A Greenish woman's diary

Costing not less than everything

2011-08-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

As so often before, I've left a long time between posts. But being greenish has been looming large in my awareness lately, and a good deal of the reason has been this year's Swarthmore Lecture.

The Swarthmore is an annual lecture given at the time of the Quaker Yearly Meeting, the annual nationwide get-together for decision making and inspiration, and 'to see each other's faces'. This year it was residential at the University of Kent at Canterbury, with some 1500 Quakers and their families, including the Junior Yearly Meeting for 16-18 year olds: my lovely granddaughter was one of the Clerks (chair people). The Swarthmore was given by Pam Lunn, with the title at the head of this entry - it comes from T S Eliot's well known 'Four Quartets'.

The lecture was both information and a challenge: it showed that for the human race to survive we need to act now in radical ways, and set out a path for saving the planet with us still on it. My response, as the lecture called for, was both personal - what I will do myself - and corporate, thinking of what Quakers collectively might do.

One thing I've been aware of for some time is how fortunate I am to have the immense luxury of a whole house to myself. Yes, it's only a little two bed mid terrace house in the North East of England, not everyone's idea of a des res, but in global terms it's unashamed luxury, not that far removed from the Queen living in Buckingham Palace (which she doesn't have to herself anyway). So I've suggested that several single people might live communally, having their own living space within a largish house but sharing things you don't need to have exclusive use of, like a washing machine and a lawnmower, and even a car. My own little yellow treasure, Buttercup, stays in my back yard more days than not: someone else could be using her if they needed a car rather than buying one themselves. She's very low emissions (and hence costs only £30 a year to tax) and economical to run. I put this suggestion in our local Quaker newsletter, and so far have had one positive response.

Corporately, it occurred to me that the world-wide Quaker body is running a gathering next year in Kenya, and inviting a thousand Quakers to it from all over the world. Most will fly, and for most it will mean a long haul flight, if not two. The carbon footprint will be huge. So I've written to 'The Friend', the national Quaker weekly periodical, calling for it to be cancelled as a way of matching our actions to our words. If they publish it, it will undoubtedly stir up some controversy. But I'm serious: 'Quakers cancel international conference to avoid carbon footprint' would make a good headline, and show that we are serious in calling for radical action to halt global warming and help sustain the planet. The conferences, normally every three years, do bring Quakers together on a global level, and are (I'm told, I've never been to one) enjoyable and inspiring occasions. But I don't think any major outcome has resulted from any of the previous ones, and to make a very public act of reducing our contribution to greenhouse gases might well have a bigger and more beneficial result for the planet as a whole. So my call is a serious one. I'll try to keep up on here with the consequences, if indeed the letter is published in the first place.

I'm uncomfortably aware, of course, that last year I flew some thirty thousand miles to Australia and Aetearoa New Zealand and back, travelling amongst Quakers in the former and holidaying with my sister in the latter. I've wanted to go back to Australia ever since: but I'm beginning to sense that my own contribution to this movement will be not to do so. I can't even really justify the one long haul flight I'm likely to make before I settle to being an old lady, to India to see the Taj Mahal: it will be simply self indulgence, and maybe when the time comes I'll eschew that one too. And going back to Los Gigantes in Tenerife: that may take some soul-searching. But you don't have to be perfect to suggest good deeds to others: if you did then none of us would make any such suggestions, and the world would be a poorer place. It does remind me of an old prayer, 'Lord, make me chaste, but not yet....'. Apart from the Australia trip, I'd done only six long haul return flights in my life, plus twice to Tenerife and back: more than some, less than others. But maybe nobody is 'entitled' to a share of air travel: on a planetary level, we should all be campaigning for its abolition, however unlikely that may seem.

Maybe I'll go by boat.....

Ten out of ten?

2011-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

I've been reminded, this week, of the 'Ten-Ten' challenge. This was to reduce one's personal carbon footprint by 10% during a twelve month period starting at a date of one's own choosing some time during 2010 from the previous 12 months.

I really don't think much to this kind of attempt to jolly people into turning off the lights more: hasn't the rise after rise in electricity prices been incentive enough? And whenever we pick the arbitrary start date, why on earth didn't we start reducing our footprint before that date anyway? For myself, the task was easy: having flown around 30,000 miles between February and mid April 2010, all I had to do was to choose to start on May 1st and I was bound to have more than exceeded the 10% target reduction, because I was going to fly very much less during the year from May 2010 to May of this year. I've flown from Newcastle to Newquay and back, in a greenish little aeroplane - well, back was a tiny little thing as far as Bristol where I broke the journey, and then dear old EasyJet Airbus back, but with payment conscientiously made for the carbon offsetting. I doubt me if I'll be flying anywhere again before May, though the idea of a week in Tenerife is still a desirable one.

We saw so much, with the previous government, how targets don't improve what you do but distort it so as to achieve some almost random measure of 'performance'. Tony Blair was amazed to find that his targets for people seeing doctors resulted in worse appointment systems, not better ones, but it was inevitable given the way the target was set up. If you want everyone to be seen within two days of making an appointment, clearly you can't let people make appointments for a week ahead, however much they might want to. So in setting green targets, there's little point in asking people to make some particular reduction in their carbon output: they'll have done all the reasonable things already, and this will only antagonise them because there are lengths to which most folk simply won't go that would be required to do any more, at least of any significance.

And in fact I'm not convinced that personal micromanagement is of much use anyway. When Apartheid ruled in South Africa, I boycotted South African goods, but I had no illusions that this would in any way affect the South African economy: it affected me, and that was why I did it. I happened to read, a couple of months ago, that the airline Emirates has ordered no fewer than 90 Airbus 380 aircraft, the double decker super-jumbo that seats up to 700 passengers, and most of these are yet to be delivered. Bearing in mind that these aircraft will be flying more hours than not, in order to earn their keep, the amount of carbon emissions involved dwarfs any savings any individual might make: and that's just one airline. So what is needed is not individuals making tiny changes but groups and mass movements calling for a change in corporate and governmental attitudes. I've said before that the kids may feel they're doing their bit by turning the tap off when cleaning their teeth, but they'd do better to wave posters saying 'Tax flying now' or even 'limit flying now'. A global personal limit of so many miles per person per year, transferable at a set price, would do a lot more to limit air traffic and cut down the huge growth in emissions in this area which goes against the promised Governmental trend of reducing overall the national emissions. After all, less and less do business personnel have to physically travel nowadays: the meeting can be held by virtual conference in several parts of the globe simultaneously, and it works perfectly well - I've done it. I've sat in Newcastle and joined in a meeting in Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol - and it could just as well have been Birmingham, Alabama as Birmingham, England. So why fly across the atlantic when you can internet! It's this kind of attitude we need to cultivate.

When I went to Australia, I squandered some of my inheritance and went business class. Oh, believe me, it makes a huge, huge difference. It makes the journey a delight rather than a trial, and it really does deliver the businessman ready to do business. I arrived in Adelaide at 7.30 am, normally a disastrous time for me, after about 30 hours continuous travelling with two changes of plane, and felt rested, refreshed, well fed and watered and ready to go. I'd slept a good deal, eaten and drunk as I pleased, been entertained and pampered and really enjoyed the whole thing. I can now understand why someone I'd heard of, whose father was a BA employee and so who got a ration of free air travel, went business class to Sydney for the weekend: the fun was in the journey, never mind breathing the fresh air of Sydney Harbour. If nations agreed to abolish business class, I'd predict that flying would hugely decrease. You'd probably have to abolish First as well, except for Royalty perhaps, and there would be howls of protest: but you'd have a diminishing rather than a growing air transport industry.

Maybe these suggestions are nonsense, maybe they wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, maybe the vested interests are too deeply entrenched for anything like that to happen. Bristolians who assemble the airbus wings certainly wouldn't be happy at the prospect of losing their jobs. But my point is that global warming is on a global scale, and needs global scale measures to tackle it: little domestic improvements, even if done by millions, will hardly scratch the surface.

So until then, pardon me if I fly to Cornwall rather than suffer Arriva Cross Country, with the first four hours of the run home having not so much as a cup of tea available on board. Alongside the ninety super jumbos of Emirates, it really won't make too much difference.

Carry on blogging!

2010-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of my own difficulties in keeping up a blog is that once anything is finished, I find it hard to 'finalise' it: hence the ends of bits of blog tend not to get written. So I never wrote up the end of my Grand Tour, which included a very pleasant drive through wonderful Autumn colours, a visit to the ballet in Plymouth, a visit to another historic Quaker meeting house in Long Sutton, Somerset, a trip round Stonehenge and a delightful day in Reading with two old friends.

However, all that is in the past and I'm in Cornwall again, having flown down this time (in, I have to say, one of the greenest of aircraft, if any aircraft can be considered green!). We were only just able to land because of fog, which had caused us to be diverted from Plymouth, the scheduled first port of call, to Newquay where I was going anyway! But flying was both a good deal cheaper and much quicker than travelling by train, and I do find nowadays that long train journeys in standard class are a real trial: I end up feeling cramped and arthritic and quite out of sorts, which is why I travel First whenever I can, and when it's not too much extra.

Cornwall so far has been a bit damp and windy, but it's nowhere near as cold as back home in Newcastle. It was up to a balmy ten degrees earlier today! I have been wondering, in the very cold spell the whole country has had in general and the North East worse than most, at least in England, what happened to global warming, and please could we have a bit of it here just now? I can understand, having had snow in the garden for over a month continuously, why people wonder if it's really happening at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm a believer, but sometimes as I shiver I do just long for the summer days, and when I see the pictures of the Test Matches I ache to be back in Australia!

So a definitely not-all-that-Green visit this time: but looking forward to the New Year's Eve celebration with my good friends, knowing there will be a wonderful meal tomorrow and the setting off of rockets and skylanterns to celebrate the start of 2011. May it fulfil all its promises! And maybe I'll keep this blog up more regularly too.

The Grand Tour, days 7 and 8

2010-10-20T04:08:00.000-07:00

Down in Cornwall at last, this is the far point of the tour. I'm with my friend Angie and her partner: and I'm here a day earlier than originally planned because of changes to the schedule due to my inadequate communications! So on Saturday I was able to have a quiet day, helping with the shopping and then going for a very enjoyable walk in rhe local woods in the sunshine

On Sunday I had the delight of going to Come-to-Good Meeting. This is in a very special Meeting House, Grade I listed and dating from 1710. I'd wanted to go for ages, but this was the first time I'd been in Cornwall with the car, which was necessary. My trusty SatNav Daisy found the way without difficulty, and I arrived in very good time. The benches were a little rigorous, but there were also chairs and cushions to put on them, and that was a good compromise. It was a lovely meeting, all about simplicity, and I enjoyed chatting with Friends (two of whom I knew) afterwards.

After Sunday Lunch with relatives of my hosts, I was able to have a pleasant and lazy afternoon nap before going to take photographs of a church parade that happened to be that day. We ended the day with a scratch supper and a bout of television watching: definitely a day of resting from our labours!

So on the whole an uneventful two days: but the next two were planned to be much more active. Watch this space!

The Grand Tour, days 5 and 6

2010-10-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

One reason for stopping overnight in Ross on Wye was its proximity to Slimbridge. I've been a member of the Wildfowl and Wetlands trust for some years now, mainly to go round the Washington wildfowl park, and had not visited any of their other places. So I made a relatively early start, and headed for the Slimbridge wetlands area.
It's quite a big place, with pond, riverside and estuary areas, and I walked round most of it. Birds were in abundance, including three different kinds of flamingo! Nothing much of the rarer birds, though: a man clearly much more expert than me told me there were three Ruffs on the far side of the pond I could see, but my little binoculars couldn't pick them out. However, even on a dull morning it was an enjoyable experience, and I spent a couple of hours there before heading southwards to my next port of call, Glastonbury.
I arrived there mid-afternoon, and spent the best part of two more hours walking round the square of the town and looking at shops (so much New Age, so much tourist tat). Arriving at the far corner, I passed the Chalice Well - a lovely garden, as I know from a previous visit - but decided instead to take the exercise of climbing the Tor. It took me twenty minutes of hard climb, but such good exercise: just a pity the still misty day meant that the view was not all it might have been. And here's the photographic evidence that I made it!
My hotel was about three miles out, a charming place once the summer home of the Abbot of Glastonbury. The room was more luxurious than the one in Ross, but had less putting place and was in fact somewhat smaller, though with a bigger bathroom. I unpacked, snoozed and then drove back into Glastonbury for an Indian meal - as ever in Indian restaurants, there was enough for two, but I was good and didn't over-eat.
It had been a busy day, and I slept well.
Next morning the weather was still dull, and after breakfast I decided that rather than going back to visit the Chalice Well garden, I'd get on and get down to Cornwall. I made good time and arrived at Mike and Sue's in time for a bite of lunch. We always fall almost into the conversation we had last time we met, it's a delightfully easy relationship. After a bit I went for a snooze: Mike and Sue had their Home Group at someone else's house in the early evening, so I was able to do very little and watch the news before enjoying Sue's tasty echilladas and watching Dad's Army (recorded) and New Tricks (live). A pleasant end to the day!

The Grand Tour, days 3 and 4

2010-10-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, Christine (my hostess) was back at work, so I had the day to myself. I'd originally thought of taking the train into Liverpool: being very much a city woman, I could see myself enjoying just wandering around, looking at one or two of the many museums and art galleries, finding a nice bite to eat and coming home early enough for a relaxing nap. However, the day dawned rather dull, and I was feeling a little tired after the exertions of yesterday: so instead I had a very quiet and lazy morning, doing not very much, and then taking the local bus into Chester. Christine had mentioned a tour at the Grosvenor Museum starting at 2, and I thought it might be interesting to go on this. So I found a place for a light(ish) lunch - jacket potato and something or other - and then went up to the museum, arriving in good time. I checked at the desk that there was indeed a tour at 2, and the man said yes: and sure enough, a tour guide appeared - and started checking names on a list! So I asked her if I could come as well, and she said that it was fully booked. Neither Christine nor the man at the desk had said anything about booking. The guide said that not everyone had turned up, so there might still be a space, so I waited. In the end, she took all 25 who had booked and five more 'hopefuls' like me who hadn't. Now I'd thought it was a tour of the museum: but in fact it was a walk around the town, looking at evidence of viking occupation. In fact there is very little of this, and most of it not now visible: excavations have found post-holes and odd bits of wattle and daub, but not much more. But there have been three finds of silver hordes, mostly coins: and apparently both DNA and name evidence makes it pretty clear that vikings did settle in this part of the world, around 700 - 950 or so. The walk ended with bits I'd see with Christine the previous day, so I left it then and went back home after a fruitless search for cheap headphones, having left mine at home by mistake.
This was my last evening in Chester, and Christine - happy birthday, it was indeed hers that day - took me to her film club to see a fascinating Belgian film about a Belgian girl going to work for a big Japanese corporation. She finds a major clash of culture, and the Japanese staff do nothing to help her adjust to their ways. She sticks it out to the end of her one year contract, and then goes home and becomes a successful writer. 'Fear and Trembling' (the way one is supposed to approach the Emperor) was well worth seeing, though there were problems with what it was trying to say and how far it was a Belgian view of Japanese corporate life rather than a real one. Worth a try should you see it on offer, though.

Next day I took Christine to work in Wrexham on my way south. I'd intended to call in at the Nightingales factory shop in Craven Arms, but sadly this is no more: this lovely clothing company is now part of the J D Williams group, and is in my view likely to decline as a result. So I pressed on to Ludlow, a place I'd visited a few years ago and enjoyed, and this time I had time to go round the castle. Edward V and his brother Richard both lived here as young boys: a lovely place to live, I should think, with comfortable quarters (lots of fireplaces in evidence!) and beautiful countryside to explore.
I had lunch in the same wholefood cafe as before, the Olive Branch (highly recommended if you're in Ludlow), and then drove on, guided by Daisy (my satnav, called Daisy because she goes with my little yellow car which is called Buttercup) to Ross on Wye, my overnight stop. I went into the town centre first and had a brief walk round, enjoying a riverside walk and a look at a few possible eating places. Then I (or rather Daisy) found my B & B, and very comfortable it was too, and in walking distance of town. I had a snooze, then followed the landlady's recommendation and ate at the Kings Arms. Christine is a vegetarian, and I'm not, so I settled for a locally produced Cotswold Steak with a superb blue cheese sauce, beautifully cooked vegetables - four of them - and new potatoes rather than chips. All in all an excellent feast, and a good way to end day four of the tour.

The Grand Tour - first two days

2010-10-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

At last! my long planned tour of various friends in various parts of the UK has finally got under way. Not without incident: alas, the Open Golf in Wales meant that the dates I'd hoped to make a visit there coincided with a postponed start of the University term, so my lovely friend Tracey couldn't have me to stay on those dates: and due to my own stupidity in not confirming a rather informal suggestion that I visit in Bristol, my relative there found that this was the busiest week of her year and it really wasn't a good time for me to go! However, such things can also be opportunities, and so I'm going to be able to have some time in Ross on Wye, a place I've not been to since I was about 15, and Glastonbury where I've not been for 15 years (this is the town, not the festival). So I'm looking forward to some quiet, peaceful times in both those places.
So here I am, at the first port of call in Chester. I arrived on Sunday evening, and before even unpacking the car much I started work in the kitchen. Christine, my hostess, had herself only just got home from a working weekend, so I'd said I would bring the wherewithal to make stuffed peppers for supper (she's a vegetarian), and another mutual friend joined us. I always enjoy cooking for people and this was no exception: and we had a very pleasant meal with good conversation and a totally quaffable bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Next day dawned a superb, cloudless sight, and it seemed a shame to follow Plan A and do some computer education and book Christine a coach journey on line. So we went into Chester, on foot as we had, it turned out, missed the local bus due to the timetable having been altered, and looked at the ruins of St. John's church which was founded in Saxon times. It's a fascinating building: it was once the Cathedral in Chester, and King Edgar, having been actually crowned at Bath Abbey, came there for his Lords to pay homage to him. Then we went on past what you can see of the amphitheatre, which would be the largest Roman amphitheatre in Britain if it were not half under buildings, one of which is Grade II listed despite having little architectural merit, in my eyes at least. We had time to walk part of the walls before going home to lunch.

After lunch we went to pick up Christine's friend Irene and then drove up to Studley Hall, once home of the Holt family (the Holt shipping line was in existence until some time after the war). Here there was a fascinating collection of paintings, the personal collection of George Holt, and very impressive: it included Turners, Burne Jones, Rosetti and other pre-Raphaelite artists as well as earlier ones such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. What a feast! We had a thoroughly enjoyable time looking at many rooms full of pictures before having tea outside and then taking a walk in the park before going home.

Not just the Amazon Rainforests

2010-03-31T01:50:00.000-07:00

Interesting to learn, in the National Museum of Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Papa, that before the Maori people came here about a thousand years ago, a very high proportion of the lowlands of this country was forest. Maori needs and practices cut this down by a fair amount: but when the white settlers started moving in, around 1840, even more forest was cut down to make farmland, and much of that was to supply the UK with cheap meat and dairy products. The New Zealand Lamb industry, for so long a mainstay of the British food supply, had meant the clearing of forests long before the concerns about MacDonalds chopping down stuff in Brazil for beef ranching. So the connection between meat-eating and the environment goes back a long way. Now, the lowlands here are 51% grassland, well above the world average of 37%, and most of that used to be for sheep, though in recent years market forces have made many farmers switch to cattle.

Having said that, it's not going to change in a hurry, and I don't see any sign that New Zealand's contribution to climate change might be to replant forests. In a country where most of the electricity seems to be from renewable sources (there's a lot of scope for hydro here) I don't think the rest of us can complain that they aren't doing their bit already. But as the money in sheep farming declines, it might be an option, as indeed it might in many other places. Should replanting forests be on more nation's agendas?

Greening the neighbours

2010-03-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Brisbane: a city, apparently, in Transition. I'd not come across the Transition Towns movement until I went to the Sustainable Living festival in Melbourne. But here in Brisbane it's alive and well and about to flourish in the suburb of Tarragindi, where my hostess Valerie lives.

Valerie had gathered her immediate neighbours together to hear talks from three people: one on composting, one on being green generally and one on the Neighbourhood Watch; this over a shared tea party. About a dozen came, and the talks gave us a lot of food for thought. I learned a lot about composting, and realised I can deal with all my food waste in a better way with a small device called a Bohasi Bin, which will enrich my little patch of garden and reduce my landfill waste even further. I could also think about the rather defunct Neighbourhood Watch scheme which we used to have at home. And the whole idea of Transition Towns is something that the Quaker Meeting might consider as well. So there's a lot there to take home, starting with the idea of having your neighbours round, getting to know them and encouraging us all to be green together.

I found it interesting that in Australia the priorities are different. At home, with the huge Kielder reservoir, water is literally the least of our problems, whereas here it's the biggest one. This in spite of much of Queensland being flooded at the moment! They have real problems of water management, and are seeking ways for the surplus to be used more effectively. But they don't have problems of heat waste (they use air conditioning rather than central heating): they do have problems of transport, and it's just assumed that everyone has a car. Different strokes for different folks! But it's good that there is much environmental awareness here, more, I think, than in the UK. We've still a big task ahead to convince folk of the need to care for the planet.

Green or brown Australia!

2010-02-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

It was obvious, even coming in to land at Adelaide, that quite a lot of South Australia is brown rather than green at the moment. They’ve had a hot, hot summer: and part of the problem is that the main river, the Murray, is over-used further upstream for irrigation and so is nearly drying up by the time it gets to the sea.

Water shortage, my host Christine thinks, is the next big crisis here. If you ever doubted the reality of climate change, compare pictures of South Australia twenty years ago with how it is now. It’s amazing that they manage to grow so many grapes and make so much wine! But my host does a lot of water conservation, including having buckets in the shower – you fill these with the cold water whilst the warm is coming through (assuming that you don’t want to step straight into a cold shower!), and then it goes on the garden. They have a water tank to keep any rainwater, and sometimes they use it as the main water supply, with just a small filter tap for drinking water. And there may be more things I’ve not discovered yet.

I’ve certainly become more aware of the need to save water, in the few days I’ve been here. Back at home, where we have the huge reservoir at Kielder, there seems little point in taking fastidious measures to save tiny bits of something we have in plenty, even in the dry times of the present decade. But out here…and worldwide? I suspect that fresh water will be a big issue as climate change bites more and more.

Yet I don’t see any solar desalination here, or indeed hear of it anywhere much. These systems are basically a sheet of glass set at an angle to catch the sun, with a shallow lake of sea water behind and a run-off channel for condensed water next to the base of the glass. The sun heats and evaporates the sea water, and it condenses on the glass and trickles down into the channel. Energy required once built: zero! Just keep filling the sea water pans and collecting the fresh. This, on a large scale, could be a major help – couldn’t it?

Meanwhile, there are advantages to being in an area where wine is plentiful even if water isn’t!

Belinda on ice!

2010-02-01T00:31:00.000-08:00

The problem with having cycling as your main method of taking exercise is that it's not easy in winter. So when, a fortnight ago, Monday dawned bright and sunny, and the roads were clear of snow, I saw it as an opportunity both to be green and go shopping on Belinda, my trusty bicycle, and to take some much needed exercise.

I set out for Sainsbury's, starting off on the roads but very soon turning off onto a well tried bridle path, which runs down beside the Newcastle United training ground. The path is almost due south, and as I turned on to it the sun was shining directly in front of me: so it was quite difficult to see the actual surface of the path. I could just about make out the potholes, of which there were several, all full of water. Whoops! I slid a little, a couple of times, and so rode slowly and carefully as it seemed the path was very muddy. Then, inevitably, the back wheel slid right away and I came crashing to the ground: not a good thing for an overweight 67 year old. I came down heavily on my right hip, and it was only when I was lying on the ground that I realised the path was covered in ice. The snow may have gone from the roads, but sheltered paths with no traffic were a different matter.

I picked myself up, swearing in a lady-like manner, and turned round, walking Belinda as far as the road and then cycling gingerly back home. A quick inspection showed no obvious damage: I sat down and had a cup of tea and a piece of toast and marmalade (carbohydrate is good for shock), and felt much improved. That evening I went to a wonderful concert at The Sage, our local international standard concert hall: it was a recital given by Murray Perahia, one time winner of the Leeds piano competition and now a world famous performer. I had no problems sitting for two hours, and no particular pains: it was only the next day I saw I had a small bruise on my right hip. Two days later it had become a very large bruise: it's now fading, two weeks later.

But it was on the Friday, when I had to go to London for a meeting all day on Saturday, that my left knee began to give trouble. On Friday night it was difficult to sleep (and being in a strange bed in a hotel didn't help!), and by Sunday I was having some difficulty walking. I took it to the doctor, who said it often took a couple of weeks for the full effects to be apparent, but that by the time I go away (see my Antipodean Adventure blog) it should be improving, and the warmth of Australia should help.

I've always accepted that being Green had a cost: but this was an avoidable one, and not what I wanted just before a long trip away. Ah, well....maybe I also needed to slow down a bit and do only the essentials in preparation. Either way, it will be April or May before I take Belinda out again!

I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas...

2009-12-25T15:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a good day. I've done the traditional turkey, not being ready to be vegetarian, but with loads of vegetables: and one of my guests brought a bottle of Champagne with her, which was great. It's been the sort of Christmas I enjoy, relaxed and doing little other than cook the lunch (which I really enjoy doing).

We've used a good bit of energy, of course: I've had the heating on nearly all day, which I don't usually do even in the present cold snap. I find the house is well enough insulated that if I warm it up in the morning, it's warm enough until dusk when the outside temperature does start dropping fast and I begin to feel distinctly chilly. The neighbours on one side have been away, which doesn't help: when both neighbours are home I benefit from having little or no heat loss through the long party walls. The house was built before the days of cavity walls os I can't have cavity wall insulation: but the roof is well insulated and everywhere is double glazed.

I'm convinced that reduction in energy use has to be a major part of becoming a greener nation, a greener world. Less energy use means we won't need to decide what sort of power stations to build: the answer could be 'none', or relatively few.

Could I have been greener? Well, frankly, after finishing off the champagne, I couldn't really say. So I'll just wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas.

Green and white

2009-12-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

No, I've not become a Celtic fan: it’s been snowing! There’s been a fair covering, lying on the roads, though as my street is a major bus route it never stays too long. But my lovely little Buttercup is sitting firmly in the carport – well, car space, as there’s no roof at present – and if I need to go anywhere I’m using public transport.

And that’s a Greenish reflection: that the way to avoid driving in the snow is to go, as far as possible, on the bus. Yes, it’s slower and involves standing waiting in the cold: but it’s safer as well as less polluting. I went to Sainsbury’s today, waiting all of two minutes for the bus there and having to run for the one home! Mind you, I’m well aware how very fortunate I am to live where I have a bus to Sainsbury’s in one direction and Morrison’s in the other.

Meanwhile, news is coming in from Copenhagen, and it’s not good. I’m not at all convinced that it’s going to end in anything but failure, even if they do agree to some sort of statement. What is undoubtedly needed is measures that will hurt everyone to an extent, and the rich and powerful to a bigger extent, and nobody seems willing to agree to such measures. We do indeed seem to be in the Age of Stupid. What price the Green party getting a massive increase in their vote? It would be good to have some Green MPs, and if Gordon & Co. let us down seriously, it could happen.

A thought: should I have Christmas lights on, to give a bit of festive cheer, most of the time? I put them on at dusk, and turn them off when I go to bed at around midnight, and they are low power LED lights, but it’s still electricity, more than the TV takes on standby and I get told off if I leave that on. But I like my lights, I like to see them as I walk home down the street, making the place look a bit less gloomy than the wintry weather.

The house is getting full of food. I keep seeing these scrummy looking things, like a Stollen slice and some mini rum truffles, and three jars of fruit in something alcoholic (cherries in Kirsch, peaches in brandy, pears in..er.. red wine?, cos they were three for two), and I can’t resist them. So we move towards the usual situation on Christmas eve, when the house is full of food and there’s nothing to eat! There will be, though: not sure what I have down for next Thursday but I’m sure it’s something tasty. Could well be fish of some sort, as I won’t be having fish on the Friday – oh, yes I will, smoked salmon and cucumber on thin wholemeal bread and butter, for tea, along with leftovers, a bit of salad maybe, some humous perhaps…. Not to mention the Christmas cake which I’ve not iced yet. Might do that this evening. I have to make a trifle tomorrow for the Bring and Share lunch at Meeting, but I’ve all the ingredients for that. Really I should fast all day on Monday, in preparation, but I don’t suppose I will.

And meanwhile, they played the wonderful Harold Darke setting of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ on Classic FM just after I got into bed last night. And snow was indeed falling, snow on snow: and it was a magical moment. May all our Christmases be green and white!

One of those days

2009-12-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

For most people, 'one of those days' means one where everything goes wrong. But no, for me today was quite the opposite: it was a day when every moment seemed precious, when I was so moved to joy that I started singing, and when at the end of the day I took a major step to fulfilling a lifetime's ambition.

I awoke, after a not totally restful night, to a glorious morning: sunshine, blue sky, little wind. Definitely a day for Belinda (those who are new to this should know that Belinda is my trusty bicycle and means of keeping slightly fitter than a couch potato!) So after a healthy breakfast (cereal and scrambled egg) I grabbed the shopping list... and then had a thought. Almost ready for posting was a parcel for my grandson (Dan, if you're reading this, then the cat is well and truly out of the bag!) So I addressed it, found the parcel tape and taped it up more securely than the mere sellotape it had had before, and put it in a bag for attaching to Belinda's carrier.

Off I set, with the morning sun at my back. I have a standard route for exercise combined with shopping: about the first mile is on road, then I get onto a bridleway which goes up quite a hill, steep indeed at the end, and then a bit more on road before more bridleways which decant me just up from Morrison's. I was delighted to get up the steepest bit still riding: sometimes I have to get off and walk, but today - admittedly in the lowest gear going - I kept riding. The short stretch of road to the next bridleway has a lovely view out towards the coast - you can just about see the North Sea at one point - and from the vantage point of a quite high saddle you can see even more! I felt at peace, and very content, as I turned off the road: I was keeping fit, doing a useful task - indeed two, posting the present and shopping - and the sun shone so I was riding 'in the light', a good Quaker term! I began to sing 'Oh what a beautiful morning' as I rode along, being only slightly embarrassed when I realised that a couple of dog walkers had been in earshot.

Arriving at the shopping centre, I locked up the bike and took the parcel to the post office: over £5 postage! But my grandson is worth it and I've no other way of getting it to him this side of May: I just hope he likes it. (He's very computer literate and has his own blog, so I'm not going to say what was in the parcel as he could well read this!!) Then to the shop, to get milk and a few other things I needed: and then back home, a slightly long way round to avoid riding behind a lorry with the most dreadful exhaust emissions possible. It was smoky enough riding away from it!

After my usual light lunch (soup and garlic bread and a yoghurt) I went back to the kitchen and began work on the next task: making the Christmas cake. I love doing this sort of thing: it was great to find all the ingredients, prepare the tin, make the mix and set it to bake. Then I went to have a nap.

Just as I was ready to get up, a friend rang me and suggested meeting for lunch tomorrow: so I have that pleasant event in prospect. I went and took the cake out of the oven, stuck in a skewer to check it was cooked (it was) and left it to cool in the tin as the recipe says. Then, finally, I went for my 'morning' bath, a relaxing soak in sensuous aromatherapy bubbles. I got out just in time to get dressed and catch the Metro into town, to meet my friend Julia for a meal prior to yet another visit to our wonderful concert hall, The Sage Gateshead. A pleasant, if over-generous, pasta al forno and a bus ride which should have been about ten minutes but took 25 due to a silly, round the houses route and heavy Christmas traffic, and we were there. The concert was a Classic FM one, in every sense: Elgar, Vaughan William's exquisite 'The lark ascending' played as well as I've ever heard it by Bradley Creswick (who should be hetter known than he is), and then after the interval a vivacious performance of the Mozart Clarinet concerto, making this 'old chestnut' sound like a new and fresh piece. The concert ended with the emotive 'Variations on a theme of Thomas Tallis', a piece I've loved since I was a teenager and once wanted to use as the background for an anti-war film shot entirely in cemeteries.

So all in all a good day: and the icing on the cake was yet to come. I thought I'd do a preliminary sketch for a new blog: I'm going on a long trip to Australia and New Zealand next year, and I want to blog every day so friends back home can see what I'm doing. So to start it off I thought I'd write a bit of background as to why I was going, starting with a wish to go to the opera in Sydney. I wanted to mention the designer of the Opera House and couldn't remember his name, so I looked it up... and the site had an inviting link to 'buy tickets'. So after finishing the draft (far too long) of the blog entry, I went to see if booking had opened for March, and it had (unlike last time I went, a month ago). So I registered, looked up what was available (horribly expensive, one of the two seats I bought was over £100), threw caution to the winds and booked for my two favourite operas which happen to be the ones they're doing on the two dates I can go! One is La Traviata and the other is Tosca: and I have the seats booked and paid for, to collect on arrival. My lifetime ambition is one step closer! What a way to end a really good day.

The Road to Copenhagen

2009-12-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

I said I'd say a bit about the meeting. It's now a week plus later, and to be honest I don't remember all that much, except that there was in the end a good debate about coal fired power stations. One man, an experienced engineer, pointed out that if you replace an old coal fired power station running at 35% efficiency by a modern one, even without carbon capture, running at 46% efficiency then by building 'new coal' you're actually reducing CO2 emissions. This didn't go down too well with the green brigade, but to me the only answer is to ask how you can be sure it's a replacement and not an addition. That would be my worry.

I'm beginning to realise that a majority of people in the developed world are going to have to make major changes in their lifestyle if we are going to succeed in keeping global warming to a level where it won't be a total disaster. Those who suggest it's not man made miss the point, here: it's not in doubt that man contributes to greenhouse gases, and if that's the case than we can lower the rate of warming by contributing substantially less. (Actually, the world's major science academies all agree that the phenomenon is human caused: one researcher tried to find what the balance was between scientific papers in refereeed journals which supported the idea that global warming is man made and those that opposed that idea. She found the ratio was 100% in favour: no papers at all in her substantial sample suggested that this is a natural phenomenon. It's only irresponsible journalists like Melanie Phillips, on Question Time recently, who suggest differently: Melanie had the gall to say that the ice caps aren't melting and polar bears are thriving. She's clearly on a different planet: the evidence is overwhelming.

So what sort of changes will we all have to make? One suggestion is we should go vegan, because of the amount of methane produced by livestock. But I do wonder about this one... what about the methane produced by all those bean-eating vegans! I want to look for some proper research on this one, and haven't got round to that yet. And I don't believe we've evolved to be vegans. If the problem, then, is too many cows, surely the answer is eat less meat rather than no meat, and eat meat other than beef which is apparently the chief offender. Having just eaten a delicious piece of Farmers Market local leg of lamb, I'm not feeling in the least guilty. Maybe more insulation (but how many emissions were produced in making it?) and more public transport (but I've done only about 1500 miles in six months in the car, hardly heavy motoring!) are part of the answer. But then..... you'll have seen I'm resisting not having my milk and cheese. Others will similarly resist not having their 4x4 or their long haul flight holidays..... and there are no easy answers.

I'm not optimistic about Copenhagen. There will be millions of words, but will it save even as much in the way of emissions as was created by having the conference in the first place? Somehow I can't feel sure even of that. But watch this space: you never know.

Shopping by Metro

2009-11-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

It's been an amazing day, starting with a visit to the dentist for bite impressions so that the new denture I'm having made will be a perfect fit. I'd decided to go on into town to get just three things: first, the rest of my Christmas cards which I always get from the charity card shop they have in St. Thomas Church, opposite the University in the centre of town. Second, I wanted to look at placemats for my nice new dining table which Liz said she'll give me for Christmas, and finally I wanted to go over to The Sage, our superb concert hall on the south bank of the river, to get tickets for Murray Perihia who's coming in January. But it didn't quite work out like that!

I went to get the cards first: and whilst I was at it, I picked up some Fair Trade honey from the fair trade shop, also in the church. I do like to use fair trade products as much as I can, and the Sweet Justice honey is highly recommended, having a lovely subtle taste and going very well with my Sunday croissant. Then I walked up to the Eldon Square shopping centre, thinking I'd go to John Lewis' to get navy tights (so few people keep navy nowadays) and to use their quite posh loo. Now the ladies' loo is next to the toy department, and that brought to mind my lovely grandson Danny (isn't it a pity I can't put his photo on here, for 'child safety' reasons). I found a present for Danny (I read his blog, so he might read mind, so I won't say what I got!), but didn't look at their place mats as I'd done so previously and they hadn't inspired me. Instead I went into Fenwicks, found a lovely set with matching coasters, French bistro scene, and bought them while they were there rather than leaving Liz to get them. I'm pragmatic like that and so is she, she won't mind at all that I found and got them.

This was all getting quite heavy, so I thought I'd better get down to The Sage to get the tickets, and then take everything home. But as I arrived at the Monument, the nearest metro station (for as a paid-up Greenish Woman I'd naturally taken public transport and left Buttercup, my shiny yellow car, at home), I found that the Christmas Market was on! I love this market: there are both food stalls and gift stalls, it's the only place I know outside Australia where you can get kangaroo burgers (not to mention Ostrich burgers, Wild Boar burgers and a few other very odds and sods) and loads of other culinary offerings. I had a quick look, and decided that having lunch there whilst carrying heavy shopping wasn't on. So I took the Metro home, dumped the luggage and came more or less straight out again on the metro back to town.

Now as an over 60 I can do this with impunity: I have a Gold Card which costs all of £12 a year and gives me free Metro travel after 9.30 and any time at weekends. But if I didn't qualify for one, all these journeys would have added up, and a much cheaper and more convenient option would have been to take the car, put it in a car park and dump luggage in it as and when necessary. And were there two people without cards, the metro fares would have added up to around £20 (unless you'd known in advance you were going to go back and forth, in which case you'd have got a day ticket - but of course I hadn't planned it that way). So my Greenish poin is, why can't everyone have cheap, subsidised Metro fares to encourage them to leave the car at home? We know that measures to avoid climate change will cost money, but this would be relatively cheap and could cut down a lot of short journey emissions.

Sermon over! I had a delicious Maltese spicy beef wrap for my lunch, washed down with a traditional glass of Gluhwein (German mulled wine, gorgeous in the open air on a winter's day), followed by some mini Dutch pancakes with maple syrup. Then I went round the shops, buying some cheese, some olives, some stuffed pepper things which make a lovely starter, some Dolmades (always a favourite, I love Greek food and these are little parcels of rice wrapped in vine leaves) - not to mention some assorted marzipan and a copy of the Big Issue. I'm so grateful to have a lovely warm home that I feel for the homeless, and selling the Big Issue must be a thankless task.

So finally over to the Sage on the hybrid electric bus to get the tickets: back on the same bus, it having gone up to the Gateshead interchange and back whilst I was getting them, and another walk past market and shops en route to the Metro. At one of these (I won't say where as the recipient reads this blog) I bought what I hope will be a nice present for my niece Angie... oh, and dropped into Moben Sharps Dolphin who put in my beautiful bathroom two years ago to ask about new kitchens. Finally back home, where very soon I went for a nap.... and woke up at 6.15 p.m., disastrously late for eating and going to a meeting at 7! So I settled for the meeting, having a quick cuppa and a macaroon to keep me going. And the meeting? well, see the next post!

Greenish fingers?

2009-11-21T13:51:00.001-08:00

Those who know me know that I hate gardening! So it was perhaps a little surprising that I spent most of this morning in my tiny garden, which is at the front of the house, just one bed some 14 feet by about 8.

Part of the reason was that the autumn leaves had again piled up on my front path, and in particular had blocked the drainage channel. Now we've not had it nearly so bad over here as they have in Cumbria, but you never know, and a clear drainage path seemed like a good idea. The other thing bugging me was that there is a bush in the garden, goodness knows what it is but it has darkish green shiny leaves, rather like a laurel but much, much bigger than bay leaves: and it had grown seriously too big. My friend Sue, who knows about these things, recommended to me that I should prune it in the autumn: but October was a busy month and I'd not got round to it.

So today I fetched bin bags, gloves, kneeling mat (a couple of newspapers in a supermarket carrier bag!), saw and secateurs, and set to work. First I cleared up all the leaves I could, which was most off the path, though I've left, on the whole, the ones on the bed itself to turn themselves into leaf mould which will feed the soil.... won't it? I must say the path looked a lot better for it. Then I set to on the bush. First I went outside, and cut off everything that was overhanging the pavement: this entailed sawing off some quite big branches, which I dumped on the front path to be dealt with later. Then I went round on the garden side and snipped and sawed off a good bit more.

Finally, I spent at least an hour sitting on the little low wall between my house and next door, with a bag between my legs, cutting everything into six inch lengths that would go easily into the bag and not make holes in the plastic. By noon I had two and a half bin bags full of garden waste, and the place looked a lot tidier. Very satisfying!

So now: do I try to find someone with a brown wheelie bin in which I might be able to put my waste, or do I just put it in the ordinary bin? I don't really want it to go to landfill when it could be either burned or (preferably) properly composted. But I have neither the knowledge, skill or equipment to do anything with it myself, so I'll be dependent on others if I'm to dispose of it in a green manner. Any suggestions?

Oh, dear, that's blown any chance of 10/10

2009-11-14T15:17:00.000-08:00

The big project at the moment is planning a visit to the Antipodes, next February to April. It started with a long held desire to go to the opera in Sydney: I've always loved opera and I've long admired that unique building. I couldn't, however, go all that way whilst my elderly parents were still alive and might need me at short notice. Now they have died, both at well over 90, I can go for a decent length of time without worry.

And then it came to me that I might travel amongst Australian Quakers. I'd been reading a book by a well known Australian Friend, Janie O'Shea, and it described the tradition of 'intervisitation'. I consulted with others, and concluded this was something that it was right for me to do. So the plan is to start in Adelaide, and thence to Geelong, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle (I couldn't go to Australia without seeing their Newcastle, could I!) and Brisbane. After that, back to Sydney and meet up with my sister, and then over to New Zealand for a three week holiday tour, coming back to Sydney for a night before going to Uluru (the Aborigine sacred site, aka Ayers Rock) and then finally to Perth whence I return home.

So I've just booked all the travel: this means flying some 25,000 miles in all. And I keep thinking that this is hardly greenish! But some of my greenest friends have been to Australia and/or New Zealand, without a qualm, so I do feel it's kind of 'my turn'. I've not done a long haul flight since Vancouver two years ago, and before that since being sent to do a job in Singapore in 1998. So I'm not really a world traveller, and there will be those who've done more air miles going to places in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East than I have to date. Still, Australia and NZ, and back, is a lot of miles.

Buying carbon offsetting is one way to restore a bit of self respect. I've been told this isn't always effective, but I do believe it's better than nothing, and it's one thing I like about EasyJet: they have buying UN approved carbon offsetting built into their ticket-buying website. But I do respect those who just won't fly any more, even if I'm not yet ready to join them, just as I'm not ready to give up meat and still less dairy produce. Someone has already asked me if I'm going by ship: but the cost of this is prohibitive, it's even more than a first class airfare.

So I end up feeling that I will do what I can: but reducing my carbon footprint by 10% in 2010 won't be possible, unless I can count the carbon offestting in too. But then, think how much less will be that footprint in 2011! I'll be Greenish Woman of the Year, I should think!

The occasion of war

2009-11-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

Today being remembrance day, I've been acutely aware of how the parents of all those young men killed in Afghanistan must feel. As a Quaker pacifist, I don't think that war is ever the answer: but when confronted with men like the Taliban (and I mean men - can there be any women who truly believe they should be treated as the Taliban treat them?) I find this view seriously challenged. It's a dilemma: should we allow evil to flourish in order to maintain a principle, or should we consider every situation on its merits, and recognise that in practice we really can have a choice between two evils and end up with the lesser.

I've been reading, or rather dippping into, a fascinating book called 'The Pig that Wants to be Eaten' after the creature imagined by the late Douglas Adams in 'The Restaurant at the end of the Universe'. The book is a series of moral dilemmas, posed and then discussed, with a conclusion in each case. Several are relevant to Afghanistan. But I can see both sides of the argument: to have left the Taliban, with their American arms supplied in order to get the Russians out (ask an Afghan which was the better regime!) and let them create a school of terrorism on Al-Quaida principles, or to invade and try to restructure the country as a 'western' democracy because 'we think it's better for them', and how patronising is that!

What I've been told of the Taliban (which I have to recognise is necessarily one sided) makes them seem to be the most oppressive regime on earth, worse even than Hitler's Germany or Attaturk's Turkey (the first nation to commit modern genocide). I find it hard to understand how human beings can treat their fellow humans like that, and to pretend that this is in the name of religion - a religion whose very name means 'peace' - makes it even worse. It's a form of collective mysogeny and sadism combined. So what does a peaceful person do when confronted by this?

My one comfort is remembering the Soviet story. In 1985, I took part on one of the most memorable experiences of my life, singing in the Royal Festival Hall on Easter Monday. What we sang was a specially written cantata telling the story of the women of Greenham Common and their fight against the deadly cruise missiles, which had they ever been used would have slaughtered countless Russian women and children. The Greenham women felt part of a sisterhood of all the women of the world, and that the men-tality that produced the missiles was entirely wrong. Little did we think, as we told their tale that day, that within five years the Cold War would be over, the missiles gone and the Berlin Wall taken down, and that a little time later the base at Greenham would be demolished and the land returned to the people as a common once again. And all this without a shot being fired, a soldier being killed. But then, the Soviets were not driven by a supposed religion ('real' Muslims tell me the Taliban take on Islam is nothing to do with that religion but is a cultural distortion of the true faith): they were driven by an ideology and it just became clear that it didn't altogether work. Even the more fundamentalist-communist Chinese have realised that capitalist practices bring more wealth, which is how they have become a much richer industrialised nation in the last 20 years (though there is still immense poverty). I have a lot of sympathy for the Chinese government because the scale of what they have to do is so vast that the problems are pretty intractable, and I do believe that they will gradually drop the oppressive side of their system, stop shooting so many people, and even possibly free Tibet. We won't need to invade them.

But meanwhile British troops are in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, and British hearts will continue to break as the death toll goes on, and on, and on. I wouldn't live in Wooton Basset for the world: I'd find the pain too much. I have cried over the coffins and mentally stood with the parents and wives of the dead, and agonised over what can be done: but I can't find any answers. Was it Wilfred Owen who said 'All a poet can do today is warn'?

Diversity and other things

2009-10-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

I said in the last post that I'd say something about the course I'd got on at the Quaker study centre in Birmingham. Well,,, it was about the wide diversity of belief amongst Quakers. Most people think of us as a religious group but then there are Quakers who don't believe in a God... and others who have a pretty conventional view of Christianity. I said at one point that I thought most people who call themselves Christians would accept two basics: first, that Jesus was the one unique incarnation of God, and second that his death in some way enabled the salvation of mankind. As I don't believe either of those things, certainly not expressed like that, I feel I've moved on from orthodox Christianity and would call myself a Post-Christian, that is someone who tries to follow the teachings of Jesus but without attaching any kind of 'magic' either to Jesus the person or to his teachings as they have come to us in the bible.

But enough of theology. The weekend was also great because of the company, the setting, the lovely gardens, and because by staying on an extra night I was able to see my daughter and grandson who live down in Oxfordshire. That was good too: and I couldn't have done this if I hadn't gone by car (or not easily, at any rate). I'd taken my lovely new car, called Buttercup because it's bright yellow, largely because having only got on the course at the last minute it was too late to get cheap train tickets. And when I left on the Monday, I could pootle back home at whatever pace I liked, avoiding the horrendous road works that delayed me literally for hours on the way down, and stopping when I felt like it.

Going by car, of course, isn't even slightly greenish when there's only one person in it, even when it's a greenish car with low emissions and only £35 a year road tax. But whilst public transport has such a silly fare structure, people will go on using cars. If all the trains were cheaper, we'd all use trains, they'd have to put more on and so there would be more money to invest in infrastructure. It could be a positive feedback system....

And meanwhile I've been having conversations about why others think I should be vegan and why I shouldn't have a kettle. Apparently cows pass so much methane it contributes more per meat-eater to greenhouse gases than a 4x4. (I find that hard to believe, especially as the statistic comes from a confirmed vegan! I mean, they would say that, wouldn't they. The kettle one was even odder: apparently, if you have a gas hob, it pollutes the world less if you boil water in a saucepan on a gashob, because the power stations that power your kettle are so inefficient. Again, I'm unclear: nuclear power stations, whatever other problems they bring, don't produce much by way of greenhouse emissions, and nor do wind farms: I'm on a green energy tariff.

What it all goes to show is that the issues aren't as straightforward and obvious as some would have you believe. My advice: don't believe what people with vested interests tell you, and use common sense.

2009-10-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

OH, dear! I really am NOt a natural blogger. I'd intended to write every day on my trip away...ah, well, I'll try to make up for it a little.

the rest of my Cornish trip was wonderful: you can see a little of it on my friend Angie's blog (Angie's Aspirations, on here). We visited St. Michaels Mount, the Lizard and had a day shopping in Truro. At the end of the week I was dropped off at my cousin Anne's in Bristol: I'd met her for the first time only last year at my Dad's memorial service. We got on just so well, had a lovely day visiting the SS Great Britain (the world's first luxury liner) and Wesley's first chapel, the New Rooms in Bristol. Then it was off to catch the EasyJet to Edinburgh, to stay with my friend Madeleine before talking to Quakers about the Quaker operation in Europe, on the council of which I served for seven years or so across the millenium year. That too was a very pleasant episode: Madeleine and I worked together organising the huge Quaker event in York this summer - that is, we were both on the organising committee - and her husband Robin does the same job I once did with the Open University, training and managing tutors.
I finally got home on the Wednesday afternoon, nearly a week ago now, to a committee meeting in the evening and a study group the next day! Sing ho for being retired..... and then I heard I had a place on a course at the Quaker study centre in Birmingham. More of that next time.

2009-10-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Tis again a long time since I've posted on here. But right now I'm on an extended trip away from home, and it may be of a little interest to some to see what I've been up to.

First stop, then, last Friday, was in London. I went down, travelling First Class which I must confess I do find more comfortable nowadays, for a meeting of the Quaker Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee. This was the first meeting of the cycle to plan for the meeting next May, so it was mostly about getting to know new members and becoming a team. I was privileged to be able to offer an epilogue on the Saturday: I read Oriah Mountain Dreamer's inspirational prose poem 'The Invitation' (see http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/), and having discovered how to play music through my laptop from my MP3 player, I played the first section of the second movement of Schubert's haunting string quintet in C - listen on Spotify if you don't have a CD. It was a good weekend, we did get through a lot, with a new clerk (chair) and I left feeling well pleased.

I stayed on Sunday night with my eldest daughter Clare in London, and we went walking in the afternoon in their local preserved woods. This is an area beside the Grand Union Canal, roughly in Greenford, which was established and preserved by Gilbert White of Selboure fame, and it's called Selbourne Woods. It was a lovely afternoon, and a pleasant way to relax after being in committee all weekend. You can see the canal through the railings, behind my daughter and her husband.

Monday morning saw my hosts and my granddaughter all off early to work and school respectively, leaving me to get up at my leisure, wash my hair and pack in peace and without haste. In due course I took a bus to Ealing Broadway and a train to Paddington, where I lunched on a steak pie whilst waiting for my train to Cornwall. First Great Western use refurbished but old rolling stock and engines, the old HST sets, but - especially in First Class - it was very comfortable. I sat at a table for four with one other person (a rather nice man!) sitting diagonally opposite, and had the table all to myself for the last third of the journey. I'd intended to watch a film en route, but spent the time doing 'The Times' test sudokus for selection to the National Championship finals. By the time we reached Redruth I'd done all four, though hardly in the time expected of the experts!

I was met at Redruth by my honorary niece Angie, and so began a lovely relaxing week in Cornwall. More of this on the next post.

Back to the blogging

2009-05-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly two years since the last post. I guess I'm not a natural blogger. But a friend has just started a new blog, and that's inspired me to go back to this one.

The elections for the European Parliament will soon be upon us. Most people in the UK regard this as a totally yawnsville event, something that doesn't affect us and simply isn't worth bothering with. We're expecting a turnout of 20%. And yet what the European Parliament does affects us all, on a day to day basis, and quite a bit of our domestic legislation is simply putting into place what's been agreed on in Brussels.

Climate change is one of the big issues of this election, and indeed of this year. The Copenhagen Summit in December is really our last chance to take action: if we don't come up with an agreement to take drastic and immediate measures, then soon it will be too late, we will be in positive feedback, the warmer we get the warmer we'll become and that will be the end for the human race and a lot of other species on our planet. I want my grandchildren's grandchildren to survive, but for many of you - if you're under about 35 - it's doubtful that even your grandchildren will live out their natural span. Go and see 'The Age of Stupid' if you've not seen it: and in my view it gives a fairly optimistic picture, not an alarmist one.

I was at a meeting of four of our EuroParliament candidates on Friday. Two of them - the Green Party candidate and the LibDem member - put Climate change at the top of their agenda. If everyone who believed in the importance of addressing this issue voted Green, the Green candidates would get in everywhere, because so few people actually vote at all: but I make no secret that my vote is with the LibDems. Our candidate for North East England is a sound and experienced MEP, not at all a single issue person, and seems to me the most likely to influence the Parliament to deliver value for money. If you've seen Nigel Farage's Party Political for UKIP, by the way, don't believe it: I personally think that much of what he says is simply untrue. (Was it he who said Britain is not at war - where has he been these last few years!!)

But whatever your views - if indeed anyone actually reads this - can I urge you to use your vote on June 4th or whenever it is, and show that you're aware enough to realise that the European Union and its structures affect us all and so need people who are chosen by us as a whole, not just a few of us.

Green Ariel

2007-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

Knowing my liking for opera, my lovely Significant Other decided to take me for a weekend in London. He had managed to get a special offer on a room in the Hoxton Hotel, just round the corner from Old Street station, and had seen that the Royal Opera at Covent Garden were putting on a new, contemporary opera of ‘The Tempest’ which happens to be his favourite Shakespeare play. So he obtained two tickets for that as well: and it all came to pass last weekend.

The train down was crowded – end of term at Durham University, and well over half the train was reserved from Durham to London. And owing to the vagaries of Internet booking, you can’t get two seats together when one is with a wrinklies railcard and the other with a kiddicard (well, OK, Under 26 Young Persons card!) But the nice young lady in the seat next to me was quite happy to swap with Tommy so we were able to travel together. Just as well, really, as I’d made the sandwiches for both of us!

If you travel more than about twice within London, it’s worth getting an Oyster Card. It costs about £3 on top of the money you put on it, and you get that back if you give it up anyway. I’d been bought one as a birthday present, back in February, so our first job was to get Tommy one as well. This done, we headed for Old Street – oh, and it is so lovely to have someone else to carry the luggage. All I had to do was steer – somewhat necessary as certain people have a habit of heading for the wrong train, almost instinctively! On arrival, a brief study of the map showed the way to the hotel: I foolishly lost confidence at one point and asked a man for directions, only to find we were about twenty yards from the main entrance! We checked in, and found that the room was truly delightful – a lovely bathroom (albeit shower rather than bath, but a magnificent double shower, really good), a flat screen TV and a very comfortable bed. We had relatively little luggage to stow away, and then we had time to flop (well, use your imagination!) for a time until about four, when after a cup of tea it was time to dress for the evening. I had brought my glamorous asymmetric-hem black skirt and top, with clinky gold bling to wear with it, and my lace mantilla (genuine Spanish, if from a tourist shop in Torremolinos) to cover my shoulders. We were fortunate with the weather: it was a relatively mild evening, and I took the risk of not wearing my posh warm coat but going out with just the mantilla. A tad chilly at first, but I was to be glad I’d made that decision, the coat would have been a fearful nuisance most of the time.

We found Salieri’s restaurant, picked off the Internet, and chosen in spite of a couple of dubious reviews. There was a queue coming out of the door: normally a good sign for a restaurant, but a tad worrying when you’ve booked a table and there isn’t an empty one in sight. We weren’t the only ones: we tried to move to the front of the queue only to find that there were two other couples also with bookings. They clearly take more bookings than they have capacity! So we weren’t seated until 6.15, and with the opera starting at 7.30 we were somewhat anxious. But in fact the food was excellent, very good value indeed, and the service once we were seated was quick and efficient. Nice atmosphere, too: if you go to the website it plays the overture to ‘Figaro’, and in the restaurant itself, a piece I thought at first was Mozart but in fact, to my shame, was the last movement of Beethoven’s fourth symphony. Ah well, it was being played quietly and there was a lot of chatter noise to mask it, that’s my excuse.

The meal consumed, on to the Royal Opera House, a mere five minutes walk up the road. In spite of Doubting Thomas wondering if I was going the right way, we found it very easily, and went up to the gallery to find our seats. It’s a great building for opera, you can hear well from every single seat in the house.

The opera was stunning. I’d been a little dubious about a full length piece composed in uncompromisingly modern style (I’d listened to a clip from the Internet). But it was very atmospheric, very sensuous, very much putting over in the music the sense of what was being sung. Although it was in English, you didn’t have to strain to hear the words because they were displayed on a small screen above the stage – I’ve seen that done for translations many a time, but never before for an opera in English. The set was most imaginative – a centrepiece like two halves of an open book, though one had a circular hole in it, and it all revolved very slowly so you suddenly realised it had moved without actually seeing it do so. And the singers were truly first rate: Philip Langridge, who’s recently sung Loge in Wagner’s Ring cycle on television, Ian Bostridge, and the incomparable Simon Keenlyside singing Prospero. I’d not come across any of the women, but they too were excellent, especially Ariel - costumed in luminous green - who has a very high part, all the time singing at the top of her register. Even the comics, the drunken Trinculo and Stephano, were excellent. So all in all, highly recommended. The interesting thing for me was that I came to this from a very traditional classical background of Mozart and Verdi, whereas Tommy came from knowing much more of the contemporary music scene but not in the classical genre – and we both found the music more than just acceptable – it engaged us both at a deep level, and that speaks volumes for the composer Thomas Adès.

After the opera we went back to the hotel, not particularly feeling like staying out (my lack of coat becoming a factor here!) and knowing we had a bottle of wine stashed away there. We arrived along with a fire engine! Apparently there had been some kind of alarm in a room, and they were checking it out. So we sat in the bar for a few minutes before the lifts were back in operation (no way was I walking up six floors, not having done the ROH gallery once!) and we could retire to our eyrie. The wine was good, and with a sense of the sublime to the ridiculous we watched Match of the Day. We weren’t long in getting into bed, both tired but happy after a memorable evening.

That’s probably enough for here: episode two in a bit.

Omnibus, for all.

2007-02-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I put an entry on here. It’s not that I’ve not been doing anything – quite the reverse! I’ve just not found, simultaneously, the time, energy and inspiration to do so.

It’s feeling like a long winter: a long, cold winter. For me there has been a considerable brightening from my lovely younger man, who is a real soulmate and constantly surprises and delights me – not so much with what he does as with what he thinks and how his mind and values work. He’s perhaps a tad less greenish than I am – a distressing tendency to leap in a car, albeit a small, shared and energy-efficient one, and drive to places; but then he lives out in the sticks where there is about one bus a fortnight which goes to within two miles, that’s what they call public transport out there. I don’t know I’m born, living here on a load of bus routes and with several more not two minutes walk away, that will take me to Newcastle, Blyth, Cramlington, Jarrow, Sunderland and many other places, not to mention the metro within four minutes if you run as I had to this morning!

And we’ve just had this report that says that global warming is a certainty, and they are 90% sure that it’s due to human activity. Personally I can’t see where the doubt comes from: we know how much oil we’ve burned and how much carbon dioxide that puts into the atmosphere, so what other reason could there possibly be for the alarming rise in CO2 concentration. Frederick Forsyth, on Question Time last Thursday, suggested that the evidence isn’t conclusive: just how irresponsible can you get! If we wait for the evidence to get even more conclusive, it will be too late: the planet will be on an irreversible course to destruction, and that means my grandchildren won’t live out their natural lifespans. It’s that close, believe me.

So I’m in two minds about signing the petition against road pricing: whilst I don’t want to be spied on, I do want people to be very seriously discouraged from motoring. Not that this is the main problem: I personally think that it’s air travel, with its untaxed fuel, that is growing at a rate so alarming that we need to recognise, now, that we’ll have to live with inconvenience. And I say that having just booked to fly to Vancouver this summer. When I can afford it, I’ll be putting money into more efficient stoves in Mexico to reduce carbon emissions by the amount, or more, that my share of my flights will cause – but will the rest of the passengers? I doubt it.

Later this week, I’m going to hear a talk from a friend who’s been to see relatives in New Zealand – by boat. I imagine he chose this means of travel partly, at least, for green reasons – but have you seen what it costs to cross the Atlantic by sea? It’s about the same as club class travel on a bad day. This reflects my own experience last November, when I had to go to London for a meeting and found the cheapest rail ticket home was around £70, even with a railcard. (I’d gone from Chesterfield, having been at another meeting all weekend in Derbyshire.) However, I found I could fly home on EasyJet from Stansted for a mere £20, including taxes, plus another tenner for the train fare out to the airport. So that was what I did: someone else was paying my expenses, and I couldn’t justify asking for over twice as much. The plane was no quicker – in fact it was slower, and arguably less convenient as it meant a load of security hassle at the airport, including having to take off my shoes and have them X-rayed – but it was almost full, so at least the fuel emissions weren’t wasted on just a few passengers. But how can it possibly be cheaper to travel by plane than by train? The answer is that it isn’t, but you pay less because of pricing structures. EasyJet have found a formula for filling planes, and it’s simple: the first seat is the cheapest and from then on it gets more and more expensive. When I booked to go to Vancouver, my seat was £2 more than my friend’s, because I booked second. I don’t doubt the plane will be full: at about £200 for a one way trip, it’s a snip (BA and KLM are both around £700 return, almost twice as much). By contrast, GNER have a pricing structure that doesn’t fill trains because they’d be full anyway: it just does a rather pointless distribution of the cost unevenly amongst the passengers. Last week I came home, same trip, from London for £10! Now in Belgium, where they apologise if the train is five minutes late – contrast to the UK where they proudly announce that most of their trains are no more than five minutes late! – there is one fare. The single is twice the return: First Class is 50% more than standard. Peak trains may cost a tad more, though as I don’t usually travel on them I can’t say for sure. But there is none of this advance purchase and SuperSaver stuff: there’s one price and that’s it. If we had the same here, the train fare could beat EasyJet into the ground.

All this rant points to one conclusion: if we are going to be serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, we have to take radical steps to both improve and increase public transport. My experience of GNER is that most trains are full: that’s partly because I travel a lot at weekends as that is when my meetings are. But when I’ve gone midweek it’s not been very dissimilar. We need longer trains, then, to take more people – Virgin Cross-Country run little four or five coach units that are hopelessly small to take a lot of passengers, and hopelessly slow too. (How can it take longer to travel the 200 miles from Newcastle to Birmingham than the 300 from Newcastle to London?) We need cheaper trains, subsidised by taxing road travel more. Yes, there’ll be an outcry but people can become aware of what they do to the planet on the roads. And we need bus links to everywhere, not just the profitable routes. Buses should be a public service, not a commercial business.

Then, and only then, we might just have a chance of saving the planet.

Eurostar Vert

2006-12-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, you can go on a weekend break without ever seeing an aeroplane! I did, we did: Tom and I went off to Lille last weekend to visit the Christmas Market. To say that it was a wonderful weekend would be an understatement.

Ah, I hear you cry, who is this Tom, then? Well, we met on line, as one does: I’d been having trouble with a rootkit (you don’t want to know, it makes an ordinary virus look positively benign!) on my laptop and he fixes a major Government computer system for a living. So it seemed natural to meet up: and eventually, after a couple of tries and reaching the conclusion that a complete rub-out-and-start-again was the only valid answer to the problem, he took it away, rebuilt all the software and brought it back fixed. And naturally I gave him a meal, as cooking for others is both a skill and a joy, and we talked: he has a degree in computing and philosophy, so we had a lot of common areas of interest. His previous relationship of seven years had also recently come to an end, though happily they are still good friends (just as well, as they share a car, a wonderful Citroen C5 convertible which I instantly nicknamed the Orange Peril because of its colour!), and what with one thing and another I think you’d now describe us as an item.

Lille was a fascinating town. Right in the middle is the Marché de Noel, a series of huts selling all kinds of stuff, starting of course with mulled wine and frankfurters and things, and including some gorgeous cushion covers, three of which will soon be adorning my sitting room, some exasperating wooden puzzles (take it to bits, easy, but then put it together again?) of which a grandchild is going to be the unfortunate recipient, and many more. Several were selling some pretty costume jewellery, but as Tom’s ex girl friend makes that herself, it seemed a bit like taking coals to Newcastle used to be. All in all, a very enjoyable wander round, and a good source of lunch on the hoof as well.

In a nearby square were some children’s entertainments, a miniature railway, a roundabout and so on. And in the square between the two was the Wheel. This was a big Ferris wheel with open gondolas – only 3 euros for a trip about four times round – with great views from the top, though it was a tad chilly in the wind! We went round with music playing and the mulled wine sellers doing a roaring trade, and I’ve not felt so happy for many a long year. I wanted to dance in the street and do something really daft: though you’ll be glad to know common sense prevailed and I avoided behaving like a first year undergraduate high on Spanish plonk!

We were incredibly lucky with our hotel. We’d picked the Citadines Lille Centre on the Internet, using hotels.com (a reliable and good site in my experience, it’s the second time I’ve used them and found I’d picked a winner): it was less than five minutes walk from the Lille Europe station for a start, so everywhere we wanted was in walking distance. It’s what they call an apart-hotel – that is, it’s like a hotel but you get an apartment with a mini kitchen and a ‘studio’ with a sofa for day that’s the quite comfortable bed at night. It has the huge advantage that you can nip out to the Carrefour, all of 50 yards away, in the morning for fresh croissants and pain au chocolat, and there’s your breakfast, as early or late as you want it. We were on the tenth floor and so had a view over half the city to greet us.

We were also lucky with the weather. We’d looked up the forecast on line, and it said rain and showers and dull, all the time: but the two full days we were there it was sunny and clear almost all the time, and only on the last morning did the rains come and make our cardboard carrier bags wet! For we’d been shopping, of course. There’s a Leonidas Belgian chocolate shop in Lille, and I know well from frequent visits to Brussels on Quaker business over the last eight years how nice their product is. And there’s also a FNAC, a kind of real-life Amazon selling books, DVDs, CDs and much more besides: I found three operas at only 15 euros each, a real bargain. Tom had his own particular joy here, finding a vinyl disc of Nirvana with pictures printed on both sides of the disc itself, a real rarity nowadays. (I didn’t mention his other talent: he writes reviews of bands of various kinds for e-gigs on line and a Northern music magazine, and is a real festival geek!)

And there were the boots. I’d seen some very stylish looking brown knee boots in one shop we were passing, but found the usual story – when I tried them on, the largest size was a tad too small. But on our last morning, between getting up and going to check in for our lunchtime Eurostar back home, I saw another such shop, tried on a pair and lo! They fitted like a glove. So I bought them, and the last few days I’ve been wearing them and feeling very elegant. A weekend to remember, then, not just because of the markets and the shopping but because I think it marks the start of a new and valuable friendship. And although Tom is much younger than I am, that’s no barrier to either of us: long may the friendship last, then.

Free, single and looking!

2006-11-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

At last: yesterday, I got divorced. Well, to be technically accurate, after two hours hard negotiating and some imaginative thinking by our lawyers, my ex and I came to an agreed court order for the settlement of our joint finances, and I was given leave to apply for my decree absolute which will be issued by post some time in the next week.

We were in court in Doncaster, because my ex lives in Cambridge and the judge in Tunbridge Wells, where it all started in 1990, had said that it would be fairest to move it there because this was mid way between Cambridge and Newcastle. And it wasn’t the greenest of travel: I had driven down to a friend’s who lives in a village nestling in what is now the fork of the A1M and the M1: driven because she lives a way from the nearest station and also because I wanted to travel with a choice of smart clothes depending on the weather. Just as well: the dawn broke on mist and drizzle, definitely trouser weather! However, a short drive to the station and a train to Selby with a connection to Doncaster was the plan, except the train to Selby didn’t arrive and when I rang to enquire, they said it was running 13 minutes late and they couldn’t guarantee the connection. As the next train from Selby to Doncaster was two hours later, I took the only option guaranteed to get me to court on time: I drove. It’s not all that far, only about 25 miles, but it wasn’t the best way to start the day.

However, I give all credit to the lawyers: I think that they found for us the fairest possible settlement. Once our ex marital home is sold, I will have a little capital, enough to enhance my income a bit and enough to make me feel financially secure. And I am utterly delighted that we managed to reach an agreement and not have a settlement imposed by a judge: I feel it leaves the way open for reconciliation and friendship and mutual support in a way that a battle would not have done. I wanted to go and give the ex a hug and indeed my lawyer suggested to the other side that we might just have a few moments to celebrate agreeing: but the other side didn’t feel able to do that. Such a pity: it would have been cathartic for both of us, but then they never were aware of things like that.

So now the long trick’s over, and I can get on with the rest of my life. Free now: on Monday week I should also become solvent again! This is when my pursuit of the Dept. of Work and Pensions comes to its climax, and I argue that I should be able to take my pension under the deferral rules and so get a higher weekly amount rather than a lot of back pay. As everyone else is offered a choice here and the options are regarded as equivalent, I really cannot understand why they have resisted in my case, and as far as I can see they don’t have a leg to stand on and it’s a waste of taxpayer’s money their holding out. But there you go: watch this space! I’ll post what happens in due course.

Down in the dumps

2006-09-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling very depressed.

There are two reasons for this –why do troubles never come singly? I could cope with one, I think, but two together are a bit much to take. So first: I stood for the LibDems in a local Council bye-election. I polled all of 210 votes, as opposed to 584 for the LibDem candidate last May. But this wasn’t low turnout: the winning Conservative candidate scored only 15% less than the previous (winning) Conservative vote, and the Labour candidate dropped only 7.3% of her previous vote: mine, on the same terms, dropped by 61%. Now I know Sir Menzies Campbell hasn’t exactly set the country alight with his charisma, but then he was already leader last May, so that can’t be it. I do get a sense that up here in Newcastle, Geordies do like their own, and a Southern, educated woman simply isn’t what they want in a Councillor. But whatever the reason, it hasn’t taken me long to decide not to dabble any more in local politics: I really don’t think I fit in at all.

And that in itself is depressing. I feel I’ve been judged, not on what and who I am, but on the kind of factors that if they were colour and gender would be illegal. But whilst you can’t discriminate against someone because they’re Asian, you can because they’re Southern – and they do. I don’t think anyone has considered my attitudes to life in general and the kind of issues that are relevant in local politics in particular, and decided that this isn’t what they want – or maybe they have: what they prefer is someone with the more typical Northern working class rooted background who will empathise with them – which I freely admit I won’t – and go for values I simply don’t hold. Even the local LibDems go in for a bit of nepotism: the candidate I replaced (because he didn’t really want to stand) was the son of my agent, whose wife is a LibDem Councillor: and of the seven LibDems on the Council no fewer than four are from the same family (two brothers, the wife of one of them and another close relation, I’m not quite sure what). So one begins to wonder what this is all about, and if it really makes much difference anyway: the one big difference it does make is in the size of the Council Tax, which is big enough up here anyway and likely to go up and up if the current spending plans are anything to go by. Well, I tried: and when you set yourself up and stand, you have to be prepared to be crushed. I just wish it hadn’t been by quite as much.

And there’s a Green factor here. Green is fashionable in politics nowadays: but in practice there’s relatively little sign of it other than the Council recycling which is fair – nowhere for your Yellow Pages, mind, but they do take pretty well everything else. But trying to improve public transport and discourage the use of cars? I see no signs. Saving water? Avoiding artificial fertiliser? Promoting insulation? I’ve seen nothing of these since I’ve been here, apart from a leaflet telling me that if I was poor enough not to be able to afford central heating I could get a grant towards more insulation, and why didn’t I insulate the cavity walls which my house doesn’t have! As a LibDem I could have pushed for Green issues going on the agenda: I doubt the Tory lady will.

And that leads me to a final thought. All three candidates, this time, were women: last time the LibDem was the only man. Could this have helped his vote – are there men who simply won’t vote for a woman councillor, whose prejudices come out in the secrecy of the ballot box? It’s possible: in one ward here, the BNP beat the Tories last time round. That’s disturbing. Do I want to go on living here – that’s the question that is now emerging. A big reason for my depression is that I feel a lack of friends. I have a lot of Quaker friends, of course, and a few still ex colleagues in the OU: but outside those two areas there are only a tiny handful. Finding anyone to go on holiday with has been impossible: I think I’ll have to try the Singles holidays, educational/cultural trips, that sort of thing, where one just might meet someone interesting. Or maybe advertise in The Guardian? And most of the adverts there are from people in the South: perhaps after my divorce, once I’ve got whatever I’m going to get from my ex marital home (precious little if my former spouse has their way) it will indeed be time to move South.

The second factor is that I had in my post today a notice that the court action to settle my dispute with HM Government won’t be until December 15th. This is seriously annoying. I’ve been thinking of investing in a Holiday Club, which gives you cheap holidays outside school holidays by bulk buying unused hotel rooms and flight seats: but I can’t take on the commitment without actually knowing what I’ll eventually get. And apart from that, I’ve now got somehow to find the money to pay the divorce lawyers and I really don’t know where that will come from. I’d been relying on that Government money. (If I’m a bit obscure as to what this is about, it’s a long and complicated story, but maybe I’ll tell it one day!) And meanwhile I’m living on a reduced income, which I’d expected up till about May or June but definitely not into December. I’ve been trying to be patient but it’s been increasingly difficult over the past few months: and now I have to be patient almost three months more, because the December date is the first that the Court and my barrister both have free together. This really is something of an Annus Horribilis for me: I can only just try to keep going and hope it all works out OK in the end.

How green was my valley

2006-09-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

After the latest trip to care for my Dad, I went down to South Wales to stay with some friends. They moved there a few years ago from Essex, realising that for what they could get for their little box of a house in London they could buy a decent house with no mortgage in Wales. D. is an entrepreneur, really, though I don’t think he’d really go for that description: he makes most of his living as a DJ (see http://www.dltservices.co.uk/), and by going up to Essex at weekends he can usually make enough for the week’s wages, though he’s moving some of the work down to Wales as well. They have both thrown themselves into the local community: T. organised a charity walk last year for gender-specific cancers which was a great success (see http://www.steppinthevalleys.co.uk/index.htm) and is doing another one in 2007 – all welcome so if, like me, you’re looking to get fitter and lose a bit of weight then do start training and join in! T. is also involved in a project to reclaim an area of wasteland and turn it into a leisure part, with an outdoor gym, an education area, wetlands, trees, and all kinds – a really good place to go with the family for a day. They are putting in a Victorian style iron bridge over the stream and it should provide a habitat for a variety of bird and plant life. I just get lost in admiration at they way these two put their energies to constructive use!

On the Tuesday, we decided to go out for a walk – we set out on a heritage walk, but hadn’t gone very far when we decided instead to climb the mountain opposite. (It’s 550 m high, so qualifies as a mountain.) We took the car as far as the road would allow, to avoid the boring bits, and then went on from there. The views were great, and I was pleasantly surprised to find I could manage the climb without feeling unduly puffed – in fact coming down again was much more difficult on the calves as not all the route was on paths and some was traversing fairly steep slopes. But half way up we could see down into the next valley, where there was a reservoir with a heron standing looking for food: and on the way down we saw some buzzards (sparrowhawks, as D and T prefer to call them) – magnificent birds, hovering over the pasture looking for small furry creatures for lunch, and then swooping down on their prey. Seeing this kind of natural phenomenon, this example of life undamaged by wretched humans and their greed, you feel optimistic and at one with the Cosmos, a small creature in a huge universe and one which has no right to pollute and destroy it as we do. T. is doing more than most to redeem some of the ravages of money-making: would that we all did our bit to that extent, or even were aware of the need! A green valley, indeed, down in Nantyglo and Brynmawr: long may it stay that way.

Green and Yellow

2006-08-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

It’s been an interesting few days. Last week, when the weather was still just about OK, my friend Liz and I went down to the Washington Wildfowl Park, part of the Wildfowl and Wetlands trust. I’m ashamed to say that in sixteen years of living in the North East, I’d never been before – and what a treat I’ve been missing. We were able to walk for quite a way, right around the park: starting with the flamingoes, moving on to the feeding area – ever had a duck literally eating out of your hand? I did, amazingly: these birds were really tame and trusting, and we fed them corn which we’d bought at the entrance. Apparently bread isn’t good for birds – think of that next time you go to feed the ducks! There were also some very pretty geese there, smallish white ones (Ross’s Goose and another we couldn’t identify). Then on through the wetlands, stopping at a hide at one point where we saw all the common woodland birds – blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, bullfinches, greenfinches and a lovely lesser spotted woodpecker, as well as a predator squirrel getting at the nuts put out for the birds. (Grey squirrel, alas: we have seen red ones in similar circumstances, but they are getting fewer by the year.) Further on we saw half a dozen herons, one flying in the lovely lazy wingflapping way they do. Then back to the centre for tea and the indulgence of chocolate fudge cake (we were good and shared a slice between us, but it was pretty big to start with!). I had such a good time I decided to take up their offer of 20% off a year’s subscription, and joined on the spot. Now I can go back at any time for nothing, and take a friend at a discounted cost – and I think I’ll be doing that quite a bit, it’s only half an hour away in the car.

I had a fairly quiet bank holiday: I’d decided to accept an invitation from the chair of the local Lib Dems (I’m a card-carrying party member, have been for years) to a wine and cheese afternoon. In view of the wine, I went on the Metro, taking a bottle as requested and a jar of my home made marmalade as a small raffle prize. I’d arrived well after the start time, but it hadn't really got going: but more and more people arrived, mostly knowing each other, and I enjoyed some interesting chat with several people. As I was about to go, Colin, the host, asked me if I would do them a big favour. Apparently there’s a bye-election for a councillor in the ward in which I live, at the end of next month, and they wanted a ‘paper candidate’, that is a name to go on the ballot paper so that people who want to vote Lib Dem can do so, though they don’t expect to get many votes and aren’t doing any canvassing or leafletting. I agreed I would be such a name; and then it turns out I need to find a proposer, a seconder and eight other nominators. The first person I asked, a local Quaker friend, said he didn’t actually support the Lib Dems and didn’t feel he could put his name to my candidature. I was, I have to confess, a little disappointed: I don’t think party lines should be held too strongly in local council elections and for myself, a candidate I know and trust to be sensible would always be preferable to an anonymous figure with the ‘right’ party label. But people are different, and that’s the way my friend was. However, my near-neighbours whom I’d recently had to dinner (see the previous posting) were more than willing, and they became my proposer and seconder. Colin returned a day later and said they’d find the other nominators from amongst the party faithful. So now I’m a candidate for the District Council! I don’t think there’s the slightest chance I’ll get in: but it makes me wonder whether it’s worth spending time between now and next May doing some constituency-nursing, some door-stepping to get known and become a face with which people are familiar so that come next May I’ll not be an unknown quantity. This all assumes I’m going to stay here, which isn’t yet decided and won’t be till after Christmas, but it’s a thought… and here was I trying to slow down! However, I met three councillors or ex-councillors, and none of them struck me as having any special knowledge or expertise: just plain, sensible people using their common sense. So maybe I could do as well as any and better than some… and put Green policies forward in a place where they might even be heard! Next stop the House of Commons?

Riches on two legs

2006-08-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

It’s been a bit of a frustrating year, financially. I’m owed a good deal of money by HM Government, but it’s been a difficult job actually prising it out of them, and I’m not there yet. But this month has been full of riches of another kind. Last weekend I had a family to stay: the mother I know from sitting on a committee with her, but the rest I’d not met – Dad, looking rather like Terry Pratchett and a most delightful, peaceful man, and the two adopted children, both now in their 20’s and both with Down’s syndrome – and a nicer pair would be hard to find. Michaela (not her real name, I wouldn’t want to embarrass her!) was a real sweetie, and we got on like a house on fire: and Alan (ditto), more seriously affected but nevertheless a young man who was enjoyable to be with. They were all stopping over while they went to a wedding up in Northumberland.

It wasn’t a long visit; they arrived for lunch (salad) on the day of the wedding, an hour later than scheduled because of holiday traffic, changed and went off to the wedding, and came home at 11 pm having all had a great time. The next day we all trooped off to the Quaker Meeting and on the way home, in spite of drizzle, walked over the Millenium Bridge and had a quick look round the Sage, the wonderful pair of concert halls in Gateshead, before coming home to lunch (salad again) and then departing for a further visit to friends of theirs down in Teesdale. They were very appreciative of the quick look at the delights of Newcastle, and I’m hoping that one day before too long they’ll all come again and we’ll be able to do more sightseeing and get out into the glorious country I have on the doorstep.

And then later in the week I had a friend visit, by arrangement, to tell me about putting on a one-woman show which she’s doing later this year. I’m hoping to write this up for a magazine article, to promote both my writing and her show. When you talk about this kind of thing, you necessarily get into quite deep matters: I needed to know how she’d got into theatre in the first place, which in turn meant something of the story of her life. Then that same evening, I had near neighbours round for a meal: I’d run into D. on the metro platform as I was coming home (a sliver of ‘green’ there, no car to town for me!) and put into action a thought I’d had for some time to ask them round. It was a fascinating evening: they had spent some time living in Ethiopia, at the time of the revolution, and had some amazing tales to tell.

Then today I heard that the people who had been going to come last Monday and hadn’t been able to because their son had flu were going to call in on their way home, next Friday. They’ve been cat-sitting, and when my friend told me the name of the person for whom they were sitting I realised I knew her and had worked on a committee with her this last year! So it's going to be lovely to see all this family too.

All this activity has made me reflect that although money has been a bit in short supply, riches have not: my riches walk around on two legs. The only thing of which I’m constantly aware is that so often, green choices cost more and I’ve just not been able to afford to be green. Sometimes this is more in cash, sometimes it’s more in time: I have to go to Brussels next month, and to go on Eurostar would take me the best part of three days, whereas I can fly over in the morning and back in the evening. There’s a dilemma: but I think the answer is going to be to take the plane (it will, after all, go anyway). One of these days we’ll get our through trains from Newcastle to Brussels: but too late for me!

Ups and Downs

2006-08-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve just come back from seeing my Dad in Stratford upon Avon. He’d been coping well with the death of my Mum: indeed I’ve said earlier that he had something of a new lease of life, watching TV and being able to live his life, within his physical limitations, more as he wanted to. But this time he seemed to me to be a little in decline: his speech was quiet and throaty and he didn’t have the lucidity that he’d had for most of my previous visit.

We did manage to get a lot of business done. I’m still writing lots of letters to people where he had investments jointly with Mum, sending out a copy of the death certificate which is becoming a tad dog-eared by now, getting people to reply to me as I’m doing most of his finances now. It was, I think, a mistake to present him with six letters at once to sign: he read them for about an hour, with an uncomprehending look on his face, and in the end it was his lunchtime and he still hadn’t signed any of them. He wouldn’t let me read them to him and explain them: next time I think I’ll do that anyway, and one letter at a time. But eventually, after lunch, he did sign them all and I was able to get them in the post.

I felt slightly guilty that the visit was also a good social time for me. On the first afternoon, I met a friend for coffee: she had just had a lovely baby boy, four weeks old, and it was a real joy to meet them both. She was telling me all about the problems she and her husband had been facing and how they were coping – or not: they are going to be cat-sitting in Scotland later this month and will stay the night with me en route, which will be lovely. She and I just never seem to run out of things to talk about: she’s one of those people whom it’s great to have as a friend.

And then the next evening I was out to dinner, with Quaker friends in Birmingham. I did my green bit by going by train: the last train home to Stratford itself is at a ridiculously early hour, about 8 if I remember rightly, so I drove to Warwick Parkway and went up the excellent Chiltern line from there – no problem with last trains, the last is 11.23 pm! Good and cheap – but why don’t they encourage the use of their evening trains by making parking free, or at least reduced, at their stations? I had to pay for a full day’s parking even though I was on the 6.32 pm train, and that’s hardly an encouragement to use public transport and not drive all the way. If there had been two of us I’d have certainly driven, as it would have been both cheaper and quicker and less constrained by train times: for one, thankfully, it’s still cheaper and easier by train. But come on, train companies: do your bit! Make the parking free after 6 pm and watch your revenue rise.

It was a lovely dinner: my friend Marlene (one of three friends I have with that name!) had done a tasty mixed starter with prawns, coleslaw and crudités and then chicken in a wonderful creamy sauce, followed by an assortment of fresh soft fruit – raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, grapes and mandarin segments – with cream and ice cream. I went home full to bursting – a definite overeat. One of these days, soon, I’ll start dieting seriously, but as I write I’m aware of having had a cooked breakfast – bacon, egg, black pudding, mushrooms and tomato on toast – and now eating a starter – whitebait – before my main veggie course of Creamy Leek Croustade, as featured in the Cranks recipe book. Tasty, but not the way to reduce a very bulging stomach. I might even contemplate joining a gym, and seeing if I can’t really get this tum down and my fitness up. Then I could walk even more.. green or what!

Green on holiday?

2006-07-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve had four lovely days in Chester, staying with a Quaker friend and going to three concerts in the Chester Music Festival. Highly recommended: the young piano trio who played the Beethoven ‘Archduke’ trio were superb, giving new insights into a work I know well. Gothic Voices, famous for ‘Feather on the Breath of God’, the music of Hildegarde of Bingen, gave a fascinating and informative concert, marred only by their having to compete with the local fire brigade who for some inexplicable reason were doing an exercise putting a man on the cathedral roof – a failure of communication, they should have been told to come back and do it next week when the festival was over! And finally the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic performing Mahler’s great Resurrection Symphony, a huge work of hope and optimism in the end after a terrifying opening of funeral rites: so well done we stood and cheered at the end.

I’d gone by car. The UK is simply not designed for side to side rail travel! And actually I’d changed plans at the last minute – twice – because a friend was planning to visit right at the start of the week and then moved it to the following week: so it would have been prohibitively expensive. I can’t afford spontaneity! It does seem a bit anti-green of the railway companies to penalise the late booker so much: why can’t they do a standby system like the airlines used to, whereby those who use up the unsold seats get them at reduced prices, not increased ones.

But the house where I was staying was about half a mile from the city walls, so I walked in and back each day, good for my exercise regime. It’s an amazing city, Chester: there are mediaeval shops there, double-storied, unlike anywhere else in the UK. These are really ancient monuments but they are used for ordinary things like the sofa shop which has an interior almost unchanged in four or five centuries. It’s living history. I’d gone because someone had told me how good the Roman bits were – and foolishly I never checked it out first in my English Heritage book: but in fact that was one of the two disappointments, there is a dig of an amphitheatre and that’s about it for Roman. (The other disappointment was the river cruise, which was up the Dee, pretty and tree-lined but with no really distinguishing features, on a boat where I had to queue for 20 minutes to get a drink!)

A pleasant holiday, nevertheless. I was staying with a friend who lives a very simple life – no television, little alcohol, veggie eating: if we all lived like that, somehow the nation would be better, more peaceful, more at one with itself. My friend has been peacemaking in Israel, putting herself in danger to try to bring understanding, but with tonight’s news of Israel bombing a UN post this seems unlikely. But one must try, and she did; I’ve every admiration for that.

Back home, then, for a busy weekend: a friend to stay on Friday with whom I did a workshop on erosion of Civil Liberties (read Henry Porter in ‘The Observer’, or see their website, to see more; it’s horrific what’s going on), a couple for dinner, then another friend to stay for three very happy days. And only today have I had time to recover, wash, shop and begin on all the domestics I’d been putting off. My friend texted me to say ‘back to reality’ – but I replied that her visit was the reality, the nitty-gritty real world was the illusion! I shall visit her domain in the Spring: reality will set in again then.

The Merry Widower?

2006-07-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to tell how my Dad is taking things. He must be missing Mum a lot: they were married for 67 years, after all. But she was a very controlling woman, and now he’s able to watch television (and fall asleep in front of it) and rustle the paper and drop it all over the floor to his heart’s content, he does seem to have perked up a good deal. This week, Janet, one of his carers, took him out in his wheelchair. It has a motor assistance underneath, so she can push him quite easily for some distance. She took him up to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre coffee shop and bought him tea and cakes, then on to Woolworths to choose a photo frame. He wants this for two pressed flowers, one from Mum’s garden and one from her funeral wreath, along with a photo of her. I think it will be a lovely memento, and will give him much comfort.

Anyway, the day after this outing, he was very bright and perky. He was awake all morning – unusual for him – and we chatted for nearly an hour, which is unheard of – I don’t ever remember chatting that long even when he and I were much younger! Mum would never let him go out if there was any wind: but I think if he’s wrapped up warm, the fresh air keeps his brain going, and being confined to barracks is a major contributing factor to his moments of confusion. It’s as well he was having a lucid period, as we needed to get him to understand and execute a power of attorney so I can run his finances for him. He never signs anything without looking at it for ages, so it’s really slow if you actually want something done! (At least he signed a cheque for all the money I’d spent on his behalf, though.)

I suppose it’s early days yet: next Tuesday will be a month since Mum died. To me it doesn’t seem any time at all: I’d been vaguely wondering if it would become clear in two or three months whether Dad would be able to cope, but now I think it will take longer than that. I’m so aware than many couples of long duration follow one another quite quickly, but I’m not at all sure that this will be the case with Dad: but then, he’s 94 and his own health isn’t exactly A1.

But we’ve done a bit of ‘greening’, nevertheless. Mum used to have heaters on all the time, even in high Summer, because she felt the cold: as we discovered, she had a lot of arteriosclerosis and so must have had very limited circulation. And the immersion heater was on 24/7: I’ve now got the carers to have it on in the morning (hot water for the washing machine) and turn it off at teatime, which will save Dad money and the Planet a little as well. So I’m doing my greenish bit down there as well as up here – though it does concern me, the amount of petrol I’m burning going up and down the A1/M1 all the time. I’ve been three times since mid June, and will go again at the very end of July, so it’s lots of miles – but I can’t do what’s needed quickly enough without a car, and things like shopping are really hard as there’s no bus to where my Dad lives. They did try a wonderful pollution free electric bus (well, only the pollution from making the electricity!) which went round the town, but that would have meant two bus rides – not free for me down there, why can’t my ‘free bus travel’ cover the UK instead of only my home area?! – and shopping would have taken about three hours. I don’t like to leave Dad that long, though of course I’m leaving him three weeks at the moment! And if I do move to Banbury, the drive over will take half an hour, but the train takes an hour and a half – so I ain’t using the train a lot!! Time and Greenness is so often a conflict. As ever, one has to strike a balance: at least I’m making some sort of effort to decrease Dad’s footprint as well as my own.

What to do when someone dies

2006-07-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

I was glad the hospital had given me a booklet. ‘Which’ magazine used to do a little book with the same title as this post, but where my Dad’s copy is I’ve no idea: probably Mum threw it out as unnecessary (!).

So first I had to get in touch with the coroner: because Mum had died in hospital following an operation, the death had been referred to him. The Coroner’s office were a model of helpfulness. They explained the procedures and timings, and they had said a post-mortem would be needed in order to establish beyond doubt the cause of death, and that it had been arranged for the following day (Tuesday – the contact was on the Monday, the day after Mum died). And indeed on the Tuesday at lunchtime the coroner rang to say that it was all done and he could release the death certificate, which meant we could get on with the funeral arrangements and with registering the death: he’d faxed the necessary document through to the registrar.

Meanwhile we’d had some angst as to what to do about the funeral. Mum had originally put in her will that she wanted to be buried, but in fact this was a little inconsistent with her leaving her body to Birmingham University, and there had always been a question mark over whether they would take it. She had then left a subsequent note asking her executors to disregard the clause about being buried: she wanted to be cremated after the hospital or anyone else had finished with the body. I hadn’t known this: if I had, I’d have talked to her about green funerals, which weren’t much known about in 1989 when she made her will. Birmingham University had left a helpful and informative leaflet about bequeathing bodies to them, and amongst other things the leaflet made it clear that if there had been a post-mortem then they could not accept a body in any circumstances. So that option was out: it seemed that cremation was then the expressed wish.

I wasn’t yet convinced: I felt that Mum might well have felt differently in the current awareness of climate change and the need to avoid adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. So with the help of my friend Marlene in Birmingham, I investigated a little further. There is a green burial ground in that part of the world: but although it’s called a ‘woodland’, in fact it’s currently a field. A tree is planted within a year of an interment – presumably you have to wait for the right time of year – so eventually the field will be full of trees. But there is no marking of individual graves: we would not have known where Mum was, only that she was ‘somewhere in there’. We all felt this wasn’t adequate: we need somewhere to meet and bring flowers on anniversaries and go out for a meal together afterwards. So in the end I swallowed the green implications and arranged a cremation: it was, after all, what Mum had explicitly asked for. I’d chosen the Co-op Funeral Service, as being as good as any and one who at least knew about the green funerals: so after registering Mum’s death in Leamington, I went to see them to fix it. We had to go for a date not too near because of nephews flying back from Bahrein and Montreal, but we’d got a tentative date arranged and it proved possible, so I booked it. I had to make other decisions, too, without consulting: did we want a Minister (yes – I didn’t think we could do the service ourselves and remain steady-voiced), what sort of flowers (I chose a spray of lilies that in the end looked lovely, to be from Dad and my sister and me), what about other flowers (family only, donations to RNIB as Mum was blind), notice in the paper (yes, but very simple, listing no relatives lest anyone get upset at being missed out). I said I’d write a tribute to Mum, which I’ll put on here as the next posting: my sister Hilary altered it a bit (the posting will be the original version that I still think is better – my sis hasn’t too much sense of literary style and was going to leave out Mum’s greatest achievement as a young woman, playing in a recital at the Wigmore Hall of which my sister had never heard!!), and suggested that one of the grandchildren (her oldest) might read a poem chosen by her youngest. I agreed to all of that: I wasn’t going to have rifts in the family at such a time. Then the night before the funeral Hilary rang again to say her son would like to read the tribute (he’d loved my original, as did his brother!) and let someone else read the poem! Ho hum… so I rang the vicar who was great about it and fixed it all, and my oldest daughter Clare who agreed to read the poem.

On the day I’d fixed a wheelchair taxi to take my Dad, the first time he’d been in a car for about two years. Hilary and I went with him, her in front with the driver and me in the back with Dad. It all worked OK at the Crematorium, though Scott in the end found it difficult to maintain composure towards the end of the tribute, which was precisely why I’d thought it better to have the Minister read it. It was really good that all seven of the grandchildren were able to be there. Then back to the sheltered housing where Dad still lives, me again with him in the taxi as Hilary was showing a friend the way, for what I’d arranged as tea and sandwiches but where Hilary had insisted on having a glass of wine available (and yes, I had one, I needed it by then!) Dad’s carers were wonderful, looking after him all the time and taking some of the burden off me. They took him back home after a bit as he was feeling tired: and then when everyone was dispersing I asked the family about going out together for a meal, which I’d mentioned long before. But they all had other things to go to, and in the end all Hilary’s family went back to Scott’s – I think they were going to eat at a riverside pub near there, but they didn’t ask me if I wanted to come, and I was left alone with my Dad and our collective emotions. This was the hardest part of the day, and by the end I was praying for the carers to come and put him to bed with his sleeping pill: but of course they were running late because of the funeral and time seemed to drag on endlessly. But eventually they arrived, we tucked him up and I hugged him and kissed him goodnight, and went to watch the world cup, blessed distraction. I felt totally deserted, totally alone: I felt everyone else had come, done their bit, and signed off, but for me there is no signing off, there’s my Dad to look after. At half time I rang Liz, just for a moan and a voice, and she as ever was very calming: and after the match I had another glass of wine and went to bed myself, the end of a long, hard day.

The day my Mum died

2006-07-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

My niece Michele rang at about half past eleven on Wednesday (14th), to say the hospital were worried about Mum’s condition and thought we should get down there. So I packed, did the things that were vital – my divorce going on all in the middle of this – and drove down to Warwick, arriving about seven in the evening and having realised en route that I’d left behind my eyedrops, without which my incipient glaucoma would get quickly worse. I went to the ward and met my sister Hilary and her daughter who’d rung earlier. Mum was showing no signs of being conscious: she was breathing rather heavily from an oxygen mask. I asked the nurses first about her blood pressure, which was apparently up a little (relief!) and then if there was any way they could help over the eyedrops. They were marvellous: they sent me round to casualty where a helpful doctor wrote a prescription straight away, and the nurses gave us excellent directions to find the only pharmacy still open (Sainsbury’s in Leamington, if you need a late chemist down that way!). Hils, Mich and I decided we could do no good staying with an unconscious Mum, and so went to get the drops and then have a meal in a pleasant riverside pub nearly. They then went back to the Travelodge where they were staying, and I to my parent’s flat in Stratford.

Next morning we met again at the hospital: Mum was still showing few signs of consciousness, though she did appear to open her eyes occasionally, and to make small muscle movements. The other two stayed till lunch, then decided they should go home, Hilary telling me quietly that Michele was getting very upset and as she might be newly pregnant it was doing her no good to be there. I stayed with Mum until late, and went back home at about 7.30, by which time Dad had been put to bed but wasn’t yet asleep, so I could give him a hug and a progress report. This was the pattern on Friday and Saturday too: I stayed with Mum all day, wondering if she was at all aware of my being there and holding her hand, slipping out to the hospital canteen for lunch, reading, snoozing, doing the odd Sudoku and finally going home at around 7.30. As I got up to go on Saturday, one of the other patients said to me ‘You’ve had a long day’: it was good just to have an acknowledgement that what I was doing, sitting with a dying parent, wasn’t easy. The carers all popped in from time to time, and one thought Mum was beginning to recover, but the nurses made it clear to me that recovery wasn’t happening, they had no way of feeding Mum that would allow her to build up any energy: though on Saturday, ironically as it turned out, the dietician asked me to choose some liquid food for the next day in case Mum was well enough to take it.

At 4.45 a.m. on Sunday, the hospital rang to say Mum had deteriorated and they felt I should come in. I threw on some clothes, grabbed a quick plate of cereal so I would not be feeling too weak, and drove though the empty streets. I arrived just as she was taking her last breath. The nurse with me said ‘she’s gone’, and she turned off the oxygen and removed the mask, and I could see my mum’s familiar face properly. Then, tactfully, she left us alone together as Mum began on that last journey. It takes a time to die: there are plenty of cases of people who stop breathing and are resuscitated a few minutes later. Brain activity slows and stops, and the soul takes a careful leave of the body that it has inhabited, particularly if like my Mum it has been there a long, long time. Mum had had her 94th birthday ten days earlier.

I stayed an hour. When I first thought it might be time to go, I kissed Mum and pulled the sheet gently over her head: but I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t leave this lovely, amazing woman who had been so important to me all the years of my life. Maybe Mum hadn’t quite gone at that point, and was holding me back until she had truly finished her time on earth, this time round. After another quarter hour or so, I tried again. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, leaving her there, even though in fact she had left me and there was only the empty husk.

The charge nurse was, as ever, very helpful. She explained the procedure: Mum’s death had to be referred to the coroner because it had been following an operation from which she had not recovered. She gave me a booklet that described what I had to do: it looked very complicated but in fact this was only because it tried to cover all eventualities. She gave me a hug, and she too had tears in her eyes. She asked if I was OK to drive home, and I said yes: it was still only about 7 am on Sunday morning and I knew there would be little traffic. So I walked, finally, out of the hospital, back to the car, and drove home. It was hard, but by concentrating on driving very precisely I found I could postpone the overwhelming emptiness for long enough to get home safely. Dad was still asleep: I had to come the task of telling him that his wife of 67 years was no more.

I made a cup of coffee, and waited in total aloneness until just before the carers were due to get Dad up, at 9 a.m. Then I slipped into his bedroom, hugged him, and told him I’d been to the hospital because Mum had been worse, and that she had died early that morning. He said ‘Oh, dear’: he sounded half asleep at the time, and when the carers arrived I told them too. As they got him up, I heard him asking ‘how’s Audrey?’: they avoided replying. When he was in his chair, dressed and waiting for breakfast, I told him again, putting my arms round him and saying very clearly that Mum had died. This time he said ‘Oh, no…’, and I think he began to realise what I’d said, because in a little he asked when the funeral would be. I explained that we had to wait for the coroner and there might have to be a post mortem, which would affect whether her body could be used by Birmingham University Medical school, which she’d wanted. He didn’t cry, not then, and simply sat, eating his weetabix as normal and saying nothing. Meanwhile I started to make lists of people to tell, and then ringing my sister and then my children. It being Sunday, I couldn’t do anything about banks and officials.

I don’t know how I got through the rest of the day. Nobody else came: there was just me and Dad, and the carers when they arrived. I have to confess I was relieved when they finally put Dad to bed with a sleeping pill, and I could weep and then get some supper and go to bed myself. Bless the World Cup: it was a welcome distraction. And I knew there were more difficult days to come: but that this one had been, perhaps, the most difficult of all.

Ups and downs

2006-06-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

My sister Hilary rang at lunchtime to say things had all gone pear shaped: Mum's blood pressure was very low and they were giving her a transfusion, but rated her chances at about 50-50. My sister was asked whether they should try to resuscitate Mum if her heart stopped, or not: what a decision to have thrust on you! She said no: Mum has never wanted to be just kept alive, and if it's time for her to go she'd rather just go, she's said that before. I agreed, when I talked to Hilary, and gave her what support I could: she'd just got home and was very tired, both physically and emotionally. When I rang the hospital, they said that Mum's blood pressure was rising a little, and she was a bit better, and later this evening they said she was definitely better than she had been in the morning. So we'll see what they say tomorrow, and if need be I'll go down then to be with her. But that will mean not doing the day of teaching I have planned for Saturday, which will let a lot of people down, and I don't want to do that: it's a very hard decision to make. I suppose that if there's any risk of her dying, I'll go to be with her: I'd feel very unhappy if I'd stayed away and she died without anyone there. Ah well... we plan and life turns out differently - and so, of course, does death. Nothing prepares you: not even knowing your parents are 94 and cannot last much longer prepares you for the actual event. I thought I was cool about it, an almost welcome peaceful end to a long life with a lot of happy times: but I've been distracted and out of myself all day. And writing this has helped: I'm now clearer that going is what is to be done.

Oh, Mother!

2006-06-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

My Mum was 94 last Thursday: and yesterday she grabbed a towel instead of a grab handle (she'd had the most convenient one removed because she felt it was in her way) and fell over and broke her hip. So now she's in hospital in Warwick, having it mended - or possibly partially replaced - and she'll be there the next ten days. My Dad, who is something of a victim, apparently perked up as soon as they took Mum off in the ambulance, and has been much more lively and awake than usual, watching television and generally taking an interest. It worries me that Mum doesn't let him watch TV, she's blind so she can't see it and so she kept telling him to 'turn off that racket' until he stopped bothering to turn it on. And so, denied the only pleasures he has left, because he's pretty immobile and at present can't even be taken outside the house, he sits and dozes all day - but what else is there for him to do! Mum listens to talking books, but both of them must be pretty bored with the daylight hours when the carers aren't there. I think they'd be happier in a home, but Mum won't hear of it. It's a bit daft, though, when they build flats for old people where every door has a step up to it, and the main entrance is into a porch about three feet square with a right angled turn to get into the house - not the remotest possibility of wheelchair access.

Meanwhile they live in temperatures that would make a sauna seem cool, expending energy with gay abandon as if the planet had no tomorrow. And this, too, worries me: in a home they would at least be sharing the energy use with many others. Their electricity bill is over £80 per month, and that's not keeping pace with their useage - and that's in the summer! I want to get a room thermometer to see just how hot it is in there, but it won't make any difference: when my mother has decided she wants something, she decides everyone else wants it too and that is what will happen, and evidence to the contrary is just not welcomed. As a child, I never had to work out what I wanted, because Mum told me: it took me ages in later life to learn how to develop my own tastes, and even now I have problems over choosing what I want.

But I wonder, now, how far old people generally don't see green issues as relevant to them. Neither of my parents has much sense of taste left: fresh organic chicken to them tastes the same as frozen battery cardboard, and they can't really chew meat at all anyway. My mum always has an excuse - it's undercooked, it's overcooked, it's too dry or whatever: and she can't see what she's eating which must make it very hard for her. But the carer who shops for her has no idea at all about the Planet, and buys a curious mixture of 'the Best' expensive stuff which she can't appreciate and the cheap 'value' brand which is mostly factory produced food. When I'm there I transform their shopping and eating, and if I get moved down there I can do it all for them: but there must be millions of older people for whom the kind of issues even faint-hearted greenish people like me think are important just don't exist. And what, pray, do we all do about that, without abusing the elderly?

So what's greenish here?

2006-06-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Apart from the text colour, that is! Well, I've become aware more and more in the last year or so of the increasingly urgent need to save the planet. I've been partially aware for some time: I did an Adult Ed. course at Newcastle University some years ago called 'put your money where your mouth is', which was about practical ways in which to have a lighter footprint on the Earth. It was quite an eye-opener: some things most people think are being green simply move the problem one step further up a chain, for example. But it didn't affect my behaviour a lot: I was already recycling bottles and cans and newspapers, long before we had recycling bins, and I wasn't a profligate car user - though I did go to my green classes as one person in a Vauxhall Cavalier, which was rather defeating the object! Now I'm much more aware of what is possible, and I started this blog on June 6th which was World Environment Day - I'd signed the pledge the day before, at the Farmers Market (there you go, buying local produce, mostly organic, very expensive but better tasting and better for the planet) to say the things I'd do or already did. I was doing most of them - showering of necessity, because six weeks after having an abcess on my back lanced it still needs dressings on it, and using low energy light bulbs. And since they made both metro (we have this great local rail system in Newcastle and I live about 300 metres from a station) and bus travel free for ancients like me, I've been using both a lot more and the car much less for local journeys. I even put the statutory brick in the loo cistern, and it's a relatively small cistern anyway: if I was staying here I'd have the bathroom and loo both redone, with a dual flush system.

But: I know I'm rather half-hearted. Like the meat-eating when so many of my friends feel it right to be veggie but I just don't want to give up rump steak, there are other things I don't want to stop. I want to travel abroad, as soon as I can afford it (my pension muddle will be sorted very soon and I'll have some back pay!): one of my ambitions is to go to the opera in Sydney, and I don't take too kindly to being tutted at by people who have already been to the Antipodes. But maybe I will give something to an environmental charity to compensate for the emissions of my flight - for I've neither the time nor money for a boat. I looked at crossing the Atlantic on a ship and it's about five times the cost of flying, or similar to going club. And sometimes, like when I go to visit my aged parents, a car is pretty essential: I can't do as much for them on foot, I've tried going by train and it has serious disadvantages. There's no bus, not now, to their little complex: there was a lovely electric tram (how green can you get!) but they took it off.

I do try. I go to my Quaker Meeting now by metro, even though it means getting up earlier in order to get the train. I've even been to committee meetings by metro, though I don't like standing alone at night on Jesmond station waiting for a train: as a woman on your own, you do feel rather vulnerable. I drink organic milk, though it's not local - it might be better to drink local milk but then I'd have to drive to get it! So there are always going to be compromises. What I'd be interested in is any comments with new and different suggestions for a greener lifestyle, beyond the obvious ones that I either follow already or simply aren't willing or able to follow. I want my great grandchidren to survive: after watching the second David Dimbleby programme last week I began to wonder if it was even worth trying. The political will, particularly amongst the middle-of-the-road Americans, seems to be totally lacking, and without the USA on board the planet is doomed anyway. When they have a president who's seen the effects of Katrina but still isn't convinced that climate change is a reality now, let alone in the future, then really do we have any hope, at least till he's gone. I curse the way they ran that election in Florida, for Gore won there without a shadow of doubt: and we might have had a planet left with him. But then, when a sizeable proportion of a nation's population believe in creationism, you do wonder quite how backward that nation is.

I don't want to end on such a pessimistic note, however. I do think that if enough of us do enough to make it clear to our political leaders that yes, we do want to save the Earth and yes, we will pay more to do so, then there is hope and the Americans might just follow where we lead. If Britain is top nation for environmental care, the US will surely want to beat us: and then we may just be in time to save not only the Polar Bear but also the whole Earth.

What I look like

2006-06-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

I'm new to this! So I thought I'd just try a couple of photos, so you can see what I look like. This one on the right is a rather glam one I'd had taken at a cut price makeover. I was told the photographer was Heather Mills' stepmother: she was from somewhere in Central Europe but she certainly knew her job!

The second one is the rather more ordinary me, taken on a self timer down on the rocks at St. Mary's island at the north end of Whitley Bay. One of these days I'll get one or two more 'ordinary' ones, just me in the house maybe, for later inclusion.

In the beginning

2006-06-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've created this blog because although I have no fewer than three others in different places, they are all restricted (sometimes for good reason!) and this is public. And I'd like to put some of my thoughts before the public: I have this vain hope that they might be of interest!

Why do I have three other blogs? Well, one is specifically Quaker. Being a Quaker is important to me, and not unconnected with the title of this blog: it's because of my beliefs and leadings that I'm trying to be greenish - I don't think I'm deeply green and I'm certainly not fanatical! Put it this way: I'm a vegetarian who eats meat. Does that tell you what 'greenish' means? A second blog is my autobiography. Some of that is intensely personal, and until I'm a best selling author I don't really want quite a bit of my life story to be public. And the third is about a very private side of my life, and is strictly for a very few who are my confidantes about that.

So this is the public blog, the public me, the modern day 'diary of a Nobody'. Whilst I wouldn't presume to emulate George and Weedon Grossmith who wrote the original Diary (and if you haven't read it, do - it has me laughing helplessly every time I read it), I hope at least to try to shed a little insight, a little humour, a little proselytising for what I believe to be the big issues of the day.

Who, then, is this nutty woman who dares to think her ramblings might be of interest? Well, I'm Sarah, I'm 64, I'm retired as of the end of last year, and I'm trying to be a writer. Most of my career I worked in various capacities in universities: first at City in London, as a more or less conventional lecturer in a rather specialist field somewhere in the middle of mathematics, engineering and computer science, and then at the Open University as a Staff Tutor, a manager of the 'ordinary' tutors who worked at that time for the Faculty of Technology and taught students in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Finally I emigrated to Newcastle upon Tyne where I still live, to work at what is now Northumbria University, to help ease the path of would-be adult students. I won't go into that: the job, and my boss, were both disasters, and my solution was to walk away, to accept early retirement and to forge a different life for myself. It was a highly educative experience: my income dropped to a quarter of its previous level, and I discovered that money really isn't all that important and being at peace with oneself is. I'd swapped the one for the other and I'd do it again, any day.

I worked as what is called a 'portfolio worker' after that, doing a variety of part time jobs. I didn't want to work full time any more, I'd discovered the immense value of time to oneself. Why these people who 'earn' telephone number salaries for seventy hours a week don't job-share and settle for a mere £80K a year or so for half time work, I don't know: the world would be a happier place for it and they themselves would be even happier. In my last few years at the OU, I developed an intense desire for promotion, for someone to say they thought me worthwhile in the only way that was meaningful. When I went to Northumbria it was on the promoted grade, but I found it meant nothing: and when I'd just retired, a former colleague whom I had envied because he had been promoted very early in his own OU career was found one morning dead at his desk at home. He was younger than I am. At that point I lost all ambition for worldly success and settled for a meaningful life instead.

Now you've seen one of my constant habits: I digress, very easily! I was saying about my career in retirement: I spent a fascinating year as a project manager in the NHS, organising the distribution of grants to dentists in order to buy monitoring equipment to increase the safety of dental operations under general anaesthetic. But mostly I drifted back into teaching adults: I devised and taught a course for several years about using a home computer, for those who had bought one and didn't quite know what to do with it, but for whom the conventional CLAIT courses were not quite right (amongst other things they taught very little about the basics of Windows). I also taught for the OU, I assisted the woman in Newcastle who did the job I used to do, and I ended as a student adviser, trying to help potential drop-outs to stay on course. And then, last Christmas, I retired.

So now the days are often 'free', and I am left with only my own self discipline to fall back on. At the start I was going to write for half an hour every day: but that went by the board fairly fast. I have several things to fill my time: looking after 94 year old parents, for a start, and they live 230 miles away so that's not easy. There are also several Quaker committees, which is both interesting and personally affirming (gosh, they want me!) but also time consuming, especially as they are mostly in London. And now there's this blog.

If you've managed to read this far, I think you're doing well! I'll try to make future entries both shorter and pithier, more focussed. But it seemed right to start with a bit of background, so I hope that now you feel you know me just a little bit.