Greenhouse Gas

Our new boiler is installed. We hope in the long term it will provide substantial savings on energy usage and bills. But in the short term we are instantly rewarded by hot water that is actually hot. In fact it’s so hot it’s scalding. I am in bath-time heaven.

But the heating side of it turns out to be a damp squib. As Carbonlite selected the wall panel that controls the system, we have a tiny digital box mounted on the wall in the hall instead of our usual Starship Enterprise boiler console. At first glance it looks easy to use. But of course it’s a nightmare. No knobs to push, no buttons to flick. Just a series of numbers.

He explains the first figure is the outdoor temperature, which, he points out, is currently 17 degrees. I tell him I don’t care what the temperature is outside. So he moves on to the all important figure of indoor temperature. “It’s 18 degrees in here, which is just about right for the evening,” he says. ”But that’s only one degree hotter than outside,” I complain. “Turn it up!” He refuses, reminding me it’s not cold outside, or indeed inside. I tell him I’ll do it myself. But how, when the whole panel resembles a great big buttonless digital watch? He shows me what to do to reset water and heating, but computerised gadgets aren’t my strong point and it’s all a bit of a blur. He goes out to work and I settle down with a hot water bottle and the manual. Two hours later and I’m no further on. I throw the book on the floor and go to bed.

It’s my birthday. Carbonlite is away and my mother comes to celebrate it with me. She turns up with six bottles of Radox. I line the bottles up in the bathroom so I can scald myself with a different flavour of boiling water every night. It’s lunchtime but unusually the house feels hot. I check the temperature gauge on the digital box. It reads 23 degrees. Inside! The heating shouldn’t be on in the daytime so I look closer and find the panel displays the word, ’fault.’ I shrug. Too bad if it breaks when Carbonlite is away. I have no idea how to turn the heating down or off. What a great birthday present.

As the day goes on the house feels hotter and hotter. My mother is sweating and asks to open a window. But Carbonlite hasn’t quite finished the restoration job on the sashes, and has warned if anyone touches the woodwork, the glass will fall out. “It’s like a greenhouse,” my mother says as we sweat our way through dinner. I fumble around with the manual for a while and stare hopelessly at the digital figures, before giving up.

At breakfast time my mother comes down, her eyes heavy. “I didn’t sleep at all last night in this sauna. How much is all this heating going to cost?“ I know exactly how much the electricity is costing, because Carbonlite has reinstalled the carbon calculator next to the kettle. But as for the greenhouse gas? No idea. Probably all the money we’ve saved this year by installing the new boiler. So much for low energy bills.

I stand at the box in the hall. It still reads 23 degrees while outside remains constant at 17. I never thought I’d long to press the ’off’ switch on the central heating, but I do.

Six baths in seven minutes

There’s only so long you can go on recycling cardboard boxes and composting vegetable peelings and pretending you are sorting out the environment. Eventually there comes a time where you either need to get your photo in The Guardian by getting arrested at a power station protest, or back your green aspirations up with some hard cash. I decide on the latter. Prison wouldn’t suit me.

Carbonlite is pleased. He’s been keen to push some money into greening up the house for years. The first thing is he does is call in Boilerman to find out his views about the latest in energy efficient water and heating systems. We’re talking combi-boilers and zoning. But Boilerman has his own ideas, “A fantastic system that will let you have three baths, then after just seven minutes another three baths! It’s new, it’s beautiful looking and I can install immediately.” My mother, who has joined us for a cup of tea, snorts into her Princess Diana mug, “Even the Radox Queen here would struggle to have six baths in one day!” I try to shush her, but Boilerman isn’t listening, he’s busy describing the sexy curves of the new tank he’d install to facilitate the six baths in seven minutes.

Fed up with going round in circles on the subject of boilers, we turn our attention to the attic. A new roof several years ago left us with little insulation in the loft. Greening it up will be a substantial job. But can we find a builder to even come and give us a quote? Not until the spring, it seems. “Perhaps I’ll do it myself? ” wonders Carbonlite. The re-pointing job to plug the gaps in the exterior wall notches up a similar level of enthusiasm from the building community, and the chances of getting a workman down to view our cellar-with-a-stream-running-through-it are now seeming rather remote.

We move on to the windows: the sash windows that we looked at replacing in the spring. They’re still rotten, but if we can’t get them double glazed, is there any point in paying a thousand pounds a window for their non-efficient replacements? I stamp my feet. “I want to pay someone to make the house more environmentally friendly, and the planet is crying out for people to save energy. Why won’t anyone take our money?” Carbonlite goes online. “I know how we can spend some cash,” he says.

Two days later a special delivery arrives. A very, very long ladder. One by one, Carbonlite rebuilds the sash windows. We have to go with single glazing, but at least some of the gaps are plugged. Boilerman mark II can source the exact system we need. And we look at materials to insulate the attic and consider clearing it out for the first time in eight years. OK, I admit it’s not going to stop a polar bear from falling off his perch of melting ice, but at least it’s a start. Six baths in seven minutes? Clean, but not green; and we can do better than that.

Compost capers

“Ugh. That’s disgusting.” I slam the lid back onto the compost bin. While we’ve been away all summer, nature has gone into full throttle on the vegetable peelings. It’s like a creepy crawly version of Noah’s Ark; there seems to be at least two of every insect on earth crammed under the lid. It’s all wriggling about and it smells like a cow’s bum. Even the eggs have laid eggs. I’m not going to compost anything any more. It’s too foul.

After dinner, I scrape the remains and peelings into the regular bin, announcing to the kids that I’m through with composting. There’s a sharp intake of breath. Even the Carbon-Toddler raises her eyebrows. “I don’t care about the planet any more. I’m through with being an eco worrier,” I tell them. “I’m going back to not being green. It was more convenient…and less…wriggly.” “But…”the youngest Carbon-Copy volunteers...” “Talk to the hand,” I tell him. The conscience isn’t engaging any more.

The drought in Kenya is in every newspaper. National Geographic does a feature on Venice; more at risk of flooding than ever before. The miserable British weather continues. Global warming is ramping up. But I don’t care. I’m not being green any more. The Guardian brings me news of the 10:10 campaign. I read all about it, devouring every celebrity endorsement, and despair that so few of the population have signed up. But I don’t join myself because I’m done with trying to help the planet. My mum has bought a new car. My brother’s flying to his second home in France again. It confirms I’ve made the right decision. There’s no point in making any effort when everyone else undoes it. I only bother to recycle the papers so I don’t have to digest news of any fresh environmental disasters.

Carbon-Lite is down at the compost bin, shovelling the earth out of the bottom of the barrel. It’s not like the top of the bin; all wormy and horrible. It’s fresh, moist and plentiful earth, which he spreads on top of our thin, weedy soil. It’s new life; all healthy and organic. I pick out bits of plastic shrink wrapping and wonder at how all those potato peelings, banana skins and egg boxes have miraculously transformed into this. I’ve always bought my compost in bags from the garden centre before. Suddenly I can see the results of our efforts and it feels good. Like those little green shoots they talk about in a recession. It’s not going to change the world, or save the world, but it is undeniably a positive start. “Ok,” I say to the Carbon-Copies. “I might start composting again.” They jump up and down and cheer. In the compost bin beside them, the worms are wriggling with delight.

All Green Wedding Blues

We receive a wedding invitation through the post. Carbonlite’s old friend, the best man at our wedding, is getting married. Again. But this time he’s saying ’I do’ in an obscure part of Germany. My whole family are invited. I sigh. Here we go again.

The last time we had an invite to a far-flung wedding we debated it for months, talking about whether or not the celebrations were worth the emissions. The planet is still trying to deal with my sister-in-law’s Slovakian wedding which involved five of our family sized bums on airplane seats, plus all the transfers and a long weekend of excursions to Borat-like attractions.

Watching Carbonlite’s brother waltz his new wife around a church hall without taking the fag out of his mouth probably wiped out a year’s worth of plastic bag saving by the population of Hastings, and formed a low point in my eco-worrying life.

So understandably we are reluctant to go. Love miles they call them. A modern wedding in another country is a test; one of the most challenging tests for the eco-minded. Especially if it’s the wedding of someone you like.

Now if I’d been invited to take a mini-break in Germany I’d have no trouble in making up my mind. The devil himself invented long haul mini-breaks.

Carbonlite’s best man and his fiancée have a website. A whole website about their wedding. I go on it, not to check out the wedding list, but to see whether we can get to the ceremony by boat, bike or horse. And the first thing I see is a picture of us. They have uploaded pictures of all their favourite wedding guests onto the site. Saves doing it on their honeymoon I suppose.

There we are, the whole family, grinning like the Waltons. And on the preceding pages are the full families of the happy couple. But when I look closer, I find no trace of his ex-wife or children. I can understand the ex-wife part of the equation, but his two little girls have also been airbrushed out of his life.

Now this puts a whole new slant on things. Not only would we be screwing more polar bears, but we’d be in serious trouble with the ex-wife of our best man. She’s probably gone right off us already after seeing our mugshots on the happy couple’s web display.

Now it’s a no brainer. Love miles plus wrath of ex-wife equals no show. If only all our environmental decisions were as easy.

a giant plastic polar bear on the bar?

Rugby club kitchen duty is compulsory if you want your kids to play rugby.
As a new member, and one of the last to sign up, I am allocated a ‘match’ day as all the easy slots have gone. It's a heavy duty catering job. Bacon butties, coffee’s and squash until lunchtime, then a meal for each of the players.

By midday it’s manic. Tray loads of dirty plates, cups and cutlery arriving by the minute. I throw them into soapy water along with the plastic pint glasses the players have used for squash to quench their thirst after brutal matches.

“Are you washing those? Oh. I’m just putting them straight into the bin,” one of the other helpers says to me, chucking a pile of the plastic glasses into a black binbag. I take a quick look inside it and among the leftovers lie dozens of the see-through pint glasses. But as they’re covered in bits of stew and old teabags, Im not inclined to pluck them out.

As each team finishes their match, they pile in to the clubhouse, muddy hungry, cold and tired. The demand for meals quickens, and I abandon washing up the plastic glasses when I see that all the other kitchen volunteers are chucking them in the bin as well.

We finish serving, mop up and haul a giant plastic bin bag full of rubbish into the yard. I’ve just served two hundred people without having breakfast or lunch myself, and I feel slightly sick. All that waste, much of which I’ve just helped send to landfill. I should have kept on washing the plastic cups.

When I return home, Carbonlite and the kids are watching a David Attenbourgh programme on the i-player. “Come and watch, it’s about polar bears.” says Carbonlite. I am tired and hungry, and frankly not interested in polar bears. But sitting on the sofa is the easiest option. And watching a polar bear try and last out the winter on the ice makes me realise I’m not all that tired or hungry after all. Starving after months without any calories the creature makes it’s way back on to the newly formed ice pack in spring to catch its prey once more, and try and replenish its energy. It's a cycle that has repeated itself for thousands of years. But this year for the first time, the ice is too thin. I hug my son as we watch the bear crash into the icy waters and try without success to haul its giant body back onto ice that continues to crack and break under its weight. It’s pitiful. Even the carbontoddler is now silent. The programme ends and we continue to sit in silence. The empty feeling in my stomach isn’t just down to lack of food.

“I’ve just melted more of that ice,” I say. Everyone looks at me, so I elaborate, “I tossed a load of Ribena cups away today and now another polar bear is going to fall in.” I tell Carbonlite the tale, and confess my part in it.
“We all do it," he says, trying to cheer me up. "...we forget the big picture. That what we do in our own little village can have consequences on the other side of the planet.
"I know people say who gives a stuff about polar bears, I’ve said it myself, but how can you watch that and not care?” I reply.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” asks Carbonlite?
“Ask the rugby club to use glasses from the bar instead?”
“Think bigger,” he says.
“Make a giant plastic polar bear out of milk cartons and bubble wrap and sit it on the bar every Sunday to remind people that every one of those cups they chuck away is helping melt each new millimetre of ice?”
“Now you’re thinking,”says my mentor.
“I've got an idea,” shouts the eldest Carboncopy, and he runs upstairs. He returns moments later with the dung beetle costume he has made for his school show assembly on Egypt.
“Rugby players know nothing about polar bears. But they do know about Dung don’t they Mum? Sit this on the bar next to the plastic glasses. No one will be interested in Ribena any more."

new best friend

In another day in my cafe life, I pick up the Daily Express and start browsing through. Several pages in is a column by the prolific Richard from Richard and Judy. And within this column is an opinion piece on recycling.
Now I like columns in newspapers and expect a lot from columnists. I expect to be entertained and amused. I also respect a strong opinion, and a bit of topicality.
But while Richard is certainly topical, his dismissal of recycling is ill informed and irresponsible. Sure it’s fine to question the point of recycling, I huff and puff about going to the tip all the time. But even I know it’s important to present a balanced argument. And to suggest that in ten years time we’ll look back and wonder what the fuss was all about global warming is contradicting scientific evidence and giving the sceptics reassurance. Frankly, irresponsible.

With some reservations I show it to Carbonlite and as I predict, he explodes. "You need to write to him," he says, chucking the newspaper on the table.

"Me...write to a newspaper?" I query.
"No to him. That book club tosser." he replies.

The first problem I encounter is that Richard is so famous I have no idea of his surname. That's sorted out by googling him. Then I'm so fascinated by what turns up that I waste an hour. Then I have to work out what to say. I begin by announcing that I've never written to a newspaper or a columnist before, but it's not long before I've got into my stride telling him that there are many people out there who deny global warming through laziness or ignorance and 'opinion' like his only encourages their behaviour. I tell him that his children, and grandchildren, like mine will be left to pick up the pieces of our selfish living in future years. And I inform him that it is a privilege to be given a platform in a national newspaper and along with this privilege comes responsibility. And while I’m sure he would not dream of using this platform to make racist or sexist comments, how can it be ethical to incite people to damage our vulnerable environment even further?

I wonder if it'll scare him? I wonder if I'll get a reply. If I do he'll become my new 'friend,' along with Emma Thompson who is still sending me e mails.

Job done, I put it in the post then sit down to watch the Bafta's and check out if any of my new mates are there.

57 letters

Emma Thompson writes to me. My inbox isn’t generally stuffed with correspondence from Hollywood names, so I read it. 62,000 eco minded people have now signed up to own a piece of airplot land, and as one of them, I'm being urged to petition the 57 labour MP’s that have so far opposed Heathrow's extra runway, in the hope they’ll take the same action in Wednesday's Commons vote about the airport expansion.
I sigh inwardly. While Emma may have nannies and cleaners and all the accessories of a glamorous filmstar life that give her time to write to 57 MP’s, I don’t. And how will I know which ones to approach? What are their addresses? Is a personal letter necessary for each one or will the same one do?

I fill Carbonlite in on my dilemma. He tells me a personal letter is much more effective,
“You’ll get a reply from all of them whether it’s a standard letter or one you’ve taken the trouble to compose yourself. But in my experience they engage more if it’s written directly to them,” he lectures.
Great. Now I have to write 57 different letters. I’ve only just managed to get all the Christmas thank you’s off to the right people, and that’s only because I bribed the Carboncopies to do it for 2p a letter. I wonder if their rate is any different for MP’s?

Then I notice a link. Of course, Greenpeace have made it easy; they’re not going to expect all those thousands of people to sit at their desks for a lifetime, writing to unfamiliar politicians. I follow the link to another website that tracks the movements of MP’s. There’s a mechanism for finding my own MP, and details of current and former bills, votes and speeches, on every subject known to political man. I scan for the word Heathrow and find it under ‘recent searches.’ Emma’s other friends have been here before me.

Unfortunately the link doesn’t bring up the names and addresses of 57 MP’s. Instead it brings up a query in the House of Commons by the MP for North West Leicestershire David Taylor. He complains that within a two hour window on Sunday he received 6,000 e mails from Greenpeace members, most of them living in the South East and none of them from his own constituency. He asks if the house can do anything to legislate against this mail bombing? Jokingly the Speaker tells him to treat Sunday as a day of rest and not read his e mails at all. But then he goes on to reassure the MP that the house will look into the issue.

So now I have the name of one of the 57 MPs. I click on his details, and make it 6001.

56 more still to do. So little time. But the carbontoddler needs collecting from playgroup, so I leave the computer and walk to the hall. After lunch we have a children's party to go to. And the vote is tomorrow. A library run follows, then beavers, then work committments when the kids are in bed.

I start to really feel bad about the other 56 MP's, when I read in the papers that some of them have already been 'won round' by the government. But, in a miserable attempt to deflect the guilt and clear the way for some late night TV watching instead of letter writing, I ask myself whether we should be virtual bombing the MP's that didn't oppose the action last time around rather than the ones who did? Aren't they more of a problem? Is Emma really on top of all this?

I go back to my in-box. In the mailbox, below Emma’s request, is a message from the South Lakeland Action for Climate Change group, inviting me to a talk about what I can do before the Copenhagan talks on November 30th. They’re my local group and I’ve considered getting involved before but never done anything about it. The meeting is in a hall in Kendal. It isn’t going to be full of the great or the glamorous, and I doubt Emma Thompson has been invited. But it’s still national action at a local level. I put it in the diary. And feel a little more able to sleep.

walking the talk

On whim I decide to buy into the Airplot group’s purchase of land near Heathrow to stop the planned new runway from going ahead. It turns out to be surprisingly easy. Much easier than buying a piece of land near Heathrow 20 years ago when we moved to London and couldn’t afford much in the way of property. That purchase, in a run down part of run down Hillingdon cost me £80,000 and took months for solicitors to argue about shared drains and parking. This time I log onto a website, add my details and bingo, I own a few millimetres of West Drayton or Sutton or some other godforsaken village that can’t hear itself think because of increased flights to Heathrow’s other terminals.
Apparently I’m in good company. Environmentalist thesps, members of the mighty Greenpeace, and also quite a few people like me have already signed up, led by Emma Thompson, who, in her own version of Shakespearean prose told Geoff Hoon to “get a grip, Geoff.” Quite right.

While I’m online, I take a peek at the other offerings, and find a campaign to tell Gordon Brown to ‘give coal the boot.’ Well obviously I sign up to that, saying “Get a grip Gordon,” as I click on the button. Perhaps this could become a nifty environmentalist catchphrase that the world could share, a sort of global putdown? If the new American president fails to act on the environment as he has promised, can we all collectively shout at him “Get a grip Barack,” only to find that he springs into eco action?

I enter my details into the boxes designed to help me help Gordon to give coal the boot, but find it isn’t as straightforward as buying Heathrow. It presents me with a map, and asks me to add my footprint to the map. But before that I must choose my shoe. Now choosing shoes is something I’m good at. I come from a long line of women who thrive on choosing shoes. But this isn’t about choosing a fashion statement, a cheap Far East made accessory to be thrown away after a few wears. This is about declaring who I am. My personal shoe identity, with my first name and postcode attached, to be left for all time on the footprint map of the Greenpeace website. The choices are stark. I can be a sandal. Or a cowboy boot. A cowboy boot? Or an army boot. Or a kitten heel. Or a loafer. Or a flip flop. Oh God. What am I?
I should be a welly boot but I don’t want to be. I’d like to be a kitten heel, but if I’m honest I’m not. I can’t even walk in them, let alone stamp out global warming with them. I toy with being a cowboy boot as an ironic feminist statement, but in the end go barefoot. Probably a classic cop out on the Greenpeace shoe labelling front, but at least it doesn’t tie me into in any particular decade, gender or fashion. And if Carbonlite reads it, he might feel guilty about not buying me those M and S slippers for Christmas. I take a look at what everyone else from Cumbria has put in. There’s a few wellies, a couple of sandals and some very uninspiring loafers. And quite a few have opted for the barefoot option. Thankfully there’s no cowboy boots in my neighbourhood. A cowboy boot-wearing environmental activist on your doorstep would frankly be quite scary.

When Carbonlite comes home, I tell him about my new purchase of terminal busting land.
“Good,” he says, picking up the paper.
“Just Good? This is a legal document, like a house purchase you know. I could be summonsed. To appear. At a big enquiry or something,“ I cry. He continues reading the paper. “And I’ may have to turn up barefoot,” I carry on, “Because that’s what I signed up to do on the “Get a grip Gordon carbon coal campaign. And as everyone else from round here will be there in their wellies and loafers, I’ll have to watch my toes.” My husband nods his approval, still reading the paper.
“You haven’t even asked what it cost,” I shout. “To buy Heathrow.”
He finally looks up, “Well? How much did it cost?”
“It was free,” I reply sheepishly.
He goes back to the paper. I stomp out of the room.
“But there may be some costs to follow,” I mutter, wondering if there is such a thing as an environmentally friendly brand new pair of kitten heels.”

carbon coffee

It’s dark outside. Dark and cold and uninviting. The Carbontoddler cries when I remove her from her Tigger sleepsuit and force her arm into as many layers of clothes as I can. With the usual bickering and chivvying, I walk the boys to school then return for my daughter. Today I intend to drop her off at nursery by car, drive to a village seven miles down the road, and work in a cafe, on my laptop. I avoid meeting Carbonlite’s eye as I grab car keys and run out of the door with my daughter and her lunchbox. The temperature outside isn’t very different to inside. Even though it’s the depths of winter, we’ve made a pact to keep the heating off during the day. Carbonlite deals with this by piling on layers of clothes; at the last count he had five. I deal with it by going out..

I order a coffee and try to shut out the guilt. Not only have I left Carbonlite at home to suffer in frosty silence with a massive workload, but I’ve used the car for a short journey again. Why? Because I’m a pathetic fair weather cyclist. I just can’t motivate myself to open the shed. I know it’s damaging; economically, environmentally and also physically; I'm putting on weight faster than the carbon mother in law gets through a litre of whisky.
Disgusted with myself, I pick up a magazine. “The lazy girls guide to going green” the cover shouts at me. I sigh, opening it to page 64. “If you’d like to save the planet, but think it all sounds like too much hassle, here are some easy tips that won’t turn your life upside down.” Why not turn your life upside down? It might be fun. It might save the future for your kids. Resistant as I can be to some of Carbonlite’s improvements, we at least both understand that life, post Al Gore can never be same again.

It's all the usual stuff about buying an eco kettle, sealing the gaps, washing clothes at a lower temperature, and turning off the tap mid teeth clean. I’m mildly interested in the fact that I’ll save more energy if my fridge is full. But the only time a car is mentioned is to inform me that driving is more efficient if I put more air in the tyres. But air never trashed a polar bear. What about emissions, petrol, unnecessary journeys? I leave my coffee to go cold; while it might be unleaded, it tastes too much of carbon.

The gift of gold?

A copy of National Geographic lies unread on the table. I tidy up around it. It’s been there for weeks; a reminder of Christmas past. Carbonlite wanders into the room and sprawles down on the sofa. I grab the magazine.
“I’ll just take this for recyling,” I say pointedly.
“But you haven’t read it yet,” he exclaims.
“It’s my magazine,” I tell him. My only Christmas present. I start to flick through it, grumbling under my breath how friends got expensive handbags and gold jewellery, while I got a magazine. Not even a year’s subscription, just a magazine. Even baby Jesus got gold for Christmas. A pair of M and S slippers would have been fine. Why does even my Christmas present have to be an education?

At the recycling bin, I pause. Something in this glossy magazine is glinting at me. It’s a global obsession that’s worth more than human life. A glittering industry that’s rotten to the core. In the world’s most remote places, whole families risk their lives so we can have cheap earrings. To extract a single ounce of gold, the amount in a typical wedding ring, 250 tons of rock and ore are taken from the ground, from vast open pit mines where accidents are commonplace, and chemical or mercury poisoning is a daily hazard. Villagers in the high altitudes of Peru work for 30 days a month for free; dirty, backbreaking work, without any pay. On the 31st day their reward is a single shift, of four hours or maybe a little more, where they are granted permission to haul out and take away as much rock as their shoulders can bear. With a bit of luck this sack may contain nuggets galore and make them instant millionaires. More commonly it contains nothing, or perhaps a few dollars of gold flecks which will barely feed their family, once miller and merchant have been paid.

All that human misery and exploitation. But what of the environment? Thanks to huge mining corporations, the gold now left in our world only exists as traces in remote and fragile corners. What was once untouched rainforest housing thousands of species is now razed and turned into pits that can be seen from space. Diggers carry out tons of earth each day in the search for the golden grail. The gold is processed with the help of mercury, and the chemical effluent is piped straight to the bottom of the sea.

I fiddle with my wedding ring. I take it off. I roll it around in my palm, examining its texture and shape for the first time in years. I look at how the light falls on it, and smile when I read the inscription. Sure, its precious. Sure it’s valuable. The question is, is this symbol of our union worth the human and environmental sacrifice that it took to make it? I put it on the table. I leave the room. My ring finger feels strange. I haven’t taken my wedding ring off in almost a decade. Ten years? Where did that go.
“I’m going for a bath. I’ve left something on the table for you,” I call to Carbonlite in the living room. He’ll either think I’ve read the feature and be pleased I’ve decided to do something about it, or he’ll think I’m leaving him, and might reassess what I’m worth.