Bag for life or biodegradable.

Some supermarkets offer bags for life we can use time and time again, while others use biodegradable bags we can throw away.

Somerfield's bio-degradable bags enabled me to throw them away with no feeling of guilt. I even used to collect kitchen compost in them and, as they were bio-degradable, chuck them on the compost heap.

The most bizarre place to find a Somerfield plastic bag was in China. A department store was using them as  their own: when I visited the country in 2001. The exotic blue and white bags were a fashionable item in the city of Nanchang. How such a vast supply of a UK supermarket's bags had got there is a mystery. 

Somerfield stores have now disappeared, but their bags live on: real bags for life.

I planted a hedge ten years ago. When cutting it back today I discovered several plastic bags. Environmental friendly bags, according to their fresh blue print. Not even the ink had bio-degraded after months in a compost heap followed by ten years under a hedge. 

The moral.

Don't believe everything you read: especially on a plastic bag.

Happy Adoption Day

Happy adoption day to my youngest daughter. My two children have an extra celebration each year; yesterday I went shopping to help my eldest daughter buy her sister a present.

The long queue outside Waterstones was for a "ticket only" signing by, one of one of my youngest daughter's favourite authors, JacquelineWilson. A chance to get a signed copy of her new book was too good to miss. The assistant, looking after the assembled Wilson fans, had one ticket left. So we duly bought a copy, of the aptly named “The Worst Thing About My Sister”, and joined the queue. We were 248th, out of the 250 signings, but Jacqueline was still happy and smiling as the last customers filed through to her.

‘Any message’, she asked

‘Happy adoption day’,  I said.

‘That's lovely, no one has ever asked me to do that before. Is it for you?’ she said looking at my eldest with a broad smile and sparkle in her eyes.

‘It's for my sister’, said my daughter.

‘How old is she?’

‘Eleven’.

‘And it's her eleventh adoption day tomorrow,’ I continued.

‘What a lovely idea,’ she said.

Happy adoption day. Maybe it's lovely idea for the next Jacqueline Wilson title?