Navigating New (or not so new) Areas with Little To No Vision

I don't want to turn this into a blindness blog, because there are enough of those already. Saying that though, some people have said I should perhaps do something about navigating, so thought I might as well write something to that since it's at least somewhat specific and related to travelling. In terms of walking around new areas, I like to explore my surroundings and see what I can of the trees and any buildings etc that might be around. I can't distinguish color or read print though, so rely on hearing or smell or touch. I normally just grab my cane and go, so if I want to go somewhere specific I tend to ask for directions. I'm not the most confident when it comes to crossing busy roads, so typically get someone to guide me across them. The most annoying thing I find when walking in big towns and cities is the a-boards businesses tend to have outside, especially the larger ones because I have to go round them to avoid my cane getting stuck underneath them. There are a lot of people in some places who find it necessary to grab hold me when "trying to help". Apart from being pretty scary since you never know what people's intentions are, I find it can hurt like hell. Another thing that I've never understood is why people have this assumption that someone with a vision impairment must automatically have a problem with stairs. I went for a job interview last November and despite my having already gone up a set of stairs to get into the building, as soon as the main person doing the interview even saw me, they decided that it would be too dificult for me to get up to the normal interview room because it was up the stairs and through the warehouse. I told them I was fine with stairs, but that wasn't good enough either because they already decided they were going to move my interview. Even if I had got the job, I doubt I would have taken it because of their attitude. Last week I was in a shop and asked a member of staff how to get to the stairs to go down to the ground-floor. Immediately she wanted to take me to the lift until I told her I was fine with the stairs, but still "do you not want to go to the lift?". No! It's only my eyes that don't work properly not my lefs! As far as buses go ... well that's a whole other story. I find accessibility in the UK very hit-and-miss. I could use some kind of GPS app on the stupidphone I mean smartphone, but although they have worked on the odd occasion, I find they don't really work for me because I either get off too early or too late. Some buses have spoken announcements to tell everyone what the next stop is, but most don't. I'm not including London in this because it's London and the exception to the rule, plus I don't go there unless I have a reason to be there. Having said that though, the London buses and most of the tubes do seem to all talk, although I am told the announcements can still be turned off if the driver wants to do that. I can only write about areas that I've lived or stayed in, but this is going to be a long one. In Newcastle, the 45, 46 and 47 buses from what I remember all have spoken announcements, but sometimes they don't work too well. The q1 and q2 buses that go around Gateshead and a bit of Newcastle are supposed to talk, but either they didn't work when I used them or they just weren't turned on. I spoke to a driver about it because I was getting fed up of having to ask them just in case the thing didn't talk. The only meaningful response I got from the driver was that they can get annoying. I totally see where he's coming from in that the spoken announcements every few minutes can drive you up the wall if you're driving the same route all day or listening to the same thing all day, but at the same time I think that either they have to stay on so people can make a decision as to whether to stay on the bus or to jump off at a different stop. If I change my mind I would like to do so without having to tell the whole bus about it. So please drivers either leave the announcements on or get a microphone and announcements yourself. I can't remember about the other buses in the northeast, because I haven't been on them for ages. The little metro trains also normally have spoken announcements, but at times they don't talk for some reason. I don't recall the buses talking at all in the area of Lincolnshire and Norfolk between Kings Lynn and Spalding. Then again I don't very often take them because Nan and Grandad drive, so they typically take me to places anyway. The buses and the little train don't talk on the Isle Of Whyte either. In Bristol and Somerset, the T2 is supposed to have spoken announcements but most of the time they don't work. I don't understand why. None of the other buses talk around here, but they need to because the biggest problem is drivers not knowing the area! So many times the drivers don't even know the names of the stops on the routes they're paid to drive, but I thought that would be a requirement even if you don't know what's around. I specifically give a name of a stop that I know is on the route, so I expect to be able to get there. I do sometimes tell them what the bus stop is near, but only if it's in an area I already know or have spent some time in. So everyone don't bother asking the drivers of the x6 or x6 from Bristol to Clevedon for insert stop here, even if there is a sign on the actual bus stop that says its name. From the little bus travel I've done in Finland, the drivers have been really helpful in telling me the stop, even if they don't have spoken announcements. The drivers on Flixbus and National Express coaches are normally good about announcing the stops, but again some don't bother, which is quially annoying. Another thing about crossing roads in the UK is that most of the controlled road-crossings no longer have sound. They're supposed to beep to tell when the lights change and pedestrians can walk, but most don't. The argument of most councils is that if there is more than 1 in a certain area they won't make them have sound because it "could get confusing". The UK ones also have a rotating cone on the box just below the button, but that's only useful if a bunch of conditions are true - like assuming first that some idiot hasn't come along and snapped it off, also assuming it hasn't frozen if the temperature has been cold and also if you're the one standing right next to the box in order to reach it. The Isle Of Whyte I find horrible to walk around for the reason that the curbs aren't even consistent. For example there might be a curb on one side of a road but not on the other. There's a crossing in Sandown last time I was there a couple of years ago, and there was nothing in the middle of the road to show that people were meant to stop (no tactile pavement or raised concrete or anything), but apparently only a "keep left" sign. In Hereford none of the buses talk, but the drivers tend to be helpful in telling me when my stop is if I ask them. Also it's not exactly flat there, so I can pretty easily tell where the bus is by the turns it takes and hills and things. In Finland they normally have a ticking sound on the controlled road-crossings. In the part of Helsinki I stayed in March though, they don't seem to have a sound in those ones or any kind of tactile feedback, so had to get someone to guide me as it was a road with multiple sections kind of like a star so I'm told. Apparently parents put in complaints though, because they can't watch their children and watch the lights at the same time, o hopefully that will change soon if it hasn't already. A little word about trains and ferries and things - I used to go on the Sea France ferries to France for the day with Nan and Grandad when I was between 14 and 16 and went once when I was 13 with my school. I noticed then that the signs were in braille in French and English, so was really surprised to see that there are absolutely no braille signs on the boats from North Shields to just outside Amsterdam or on the ferry from Helsinki to Mariham to Stockholm. I've always much preferred the trains in Finland to those in the UK. At least you actually get a seat on the ones in Finland, as you reserve one when you book your ticket. The spoken announcements on the trains in Finland are not only in Finnish, but also normally in Swedish and sometimes Russian and for some reason in English. I don't know if any of the trains in Wales have announcements in Welsh for the stops, but they have Welsh and English announcements at the train stations. They have announcements at train stations in England as to which train is at the platform or next as well, but again on the trains the announcements might not even happen. I got so tired of not knowing where we were pasing through in Wales once that I asked a conductor why he wasn't announcing the stops, only to be told that in their training to be conductors they're specifically told to only announce the principal stations, so of course the little unmanned ones got sadly missed out. The trains in the UK are all owned by different companies, os it's hard to categorize them. Some have automated announcements which announce the stops fine, but some don't have any. On other trains though, the conductor has a microphone and announces the stops that are coming up. Although I'm no fan of crossing busy roads, I much prefer to walk to places if I can. Some places are harder to do that in than others because at times it's hard to distinguish what's the end of a street and what's a curve in the road just for the sake of being a curve. Also in the town of South Shields in the northeast of England, the streets at times run into each other. I'm thinking particularly of Ocean Road, King Street and the street that goes to the market place. Well that's enough of my blind navigation ramble.

A Day Out In Clevedon Town

I spent today hanging out with someone I met just as I got off the bus in Clevedon town. Turns out there's a market every week here, so we went there to have a look round. I got some sunflower rolls from the person selling different kinds of bread. Sadly the bread was in plastic packaging, but thought I would put 1 or 2 of them with the sun-dried tomatoes I bought from someone else who sells them and olives and things, then the people who live here can have the rest of them. The sun-dried tomatoes were in packaging today, but then I didn't take any containers with me because I didn't know there was a market on today. I did ask though if I had my own container could I put things in there and she said absolutely. :) There was a cheese stall and a fish/meat stall. I didn't buy anything from those or the yarn stall. Sadly a lot of the yarn was acrylic anyway. One pretty nice thing I did see was some clothes made from recycled saris. I asked a bit about what the actual material is and they're made from viscose (in this case the bark of a tree). I did get a crystal pendant on a chain from someone selling crystals and things. I can't remember what stone it is, but it has different colors going through it. The chain is silver-plated, but thankfully the base metal is not nicol. We went to a restaurant for lunch and I had a rather large mushroom stroganev with some leaves of lettuce and some really thin flat bread. I don't know what bread it was, but it was thinner than popadoms. I also had some lemone grass tea, which I found pretty refreshing. We had a bit of a look around the shops. I originally planned to go to Holland And Barett and see if they have any laundry soap nuts. I've heard people on youtube talking about them and seen them listed on amazon, but really want to be able to just pick things up in person. Well it turned out the people in Holland And Barett have never heard of them. I'm not surprised because I only heard of them this year, but of course they gave me the usual stock answer of look online. Thankfully there is a shop whose name I can't spell on Gloucester Road in Bristol and they ordered some earlier in the week anyway since they forgot, so they should have them by Tuesday afternoon. We also came across a gift shop which had some really nice things like candles and coasters etc. Annoyingly though the person working in the shop couldn't tell me what the candles were made from apart from "natural wax". I gathered that, but that doesn't tell me if it's bees' wax or soy/coconut wax or what it actually is. My companion pointed out a fish and chip shop as well, so I asked the person in there what they cook the chips in and they said olive oil, but then pointed out that everything is all cooked in the same frier with the fish and sausages. So I totally gave that shop a miss. I was thinking some chips would be tasty as well. There's at least 1 bakery in the area we were in, so when the person I was hanging out with mentioned there were breads for sale, I went in and spoke to the person working in there. They can wrap the bread in plastic bags or they can put them in paper instead, and they'll even slice the bread as well! I totally forgot to ask about vegan pastiel and things but there's always another time. After all that we went to the beach and were looking at and collecting rocks for a bit. We separated at the bus stop when I wanted to come back to the place I'm staying at until Saturday. Turns out the bus driver doesn't know the route he's paid to drive. Why are the drivers not expected to know the names of the stops on the route! There's little to no point relying on GPS even if I wanted to, because although it works at times, more often than not I still end up getting off too early or too late. And so once again I had to tell at least 2 more people the stop I wanted to go to so they could find it.

Visiting Bristol, England And Surrounding Areas

I've spent nearly the last 2 weeks visiting Bristol in England and the surrounding areas. It's bank holiday Monday at the end of May at the time of writing this, so writing on here about my thoughts and experiences so far. I started off staying in a place not in the centre of the city, but on the way out. There are trees and flowers in that area and I'm told you can see the countryside and a tower (which apparently is or used to be part of a hospital). The place I stayed at was above a shop and the bus stop was right near the said shop. In fact the bus stop when arriving in the street turned out to be outside a Chinese takeaway. The takeaway was not a place I tended to frequent because I was mainly wondering around the city centre. The bus goes right to the centre of Bristol and near to where the coaches are. I've written previously on this blog about Suncraft, so I won't write too much about that here, apart from to say I've been there a few more times. The only thing I haven't been a fan of so far was a sort of rice pudding thing, because I didn't like the liquid stuff on top and found that although the rest of the carrot and coconut etc had a good flavor, it was rather dry. I spent nearly a week in the town of Thornbury after that. I like the fact that the town has a lot of greenery and trees and birds, but for a market town there doesn't seem to be much happening. I wanted to go to the farmers' market, but I missed it because it's only on something like every 3rd Thursday of the month. The bus stop was right on the next street from where I was staying, but totally couldn't remember how to get to it. I don't know whether it's because Thornbury is quite a way out of Bristol, but I found a certain bus was never on time if it turned up at all. I was out all day every day last week, so spent a bit of time toodling around Thornbury, but more often than not went into Bristol or the somewhat bigger town of Cribbs Causway, which is part-way between the two. I was doing some research looking for yarn stores to visit in Thornbury, but the only one I found was looking like it might close, as people are buying more online. If it's still open and I'm in the area again, maybe I should go there though. I totally don't need any more yarn but whatever. :) I love indipendent shops, so want to support them. Cribbs Causeway has a shopping centre, but although it has 2 floors, there doesn't seem to be a lot there, at least not unless you want to buy clothes. Having said that though, I did find a "modern vigntage" shop, where even if the things and materials used to make the items were new, the designs on them were over 25 to 30 years old. I always thought vigntage meant something had to be over 50 years old or from a certain time period, or is that antiques? But then antiques are supposed to be over 100 years old, yet I've seen things listed as antiques that were only between 60 and 80 years old. In this particular shop though, there were of course some clothes and shoes and bags, but also some vases in the shape of rabbits which I thought were sweet. Also they had plenty of mugs and plates etc with things written on them or different designs. Also in the shopping centre I found what seemed to be a book shop. I never found out what shop it was, but it seemed to have books that it had already been decided were popular, for example Michelle Obama's book and some fictional things I had never heard of. I find Bristol so far to be a good city for living vegan/vegetarian and 0/low-waste. The only down side is that it's so busy, to the point of asking people where so and so bus is and no one knows what buses go where without looking for directions on their phone. Again I ask myself and others what will people do when the cellphones and wireless internet go crashing down? Speaking of phones, I found a couple of potentially working payphones just near Sainsbury on Gloucester Road in Bristol. Yay for things that actually work! There is a really good fruit and vegetable shop in the same street, selling everything from avocados and oranges to apples and probably carrots and potatoes etc. I even noticed a pineapple in the area outside the shop where the oranges and avocados are. I don't know the name of the shop, but it's across the road from Harvest Natural Foods. Harvest as it says sells natural things from loose oats, rice, lentils etc to vegan and vegetarian cakes and pastries. They also have some reuseable bags both for fruit and vegetables and bigger ones for general stuff. I got myself a couple of the produce bags, which are the smaller ones with plands or at least leaves and stems printed on them. If you want to buy a slice of pie, I would recommend taking your own container because they do tend to fall apart. The pasties are all right to just put in the paper bags though. I just hope my stainless-steel containers will be big enough, or one will for a piece of pie next time, because the pies and pasties are so tasty! Also there are 3 shelves full of aromatherapy oils, so I got a pine one to use with my oil burner. I think I'll try the tip several people keep mentioning of using a little bit of water in the dsh with the oil. At least the ones in Harvest range in price, unlike in Holland And Barett. I found a music shop in Bristol as well, selling records and CDs. Although I didn't buy anything, I was glad to see a music shop still around. I was quite interested in a Japanese shop, but sadly they didn't want me touching the bowls and plates at all just in case they might get broken. I found it kind of weird that there was a tea-set of a teapot and a few cups all nicely in a box, but the plates and dishes were not in anything to protect them. If you don't want people to pick stuff up and look at it, don't even have it on display, or have the sense to put it in it's box so it won't break. I know for a fact I don't break stuff just by touching it, because I was in Marks And Spensor later and looking at loads of things and broke absolutely nothing. Everyone picks things up to look at it closer, otherwise how will you know if you want to buy it? I'm currently in the town of Clevedon in Somerset, which I think I mentioned at the top of this post. Tomorrow I think the green grocer and other shops will be open and back to normal, so I'm going to take a wonder around this town. Yesterday at least for a while, it was drizzly and rainy, then later in the day it was still cloudy. This town is a coastal town with farms and countryside nearby as well. So at times I've been able to hear a number of birds like seagulls and sparrows and pigeons among others all at the same time. Not many birds are out today, but I did hear some seagulls earlier in the morning. This area also has lots of trees. There's plenty of grass too, although I don't understand what people's obsession is with lawns. They want grass, but instead of letting the grass grow wild and be grass, they only let it grow to a certain height and cut it. I'm looking forward to wondering around this town a bit anyway and seeing what it has to offer. The people living at the place I'm staying at now want to try and be more environmentally-friendly, so they thankfully have a decent recycling system by the look of it. They have herbs and fruit and vegetables growing outside and said something about having frogs in a pond as well. This residential area of Clevedon is nice and quiet. Come to think of it, I haven't heard a single car. I have come across the odd person on a bike and of course there are cars, but the main road is not right close to the houses.

Suncraft

Suncraft is a plant-based/vegan restaurant or cafe type place on Gloucester Road in Bristol England. I've visited it once so far and plan to do so again. I found the staff helpful and like the fact they produce as much as they can themselves. They have a UV and irrigation system for growing mint and herbs (sadly they don't have it outside) and they make their own juices, ice cream and teas. There's also a machine to get some filtered water. They ask for a 20p donation which goes to water aid. I wonder how much they make from that in a day. Probably a good few pounds I should think. As far as food goes, I had a side dish which I thought was kind of small but that's just personal preference I guess, a main course, a desert and a drink. For all of that I payed under £20. The side dish was some potato cakes. I hadn't had potato cakes in years, so it was good to finally get some that were vegan. I can't spell the name of the main course, but it was a Chinese type dish that had tofu, mushrooms, brown rice and another vegetable and probably some herbs. I thought the flavors blended together nicely. I normally steer away from things like tofu, but when it's cooked properly I think it can be not too bad, although it's not my favorite thing in the world. For desert I had banana frittas with salted date ice cream. Don't know if I would have added the ice cream, but it was certainly an interesting taste. I liked both the frittas and the ice cream, but not entirely sure if I would have put the together. I can't remember what else was in the drink I had, but I do know it had beetroot juice in it. On the counter were some cards advertizing an animal rights protest. They had the date and time, but totally missed off where it will be taking place.

Travelling In The 21st Century Without A Cellphone (Working Or Otherwise)

While I was waiting for my connecting coach on Saturday last week in London Victoria Coach Station, a lady turned up who needed to find a payphone to call internationally. She had I think used all the money on her mobile/cellphone trying to make the call but had some cash. She asked one of the staff if there was a payphone and they didn't think there were any left in the station anymore as they had been or were being taken out, so she asked the staff member to borrow their cellphone to call as she couldn't think of anything else to do. The said staff member said they're not allowed to carry their phones with them (I doubt this as I know another member of staff used their phone to call an ambulance for another passenger, so they clearly carry them but don't let on as such unless it's an emergency). Well the member of staff with the lady was finally told that there are only 2 payphones in the whole station, both of which are in the arrivals hall. This got me to thinking, what would people do if there were once again no mobile phones? I think I would personally be fine, as I'm used to either finding about places before I travel or asking for directions, or some sort of a combination of both. I never rely on GPS as I find it partly distracting in the sense that I pay less attention to what's going on around me, but partly I'm so used to technology not working that I don't trust it, so do stuff like get off a bus too early. I've also nover found GPS terribly accurate either, especially in countries like the UK where buildings are right next to each other. If I try and get a location, it either won't work or go a long way about showing me as it does lately, or else it will give me an address a few doors away or across the road! As I'm not able to read the signs giving the names of shops for example, even if I do try and get to a place using a GPS of some kind, I still have to ask someone where I am or learn a route beforehand if it's somewhere I go regularly. However most people while they might know parts of town or city, still rely on looking at "smart" phones or other such devices in order to navigate anywhere. Today I was looking for a cafe that I wanted to visit (Suncraft is its name, more about that in another post), I got off the bus and turned out I had done the usual of getting off too early. I didn't think the GPS or driver would be too reliable as it's a 25 minute or more route. Anyway I got another bus to where I really should have been at and asked how to get to the rest of the way as I knew it was on the same street and so probably close by. Well partly I think people just don't listen to most of what I say as I had to repeat myself multiple times today, but partly the person I asked at that time for directions walked with me all the way to the other end of the street and back before realizing it was on the opposite side of the road! The place was really easy to find and closer, because the odd numbers were on 1 side and the evens on the other. What would we do if we went back to using maps and asking each other for directions? I know how to read some symbols on maps and actually find them pretty interesting, but not many younger than me could. In fact I asked a 16-year-old in 2015 what programming language she made the odd couple of games in at school and she came out with something I had never heard of. Not being too surprised, I looked it up and it was ane where you do very little actual writing of the program but more in the way of moving things around on the screen and adjusting their properties. I'm guessing the same person wouldn't have known what to do if I loaded up a terminal and said she had to use it. I wish at times I had been one of those who had grown up using the command-line on the computer, because I find nothing more useful than typing something and getting either the result I intended or an error at line whatever:column whatever, but sadly I only learned that stuff later on and pretty much self-taught. I think graphics can be useful in presenting of course pictures and videos, but not so if they're not accessible to everyone. To conclude: I think technology has its place if it's used as a tool, but I also think it is very much over-used. I find it nice to not use things like cellphones and wifi for a while. As it is I won't be keeping the cellphone/smartphone around forever, because when I stay somewhere permanently I'll be going back to a nice landline and a wired internet connection. Of course that also means people taking the time to talk or write meaningful messages, which I also think people don't do enough of perhaps including myself at times. We're all guilty if we have a phone or tablet or insert other hand-held device of staring at it and fiddling about with it. One of the first times I left my phone behind, I noticed how much more aware I was of the fact that a journey I regularly took at the time felt like a bloody long time. I don't have a concept of time unless I'm looking it a clock or some other timepiece, but noticed that in physical terms the journey was so slow, yet astral travel is pretty much instantaneous. If I know how long it's supposed to take to do something I can plan accordingly, but otherwise I don't know how long it will take to complete a task for example until I've completed it. That was a rather long conclusion, but that's all right with me. During the writing of this post, for some reason I thought of sending a link for this blog to Howard Hughes, the host of "The Unexplained" podcast and radio show. I have absolutely no idea why I thought he would be interested, but let's send it anyway ... maybe.

Intuition In Animals

I write this on a Friday evening/night from my grandparents' house in the part of the rather large county of Lincolnshire closest to the Norfolk border. About this time or perhaps a little earlier yesterday, Grandad wanted to give some leftover bread (I think containing dried fruit) to the wild birds that normally visit the bird feeder or table. I told him you shouldn't give bread to the birds even if it didn't have fruit, because it swells up inside their stomach. He only responded that people have been giving birds for donkeys' years and it's only ducks you should not give the bread to, because it swells up when it hits water in the rivir or pond. He went on to say that wild animals are not stupid and won't eat food if it's poisonous to them. I said yes they would because they might not know the food is poisonous until they eat it, but he seemed to still think that they won't touch it by default. I got to thinking about it then and later and thought, that makes little if any sense. If someone doesn't tell you something is poisonous and you haven't found out through trying the food, how do you know if the food is poisonous? Yes you can use intuition and logic in part to decide not to eat the food, but on the other hand you could also decide that the food looks perfectly safe to eat and do so anyway. We all know that animals tend to use their intuition a lot more than most humans do, but even those lovely creatures don't know how to deal with the physical existence unless they learn it from each other. If you have little to no hearing and go to an area where birds are singing, you won't know that the birds are singing unless someone tells you so. Even if you see them flying or sitting around or whatever they're doing, they may or may not be singing, but because the physical sense of hearing doesn't work, you won't be aware of such a thing. You can of course go wherever you like and do whatever you like astrally, because the spiritual form is perfectly fine and has no limitations that are imposed on physical forms. That way you can go and hear birds singing or see the trees and animals etc, which then brings the question of why do we have a physical human experience if we have to rely on others to help inform and shape it or we have to look at things astrally anyway? I haven't yet found an answer, but still I wonder ... why are all of us spiritual beings having human, animal, tree, rock experiences etc? How and why did we end up on the planet known as Earth? As to animals, I know the horses and dolphins especially, but all of them in general bother with telepathy, intuition, empathy and whatever else way more than most humans do these days. I think this is partly because people choose not to, but partly because people find it necessary to condition each other into believing that anything other than physicality is imagination or made up.

Travelling By Public Transport In Europe

I can't drive but of course love to travel, so thought I would write today about using public transport both in the UK and the rest of the European countries I've been to or through. In the UK, the train companies used to be funded at least partially by the government, but for as long as I can remember have now been privately funded. I don't know who funds the buses, but I would guess they're privately funded as there are so many companies that run them. I don't know though, because you can normally get information on buses and timetables etc through local councils. Because of the fact that the trains here are privately funded, the companies find every way they can to make them expensive as they can, regardless of the quality of the journey. I can normally get a seat on a train, but it's not garranteed, because the companies sell as many tickets as they can and reserving a seat is only optional. There are discounts that some people can use like if they fall into certain age groups or have a disability. I think there are also some discounts for families. Even with a discount though, I would say at times a train can be the most expensive next to taxing a taxi. I haven't flown on an internal flight in the UK, but I'm told some people find that option cheaper than trains. That's not to mention the price of food on trains and at stations! I've payed at times £2 for a cup of tea and at the same time found out that sandwiches then cost around £3.50! Let's take my own food I think. Well when I remember to get or make something. In terms of local buses it depends on the company, especially with local buses. Some companies charge a rather large amount to go only a few minutes round in a circle, while others charge somewhat cheaper to do a similar distance and journey-length. Again you can get various bus passes making the journey cheaper or even free of charge. Speaking of free travel, I'm told that people with disabilities living in Scotland can get a card to allow them to travel on the trains within Scotland for free! I'm starting to use National Express lately for coach travel. Even if I didn't have a coach card, it would still make it considerably cheaper to travel by coach than by train. I'm going to visit my friend Dawn (who writes the Barriers To Bridges blog and website) soon. Taking the coaches will take a lot longer, but be barely a third of the price of the trains. I haven't used Megabus, so can't comment on their buses or service, but I've so far found National Express drivers friendly and helpful and the buses more comfortable than the Flixbus buses. In Finland and many other European countries, the trains are subsidized heavily by the governments. I say that because a journey from Helsinki to Rovaniemi taking between 8 and 12+ hours depending on which one you take costs 80 euros, but you can pay £80 or more for a journey from Hereford to Newcastle, which only takes about 5 or 5 hours! The other difference is that the Finland journey I just mentioned is normally a direct route and the same price whether you want to go now or book 2 months ahead of time. When you buy a ticket with the train company there, you reserve a seat by default, so the ticket is also the reservation. I like this because it means absolutely no one stands up for a train journey, unless of course they're going to the toilet or the dining car. Speaking of dining cars, they have them rarely in the UK trains, but both in the UK and Finland they have not many vegan options. On the Finnish trains though, you normally find at least 1 option and you actually get to sit down with a plate and cutlery like in a restaurant. For people who read braille, the seat numbers are sometimes in braille on the side of the isle seats on the trains in Finland, but not the compartments as far as I know and there is nothing at all on the British trains. I can't remember if I've mentioned in previous posts on here, but taxi meters in Finland start at 6 or 7 euros, so by definition fares are so much more expensive than taking a bus. To get from Helsinki Vantaa Airport to the other side of the city it costs 40 euros in a taxi but only 5 by bus. I can't comment on any national coach services there, because I haven't used them, but even getting around by local buses is so much eaper than by taxi. Of course walking is also totally free and I like to walk if I don't have a bunch of stuff to carry. I think the taxi meters in Germany start at a lower amount than in Finland, because to go 7 km across Berlin it cost about 18 euros. The cheap taxi companies in the UK start at £1, but normally the start at £2 or £2.50. Although I don't find the Flixbus buses in any way comfortable, I find some of the drivers to be so kind. I like ferries too, because they can be cheap if you book at the right time and the food is normally pretty good. I ate some food in one of the restaurants on the ferry from Turku to Stockholm and was glad to see they were using reuseable napkins or whatever you call those things you wipe hands on. I booked that ferry with ferrysavers.co.uk and the ferry I went on from Copenhagen to Dresden was included in the price of my Flixus ticket. I enjoy being able to walk around on ferries or on the longer journeys you can go to sleep if you want. The sofa in the cabin turns into a bed. I know ferries hold a lot more people than planes, so I would guess they're more environmentally friendly, as well as the fact they don't seem to dump fuel but keep hold of it. I could be entirely wrong though, because there are some statistics that say aeroplanes are the second most environmentally friendly mode of transport. To conclude, I plan on using more coaches for longer distance travelling in the UK rather than trains. I have recently come across a service called blablacar, which allows you to get picked up and dropped off if people are driving in the same direction ... Apparently it's kind of a ride-sharing service. I can't comment on that as it's not something I've tried oud.

Low-waste Living Changes And Improvements

I've been buying things on amazon lately, mainly because I was having trouble finding some of the things I wanted to in the physical stores. That being said, I have since I posted a little while ago about low-waste living and the things I do or would like to do, bought some stuff so thought I would post something of an update. I wrote about the bamboo travel mug with the silicone lid and grip, which I love and think it's great for getting hot drinks when out and travelling. Last week I bought a 1 litre stainless-steel flask. It's a double-walled flask, so according to the description it keeps drinks hot or cold for up to 12 hours. I haven't tested it yet, but I chose a double-walled flask because I heard Imi who runs the Sustainably Vegan youtube channel saying that the single-walled flasks burn or freeze your hand. I gave the bamboo mug to my nan because I thought I won't be needing it now. I realized afterwards that either I'll have to get a rather large amount of tea when I get tea while I'm travelling, or perhaps get another mug. I say that because I didn't realize just how big a litre was and it's rather taller than I expected! Oh well I don't mind lots of tea. I could of course also make tea before I set out or put fruit juice in my flask or something. :) The whole point after all was to get something that I could throw in my bag without having to bother about it leaking. I also got myself some stainless-steel food storage containers with silicone lids. They're stackable in the sense that they fit inside each other. I got a set of 3 and currently have roasted peanuts in the smallest of them. I honestly didn't think the peanuts would fit, but they do just about. Annoyingly I still have the looseleaf tea in a plastic container which in turn is inside a plastic bag, but that's going to change if \I still have any left when I leave my grandparents' place later in the week. I gave the rest of the plastic containers I bought in Helsinki to Nan, who says she doesn't like them for food either because they're so thin so is going to use them for craft supplies. In the same parcel I got a bunch of cotton shopping bags. I took one of them shopping a couple of days before writing this post along with the reuseable bag I got for fruit and vegetables in Helsinki and a paper bag I kept hold of. I managed to fit 3 apples, 3 bananas, 2 potatoes, a pepper and an avocado in the one reuseable bag! Given that the bag is a drawstring thing and not massive, I was surprised that everything fitted and nothing got squashed. I put the fruit and vegetables bag inside the cotton bag I took with me, but also managed to fit a big smoothy drink about the size of a container of soya/almond/oat milk etc, a couple of tins of different kinds of beans, the peanuts and some snacks for the dog Blue. I never give him anything except on the rare occasion, so thought I would get him a little something. I've got 10 of the very good-quality cotton shopping bags. I just have to remember that they're super light, so to either keep the bag on my shoulder or roll it up. We tested out the food storage containers as well, and discovered that they meant what they said about being airtight, because they held water even when we turned them upside down and shook them around. I also sold and sent off my original kitchen scale, so bought the one I wanted to get with the jug that measures liquid as well as solid ingredients. I find it more responsive than the other ones, because it sapeaks and I think displays on-screen the weight somewhat quicker which can only be an improvement. The cool thing is that the scale itself will sort of fit in the jug so I can carry it around. It was amusing when they arrived, because I had the big parcel with the food containers flask and shopping bags and the other parcel with the scale show up at the same time. The delivery drivers literally were at the door together! Oh the flask came with a sort of cleaning sponge thing as well. I got myself a bamboo cutlery set which comes in its own cotton carrying pouch. I guess that's what you could call it. It has a knife, fork, spoon and a reuseable straw with cleaning brush, but for some reason none of the cutlery sets I came across had teaspoons. Strange. Even so though, the cutlery things I do have look to be pretty sturdy. The final thing I managed to get my hands on sadly only on amazon, was a sweet little stainless-steel tea-strainer. I'm loving that thing! I wonder if you can reuse tea leaves actually. I haven't tried, but know some people do that and others find it pretty disgusting. The cup bit where the leaves go is mainly a very fine mesh of stainless-steel and it has 2 handles so it can sit on the cup or perhaps a teapot if I wanted to make tea for several people. It also has a little lid which I've been using as a drip tray at times to avoid apparently ruining the wooden surfaces. It saves using so many teabags if any and maybe it's just me, but I find even if I only use a teaspoon and a half to 2 teaspoons a time, they seem to last forever! I still seem to have a llarge amount of the loosleaf tea I got when I was in Rymattyla! Then again I have also been using teabags while staying with people due to not having a tea-strainer of any sort at the time. The thing I did that I really don't like and was trying to avoid is buying frozen vegetables, especially the kind that you keep in the bag and steam with microwaves. I can't stand plastic around food, especially when it gets blasted with microwaves. Such as it was I found them bland as heck and found the pizza more tasty. There's no point timing anything while I'm here though, because despite my having Nan tell me how long it takes to cook something in the regular over (not microwave) and having her set the said oven, she goes and looks at it and guesses when it's done anyway. I would personally left it in for the full amount since the oven was not preheated, but I guess there's no point telling that to someone who used to be a chef and seems to think they know better than everyone else. Given that they wanted me to buy some of my own food though, I insisted on getting as much of the rest of the food as non-packaged as possible. Sadly that meant avoiding things like the spinach and mushrooms, because apparently there were none in the shop that were not in packaging. The final thing I can think of that I can't remember if I mentioned on my previous post in bamboo cotton buds and a bamboo toothbrush. I've had them for some time now. I like them for being biodegradeable and I find they feel friendlier as well as working better. The bristles of the toothbrush are soft but seem to clean just as well. I use fluoride-free toothpaste when I can, although it is not as effective in the UK as it is in say Finland and Germany, because the British love adding fluoride to the water. I can taste it so if I want to drink water here I either make tea or at least boil it. Annoyingly Nan and Grandad don't have any kind of food-waste facilities or composting places, so it ends up in the standard household bin. I haven't yet managed to find anything to do with the extra clothes I don't really need. I thought there would be loads of charity shops or something around here, but apparently not.

Lifestyle Choices And Reactions

I decided to be vegetarian when I was 17 and so was all my adult life until nearly 2 years ago. So I was vegetarian for nearly 11 years before becoming vegan. I decided to be vegetarian partly because I didn't like meat much anyway, but partly because I've always seen animals as friends and never thought it right to kill them for food, even less so these days when way more meat is being produced than people know what to do with. All my "family" eat meat and dairy etc, so was nervous about telling them anyway that I wanted to become vegetarian back in 2006. Some of the family members said they didn't mind or didn't really have any reaction. I'm told my mum was vegetarian and at some point vegan, but from what I remember she never tried to stop me eating animal products. I lived with my great aunty and uncle at the time I became vegetarian and they were the ones I had the most issues with. They were the ones who were trying to make me go back to eating meat and went to the point of having a damn good try at hiding meat in my food, then wondering why I didn't touch much. I've never really trusted things like quorn precisely because the meat substitutes and similar things are designed to mimic the meat and dairy products the person wants to avoid. Even now I only buy things like vegan cheese on the odd occasion and if I have someone read the ingredients or bring up the list of ingredients online. Of course everyone finds shopping with or for me a total pain because I'm that person that wants to know where everything comes from why and how, but everyone else for the most part merely wants to go and pick the thing up no matter where it comes from these days it seems. I know there are some people who do read ingredients or look at materials and descriptions etc, but not many and I would quite happily read the information myself if I could. Back to the point ... Because of the reaction I got from telling my family I wanted to be vegetarian, I was also worried about the reaction of my friends at the time. However I was surprised, because I found them so much more supportive than the family. I still remember one of the saying "It that all you wanted to tell us?"! Hahaha" At the time I lost a lot of weight because I never have been great at cooking and there wasn't a massive choice when eating out or eating at college for vegetarians. Normally there would be perhaps 1 vegetarian option and 2 or 3 meat options, or on Sunday there would be no vegetarian options at all except salad or baked potato. Over the years it became easier to find things but I also started making a bit more when I had the motivation to do so. I've also started not really caring what other people think (or trying not to care), because I'm not telling them to do the same as me, just that this is what I do. I therefore found it easier in a way to be vegan more recently. I find it similarly difficult to find vegan options when eating out as I once did vegetarian options. I think that might be as a hotel receptionist pointed out, because people don't know or forget the difference between vegetarian and vegan. It turns out that the "family" members I once thought somewhat supportive are now sadly among those giving me the typical arguement of "if there were no meat-eaters and no one who ate cheese or drank milk, there would be no (insert domesticated farm animals here)". To that I think they're talking out of their bottoms, because there were plenty of wild animals when people left them alone. Another reaction I've had from a family member when telling them about being vegetarian and now vegan was "What made you go like that"? "if you don't have meat or cheese or eggs, how can you enjoy anything?". They seem to think that animal products is all there is on the planet and forget that you can get neutrients from plants just as well. Animals don't think about us when they eat and do whatever they do in their lives, because they are only interested in building themselves up so they can keep themselves alive and look after their own young animals. Such as it is, I try and make my own food more now, because it's cheaper I think and I can choose what I want. Sadly I still loose motivation at times when I'm on my own, especially if I'm staying in one place for an extended period of time. Sexual preference and being polyamorous has also got some rather mixed reactions. Again my own family were those who tried to make it perfectly clear that according to them, it was not ok to do anything with people of the sa e gender. For example when I was around the age of 6, a friend at school told me it was valentine's day and that meant you give cards and presents to your boyfriends or they give them to their girlfriends. I didn't have a boyfriend, so I decided to make a card and give it to the said friend who happened to be a girl and she in turn gave me a little chocolate bar. I went home and either my great aunty or one of her daughters who was in the room at the time asked if I had got any valentine's day cards (or something along that line), so I said I gave a card to my friend (insert name here) and she gave me a chocolate bar. Their immediate reaction was "You're supposed to give those to your boyfriends!". A few years later while I was still in primary school, I was playing a game with a female cousin who was 3 or 4 years younger than me, involving running up and down and kissing then repeating. Once again, the said great aunty told me off for kissing girls. Never again did I tell her anything about being interested in girls or having girlfriends until years later. Then she gave me a shpeel about being sorry I couldn't express that or anything about being polyamorous when I was younger, but didn't mention anything about the fact that it was she doing much of the judging. I've also had the religeous book of choice bashing both regarding sexuality and polyamory. Some of the more supportive people really don't mind and some of the not so supportive people have rather than giving their own opinion quoted bits of text at me. What they don't realize is that the books have all been edited to say what the few want them to say, in the hope the readers won't go reading further into things and looking for anything other than those few books and those few editions. As for being polyamorous, a lot of people don't seem to understand that it's all about conscent, so when telling them or asking their opinion they tend to say it sounds like cheating or that's what it is. Also a lot of monogamous people expect me to be monogamous just because they are. Like I tell them though, I pretended and tried to be monogamous for several years, but for me it failed rather spectacularly, mainly because I still love everyone regardless of how many relationships I'm in. When I've told family members (in response to them asking if I have a boyfriend) that I have 2 boyfriends for example, one accused me of "playing the field" and said you're not supposed to have 2 boyfriends and another accused me of being a flirt. If I try and talk to the second family member I just mentioned about any things I might not be happy about in relationships, her reaction is that I'll find a serious relationship some time. I tell her that if I wasn't intending it to be serious I wouldn't bother getting into any relationships because there would be no point, the only thing she says is that they're just casual or they don't have to be serious. One of the religeous people I mentioned earlier somehow also thought me and another person were trying to convince him that polygamy/polyamory is right. Um no! Having said all that, I have also had some possitive reactions. Mostly from friends who don't seem to mind either way. Then again some supposed friends were the religeous ones so I kicked them ages ago. The supportive ones though have stuck around. One friend recently came right out and asked how my romances are going? :) The last thing I can really think of writing about here is the decision of giving up a permanent place of existence in order to travel. I never stayed in 1 place longer than 3 or 4 years at the most as it is, as well as the feeling of relief when I would leave the house or apartment and go away from cellphones and wifi and other such micorwave and milliwave-emmitting things. I find it freer not having to pay rent and bills all the time as well as getting to meet new people and see new places. I'm always the one doing the running round and visiting everyone else, so it made sense. It only makes financial sense to me to stay in one place if the said place is already furnished or with appliances, or if I can buy the furniture or get it made cheaply and of good quality. However when I told people about travelling and not having a permanent place, they didn't get it apart from the very few people. Most seem to think it's useful to keep a place and travel. One person referred to it as my "stupidness" and again family members. They were among those who decided I needed to get on the council list and get somewhere permanently again. I travelled for 10 months sometimes staying for a couple of weeks or so and found for the most part I was freer and somewhat happier. I only got on the council list and rented somewhere for a few months in 2018 to get society off my back. I notice though that doing what society expects is not what aligns with my own views, beliefs, call it what you will. When I did rent a place for a few months, I felt nothing but trapped. Sure I was leasing some furniture and appliances, but they don't give lightly. I was only a week behind in rent when I got the stuff, but because of that they decided I was not having half the stuff I asked for. Most places in the UK don't come with any furniture or appliances unless stated and carpets and curtains are considered decoration. I felt so trapped there that I went away whenever I could, but because I was having to pay rent and bills that wasn't so often. And so we go round in circles. I was at college for a few months until February 2019, then thankfully went back to travelling. Once again though, I'm back on the council housing list for the Tyne And Wear area (in northeast England), only because I'm starting an art course in South Shields in September 2019 and need some place to stay. In a way I'm looking forward to starting the course because of course I like art and it's a long way of solving the issue of presenting certificates to prove I have qualifications, which is not my issue at all. In a way I'm not looking forward to it, because it means being yet again tied to one place with little freedom. I only hope I can find an energy supplier that doesn't insist on using smart meters, as they work by bluetooth. In terms of travelling, I have of course also met some interesting people along the way as I mentioned previously on this blog, and been to some great places.