Every Little Helps

My wife and I have just moved to a new house. A delightful cottage in a small north Oxfordshire village. My new contact details appear below. We are renting. In our previous house we were using energy saving light bulbs, had water saving containers in the garden, had bought energy saving white goods and were recycling as much as possible.  Sourcing as much of our food from local outlets is also a keen interest of ours.

In our new house white goods are provided and are not the energy saving variety; there are twice as many light bulb sockets as we had before, all the downpipes outside are cast iron and therefore not suitable for water saving containers, and all the white goods are standard. However, we've now bought energy saving light bulbs throughout, we have excellent double glazing in the house which helps with our use of oil and electric. We are delighted to find that the local Council are good on recycling; and we have even sent off for a new wormery to deal with our kitchen waste. It goes to show that energy saving is not easy and takes some effort to organise. Outlay can be costly and clearly some thought needs to be given for those who find that cost simply too much to cope with.

In our last village there was no village shop; there is an excellent and previously award winning shop in our new village and we are looking forward to using it frequently. Not quite an eco warrior but getting more ecofriendly and as the old maxim has it -  every little helps! 

Revd Canon Glyn Evans is rural officer for the Diocese of Oxford. He has moved to Sibford Gower and can be contacted on 01295 788021 or by email.