Monday 21 June 2010

The Alan Titchmarsh of Derbyshire...or not

Found some lovely little plants where my beans had been last year, so I re-planted them in nice neat rows, staked them with canes and string and watered them.

It was only yesterday when friends were visiting, I found I had been lovingly tending bindweed.

Oops!

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Is this what our future holds?

Just have a look at this..it isn't science fiction! http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/16/centre-for-alternative-technology-eliminate-carbon-emissions

Can't say it makes me feel too depressed-I can live like that, just might have to get rid of my car if the cheapest electric is £20k!

Sounds OK to me. Bring it on.

Monday 14 June 2010

Tipi living


We've been playing at being red indians...actually we were a bit blue at 3am when the fire went out, but that's beside the point. We went to Hay on Wye Festival ( yes, scarf draped around linen shirt to blend in with literary types) and again stayed in a tipi, which is just fabulous. Next year it will undoubtedly rain because we have had two fantastic years but we sat at the tent door watching the flames from the fire in the middle of the tent and gazing at the stars. It was magical. (Try it, but not at Hay time, cos they're ours!...Hay Outdoor Training)


We went to several talks about the environment but they did prompt a few comments:


Nik Gowing reckons we will survive as long as we have GM crops and high yields but like nuclear power, we are creating a monster that we don't know how to control so no thanks, Mr Gowing.


Michael Pollan talking to Montague Don ( that's like saying Mr F.W. Woolworth) : don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise: I like this one, a low fat yogurt contains three and a half cubes of white sugar.


Rosie Boycott and a panel talking about people displaced by climate change: one fact I remember is that £200 billion would save all the people who are left homeless by hurricanes, floods etc. That's a lot of money until you realise that £32 bn was paid to bankers in bonuses in the US. Not so much then. Cafe Direct got a bit hot under the collar when someone suggested that they had patronised people in their film by getting them to say they WERE Cafe Direct...that they somehow were being assimilated like the Borg into the brand. Bit far fetched I thought but shows how your message can get twisted.


Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, is a former vicar! Does that give us more hope than some bankers have more ethics than the fact above would suggest?


David Remnick on Barack Obama: more about race than environment but the best talk of all! He sounds like the sort of US president you'd like to have round for a cuppa! Maybe he'd like to see my veg patch.