the flexible atheist

(this is Alan:) In our village most people produce their own fruit and veg. and to a slightly lesser extent their own meat; poultry and pork. The local shop sells people’s surplus fruit and veg. and the market in the nearby town has a good range of local produce for sale though not necessarily organic. Sounds good doesn't it?
However, there has been an influx of western supermarkets in the last few years, Tesco, Spar etc. and these have become fashionable among the slightly better off people so that there appears to be a trend towards buying stuff shipped from the four corners of the world. The standard of food found in these supermarkets is probably better than for instance in the UK. but still there is that worrying trend towards pre-packaged cheap crap aimed at the poorer consumer.
As far as buying things out of season is concerned, I'm pretty much in favour of not doing it. As an example, most of the flowers sold in the UK. come from Kenya. A country with food shortages, they are displacing poor farmers from their land. The workers, often in poly tunnels, are exposed to chemicals without any health protection measures and are poorly paid. Things are often justified by saying phrases such as if we didn't buy this or that, things would be even worse, don't believe it! for huge numbers of people in the world things can't really get any worse.
I just got some ex-battery chickens. I've never seen such sad looking creatures. They arrived half bald, weak on their legs and afraid of natural light. I've only had them a week and you can already see a vast improvement, they even make happy chicken noises. Its easy for me to say you should only eat free range eggs but if that is all you can get or afford I suppose it makes things more difficult, but if people could see the state these chickens are kept in then perhaps the would refuse eggs produced under these conditions.

(and this is me:)
We had a leaflet from our village mayor asking us to make up numbers in our church, (for yesterday afternoon)
as we were to be televised, as part of the initiative to save the badly structurally unsound building,
and the usual 5-10 worshippers wouldn't have impressed the media...
so yes, I've been in church! I wanted to look in the inside for ages, having been built in 1790, I've heard
about it's pretty colours and pictures.
Besides, what village is worth it's name without it's church? Especially when it is one picturesquely
snuggling on a gentle hill giving a pleasant view.
The turn-out was very good indeed, we could even discretely avoid the mass-bit...

and the picture is from last years harvest-fest cart, late (film) development...