Simply Peaches

The speaker reflects on the process and cost of producing and selling canned peaches. They express gratitude for the affordability and convenience of these peaches, compared to fresh peaches. The speaker also appreciates small moments of serendipity and the ability to live in the present without the burden of a busy schedule. They mention the possibility of editing a friend's book, highlighting the contrast between their own free time and the friend's structured life. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the simplicity and enjoyment they find in their current lifestyle. How can they be so cheap? What? What is he talking about? I just had a can of tinned peaches. They are called Simply Peaches. A fairly simple label. Inside, it seems to vary slightly, but lovely peaches in a light syrup. Very lovely. Before I tell you how much I pay for them, I started to think, what is the process of me actually getting to have these peaches? The can that it comes in has to be made by someone, either by the people who put the peaches in it, or people who just make cans. The label has to be printed. Many of them are. It's not elaborate, and it's an own brand label, but it still requires designing and printing. It still costs money. The peaches have to come from somewhere. They have to be brought to the plant. They have to be removed of their skins and their stones. They have to be cut up and placed in the cans with some water and a little sugar. They then have to be sold, delivered to the company that will sell them. They have to make a profit on all of this. They've got expenses, electricity, manpower. They have to be doing this so it makes a profit. Maybe not much, because they do it in bulk, but it makes a profit. Then it has to be given to the company that sell it, who also have to make a profit. So normal manufacturing, buying, making, selling. I just paid, and they'd just gone up to, by the way, 34 pence for that can of peaches. And the experience I had, and the experience I have with these peaches is this. That I make a small hole on one side of the top and then a small hole on the other side, and I get to drink, I drink out of the can, the syrup, the peachy, watery sweetness. I get a nice little drink, which sort of whets my appetite for what comes next. Then I slowly, with my penknife and my multi-tool, just remove the lid until there's only enough left so that I can bend it back inside golden yellow peaches. And I take my fork, and I eat them slowly. When I finish the peaches, there's a little bit of that peachy nectar at the bottom, and I get to drink that before disposing of the can. I take a small piece of toilet paper, which I use to wipe the fork, wipe my multi-tool, put everything away, done. And I've had this wonderful experience, this lovely taste of peaches, that has gone through all of this process. The peaches have come from another part of the world, because we don't grow peaches here. All of this has come together, the manufacturing, all of this, so that I can have that experience for 34p. It was originally 27p. It doesn't seem possible that there is any money to be made in that whole process. There's the energy use, the carbon emissions, the effect on the planet, to make this so that I can have this. And I'm so grateful that I pay so little for something that is so lovely, that I can just keep in the cupboard, that doesn't go off, that I don't have to eat or keep cold. I can have whenever I want, and then go back and get more. I've been having one can of peaches per day for about a week. I've got a few left in the cupboard, and I go and buy them by the four. They're heavy-ish. I don't need to become an extension of the warehouse of the shop I buy it from. I just go and pick them up. Now, obviously, I can't assume they'll always be there. The shelves are strange, and have been for a while. But there seems to be quite a lot of them, which serves me well. There are other fruit, other cans of fruit that one could get, in juice rather than sugar. But they're not always so nice, and they're much, much more expensive. Three times, four times the price. Like, these are the high quality. But I'm experiencing, I've had them before, of course, but I'm experiencing these really cheap ones, and enjoying them. So, they're as good a quality as I want. I don't need anything else. I get to have something that is essentially simple, and convenient, and easy, and tasty, for almost no money. There's nothing about it that isn't, that isn't good for me. So, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate having them. Now, as much as fresh peaches that are ripe, and juicy, and dribbly, can be amazing, and they taste, in a way, different to tin peaches, to canned peaches, they're expensive when they're available, and they can be messy. I dribble over myself, it's tricky. They're often not that nice. They're only occasionally really lovely. Sometimes they just don't even ripen properly. Perhaps they were picked too soon. And occasionally, in a can of peaches, there's a residual bit of the stone, the kernel left in there. Occasionally, it's not too bad. But otherwise, the quality is very consistent. It always tastes the same. I know what I'm going to get when I open a can of peaches. I don't know what I'm going to experience when I bite into a fresh one. And one fresh peach is usually more expensive than this whole can of peaches, which contains at least three, I assume, there's a lot of peaches in there. So, why am I bringing this up? Why am I talking about this? One is to just appreciate things that are often just taken for granted. I don't eat all the simply range of things. It's the only thing I get. But it just seems to be perfect for me. And I can really enjoy them without all the unexpected, unknown issues of deciding I only eat fresh peaches, where the cost of these things seems ridiculously low, and yet it must be exactly what they need to make from it. That if a company can produce these things, and they only have one type of this simply fruit, there's no other simply fruits, there's a few other canned fruits, but that's it. But one assumes they must make more of the simplies, and there must be a huge amount of peaches involved in making batches of canned peaches, and they have to be transported and brought in and looked after and treated well, because they're very delicate and easily damaged. They can't be rotten. They can't be hard. The amount of time and effort that goes into organising all of that to make sure that the quality is good enough, even though it's the simply range, it doesn't mean it can be rubbish, because no one will buy it, and then that would be ridiculous to make those things. Other areas of simply stuff, where you might buy meat or things like that, can be of very low quality for people who just can't afford the better quality things. But in my experience, canned peaches are as good as this. There aren't any better ones. The ones that come with or come in juice taste a bit different, but often they're a bit tart. They're not always nice. I don't know if it indicates a state of my mind, or that I seem to find what I need in a way that I can recognise little things, like going into that same shop hungry, wanting, would love a sandwich, one of their ready-made sandwiches, but absolutely unwilling to pay a full price for it, and then finding not only two packs of those sandwiches reduced by a huge amount, but a day before they would ever do that. They'll reduce it on the day, usually later on in the afternoon, or in the morning, let's say, and then the following day's ones that they might reduce, they'll reduce that night, so that they're ready for the morning. But this was a day before that, that they wouldn't have reduced those particular sandwiches, which I picked up at about half eleven, until at least six to eight o'clock in the evening. Yet there they were, just the two, and I was happy to get those. And then I stood outside, sheltering while it was raining, and at one, while observing the people coming and going, cars arriving, just seeing things take place normally that aren't normally observed like this, slowly eating my sandwich and enjoying and appreciating that I get to have this at that price, because I wouldn't pay full. And then the rain stops, and I start to eat the second sandwich, and I start to walk back to my van, and as I'm walking, as I'm finishing the sandwich, I've got this box that I need to dispose of, and there's a bin. Somebody's bin, it's the day of bin collection, just there, and I'll put it in it. And then I noticed one just a little further up, that the lid was already up, so I didn't even have to touch it to dispose of it. Little things like that I really appreciate. It tells me I'm okay, it's okay, life is aware of me, supporting me. And it's only a tiny little thing that might easily be overlooked, not even noticed, rushing to get to the next thing. But I notice, as I'm not rushing, I can stand still, and wait, and watch, and see things I wouldn't otherwise have noticed, connecting me to life in a way that I'm not normally connected. Other people are just going about their business, going from one thing to the next thing, when they finish this, they'll be going here, they're going to pick up that one, they'll be making supper, they'll be getting here, they've got a list of things that they need to do, they might get to them all, they might not, but they'll get to them eventually, and there's just a never-ending responsibility to have these do this, and I don't have that. So I can stand there, not looking at my phone, not having a cigarette, not chatting, just stand there, and look, and see, and be. I am letting the rain pass, yes, but I'm not impatient, I'm not, well how long is it going to be? Looking at the forecast again, just check, oh, it says it should be over by now. I'm just accepting that that is what's happening, I'm in a place where I'm sheltered, so I'm not getting wet, and I'm doing something I wouldn't have otherwise been doing had the weather not made me want to stand there. I don't have to, it wasn't raining hard, drizzle, so I can go off, I'm dressed, I've got protection, they will get damp, things are not straightforward to dry when it's damp, and I'm in the van, but I don't, because it makes more sense to wait. It might continue, the drizzle might be sort of drizzling constantly now for a while, or it might be a kind of showery drizzle, and there'll be a pause, as there was that allowed me to get there in the first place. I waited half a mile away, while I sheltered from an original drizzle moment, for almost half an hour, just standing there. I noticed after ten minutes or so, it isn't usual to just stand, yes, if it's pouring with rain, many people will take shelter, but this sort of very light drizzle, most people don't bother with, because when they get home, they're not really wet, they take off their jacket, even if they change their trousers, it doesn't matter, they don't have to think about the concept of will it dry, and being damp inside a small space. So, because I live differently, I can do it differently. I'll choose to do it differently, and because I've got nothing pulling at me, I haven't got this massive agenda, I've only got a time to get to the place, and I can just be. My friend Kay has asked me to perhaps edit Eliza's book that she's been writing, and there's lots of bits and writings, to try to sort of organise it a bit, maybe not so much edit it, but try to organise it into some semblance, cohesion, and I said I would, and all the files they have on a little iPad. So I said to her, look, what I'll do is, I'll take the iPad, I'll go back to the van with it, and I'll look, I need to sort of spend time with what's there, familiarise myself with it, before I'll know what to do, and how to approach it, and how to organise it. And she said, of course, of course, that makes a lot of sense. And I realised, you know what, I'll actually copy those files onto my laptop, so I can give you back the iPad, I don't need to hold on to it. Oh, that's a very good idea, she said, but the third problem is how to find a window, where I can let you have the iPad for a bit, because it gets used, it's being used. So it's even complicated, just to sort of, yeah, go and take the files off, and give them back to me later. No, now she has to find a window, a slot, in her otherwise very structured and busy day, that will allow that to take place where she's not losing out, or missing out, on accessing it. Even though she has a laptop, and so on, and even though she might be in the office, where the laptop is, somehow, she has to have something that she can use, that she can use, that she can use to sort of, sort of, get herself going. So, I leave it with her. For me, it's just like, I'll bring this in tomorrow, come pick it up, or I'll pop it down to you, and then, you know, bring it back to me, once you've copied the files over, and then I'm free to peruse those files, without her feeling like for her, that's much, much more complicated. Their lives, her life, it's very complicated, there's so much that needs to happen, so many things she wants to do. She's not very different to most other people, that's what most other people are like. But I don't do that. I don't have plans. I don't think about future. Or very close to this moment. Oh, the shop will open, I'll go shortly, that's my future, that's a future thought. Or, it'll be time for breakfast soon, or lunch, and I can go pick it up, supper rather, and I can go pick it up. That's a future thought. And as long as I don't have to have those often, then I'm just here in my present, in the present, in the van, doing whatever seems right to do. What I need to do, what I want to do, what works for me, what seems appropriate. This being in the present, I'm not trying to be in the present, I either am or I am not, but being in the present, to being able to be present without the world interfering with that, for the most part. There are, and will be, some things that I'll have to do, I'll need to do, if I have an appointment, I've got to see the doctor, appointment at the hospital, get the van serviced, those are things that are, I have to figure out, I have to fit into my schedule, I have to prepare myself for them, I have to make them priority, but only until I don't have to anymore, and then I go back to present, pleasing myself. It's not that I'm not present with those things, or I can't be present with those things, but they create more complication than I want, and once they're over I'm happy that they're done, and I can just go back to pleasing myself, doing my thing, writing, talking, watching, thinking, feeling, observing, noticing, wondering, and then sharing it, and I don't just sit in my head, if I'm not speaking and recording it, then I'm not thinking about it, I get a feeling of something I want to look at, but I look at it this way, rather than just think about it, and once I've finished talking about it, I don't need to think about it anymore, in fact, I can forget about it, I might listen to this, just at some point, what was on it, and then I might give it a title, so that I can remember what's on it, and then I might have shared it, and you might be listening to it, and there you are.