Card carrying members of a new society... for 31 days.

For the next 31 days, and potentially longer, the wife and I are vegetarian.

Card carrying, fully committed vegetarians, we even had to give up the parmesan cheese as that is not only dairy, its actually meat product (the wife advised me of this when I came home last week with some for the risotto). We will still each dairy and eggs, we are not to become vegan, but for the next 31 days we are putting ourselves in the middle of a little experiment.

We are not doing this for moral reasons, I've long had a battle with my brain about vegetarianism, and I fully support anyone who does this for that reason, I just don't have that bit of my brain wired that way. Instead we are doing this for a number of other reasons, sustainability, health, saving money but predominantly we see this as a sociological study. How do we, as consumers of meat and meat products, alter our minds, and our interactions with everyone else when we become a part of another minority (if you haven't worked out which other minorities I fit in then you can have a guess, answers on a postcard).

I went on a course in November which looked at ESDGC (Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship - a Welsh Government Agenda to engage the idea of SD and GC within various sectors) within education. I came away from this course exhausted, and with figures running through my mind, especially how we, as individuals can reduce our own carbon footprint.
It has been reported that if you switch to a Vegetarian diet, (according to PlanetGreen ) we could save a potential 1 ton of carbon emissions a year by taking meat products out of our diet. That seemed like such a massive figure, I know I won't be able to analyze our carbon emissions, I would need clever tech/lots of time, but i like the idea that just for a short while, we might be able to reduce our emissions, and make even the smallest of difference.

I've heard many stories that turning to a vegetarian diet is very good for you, and having watch our tv chef favourite Hugh F-W spend his summer avoiding meat and subsequently feel better in himself, we realized that perhaps this could work for us. We are both fit individuals, very active and do not eat much (if any come to think about it) processed food, but will taking meat out of our shopping list help us feel better in ourselves? or will we struggle without the easy energy source that meat can give you.

By cutting meat out of our lives for the month, there is the vain hope that we might also save ourselves some money, we already buy predominantly local/british food, we started that a number of years ago and apart from the odd bag of oranges, or bananas we do buy fully british, but can cutting meat out reduce our shopping bill further? We already buy local meat, when we do buy it, so perhaps we may be kidding ourselves that our grocery shopping can be further reduced.

To mark our transition from omnivores to vegetarians,  and the night before this experiment began we became the stereotypical American for the night, we went to the 'bar', drank beer/cocktails and devoured 'all you can eat' chicken wings as we finally started to understand American Football (NY Giants v Falcons) on the various screens.
I must admit, perhaps it was the prospect of the following morning knowing that meat was no longer on the agenda, or whether a diet of only meat and beer for the evening is really not healthy, my body did kick up a bit of a fuss, perhaps it knew, and was trying to ease me, guilt free into a vegetarian lifestyle.

Over the coming month, along with blogging about our experiences, we hope to investigate new recipes, try new or under used vegetables or pulses, and understand our relationship with meat.

Perhaps in a months time we will be screaming to be allowed into the meat isle of the supermarket, or perhaps, the month will fly by, and we will not notice that we have missed meat at all, and we shall just continue, plodding along, enjoying the vegetarian way.

Whatever the outcome, I'm excited to face the challenge, and to see just what I can make out of the ingredients we have.

The look on your face suggests that this is a bad idea...

It is remarkably rewarding, being sent a PDF certificate that says winner across it, even if you have to make sure your name is filled in correctly and then print it out yourself. That certificate lives atop my CD shelves and I only glance at it from time to time, it used to live in the toilet, hung delicately in a clip frame by an old bit of ribbon.

The teeshirt I bought is worn at least once a week, sometimes to work, sometimes to the gym, I like glancing in the mirror and seeing Winner emblazoned across my chest. It actually gets worn more than my 'Triathlon' teeshirt. Perhaps I am more proud of this achievement. Perhaps I was so pleased with how it went, I'm thinking of doing it again.

Nanowrimo 2010. completed. 50,000 words in the month of November written. story created, character developed.

Namowrimo 2011 is next.

I like to tell people that I am an office bod by trade, and a writer by heart. They like to smile and nod and say 'Isn't that lovely, have you had anything published?' then i look shamefaced and say that other than university stuff and a local writers group (both of which ended a number of years ago) I have not tried. Not really any way. Perhaps that is why the challenge of Nanowrimo appeals so much, I had never considered that I would even have 10,000 words of a novel in me, let alone somehow find a character to write 50,000 words on. I am quite proud of the story so far, the protagonist is a lot like me, but I like making up things for her to do, decisions that I might never get the chance to make, and risks that I wouldn't take, she has formed into this 20 something woman who i'd be proud to know.

Once you've written the 50,000 they don't tell you that you then have to edit it, to form it into something that someone else might want to read. That has been my problem, 10 months later, my novel has pen all over it, but that is it. It is no further forward.

So despite my at present hectic life, who knew developing a passion for sports and activities would take up so much time, I am thinking that November 2011 is going to be the next step. 1 month. 50,000 words. Not a new story, no new characters, just the next step along her story. I might be crazy. Annie's tale will be 100,000 give or take. My lunch breaks will be taken up, evenings when I'm not at training, weekends when I am not visiting people, jotted ideas scribbled across so many pages that I will get lost a little.

But I will report back, I will let you know whether I am a winner on the 1st December. Maybe someone might want to read it, maybe, just maybe, I can submit it to see if they'll publish it, then I might be able to reply to anyone who asks, 'yes, I'm a published author'.