Do less, do more, do different

What I saw in a leafy English suburb this week, and wrote about yesterday is still unsettling me. I've always associated gated communities with the USA, but we are clearly good learners - we've taken the idea, put it in a Savile Row suit, and normalised it. 

It led me to a thought experiment. What have I learned to do with less of during these last fifteen months that I can continue to do without; what have I done more of that I want to retain, and what else can I do to be happy with less? It's an ongoing experiment, but here's my own list so far:

Do less of:

• As a household, we have driven only a third of our usual mileage. That's a saving of over twenty thousand miles and over £3000 of fuel and associated emissions. I don't miss any of those miles.

• Doing less mileage means we don't have to change our cars so often, or have such expensive ones.

• I haven't been on a train at all. In "normal", I would have done at least 30 trips to London. I now ask myself why - all the things that would have…