Weekly diary #54: I finally have a dynamo on my bike

Hi, welcome to my last weekly diary before I go on a holiday again. The coming two weeks there won’t be a weekly diary on here. The past week I finally got a dynamo on my bike, played a lot of board games and ate a vegan pizza from the Lidl. Want to read along?

Thursday

I had some trouble with my new Fairphone and the camera. Since the phone is modular I could fix it myself. I took apart the phone, emptied the SD card and took out the camera, then I put the camera part back in. It feels great that I can fix my phone myself. The rest of the day I spend at friends. For lunch some of us went to the grocery store. They asked me what I wanted and I asked for some vegan sandwiches. Those are in plastic but I forgot to bring my own lunch. I should have asked them to bring me some fruit because that’s more often plastic free and organic than anything else. Next time! Anyhow, it was a great day. During the day we mostly sat in the pool. Not my pool and so not my choice. But I am going to enjoy it since it’s already there. And at night we played Monopoly until late. I love board games!

Friday

I worked all day today, from 7AM till 5PM. At work someone was complaining about the heat and said: this isn’t normal anymore, we should do something about our emissions! The weather does make people think about climate change and that’s a good thing. I think it’s useless to complain, we should take action! We need system change and individual change!

Saturday

Dad made a lovely vegan pasta for after work. That’s so nice when I have to work. I can come home and dinner is served. At night we also ate some snacks, baguettes with dip sauces. I made a vegan dip sauce with vegan mayonnaise in glass and some spices in an aluminium can. 100% recyclable and zero waste! Great sauce!

Sunday

For breakfast I had some sandwiches with tomatoes from my own garden. That is so great. Local and delicious! I don’t think my vegetable garden is that much work but it does bring me a lot of joy. Today I was also working on my bike with dad and grandpa all day. I want to install a dynamo on my bike. It took a lot of time but the conclusion was that the dynamo was broken. I am looking for another one secondhand now. When I was at grandpa and grandma today there were also other family members of us present. We decided to go out for dinner very spontaneously! I called the restaurant quickly to make sure they know a vegan is coming too. That usually helps the restaurant a lot! Before we went out for dinner I had another order to deliver for Loose. This customer wanted to use her own packaging and that’s possible at Loose! I picked up all the jars she had and then will bring them back all filled up with groceries on Thursday. I love doing work for my webshop Loose, it gives me so much energy! Afterwards I went to dinner at Het Middelpunt with family. I was pleasantly surprised! The last time I went there I couldn’t finish my main course because I had also ordered a starter. Today I chose to not have a starter. But I still couldn’t finish it haha, it was so much. I forgot my own lunch box to take the leftovers with me and so I asked for a doggybag. Great, no food waste! I do have plastic waste now but well, it’s the best I can do for now.

Monday

For breakfast I had a sandwich with some of the salad that was left in the restaurant yesterday. It was still very good! I did a lot of things today and all by bike, the most sustainable way to move around! No emissions and I exercise too. I hope I can keep biking all my life. One of the things I did was go to the library to pick up a travel guide. I am going on a holiday to Crete next week. For lunch I had the rest of the left-overs from yesterday. It is almost like I went out for dinner twice! Today my grandpa also managed to make a dynamo on my bike, for the front- and backlight. He found a dynamo at an old iron storage place. Great! Secondhand! My grandpa is very skillful when it comes to these things, there is no thing that he can’t do. I can always ask him for help and that’s great. I wish to be just as skillful myself one day. For dinner I ate another vegan pizza they now have at Lidl. It’s very good! I hope that one day every supermarket will have vegan pizza all the time. While I biked to the Lidl a girl in front of me threw trash on the street. I was flabbergasted, do people actually do this? I wanted to say something but I am too scared people respond aggressively. But it’s also not okay when people throw trash on the streets and nobody says something. Dilemma.

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Tuesday

I stayed over at a friend’s house yesterday and today we’re going to the Rutbeek again (it’s a lake in Enschede). Since I wasn’t at my own house I need to go to the supermarket for lunch. That brought a lot of waste along but sometimes this happens. At night we went out to dinner as a group since one person from our friend group is going to South-Korea for six months soon! Exciting! We ate at Blue Sakura and I tried to eat vegan. I told the staff and they made me special menu with the things that are vegan. This list is different every time I go there and I believe not everything was vegan tonight. This sucks, I need to start looking for another restaurant. On my way back home the front light on my bike wasn’t working. I think project dynamo isn’t entirely finished yet.

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Wednesday

In the morning I was busy for Loose, I had a few orders to prepare. Exciting! Then I went to the birthday party of a friend. I gifted her an experience and not any stuff. She liked it a lot! Soon we’ll be going to the cinema together for a good movie!

Yours sincerely,
Romee