As per the title: Could you live without a car.
After evaluating our day to day living and how we impact our envirement, we both decided to reduce our carbon footprint for the good of our grandchildren and future generations to come.
I just dont know, we seem to lethargically stare out at the TV programs that concern global warming with much to do about nothing, but then expect others to make the important changes on our behalf. Yet with a little planning and forethought, the small steps we take can lead on to giant footsteps etc etc so we decided to actually
Live The Green by 'experiencing' it first hand, before commenting with any authority on the subject manner.
We started initially by separting our trash from bottles, to cans, to card, to paper reducing our carbons as much as possible. We couldnt eat vegan or vegitarean as we made the decition this would impact on our quality of living, as we like a chicken kebab and shepard pie and chops so we eagerly looked for alternative avenues to reduce. So I nipped up the loft and re lagged it as it quotes a 0.895 tonnes of CO2 saving equivalent and I also made checks or thermostasit temperature control to our household.
But what could I do to improve the auntie further? And then it came to me in a flash of light. If we really really cared about the envirement I could make the ultimate sacrife by going car free. I have been driving for 45 years and sort of become accustomed to the conveniance it allows so this would be an immense shift of tack but after much discussion and deliberation we realised that the 2.04 tommes of co2 reduction x 2 a year was just too good to miss, so I Motorway'd our steed and our journey began.
We have done 40 days and nights now and the going has been fair to middling. Some days were harder than others and fair to say much more planning goes into our day to day ablutions. For food we cancelled Tesco clubcard plus and replaced it with Tesco home delivery for only £1 a week straight to front door. For our clothing and household items came the internet and Amazon Prime and Debehams online. But that still left commuting our for our coffee fixes and day trips to local towns and parks for stimulation and mental wellbeing. Being cooked up all day offers little remorse to olden sausages who previously had the run of the road.
Traveling about is slightly difficult as we border Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Yorshire, so bus passes are an arse to integrate into our new life style. We have our rail cards though and have had some splendid trips out to Hebden and sowrerby for absolute pennies and the saving with a 2 together can really add up. We also have a family railcard for football so we can take the grankids to the game and savings are immense. Plus our clubcards buy into the rail cards for a tenner as opposed to thirty as they are worth 3x the points.
Our memory skillset hampers us at times, finding we need to concentrate more by plan plan planning to actively to make trips work for us, but disasters have been legion!
After a splendid day out in Bury we caught the B3 bus back to the dale as opposed the 468 that traverses Bamford fairfield and bury. The B3 was reccomended by other travellers in the bus queue as a nice alternative to the 468 or 467 via rooley moor, so off we travelled, heads down into our mobs to while away the trip. After 30 minutes we hit Heywood and then cut a route through TIn town which took an absolute age and brought us out facing back toward Bury, causing a bail before any further damage was done.
We walked back to heywood and had a few scoops in the Wetherspoons to replan our route and then boarded a 471 to the Dale, but this time had to stand up all the way as we hit kids kicking out time from school, the journey to be fair was piss poor and nearly fainted with the heat and entrapment levels. Total jouney back into the hills was a little over 2 hours without refreshmnet stops and we nearly cracked there and then.
We had another Mare today when we came back from our jollies. Getting a taxi would not reduce our carbon footprint, so I planned our route back metuclously, catching a train from the airport with only one stop to get us to the foothills changing at Salford crescent. From the foothills we were to get a lift off our daughter back home.
So after getting up at 06:00 for an 11:00 flight back to Manny we set of on our travels. We caught the airport train and was told to change at Salford Cres for a 10 minute change over for our commection to Victoria and then stay on the train to the dale with a 47 minute total journey time. Happy days and far far quicker than a car!
As we got off with our luggage at Salford crescent our eyes lit up as the Northern train pulled in sIde by side for Victoria SO we merely morphed onto this train like the polterghiest from the film Ghost, settling down and feeling smug as fook that we had just skimmed 10 minutes off our journey time. Anyway to cut a long story short we landed at Victoria and I rung the daughter for a 15 minute time pick up.
Our Ghost train
As I was reading the tablet I heard the announcemnt the train was now calling at Ashton under line and my ears pricked up. Before I could react the train had set off again and the automated robot said next stop would be Stayley Brige. I pegged it down the train carriages to find the guard who came back to our seats to explain, apparantly we should have waited the 10 minutes I was initially told to wait, as that train went to Victoria and then the Dale.
I had unfortunatly got the earlier teain that went to victoria and stayley bridge so we was now in proper shit street. Mathew our guard was helpful saying he wouldnt charge for our mistake and told us to get out at Staly and then wait 37 minutes to get a train back to Victoria then another 20 minutes to get back to the Dale. We accepted our fate with much stoicism, but worse was to come.
We heard a racket coming from the wheels or thought we did, and then the emergency stop interacted bringing our train into no mans land! Matty said the driver thinks its the pressure valve as fault codes were showing. We rang the daughter and told her to hang fire.
Stranded 2 mile from Staylvegas
After 30 minutes we were told a resue train as being sent from Trafford to couple us up and push us to Stayley Brige, so we sat patiently waiting to be shunted. Mat said we had now missed the connection back into Manchester, so we asked the daughter to meet us at Stayley in another hour. Being the brilliant chap that he was he brough us round some monster munch and yorkie bars left over from a buffet car to ease the grief.
When he dished out his Lucky Bags he told us we wouldnt be able to claim as we were technically traveling illeagle without a valid ticket on a wrong train as our ticket was to elsewhere .. Im really really trying but as these days go bye i'm starting to fookin hate public transport with a vengeance!
So to summerise three hours and twenty minutes from the airport to home loaded up to the bollocks with cases bags and grips and not a single carbon offset acheived, as I had to pump 20 pounds worth of dirty diesal into her fuel tank.
So could you go without a car to save 2.04 carbon tonnes for Earth .. or do you think Gretas a cxxnt?
