A new kindness idea... for books!

I have been reading prolifically. I’ve been purchasing about 10 books a fortnight from charity shops. I must admit that most of them are Romance. I like to think part of it is research. I love writing and have for years and have been reading and writing romance for years. None of it is publishable yet, but I love to read them to see what types of stories I want to write. What I enjoy and how different people tell their stories. I am blessed to have a few family friends who are prolific and published Romance authors and Life lit writers. They are very successful at it too.

So I read Romance stories a lot. Which leads me to think about what to do with these books once I’ve finished with them. 

In the past I’ve been giving those books to a friend for her to read. My friend just got herself a new job and is moving to London in a few days! 😭😭😭 I’m going to miss that girl. 

But it leaves me with a question as what to do now with my large collection of romance novels. Not many other people have the same taste in books as I do. So finding someone else to read them has been harder. 

I no longer feel the need to keep all the ones I’ve read however I have kept a couple that I really enjoyed as inspiration. 

So, I decided to do something with a lot of the books I’ve been getting. I’m leaving them for people on public transport. Like this one.

“I’m in no mood for love” by Rachel Gibson was a sweet story of a woman getting over the heat break of discovering her fiancé in bed with another person, the washing machine repair man. 

I liked this book because it was set over a longer period of time. Not a couple days like a lot of the other books I have read recently. It is still a fast paced story with the two protagonists being writers in different genres. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of a sweet romance rather than hot an steamy. 

I left a little note for someone to find. I was visiting a friend in London. For me to get from Reading to London it takes a 30 minute train ride to get there ( I don’t know why I don’t go to Reading more often). 

So fun to leave the book on the train on my way to London. :) 

I must admit I did wait till almost everyone else was off the train to leave it there.  

Here is a great kindness idea for you to enjoy! 

Love Daena x 

Sustainable September 2018 Day 22

Hi everyone, the weekend is here! And i am out today to explore my new city!

And I am doing most of it on foot!

Todays idea follows that theme...

Day 21. Stop driving everywhere –

For most places in the world this is not a hard switch to make. For some remote communities in Australia, and other remote places getting on public transport is impossible. However, here in the UK, and even back home in Perth, Australia, public transport is a viable option, and is often a much cheaper option than driving.

For example, whilst I was living in the little town of Llanharan, Wales I would pay £24.50 for a weekly pass to travel by train as many times as I needed to in a week and I would make good use of it.

(The view from the bridge of my closest Welsh train station from my old home!)

To own a car here is much more expensive. £24.50 would probably only cover the fuel cost, not to mention that the additional expenses for owning a car – insurance, maintenance, washing, registration, parking permits, MOTS (its like a health audit for a car that happens yearly in the UK), etc. – costs a lot more than public transport does.

However, there are times when I have needed to use a car to get things home from a shop, or get places at weird times when trains or busses aren’t running. I have often been able to carpool with someone in most cases. I think I have used Uber/taxi 4 times since being in the UK and that is because i was moving bulky suitcases! Everything else has simply been about managing times for public transport.

There is also the added bonus of it helping the environment. Nice little bonuses. I must admit there is a certain freedom about having your own car, however, using public transport in city areas is much better financially and environmentally.

Did you know that in London (& here in Reading to a certain extent), it is rare for people under the age of 25 to have their drivers licence? This is because getting public transport is sooooo much better to use and a much cheaper alternative than owning and driving your own car. In Australia it i almost weird if you DONT have your drivers licence before 25 years!

Hope you are well,
Love Daena x

ps. I had a great night out last night celebrating a new friend/collegues birthday. I helped celebrate it by making her a cake at work! :)

Sustainable September 2016 - Day Six

Hello beautiful people, 

Another day in sunny Canberra (yes I am as surprised as you are). I spent the morning taking advantage of the sunshine by sitting on the porch with my book and a cup of tea just relaxing, after all, this is my holiday. 

I ate some lovely vegetarian frittata "left overs" for lunch and had fresh fruit for breakfast. Then we went out for dinner...

Being on hoiday is the best excuse to go out for dinner!

 I had a roasted vegetable salad covered with pieces of Haloumi lightly dusted with crushed candied nuts on a bed of fancy lettuce. It was divine.

This was huge, delicious and filling.  Not to mention vegetarian.

 Not bad for a Meat Free Monday! 😍

Today's idea is simple: 

Sustainable September Day 6: Catch Public Transport or Walk to Work/School/Uni/Shops. 

I then went for a Walk to the local shopping centre here in Canberra, which was  a 3.4km walk. And it really got me thinking, how much do we need cars? Sure they are handy but are they really worth all the hassle they give us too? I mean servicing, paying for insurances, licences for us and the car, parking fees, fuel, and the like. Sometimes it is much easier to just catch public transport. And if you are one of those lucky people who can read whilst riding public transport, you have more time to do that!!! Bonus!!! 

I had a look at the Western Australian Public transport authority website. They said "Riding the bus, train and ferry is fun, fast and eco-friendly. Transperth passengers reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 232,000 tonnes a year and greenhouse gas emissions from public transport is the equivalent of one third of private cars." Perth Transit Authority 2016

Where I (usually) live in the Perth hills has been fairly limited when it comes to public transport. They run every hour but if you need to be somewhere sooner you often have to catch a super early bus just so everything connects. However, even using the car to take us a short way to the train station is better than driving the whole way to the shops/school/Uni/work/city.

It is amazing how much public transport helps things us get out and about. :) 

So do some research if you are not regular public transport travellers so you know where to go and how to get there. It really is easy. I used to do this when I lived closer to the city and worked in the city. It was faster to catch the bus and train than it was to drive in because of peak hour traffic and crazy drivers. Did I forget to mention that when you don't drive you don't have to worry about crazy drivers as much from the back of a bus or on a train. 

Today I walked to the shops but I caught the bus back, after all half the walk there had been downhill. 

My tip for doing your shopping without a car is to take a backpack and to only buy what you can carry back with you. Which is not a bad thing to do at all! 

Kindness idea: Pay for Another Persons Ticket for Public Transport. 

You can do this in a Pay-It-Forward kind of way by leaving some money on a ticket machine. Alternatively you could just offer to give coins to someone who doesn't have any or give them the time left on your ticket. If you have an all day ticket and it still has time on it you could pass it someone who is getting on as you get off or someone who is waiting at a bus stop. 

Front Lines: Environmentally friendly cars. 

Car companies are now looking at how to make their cars more sustainable. The most popular environmentally friendly car currently available on the market is the electric car.

Photo froms:First Vehicle Leasing 2016

Tesla is currently the most popular Electric Car Company. The cars a pretty fantastic but they started by selling cars on the luxury market. So they are expensive and fancy. They are releasing cars in lower price brackets but there is currently a wait list for these cheaper cars. I must admit I love the Tesla S... 

#Drool. I just need a spare $120,000. AUD to be able to buy one of these babies. 

Gorgeous right? I thought you might like a bit more information about the car itself. Or maybe that is just me.

Photo taken from: Visually 2016

To see a video of the model S check this out: 

I live in hope that Electric cars will not just be things of the future but also the present. I hope they become more affordable, more common and even more sustainable. Then the human races obsession with cars might not be such a bad thing.

I hope you are enjoying Sustainable September so far. 😊
Sending love to you all,
Love Daena xx

Sustainable September Day Two Kindness

Hey there,

Two days in a row and here is a blog just casually waiting for you... you are impressed right? I know I am! :) How did you go today with using Public transport today? Or are you still using public transport? Did you ride your bike? Or walk?

I didn't have work today but I had to meet mum, after an appointment, so I walked to our meeting point. Here is a photo of me on my walk...

Tomorrows kindness, that I am telling you about today, is about learning how to recycle in your area. A lot of the websites I found are Western Australian based but a quick "Google" will help you find recycling information in your area, city, state or country.

Tuesday - 2 September – Recycle by putting any recyclable materials in specific recycle bins rather than putting them in general rubbish bins. There is a website that can tell you what to recycle in your suburb called Recycling Near You (Australia only). For more information on Recycling in Western Australia check out this site: http://www.wasteauthority.wa.gov.au/ as they have information on residential and industrial recycling! For information of Plastic Recycling and PET numbers and their meanings read more here.

I hope you are enjoying this new type of Kindness - Kindness to our future generations, by looking after their world.

Much love to you all,
Luv Daena x 

Sustainable September Day One Kindness

Hey my beautiful people, 

Here is the first day for Sustainable September - a kindness idea for the environment, to implement tomorrow. 

 

Monday - 1 September – Take the train or ride your bike, rather than drive your car, to work. There are so many benefits to both you and the environment. “Public transport is at least twice as energy efficient as private cars; a full bus produces 377 times less carbon monoxide than a full car. Each full standard bus can take more than 50 cars off the road while a full train can take more than 600 cars off the road.” Read more benefits of public transport here. Sydney Trains has an excellent way of describing it here. One of the benefits of walking from the train to work, for me, is actually this beautiful view.

I hope you enjoy what I have in-store for us all this month, as I have lots of ideas.

Hope you are all well.
Luv Daena