First a friend
and colleague mentioned it, declaring that she could not possibly do it since
she has a baby but I could. Then emails
started appearing from other Rabbis from across the Jewish community who were
taking it on. And finally the Montagu
Centre declared it a staff initiative that we would do as Team Liberal Judaism! It seemed that I was destined to Live Below
the Line!
Initial
internet research showed that journalist Kath Kelly did it for a whole year so
surely it could not be that hard to live on just £1 a day for just five
days. Well, I fell at the first hurdle –
which five days? The official challenge
runs from 29th April to 3rd May but I will be in
Jerusalem during those dates for an international conference, staying in the
conference hotel and having three meals a day placed in front of me. Technically therefore, I could quite easily
live on £1 a day for any extras but I am pretty sure that is not really the
point!
To live below
the line healthily, you need to be at home with a kitchen so you can cook staple
foods. To live below the line ethically,
you need not to be going to an event where fine food will be freely
available. And so the diary games
began! During these five days I am in
Dublin for work and during those five days I am running an Israeli food
workshop. During these five days I have
a 95th to attend and during those five days I am invited to a Patrons'
Dinner at the House of Lords!
Feeling
unbelievably fortunate to have such opportunities, I realised that I was going
to have to do this properly or not at all.
They have tap water in the House of Lords after all! And so it was decided that I will live below
the line from Monday 22nd April to Friday 26th April
2013, including one very awkward Patrons' Dinner and one agonizing cookery workshop! This is certainly going to be a challenge!
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