Greening the neighbours

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!

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!

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...

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.