Shameful BBC Totally Ignores Nature March – jun24
What possible reason could there be for the BBC totally ignoring up to 100,000 nature protestors yesterday? The ‘Restore Nature Now’ march, organized by Extinction Rebellion (XR) and numerous wildlife and conservation bodies, doesn’t even feature in the BBC search engine today. I know it happened because I was there. Thankfully, it did get some […]
Summer produce (Jul08)
The weekend wasn’t glorious – certainly not the weather anyway. But I’ve been really enjoying the delicious summer produce, either from my wonderful food delivery service – Somerset Local Food Direct, from my mother’s garden or from our local pick your own. On Saturday night I had 15 people to supper. We started with broad […]
NT – Energy efficient light bulbs (Jun08)
ABOUT TIME TOO – NATIONAL TRUST ENERGY SAVING LIGHT BULBS I was a tenant of the National Trust for nearly 10 years. My husband and I rented Tintinhull House in Somerset from 1995. It’s a beautiful house with gardens, made famous by Penelope Hobhouse, open to the public during the summer months. The public reception […]
A Trip to Waste Tip (Jun08)
Dimmer landfill site near Castle Cary in Somerset is unusual. It has a rather beautiful wooden eco-building within it’s boundaries, housing the Carymoor Environmental Centre. School trips for nature talks and wildlife walks are a regular feature – and they do a lot to educate the public on the benefits of recycling. I took my […]
Flash floods in Somerset (Jun08)
My local town of Crewkerne doesn’t often hit the headlines. Last Thursday it did. I saw the flash floods first hand. My sister-in-law had invited me – along with my mother and sister – to a birthday supper for my brother. It was rather a last minute event because she had forgotten about his birthday, […]
Street light rant (Feb08)
There’s been some discussion recently about councils turning off lights between midnight and dawn. Hooray. Actually, I think there are lots of places where they shouldn’t be on at all. And others where some lights might be a good idea but not nearly as many. Street lights are big energy guzzlers because they have to […]
Unwanted phone directories 50 times as high as Everest! (Feb08)
I don’t use phone directories any more – I always look up numbers on the internet. But I’ve still got a pile of these weighty tomes in the corner of my office, collecting dust and doing nothing useful. I’ve now discovered that 50 million telephone directories are distributed each year and 17.5 million of these […]
Eco developments on the map (Oct07)
The market town of Langport on the Somerset Levels has been getting some good green press in the last few months. A new development – Great Bow Yard has won a Gold Award from the Buildings for Life Scheme set up by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment or CABE for short. Ecos […]
Supper Party (Apr07)
Eighteen people to supper last Saturday night. Arranged it ages ago because I wanted to make some introductions. It was great fun preparing the mostly home-grown feast on the day, with Alex (our marvellous au pair). The main dish was rabbit casserole with flageolet beans – the rabbits were shot by my neighbouring farmer. They […]