Long-stay Versus Short-stay Travel

I haven't had a massive amount to say for a while. I thought I would say a little bit about my thoughts on long or short-stay travel. For just over 2 months, I stayed at a guesthouse in Doncaster England. It's owned and ran by Florence/Flo, who is a lovely landlady and friend. She offers a 3-course dinner in the evening as well as breakfast (the dinner is extra but the breakfast is included in the price) and is great to talk to. :) Her place has been going through some changes so is an on-going work in progress, so for some of the time I've been there, I've been volunteering there. I've been helping redecorate the dining-room, specifically stripped a fair amount of the wallpaper and did a little of the painting. I also helped with getting the rooms ready and cooking food. I find being able to work voluntarily is something I like about staying in places for longer. When I come back from America, I plan to go back and do a food hygene course. I also like that you can get to know people better by staying a bit longer. When I go to America though, I will only be staying in places for shorter lengths of time. This is partly because tomorrow I go to stay near the airport, then on Wednesday I fly to America, so I'll be only needing the room for the one night, but apart from that, I'll be meeting with a couple of friends for my first few days of being in the US. I find short-stay travelling more a convenient thing, enough to perhaps look around or see people, but not long enough to be tied down to work or anything. I still do my craft work while travelling as well, so that's good too. For the remainder of my America trip, unless anyone else wants to meet or have me stay etc, I'll be looking around Nashville Tennessee. I love country music and of course Nashville is known as the home of country music, so I've wanted to go there since I was about 12 or 13.

Goals For 2020

This is a week after 1st January 2020, but I thought I would post anyway. I don't normally do new year resolutions, because setting too specific goals means you automatically break them, then it's no fun anymore because you fail at whatever the thing was by definition. That being said, I thought I would set a couple of less-specific goals. The main goal I have is to use less plastic. I thought this would be a good idea because I take issue with plastic being used for unnecessary things like packaging. The things get used once then thrown away because they can't be recycled for any number of reasons, meaning they end up in land-fill sites and in the ocean, so being consumed by everyone in the sea from fish to birds and for all we know it could stop plants from growing in the ocean. Of course there are acceptions and some peaple do keep and reuse things made from plastic. Until plastic was used in so many packaged and otherwise disposable products, it was never designed as far as I know to only be used once, but to stay around which is in fact what it does. So I want to buy as little in plastic as possible this year. The only acception being if someone gives me something or if I already have it. The other thing I want to try and do is to buy fewer teakeaways. This will save money as well as creating less waste. If I do get takeaway food, I want to try and remember to take my own container(s). Speaking of plastic, I did a quick calculation and if I went shopping and got 1 plastic bag per week, I would be paying about £5.20 per year minimum. Of course I would probably buy than more than 1 bag of food2 so in that case if I got 2 bags a week it would be £10.40. This doesn't sound like a lot, but perhaps it is to some people. In practical terms, these goals mean doing more of what I was doing in the first place and making food myself and remembering to take my own food when I go out or take my bamboo cutlery set, stainless-steel flask and a reusable mug, or taking some cloth shopping bags when I go shopping. I'll also continue using bars of soap shampoo and conditioner and the bamboo toothbrushes etc. Speaking of toothbrushes, I'm pleased the set I got in November last year came in cardboard packaging if they had to be packaged in anything. I think the goal of buying fewer takeaways will be rather tested soon, especially when I go to America, where I'm told eating out or ordering stuff to be delivered is quite a thing people do there. Still let's see how it goes.