Library ticket

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

For book worms like Lola the only way to keep up with her reading habit is to visit the library regularly. The pic is of our most recent pile ready to be returned.

Although buying a book new doesn’t feel like a waste (in fact I did this just yesterday at the launch of Paul Kingsnorth’s fascinating look at local identity in Real England (Portobello Books)) it does create book mountains around our house.

Verdict: the library is brilliant. But sometimes I just can't resist buying a book. My new rule is to only buy books that I can then pass on, usually as a gift. The result is that I’m giving people presents who look positively puzzled – and forgetting to give presents to the ones who might expect it (eg, my mum).