I was only staring at my Ecover shower gel this morning, wondering if the enviro-benefits really justified the fact it is three times as expensive as some own-brand smellier solution. Then I read about its factory and ethos, and decided that it was.

The building that houses the UK’s favourite green cleaning company is made from several tonnes of sustainable wood and recycled bricks. Its crowning glory is a 5,600 square metre green roof; a living, breathing meadow of vegetation.

Where most of us have bricks and mortar, here there are cacti and flowering plants, including a 30cm layer of soil acting as insulation. Once combined with south-facing positioning and a ceiling studded with skylights, it allows the building to run without central heating or air-conditioning, and with little artificial light.

Hey, anyone else making stuff – if you’ve got a factory and ethos like this, I’ll buy your stuff too…

Reading this morning about how the manufacturer is getting rid of blue Smarties as a health measure, just as my Waitrose delivery man arrived, I was left musing on our habits not just of eating, but shopping. Much is written about our supposed “biological” urge to eat as much fat- and sugar-rich food as possible, which is said to be a major cause of the current obesity epidemic.

But – always suspicious of “natural” explanations, when so much of our behaviour is learnt and cultural – I thought about how my method of shopping has changed over the years. When I was a small child, and money was tight, it was part of my mother’s “job” to feed us as cheaply as possible. “Own brand” from supermarkets, frozen veg and cheap cuts of meat – which produced a diet both unhealthy and frankly dreadful. “Treats” were cheese (still cheap ones), ice-cream (ditto), and sticky cakes – comfort food for when things got bad.

Later, in my teen years, I saw people who regarded food as a pure status symbol. King Island Brie (from an island off Tasmania) was the ultimate symbol of wealth and sophistication, although it’s probably now gone the way of Jacob’s Creek wine, as being a bit naff.

I’ve tended over the years to fluctuate in food shopping between “cheap bulk”, ridiculous luxury, with a smattering of horribly unhealthy comfort eating. Only now, I think, am I starting to get a sensible balance.

I get a box of organic fruit and veg delivered over a week for about £15. I don’t always manage to eat all of that, and I give items that really don’t agree with me (like leeks) away. (The rest goes to the worm farm on the balcony.) Even if I only use three-quarters of it, the fact that the fresh, healthy stuff is there means I eat far more than I would do otherwise, but I have to wrestle with my conscience about the “waste” – even though the value of that probably amounts to about one Starbucks coffee.

I then get a Waitrose delivery about once a month, and that tends very much to the luxury end, but luxury for good taste and health (and a smattering of politics), rather than for showing off. I’ve found it is worthwhile buying some surprising “luxury” things. I’ve always thought of eggs as your absolute basic staple. Why – apart from going organic and free-range for moral reasons – would you think of going any further?

But the Waitrose Columbian Blacktail Eggs are a taste revelation. Lightly poached (1.5 minutes in the microwave with a little water), they are simply delicious – utterly unlike the flavourless fluff of cheap eggs. But rolled oats for the morning porridge are, I think, just rolled oats, and the simple Waitrose organic will do fine.

The “extra-fruit” jams (with somewhat less sugar), from luxury brands, are also well worth the extra money, and the Duchy mint/strawberry cordial bears no resemblance at all to the lurid sugar solutions of my youth.

But all of this I’ve had to work out for myself – I’ve had the time and money to work out for myself. It wasn’t part of my cultural heritage.

Well at least one of the reasons. From the London Strategic Voter website I learn that in Camden it took “11,000 votes to elect each Green councillor, compared to 2,650 for each Labour councillor and 2,200 for each LibDem”.

Apologies for my absence (due partly to Wanadoo’s apparent inability to maintain a basic broadband internet connection, for the second time in a week), but I have otherwise been rather busy.

But a 20-hour day proved worthwhile yesterday when the Greens broke through on Camden council, winning two seats in Highgate ward. I’m sure Maya and Adrian will do a brilliant job.

There was further cause for celebration in London, particularly in Lewisham, where what had been one council seat was converted to six. Lambeth, Southwark and Islington also elected their first Green councillors.

As for my own run in Regent’s Park, I reckon my door-to-door campaigning won about 300 votes – thanks to anyone who made one of those reading this! – with Greens picking up many split votes. The challenge next time will be to convert those “ones” to three Green votes. I also reckon the activity lifted turnout by at least a few percentage points, so you could call it a bit of a contribution to democracy.

Overall, Labour was demolished in Camden, and of course nationally Tony Blair has hit the panic button bigtime, with a massive reshuffle of the government. I was trying to think of something more original than deck-chairs on the Titanic, but that does the job so nicely.

And even though she belongs to a party that nationally is demolishing human rights and making a total mess of the NHS and education, congratulations to Antonia for her victory in Oxford. I’m sure she’ll also do a great job on the council, and it sounds like she has a fascinating ward.

The full Camden results

Two days before the election, today I canvassed some of the more “difficult” areas of my ward. It had interesting results. I had one man who greeted me with a tirade about how we f-ing politicians were all the f-ing same. (I said “sorry to disturb you” and walked off.)

Then I had an encounter that started as a fairly standard: “what do you want” shouted through the door. I explained “Green Party”, “election” etc, and got the response: “We vote Labour here.”

Fine, free country etc.

I’d knocked on a couple of doors down the balcony, and was in a dead-end, when I heard someone hiss “go”. I turned around and saw, a rottweiler from the “Labour” household, approaching rather quickly, hackles raised, having obviously been sooled on me. (They’d shut the door after letting the dog out.)

It was between me and the stairs. Luckily, it was a soft rottweiler really – I took a couple of fast steps toward it, rather than the away it probably expected, then as it went without great conviction for my leg wacked it, not very hard (the whole thing was not the dog’s fault, and I didn’t want to make it too angry), across the face with my floppy cardboard folder.

It decided it wasn’t really that interested. Luckily.

I left. Not at a run. Quite.
Lest this should discourage anyone from getting involved in politics let me say this is highly unusual – in fact I was talking to some experienced people later in the evening and they’d never heard anything like it.

I’m very tempted to go back tomorrow and stick a leaflet through their door, just to show I wasn’t cowed. Would be satisfying, although bad politics, since it would make them more likely to turn out to vote, I’d judge.