Thirst

I won’t be blogging next week because Josh and I are off to Nottingham on ‘Thirst’ tomorrow. Thirst is a week of practical social action in connection to the Hope ’08 movement. We are teaming up with a church in Hyson Green called The Family Church to do random acts of kindness in order to reach out to their community.

I have been so busy I’ve hardly had time to think about the fact that we’re going but I guess I’m excited and scared all at the same time. I love how practical the project is going to be – we’re going to be involved in everything from prison visits to spring cleaning – but it’s going to be eye opening being so involved in such an urban, multicultural community.
The good thing about being out of your depth is that you give it all to God. We’ve just got relax and enjoy!

 P.S I’m driving – and yes I am very nervous about it! We also got through our car service unscathed on Wednesday, even if we did have to get four new tyres – ouch

A Place in My Country

My latest read has been ‘A Place in My Country’ by Ian Walthew. It is a non-fiction memoir about the author’s sudden departure from working in the city to buying a small Cotswold Cottage and finding himself there. 

It’s a fairly narrow snapshot, just one person’s view on country life and the attitudes and issues he picked up from those around him. Although it’s non-fiction it reads like a novel and is great for a curl up with a cup of tea!

It picks up many of the rural themes you would expect from a small village (expensive housing, breaking up of estates and large scale farming etc.) and it was interesting to hear views expressed by local people who would not normally get a voice in these matters.  

It made me a bit sad too as it just highlighted how much the countryside is changing. How local people are getting pushed out of villages due to massive house price rises and how local rural knowledge is being lost.  

We did a lot about this in my course at university, but it’s very easy to be idealistic in management plans…whether they work in reality is different kettle of fish. One argument that we were throwing around is that the countryside should be allowed to evolve (meaning that smaller farmers generally became obsolete), but it’s hard to imagine that this will ever be so because people love to see the idyllic ‘British Countryside’.

This is a difficult issue though isn’t it?  You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want to see small farmers tending the land in traditional ways and creating the ‘nice’ countryside, while continuing to buy cheap food from supermarkets which have been imported or produced on huge, monoculture farms. What’s the point in pouring so much money via subsidies into small traditional farming – just for the aesthetic value, and small amount that it helps wildlife – when large-scale farming is pretty much the only way you can make a decent profit anymore?  
Is small scale traditional farming obsolete? I hope not, but I do think that subsidies are a bizarre way to go about saving it!

 

 

 

I love storms in Aberystwyth

You may have picked up from the news that Aberystwyth is one of the places that has been affected by the recent mix of high spring tides and stormy weather.
I love living in Aberystwyth when it’s like this, it’s such a great place to see the weather. To be honest I have seen worse here though. December 2006 saw paving slabs being ripped up and thrown across the road and parts of the sea wall being demolished. My friend’s car had a dent in the roof just from the weight of the water from waves coming over the sea wall onto the road! 

Josh and I went down to see what was happening (from a safe distance!) last night at high tide but apart from the waves coming over the sea wall it wasn’t that impressive! I still love it though because there is such a sense of community when it’s stormy/very sunny/snowy. Everyone comes together to enjoy it!

Typical

Gordon Brown has recently declared that he will use the law to reduce the amount of plastic bags given by supermarkets in the next 12 months…at the same time it was revealed that government departments gave out over 1 million branded bags last year for promotions and marketing…that made me laugh, so typical!

I think it’s a good idea though. It’s turned into a bit of a game for Josh and I now (“tut tut you got a plasic bag?!) and we try not to get any bags from shops.
This is probably helped by that fact that we get our veg in a box and the shop doesn’t offer them unless you specifically ask, but the amount of times that high street shop assistants reach for a bag for something that could easily fit in a pocket or handbag just shows the lack of thought that goes with our throw away society.

It just needs another load of publicity to get people thinking about it, and planning ahead. Go on, take the challenge, and stop this.

“Enjoy life while you can”

Okay, so articles like this just depress me. Apparently we only have 20 more years at the most to live in a ‘normal’ world before global devastation takes over – Europe will be Saharan and parts of London will be under water!
On the other hand you’ve got scientists saying we still have everything to play for and there is still time to turn everything around through ‘ethical living’. 

A recent news night article that I watched on the internet hinted that although people realise they need to make a change they are not really willing to actually act on it because they don’t think it will make any difference – just look at all the pollution that China are kicking out for example. 

Hmm…I don’t know. Just doesn’t seem any point in trying sometimes.
But don’t mind me, I’m just annoyed because the electricity bill we received today was £76 higher than last quarter’s. I don’t understand this! We have cut back on our electricity usage and used electricity saving light bulbs and we are still spending much more?! Maybe the prices have just gone up, but at this rate we are going to be cooking over a candle because there is no way we can afford to be spending this much!