Bardies 10:10

I do not know where the first fortnight of September has gone - lost in a flurry of sewing on nametapes, getting shoes fitted and endless washing machine cycles. C'est la vie des Mamans! Here I am, finalement, with a few sweaty and tired moments to spare in front of my computer on the evening before my 18 year old heads off back to college. My original intention was to get this blog up on the 2nd or 3rd September in response to the 'Guardian's' launch of its 10:10 campaign.

For those of you who don't read 'The Guardian' on line, their campaign was launched at the Tate Modern on 1st September 2009, with the aim of asking individuals, businesses and organisations of all kinds to try to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. Not much, you might think, especially from the clean air of the Ariege, but if tens of thousands of people are fired up [sorry, no pun intended!] with enthusiasm for the project then the impact of our collective action becomes significant. Being a natural ditherer, I always think that the toughest bit of any course of action is the first tentative step. The great thing about this project is that you don't have to don a hair shirt in the process.

Ironically, the people that I know who are the most committed to reducing their carbon emissions live in the Ariege and have the lowest carbon footprint to start with. Karl, our plumber, drives an electric car and knows everything there is to know about reed beds and solar panels. We have talked many times about installing a 'pompe a chaleur' for heating, a brilliant idea if only the cost weren't as high as a brand new BMW! For so many of us, the costs of all this wonderful new technology remain totally prohibitive. The will is there, but the bank manager isn't.

Instead, for now, we have to look at other options. We have already put thermostats on all our radiators [not cheap!] and installed woodburners, which blew the whole of last year's budget, and some more. We are privileged to have masses of woodland so, as we just utilise the dead trees which are carbon neutral, we are able to heat the house in autumn and spring without resorting to a small mortgage to turn on the oil fired central heating. In January and February, though, we have to bite the proverbial bullet and kiss euro bills goodbye in the smoke. Not good for the environment, and not good for our peace of mind. No wonder our friend Jim, in the Gers, takes off for Brazil for the winter!

As we did both of these things before 1st September, I can hardly boast them as part of our 10:10 commitment. Likewise, our loft insulation, which we put in three years ago when we were feeling rather more flush and had run out of salad bowls to put under the leaks in the roof. Thank goodness we did repair the roof when we did, otherwise I dread to think what chaos would have greeted us back in January when the 'tempete' hit. As it was, we still lost a number of pantiles but the 'flexituile' held the water at bay and we were spared the need to repair rain sodden ceilings.

We have to now look at simpler measures to reduce our consumption by a further 10%. Travel is obviously the number one target and I promise I am working on it. I have signed up to the special offers on the SNCF website, but getting to Paris by train 'sous la manche' is still incredibly expensive and you can't really drag lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners and hedge cutters in tow, not to mention recalcitrant teenagers. We have, however, taken advantage of the car scrappage scheme to buy a more fuel efficient diesel car which will take the four of us, and the dog, more comfortably and all together. Hopefully, the plaintive moans of cramped children buried beneath mountains of surplus luggage and boxes of books, will be a thing of the past [as indeed should their demands to fly home on their own, in comfort, on Easyjet!].

I have come to the conclusion that the old ways are the best and, inspired by my visits to old, cold, draughty National Trust houses, I am determined to take a leaf out of their previous owners' books. Firstly, curtains. If big, heavy interlined curtains were good enough to keep the heat in Scottish castles in the depths of a Hebridean winter, then they must do the trick down in the Ariege. The poles are in place ready and waiting for the recently scrounged haul from my mother-in-law. She always knew that those muddy brown and sludge green curtains deserved a fate better than the local Scout troop's jumble sale! They may not be the height of interior design chic but if the choice is freezing your arse off, who cares?

Secondly, hot water bottles. Right up until she died, my darling old mum used to put two hot water bottles in my bed in winter whenever I went to stay with her. In my book, they are the ultimate token of love. To go to the trouble of filling a hot water bottle and putting it into someone else's bed is the test of true generosity of spirit. There is nothing in this world like that warm tingly feeling that takes over your body when you climb into a bed so warmed. And, unlike an electricity guzzling electric blanket, the heat stays with you until you blissfully fall into a deep sleep. OK, so the downside is the shock cold contact with an icy bag of rubber first thing in the morning, but, hey, there is no gain without pain!

Thirdly, I am going to disconnect the beautiful old French taps that fill our lovingly resourced period cast iron baths. I was in seventh heaven when I found our two French rolltop baths in Frome ten years ago. Not only had they not been spoilt by having been re-enamelled, they were complete with their original leaky taps. A good scrub and a lick of Farrow and Ball's 'Pidgeon' oil eggshell later, they looked like new and were perfect for our purposes. My bargain buys proved a bit of a disaster a few months later, though, when I had to have the floors reinforced with RSJ's to take their weight. Now, in comparison with showers, their respective water consumption is a 'No! No!'. It's such a shame, but serious times need serious measures. They'll still look good, even if the only way to fill one is with a bucket!

My fourth measure concerns lightbulbs. Because Bardies is so old, we tracked down old 19th century French light fittings and chandeliers, which we had converted. It may not be long before they are lit by a single lightbulb. We already use the new energy efficient bulbs where possible but, being blind as a bat at short range, the long lasting bulbs seem so dim to me. I simply cannot read with them. Can anyone, I wonder? What I don't understand is why a total ban on the old ones seems not to have spurred the manufacturers into producing suitable replacements. Torches and candles may be a short term answer but it would be nice to know that the future wasn't going to be totally dim. 'The lights are going out all over Europe and we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime' was never so apt.

I was pleased to see that EDF have taken the initiative of sending a graph of one's household electricity consumption on each bill, with a comparative one from the corresponding period from the previous year. I am very pleased to see that ours was significantly reduced, largely, I suspect, because the children had spent less time with us. They are hopeless and I am rapidly turning into a fishwife in pursuit of them when they leave lights and the TV on every time that they leave a room. A minor electric shock administered anonymously every time they walk out of a room might do the trick, rather like one of Pavlov's dogs. We, like most people in the Ariege, never leave anything on standby for the purely selfish reason that a storm can roll in overnight and wipe your computer or blow up your television set.

Of course, there is always room for more saving. I am going to use everything in the deep freeze by September each year [always good to delve deep and find things that you put away for a rainy day way back in 2001, or whenever!] and turn it off for the winter, as well as the fridges. I am also going to hide the supplementary electric radiators for emergencies only. It is amazing how quickly one adapts to temperature reductions, especially if it happens slowly. We certainly didn't have central heating when I was growing up, and the house awaiting slum clearance that I lived in at university was so cold that my washing froze in the bathroom. I seem to recall many nights going to sleep in my coat, but that may have been down to too many beers in 'The Buttery'! My mum used to buy me sheepskin lined boots long before 'Ugg' made them fashionable and, even now, I still wear them to ward off the foot-numbing cold of our unsympathetic 'tomettes'.

At the end of the day [sorry for the cliche, but one day it may be!] these measures are as nothing compared with the threat that is before us. We are really not very good at looking into the future, especially the bleak and barren one that so many Africans, South Americans and Australians will face if we don't get our act together soon. I cannot possibly pretend that I am anything other than a hypocrite, an environmentally part-time, self indulgent, gas guzzling, water consuming, heat loving individual, whose actions, alongside tens of thousands, or indeed millions, of others, continually damage our precious world. I wish that I could wave a wand, so that it would all go away and we could get back to the serious business of simply enjoying ourselves. I can't, and neither, sadly, can you. We are all on the same long, hard journey and the sooner each of us takes those first few steps towards a world that our grandchildren can inherit, the easier our shared journey will become. 10:10 is a start, but only a start. Bon chance!