The supplements are at it again this week. They have more helpful suggestions on how we should live our lives in these times of economic ruin. Specifically - how should we spend our holidays.

Yes, money is tight (am I repeating myself?) and so the fun trip to some far flung destination such as Tangiers, Lake Titicaca or Tenerife must be shelved for yet another year.

So what does the Sunday Supplement suggest we do?

Stay at home.

The Staycation.

Let there be no drudgery, boredom or torpor. All we have to do is use our imaginations and everything will be alright. Apparently.

Wikipedia refers to the staycation refers to when a family stays at home instead of going on holiday.

Joe’s Blogopedia refers to it as torture.

Never mind the fact that the weather will leave a lot to be desired. Never mind the fact that you have already been to the three local museums.

Never mind the fact that you are sick of looking at every nook, cranny, weed and neighbour of your homestead.

And never mind the fact that your neighbours can cast a satisfied look over their hedges and wondering out loud “Are you heading away anywhere foreign this year?”, whilst barely suppressing a smirk.

I can remember a week of staycation once when I was 13 years old. I was a recent arrival to the demographic group known as ‘spotty know it all teenagers’, and my main aim in life was to act and look cool. This was in the time before hoodies and the interweb and facespace. So to be cool was to sulk a lot and to endeavour never to be seen with your parents.

To me, getting into the car religiously with my parents and my 15 year old sister and going to the beach three days in a row was nothing less than torture. All I wanted to do was sit on a wall in my village with my mates doing absolutely nothing, except looking cool for approximately seven hours and then cycling home.

On the fourth day of our staycation we visited an ancient Neolithic tomb site which is certainly a compellingly interesting place now, but back then was as interesting as a wet carrot. I was dreadfully worried I could be missing something from the wall sitting marathon with my mates back home. On the fifth day, on the way back from another visit to the beach, we visited my grandparents.

We visited them every Saturday anyway.

For me, it is vital for the survival of everyone of the five senses that you can get away to some degree, periodically. And if that means swapping houses with friends from another part of the country, going camping, I beseech you to do it.

And please pay no heed whatsoever to Ms Sunday Supplement Writer who finally suggests that during your ‘staycation’ you should change your bedroom in the house to make it feel as if you are staying in a hotel. Do they take us for a bunch of four year olds playing ‘let’s pretend’??

Money for Jam

In my view there are other far more interesting ways of economising in these turbulent times.

Take a friend of mine for example. A true city slicker and former hot shot city trader. He probably classifies himself as a luke warm city trader and alas bonuses are a thing of the past. However he has been on a far more fascinating journey of late and can now more fairly describe himself as a hunter gatherer.

In his amply enough sized back garden/field. He and his wife have planted potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, beetroot, plums, blackberries, gooseberries. It is a voyage of discovery, and boy does it make him feel manly. Working the land to feed his flock. And not only that, it is a decent weekly saving when it comes to the grocery run.

But better than all of that, is that he has now also housed in a coop in the corner, 4 fine and feisty chickens. They strut about a bit and lay eggs a lot, such that there are never less than 4 eggs on the breakfast table every morning. Bliss.

I have not sampled much of the vegetable harvest yet, however the blackberries and the gooseberries have been transformed into jam, and by jove it is finer jam than has ever been placed on the shelf of a supermarket chain.

As you may have noted from a prior blog, my eyes are firmly fixed on acquiring a house (no word yet!), but a major part of the selection criteria was the consideration for adequate space for fruit and vegetables, and who knows even some chickens!

Forget Paris

And while all of this has been going on in the Sunday Supplements and in my head, I have regretfully been drawn to reading about Paris Hilton.

Clearly a person of great character and strong moral fiber.

The redoubtable Paris has been hanging out in Saint Tropez.

By all accounts she doesn’t need to be counting her chickens. Or her gooseberries.

She was counting her Methuselahs.

A Methuselah is a 6 litre bottle of champagne. Paris bought 10 of them and it set her back the grand sum of 35,000 euros.

I really don’t know much, but I look at the photographs and I wonder who Paris bought all of this champagne for, and I wonder are they her friends? And really, would anyone ever buy their friend a Methuselah? You really don’t need to do that for friends.

A favour would be worth far more.

So forget Paris and forget the methuselahs. I’m with the chickens.