Getting Back into the Swing of Things and Some Bad News - W/E 1st March 2025

On Sunday morning, I had a bit of a lie in after staying awake until the early hours waiting for LB to come home. LB had an even longer one, as she was a bit hungover after her night out. Eventually, OH came home from cycling, LB got up and we all headed out for lunch at a local restaurant, before she headed back to her flat. 

Afterwards, we saw her onto the bus and then came home and had a chill afternoon. We'd had a nice meal, but to be honest, I don't really enjoy eating out as much as I enjoy eating at home. It's nice in terms of being social and getting out and about, but the food doesn't quite hit the same when it's made by someone else. I don't want to sound ungrateful and many people might disagree with me on this point, but it's just how I feel about it. I think we've eaten out a bit too much this week and we're both looking forward to eating at home more from hereon in.

On Monday, I did my usual of heading out of town to shop. The bill was quite a bit more than the previous week, but I did throw something in the trolley from the Middle of Lidl for LB, so that accounted for some of it. We are pretty well stocked up though on most things going into March.

On Tuesday morning, we woke up to some bad news. One of OH's siblings was in hospital after suffering from a stroke, which kind of threw us completely. We spent most of the day waiting for news from family members going to visit them. I went to my usual class at the gym, as I was already booked in, but I was pretty distracted. We eventually did get some news and OH decided to go up by train the following day to visit them. I agreed to stay home, as we had engineers coming to connect fibre optic internet cables the next day and I'd arranged to meet with friends, although I could easily have cancelled the latter.

On Wednesday, I stayed close to home all day. I wanted to go for a run, but it was raining quite heavily so I gave it a miss. I did some pottering and sewing and then got ready to go out and meet my friends for supper. We had a nice evening and had a good catch up. OH in the meantime was messaging me updates from the hospital. I'm hoping to get up to Yorkshire to visit in the very near future, but OH was reasonably reassured that they seem to be getting good care in the hospital and had their family around them every day.

On Thursday morning, the engineers came earlier than expected, so it was just as well I'd stayed home.  OH was back a couple of hours later, as he needed to be back for a hospital appointment himself and I went out for a run once he was back, did some work on my monthly finances and then got ready for work in the evening. I've got quite a few shifts between now and the middle of next week, but maybe after that we might travel back north to visit again, hopefully things will have stabilised a little by then.

Work on Thursday was okay. It felt like quite a while since I'd been there. The shift passed okay though. It's that time of year when staff reviews are taking place, so I expect I'll be called in for mine sometime in the next week or so.

On Friday morning, I had a lie in and a late breakfast. OH was due at a hospital appointment and had to fast, so I didn't go down to breakfast until he'd gone for his appointment, as it didn't seem fair to eat in front of him whilst he was fasting. 

There was a global anti-capitalist protest taking place on Friday, encouraging people not to buy from large multibillion pound/dollar corporations for the day, so I decided to join in and avoided spending any money today. I don't really need anything and it's not difficult for me to have a no spend day. I will be considering much more seriously what I buy in the future. Wealth is very unevenly distributed in the world and some individuals/economies really don't need any more wealth than they already wield. Enough said.

On Saturday, I hit the over 50's free gym session again, which was good. It was a lovely sunny day on Saturday, so I pottered outside for a bit and then pottered inside for a bit, potting on some baby houseplants, that I've been meaning to do for a while now. I then got ready for work and headed off there for an evening shift. Work was pretty busy. I think the sunshine and the fact that it was a payday weekend, brought people out and led to them spending money in the store. As a consequence, the shift passed pretty quickly and I enjoyed it. I always like to keep busy at work. I'm not the shirking kind.

I hope you had a good week.

Conspicuously Using My Spending Power

I've read recently about economic blackouts which are due to take place in the next few months, as a protest against wealth inequalities, diversity/human rights issues and as a protest against the increasing vast wealth of large corporations the world over. This is mainly taking place in America, but anyone, anywhere can join in and refuse to spend any of their hard earned money on American or other origin products produced by large multi-billion pound corporations and more especially the ones that do not treat their employees well or with spurious diversity policies.  It has been organised to allow us the little people to demonstrate our concern about growing inequalities in wealth/human rights.

The first protest took place on 28th February and was for just one day. I joined in with this and had a no spend day on this day. I don't buy many American products, save for Coke Zero and my current brand of toothpaste, plus perhaps, the odd McDonalds. There are probably many more American owned companies I buy from or through, such as Ebay, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, etc., so to play it safe I'll be spending with no-one on this day and this includes the multimillion pound supermarkets in this country.

Following this, I've heard that there is also a planned economic blackout on Amazon from 7th through to 14th March, mainly due to some of the treatment dished out to Amazon employees by the company. I rarely use Amazon, only as a very last resort. Mr Bezos has quite enough money already and I'm not prepared to add to his billions just for my own convenience, when I can share my money out amongst other people who I consider to be more deserving of receiving it.

I've been watching a YouTube channel lately called Gary's Economics. Gary Stevenson, who studied for his Economics degree at the London School of Economics and for his Masters at Oxford, was born into a working class East London family and subsequently ended up working in Canary Wharf as a trader. 

Having quit working for Citibank, he has subsequently launched his channel to highlight how the super rich 1% are eating up most of the financial assets in the world, leaving less and less for the average working person and in doing so creating ever widening inequalities in housing, health, wealth, etc. His videos are very interesting and he advocates for making the world a more equal place, by way of co-operation and working together to make sure that wealthy corporations pay appropriate levels of tax in order to redistribute wealth and help provide housing, health care, etc. to those that need it. He argues that our grandparents got together to do this in the past and that we can do this today, if we stick together and pressure for change.

He argues that in todays world, we are encouraged to act as individuals and only be interested in ourselves and bettering our own financial position/keeping our own heads above water, but that we need to change this and join forces with others to effect change in our societies. The alternative, is an ever widening gap in wealth with young people being unable to afford homes and unable to obtain good jobs, leading to despair, increased mental health problems and increased financial struggle and poverty. It is refreshing to hear his honest and very easy to understand explanations of todays politics of greed.

We may not think that we can do anything as individuals, but we can. We can refuse to line the pockets of large corporations and support political parties whose policies widen the gap further or solely serve the interests of the already rich. We can keep ourselves informed of what is really going on in the world and make our views known to our local/national politicians and we can use our voices to pressure for change. I for one am rethinking some of my everyday behaviours. I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying to work out what I can do to play my part going forward.