Finding the chase and cutting to it

The intersection of my worlds (diabetes. cyber security, developing interesting tools, cyclist, motorcyclist, skier, driver, keen walker, sustainable living, and cooking) leads to some observations. Not least when it comes to this term: lived experience. When medical studies are conducted and are published to the masses, this is the caveat emptor, your experience may vary.

I was reminded of it while sitting in my endo’s office, waiting for my 11:10 appointment. One of the slides auto-playing in kiosk mode said about when you travel to hot and cold climes and the impact on your insulin requirements.

Now the nights are drawing in, we’re getting questions about how comfortable we are – now these are from friends but I suspect the inquiry is less to do with our general wellbeing and more to do with the heat pump replacing our gas heating system.

To be honest, it’s lovely. It took a couple of days to tune the radiators and the heat distribution system, but we are warm when we need to be and cooler when want to be doing things.

We do have an emergency heat source with our newly cleaned (and CO monitored) log burner in the lounge, which we tend to use when staying at home during the weekend and the place is below 10°C – mostly because the room is unbearably hot otherwise – over the space of two hours the room temperature rises above 12°C, even with only burning a log or two an hour.

Now, it our aim was to reduce our carbon footprint – use fewer kWh of energy to keep warm and clean (hot water). Which is a good job, because electricity prices have risen in the UK.

Oh, well worth the effort then!

Like I said, the proof will be if our total energy usage this winter is less than last year. I say winter, as we started using the heat pump in mid July and the boiler broke end of March, which was freezing this year.

And so far, it looks good. Our SPF (seasonal performance factor) is currently 4.7 – so for each 1kWh of electricity we buy, we get 4.7kWh out or 470% efficiency. This is compared to a great gas boiler giving out 0.8kWh for every 1kWh of gas burnt.

The colder it has got, the better it has been. Also great for us. More importantly, it is outperforming the combined totals most days:

Comaprison of this month with this month last year in terms of combined energy consumption.

A few of the colder days we didn’t do so well, but so far this month, the heat pump is heating our water and house for less than the boiler did – of course, what we are not seeing in the graph above is the fact the car took more energy charging than it did the other days!

Oh, so it is worth the effort then?

Well, it looks good so far. Of particular note is Tuesday 15th October – the temperature in Ipswich was 9-14°C. We were both at home and both were comfortable, lit, bathed, and cooked for, all for 25.95kWh electricity compared to a combined score of 74.75kWh in 2023 when the temperature was very similar 13-14°C.

Of course, we cannot make our own natural gas. We do have solar cells making some of our electricity though 😉

Studies on the impact of ultra processed foods has been doing the news circuits for a while now, but while it seems obvious that highly smoked, reformated foods (e.g. corn syrup is often cited here), and packaged foods (pringles anyone?), we should perhaps cast the net a little wider.

I love pesto: but it is not something I “cook with”. What do I mean? Well, olive oil is a processed food and a component of pesto. If I take some pastry, smear it with pesto and then bake it, the resulting pesto pastry is, by definition, ultra processed.

Cooking breaks down nutrients in food, it’s actually why we cook in the first place as it makes it easier to absorb those nutrients. But cooking more than once breaks the food down further. Should we consider such foods ultra processed too?

Breads are not all equal. A french dough doesn’t need sugar to help the yeast rise yet we class this food in the same class of processed food as a quick cooked “american styled loaf”.

Smoked foods such as sausages are commonly placed in the ultra processed list. But there is a big difference between an English style, unsmoked sausage and a 6 month smoked Falukorv. The English sausages are often sneered at in terms of taste (typically derived from herbs rather than processing) but the minced, otherwise uncooked meat is processed but not ultra processed…

Of course, our bacon was traditionally the way we preserved pork. Smoked and tasty but probably not the way we need to do things these days with fridges in every store and home.

Don’t get me started on “triple cooked” fries. Lets boil the goodness in potatoes away to just leave the simplest form of carbohydrate. Bring back the English chip, please.

When my husband was made redundant in 2008, my wage was less than a third of what it is now and we had a mortgage. We had no gym membership, we had a relatively expensive house to run compared to our wages. But we adjusted and 9 weeks later, he had a job offer with the company he has just been made redundant from.

When it looked like we may be in the same position a year later, I had to ask for a fair wage – for every pound my male colleagues made (many with less experience than I had) I got 80p! A five minute phone call fixed that. I had a 2nd promotion in six months later. Which, career-wise, got me to this point.

It’s a different game this time round. We have no mortgage, we have spent money over the past 10 years paying off the mortgage and getting the house to be cheap to run. It meant we didn’t do too much on the holidays but on my wage, we can keep everything comfortably running along and have a holiday a year.

The house is cleaned by my man over the week, so we have had fun this weekend.

Of course, he’s too young to retire, 16 months off being able to draw his old work pension. So he is looking hard for a new role. But if he doesn’t, maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s enough to do in the house to keep him out of trouble. Gym membership means he can keep healthy.

Life is so different once you’re kids have left home and the mortgage is done. We’ve owned our cars since new and the motorbikes, so they have been maintained. No loans, no rentals that need to be maintained.

A chance conversation

changed everything for me. A colleague who’d joined the company the same month I had, had waited two years before buying his house for cash. Now, I’d already worked out how much in interest my house was going to cost – a mortgage for £55,000 paid for 25 years at £325 was going to be £97,500.

I looked into the details and when we combined our earnings and got a new mortgage, I was focused on paying off (after establishing some savings – 3 months of your living wages is an absolute minimum) what-ever was left at the end of the month.

Our last mortgage was for £250,000 and we paid it off in 10 years. We upgraded our heating system in three stages: thermostats, radiator valve controls, heat pump. We got a smart home. We upgraded the cooker and hob,

Sounds idyllic, but you’re not exactly an average wage earner…

No, having had the redundancy in 2008, I focused my career on an independantly comfortable life.

It doesn’t mean we’ve kept everything the same. Every decision is conscious. I haven’t changed my suppliers, but we are making smarter choices. Cooking from scratch instead of buying ready meals saves around £20 a shop! Vegetarian two meals a week saves around £20 and is better for our hearts and waist-lines.

We were paying £90 a month for Sky TV – that’s £1,080 a year! That’s not including the power for the set top boxes. Switching to Now TV saves £70 a month or £20 a week. We’re in the same position, able to watch the shows we’re interested in for much less. Do not pay for the sports channels – find a local pub that has the shows you care about on their screens. A drink an evening is way cheaper than the best part of £70 quid a month, after all.

Aye, but we haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room, have we? The heat pump…

An interest free credit card allowed us to buy the heat pump in July. Since then, not only have we cut our carbon footprint to 0.3 tonnes per annum, but we’ve saved about 200kWh a month on average and that’s not compared to the gas we’re not using. Our heating and water with gas cost 13,375kWh a year. We should come in under 4,000kWh – but of course we’re not going to see that for a year.

Unlike gas, much of our water heating won’t cost us anything as we have solar panels. Any further panels we add, will help recoup those costs much more quickly. A big enough, insulated water tank means plenty of hot water on tap for all our needs. Because our dish-washer heats its own water, we might be one of the few places where hand-washing costs in!

So long as I keep my job, we should be more than OK. Our house, living as we do today costs less to run than my pension will be. My husband’s pension is as much. It feels like we’re going to be OK.

We’re not drinkers or smokers, we’re not extravagant in our tastes or habits. I still regularly wear clothing I bought when I was 16. My car is 14 years old in December.

What more do I need, please? I am going to have good food, cheap heat, and able to save at the end of the month. I have a good partner who loves me.

The temperature dropped this week in the UK, as the wind was coming directly down from the Artic. Today, it was 20°C, but on Thursday at the same time, the temperature outside was 13°C, with over night dropped to 4°C.

That meant we got to see the heat pump properly in action. It worked really well, we were cozy. Without costing the earth. More importantly, our annual carbon footprint is currently 0.3tonnes of CO₂ per annum and that’s including me using the electric car for commuting.

Yawn, this, again?!

Rude! The main topic today is food. Today, it being the weekend, I cooked some cheese soufflés. They turned out surprisingly well – always a bit risky doing something for the first time.

For me, getting cheese soufflés premade from the supermarket would mean a lot less washing up (7 items, not that I’m counting). But the premade one needs 1.2units of insulin. My home made one doesn’t need that.

Because I made it at home, I used corn flour, so it was glutton free. My one tasted a little bit nicer. I made it with Gruyère, but I’m keen to try it with some English cheeses and maybe some Irish. That will reduce the food miles dramatically. Cooking it in our combo microwave meant it used as little power as possible.

Economising, eh?

Not really. I mean, my shopping this week came in £50 less and I bought alcohol for us both.

But it is more than that. The food works better for my insulin.

Cooking at home, my insulin requirements have dropped considerably.

Traditional northern European food is brilliant, lovely blood sugar curves, without scary peaks and troughs. For lunch, I did meatballs, with boiled new potatoes, broccoli, baby corn, and green beans. A touch of bisto gravy and redcurrent jelly. Delicious: I needed less than 2units of insulin!

Much of the southern European and American cuisine features huge amounts of processed flour. Often with huge amounts of oil. I appreciate that studies show that olive oil is good for you, but it’s nearly twice as calorific as sesame oil! Huge amounts of fat, with sweet sauces and vegetables. Little fibre. I don’t see how that’s beneficial long term for desk jockeys.

Many professional chefs, as my fella says, distain having skins on tomatoes – which is a key source of nutrition and fibre.

This week’s plan is as follows:

• Sunday – I am doing a smallish chicken for lunch with veg. In the combo microwave to reduce the energy required. We’re sharing white chocolate cookies for afternoon tea. Then toast and eggs or cheese or baked beans. I should get a portion of chicken stock out too.
• Monday evening – carrot and ginger soup with dough balls.
• Tuesday evening – vegetarian risotto.
• Wednesday evening – spaghetti bolognese.
• Thursday evening – remainder of the soup, with fresh wholemeal bread or a baguette.
• Friday evening – quorn chilli with brown rice.

It’s then my husband’s turn to cook for the week. If my son wasn’t coming round tomorrow, the roast chicken would have been portioned (£3.15! from Waitrose for a 1.59kg chicken) to do a coq au vin on Sunday with rice, and a chicken risotto on Tuesday.

As a back stop, there’s the makings of pasta carbonara. Or onion soup with some of the grated Gruyère that I haven’t yet used.

Easy!

If you have been following my blog for a while, you’ll be familiar with my love of automation.

It is not necessarily a passion my immediate family shares, but working with them, we have a situation we can all see the benefit of and all have equal control. (If you are in such a position, that really helps).

I cannot get Alexa or Google home to work with my voice, but in the evening, the TV and lounge lights all come on with my press on my home screen or my husband’s, so we are enjoying living in the 21st Century.

While casually noticing my favourite brand has ceased to be replaced by “Tapo”, I noticed some GU10 bulbs…

Oh no, I feel for your family, where are you going with this?

Eh! Actually, my beloved helped me swapped the four LED GU10s in the bathroom for the “smart” Tapo L610s. We did them one at a time to get them paired with the network and updated and correctly labelled but I now have four bulbs which will always switch on with the light switch (or off with the fan) but can be individually dimmed or switched off through my phone – if I have a bath late afternoon, I can have the lights come on automatically as the sunsets…

Yawn, so what?

Like many households in the UK, ours was built with the light switch automatically turning on both the lights and an extractor fan in our bathroom.

Which is great, unless, like me, you do bathing marathons. In the daylight. Or at dusk. Four lots of 4.5W of bulb sitting there shining when you don’t need them is a bit heartbreaking. These Tapo bulbs are 2.2W each.

I can now turn the lighting down or off while the light from the window pours in and the fan will keep turning as long as I need it.

I can dim when my head hurts after a hypo or a hyper.

I have the power to have it as I want. What’s not to love?

This week has been the first with the fully operational butcher’s block and much cooking has been done. From a tasty carrot and corriander soup, enjoyed on Tuesday evening after work and for lunch on Wednesday, to chocolate cookies.

It has fulfilled its promise. Indeed, it’s almost too easy to cook from scratch.

Since we have someone in the house who will have some free time, there’s a great deal we can do between us.

A whole chicken, circa 1.5kg is £4.50 in the UK in September 2024. A pair of chicken breasts, 380g is £4.40 – and if we portion the chicken we get the legs for use too, and the fillets and the bones for stock.

Since lockdown, I’ve been making bread. Yet to venture into sour dough, but my insulin works so much better with my home made bread, it is well worth the washing up. The french bread I make is dreamy.

Not every meal needs to be a feast…

I watch cooking shows – but listening to the professional chefs is not the way to have good nutrition and keep your waist line in check!

Last night, I microwaved a chicken breast for the both of us for tea – it was a late tea and that was a way to keep the time down. I served it with a home made ratatouille made earlier in the week. A lovely home cooked snack that cooked in less than 7 minutes. Cheap on the power too.

Our roast today will do three meals. I have a stock ready for a small chicken pie for too, some rice for a special egg fried rice, and probably some curry. Team with a home made soup (probably carrot and corriander) or some baked potatoes for the last couple of meals in the week and that’s food for the week for two people.

The original chicked served 3 people for a hearty Sunday roast. 1 meal for three, 3 meals for 2.

It’s harder work than bung-em-in-the-ovens. But it is all tasty. No ultra processed foods here, either.

Frustrating. Given the layout of my kitchen, I have bought a butcher’s block to allow me to have my food mixer out all the time and have all the attachments at hand.

I have stayed my hand a little since buying it 8 weeks ago. Why struggle, when nivana is close at hand.

But when it turned up yesterday, the top needed oiling, once every 8 hours or so. I am sitting looking at my loaded butcher’s, waiting for that final coat to dry.

Boring!

Patience is a virtue. That goes for you, as well as me.

I’ll take you through the prepping stage – moving everything for the processor over to the cupboard and drawer. Now it’s here, I can also put my pasty board on it and the scales.

All the attachments are to hand. Even the spatulas and rolling pin. And no need to lift the mixer in and out of it’s current home.

Meanwhile, my main worktop remains clear.

Longer term, that worktop disappears. It’s going to be my fridge. That means the empty cupboard also disappears.

But we can wait. We have wiggle room and options.

I know fixed islands work brilliantly for many people. But I want options, flexibility and ease.

In a few hours I get to see if I have acheived that.

Patience is…

Delayed gratification is all well and good, but it hard when you’ve waited 8 weeks for a butcher’s block to turn up and then have to oil it before use to avoid staining. It will be tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Thank goodness it’s a 3 day weekend (note to self – do not work on Monday!). I should be able to scratch my cooking bug but in the meantime, we’re ordering in a pizza.

As a child, I hated pizza – even now I go a long way to avoid cooked cheese on things – because I always felt so crap afterwards.

For type 1 diabetics, food with low glycaemic indexes are incrediably hard work – what I know now is that I should have given half the insulin for the meal when I ate and the rest an hour later for a pizza.

Of course, not knowing that, even having the smallest piece possible just meant pain, nausea, and fatigue – high blood sugar to you. It’s hard to see that as a treat.

So when I left home, pizza wasn’t something I had. Indeed without my husband and my insulin pump in 2001, I might still feel that way.

My favourite is a pollo ad astra romano – it’s a thin base, by far the easiest to deal with. Even with the pump 😉

Having got a decent bonus and no mortgage to shift, we have been buying furniture. We are living the good life!

It’s also been BBQ season, with trips to see friends and have little company ourselves. Of course, when it is going so well, a little rain must fall and after 16 years with his present employer, my husband is in a consultation period which will result in his job being ceased next month.

The joy is, having just about caught my husband up, we’re going to be OK. Many families survive on a lot less than I take home a month. We have no big outlays each month and, because my beloved was a professional, he is getting nearly a year’s pay as a package.

It still feels a little scary.

We’ve got our living expenses, including the council tax (our state or local tax in the UK), food, heating and lighting, down to less than half my take home. That’s without budgeting down. We live comfortably off that money. The heat pump has been our only big expense and I got that on an interest free deal. We have no loans otherwise. So the year’s pay is not having to go anywhere but ensure he can last until his pension is drawn.

My beloved is talking about taking on the house work, as he’ll have more time. I’m hoping he can find something, so we can keep it evenly shared. Everybody does things their own way and it’s good to keep that interest in the house.

We’re fortunate to be in this position. While he’s hunting for a job, he will be eligible for Job Seeker’s Allowence – open to anyone who has a good national insurance record. It’s not a fortune, but means you have cash coming in (and a full NI record) for six months – you can eat well off that money and have enough to travel to interviews etc. Unlike universal credit, it’s not means tested.

You cannot be frivilous, but there’s no need to turn the heating off or starve with Job Seeker’s Allowence.

Hopefully, my work place won’t need to cost save “my role down”, too. Then it would be significantly more interesting.

The reaction to our heat pump has been interesting.

Many questions have been about how much more it is costing us? It’s not, actually, we’re saving about £3 a day on heating our water compared to the gas boiled at today’s prices.

It’s summer, and for the past eight days, for 7kWh of energy we’ve bought we have had 37.5kWh of “heat energy” out. That means the pump is currently 537% efficient.

It’s not going to be that great over the winter, but should still return more than 300% efficiency compared to the best gas boiler, which returns 80% efficiency – for every 1kWh most people get 0.8kWh of heat. Electricity is more expensive than gas, at that rate, and the fact we have solar power means we’re not paying for the electricity… Hard to make your own natural gas.

How’s having cold water? Actually, the water is pretty hot and plentiful – the bath has a mixer and I have HAD to turn it down so I don’t need to add cold water at the end of the run! With larger pipes, the water pressure is better too.

Is it noisy? No, it’s silent, significantly quieter than the gas boiler. What is really lovely, the exhaust at the moment is really chilled. It’s lovely.

So far, so good. We’re happy bunnies.