HS2 – can local wildlife benefit from a Slow Speed corridor?

Bird watching’s for middle-aged biddies with moustaches. Or so I always thought. Or possibly I am moving into that very category. Whatever, that’s how I spent a sunny Sunday in early October; walking around College Lake, binocs at a jaunty angle, enjoying the bright, autumnal light, picking succulent blackberries, and interrogating (from a distance) the birds on the lake to see what was out there.

BBOWT, our local wildlife conservation charity, runs College Lake; just outside Tring, just inside Buckinghamshire, BBOWT has developed it into one of the foremost locations in Bucks for bird watching. It’s a fantastic facility for humans and nature.

BBOWT runs nature reserves across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and it’s not always easy: dependent on grants and public generosity, long-term survival is never assured. Now, of course, there is a new threat to our wildlife habitats in this area: HS2.

BBOWT is extremely exercised, for good reason, about this proposed development. Whilst it won’t directly affect College Lake, its impact on some other BBOWT reserves, and habitats outside the reserves, will be immeasurable, and permanent.

The stated intent of HS2 is that there should be ‘no net loss to biodiversity’, but many people fear that should it go ahead, it will massively impact local wildlife, and there is concern that the existing environmental analyses significantly underplay this issue. Local losses would include Bechstein’s bats and certain rare butterflies; wildflower meadows, wetlands and ancient woodlands would be damaged and even lost forever.

Whilst BBOWT opposes HS2, it also proposes a way that, should it be built, might mitigate this immense damage.

Its alternative vision of HS2 argues (based on thorough, academic research) that around 15,000 hectares of interlinked wild places could be established along the length of the route, for no net expense, where people could walk, cycle and enjoy nature, ultimately providing a ‘net gain’ for wildlife.

Their report ‘HS2: A vision for large-scale nature restoration along the Proposed Route’ makes the environmental, social and economic case for the Government properly to address the impact of HS2 on wildlife and ecosystems.

Personally, I find it hard to envisage how the impact of HS2 on our wildlife might be reduced to anything like an acceptable level, but at least BBOWT is trying. So you don’t have to set off in pursuit of the hirsute to support BBOWT, you could just become a member. Beards particularly welcome.

http://www.bbowt.org.uk/

11+ appeals under the new sytem (post 2013)

To those whose children have just done the 11+, well survived. It feels great when it’s over yet still too early to think about the outcome.

However, with apologies, this article is about appealing, which you may have to tangle with if you are faced with a near miss and feel that your child should go to grammar school.

Not only has the 11+ exam changed recently, the appeal system has too. I have been involved in appeals under both systems, and had to work hard to get a grip on the new one. This article is an attempt to explain it, as I understand it. If you appeal, please gather your own research and information since this article merely flags up some points to think about.

Pre-2012, appeals were made by submitting written evidence of academic ability and any extenuating circumstances, then presenting before an appeals panel.

This has been replaced by a two-tier system. The first application is to a ‘selection review’; a paper-only submission to a panel of three head teachers. If you are unsuccessful at this stage, you may then go on to the second tier, namely a full appeal before a panel.

Schools tend to recommend going through the selection review. However, be aware that:

1. The selection review tier is optional, so you can bypass it and go just for a full appeal. One disadvantage (this past year) was that full appeals were heard very late in the academic year and after allocation of school places.

2. If you are unsuccessful at selection review, and proceed to a full appeal, you have an additional hurdle: the Admissions Authority will assert that your child’s review was fair, consistent and objective, so your appeal should not be heard. To get your hearing, you must first successfully argue that the selection review was not carried out in a fair, consistent and objective manner. Tricky, and you won’t face this if you bypass the selection review.

I was curious to discover what proportion of people understand the new appeal system so I carried out a small survey amongst friends dealing with the 11+ in 2013. Out of everyone who answered my enquiry, just one family realised that the selection review was optional and that there is also an appeal; they had gleaned that from 11+ forums, not from the BCC website; have a look at http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/

Cyclamen: my autumn roses

I love the Spring: that particular vivid green show of new leaf, the promise of a twig, bare but for some shyly swelling copper buds bursting suddenly into a profusion of blossom, and most of all, the sudden proliferation of yellow narcissi after the dull grey or even white of a long, dark winter.

So when it’s autumn, what to do? Trees carry elderly, tired-looking foliage which will slowly give up and fall off, the veg has vegged, the few flowers that remain in my garden look leggy, seedy (in both senses) and frankly like it’s time to put on their slippers and have some hot cocoa. Everything seems to be saying – enough now – we’ve done our bit for the year - except for a small bright bunch of wild cyclamen shouting ‘We’re here! Look at us!’ under a bush in my front garden.

We’re not talking about any of the voluptuous pink-knickered cultivated varieties, which adorn your windowsill so brightly until they get bored and slump into a vulgar heap, but the small, dainty, wild types which grow in woodland, between mountain rocks and along gritty roadsides throughout the Mediterranean, where summers are arid and winters more temperate. Many cyclamen bloom, as a result of that climate, in the Autumn and are hardy enough to cope with our winters.

Essentially a woodland plant, as the trees above them shed their leaves and early autumn rains reach the earth below, the plants spring into life, flowers first, pink and white heads nodding on fragile stems. Then as they fade, the delicately patterned, highly decorative leaves give verdancy to the increasingly barren soil. In fact, it is the foliage which give a common autumnal variety its name - Cyclamen hederifolium – ‘ivy leaved’.

For years I have planted Spring bulbs everywhere I can so that they will give me the first hint of the wakening up of the soil and warmth in the air, announcing the coming of longer days and more sunshine, and I have completely overlooked softening the edges of the colder, shorter days by planting something which will cheerfully and robustly bloom in September.

From now on, though, I will build up my beds of wild cyclamen and will look forward to them as much as I do to daffodils.

To everything there is a season.

"Should Scotland be an independent country?”

This is the question for Scotland on 18 September 2014.

So if you holiday in Scotland next year, will you cross an international border? Is the UK about to lose North Sea oil and gas? Will Scotland be ejected from the EU? What will happen to our nuclear capability? Are we so politically disparate now that Scotland is right to go? Do we care?

Whilst in Scotland and Westminster, such questions are being endlessly discussed, I have heard little debate locally. Is this because of the company I keep, because we don’t see it as relevant to us, or is our old friend, disempowerment - for nobody in England, including Scottish people living outside their homeland, may vote – stifling debate?

Anyone living in Scotland who is 16 or older will be entitled to vote on 18 September. Curiously enough, in addition to British citizens, this will include citizens of all 27 EU countries and 52 other Commonwealth countries.

So returning to the question, do we care? – I see little evidence demonstrating that we do. It is not a subject, as far as I am aware, for playground or dinner party debate, yet it will be an enormous historical, geographical and political change should Scotland leave the UK.

I have huge sympathy for everyone outside the South East wishing to reject an endlessly London-centric UK, with no obvious Westminster will to change and HS2 only the latest manifestation of this trend. Scotland leaving the Union might be the shakeup needed to change the way things are done once and for all.

Nonetheless, I would have liked the rest of the union to have demonstrated a deep desire for Scotland, by having the Scottish flag fluttering from every shop in every village, debates in schools, letters to every newspaper editor, Twitter constantly trending, news stories generated across the country sending the message that we all want Scotland to stay.

Why do I care so much? Well, history and geography mean a great deal, the political wranglings less. But when I really consider it, a southerner through and through, without a Scottish cell in my body, it is because Scotland, with its magical, wild beauty, windswept mountains, huge skies and empty spaces, is part of my home, its people, my co-citizens, and we will all be the poorer should the blue fade from the Union Jack.

Fair trade and school uniform (Bucks Advertiser August 2014)

I’ve been thinking about fair trade and school uniforms. This is the time of year when some of us are starting to kit our kids out for the academic year ahead, and if we made the scuffed shoes and grey-cuffed shirts that didn’t quite reach the wrist any more last till the end of the summer term, now we are preparing to put our kids’ best (smart) foot forward.

So let’s shop around for bargains. Can we get three for two at the local supermarket? Which store is winning this race to the bargain basement? It’s a lucrative corner of the market – you can tell from the amount of advertising.

This is what worries me; we have all seen the conditions faced by textile workers in developing countries – long hours, poor wages, industrial injuries, death-trap buildings. Charities such as Oxfam highlight the plight of children foregoing education to go out to work. So are we, when we buy cheap clothes for our kids to wear to school, depriving children far away, beyond our ken, of their chance to learn, therefore hard-wiring poverty into their lives? Are low costs in our shops the result of child labour?

Never raise a problem without suggesting a solution, so here goes. First, before you buy, ask what the store’s policy is on child labour. (Although once when I did this, I got the reply, “28 days, Madam”). You can also look on stores’ websites for their ethical and labour policies and base your choices on that; it feels good, even if it costs a little more. See if your child’s school runs a second hand uniform shop, and if not, set one up with profits going to the PTA. Ask if a store stocks fair trade school shirts – if enough of us do this, then maybe next year, it will. Second hand stuff – always good, too. Consider donating to charities such as Labour behind the Label. (Have a look at their excellent website if you want to know more).

In a world in which the UN International Labour Organisation estimates that 168 million children worldwide – one in ten – are involved in child labour, it is easy to feel powerless and disengaged, but we mustn’t. There is always something we can do; not least we can use the power in our purses and decide that we will no longer be part of the problem.

My father the gardener

I come from a family of gardeners. My siblings tend their gardens, making them beautiful or fruitful, sharing with me crops of the biggest redcurrants you ever saw and generally humbling me when I consider the contrast with my pathetic efforts.

My father was a gardener too. Having fled Nazi Germany as a boy, he grew up in the Middle East and one of his various jobs was in a plant nursery, in a small village near, now a suburb of, Tel Aviv.
Maybe that was where he discovered his love of plants. His amazing memory categorised and stored their names, what was indigenous and what grew in which type of soil. Coming to England via Liverpool Docks as a young man, he ended up living near Kew Gardens and spent many evenings after work strolling the grounds and greenhouses, improving his knowledge of the exotic and the banal.

Growing up, we always had a busy, happening garden. There were seedlings, polytunnels, fabulous crops, plants going in, plants coming out, according to the season. Cuttings taken on holidays would be planted and nurtured at home, delight taken when against the odds they survived. Our garden was aflame with Cana lilies, before they became a staple of urban roundabouts; we tended fledgling coffee plants, figs and olives.

Personally, I preferred a book, a toy, or a water fight in the garden. Whenever I offered to help, I would be asked to weed; my heart would sink and I would slope off as soon I thought that I was unnoticed. My parents got around this by giving me my own little garden patch to tend. When I weeded that I didn’t mind so much.

In many ways, my father’s life story reflects the twentieth century history of Europe. He once said to me that as a displaced person, his garden was the closest thing to roots he had. Even when elderly, he managed it himself, trussing up tomato vines in the greenhouse, persuading his huge and eccentric lawn mower to cut his large lawn, and managing his roses. More recently, he took pleasure in just being, watching the leaves and buds unfurl, a new summer’s crop develop.

I will always think of him, walking up from the garden to the house, the sun on his back. May he be happy in his garden for ever.

Hans-Hermann Bertold Neustadt December 1925 - July 2014

Summer in and around Bucks

The summer holidays are here, and whilst the kids can throw cares to the wind, we must think how to fill the days if we don’t want our children to slump in front of the telly or be a screen bunny for the next few weeks.

So here are my ideas for some ‘Out and About around Bucks’ days.
On a sweltering, sticky day, pond dipping at Denham Country Park ticks the box. Take a net (or buy one there), a bucket, some flip flops and a good book and sit on the bank of the River Chess with tea from the cafe as your kids terrorise the local guppy population. The river flows through trees here, creating an oasis of cool green even when it’s gaspingly hot everywhere else.

It’s beautiful to walk into the Chess Valley from Chorleywood House. Crossing the water meadow towards the river, you pass a community of green woodpeckers, with their distinctive swoop weaving through the trees. If it floats your boat, play pooh sticks from the bridge. Alternatively, follow the river to the watercress beds, buy freshly picked peppery cress from the farm to take home for a very English tea and ice creams for instant sustenance. Take swimmers for a dip in one of the river pools.

A favourite day is spent cycling to Chalfont St Giles with lunch in the garden of the Merlin’s Cave. Fairly typical Pub fare, friendly people and a nice place to sit. You can also hike there from Chalfont St Peter along the Misbourne, or across the hills from Amersham.

Afternoon tea and pick-your-own fruit and veg at Peterley Manor Farm in Prestwood gave us the nicest afternoon we have had this year. Cycling in Hodgemoor woods with a packed lunch is lovely as is a dip in the outdoor pool at Chesham. Seeing the birds at Stockers Lake by Rickmansworth Aquadrome is fabulous, particularly if you follow it with a visit to the Cafe in the Park. Picnicking by the Thames in Marlow, watching hares cavort through the gathering dusk in Cookham and walking up to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill from Turville are all old favourites.

Wendover Woods, College Lake, Coombe Hill.....Writing this, realising all there is to do, makes me worry that the summer holidays are going to be just too short.....

How Green Is My Valley

Everyone who follows Countryfile will know what a rare and special beast a chalk stream is. And in the Misbourne Valley, we have our very own. This water source probably attracted the first settlers in this area, so we are here and our landscape has developed because of the River Misbourne.

In the past it generated industry; hard to believe, it once powered a corn mill (later a silk mill), providing employment for local residents and a name for the meadow which sweeps down to its edge in Chalfont St Peter. Nowadays the flow is observed and commented upon by many and we read the seasons by it. We walk along our river, pond dip, and bemoan its over-extraction – it was once deep enough for swimming, upstream of Mill Meadow.

Our chalk stream also provides a globally rare habitat to flora and fauna – fed by groundwater retained in the chalk aquifer, this unique environment is easily threatened by over-extraction, pollution and the possible impact of the construction and existence of HS2.

Last Sunday, a working party from the River Misbourne Action Group convened by the river, to help maintain the river bed and its banks. The Group regularly clears the river of detritus (mostly natural, but some human-generated) and monitors levels of aquatic invertebrates, a key method of establishing its health.

I am very much a fringe member, but I have to tell you that it was a great way to spend the morning. Working outside, sun shining, up to the tops of my wellies in water, was a lot of fun, and stresses and strains were washed down river. Straightening up to relieve my stiffening back and seeing that our work had made an obvious difference was the kind of instant gratification I rather enjoy.

As with anything voluntary, more can be done with more people, so please consider visiting the River Misbourne Action Group’s website or their stall at Feast day. We have to take care of our natural world, otherwise as Paul Weller says,

Paradise found down by the still waters
Joined in the race to the rainbow's end
No fears, no worries just a golden country
Woke at sunrise, went home at sunset

Now life is so critical, life is too cynical
We lose our innocence, we lose our very soul...

Tales from the Riverbank

Incredible Edible Todmorden

Imagine a village in South Bucks aiming for food self-sufficiency. It would take community vision and involvement, local government buy-in, somewhere to plant and lots of trust.

In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is underway. ‘Incredible Edible Todmorden’ is on the road to self-sufficiency with raised beds in the town centre, herb and physic gardens on railway platforms, hen-keeping projects, 1000 fruit trees planted, polytunnels, and (rather wonderfully) every school actively involved in growing food.

As their website explains:

‘It doesn’t take big things to create big changes. It takes small things that capture the imagination. A vegetable plot with a revolutionary sign: Help Yourself. Runner beans planted secretly outside a disused health centre. People talked about those beans. They helped themselves to vegetables. Then they started doing things themselves.’ (www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk)

So, it all started with some ‘guerrilla gardening’ - the idea that one plants quietly on disused or neglected land to make it productive or more beautiful. I am not advocating this (or at least, not in public), but am attracted to the idea when I notice unproductive pockets of land that could be transformed by the community.

In Chalfont St Peter, we have made a start producing community food, with two community orchards planted since 2010, and plans (and funding) for a nut grove. The haywardens have planted perennial herbs in the village centre displays; better than bedding plants that are planted then discarded in so many towns and villages across the country.

Of course, there is a distinction between community planting for harvesting by everyone and allotments whose produce is not for general consumption; although allotment holders would be hugely welcomed by an Incredible Edible movement for their knowledge and established community ethos.

So, how about it, everybody? Is this an impossible dream for South Bucks or could we enrich our community and our local environment?

I imagine that in Todmorden, things have moved on greatly from the small acorns of a new movement; in place of planning and a little bit of rule breaking, there must be a new sense of identity, pride and achievement. As they say in Todmorden, ‘We grow for anyone to pick and use. Go ahead, have some!’

Train travel in Europe

Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone.
Philip Larkin – ‘The Whitsun Weddings’

Like many of my fellow students, I spent my summer holidays travelling by train, covering vast distances crossing Europe. On some journeys I ‘inter railed’ through Italy, France and Spain. On another, I endured a three day journey from Victoria Station to Istanbul, via German guest workers, intimidating Bulgarian border guards, and a very nice Greek lady who tried in vain to persuade me to smuggle something deeply dubious for her. I was awoken by drunks, a man unforgettable for his appalling foot odor, and random baggage falling from luggage racks. I discovered that West Berlin was (in those far off days) something of an island in a sea of Communist walls and bad –tempered sausage sellers, and that after sitting on my back pack for an entire wakeful night, swaying in time with the undulating corridor outside a packed carriage, there was no better meal to be found than from an early morning, fragrant bakery selling off yesterday’s fare. Dizzy with sleeplessness, a handful of onion bread and a cup of scalding coffee set me up for the day ahead.

Over time, travelling changed; there was a little more money and flights became cheaper, and I got a car. Then the only train I took was to commute into London, and that was strictly eyes down, absorbed in my book, never recognising any one of my fellow commuters who must have got on the same train as me for years on end.

After years of cars and ‘planes, I’ve started travelling by train once more. We try to limit the amount we fly these days, so our European holidays are often started on the Eurostar. And there is something utterly seductive and timeless about the glass temple-like roof at St Pancras, giving the walk along the platform and the groaning and grunting of the train as it waits to depart that uniquely muffled quality that echoes down the years, even centuries. There are the same harried families as there have always been, too much baggage and too few hands, searching for the right carriage, and the anticipation of the journey and holiday to come.

Travelling long-distance by train has a unique feel to it. It is comfortable, inherently leisurely and provides constant ‘in-flight’ amusement. You can settle in, walk about; you have space, fresh air and views. Last summer we went to Italy; by mid-afternoon we were passing Lyon and within 12 reasonably relaxing hours of leaving our front door we were sitting outside a restaurant on the gracious streets of Turin, sipping wine and watching the world pass. En route we had watched the French countryside roll by, rivers and hills giving way to escarpments and snow capped peaks. I will never forget climbing over the Alps in the train, the majesty of the mountains within touching distance through the window as France gave way to Italy.

We have been to Amsterdam, Paris and Lille, packs on backs and self-contained. No lining up at the carousel to reclaim luggage, no schlep from some distant airport to the town centre. The train takes you to the heart of where you want to go and you walk from your carriage to the main street within minutes.

We plan our route with help from a great website, The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/) a massive resource put together by Buckinghamshire man, Mark Smith. Practical and clear, it steers your through the various train networks of the world. So far, we have only used the European section of it – but in future, who knows?

Train travel is not perfect – there have been dogs on the line, broken signals, nail-biting transfers and underground waits. But compared to the sweaty factories that are airports, travelling by train gets my vote every time.

When Nature Comes to Visit

Some time ago, we redesigned our back garden. Out went the shrubbery and in came the pond, the hedgehog mound, and what we fondly hoped would be a meadow but is now more honestly referred to as the Wild Area. Basically, we just don’t cut an area of the lawn until September in the hope that bugs and butterflies will thrive. In fact, all the changes were made with the intention of making our garden more ‘wildlife friendly’. And it’s really really worked, despite our marauding cats, of which more below.

So now we have lots of animals who use our garden, some who live with us, and some who just potter by from time to time and happily don’t seem to be aware of such human concepts as borders and boundaries.

Since we have made these changes, we seem to attract many more wild birds to our garden. We keep them well-fed and they amply reward us with colour, variety and displays. I have whiled away gentle hours watching them.

For the most part, they are common, but beautiful; greenfinches, sparrows, blackbirds, the occasional thrush... The most unusual visitor we have ever had was the linnet we saw last year, but other notable moments include the recent swoop and landing of a kite in the back garden (it actually landed! That was a first!), a sparrow hawk taking out a sparrow in mid-flight, a grey heron fishing in the pond and my absolute favourite, a resident flock of starlings. It’s far from being a murmuration, sadly, but nevertheless, a small flock of about 20 birds regularly comes to knock hell out of our garden worms. We also hear owls and buzzards and for the first time last week we saw a little owl in our neighbour’s garden – let’s hope they all come and visit.

Back to the cats, who arrived by invitation and remain by somewhat stretched tolerance. Not least since one of them leapt, four paws off the ground, to snatch a goldfinch from the bird feeder last month.

Springtime, with all the baby field mammals being born is the worst: often our greedy felines bring mice inside to eat them in peace and quiet, leaving the guts as glistening deposits wherever they fall. Often, though, and despite their highly honed hunting skills, our cats prove too stupid to hang on to the small creatures long enough to kill them, and the victim makes a break for freedom and I end up chasing a mouse around the house with a fishing net (yes, my dear neighbours, that’s what you see me doing. We are not re-enacting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang here, with me taking the role of the Child Catcher!)

Our cats also specialise in decapitating baby rabbits. If I find headless corpses in the garden, frankly that’s not too bad as I find a faceless ex-bunny easier to deal with than one looking sweet and cuddly, but dead. However, on one memorable occasion my nose detected a vintage corpse which had been snuck inside some time ago and left in a little-used drawer under the bed. Too old to stew, too smelly to ignore, I donned rubber gloves and cleaned it up. Probably finding decomposing animals under one’s bed is not something that I should be sharing this widely but too late now and hopefully my friends will not desert me.

What else? Well, spawning frogs and toads have given my kids a series of biology lessons that they’ll never get at school (do you know they can even ‘do it’ when they swim? Goodness knows how the ladies stay afloat - I wouldn’t be able to. But what an impressive example of female multi-tasking!) We also have newts, dragonflies, damselflies, pond skaters and probably a whole host of creepies that we are too ignorant to recognise.

A path across our grass travelling from under one fence, across the garden and out the other side, so often used that we can even see it through snow, marks the fox’s route. I rather like foxes, except when they howl in the dead of night or make out noisily in our rhubarb patch during mating season.

But my top-of-the-list all-time favourites are the bats. We have at least five who swoop and flutter in the half light of evening as we sit in the garden, mesmerised, trying to make out a solid animal from the frenzied balls of movement as they pass. They’ve just re-appeared, so it must be Spring. Just don’t tell the cats.

One Can Trust - our local food bank

Earlier this year, my kids received a late Christmas present of £10 each. Rather than give them licence to cruise the local shops, though, this was money with a string attached: they had to pass it on to somebody who needed it more than they did.

After some discussion, they decided to shop for a food bank. Food banks are springing up across Buckinghamshire as in the rest of the UK; I know of banks in Chesham and Rickmansworth and there are, I understand, talks of a bank in Chalfont St Peter. We found a local organisation, the One Can Trust, established that their collection point is just the other side of Beaconsfield, and went shopping to a local supermarket.

The charity gives out lists of what it needs, and this does not include fresh food, so immediately our shopping experience was different from usual as we headed for the aisles of tins. The children had to buy to a budget, and kept a running total of what they put in the trolley.

My daughter alighted on large cans of potatoes for 14p, and collected an armful. Her strategy was clear: pile it high, get as much as you can for your money - more food feeds more people. My son’s reaction was a little more complex. Whilst he completely got the ‘quantity’ argument, he was uncomfortable that cost was the overriding consideration. ‘I know I’ve only got £10’, he said, ‘but why can’t they have nice food too?’ A tricky one, hard to resolve. Making up rules on the hoof that actually bear scrutiny is part of being a parent, so we decided that the quality couldn’t fall below certain standards; for example, no items full of additives, and we were also really hesitant about cheap meat products that might be bulked out by donkeys’ toe nails, or something equally unspeakable. I guess that the bottom line was if we wouldn’t eat it ourselves, we wouldn’t buy it for anyone else.

We learnt a lot of lessons that day, not least how hard it is to buy frugally, yet nourishingly. I have to admit that I have not, since far-off student days, had to eke out a small sum of money to feed a person healthily and cheaply and the experience was timely and humbling. And as we did the task, and delivered our little boxes to the drop off point, we couldn’t but...not walk in the shoes of people who are in such need, but think a lot about them, and the disparity in the fortunes of our local population.

People in communities all have different needs and most of us try to support each other in a variety of ways. That we live amongst people who are struggling to feed their families is a relatively new departure which hopefully will be treated with the same community spirit.

Living with - or relying on - the weather. (written summer 2013)

Ho, hum, the weather, eh? Can’t live with it – can’t live without it. Last year, I had an almost total crop failure. I don’t count slugs as a crop and they were the only thing prospering in my garden, the merchant bankers of my veg patch, growing fat and smarmy at the cost of everything else. The only unexpected saving grace was that I had a bumper, late crop of tomatoes – by November the vines were sagging, weighed down with huge quantities of very green tomatoes which I harvested, put in brown paper bags to ripen and then feasted off as they reddened throughout the winter. Oh, I loved the pretention of serving luscious scarlet tomato salad to friends in January saying – ‘help yourselves – they’re from our garden, you know’. ‘No!’ ‘Oh yes!’

Things aren’t a whole lot better this year. Everything’s late, but at least it’s not so wet (and by the time you read this, we may well be deep into an August drought). But it’s ok. It’s not a matter of life or death; if my harvests fail, I’ll pop to the supermarket or see what local farmers have managed to drag up through the soil.

But. What if the timing of the seasons really matters to you? What if my family was relying on what I could grow in my garden? What is happening in other areas of the world where the increasing unpredictability of weather is making subsistence farming increasingly fraught?

As an Oxfam report on Tajikistan sets out, climate change ‘is affecting agriculture... and threatening the food security of thousands of people who depend on small-scale subsistence farming for their survival. Intense droughts, extensive flooding and increased frequency of weather-related shocks are becoming more apparent, and hitting poor people hardest’.

So when the birds get into my strawberries, or I’m complaining about my wrinkled beetroots, paucity of cucumbers and brussel sprouts that promise much but deliver little– I’ll try to put my lot in that context.

How to get a gardener and not a cowboy.....(written January 2014)

At the top of the year when it is cold and miserable, everyone looks longingly for the first signs of Spring and newspapers are full of columns about gardening: what to do to attract wildlife, how to decide on which seedlings to plant and more than anything, when to get started.

Sometimes, though, life gets in the way and you start a bit late, or it begins to feel like a chore. You definitely could plant your potatoes out once the bed has been weeded, but when are you going to get around to digging? Or you would like a pond but don’t have the knowhow...and so your ears start to prick up when someone talks in glowing terms about their gardener.

Before you make that ‘phone call, here is my list of how to get a gardener and avoid a cowboy. Believe me, I’ve learnt from painful experience.

1. Try to get several recommendations for a gardener, not just one.
2. If someone is happy to recommend, then don’t just to discuss the positives. Consider asking ‘apart from the things that you were obviously happy about, is there anything at all that you didn’t like?’ This question teases out issues that you need to know.
3. Establish whether your gardener is an unskilled labourer or has any specific training. If your gardener asserts he or she has certain qualifications or has won prizes, get proof.
4. Agree what work is going to be done, for how much and roughly how long it will take. Don’t leave a project to ‘evolve’ and don’t expect to have the same priorities or perspective as your gardener. Put a list or a drawing together so that misunderstandings are avoided.
5. If you are quoted a daily rate, check what hours your gardener intends to work. A person who works from 9.30 to 3.30 with an hour for lunch is far more expensive than someone who works 8am through 4pm.
6. If your gardener might borrow your tools, mark them clearly. It’s hard to work out later which muddy spade is yours.
7. Never pay in advance.
8. Make it clear that you will always ask for receipts for money spent on your behalf.
9. Once a project has been started, don’t feel trapped into carrying on with the same person; it will only be harder to sort out later. If you’re having second thoughts, shop around and see if you can find someone better.
10. Don’t assume that just because your gardener works outside, he or she is skilled at other things such as fencing, building walls or laying a path. You might just end up with an expensive disappointment.

Above all, stay in control! It’s your garden, you are going to live with the results, and it should be a source of happiness and not regret for missed chances.

Today is the last day of summer. Just so you can bring it to mind when you read this, I am writing on 5 September and the weather forecasters have told us with dour satisfaction that that’s it, today concludes our blast of heat and tomorrow and forever after, we will be feeling a lot colder.

So this morning I packed my children back off to a new term at school and set off to enjoy a walk to the Misbourne Valley whilst it was still cool. And it struck me that it was a pure, quintessentially English morning, such as we only get on the cusp of autumn. The fields were grey and obscured by a low mist and the elder trees heavy with purple berries. I lost count of the number of spider webs clinging delicately to a conifer hedge, their silk rimmed with dew. And there was that cool in the air that sharpens you, and doesn’t make you shiver. It was the most beautiful walk I have had this year.

Autumn is also coming to my garden which begins to look somewhat ragged, but the fruits of this season’s work are there – a greenhouse of slowly reddening tomatoes, huge round courgettes, yellowing butternuts, onions raising themselves out of the soil and apples weighing down the boughs of my small trees. There are more blackberries around than is polite in a cultivated garden, but they’ll be nice in pies, and I am sure to get around to taking out the brambles....soon.

I’m rather a slapdash gardener, and any success is more down to luck than any skill, but nevertheless it’s lovely to see the changing of the seasons in my garden and reflected in the wider world. We’ve had a great summer, and autumn will be truly lovely too.

Article - Buckinghamshire Advertiser - Summer 2013

Ho, hum, the weather, eh? Can’t live with it – can’t live without it. Last year, I had an almost total crop failure. I don’t count slugs as a crop and they were the only thing prospering in my garden, the merchant bankers of my veg patch, growing fat and smarmy at the cost of everything else. The only unexpected saving grace was that I had a bumper, late crop of tomatoes – by November the vines were sagging, weighed down with huge quantities of very green tomatoes which I harvested, put in brown paper bags to ripen and then feasted off as they reddened throughout the winter. Oh, I loved the pretention of serving luscious scarlet tomato salad to friends in January saying – ‘help yourselves – they’re from our garden, you know’. ‘No!’ ‘Oh yes!’

Things aren’t a whole lot better this year. Everything’s late, but at least it’s not so wet (and by the time you read this, we may well be deep into an August drought). But it’s ok. It’s not a matter of life or death; if my harvests fail, I’ll pop to the supermarket or see what local farmers have managed to drag up through the soil.

But. What if the timing of the seasons really matters to you? What if my family was relying on what I could grow in my garden? What is happening in other areas of the world where the increasing unpredictability of weather is making subsistence farming increasingly fraught? As an Oxfam report on Tajikistan sets out, climate change ‘is affecting agriculture... and threatening the food security of thousands of people who depend on small-scale subsistence farming for their survival. Intense droughts, extensive flooding and increased frequency of weather-related shocks are becoming more apparent, and hitting poor people hardest’.

So when the birds get into my strawberries, or I’m complaining about my wrinkled beetroots, paucity of cucumbers and brussel sprouts that promise much but deliver little– I’ll try to put my lot in that context.


Oxfam reference – ‘Climate change: Beyond coping. Women smallholder farmers in Tajikistan’ .

Atmospheric Anger

I have this idea about anger. It's like global warming. Really, it is. We all feel it, we don't take responsibility for it or try hard enough to control it and then it heats and distorts the environment, first on a local level and then globally. There are, of course, lots of things about which to get angry. Some righteously, some randomly. When people get angry, their behaviour is then predicated on this emotion. I'm saying people; I am so including myself here. I react with anger automatically.

Actually, 'automatically' is a bit of a cop out - it's by choice, if I'm not going to let myself off the hook. It's just that it happens so fast that I don't intercede. I could step in and change my behaviour. And anger begets anger. I start mouthing through my windscreen at some twit who has cut me up, and they start throwing the 'v' signs and feeling self-righteous. Neither of us steps back to think whether there is another way of dealing with this situation.

And then all this anger rises up in a poisonous cloud which heats up the atmosphere and nobody started it and everyone is used to it so we all live with it and don't know how to change and can't get a corporate movement started to make change happen. And anger, just like fossil fuel use, is hard-wired into our society. For instance, we watch soap operas on telly where nobody listens to anyone else but scowls and snorts and relationships collapse, and then we listen to Today in Parliament and it's the same but with posher accents and worse actors. And journos shock us with more and more violent stories because they're not getting the outraged reaction often enough, and sometimes they even tell us that we are angry when we didn't realise we were....and then we are shocked and saddened that people are killing each other in far off lands.... Only we are doing the same here.

Stress kills people, anger destroys, knives are pulled out more readily and with less cause. I guess that we still tolerate it as it feels at more manageable levels and for most of us, not in our immediate community. There are a few voices raised about it but really it's seen as someone else's problem.

Which is funny, because that's exactly how we feel about global warming in this country. Not our problem, affects people far away, and only marginally us, and we're not a global community, so let's close the door and cuddle up and donate something to Comic Relief and then that's fine. Bollocks. Oops, there I go again.

Wadebridge, Cornwall

http://www.wren.uk.com/wren-films.html

Have a look at what people are doing in Wadebridge - inspiring stuff. People power - Yay!!

Landfill

Landfill - possibly the biggest example of sweeping a problem under the carpet.....

To fly or not to fly?

I have a very good friend who is a committed environmentalist. She goes on marches, doesn’t shop in supermarkets, has done a degree in environmental protection – and is intelligent and informed. I recently spoke to her and she mentioned that she would be out of contact for a while as she was going on holiday – to Dubai.

I know her well enough to ask the question which I don’t usually dare ask – which was – ‘how do you justify that, from an environmental point of view?’ To which she replied – ‘I don’t’. She added that she allows herself the quota of one flight a year, and that if everyone did that, then flying would not be the major issue in global warming which it is. Furthermore, she does not see that she needs to try to make up for other people’s contribution to global warming – it’s all about personal responsibility rather than one small group trying to save the world.

This is my attempt to work my way through the emotional issue that is air travel, and the contradiction that so many people have picked up before me, namely, that environmentalists seem for the most part to stop short at denying themselves the option of flying.

As a family, our personal dilemmas are these: first, we love love love to travel – a child of parents who both worked for airlines, I grew up using ‘planes as international buses; hop on, hop off. Secondly, we have made innumerable changes to our lives because of our views on climate change, but not to fly seems an enormous sacrifice. Thirdly, we have 2 kids who want to explore their world. What decisions should we make on their behalf? Fourthly, do we need to try to compensate for all the people who do fly by completely cutting it out of our lives? Fifthly, will we, if we end up rationing ourselves to, say one flight every 2 years, be considered as hypocrites, either by ourselves or others?

In the following paragraphs, I am looking at personal, rather than business travel. However, let me briefly say that whilst business travel has reduced somewhat in the UK, it still seems to be broadly justified by employees on the basis that it is part of the job and it is a reasonable request by the employer that cannot be refused; for businesses, that it is part of the wealth creation process and an economic reality. Indeed, this is a stumbling block for governments too – the argument is that aviation generates 8% of global GDP. These accepted excuses should be questioned, just as much as individual flying.

In the interests of openness, I should declare that whilst we haven’t travelled by ‘plane as a family for almost 3 years, Hugh makes occasional business trips. He has stopped flying outside Europe and takes trains to Paris and Brussels, but nevertheless, he feels obliged to fly in some cases. And in 2009 I jumped on a ‘plane faster than you can say environmental pollution when a friend of my father’s died unexpectedly abroad and I went, with my Dad, to the funeral.

I am going to look at the following issues:
1.The environmental impact of flying – we’re all told that flying is bad for the environment – but what’s the small print?
2.What are the options for reducing this impact?
3.What are the options for people who want to travel?

The environmental impact of flying
1.Air travel is not only just about the worst form of transport in terms of greenhouse emissions per passenger mile, it also enables people to travel so much further – so they emit a huge amount in a very short time. For instance – a round trip for 2 from London to San Fran emits the equivalent of about 5 tonnes of CO2. Or –10 months of domestic gas and electricity use for one home or driving 20,000 miles in an average car.

So even if, for argument’s sake, emissions per passenger mile in a 'plane were the same as in a car (which they’re not) – we tend to fly so much further than we would ever drive. The mean distance we drive in a year is 9,200 miles. We can easily fly that in a day.

2.Secondly - in 2009, civil aviation accounted for about 2% of global CO2 emissions, so do we really have to get into a stew about it? Well yes – because -

a)The vast majority of flights are taken by people in richer countries – so if you look at emissions per country, rather than the average, then you see that in some countries it contributes disproportionately to global emissions. For instance, in the UK in 2005, the figure was 6.3%. So already that 2% has grown into a somewhat more significant figure.

To put this into a somewhat more visual context, every single day more than 2.5m people fly through the airspace directly over metropolitan Paris - equivalent to about a quarter of its population. Can you imagine?

b)But even the figure of 6.3 could be severely underestimating the UK’s real impact. Since international flights take off from one country and land in another, 50% of emissions are allocated to the country where the ‘plane takes off and 50% where the ‘plane lands. So if I fly to Bangladesh, Morocco or Mozambique, only the equivalent of my outward journey, rather than my round trip, is included in the total of UK emissions. This skews the figures as UK residents take up 2/3rds of the seats on an average 'plane landing or taking off from a British airport; seats are not allocated equally; you never hear the Captain over the intercom apologising for a delay which is caused because we haven’t got 50% of seats taken up by Bangladeshis, Moroccans or Mozambicans...yet these countries are still hit with 50% of the emissions on their national totals.

c)Not included in these stats are emissions from the aviation industry from causes other than flying – for instance, manufacture and transportation of kerosene which is aviation fuel, manufacture and maintenance of 'planes, airport buildings and support vehicles .

The Rough Guide to Green Living estimates that aviation’s true impact in the UK amounts to between 13 and 15% of our total greenhouse gas emissions. And most flying is done by a small proportion of the total population.

d)More bad news – the height at which ‘planes fly increases the environmental impact of their emissions. They emit loads of bad things – but let’s just look at one aspect: emissions of soot and water vapour. The hot, wet water vapour, carrying soot in suspension, belches out of the aeroplanes and mixes, at high altitude, with the cold air in the atmosphere. This forms the vapour trails that you can see from the ground which are called ‘contrails’. Contrails then give rise to Cirrus clouds. These increase the impact of the greenhouse effect because they trap heat which would otherwise escape from the earth. During the day they also have the positive, counteractive effect of reflecting incoming sunlight, but at night their impact is all one way. Even during the day, the net effect is negative.

Whilst the science in this area is not totally solid, scientists in this field apply a multiplier of around two – ie the total environmental impact of a ‘plane ‘is approximately twice as high as its CO2 emissions’ . George Monbiot quotes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change applying a multiplier of 2.7 .

e)Even more bad news: Aviation emissions have been growing faster than any other source of greenhouse gases. Between 1990 and 2004, the number of people using airports in the UK rose by 120%, and the energy the planes consumed increased by 79%. In the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87% between 1990 and 2006. India has been spending more than $12bn on airport building. In 2006, its airlines had 330 new aircraft on order, to increase its fleet from 200 to 530. India's minister for aviation predicts that by 2020 up to 2,000 planes could be operating. China said in 2006 that it planned to buy 100 new planes every year over the next five years .

So this is an industry that is taking little notice of global warming, answering the demand of a growing proportion of the population which does not connect their flying with climate change. Or maybe people feel that they switch their lights off and recycle their cardboard and therefore they can fly to the Maldives on holiday with a clear conscience that they have done their ‘little bit’.

But before I give over to rant mode – let’s consider – are there options for reducing the impact of flying on the environment?

Technological possibilities
There have been advances in technology – the aeronautical industry claims that it has already made its fleet more efficient, by lowering weight, improving aerodynamics, fine-tuning engines and a range of other measures. But this doesn’t stop the trend of more and more people getting on planes and flying, so improvements in efficiency seem to me to be at best marginal.
Is it likely that a new engine will be developed and used which is massively more efficient, or uses a sustainable fuel? Well, as far as aircraft engines are concerned there don’t seems to be any new designs out there that make fundamental changes to the basic gas turbine that was designed in 1947. Secondly, and maybe more crucially, since planes bought today have a service life of up to 60 years, the current technology is embedded in the industry for a long time.

What about a different fuel?
Various have been considered but all are impractical. You can accept this statement and skip the next paragraph or if you’re really interested, read it.

The choice of low carbon fuels for aeroplanes is similar to the choice of low carbon fuels for cars. It is technically possible to fly planes whose normal fuel is mixed with about 5% biodiesel. Small difference, and anyway, biodiesel has already been shown not to be the answer to all our problems.
Ethanol is another fuel that has been suggested. However, it is a poor performer.Hydrogen is totally impractical. (According to George Monbiot, aircraft ‘could use hydrogen today, if instead of carrying passengers and freight they carried nothing but fuel – it contains four times less energy by volume than kerosene. But if this problem could be overcome, the researchers suggest, the total climate impacts of planes fuelled by the gas “would be much lower than from kerosene”. Unfortunately, when hydrogen burns, it creates water. A hydrogen plane will produce 2.6 times as much water vapour as a plane running on kerosene. This, they admit, would be a major problem if hydrogen planes flew as high as ordinary craft. But if the aircraft flew below 10,000 metres (33,000ft), where contrails are less likely to form, the impact would be negligible. However, because hydrogen requires a far bigger fuel tank than kerosene, the structure of the plane would need to be much larger. This means it would be subject to more drag.The only real alternative is “synthetic” kerosene made not from oil but natural gas, biogas or coal. It has the major advantage of working within current aircraft and therefore does not need new costly infrastructure. In fact, there are already ‘planes flying in South Africa fuelled on this technology – but made from coal and therefore not offering any significant emissions advantage over kerosene.

Taxation
Is taxation a viable method to reduce demand and therefore emissions from aviation?
There are two possible targets to tax, passengers or the airline companies. Passengers already pay Air Passenger Duty, so if this is the chosen method to reduce demand, then this could be tweaked, controversial as it would be.
The easiest way to tax airlines, so that you could catch both national and international carriers, is to tax aviation fuel. Currently, there is no tax on aviation fuel. So tax on petrol, tax on wine, beer, cigarettes, income and death – but no tax on aviation fuel.That in itself is an interesting idea - why this exception? Why does this industry effectively have this subsidy?

Anyway, enough of the tangent. Could the UK take unilateral action on this front and introduce an aviation fuel tax? Well, it wouldn’t work too well, and would potentially damage the economy as airlines would try to fuel abroad and avoid the UK hubs.

The common feeling is that, for such a tax to succeed, it would have to be introduced worldwide, rather than piecemeal – in other words, by international treaty. An international treaty means international agreement which history has shown is hard to achieve. And we’ve all seen from Kyoto how toothless a treaty is without all key global players signing up.

However, there seems to be a chink of light at the end of the taxation tunnel...the global airline industry may be forced to join the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) on 1 January 2012. This legislation imposes a carbon trading system that already includes most other polluting industries.

Connie Hedegaard, the Commissioner for Climate Action at the European Union (EU) says, "It seems high time that this polluter-pays principle is finally also applied to aviation's greenhouse gas emissions”.

However, and predictably, the highly competitive airline industry is in an uproar over the proposed tax policy with some media predicting a "global trade war" in the future.

Guess which states oppose this the most? The non-EU governments most opposed to the plan are the United States, China, India and Russia.

Carriers in the United States have taken the EU to the European Court of Justice for including airlines in the emissions trading scheme. The results of the case will be known on October 6 and will set a precedent for all other airlines.

Solutions
As ever, there are personal, national and global solutions to this issue.

Global solutions are unlikely to happen. An international treaty is nowhere on the horizon, and few governments are prepared to priotritise global warming to the extent of taking unilateral action.

Nationally, there are more alternatives, although again, no government is going to want to put its economy in a less competitive position if that is the outcome of adopting such polices.

So, a government can legislate for a system that assigns every person a number of allowed air miles per year, and allow them to buy or sell these, (emission trading), or it can bring in a system of taxation.

So that leaves the somewhat uncomfortable personal.

As individuals, we can take the decision to stop flying. So many places in the UK and Europe are very beautiful and accessible by car or train. We can have fabulous holidays without going anywhere near a ‘plane.

Alternatively, we can personally ration the amount of flying we do – ie one flight a year, one flight every 3 years, whatever. We can also take action to set off our emissions.

Conclusion

This is a tough issue, and one where personal circumstances have a place, eg if family and close friends live abroad then obviously it is impractical to say that flying is a thing of the past. For me, I will probably go for the rationing option and fly once every 2 to three years. I am deeply uncomfortable with that, however, because even though it is not up to me and me alone to save the world, (and I can’t do it anyway without most other people engaging in this fight) there is no getting around the environmental damage that flying wreaks on the planet, and do I want to be a part of that?


References:
The Rough Guide to Green Living
Leo Hickman – Is it ok to fly? Guardian, 20 May 2006
The Rough Guide to green Living
The Rough Guide to green Living
George Monbiot – On the Flight Path to global meltdown – Guardian, 21 September 2006
Leo Hickman – Is it ok to fly? Guardian, 20 May 2006
CNN GO 6 September 2011
http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/pay-us8-carbon-footprint-trip-europe-2012-512086