I’ve been ‘reusing’ today because I’m trying to help my friend who has recently found himself the owner of a 20d – lucky him! He’s a competent photographer but is struggling to find a way of increasing his repertoire of styles. I pointed him at the 26 things website and noticed there is a new challenge on it for November. We discussed it and he’s going to have a go – I said I’d do it too so I can offer him ‘moral support’.

But the trouble is I’ve only got one night at home after tonight over the next two weeks – I don’t even get to come home for the weekend next weekend. (I’m more than a bit stressed about all of that to be honest.) This puts me on the spot a bit so I decided that I’d try to populate my 26 things totally from existing shots. I’ve managed it with a bit of crowbar-ing!!!

I was sitting here thinking now what can I do for my shot today and I decided these glasses are the ultimate visual way of depicting the reuse of stuff. We bought them in Eden last weekend and they are, as they look, old. This struck me as wonderful on many levels – old wine bottles apparently make up most of the glass sent for recycling (and looking at what we put out for recycling each week, I’d say that was completely true) yet finding stuff to do with the green glass is difficult for the recyclers. Using them to make wine glasses seems like a natural step really. The bottoms of the bottles have been sawn off to make the bases of the glasses, which are made from the top of the bottle, glued the wrong way up onto the bottom to make a goblet. So, this has the added advantage of allowing the wine to flow down the stem too – yum! What makes this even more perfect is that apparently the energy used to do this is a fraction of what it would have taken to melt them down and reform them into something else.wine bottles that have been ‘mucked about with’ to make wine glasses.

Hurrah for Eden – though if I continue to break them at the same pace as I do….there are only two left of these ones bought only a couple of weeks ago, then I’m going to be bankrupt in a few weeks because they are really expensive to buy!!!! Well, of course, it’s all relative – they may have cost me more than I’d normally spend on wine glasses but maybe they cost less than others when you factor in the rest of the equation, such as the energy to produce the bottles, the energy to produce the glasses, the non-use of landfill etc etc!!!

Last year, I was showing off my new Simon Drew teeshirt and loving its slogan and two years ago, my shortcomings as a cook were being splashed around pbase so I blew my cool....