Message to Gordon Brown

I just phoned Gordon Brown and left a message:

Hello, my name is David Evans and I'm calling to express my wish to see a sustainable future for the world, not a growth based one. Sustainable means local resilience, living within the energy budget the sun generously gives us rather than frittering away oil to drive from point A to point B and back again. It means food feet not food miles. It means happiness through community, love, and support, not league tables, rhetoric and bonuses. It means being able to focus on what is important - family, friends - not clinching deals at any cost, even if the cost is the earth.

I urge our elected officials to work towards a balanced healthy future, and I urge them to have the courage to make strong commitments irrespective of what their peers promise. I urge them to make Britain a world leader in truth, not just speeches.

This is via the 350.org campaign: here

Break in Transmission

It's been a long time since my last post - quite a lot has happened in that time.

Firstly, a week-long clockwise trip around these British Isles, starting from Kinsale - hitch hiking up to Cork, then taking the train through to Belfast in Northern Ireland; then taking a ferry to Stranraer in Scotland, train across to Edinburgh; after a couple of days near there, being driven down to Essex and London, then train again to Cardiff in Wales, coach to Fishguard, then ferry back to Rosslare in Ireland.

A very different experience from flying, that's sure - I was travelling most of 4 days!!

To paraphrase a friend, it makes you really think about whether the trip is actually worth it. In this case the cost of travelling like this was a little less than flying, and of course much more eco friendly. Catching up with friends and family all over was nice, too.

What else? A day on chainsaws (scary), several lovely walks on beaches, in woods, learning about trees... bread baking, friend making, a workshop on societal change... a night out in town, leading to one of my teachers first passing out and then locking himself into our under-stairs toilet...

Some interesting articles on the BBC today -

Why eco lightbulbs aren't necessarily "as much better" as we think (though on balance still worth having, I think!)

Oil - the Iraq war was about, err...

Growings, cuttings, eatings

We've been growing radishes (Raphanus sativus, French Breakfast variety) in 1 litre milk cartons - yesterday we actually ate the first one!

We also took hard wood cuttings of blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum) and raspberry (Rubus idaeus) plants, which I planted straight out into our boggy, waterlogged garden (much of County Cork has been flooded in the past week! Luckily Kinsale has been spared the worst - we have mains water which we have been advised to boil, but in Cork city there is no running water at all...). Hopefully these will take, and though they won't fruit while we are here, they should do in 2011 onwards.

Small steps. But towards something good, I think.

Just one small quote from the BBC: about the current situation in Dubai, "We have no rain, no tax and no jury service. I can think of many worse places to be." - from here.

No rain. Hmm. Well if you've been flooded out in the last week, you might agree, but really, when you need to grow your own food I know where I'd rather be!!

How much energy is embedded in a laptop?

This post says "loads". All the more reason to buy secondhand wherever possible, and only as new as you need.

I'm certainly guilty of buying newer than I need to. Thinking about getting a new computer? How about getting someone to speed up your current one, maybe upgrade the hard drive and RAM, instead?

Carbon emissions

A few interesting statistics:

In Ireland, each kWh of electricity you use emits about 600g of CO2: ESB stats

A one-way flight from Paris to Toronto emits about 0.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent: Carbon Neutral Company (offsetting is contentious, I'm neither advocating nor criticising it, just using their calculator!)

According to the Stern report, the planet can deal with about 5 giga Tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, giving each of us an "allowance" of roughly 750kg per year (i.e. my flight to Canada will be my entire year's fair allowance, near enough).

This Wikipedia link shows the UK average in 2007 at about 9.4 tonnes per person - 12+ times too much. Ireland is at 10.4 tonnes, while Canada is at 16.7. China is at 4.6 - of course a good chunk of this is in production for export, not for local consumption.

My own footprint? Well, this year has been rather an unusual one, but if you take my current circumstances - sharing a house, buying local food and foraging as much as possible, not owning a car... hmm, the Irish Environmental Protection Agency calculator thinks I use about 1.16 tonnes per year.

I should think I'll use a fair bit more than that. And if you factor in the travelling I did over the course of the year, I should think I'd be blushing bright red.

Where does your food come from?

I was stopped dead in my tracks on seeing this.

Suffice it to say that garlic grows very well in Ireland.

Energy use

So I'm eagerly awaiting our first energy bill (...).

There are four of us sharing this house, three of us here most of the time and one just down during the week. We put in mostly energy saving lightbulbs (they are REALLY expensive here, compared to the UK!), but one housemate doesn't want mercury in their room, and the lounge and kitchen have special light fittings.

We cook using electricity, have an electric shower. All four of us have laptops, mobile phones, and so on. We don't watch TV at all.

It'll be interesting to see what our bill is like!

Anyway, in the meantime I've been using my electricity metering gizmo (plug it into a socket, then plug the item you want to check into it) to compare different washing machine cycles, how much it takes to charge and use a laptop, etc.

For the washing machine, it's not been a scientific study, as the weight of the load going in and the outside temperature has changed between washes. On average, for a 30 degree load on the "Eco" setting it used 0.4 kWh; change this to 40 degrees and it jumps to 0.75 kWh. Interestingly, changing to a Cotton "Super Quick" wash at 40 degrees only uses 0.55kWh.

Anyway, the scale of the change from 30 to 40 degrees is huge.

Using the tumble drier, which we've had to do on the rainy but warm days, is horrible. To dry on high for an hour is 1.45kWh; on low, about 0.95kWh. A really heavy load might need to be on for a couple of hours, though!!

For a medium load, the drying only took 40 minutes on high, which would be just under 1kWh, where the wash only takes 0.4kWh - drying in the sunshine is much better!

I have also been looking at my laptops. I have two, one which went travelling round the world with me (a netbook - 10 inch screen), and a full sized dual core one (15.4 inch screen). They have roughly the same battery life; the small one takes 0.03kWh to charge the battery from flat, and the large 0.05kWh.

When plugged in, running and charged, the small uses about 15W and the large 25W. When I last had a desktop PC, before leaving the UK, it would use more than 100W including the TFT monitor. So if you do need to upgrade, a laptop is probably more sensible, and a small laptop the best - despite what the manufacturers say, most people don't need a brand new laptop, rather one that only runs programs the user needs... but that's a whole different story.

Unfortunately there is no way for my meter to plug into either the shower or the cooker, so I have no idea how much energy they are using.

Electricity is about €0.20 per kWh here. So running my large laptop for 40 hours straight would cost about €0.20. Not so bad, except almost all of the electricity here is generated from non renewable resources...

Plastics

I've borrowed The Whole House Book: Ecological Building Design and Materials (Amazon link) from our little college library, and got interested in the section on plastics.

Here's a good summary of what the "recycling" of plastics really means. Apparently PET bottles can actually be turned back into bottles - but this doesn't usually happen. Also, PET microwavable food trays are "physically and chemically different from PET bottles" - here. And that the trays are useless. So now I understand why they ask for plastic bottles only, not anything made from PET/recycling symbol 1 on.

What a mess.

Half term week

Quite an interesting week! Starting with the 350.org stuff, continuing with a bit of jogging, foraging, visiting friends, chatting.. not doing much college work.. reading about all sorts of bad things going on, and coming back to the same conclusion as always - do what you can, and don't stress about the rest.

The course here is a two year one, but I've decided that I'll not do the second year. The climate is totally different to that of Canada, and the plants that grow are also different. I'm sure there would be loads of value to be gained from doing the second year, but it just makes more sense to me to learn "on the job" in Canada.

I have been reading our course textbook, The Earth Care Manual (Amazon link), and one of the things it says is that flying is pretty much the worst thing we can do - that a round trip to Florida from the UK would use up all a lifetime's worth of emissions. Ouch.

So I think I'll be flying to Canada, and... not coming back. Wow. That's a big thing, but it makes sense. Time to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

Yesterday evening a load of people went to the Hollies for our teacher Paul's birthday party. Lots of drums, a few guitars, a couple of clarinets, and a flute were there... I was playing a collander for a while! Great fun.

Paul must have made about a hundred pizzas in their wood fired cob pizza oven. Yummy!

It just reemphasized for me how much fun you can have with low energy use! Ok that sentence sounds contrived, but it's true. A few people, some instruments, a fire.

This morning it is absolutely stunningly beautiful and sunny outside. I went down to the river, about half a mile's walk, and picked up driftwood to burn in our fire. Hard work, carrying just 3 logs back. I am a wimp!! It's another good point though - if it takes me half an hour or forty minutes to gather enough wood to burn for a couple of hours, think about how much energy is spent getting central heating fuels to your house. Think of the low efficiency in the pipes or transforming stations. Local and sustainable makes so much more sense.

Of course, the fact we have an incredibly inefficient open fire doesn't help! They are somewhere in the region of 25% efficient, where a wood burning stove might be 85%. A masonry stove might be 90% efficient, and release the heat over longer than a day!!

That's all for now, I think - time to cook up some roast potatoes! Mmmmm.

Downcycling is not Recycling, and other short stories

This is a very important point, I think. Recycling means using something for the same purpose again - taking a milk bottle, crushing it down, melting it and making a new milk bottle is recycling.

Downcycling is something very different. Taking a yoghurt pot and making a fleece is downcycling. You couldn't use the material from the yoghurt pot to make another yoghurt pot of the same quality.

Generally something that was pure (aluminium, copper, plastic, whatever) that has been processed into something less pure (a drinks can coated in paint, for example) is unlikely to be truly recycled, due to the energy cost in doing so.

So even if you "recycle what you can" just bear in mind that it is unlikely to be true closed loop recycling. Perfectly closed systems are impossible (there is always entropy, or an increase in disorder in any system), but to call converting a tetra pak into toilet paper recycling is disingenuous at best.

Treehugger has a good piece on this!

Last night I played Trivial Pursuit for a number of hours - 1980s Trivial Pursuit. I had a great time, while being aware the group dynamics. One person there does seasonal tree planting work - on average he earned 6p per tree, and would plant about 2,000 a day - absolutely incredible.

I am seriously considering a "no packaging" trial for food, though I think I might wait until the spring when there will be more foragable food available. I have one mini mulched bed here at home, but as we'll all move out in May I don't suppose we'll see the benefit from it! That doesn't matter, though - if we can stealth-indoctrinate our landlord (who lives here over the summer), and leave something in place for the next group of students, that'd be energy well spent.

Today is to be a lazy day, I think. It's been raining since I've been awake! Time for another cup of tea :)

Goodbye, coral reefs?

After reading this piece about the likely disapearance of the coral reefs last night, I felt compelled to write to my British MP..

Dear MP,

I am writing about climate change and peak oil. I am currently studying something called "Permaculture" in Ireland.

Last night I read a piece about how the Coral Reefs are most likely doomed. Combined with the projection that African Elephants might be extinct in 10 years, the decline of polar bears, and hundreds and thousands of other species extinctions that don't make the headlines, I found this piece incredibly distressing.

After having a rather bad night's sleep, I came upon the analogy this morning of sitting and having breakfast, pondering what the weather might be like on the weekend, while my house burned down.

The recession is not my house burning down. It is a pay cut, a loss of job, a change of circumstance. Climate change is something rather more severe. And we - you, me, all the MPs, most of the population in general - don't appear to be getting it. Because the supermarkets still have food, we don't have to worry about it.

But we DO have to worry about it. The course textbook for my Permaculture course is called "The Earth Care Manual" by Patrick Whitefield, and at the start of it he shows a couple of pie charts linking our environmental impacts with the things we do. He suggests that food consumption is something like 30-35% of our impact - if you include fertiliser, transport and so on. I have heard that for every calorie of energy we get from eating food, 10 are used to grow, harvest and transport it.

The fact that "globalisation" means we both export and import large amounts of beef, lamb, pork and so on is reprehensible. And the thing is, it is probably also suicidal.

Yesterday afternoon I walked out of town across a bridge on the Bandon river, and was lucky enough to see a couple of otters - one had just caught a fish and was eating it. I stood for a long time looking at the water, even after they had disappeared from view.

I continued on my journey, the purpose of which was to forage for food - sea beet, alexanders, sorrel, horseradish - and, after collecting what became today's lunch, sat and watched the sea for a time.

It was beautiful. And we are all making a terrible mess, for... the opportunity to drive to work. To buy mangoes. And strawberries, out of season.

It doesn't matter - none of that matters. I feel so sad, and I realise I am just one person, with one view that is one of many. I appreciate the fact you drive a hybrid car. But it isn't enough. In my opinion.

I want my children to be able to see otters, to eat healthy fresh locally grown food, to breathe clean air. And I am terribly afraid they won't be able to.

Yours sincerely,

David Evans

350.org day of action!

So today was the day for doing something to promote climate change awareness, as part of 350.org's campaign in the run up to the Copenhagen meetings in December.

The plan was for us to erect a yurt and entice people in with biscuits. But the weather had other things planned - it's been the windiest day since I came to Ireland, and Donal - the yurt's owner - decided it'd be a bad idea to put it up.

Oh well, we'll go and... gate crash a craft fair, instead! Yeah!

We all had great fun moving around town, getting people to put a message or a fingerprint on our 350 banner in exchange for cookies! We had drum accompaniment also, which was absolutely fantastic.

The banner will go on to a rally in Dublin in December, before the actual talks in Copenhagen begin. Pictures and a short writeup available here.

In the evening, my housemate's mum cooked a lovely dinner for us. Hurrah for mums!

Two great field trips

We are doing such a great course! So far this week we have visited Brown Envelope Seeds, one of only two commercial seed savers in Ireland, and the Hollies, a.. community? Ecovillage?

Seed saving on Tuesday gave us the chance to see how much effort goes in to keeping varieties going. This is a small operation - two full time and one part time people working there - and fascinating to see. They have a couple of plots of land, each with a poly tunnel or two (the plots are far enough apart so different varieties can be grown without the risk of cross polination), a little woodland, and a converted milking shed. At the time of writing there are only two commercial seed producers in the whole of Ireland!

We got to help getting beans from their pods, and later tried to help in removing radish seeds from their husks by dancing on top of them...! We also did "the usual" - a little weeding, a lot of chatting, and plenty of tea drinking!

On Wednesday? Wow. The Hollies is a beautiful 28 acre plot. There are 9 adults living there, one family in the original farmhouse, one in a completed cob house, one in an annexe and one in a wooden cabin built in about 23 weeks, mostly single handed!

There are lots of cob buildings - they hold a number of cob courses there, the longest being a 10 week apprenticeship, which goes into all aspects of cob building at great depth - not limited just to the cob, but roofing, design, and so on. And the cob buildings are beautiful! Curvy, sculpted, organic.

Most of the timber and firewood used is sourced locally; they have composting toilets, a yurt, and cob pizza oven; coppice land growing away merrily. And it feels peaceful, grounded, and just generally lovely!

They even had grapes - almost, almost ripe - growing in one poly tunnel. Big, healthy (tasty - almost!!) bunches of grapes.

Homemade wine, anyone?

Autumn Food Fest!

Yesterday was Transition Town Kinsale's Autumn Food Fest, celebrating local food growing and community gardening!

It was a lovely, sunny day, and the hall we were in was packed - I had agreed to bake bread, using local wheat, an electric mill to make the flour, and a small oven to bake the bread. Lots and lots of people were interested in the grinder, what kind of bread I was baking (in Ireland most bread is soda bread, but I was using dried yeast).

There were plenty of other things going on - other people from my course were using a butter churn to make butter, there was a pumpking carving competition, fancy dress (dress up as a vegetable...), a couple of beekeepers, jam and chutney swapping, a food mountain that was auctioned off, plus live music, venison stew, the possibility to sign up for an allotment locally... wow!

I think they took about €900 before expenses, and everyone had fun taking part too. What better way to spend a Sunday?!

Field trips and frolics

On Monday we visited our teacher's permaculture plot (and home). We did a little work in the morning - weeding bamboo, amongst other things - and had a tour in the afternoon.

He has mini Hazel coppices, Sweet Chestnuts, Walnuts, plenty of fruit trees and bushes. He's been there about 8 years and thinks it'll be another 7 before he's got everything running in true forest garden fashion.

Interesting. About the same length of time as to start an ecovillage. Which is fun, seeing as I was hoping to be doing forest garden stuff for the 15 years BEFORE starting the ecovillage - but I'm not going to want to leave my plot just as it becomes fully productive!! I'll have to think about that one.

On Tuesday, we spent some time with the second year permies, and then did some theory on forest gardens. I feel the knowledge is settling in nicely, though I need to do more reading - funny as I've just realised how little I learn from reading, relative to doing. The great thing about this course is that we DO get to do.

And today, we had Paul for Organics/food growing - continuing discussion on mulching, a presentation by the Allium family, and sowing green manure!

After school we had a meeting about setting up student working groups. Nobody was really interested in the sustainability group, and the communications group only had a couple of people in, which was a bit disheartening - everyone was doing the fun stuff, entertainment and skill sharing. Well. No point worrying about it - it just means I'll have to slip sustainability into the other groups, become some kind of double agent with a hidden agenda!

Tomorrow is my day off - phew! Time to catch up on work!!

Energy efficiency

I packed my little energy meter and brought it with me to Ireland. At the moment I'm testing out our washing machine, to see how much energy it uses at different settings (yes, I'm a geek).

So far, a 30 degrees C wash at 700RPM spin on "eco" uses roughly 0.4 of a kWh, whereas 40 degrees C at 1000RPM uses 0.7 kWh! Quite a difference. I'll be making notes over the next few weeks :)

Another week gone already!

As ever with something enjoyable, this course is speeding past. 3 weeks into the course, I regret nothing about beginning it!

Tuesday and Wednesday were good days, spent on Forest Gardens, mulching, then into the gardens weeding, planting out the Mizuna and Osaka we sowed at the start of term.

Thursday was a hectic day - student council meeting first thing, then grinding grain to make flour, and baking the flour into very tasty bread. This is in aid of the Transition Town Kinsale Autumn Food Fest, next weekend.

On Friday we all went out to Killarney for a walk in Ireland's oldest forest. I don't feel I "learned" much but it was a lovely day in the woods, bonding with the class, hugging trees and picking up tidbits of info.

Sadly the Freshers' Flu that's been going round finally caught up to me last night, so I'm taking it easy over the weekend - lots of hot, honeyed tea! Mmmm.. Speaking of which..!

Paul Stamets on mushrooms

This is a really good video - we've been talking about this guy in class a bit, but I just got around to watching the video last night.

6 ways mushrooms can save the world on TED.com.

Day in the woods

Today our Permie class went to the woods, and had a wonderful time.

To begin with, we each took a mirror, and held it at roughly chest height - so as we walked into the woods we were were looking up into the canopy. It's amazing what a change in perspective you get by doing that!

After that we played a few games - listening to the forest, finding lots of different colours, and so on. Following these quiet games was one called "Bat and Moth" - the whole group made a circle, and three people stepped into the middle - one Bat, blindfolded (actually, with a large hat covering their eyes!), and two Moths.

The bat calls "bat" to which the moths must reply "moth"; the bat must attempt to catch a moth by echo-location. The moths may run around, but if they get tagged or touch the edge of the circle, they lose. Everyone had a go as either bat or moth, and it was great fun.

In the afternoon we did our first Permaculture design and build - in groups of 6 or so, we created a pixie house in the woods, from whatever was available to us. We had a good range of properties, but I feel the current financial situation may cause difficulties on the retail market!

It was great to be outside for a full day (well, 11-ish to 4-ish) with the whole class. Both being outside, and group bonding, are so important - and things that are so lacking in an office job!

This evening was completely different - a follow up meeting on an Open Space session last week, discussing what the students want to get out of this academic year. Our college is amazing - 225 or so students, all bursting with creative potential and individuality! Hopefully we can add a bit of structure into the mix, to allow everyone to show what they are capable of!

Everyone's favourite word...

Yes, it's HUMANURE!!

The Humanure Handbook

The whole book is a free download. I'm only on page 16, but it's making me want to go out and build a composting toilet *right now*.

There is so much inspiring stuff on this course, it is absolutely amazing.

Non Violent Communication

Yesterday was a good day with Graham yesterday covering some Permaculture Principles - zone and sector planning, talk about humanure (after composting one human produces 1 cubic foot of solid waste per YEAR - wow!), and an hour or so of weeding.

Today was fantastic - very Findhorn-esque in feel, in that we were working in circles, in small groups, talking and listening. We had Thomas for a day of Non Violent Communication (we'll have him for a day a week next year, but this was a one off intro for this year), which involved all sorts of excercises and games.

The basics of what he taught us are this. When dealing with an issue, instead of direct confrontation, which will most likely get the offender's back up immediately, take the following approach:

1. Tell the person succinctly what you have observed (I noticed that you have spoken for 10 minutes this session);
2. Tell the person how this makes you feel (I'm anxious because I feel other people aren't getting the chance to contribute/that we won't get through the content)
3. Tell the person your need (I would like to hear everyone's opinions)
4. Make a request, that is doable in the moment (I would like you to allow others to contribute more)

The main thing is that this is done for the right reasons, namely because you want to solve the problem and connect with the other person - that you see them as a human being, not an obstacle in your way!

Communities tend to have more issues and failures due to miscommunication than anything else, so this stuff is absolutely vital. And it makes you feel so much better a person too - instead of getting stressed out about your interactions with people, it becomes a pleasure, things get done, everyone feels heard and appreciated... well, at least that is the aim!

Friday - Field Ecology!

Today was exactly what I'd hoped it'd be - after spending a little time doing the usual intro stuff in the classroom, Philip, our Ecology tutor, got us looking at plants, discussing creation, and so on.

Then, in the afternoon we headed out to Charles Fort for a walk. We'll be going for field trips pretty much every week! Looking at all sorts of Irish habitats, learning about all sorts. He's going to email us notes, and we have to do a project on a plant.

This evening, we went for a quick pint with some course mates, and got chatting to someone on one of the other courses.

Great, simple human interaction - so badly lacking from my previous life as an office monkey.

Now I just have to blag a job or three to support me in this lifestyle!!

Tomorrow is a foraging walk. Splendid, absolutely splendid.

Organics and Food Production - Day 3

Wow. Yesterday was fantastic. We have Paul for a double module, Organics and Food Production, and over the course we'll be learning 10 basic food growing skills (how to sow seeds correctly - which is what we did in the afternoon, making a compost heap, erecting a cloche, and so on).

As well, we'll be doing our main project on a vegetable - pick a vegetable and do a project on it! Grow it, experiment with it, love it.. eat it! I'm so tempted by the squashes, but we wouldn't get to eat them by the end of the course next May, so I'm thinking of radishes or something.

Paul is an engaging, experienced gardener. I got to sow mizuna seeds, which is what I really wanted - to actually get my hands dirty doing something.

The class was also split into 4 families - Brassicas (which included me), Legumes, Alliums (Onions, etc), and Root Veg. Someone from each group will have to do a presentation on one of the members of each family. Sounds fun! Lots of researching to do!

It was the first day with him, so we didn't do a great deal and there was a lot of chat, but the course will be incredibly fulfilling, I'm sure.

In the evening I ordered some seeds, then went along to the Transition Town Kinsale Autumn Food Fest planning meeting - I'll help out either making bread from freshly milled grain, or washing up. Or, most likely, both. There will also be a fancy dress as vegetable competition, a beekeeper (yes!), jam-and-chutney swapping, prizes for the best and ugliest carved pumpkin...

It's all so good.

Day 2

Today we started at 9pm with Klaus Harvey, doing a module called "Communications" which is "compulsory for a full FETAC level 5 award".

I'm still not entirely sure what this means, but I think otherwise we'd just end up with a load of completed modules, not an over-arching qualification. Apparently they have woven horticulture modules into the second year, so it'll lead to a "proper" qualification in horticulture as well as the permaculture knowledge.

With Klaus we mainly heard about what we'd be learning, and it seems fairly straight forward. We did one excercise in active speaking and listening, in pairs. It's always harder than you think giving someone your full focus!!

At 10am we resumed normal Permaculture service with Graham Strouts. Monday is Permaculture Design while Tuesday is Sustainable Woodland Management, but this week at least both days were a general introduction to the college more than anything.

After watching a video on the wonderful TED website and discussing it a bit, we did some outside work, finding edible plants in the grounds, and identifying trees from small branches. I knew very very little - so I'm definately on the right course!

It felt so good to be working outside - and knowing that we'll be doing outside work roughly half of the time. We have a lot of field trips scheduled in before Christmas, too - about half a dozen, I think.

The course is going to give me a great sustainability toolkit, I'm really happy and excited about it.

This evening, our house made rogan josh potato curry, and then went for a nice walk down to the sea and through town. Kinsale is a lovely little town, it really is.

Mmmm. Organics, tomorrow, and apparently the teacher is a real legend. I can't wait!!

First day of Permaculture!

Well! I've finally *started* my two year course in Permaculture. Hoorah!

Today was very laid back, great meeting people and chatting. Of course, we didn't do any real work - we started with talking to a partner for a few minutes, then introducing them rather than yourself, followed by some admin stuff, a tea-less teabreak (they are putting the kitchen into the straw bale house at the moment, as the old kitchen room is now being used to teach cooking), then a short news film about the course.

After a quick trip home for lunch (mm, leftover pasta with some home made cheese.. er, curd - actually really tasty!), we went back and into groups of 4, to discuss the word "responsibility" - how it applies to us as members of the class, and to the wider world.

Nothing major or new came up for me in the discussion, but it was nice chatting to different people in the class. One thing very readily apparent is how different the people on this course are compared to Kara's masters degree. But they seem great - all looking forward to working outside, and it seems like this course will have very strong emphasis on that, on practival outdoor work.

Fantastic!

We wrapped up the afternoon with an "opinion spectrum" mini game out on the lawn, arranging ourselves in a circle based on where we each place ourselves in the spectrum. Not many full vegetarians on the course, but most seem to limit the amount of meat they eat, which is nice.

All in all I'm happy. For dinner we had apple crumble (no main course.. just a couple of slices of toast as an entree), made with gathered apples. I baked bread for tomorrow. My housemates are really nice. So I'm feeling very positive and looking forward to all the field trips we'll be doing!!

Making cheese and yoghurt

To try when I get home:

Grow lettuce indoors, during winter

Making easy cheese

Making yoghurt

If I can use a litre or two of milk rather than 300+ grammes of cheddar per week, plus grow some greens during the winter... mmm!

Things to like about Sweden

There are lots of things to like, but here are just a few:

1. Municipal compost
2. District heating
3. Nice outdoor areas to sit in the sun, by the water, or on rocky outcroppings
4. Bike paths pretty much everywhere
5. Cheap staple foods - veg, fruit, nuts, milk, eggs
6. A ban on combustable waste going to landfill
7. Good public transport

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but that's what comes to mind just now!

Farenheit 9/11

Last night I saw Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11.

What a film. I read Stupid White Men a couple of years back and was left shaking my head in astonishment and pain many times while reading it; this film is much the same, except condensed into two hours, rather than over a few days.

What can I say? It portrays the Bush government as an Old Boys Network, carving up Iraq for profit, giving huge favours to various Saudis in return for huge amounts of cash... it shows US Army recruiters going to the less well-to-do malls and signing up people who have no prospect of getting a job otherwise... it shows how un-democratic the USA really is.

Well anyway, the whole situation in Iraq is sick and twisted, and if you feel the need to see why - this film is a good one to show you one viewpoint.

I think that I can accept that there is some conflict of interest if the Bush family is deeply involved in the defence industry, and hence stands to gain from war; when the Vice President is deeply involved in one company that gets a good proportion of the contracts available in Iraq.

This is old news, I guess - from 2004 no less. But it's still shocking. How humans can deceitfully subject people to such pain and suffering, even more shocking when the people doing this are from "civilised" "democratic" "free" countries (and I'm talking about the UK as well as the US).

Well.

What have I learned? I guess that I want even more strongly to make a difference, to be the change I wish to see. That love and compassion build bridges, and that greed and power break them down.

It's a good film, well worth watching. But don't watch if you're unhappy already - watch My Neighbour Totoro instead!!

Swedish sun!

Sweden is lovely, and not nearly as expensive as I was expecting - sure, some things are expensive, but the staples - vegetables - are actually cheaper than in the UK, I think.

I arrived in to Copenhagen on Friday afternoon, and took the train across to Sweden. The first 10 minutes of the trip were best - across the bridge to Malmo, with clear blue skies, with a wind farm of maybe 50 turbines out at sea, all turning. An awesome sight.

The next day I went to the garage sale of stuff from previous years, organised for this year's students, which was fun - they had a sprint start from up the street to see who would get the best stuff. But actually a lot of people were more interested in coffee and having a chat!!

Then on Sunday we went out to a nearby eco-farm, by bike, which was great as well - I haven't even been on a bicycle for 6 months so it was nice to stretch those muscles. When we arrived we harvested Calendula heads, while other people weeded, or picked beans, beetroot... Mmm! There is also a little shop there, so we picked up fruit and veg.

Yesterday, Kara had lectures all day, so I lazed around in the morning, and had a wander round town in the afternoon. I'm reading a great book, the Secret Life of Trees, so I enjoyed getting stuck into that while being outside and looking at trees! The book describes how the families and species are related, where the great branching points in their evolution occurred, and so on.

And this morning... well, we are staying over at a campsite, and the whole of Karlskrona is on islands, so we hired a canoe and paddled across to Kara's university.

It's really lovely, after the rain-fest that was Ireland, to be able to go outside in the sun!

All at Sea Part II: The Return

What a hectic couple of days! I'm sat on the slow ferry back to the UK, and they have free satellite-based internet, which is rather cool.

On Tuesday, after a slow weekend, I met Josh and Kath, two housemates-to-be. They met up in Dublin and travelled down to Kinsale together, so they have a bit of a headstart on their friendship, but we all seem to be getting along pretty well - lots of common thoughts and ideals, which is nice, and what I'd hoped for.

After viewing 3 houses on Tuesday, we decided to rent a 3-bedroom place in the town, less than 10 minutes walk from college, which is only a few years old - hence cozy and not damp like many of the older houses in town are supposed to be... So yesterday we took the car and bulk bought staples for at least the first few months of college - pasta, rice, baked beans - feels like being back at University, which is great!

Yesterday evening I took all the food plus my stuff round to the house, and met Noel the landlord. I don't think he was too impressed with my attempts to haggle with him... oh well. I thought the Irish loved to bargain, but apparently not - not this Irishman at least!

It was very nice to put my posessions into a room where they can actually stay for a while (well, til May, anyway). I've got the smallest room but it's plenty big enough - for me, a small desk, and a chest of drawers. It'll be comfy and warm!

We're not actually moving in properly until Sunday evening. Well, Josh and Kath are - I've decided on a quick trip to Sweden to spend some time with my beloved. This whole long distance relationship thing is actually even more "ugh" than I'd thought it would be.

Huge thanks to Mick for putting me up for almost a week! I left the Pink Elephant this morning at 4am to get to Rosslare in time for the ferry. I'll miss Badu, his lovely friendly (cushion-humping) dog.. oh and the view out over the harbour!

So here is where the "Reduce" truly begins, I guess. Over the last couple of days I've been thinking hard about what is truly important to me, trying to meditate and spend time on "inner work". I think we as a house will do a group meditation in the mornings, which will be fantastic for me.

As an aside, I got a link to the 10:10 campaign. I'd love it for people to sign up - and really try and think of ways they can cut down on the stuff that really doesn't make a positive impact in their lives. Hey, try an organic home delivery box scheme - so much fun getting veggies that you have no idea what they are!!

The Room I'm In

The room I'm in is long and wide
It has two turtles inside
One behind the sofa and one in a tank
They look at me like I'm crazy
Maybe I am

The walls are pink and there is a sink
A kettle and a fridge
One fish tank and patio doors
But the patio is a roof
There's no cooker

A large, low table in the middle
A piano, a bookcase
And an anchor of rusty metal
Modern lights from old ceiling roses
What a place!

Look out to the sea, the sea
Does the rest matter?
Laptops and projectors, stuff all over
A boat bobbing
on the sea

A Better Day

Today is much better than yesterday was. I got a text message after I'd gone to sleep last night, offering me somewhere to stay til I got myself sorted, by another guy called Mick starting the course in September. It's a few miles from Kinsale but has an amazing view of the bay! And a dog, turtles, fish.. and internet :)

So this morning I went in to Cork to sort out the PPSN, which was easy, then met up with Mick this afternoon. And here I am, I've looked very quickly at one place about 5 miles from Kinsale, and have leads on a few more. I have a little room to sleep in, I can use the washing machine, so it's all good!

Now I'm just trying to find a few more people who also want to find a house to share.

I'm ok - which of course then gives me room to think about everything else. I was chatting to another woman staying at the B&B this morning, who had worked in Rwanda for a few years, and she was reconfirming all that I'd heard about Western aid agencies in third world countries - how much of the money ends up paying Western salaries and so on, rather than actually helping the people who need it.

Interestingly she said that Indian poverty struck her as worse than African, where I'd been assuming that while things are bad in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, things were much worse in Africa. In terms of crowdedness at least I suppose India is much worse.

There is a great charity I read about yesterday, called simply charity: water, who are doing great things to bring clean drinking water to the 1 billion people that don't currently have it.

And this is a wonderful cause. But there's plenty of non-human stuff happening that is irreversible - BBC: Axolotl verges on wild extinction is pretty sad, for example.

But of course it's so hard to break out of the box, and be entirely sustainable. We're all trying, though.. right?

Rats

The last post was written yesterday. What a difference a day can make!

After getting to Rosslare and driving across Ireland to Cork then down to Kinsale, it was very late last night, so I thought I'd not disturb my farmer friend, and just sleep in the car. Apparently his battery went flat at 10pm anyway, so it wouldn't have done me any good calling him.

So I was up bright and early this morning, and found Dennis the Farmer ok. But.. well, he said, there was a bit of a problem with the mobile home, and so someone had given him a caravan, and perhaps I'd like to stay in that temporarily while the mobile home is fixed up.

But the caravan has no shower, no toilet, and it's not connected to any source of power. Oh, and there's no lock on the door.

From there, we have a quick look into the mobile home, to find rats have got in, and there are holes in the floor.

Hmm.

After driving all day yesterday, and not much of a night's sleep, foolish me doesn't really know what to say.

Except how terribly terribly disappointed I am, and how much I wish I was back at some non-existant "home" with those I love nearby, rather than.. oh well.

So I'm holed up in a B&B tonight, going back to Cork tomorrow to get my PPSN (equivalent of the UK National Insurance Number), and apartment-share hunting. But apparently, most of the cheap rooms won't be available for another week or two - until the colleges go back here.

It's not the end of the world. I'm still in good health, etc, etc. I'm just rather pissed off.

All at sea

I'm crazy. I'm looking for a simple, low energy lifestyle. And what have I done today? Driven across England and Wales to get to the ferry, stressing about the car breaking down, whether or not I'd make it in time. What have I done this week? Driven all over the South East and Midlands of England. What did I do the week before that? Fly from France to the UK. And the week before that? Why, I flew from New Zealand to France!

Aaaargh.

I just want to stop! Well, thankfully, I'm almost there - almost at the bed I'll be sleeping in for most of the next two years.

There isn't really a deck on this ferry, which is a real shame, as I love looking at the sea - just a couple of balconies for smokers to be outside. It's actually rather like an airport waiting lounge, inside - there are people laid out on the seats getting some sleep next to me, a bar, a shop. All sorts of wastefulness here - everything comes in a disposable something.

But I can't talk. My intake today has comprised two packaged sandwiches, a bottle of cola, and a bottle of blackcurrant juice. At least the packaging is recyclable. Tomorrow, a new start.

Today, here I sit, in a huge tub of metal, being propelled across the sea by fossil fuels. Watching someone dressed in a monkey suit, here to entertain the children passengers.

What an odd world we live in.

Mmmmmm...

What a busy week! But what to write on my blog, to enthral, dazzle and amuse my readers (or reader?).

Well, it's been a pretty non-reductionist week. I've acquired a lot of stuff since returning to Europe - a few bits from my mum's place in France, a load of books from my Aunt (much cheaper in the UK than in Ireland) - course books, books on chickens, and so on, secondhand where possible...

Then.. well, a new (refurbished) laptop (I had only a netbook while travelling - which has been great, but not ideal for "real work" when I finally stop moving for a while), a pair of shoes, trousers and shirt for the wedding from a charity shop.

And today I picked up a box of my stuff from a friend - happily it has lots of clothes in that I'd forgotten about, so I shouldn't need to buy anything much in Ireland (apart from a duvet). Plus (more) books, cds and dvds, and the like.

I feel I should do an inventory of everything like on 100 thing challenge, which is a great read. Perhaps when I get to Ireland and clear out any remaining junk...

Due to the incredibly harsh import taxes for vehicles into Ireland, I'll only be having a car over there for 2 months or so, which is good - back to bike and public transport only.

It's been a lovely 10 days visiting loads of people, but I'm really looking forward to stopping now. Staying in one bed for a while. Though no doubt I'll get very jittery in a week or two - but then the course will start.

I've also been thinking more about chickens, and in the book I bought it mentions rehoming battery hens - fantastic! If you're interested, in the UK there is this group - the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, and in Ireland these guys seem pretty cool.

Pretty good that you can find a charity for most things you're interested in - there are plenty of good people out there, dedicating their lives to worthwhile causes.

Monday Morning Musings

(Written at about 6:30am, UK time!)

Back in England. Back home.

Except, of course, it's not home - it's just another stop on the way, albeit one with lots of friends, and lots of memories.

After spending a lovely week at my mother's house in France, I arrived back on British soil last Thursday, and was picked up promptly (!!) by my father at Luton airport. In a Suzuki Swift.. one of the most fuel efficient vehicles in the country. 993cc 3 cylinder engine, no power steering, no assisted braking - wow.

So I spent a couple of days with dad, potting up pansies, learning a little about engines, hunting for bargain plants for him to sell at country shows and steam rallies.

From there, on to a friend who is to a large degree living the (my) dream - he grows most of his fruit and veg, forages for a good amount of the rest, has solar hot water, and so on and so forth. He is also an incredibly good host, and didn't even let me do any washing up! How lazy I feel when I go to visit.

Then a slight change of pace. I went for a "spin" with another friend - in a light aircraft. Up over the green and golden fields of Norfolk to the Wash and King's Lynn, above the wind farms and towns, the ribbons of roads and rivers. Pretty cool - if rather less fuel efficient than the Suzuki Swift.

I have about one more week in the UK before I finally depart for Ireland, in which time I'll be visiting family, going to a wedding, trying to sort out some part time work, seeing friends... It does make me wish the people I knew lived a bit closer together!

Kettles, corporations, chickens

I wake up, stumble blearily into the kitchen - at 4am, as I am still jetlagged. Pick up the kettle, put it under the tap, put in some water. Return it to its base, flick the switch and stand, zombie-like, as it boils.

That's it. That's all I have to do.

Compare that to places we stayed in Bangladesh and Nepal. They would have to walk down a fair way to the well, pump up water, carry it back up the hill; gather wood and light a fire, wait for it to establish. Admitted, the *tea* is grown over the next hill, but...

Just the sheer convenience is astounding to me, when I let it be. How many people really think, every day, about the humble kettle and the vast network of pipes and cables supporting it in its daily task of boiling water?

Forget the plasma TVs, the iPods, tumble driers and electric shavers.

Think about the kettle. Wow!

This morning I was thinking about how large companies are so similar to organisms, and how even the head-cells cannot really control how the monster grows. Oh, they can set the direction, I suppose. I'm not studying this stuff (though my girlfriend will be in the masters she is taking in Sustainable Leadership), and I struggle to envision how you can get companies to be focussed not on the profits of shareholders, but... "the good of society". "But, we're a widget factory - the company exists to make widgets!" "Well, yes, but wouldn't it be good if you made widgets.. and created a nice park for people to use? Not for the PR, but because it's important for the company - for the employees - to be part of something more than widgets?"

Hmm. I don't know if I have the skills to win arguments in that area, and it's good there are people with the abilities and drive to do so.

I just want to have a few chickens...

Which is why I've been looking at websites about chicken coops! Everywhere we went on our travels, pretty much, people had a few chickens - the embodiment of permaculture. Looking at the designs is really interesting, and is clearly a great geeky subject for me to dive into ("Aha! Yes I like the way this one has a sloping floor, and a south facing window.. Nice window blinds, too!").

The sheer number of different designs on http://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html is amazing!

My carpentry skills don't extend further than a wooden pencil box I made when I was 12 or 13, but I'm looking forward to tackling something like this.

Well, that's enough of a ramble for today, I think :)

Round in circles

What a bad blogger I am.

Well, for the last couple of weeks we have gone pretty much around the North Island, clockwise.

We started by heading north from Earthsong, right to the top of the North Island, to a beautiful quiet campsite on Spirits Bay. Back down, past Kauri forests, round and down to Rotorua for geysers and strangely coloured rocks; down to Taupo then off to see the "rellies" at Havelock North, where we stopped for a few days.

After that, down to Wellington, then up the east coast to New Plymouth, Mount Taranaki (which was wonderful, though we couldn't see it clearly in the clouds), then towards Hamilton, and finally back to Auckland, where we are now.

We've had a few adventures, seen parks and zoos, slept by beaches, lakes, rivers, mountains; we've run out of petrol (oops), drunk lots of tea, and even stopped in a McDonalds (twice; once, their milkshake machine was broken, so we walked out again).

Our trip is almost over. Soon, to France, then a hectic few days in the UK, and finally Ireland to settle down for a couple of years and actually learn some of this permaculture stuff.. wow! I'm really looking forward to it.

Right now is definately time to "go home" for us (except we don't have real homes, and we're going our separate ways for the time being, which is very sad); I just wonder how much longing I'll look back on this trip with in a few months and years?!

Earthsong

We stayed at a cohousing project last night (written on the 17th of July) - a first for me. Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood is half an hour or so from the center of Auckland, and comprises some 32 rammed earth residences, plus a beautiful "common house" containing a kitchen and large dining area for the communal meals (held twice a week), lounge, meditation/quiet room, children's and teenagers' rooms, guest room, and laundry.

We had a tour of the community, and were impressed with the forward-thinking that went into the design of the houses (for example, there is cabling for solar PV on each roof should the price of panels become affordable for residents), the can-do attitude and general friendliness of people, and the overwhelming positivity towards the project. While no project is perfect, this one seems pretty close, and the colour-card voting system they have in meetings apparently works very well. There is a food co-op, rotas and rosters for cooking, cleaning, gardening and the like; they have a "green dollar" scheme where people trade their time and skills for others', as well as good community outreach, a couple of beehives, and fruit trees.

What a good mix!

We borrowed a book called simply "Cohousing" (Amazon link) which was written in the 1980's, examining this kind of living in Denmark. It seems obvious to me, now, that this kind of living - which is perfectly compatible with city living - is much more healthy for people. Cohousing communities seem to be designed to keep cars on the outskirts of the development, leaving plenty of safe play space for children, and the fact that you know and eat with your neighbours regularly means you are much happier leaving your children in their care, and vice versa. It's a win-win scenario!

We are very grateful to Glenys for the tour, and to Robin, and especially Cathy and John, for taking the time to talk with us at great length about the project.

Sydney and Auckland

After our lovely, easy time in Katoomba, we returned to Sydney one last time to stay with cousin Vali + family for a couple of days. We had a great time, though the days went very quickly!

We saw the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the Manly ferry; played didge a little; Kara went surfing and loved it. We went whale watching which was very cool. And I fixed Vali's computer a bit... typical!

Now we're in Auckland, just bumming around til we pick up our camper van tomorrow. Auckland seems really nice - not too big, but full of interesting things. I'm sat in Central Cafe on K Road (Karangahape Road, but everyone just calls it K), using the free wireless internet while drinking a latte.. mmmm!

Better go.. I've been sat here ages and only bought one $4 drink!!

A week in the mountains

We've just spent the better part of a week in the Blue Mountains, doing a good amount of walking. On some of the days it's been really nice, but for the last few it's been really misty and quite wet.

A read Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" a few weeks back, and I kept remembering as we were walking through the rainforests here how "this is what walkers do" (Bryson was on the Appalachian Trail for weeks on end - we were just doing day hikes from our hostel, but I'm sure some similarities exist!).

Walking is actually a lovely way to spend the day, clambering about wet rocks and muddy paths, seeing the occasional beautiful cockatoo or parrot overhead, beautiful waterfalls, and lovely hot tea from our vacuum flask.

So we've been putting in 4-6 hours of walking a day (with one day off for laundry and generally lazing about), then spending the afternoons and evenings watching films, reading, and playing cards.

The hostel we've been in, the Flying Fox in Katoomba, has been great - really friendly people, not stressful at all - even for me, who gets quite nervous around new people, usually. Free "brekkie" every day is nice, with mulled wine brewed up by the owner, Ross, most evenings. Fantastic!

I do feel we're on easy street here - Australia is beautiful, and entirely comfortable. Not so much to relate in terms of heart wrenching moral conflicts or poverty or whatnot. Oz is lovely, clean, friendly and happy, from what I've seen of it.

God and a better me

I had a mini revelation last night as I was drifting off to sleep. It was about why I don't believe in God, and why organised religions annoy me so much.

I think it's because my concept of God is, to my mind, very pure, or simple. Not mixed with human needs or values.

My vision of God, my understanding of the word God, is of absoluteness. Of a single pure bright point of being, omnipotent and omniscient. Perfect in every way.

But I see my personal growth NOT as a way to become more Godlike - I am human, entirely human, absolutely different from this concept of an infinite God. I don't even believe my idea of God can exist (though I'm not denying the possibility of higher life forms on other planes, or universes smaller than an electron, or that our universe could be a tiny part of something like an electron - little is impossible when you look at things in that way. Who can possibly know?).

I feel the religions of the world have tried to humanise their idea of God to make it more digestable, turning it all into a story. And then treating the stories as absolute fact.

Maybe, who knows, the true wish of the guy called Jesus was to give people better ideas on how to live more happily together, related through his stories.

I feel that's what the core of most religions are - good ideas on how to live more harmonious lives, which have become over time a rulebook with which to beat each other up. Religions have become our judgement systems, rather than accepting responsibility for ourselves.

"God" is so far outside my capabilites of knowledge that it becomes irrelevant. But I can breathe in, release, and accept what I am and what I have done; I can accept what is. And from there, I can go forward.

The Problem

A trip like this gives plenty of time for thought. In my case, it's often fragmented - ideas pop up, float around for a bit, then submerge again. Some things resurface, though, or other thoughts lead to one central thought.

Perhaps the core thought that others bring up most often is one of scale. I can do my bit - I can stop flying, stop driving, grow my own food and reduce consumption drastically, and live a "one earth lifestyle". I can send emails, write blog posts, contact politicians. But for each "me" doing this, there are others pretty much directly opposed, and many more apathetically opposed (as in, as long as there's petrol at the pump, and food on the shelves of the supermarket, and their wage - or credit card - covers those costs, they don't care) to any significant change towards sustainability.

And even if all we Westerners did our bit, there is the rest of the world's population to think of - China and India being the giants, but the other countries are far from insignificant. They want television and mobile phones and cars and and and... How we can convince them that simple living can be much more rewarding, and much less destructive, I don't know.

Since being in Australia, I have become much more aware of how comfortable our Western comforts actually make us. A few times I borrowed Max's little car to take "stuff" down to look after his cows or work on his lime trees, when I could have walked down. We rented a car to get from Brisbane to Sydney, where we could have taken a train or bus.

But then, what is the point of guilt over these little things when the scale of the problem is so large?! I could buy a 4x4 vehicle and drive up and down the UK all day long, and it would make virtually no impact on anything (except my bank balance, of course!). It's when we all do such things as commuting, every day, that it adds up.

So this is the stick that I'm constantly beating myself with - that the problem is too big, and I'm too small and insignificant.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing what I'm doing, and just go back into the mainstream - that's no fun at all. In the grand scheme of things (should there even be such a thing), we're pretty small. Just to see each day is an extraordinary blessing! And I'd much rather be learning and growing, than cooped up inside a stuffy office all day long.

It gives me great comfort to look up into the night sky, and get some sense of how small we are. Perhaps the solution is simple - accept what I am, a tiny part of a huge Universe, and get on with doing what I can, what I enjoy, and what I care about. And hope that, along the way, some other people will become interested and inspired.

Youth Hostels Australia!

We've been travelling down the East Coast of Australia for the last few days. After getting a bus from Maleny, where Trudi kindly dropped us, to Nambour, then bus and train down to Brisbane, we picked up a hire car and began our drive.

Getting out of Brisbane was easy, and we were soon on the Pacific Highway. The first night we got to Byron Bay just in time to walk down to the beach for a truly magnificent sunset. The hostel there was large, and well organised - except for a few people two doors down being noisy at 3am, and the fact they clean the bathrooms at 8am!

Then we continued down the coast to Coffs Harbour, and had a lovely walk up onto a little nature reserve/bird breeding ground. By this point I was really beginning to see why people abandon the UK to live here, it is truly truly beautiful.

After Coffs Harbour we drove on to Port Macquarie, and arrived after dark. The hostel here was much more laid back than the one in Byron Bay, but perfectly cosy. In the morning we went to the local koala hospital, then to the Billabong Koala and Wildlife Park.

I'm not too keen on zoos, and the Park brought up these conflicting feelings, but one of the staff members told me the animals were very well looked after... so I just relaxed and enjoyed it. We were able to hand feed kangaroos (and give one a good scratch on his neck!), stroke a koala, and look at all the fascinating unique-to-Australia wildlife that is usually elusive. I was particularly impressed with the wombats!

We took a slow drive down through the Great Lakes, and eventually reached what I think was the end of the Pacific Highway - the end of that road number, anyway, and headed inland a little to the Hunter Valley wine region.

Here our plans have changed somewhat - our WWOOF host for the next week has cancelled on us, so we are staying in the Hunter Valley an extra day and figuring out what we want to do from here on! Possibly heading up to the Blue Mountains on train, which are supposed to be lovely.

Goodbye, Crystal Waters

Our time with Max and Trudi at Crystal Waters flew by. We spent the first few days helping Max with his cattle, weeding, watering, and doing some learning with him - about his time designing ecovillages, and Crystal Waters specifically. But to begin with, I wasn't blown away by Crystal Waters - it was nice, great to be in our own space and cooking for ourselves, and enjoyable being outside working.

Over time, I started to really appreciate the place. We have barely seen a kangaroo outside CW, but inside they just loll around in the heat, don't mind at all when you walk by. The wallabies are a lot more jumpy, but even so! And the abundance of food at Max's place is incredible - all manner of vegetables, plus oranges, kumquats, passion fruit, honey, eggs. And the place is so peaceful - blue skies and sun most days, birds, working in the garden.. aah, paradise. It really is.

We went to a couple of film nights, one market (missing Crystal Waters market, sadly), and read a very small section of Max's extensive library. We were lazy; we drank plenty of tea, rooibos, lemongrass (all sweetened with honey); we went for walks and bike rides, a trip out to the local cheeserie and ice cream shop in Kenilworth.

So what thoughts about ecovillage design did CW bring up? Well, a lot. Firstly that taking a project from inception to people living on the site is a long, arduous, and fraught process - I'm guesstimating 12 years. Secondly, that I can't wait that long before I settle somewhere - I want to get started with a permaculture garden, chickens, and bees as soon as possible. I don't want to get pulled back into a 37.5 hour a week office job. This led us to thinking about cohousing, and looking at 2+ acre lots in Canada.

Talking to Max also brought home how damned hard it is to get one of these projects through the many layers of bureaucracy there can be. Of his projects, a good percentage have got past the design stages, and then failed due to a change in political incumbency, local opposition, or other reasons. And Crystal Waters itself is far from perfect - various projects that could make the community as a whole more prosperous get stopped due to the slow process that is community decision making. There are no entry restrictions on people buying into CW, meaning that many of the lots have owners that aren't the least bit interested in permaculture, and may not take an active role in the community at all. This seems a shame, when CW is known globally as one of "the" ecovillages to go and see.

But.. boy, am I glad I went to see it. It is lovely, really really lovely. And despite any shortcomings it may have, the people are warm and friendly, there is a strong community there.

Perhaps we need to work on a form of community where meetings and procedure don't bog everything down. Or perhaps we just need to accept a much slower pace of everything in our "villages of the future".

So we had a fantastic time. It raised lots more questions than it answered, though!

Film reviews!

While I've been travelling, I've watched a grand total of four films.. one great, one ok, and two dire, so I thought I'd give you my thoughts on them.

The Great

Me And You And Everyone We Know (Amazon link)

I was in no way expecting this film to be so fantastic. It's just one of those films that comes out of the blue and is charming, funny, and not squirmy at all. Really can't recommend it enough.

The OK

Men's Group

Apparently not available on DVD in the UK yet, film's website is here. An Australian film about.. a men's support group. It's a fairly watchable film, but I lost my "sense of disbelief" a couple of times at critical moments, and it kinda knocked the film flat a little. It's filmed using consumer digital cameras and isn't scripted, so it's pretty interesting, but feels like something I've seen before - lots of fairly normal, grumpy men eventually reduced to tears. Worth seeing, I think, but not as great as I'd heard.

The Dire

Changeling (Amazon link)

Boring. Boring boring boring. It's a true story, and it's sad, but it just didn't connect emotionally with me. The LAPD was corrupt, and there was a nutter. Angelina Jolie is a Strong Woman. Yawn.

The thing for me is, I'd read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Amazon Link) recently, and I've seen L.A. Confidential (Amazon Link) and Changeling kinda feels like an amalgam of the two, but more miserable. In short, it just made me unhappy, and I found Angelina Jolie irritating.

Love in the Time of Cholera (Amazon Link)

Oh My. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy pines for girl his whole life but sleeps around a lot. Girl marries boring guy. Boring guy eventually dies, boy screws girl on a paddle steamer. This takes 2 1/4 hours to tell.

The End

(Get the first film, though, it's absolutely wonderful. "Back.. and forth" will stay with me for life :))

Montenegro

BBC report on a Roma refugee camp in Montenegro.

How lucky most of us are. How ridiculous the governments of the world are, to not be able to sort something like this out.

Book Review: The Grapes of Wrath

I got this in Varanasi, India, with all the stuff about the current recession, climate change and so on going round my head... Of course, I'd heard of the Great Depression and the Dustbowl, but not having studied much history at school, didn't know a great deal of the history.

Anyway, The Grapes of Wrath (Amazon link) by John Steinbeck was first published in 1939 - 70 years ago.

It's a story of a family of Oklahoma farmers who, at the start of the book, have been forced off their 40 acre farm by a number of years of poor weather (actually, a return to the normal weather patterns, but much less rain than the preceding few years), non-Permaculture farming practises (leaving land bare rather than sowing a cover crop), and indebtedness to the banks/land companies (who lent the farmers money when crops failed, which they couldn't pay back).

The story is a very human one - it alternates between the story of the Joad family, heading from Oklahoma to California which they think is a land of plenty, and a general overview of what happened during the Dustbowl years. It is a story of human greed - Californian farmers over-advertising for labour in order to reduce wages to subsistence levels, and in the process leaving many many families with little or no income at all.

The thing that got me was that we're doing it all over again. Perhaps not in quite the same way, but.. in order for "us" to have our consumer lifestyle, people in the developing world are killing the planet - China is being desertified at a rate of 1300 square miles per year!

The core of the story is that it seems easier to give when you have nothing, that the best in humanity shines through at the hardest of times. The Grapes of Wrath is a fantastic book, really relevant to right now. I can't recommend it enough!

Up-to-date!!

I'm actually writing this now!

I'm sitting in our cabin at Crystal Waters, where it is raining. It's nice to have got the history of our travels so far uploaded - no pictures, admitted, so I'll have to sort that later.

Anyway, I'm feeling ok - a little under the weather I think, but nothing serious. Today Max, our host, left on a trip to Cambodia (I think), so we won't see him again, which is a shame - I like him.

This morning I have been clearning weeds from under olive trees, and.. getting this blog updated. This afternoon we get to move the cattle from one section of the paddock they are in to another - each section has enough grass for one day, so the cattle make a neat job of tidying up. Good permaculture at work!

Big Island

We got to Abu Dhabi for a stopover - a 14 hour wait for me, only 2 hours for Kara, due to flight costs. She went on to Sydney, had a night in a hostel and a lovely hot shower.. I had a night of free internet but no sleep. The Etihad flights were excellent, anyway, and I even got a free toothbrush!

One more flight - from Sydney to Adelaide. Phew. I guess we left our hotel in Kathmandu at 10am on Monday the 1st of June, and arrived at Kara's friend Michael's place at 2pm on Wednesday the 3rd.. pretty much 48 hours of travelling for me.

Michael lives with his family at Aldinga Arts Ecovillage. He had borrowed a caravan for us to stay in, which was really cold as it is winter here! Not anything like as cold as a UK winter, mind. We had a great time at Aldinga, looking at the different eco houses. In Australia you can get 1kW of pv solar panels put on your roof for... nothing. The grants are so good from the government. In the UK, an installed system costs about £7500, with a £2500 grant from the government meaning you'd end up paying £5000. Very disappointing. And the grants for solar hot water in the UK are even more pathetic! AND the Ozzies get a 25p per kWh feed in tariff - we get something like half that. Our green credentials truly are pathetic (still, getting good loft insulation is a much better initial return on investment than solar - I'll be doing the insulation at my house when I get back to the UK).

So we saw straw bale buildings, rammed earth, earth bricks (which we helped make a couple of hundred of!), and so on. Most of the rooves are powder coated steel, to enable rain water collection - Michael's had 40 thousand litres of water storage. Most houses have no air conditioning and little in the way of heating - they are all a good passive solar design. Compared to a conventional suburb in Australia, it's pretty amazing.

After a week at Aldinga, we took yet another flight (ugh) to Brisbane, a train to Landsborough, a bus to Maleny, and finally got picked up by Max Lindegger in his battered old car - equivalent to my old Vauxhall Nova - a famous (in eco circles) ecovillage designer, who took us to his place in Crystal Waters.

What a place! We are staying in their cabin, which could actually house 4 but just has us 2 at the moment. The Lindeggers have 8 miniature Angus cattle (beautiful animals), 10 beehives, 8 chickens, pecan and mandarin trees, vegetable gardens. We have mostly been weeding so far, but are taking a couple of days consultancy with Max as well - incredibly useful information, gathered over decades of planning ecovillages. This morning we helped him with the bees - taking frames out, uncapping them, centrifuging the honey out - magical. The honey tastes absolutely wonderful.

Nepal part 2

The rest of our time in Nepal was rather grating - we didn't do so well with the monastary, and after a failed trek up to the Annapurna conservation area (planned to be an overnighter, and we were told we'd not need a trekking permit for that; but the guy at the checkpoint was new and wanted to charge us double to even stay in the first village, get a nice view in the morning, and go back.. so we walked 25 km in one day, up and down more than a km too!), we went to another project.

The other project is part PhD study part eco-farm - a German woman who spends 3 months in Nepal, then 3 months in Germany, and has partnered up with some Nepali NGOs to create a demonstration project using agroforestry and more thought out farming methods. There were a couple of other volunteers there and we had an ok time. Of course, being Nepal, no doors shut properly, and the tap in the bathroom was set into the wall - with the water running onto the edge of the hand basin, not actually into it!! The food was good, though, and we had a couple of nice walks out to view the Kathmandu valley, mountains, and so on.

Then back to Kathmandu one last time, on a packed bus - we sat at the back, just next to a family of goats. On the day we left, there was a Maoist strike and we feared we wouldn't get to the airport in time, so set out very early.. and actually arrived early. And then airport security wouldn't let us inside, even though we had tickets - we had to sit outside on the concrete for 2 hours.

For a country so apparently interested in tourism, Nepal left a lot to be desired. Bangladesh was so much smoother, despite being "poorer". I can't phrase it right - it's not just Western snobbery, it's that all the walls were wonky, nothing is finished well, there is no craftmanship at all. And so often we'd get "Hello, what is your name, give me money!". Maybe it was just bad luck on our part, but nothing really worked out that well.. anyway, it taught us a lot, I think, both the bad and the good (of which there WAS a lot, despite my moaning - the mountains are beautiful, for example).

I've never been so happy to leave a country...

Nepal part 1

Kathmandu, Nepal, provided us with challenges from the get-go - they only accept tourist visa fees in, er, anything but Nepali Rupees, and don't take cards - and my debit cards wouldn't work in the ATM. Luckily Kara's worked, though we got double whammied - bank charges for using her debit card, plus commission for exchanging Rupees for Dollars. Welcome to Nepal!

Kathmandu is much smaller than Dhaka - it seems all the streets are windy, and nobody gives way. Often a motorbike will wedge it's way in front of two cars trying to squeeze past each other, causing more delays for all parties, including the stupid motorcyclist. The city didn't impress - as part of our programme here, we got two afternoons of sightseeing around the city, but it just didn't wow us. Lots of people in the streets asking us if we wanted hashish, treks, taxis or rickshaws, lots of touristy rubbish. Some pretty run down looking temples.

After three nights in Kathmandu we eventually headed out for Besisahar, about 180Km West and a little North of Kathmandu, in a packed minibus. Luckily we had the two front passenger seats, so I had at least a little legroom. A few guys travelled on the roof, with our large backpacks. The mountain roads are just crazy - going the 180Km took us almost 6 hours.

Finally we arrived at Besisahar, where we were met by Wandi lama. He is one of four twelve year old monks we are trying to teach some English to. He led us up the steeply climbing path to his monastary, or gumba.

Ah me. When I said "yes!" to Kara's idea of teaching monks English I was envisaging some sacred place, an ancient stone monastary with quiet, dedicated earnest students just trying to get a more rounded grip of English, both British and American; people with pride, welcoming and serene.

What we got... is quite something else. The Guru of the place is still in Kathmandu with 6 of his students. So here we have the four twelve year olds, one fifteen year old, two eighteen year olds (who don't come to lessons), a couple of other guys I haven't figured out yet (who sometimes come to lessons for a bit). There is also the Guru's father and mother, I think, plus couple of women of whom one is the Guru's wife. Only the monks speak any English, and not enough to form complete sentences ("Sir, come!" and "Sir, want more rice?")

The whole place is a mess. The toilet block has no plumbing - to shower, you take one hosepipe and shove it into another one, and ask someone else to turn the tap on and off when you need the water to run. There is litter everywhere, from the town up the hill to the gumba, and further on where we have walked. Litter and discarded footwear.

The monks get up at 5am every day and play some Buddhist chants from really old cassette tapes out to the town below. Our bedroom is maybe 5 feet from these speakers. I don't think they are loud enough to reach the town, but they certainly wake us up. Actually that bit is fine, the chants are nice, and we're used to being awake at 5am and sleeping at 9-10pm.

What isn't working so well is the whole teaching thing. We have one lesson per day, from 12 to 2pm. Unfortunately some previous teachers seem to have paid for treats, bought them gifts and so on, so they are almost demanding the same of us. They have very short attention spans, and are of very different abilities. But they like the Hokey Cokey, which is fortunate!

Worst is the fact that, when we arrived, the boys had two pens between the six of them, no textbooks, and nobody to tell us what they had covered before, what they understood, etc - so we are doing this blind. Neither of us has formal teaching experience, though Kara is doing a great job with them - she is very much the carrot and I'm the stick. The older boys whack the younger ones on the back of the head to discipline them, something I'm just not prepared to do - though I did have to bodily remove one of the boys from the lesson on the second day - which wasn't good.

Some lessons go well, and they enjoy the games, getting things right, and they do seem to be picking up a few things, but being so completely unsupported it's hard to know if we are doing good things or not. We were expecting to be helping with vocabulary and pronunciation, not babysitting... Only a few more days here, though, then we go for a two day trek, see some eco-stuff near Kathmandu, and finally on to blessed sanity, sanitation, and sandwiches in Australia.

Bangladesh - 2nd May

So we took the train from Kolkata, India to Dhaka, Bangladesh on the second of May. We got up early to get a taxi to "Kolkata Station" which is actually the fourth train station of the city, only built a few years ago.

When we got out of the taxi at the station we were in for a huge shock - only a few people across all the platforms, only one guy selling water and snacks.. wow! It didn't feel like India at all.

It was a 12 hour train journey - or, actually, a 7 hour journey interrupted by exiting-India customs and entering-Bangladesh customs. The train was only 10% full, so we were just sitting waiting for the scheduled departure time for a while at each place.

We only stopped in Dhaka overnight, after which we caught a bus to Srimongal (North East from Dhaka), where we stayed with tribal people who lived near tea plantations. This was all arranged with BASD - Bangladesh Association for Sustainable Development, through their director Boniface who came with us to the village. The tribal people - of the Khasi tribe - pretty much own their land, though there are ongoing disputes with the government. They grow jackfruit, betel nuts and leaves (disgusting chewing stuff), pineapples, mangoes... They have little, but what they have they shared generously with us. We got two breakfasts most days, one at home and one at another home we'd been invited to. Simple food, but tasty!

We saw microcredit schemes in action at the tea plantation, and another nearby village - with people proudly showing us the cow or goat they'd bought with the micro loan (I think about 3,000 Bangladeshi Taka, which is £30, buys a cow). The plantation workers earn about 28 Taka a day - 28p, give or take. 1Kg of rice costs about 22 Taka. "Poor" does not feel like an adequate description

After 5 days with the Khasi folk and tea garden and other rural villagers, we headed back to Dhaka, to see "sweeper" slums. "Sweeper" is a job description - these people are of Indian origin, brought to Dhaka by the British to clean the streets. But now, the Bangla government gives sweeping jobs to Bangladeshis, and generally doesn't do much good for the sweeper people.

They live in walled compounds, and can't really go outside at night because they aren't Bangladeshi. They live 8-12 people in under 100 square feet of living space. There are only a few battered communal toilets. Generally it's a very hard life, hard in a different way than the tea garden workers.

But here, like in the tea gardens and surrounding villages, BASD is providing microcredit loans, plus skills training when there is funding available - funding to educate young girls in sewing, beadwork and so on, enabling them to earn a living.

The poverty is simply staggering - don't get me wrong, the people don't appear to be starving, and it's not filthy like in the pictures we see of refugee camps in Africa, but... to work all day, 6 days a week, and earn less than £100 in a year? They have nothing. In a chronically poor country, the discrimination of the Bangla people against other tribes is incredibly saddening.
In Srimongal town, Boniface told us that beggars often "work" for a sort of company - the "employers" give the beggars somewhere to sleep, a little food, and maybe one or two sets of clothes a year, while the beggars give the employers all the money they get.

On the 10th of May, we left Dhaka by the ropiest plane I have ever been on in my life. Dhaka airport, like Kolkata station, felt like part of another world - air conditioned, virtually empty, without hustle and bustle - quite a contrast.

Kolkata, part 2

It's now Thursday, 30 April 2009. Illness has departed, and we're in good shape. We got our Bangladesh visas without any problems, then our flights from Dhaka to Kathmandu, and finally our train tickets from Kolkata to Dhaka for Saturday (2nd May - wow this year is going quickly).

We have done a fair amount of walking around the city, and... I like it. We went to the Victoria Memorial and a Planetarium yesterday, both of which were good. The Memorial is set in a 64 acre park (really helpful to see that amount of space, actually, if we're talking of an ecovillage of 200 acres), and is a huge white building. Like many white buildings with domes and pillars it rather reminds me of the White House, and a number of other buildings in Kolkata are similar too. I guess that form of architecture is fairly common (and I know the White House was based on something else, though I forget exactly what).

Inside the memorial is an overwhelming amount of history, art and artefacts. There are 4 different sections, one blessedly air conditioned - and containing an almost year by year history of Kolkata since the British arrived. It seems so sad to me that what was a prosperous partnership in India had to end because of misrule by the British. I'm not saying Britain should still control India, not at all, but rather that we could learn an awful lot from India, and vice versa. The partitions that happened after the second world war seem to have caused little but grief.
Just outside the Memorial is a statue to Sri Aurobindo, ha!

Anyway, after the Memorial we wandered a little, walked up to see Fort Willam only to realise it's a prohibited area, rather than a tourist attraction. So we walked back to the Peace Garden, next to the Memorial and close to the Planetarium as well, to wait for the next English language show of planets. The peace garden is really nice, except you're not allowed to lie on the grass or the benches (or do any number of other things, I imagine), else a nice warden blows a loud whistle at you. How uncouth!

The show at the Planetarium was a bargain - only Rs. 30 - and very cool, really old equipment. They showed the Indian satellite that is orbiting the moon at the moment, something I think they are very proud of, as well as a few slides of Pathfinder, Spirit et al on Mars.

After, a quick taxi ride home, bananas and biscuits, and I fell asleep early...
Following our unpleasant experiences after Agra, we have been eating safe, at a couple of nice restaurants, and often buying stuff from proper supermarkets, rather than off the street - expensive, but...

One of the things I have noticed is how few manufacturing companies there appear to be - TATA does maybe 80% of the cars, with the rest mostly being Suzuki; Coca Cola and Pepsi make amost all the drinks (including most of the bottled water - TATA, oddly, do the premium water); biscuits, toiletries and God knows what else are made by Unilever, with a couple of other companies doing the other biscuits. Unilever make the bread! It's quite scary, really. That, and how much focus there is on improving yourself BY buying this stuff - that you are a real person, important, worthwhile... if you buy this stuff. The adverts here seem to tell you that. How much effect this will have on the average man on the street I don't know, but it is certainly being pushed hard onto anyone who watches television.

What do people aspire to? Owning a mobile phone that defines them? My God.