belonged to us? What percentage of the fuel in the kitchen and the manufacture of the equipment there? The meal came in aluminium foil containers with foil-backed cardboard lids. The vegetables (it was a vegetarian meal) may have been grown in our country: but what about the spices, and the grains? How were they transported from where they were grown? And the ghee - was it packed in metal drums? And the cows it came from? The grain they ate, the fertiliser to grow the grain, the milking machine components and the electricity to run it, the electric lights in the milking parlour for the morning milking before dawn?
And the film we watched - not just the electricity to run our television and DVD player: what about the manufacture of the TV and the DVD player (probably overseas), transporting them here, the manufacture of the freight carrier and the lorry, the manufacture and fuel of the car the lorry driver went to work in to start his working day? And the shop where we bought the TV and DVD player - the lights, the till, the shop fittings: their manufacture and the electricity to run them. How did the shop assistants get to work? Each in his or her own car? On the bus?
And then - the making of the film! The lights, cameras, studio equipment, all the people involved, their accommodation... it goes on and on!
It seems to me that the carbon footprint of eating the Indian meal and watching the film is incalculable.
So how could we possibly make a meaningful calculation of the carbon footprint of our whole lives? Even making the attempt is an exercise in learning how to ignore things!
This we know: to live simply, all the time, every day, in every aspect of our lives, to simplify - this is the earth-friendly strategy. Calculating, comparing and competing becomes unnecessary when we choose simplicity.
The approach taken - Calculate (your carbon footprint), Compare (yourself with other people), Compete (to improve your performance) - is not my style, but it did get me thinking about the whole question of Carbon Footprint.
I visualise Carbon Footprint a bit like Buddhapada or those paintings of the Footprints of Christ after the Ascension; the reminder, legacy, consequence, of how we have lived our lives.
But, I don't see how it can realistically be calculated in industrialised society.
Our family members in the Hastings tribe house run no car, work locally, shop from small local businesses, choose fair trade and organic options, take no foreign holidays, use the heating frugally, have no tumble drier or dishwasher, have insulated the roof - you would think their carbon footprint was minute.
Until you start to think about it.
Last night in the Hastings tribe house we had a (delicious) Indian meal delivered from the amazing Bay Spice kitchen, and then we watched a film that we'd borrowed on DVD from the library.
What was the carbon footprint of that? How could we possibly calculate it?
The food came in a van loaded up with many orders - what proportion of the vehicle fuel and the manufacture of the van belonged to us? What percentage of the fuel in the kitchen and the manufacture of the equipment there? The meal came in aluminium foil containers with foil-backed cardboard lids. The vegetables (it was a vegetarian meal) may have been grown in our country: but what about the spices, and the grains? How were they transported from where they were grown? And the ghee - was it packed in metal drums? And the cows it came from? The grain they ate, the fertiliser to grow the grain, the milking machine components and the electricity to run it, the electric lights in the milking parlour for the morning milking before dawn?
And the film we watched - not just the electricity to run our television and DVD player: what about the manufacture of the TV and the DVD player (probably overseas), transporting them here, the manufacture of the freight carrier and the lorry, the manufacture and fuel of the car the lorry driver went to work in to start his working day? And the shop where we bought the TV and DVD player - the lights, the till, the shop fittings: their manufacture and the electricity to run them. How did the shop assistants get to work? Each in his or her own car? On the bus?
And then - the making of the film! The lights, cameras, studio equipment, all the people involved, their accommodation... it goes on and on!
It seems to me that the carbon footprint of eating the Indian meal and watching the film is incalculable.
So how could we possibly make a meaningful calculation of the carbon footprint of our whole lives? Even making the attempt is an exercise in learning how to ignore things!
This we know: to live simply, all the time, every day, in every aspect of our lives, to simplify - this is the earth-friendly strategy. Calculating, comparing and competing becomes unnecessary when we choose simplicity.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Stepping Off 4
In order to achieve the dream of stepping off, here are some of the changes I have made so far:
1) Stepping aside from the work of being a Methodist minister. That was for the sake of integrity, because of family issues, because the Methodist community did not really want to go where I wanted to lead, because I believe in the circle of faith rather than leaders set over people, because I think paid ministry tends towards dishonesty, because I think there are times to be silent so the obligation of saying a word on every occasion inappropriate, and because I wanted to be free to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow his prompting discerned in my heart. Leaving the ministry meant losing the regular small income from preaching, funerals and retreats.
2) No longer being a car owner. I had a car in Aylesbury and one in Hastings, though I did the shuttling between the two on public transport. The Aylesbury car was just for my use, the Hastings one was shared with two of my tribe. Both were sold, and the money went back to Badger who paid for them.
3) Selling and giving away most of my possessions, to make space in the house. This was both so that the interior would be as little cluttered as possible, so cleaning it would require the least time and attention; so that we would be as flexible as possible in our use of the space and our future choices; and so that we could have two lodgers, to use the living space responsibly, build community and sharing, and return an income. Badger has the income from one lodger, I have the other.
4) Moving my work base to, and centring daily in, the Palace Flophouse.
There are some more changes I still have to make.
1) I need to make some physical changes. I am overweight and have bad varicose veins. Circulatory problems mean it is excruciatingly uncomfortable to sit at any length in a normal chair. I have to sit on the ground or on a bed. If I can't, my legs swell up. My main occupation is writing, but the laptop sitting on my thighs makes serious pains from my abdomen to my knees. So I need to use the computer less, and without it resting on my lap; and I need to walk more and lose weight.
2) The implication of that is that I will have to restrict my writing time/projects, and spend more time walking, gardening and doing other things that are not using the computer.
3) This will be a big challenge for two reasons. The first is that I allot my time carefully. I set time aside for the tribe, to nurture being family; I set time aside for chores, errands and house-cleaning in Aylesbury; and then I set time aside to think, listen, pray and write. The tribe time is a stretch of 10 days in each month down in Hastings. The rest of the month is spent mostly in solitude in Aylesbury. I alleviate the solitude by keeping in touch with friends and family on St Pixels and Facebook. Restricting computer time means cutting back on that. It will be lonely, I think. The second reason is that cutting back computer time may mean writing less, which will take my income down again.
4) So the next change I have to make, if my income is going down again, is to learn to be very frugal. At the moment I pick up bits and pieces on ebay, and buy secondhand books, buy cheap clothes. Those expenses will have to be cut right back.
It looks as though life is asking me to go a little further up the mountain again; to simplify still more. This is a bit scary. I thought I had got my life tucked right in, but I can see there is loads more to do.
I think the difficult part will be the withdrawal from the company of other people. I find the internet communities very cheering and encouraging. Also, participation in offline human society is very expensive. For example, this last weekend I travelled to Hastings a week earlier than my normal schedule, to take part in supporting the art and flower festival at our chapel. The expense of this is significant: train travel to Hastings; a weekly bus ticket to use in Hastings (cheaper to buy than the two trips to the chapel over the weekend); regular groceries for the week; travel food on the journeys down and back; lunch and snacks purchased from the chapel in the two days spent there in support of the event. It comes to a lot. Down-scaling financially means withdrawing from participation in the community, because participation always involves necessary and unforeseen expense.
Choices bring consequences, don't they!
This is turning into quite an adventure.
1) Stepping aside from the work of being a Methodist minister. That was for the sake of integrity, because of family issues, because the Methodist community did not really want to go where I wanted to lead, because I believe in the circle of faith rather than leaders set over people, because I think paid ministry tends towards dishonesty, because I think there are times to be silent so the obligation of saying a word on every occasion inappropriate, and because I wanted to be free to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow his prompting discerned in my heart. Leaving the ministry meant losing the regular small income from preaching, funerals and retreats.
2) No longer being a car owner. I had a car in Aylesbury and one in Hastings, though I did the shuttling between the two on public transport. The Aylesbury car was just for my use, the Hastings one was shared with two of my tribe. Both were sold, and the money went back to Badger who paid for them.
3) Selling and giving away most of my possessions, to make space in the house. This was both so that the interior would be as little cluttered as possible, so cleaning it would require the least time and attention; so that we would be as flexible as possible in our use of the space and our future choices; and so that we could have two lodgers, to use the living space responsibly, build community and sharing, and return an income. Badger has the income from one lodger, I have the other.
4) Moving my work base to, and centring daily in, the Palace Flophouse.
There are some more changes I still have to make.
1) I need to make some physical changes. I am overweight and have bad varicose veins. Circulatory problems mean it is excruciatingly uncomfortable to sit at any length in a normal chair. I have to sit on the ground or on a bed. If I can't, my legs swell up. My main occupation is writing, but the laptop sitting on my thighs makes serious pains from my abdomen to my knees. So I need to use the computer less, and without it resting on my lap; and I need to walk more and lose weight.
2) The implication of that is that I will have to restrict my writing time/projects, and spend more time walking, gardening and doing other things that are not using the computer.
3) This will be a big challenge for two reasons. The first is that I allot my time carefully. I set time aside for the tribe, to nurture being family; I set time aside for chores, errands and house-cleaning in Aylesbury; and then I set time aside to think, listen, pray and write. The tribe time is a stretch of 10 days in each month down in Hastings. The rest of the month is spent mostly in solitude in Aylesbury. I alleviate the solitude by keeping in touch with friends and family on St Pixels and Facebook. Restricting computer time means cutting back on that. It will be lonely, I think. The second reason is that cutting back computer time may mean writing less, which will take my income down again.
4) So the next change I have to make, if my income is going down again, is to learn to be very frugal. At the moment I pick up bits and pieces on ebay, and buy secondhand books, buy cheap clothes. Those expenses will have to be cut right back.
It looks as though life is asking me to go a little further up the mountain again; to simplify still more. This is a bit scary. I thought I had got my life tucked right in, but I can see there is loads more to do.
I think the difficult part will be the withdrawal from the company of other people. I find the internet communities very cheering and encouraging. Also, participation in offline human society is very expensive. For example, this last weekend I travelled to Hastings a week earlier than my normal schedule, to take part in supporting the art and flower festival at our chapel. The expense of this is significant: train travel to Hastings; a weekly bus ticket to use in Hastings (cheaper to buy than the two trips to the chapel over the weekend); regular groceries for the week; travel food on the journeys down and back; lunch and snacks purchased from the chapel in the two days spent there in support of the event. It comes to a lot. Down-scaling financially means withdrawing from participation in the community, because participation always involves necessary and unforeseen expense.
Choices bring consequences, don't they!
This is turning into quite an adventure.
Stepping Off 3
The vision of the Palace Flophouse is as a staging post in stepping off.
Over the past few years I have been putting together bits and pieces with this in mind. Some turned out useful, some not.
The storm kettle is an essential. I have the 2.5 litre size, with the little saucepans. Using the most minimal amount of fuel - paper, twigs, cardboard, whatever - in just a few minutes a 2.5 litre kettleful of boiling water is ready: and while it's heating the baked beans can be heating on the top at the same time.
The Whitstable Bucket is brilliant. It has an inner bucket with holes in the base, half the depth of the outer bucket. The exterior wall has holes around the bottom - so a draught is created, and ash can drop through and be collected. It has a sturdy rack for grilling or standing pans on. The one design flaw is that the handle isn't quite long enough, so the wooden bit gets burnt - and in any case if you tried to pick it up by the handle while the fire is alight, you'd get burnt too. It should have two carry handles on the sides. It draws the air really well, so (like the storm kettle) it's good for a cook-up using any twigs collected. When I am walking through the woods (or anywhere in August when the pine cones fall) I like to take my wooding bag and bring home a stash of fallen twigs to burn.
My cookpots are heavy duty affairs, apart from the little aluminium ones that came with the storm kettle. The heat over the Whitstable bucket is impressive: I have a small brass and copper saucepan (thick, heavy); an 8-inch cast-iron frying pan, a good-size tierra negra cooking pot, a 6-inch iron wok, and an enamel kettle. Steamed veggies are important to me, so I intend to get a small chinese bamboo steamer (they are amazingly cheap). Something I didn't expect is how often I am cooking for a group of people rather than just myself at the Flophouse - so I am going to get a 12-inch cast-iron wok for when folks come by for supper.
I have a 2-litre pump thermos flask. The Palace Flophouse is in the garden of the main house, so the simplest thing is to boil a kettle first thing in the morning, in the house, to fill the thermos - which then keeps the water hot for up to 12 hours. Stepping off even further, away from a house, the water could be boiled up in the storm kettle - but I wonder if there would be issues on a winter morning about warming the thermos gradually to avoid shattering, but still having the water for filling it at boiling point. I guess it would be possible to boil the water, mix a bit with some cold to then pour in the thermos for warming it; then light a second little fire in the storm kettle to bring the water back a to the boil. Not hard, but fiddly.
I have asked Badger for a 4.5 litre thermos cookpot for my birthday. I am really excited about this! It works like a haybox without being so massive. A slow-cooker that needs no fuel past the firts ten minutes. You take out the inner pot, cook up the stew ingredients in that for ten minutes, then put the inner pot into the outer pot: and leave it. Several hours later - stew! This is of great value in the cold weather. Cheap stew ingredients need long cooking, but fuel is also precious, so fuel for a long stew isn't practical.
Sporks are fab for eating: spoon one end, at the other end a fork with a serrated edge for cutting - brilliant! I have mostly enamelled tin plates, mugs and bowls - light and unbreakable.
I did get a Porta Potti, but decided that was a mistake, though it's a good product - more necessary for travelling; campervans, caravans etc. I was really annoyed with myself about that. It was a needless extravagance. A bucket is fine. If I stepped off far enough to be right away from a house, a compost toilet would be my choice - or just dig a hole and empty a bucket into it. As things are at present, fresh human urine is of immense value in the compost heap - human excrement is not, but that can go into the toilet of the main house.
Overall, water and fuel are both saved.
The Palace Flophouse is very light: it has a big window. This means it warms up quick from the sun, and there is good light to work by. Once the sun goes down, lighting is from nightlights in jam jars - not candles, which are more hazardous. And the jam jars will stand on the counter, not be suspended from the ceiling. The heat above a candle is significant; and it is not my wish that the Palace Flophouse should burn to the ground!
For work and keeping in touch with the tribe, I need a phone and computer. I have a very basic pay-as-you go Nokia phone, and a little Samsung notebook with a battery capacity of about 4.5 hours, on a mobile internet connection that costs me £30 a month and gives me up to about 19 hours a day connection for the sort of things I want to do (ie just researching online and emailing etc - no big downloads). So I can charge these up in the main house at night. I'd love one day to have a solar panel, just for charging up the notebook and phone: I don't need electricity for anything else. I have a digital camera too.
The Flophouse will be really cold in the winter - but then, so is the house. In fact the house is probably even colder, because it doesn't warm up quick with the sun like the Flophouse does. If it's mega-cold charcoal in the Whitstable bucket, lit outside until it stops smoking, then brought in should warm things up. Apart from that I figured that if I insulate myself - warm clothes, hat, fingerless gloves, duvet, sheepskins, hot water bottle - then it won't matter if it's cold, so long as it's dry; which the Flophouse is.
Over the past few years I have been putting together bits and pieces with this in mind. Some turned out useful, some not.
The storm kettle is an essential. I have the 2.5 litre size, with the little saucepans. Using the most minimal amount of fuel - paper, twigs, cardboard, whatever - in just a few minutes a 2.5 litre kettleful of boiling water is ready: and while it's heating the baked beans can be heating on the top at the same time.
The Whitstable Bucket is brilliant. It has an inner bucket with holes in the base, half the depth of the outer bucket. The exterior wall has holes around the bottom - so a draught is created, and ash can drop through and be collected. It has a sturdy rack for grilling or standing pans on. The one design flaw is that the handle isn't quite long enough, so the wooden bit gets burnt - and in any case if you tried to pick it up by the handle while the fire is alight, you'd get burnt too. It should have two carry handles on the sides. It draws the air really well, so (like the storm kettle) it's good for a cook-up using any twigs collected. When I am walking through the woods (or anywhere in August when the pine cones fall) I like to take my wooding bag and bring home a stash of fallen twigs to burn.
My cookpots are heavy duty affairs, apart from the little aluminium ones that came with the storm kettle. The heat over the Whitstable bucket is impressive: I have a small brass and copper saucepan (thick, heavy); an 8-inch cast-iron frying pan, a good-size tierra negra cooking pot, a 6-inch iron wok, and an enamel kettle. Steamed veggies are important to me, so I intend to get a small chinese bamboo steamer (they are amazingly cheap). Something I didn't expect is how often I am cooking for a group of people rather than just myself at the Flophouse - so I am going to get a 12-inch cast-iron wok for when folks come by for supper.
I have a 2-litre pump thermos flask. The Palace Flophouse is in the garden of the main house, so the simplest thing is to boil a kettle first thing in the morning, in the house, to fill the thermos - which then keeps the water hot for up to 12 hours. Stepping off even further, away from a house, the water could be boiled up in the storm kettle - but I wonder if there would be issues on a winter morning about warming the thermos gradually to avoid shattering, but still having the water for filling it at boiling point. I guess it would be possible to boil the water, mix a bit with some cold to then pour in the thermos for warming it; then light a second little fire in the storm kettle to bring the water back a to the boil. Not hard, but fiddly.
I have asked Badger for a 4.5 litre thermos cookpot for my birthday. I am really excited about this! It works like a haybox without being so massive. A slow-cooker that needs no fuel past the firts ten minutes. You take out the inner pot, cook up the stew ingredients in that for ten minutes, then put the inner pot into the outer pot: and leave it. Several hours later - stew! This is of great value in the cold weather. Cheap stew ingredients need long cooking, but fuel is also precious, so fuel for a long stew isn't practical.
Sporks are fab for eating: spoon one end, at the other end a fork with a serrated edge for cutting - brilliant! I have mostly enamelled tin plates, mugs and bowls - light and unbreakable.
I did get a Porta Potti, but decided that was a mistake, though it's a good product - more necessary for travelling; campervans, caravans etc. I was really annoyed with myself about that. It was a needless extravagance. A bucket is fine. If I stepped off far enough to be right away from a house, a compost toilet would be my choice - or just dig a hole and empty a bucket into it. As things are at present, fresh human urine is of immense value in the compost heap - human excrement is not, but that can go into the toilet of the main house.
Overall, water and fuel are both saved.
The Palace Flophouse is very light: it has a big window. This means it warms up quick from the sun, and there is good light to work by. Once the sun goes down, lighting is from nightlights in jam jars - not candles, which are more hazardous. And the jam jars will stand on the counter, not be suspended from the ceiling. The heat above a candle is significant; and it is not my wish that the Palace Flophouse should burn to the ground!
For work and keeping in touch with the tribe, I need a phone and computer. I have a very basic pay-as-you go Nokia phone, and a little Samsung notebook with a battery capacity of about 4.5 hours, on a mobile internet connection that costs me £30 a month and gives me up to about 19 hours a day connection for the sort of things I want to do (ie just researching online and emailing etc - no big downloads). So I can charge these up in the main house at night. I'd love one day to have a solar panel, just for charging up the notebook and phone: I don't need electricity for anything else. I have a digital camera too.
The Flophouse will be really cold in the winter - but then, so is the house. In fact the house is probably even colder, because it doesn't warm up quick with the sun like the Flophouse does. If it's mega-cold charcoal in the Whitstable bucket, lit outside until it stops smoking, then brought in should warm things up. Apart from that I figured that if I insulate myself - warm clothes, hat, fingerless gloves, duvet, sheepskins, hot water bottle - then it won't matter if it's cold, so long as it's dry; which the Flophouse is.
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