I think it really was the fast food that did it ...it took a while to realize what was the cause but then it fitted. The rants...well they are rare really ...but I know I do tend to kick off if something gets up my nose . I am also a grumpy old man ...make that a very grumpy old man , and years ago I had a car smash lots of bits broken including my head ....well that left me with anger problems for ages , got them under control , but I think grumpy old man syndrome is what I am left with !!!

I to only drive old cars, pre modern electrics, a Daihatsu fourtrack 21 years old , and when I get a decent chassis, a series 3 LWB landrover. Both will run with virtually no electrics at all. The fourtrack runs on whatever I put in it too , so would the land rover but at the mo it has a petrol engine in it . I have a diesel to go in, that would run on anything but, the chassis is so rotten I am waiting to get a better one, and then change everything over . The amount of miles I do in a car , I can grow enough sunflower or rapeseed to supply all I need.
I too have simplified my life to a huge degree, I am only one or two steps from being in the 16th century in many respects really. I prefer to live this way , but it is hard Milly....So many people in modern western life just don't seem to DO anything themselves. It seems just one long trip of buy this buy that , get someone to do this or that , drive here and there and almost never walk ..and so on . If I want anything done there is no choice really , I have to do it myself. I also broke my neck and back plus loads of other bits and bobs, so I have had to learn to do things different to how I did them before. The one thing I worry about is what I will be able to do in ten or more years time . I am nearly 52 now and life may well catchup sometime soon, arthritis and so on . I already have the beginnings of it but like you Milly , you just have to get on with it and make the most of what you have now . Oh and by the way , EU MPs get even more in expenses than our MPs, they get more wages , expenses ,travel allowances ,office allowances etc etc , the list goes on and on.
Ahhhhhh the simple life !!!! as you say, never, It is hard work . It is also very rewarding and satisfying and although hard work , it is also a laidback way of life too .... it is very hard to explain that , hard work but laidback

? But that is how it is for me. If things get even worse than they are now in the UK , all the laws and control etc, I could easily slip out of the way completely , on my little bit of the 16th century. I could live quite happily that way . If THEY tried to interfere or stop me ...then in true Rambo style , the sh*t will surely hit the fan BIG time.
cheers
Russ