I wake up in a sleepy northern NSW hamlet, the birds are chirping as the winter mist fills the valley, the sun is rising to another beautiful day.
I then pour my Uncle Toby’s Oats into the saucepan, quite aware that the company is now owned by Swiss multinational Nestle and the oats were probably sprayed with glyphosate, a known carcinogen.
I search for the cranberries and load them into the now boiling pan, aware the cranberries were grown in America, packaged in New Zealand and now boiling in my pot, added to the goji berries that were grown in India, packaged in Thailand.
The warm porridge ignites my core temperature as I get this working from home day on the roll. Slip on my organic t-shirt, knowing the cotton was grown in India, milled in Bangladesh, then sea and road freighted to China to be screen-printed in a sweat shop only to be sea freighted to America, where I bought it online for ‘ethical reasons’ to have it airfreighted to Australia and delivered by my local postperson.
As I turn on the computer to check my social media and remind the world exactly of my inner most thoughts and feelings, so that Google can sell my private information to companies to target me for advertising, I begin to craft my first ‘private’ email, through Gmail, aware that everything I am typing is being stored for ‘security reasons’ … then a bird chirps at my window and I stop for a moment, look outside and see beautiful nature in full abundance, the citrus in season, the morning dew glistening with the rising sun, the smoke rising from nearby fireplaces and while accepting that nothing has really changed with nature, everything has changed with human nature.
Andrew Crockett, Burringbar
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
