Its My Bag Man!

On Sunday we drove up to Hull and collected the Mer-torhome. I drove it back and Rosie watched the back of the truck for 110 miles in the Smart car. I admit I was feeling sorry for Rosie as I was having all the fun, driving along in the left hooker Hymer with the radio on and the sun in my  huge smiley face, whilst Rosie just pootled along behind in my shadow.

We took it to meet my mother and they seemed to get on fine. We sat in the Mer-torhome for an hour chatting before going indoors for food, Mum was able to get in without too much bother for an 88 year old and backed down the steps to exit no probs with a bit of guidance from La Rose.

We put the bus to bed in the secure compound we are using for storage and headed home happy.

I spent some time this morning working on my project to make a front and side sheet for the Awning on the bus out of recycled plastic carrier bags. I estimate that I should be able to do it using around 3000 bags. I did some trials today and came up with three different techniques for bonding and they all work well. I will not go into too much detail but suffice it to say that the finished product will resemble a stained glass homage to waste.

I am really annoyed that I cannot as I previously thought, change the Mer-mobile to run on veggie oil because of the injector pump and age, but I will still be able to run on biodiesel as long as I change the pipes from rubber to synthetic to stop them rotting. Then the next step is to source biodiesel suppliers, as they are few and far between. Rix have a few near me so that will be a start.

£57 for a new tyre on the van today but only £7 for all the stuff for supper including wine. We had: Herring in mustard sauce, avocado, tomato and Mozzarella with Chilean Merlot and 5 grain bread and beurre, Yummy!

Love and peace

Mermy

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This is not the collective noun for soap, but a trug full of soap.

Rosie and the merman are cutting and wrapping loads and loads of soap to put into a trug (Bright yellow from Wiggly Wigglers) for selling on sale for Holloween. Why we are having a halloween sale is beyond me but it seemed like a good idea, so….

I did the first market on my own on Wednesday since the operation and I was a fart! One of the bright spark stall holders shouted as he drove off “Hoy Billy Bubbles, you working the night shift” I eventually got packed up and left at 5.30pm, nearly an hour longer than when fit.

There was a message on the answerphone when Rosie and the Merman arrived home tonight from the dealer we bought the motorhome from. It looks like it will be ready tomorrow for collection, so I will probably be popping over to Hull on Sunday, or I might get him to meet me in Lincoln with it, as he really does not mind doing deliveries. I think he enjoys the chance to get out and about with his partner.

I will be off to bed shortly as I have Stamford market in the AM. I have been suffering from lack of sleep lately. I won’t be dramatic and claim insomnia, but last night for example, I went to bed at 10.30, woke at 11.45, returned to sleep at 1 am and woke at 3am for the remainder of the night. 3 hours is really not sufficiant, so Rosie bought me some Kalms herbal sleeping pills. I was amused to notice a warning on the bottle that they “May cause drowsiness” I do hope that is so!

Nighty night, love and peace

Mermy

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What a fab day we had yesterday standing on Grantham market.

The weather was very cold but super sunny and it did not bring a lot of people out but it brought out some very very nice ones.

Let me at the outset tell you that I really like our customers. I know several traders in both shops and markets that could not give a hoot about the people who pay their wages, the public. I on the other hand do like my customers and I enjoy talking toot with them. Some very nice sales have come from people who arrived at the stall with the words “It’s ok, I am not buying anything, I am just browsing”, but after five minutes chatting they often do buy, because they have had the product explained to them with enthusiasm and realised it is something they want, need or could use.

So yesterday we sold several of the new Nomads range of bags, a couple of doybags, some Jute bags, Onya bags and lots of other goodies including such varied things as Black soap, a native american indian flute, an old wood box, dream chimes and lots of our pure temple grade absolute incense. People really like the incense and they like the cheap price I sell it at. Given the fact that this is one of the purest incenses on the market and is used in India in yogic, ayurvedic and deep meditational religious ceremony, it is very inexpensive at only £1.50 for 10 sticks with a burn time of 50 minutes each. Sandlewood and the Blue Lotus are the two most popular with Agerwood and Vrindavan Champa close behind.

We have a mobile credit card machine that works on GPRS and that is getting plenty of use as people build up to xmas. Yesterday we made several very nice sales on the machine which accounted for over 1/3 of the days takings, and the good thing is that most of them were debit not credit, so people were not spending money they didn’t have, which eases my concience somewhat.

It seems at last that people are taking on the message about plastic bags and I get more and more people buying bags to use immediately rather than taking plastic bags from shops and traders. One of the shopkeepers I know spends over £1000 each year on carrier bags, and I know he would prefer to invest that money back into stock than see it end up on landfill.

Following a couple of emails, it seems that I might have my wish to have some nice hemp bags to sell over the xmas period.  I love hemp it is a really bio friendly crop. Fast growing and organic and non harmful to the environment. It also has the benefit when made into clothes of being warm in winter, cool in summer and incredibly tough and hardwearing. As a bag it will last for years and years and still look great.

Sorry to sound like a great big advert for our products, and I will try to blog next time about something less boring to many of you.

Love and peace

Mermy

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Rosie glow and the merman are now the proud owners of a Hymer 694 motorhome 

It is a left hand drive and is lovely. At the moment it is in the workshops having a new cambelt fitted prior to delivery, and we will have it in about a weeks time

This old gal is going to be our green machine. It has solar panels fitted and after we fit another 110 AH battery to go with the 120 AH fitted at the moment, a SOG chemical free toilet system and a Nature Pure water filteration system we will be good to go. We will also be running whenever possible on Biodiesel assuming we can find it on our travels.

Pal Mal in Gosport is going to fit us a 3 kw inverter so that with the solar panels and the extra battery, we can be fairly self sufficient with leccy and should be able to go at least a week without running the engine or having to plug into mains electric. The sog system will mean that we will be able to dispose of toilet nasties in a normal loo due to no chemicals.

Love and peace

Mermy

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I notice that I keep getting spidered by Tech awareness sites such as Moreover and relevantNOISE. These sites monitor the blogosphere and report back to the multinationals about what is being said by bloggers about them. Companies such as AOL, Microsoft etc are paranoid about bad press and feel that by knowing what people are saying about them, they can limit damage.

So to help these spiders out in the search for words and phrases:

Sainsbury’s are shit
Orange is shit
3 is shit
Morrisons are shit
Microsoft are shit
AOL are shit
Labour and Conservatives are shit
George Bush is shit

That will do for now.
Peace
Mermy

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Hey! Lookit! Something else to break! Well, I already broke Mermypoos’ submit-a-post wossname once so I suppose it’s only right and proper that I treat him to a dollop of my usual load of old toot now that he’s fixed it. The submit-a-post wossname, that is.

Er.

Now, what a splendid idea to rally against the not-so-humble plastic bag and other items in the Litter-Lout’s arsenal. Perhaps it’s the hand that commits the crime that needs attention, though:
People who cast their disgusting litter hither and yon should be made to pick it up along with any other litter (including little plastic bags with dog shit inside) within a 100 yard radius.
See, I reckon a lot of social ills stem from simple things like this. Allow me to try to explain what I’m bangin’ on about:
Someone chucks their crap in the street/hedgerow/w.h.y. Someone else sees same crap, thinks it’s the norm to behave like that, does same. Rinse and repeat for other offences sliding further up the scale.
Maybe I’m being too simplistic, maybe I’m spot on. Not enough people care about this place we’re all sharing (and thus all have a vested interest in) because that’s the accepted norm. The prevalent attitude seems to be: “Someone else will deal with it, so why should I?”

Anyway, drop litter = get shot by a blunderbus full of dog-shit wrapped in little plastic bags.
Vote for me.

‹Off soap-box now›

That good enough for you, Merms? Cheque in the post, is it? Marvellous.

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It is well known to all of the people out there who Geocache,  the damage caused to the enviroment by plastic bags. The war cry of the Geocacher is “Cache in Trash out”, and most if not all Geocachers carry a rubbish sack to clean up the environment they visit.

Were this but the case with the occasional user of the countryside. All Geocachers will at some time or other stumbled upon the disgusting scene of the remains of a picnic in some glorious area of natural beauty. Discarded plastic bags, crisp packets, sweet wrappers and soft drink bottles littering the countryside. On a holiday on the Red Sea last year I took a photo of a beach in a nature reserve, which was a breeding ground for turtles, and it was littered with plastic.

Sadly, the more I talk to people about the effects of plastic bags, I realised that I am preaching to the converted. I need to find a way other than my market stall to get out the message to particularly young people about the menace of carrier bags. I refused a bag in my local Spar shop who to there credit had a sign asking people to think before taking a bag, but the chap behind the counter still tried to put it in a bag despite my protest. The young assistant in my local baker tried to give me a bag for a single pastie, and when I told her I don’t do bags, she replies “Is it something to do with the global warming or summat?” She was a 16 year old Saturday girl who really should be preaching to me about the environment. (Don’t they teach these things in schools?)

I started this by referencing to Geocachers, because most of the people who read this are by coincidence cachers themselves…I guess another case of preaching to the converted!

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Oh yes indeed the timing was perfect.

I was so engrossed in all the bubble and squeek that is involved in getting a project off the ground I forgot to read a paper or watch the news for the last few days.

Imagine then if you will my surprise at  not learning that we are in the middle of a postal dispute until it came to dispatching my first order this morning…….I am a twat……..Why did I not go live next week!

The customer is a lovely lady who is very understanding and had bothered to watch the news, so she knew there would be a delay.

Love and Peace

Mermy

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I have this shiney new blog and I am going to use it to bore the socks off the great unwashed about recycling and reducing waste. I shall also rant freely about the scourge of the planet, the PLASTIC BAG.

I will also write the normal bloggage feast of semi humourous stories about people and places and of course I shall use it for gratuitous plugs for the business and the online shop that will shortly be going live.

Love and Hugs

Mermy

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