100 monkeys

checking out from the checkout

2012-01-20T15:24:00.000Z

Today I’m celebrating liberation from supermarkets. I last stepped into one of these cathedrals of consumerism three months ago, before the Lewes Octoberfeast. Far from being difficult, it’s been a great relief - as though I’ve finally come off a toxic addiction.

Looking at a recent questionnaire about food shopping by Transition Town Lewes, it appears that I’m joining a growing band of people seeking supermarket freedom: there are at least 32 people in Lewes who buy almost all their food from our two markets and local shops. The others stated that the main barriers to supermarket freedom are convenience and price. I’m going to argue that this doesn’t have to be so.

In the spirit of enquiry, I’ve kept a note this last week of all my food spending in my little diary. The backbone of our household’s food spend is a quarterly delivery from Infinity Foods of grocery items, including pulses, grains, tins, sauces, chocolate, teas, toilet paper and cleaning products. Everything that’s not fresh gets delivered to our door, for free; being wholesale it turns out incredible cheap, apportioned weekly here:

£25 Infinity Foods chickpeas, lentils, oats, rice, pasta, noodles, sauces, oils, spices
£50 weekly food market (£6 bread, £8 apples and eggs, £13 meat, £8 veg, £15 cheese)
£26 Pleasant food stores (oranges, lemons, milk, butter, biscuits)
£11 Lansdown (veg sausages, yoghurt and tofu)
£4 potatoes from sack from Ashurst Organics

Backed up with plentiful greens and some frozen fruit from the allotment, this weeks’ total food supply, for a family of four adults came to just under £120 or about £30 a week per person for a diet that’s entirely organic or biodynamic and where all the fresh stuff is local.

I think it's so cheap compared to supermarkets because little of this food is processed or part of the industrial food chain and because I'm not temped to just buy a few extra treats.

It's also convenient: I shop at to the market every Friday and bike down to Lansdown every Saturday. For dairy and some treats, one of us drops in at our lovely new Pleasant Stores.

It’s bliss not to have to deal with supermarkets, which are designed to dupe us into spending more on things we think we need and bombard us with choice. I hate all the packaging waste and the lifestyle messaging that we are fed in a zombie-like accepting way - including the idea that Waitrose is really much better than the other supermarkets. I’m also delighted to withdrawing my support of the industrial food system with all its own fat cats and hidden costs to the earth and people.

Most importantly, people I know who are shopping this way say they like putting their positive energy and money into systems worth supporting: local farmers and shopkeepers, wholefood coops with strong ethics and a resilient food system that is fit for purpose.

Photo by Emily Faulder

bye buy

2012-01-05T22:52:00.000Z

A few years ago a group of friends in San Francisco formed The Compact. Their quest was to buy nothing new for a year. Inspired by them, some of us here are inviting others to join us in A Year of Buying Nothing New. Our plan is to limit our shopping during 2012 to essential consumable items such as food, drink, vital health items and certain necessary things we can’t fix, get second hand or do without.

So yesterday I bought some stamps at the post office but packed my parcels in old cardboard as I’ll not be buying brown paper this year for packaging. Nor will I buy a food dryer I’ve been coveting or a new pair of sandals this summer; the old ones will do. Perhaps for me the challenge will be not to buy newspapers or new books. But maybe not: there is so much you can get for free.

Call me a domestic extremist, but this kind of exploration excites me. It feels good, and like an appropriate response to our broken civilization. We all now know that our level of consumption is fast eating up our non-renewable resources, including minerals, topsoil and water. Making new things uses fossil fuels that have become so scarce that we’re turning to even dirtier means such as tar sands and fracking. And the waste creates toxic landscapes and, worst of all, CO2 which threatens runaway climate change in our time.

The Story of Stuff is a lovely little film that explains all this quite simply and why buying less – much less – is necessary. It’s pretty obvious now that our leaders, our corporations and our media are not going to encourage this behaviour – it’s almost unpatriotic to not help our economy grow. But in this time where we’re having to choose between economic growth and life on earth, I know where I’ll be placing my vote.

Perhaps the most persuasive reason to live with less stuff is that we’re heading in that direction anyway. It may be better to ride the crest of a wave of change than be sucked under it.

this land is your land

2011-12-08T21:16:00.001Z

I heard on the grapevine that the North Street area of Lewes has been sold to a foreign buyer (subject to contract). Its previous owner, Anglo-Irish Bank, who had loaned a ridiculous sum to Charles Style of Angel Properties to develop it, had repossessed it when Angel Properties went into admin. The Anglo-Irish Bank, which was heavily over-extended, in turn, went bust and was nationalised a couple of years ago so the land was until recently being held by the Irish government.

News of its new ownership must come as a blow to the Lewes Community Land Trust, which had created a consortium of social developers including Guinness Trust, to bid for the land. Their bid, however, was conditional and was probably underbid by an unconditional offer, which the Irish Government had been requiring.

What upsets me is that someone can simply buy a piece of land that’s essential to a town’s infrastructure, and then attempt to make money out of it, with little reference to the people who live and work there, this history, the culture, such as we saw with Charles Style’s bizarre Phoenix Quarter – brilliantly subdued by Lewes Matters five years ago.

At the moment, North Street is experiencing a small renaissance, with individuals and small groups of people renting the warehouses to make goods and run services. It’s probably quite a significant source of self-employment and employment in the town, precisely because there are no corporate logos to be seen, but under-valued as a result. The myth still prevails in town planning that large employers are the biggest source of revenue for a town, when the opposite is often true.

Is the 22-acre land being landbanked as part of a wealthy foreigner’s property portfolio with the tenants in long-term uncertainty and unable to invest in infrastructure? Or will Lewes residents once again be faced with staving off someone else’s self-wealth-creating ‘vision for North St’? We shall see. I look forward to a future where once again Lewes is run by and for local people, looking after each other in the complex web of interconnectedness that creates real abundance and resilience.

well-fed neigbours

2011-12-01T14:56:00.001Z

I don’t want to scare you but I think it’s time we started to store food. It looks as though we could be in for quite big changes in the coming decade. We might be looking at the Long Emergency and we might be facing some sudden changes. These could come from one or several areas: economic, energy and climate. Most pressing is the recent news that British government is planning for the possibility of economic collapse following the now-almost-inevitable collapse of the Euro.

When change happens, we’re all better off if we see it coming. There’s nothing more conducive to panic and bad behaviour than being badly prepared. You only need to visualise the Christmas rush at Tesco or the empty shelves in the fuel strikes in 2000 to get my drift. Or, as the article above describes, banks being unable to give out money and destroying companies dependent on bank credit.

But you don’t need a national crisis to justify storing food. Friends of mine who are going through financial troubles say that they feel so much better knowing they have a few sacks of rice and pulses in their store cupboard. And such things were totally normally in our grandparents’ day before the just-in-time brittle corporate food chains were established.

As I see it, there are three main ways to build food resilience. The easiest is to simply build up your own stores. Aim for a couple of months’ of your usual staples at any one time, then just get used to rotating the food as you eat it.
For a decade now we’ve been ordering our bulk food from Infinity Foods, a co-op that’s cheaper and more convenient than supermarkets. They deliver free to Lewes on a Tuesday if you buy over £250-worth. We order every four months, storing the 5kg bags of rice, oatmeal and pulses, tins, oils and jars on top of our cupboards and in our basement. There’s always a bit of space somewhere to store food. I know people who group together to share orders and others who buy Infinity food from Just Trade, a brilliant Lewes-based non-profit co-op that runs a drop-off at Lewes New School (next delivery 9 December).

Some people feel afraid at the mention of food storage, projecting out that it’s about being selfish or fear-mongering. And though it’s true that denial is a first cousin of fear, it’s best to get over that fear and be practical. The more of us who are storing food, the better. As they say, our best defence is a well-fed neighbour.

hook, line and sinker

2011-11-17T22:59:00.001Z

I know I’m going to dream about fish tonight, after a day of mackerel fishing on the sea. It feels as though my kitchen is rolling on the swell and the Easterlies that rocked our boat, the Ocean Warrior 3 all day.

We set off from Newhaven harbour at eight in the morning on what is, despite its name, a small chartered fishing boat. The skipper, Dave, took us straight out to some wrecks where he located fish on the screen in his cabin. Once anchored over a shoal, the mate, Steve, put on the tackle and bait on to our rods and off we went.

I’ve never caught a fish before but I had asked for a rod for my birthday two years ago as I wanted to develop what is a crucial skill for feeding ourselves. I’d been occasionally fishing off Seaford Head since then. Even though I’d accepted that I might not catch a fish today I was really excited when the first took my bait - a mackerel whose doleful eyes stared at me as I pulled the hook out of its mouth and threw it in the box to suffocate. Then another, and another. One of the men on board, Ron, lent me his mackerel tackle, which consists of six feathers and hooks that the mackerel seemed to love, because I immediately caught six on one line, almost as soon as I threw the line in the water.

When I caught two dabs on one hook, Steve told me I was a ‘dab hand’ at this. I was happy at that and also happy to move and roll with the boat. We all caught many fish between us. After a while, though, I stopped, though, as I felt that would easily do for my dinner, my friends and my freezer. It almost seemed unfair to the fish for the fishing, and their death, to be so easy. I felt grateful that these gorgeous grey-green dappled mackerels and the white, soft bellied whiting were giving their life for me. I said a little prayer as I put each one away and thanked them as I was gutting them back at home.

I now understand the lure of the sea, the magic of that suspended time with the wind, the waves and the fish. I hope that dreamy state will stay with me for some days yet.

blessed are the bread makers

2011-11-10T16:03:00.001Z

There’s a big discussion going on in our house and it’s all about bread. It started during my week of being a locavore, eating within Sussex, when I discovered that the artisan bread sold in Lewes is made from flour from the other side of England (plus at £3-ish a loaf, it’s expensive). During that week I started making sourdough bread from locally grown and milled flour. An authentic Lewes loaf.

But my children don’t like the sourdough. The crust is too hard and they don’t like the slightly sour taste. So I got a toaster from Freecycle, hoping that would entice them. But they’re still complaining and are now asking for lunch money on a daily basis, not feeling like eating the bread on offer. Despite being hardy in terms of my own food choices, I do sympathise. So we’ll probably continue with both artisan and sourdough, at least until I manage to make an acceptable loaf.

There are now four households cooking sourdough on a regular basis in my area of Lewes. We’ve started to wonder whether we should investigate building a community oven, much like the new one at Wowo campsite, which can hold 40 loaves at a time, maybe at Lewes New School? My friend Grace and I went to the brilliant Baking Communities event at the Town Hall last night. While munching on goodies spread on bread from our four artisan bakers – Flint Own, Lighthouse, The Real Patisserie and Infinity Bakers – we started to mull it over with a baker – Michael - who also builds bread ovens and helps groups of people learn about baking. I can’t wait to get started!

Later in the evening Andrew Whitley, author of the bread bible, Bread Matters, and Real Bread Campaign co-founder, described his vision of 25,000 bakeries (we currently have 3,000), supplying bread through all sorts of supply chains across the country. Real bread is a far cry from the industrially grown, Chorleywood process-enhanced bread that makes up most of our loaves in the UK. And it’s hard to see how a real bread culture can take off when so many people are still so wedded (or should I say addicted) to supermarkets.

But as Rob Hopkins says in this fascinating article about the connections between Transition and the Occupy movement, transition is about occupying our own lives, our own communities. Reclaiming abundance, skills and relationships back from the corporate sphere is something that we can each do in tiny steps. And bread is a good place to start.

fuel for thought

2011-10-27T15:20:00.002+01:00

I’ve spent much of the last week researching Canadian tar sands and Norman Baker’s alleged attempt to derail a flagship environmental fuel standard being set by the EU. Canadian tar sands are the second largest oil reserve – after Saudi Arabia – in the world. Allowing them to be burned will mean, according to James Hansen of Nasa, ‘game over’ for the climate.

The research has caused me to feel thoroughly emotional and it was in that state that I went to see Norman in his Newhaven surgery last Saturday to ask him what he was up to. He spent 20 minutes with a group of us during which he confirmed the facts but was unable to explain his stance in a way that I could accept, given the MEP briefing papers I’d read. So I continued my research.

In December member nations will vote on an amendment to the Fuel Quality Directive that aims to reduce European transport greenhouse gas emissions and will effectively price tar sands, shale oil and other ‘dirty transport fuels’ out of Europe’s forecourts.

Norman, in his role as Transport Minister, initially supported the amendment as it was in line with Britain’s commitment to CO2 emissions reduction. However, intense and aggressive lobbying by the Canadian government and energy companies, as shown in this comprehensive Friends of the Earth report, has caused the government to backtrack. Now Norman is now not only blocking this important initiative but has also stated he is lobbying his equivalent Ministers of Transport across Europe in a hope to quash the vote in December.

Friends of the Earth and the Cooperative say that Norman’s volte face coincides with a visit by David Cameron to Canada, where our PM opened Canada’s fourth Trade Consulate in the offices of Suncor Energy. Suncor’s website claims it was the first company to develop the tar sands (they call it oil sands). Norman told me when we met that he’s had no direct contact with David Cameron or the Canadian government on this issue.

Although the amendment is supported by all the Lib Dem European MPs and many others, both Norman and the Canadian energy company lobbyists say it is discriminatory. It doesn’t include other kinds of fossil fuel which, because of the energy, pollutants and environmental ravage required to get them to the pump, are deemed to be more greenhouse gas intensive. Norman’s department instead proposes a new measurement methodology. The Cooperative and other NGOs say that this ‘discrimination’ tactic is untrue: other kinds of heavy fuels such as shale oil are already included and more can be included as research is finalized. They say this new methodology proposal is a ‘wrecking’ tactic that could set the initiative back years.

I think part of my strong emotional response to this has been because I’ve fully realized that we’re not going to make a calm transition to renewable energy now that we have reached peak oil. Instead, there is a powerful, dirty lobby of energy corporations and government which, now that unconventional sources of energy are now economically viable, is gearing up for a race to the bottom in the name of energy security. Tar sands, gas shale through fracking, underground coal gasification: there is plentiful dirty fuel - Extreme Energy as some are now calling it - out there that will kill our climate many times over. We need to all wake up to this issue, just as we are waking up to the role of the bankers in wrecking our economy.

The front page of yesterday’s Independent wrote of a Cabinet split as to whether to prioritise economic recovery or the environment. And while I realise that Norman’s under enormous pressure to toe the party line, I know he’s a man of conscience and trust that he will, ultimately, do the right thing.

Photo courtesy of the Pembina Institute. More here.

oats and beans and barley grow

2011-10-13T15:32:00.002+01:00

It’s fascinating to see what happens when you step out of your comfort zone. Eating locally from within the borders of Sussex has thrown up all manner of experiences. My kitchen has turned into a laboratory as I incubate new skills, literally new cultures. Sourdough bread and cider are two, and I made my own salt from the sea.

It’s clear that we can eat a healthy, mixed diet from within the borders of Sussex. Meat and dairy abound, as well as vegetables of all kinds both from the fertile greensand soil of the Downs and the glasshouses of Fletching and beyond. Boathouse Farm has its own potato fields, and pumpkins grow well in a good year. Apples and other fruit of course are traditional from around here. Sussex is covered with wheat fields and there are farmers who grow grains and pulses such as barley, oats and field beans for their animals, so the skills and equipment for growing all our food needs are there, in the heads and hands of Sussex farmers.

But. And it’s a big one. Our infrastructure for bringing this food from field to fork is woefully lacking. As I wrote last week, wonderful Plumpton Mill is only one of three flour mills left in Sussex, with a capacity of 50 kilos of flour an hour. Abattoirs have been closed in the last two decades by red tape, so meat is harder to manage at a small scale. Smaller farms, providing dairy, meat and veg, close through lack of customers.

The biggest barrier of all is in our minds: the way we source our food. People have become utterly dependent for feeding on big daddy supermarkets, with their grotesque money-based way of pushing farmers, nature and all the living beings that nourish us to their limits. And sorry, but Waitrose is only better by a small degree than any other supermarket; there’s no real ethical refuge there behind the tasteful marketing.

I find myself raging about this, about the stupidity of people all around me who just want to go on with the dream – or is it a nightmare – of convenient industrial food and who at our collective peril neglect the farmers and the shop keepers, the wonderful land, sea, food and drink around us that are our true ecosystem, our resilience and our real sustenance.

Picture by Erma Shutter

salt of the (sussex) earth

2011-10-06T15:35:00.002+01:00

It’s day six of the Lewes locavore diet. Always one to jump in the deep end I decided to see if I could eat a normal diet just from Sussex. Since then, only food and drink from Sussex have passed my lips. I have to admit, it’s been tough. I have risen to the challenge and made my own salt; I’m starting to like its bitter taste. I miss pepper. And I’m getting physical withdrawal symptoms (headaches, aching joints) from the green tea I thought was so healthy. I can’t make salad dressings without lemons or vinegar, which as far as I can tell, is not produced in Sussex. And I simply can’t find anywhere that grows oats, which makes life rather sad, without oatcakes, porridge, muesli etc. Without imported rice and pulses, my mainly vegetarian diet has become more animal-protein based, so, lots of eggs.

When you start to break down the food you eat, you start to realize how much we depend on imported food and also preserved food, and unconsciously become part of the corporate food chain, which really doesn’t exist to feed people as much as to make money.

I managed to track down Sussex flour, though, from Plumpton Mill - restored by its owners; it was cited in the Domesday Book a thousand years ago. This water mill is a wonder to behold, one of only three now milling flour in East Sussex. It can produce 50 kilos of flour an hour; I strongly encourage people to buy this lovely flour, whose wheat is biodynamically grown at Plaw Hatch near Forest Row. Appallingly, though, despite half of Sussex seeminlgy growing wheat, it's all part of the industrial food machine: Plaw Hatch, I believe, is the only farm to grow wheat for local consumption.

To complete the local cycle, I got some sourdough starter from my friend Grace and have made two handsome loaves of sourdough – it’s so easy. As I write I’m mentally peppering this with exclamation marks. I suppose what’s emerging from this diet is that despite the hardships, I’m also finding that eating from my terrain is terrifically exciting.

going locavore

2011-10-04T16:33:00.003+01:00

I’ve decided to go Locavore. Just dipping my toe into the water, for the 10 days of Lewes’s Octoberfeast, starting tomorrow. This means sourcing all my food and drink from my East Sussex terrain.
Most of my diet is already based on the animals and vegetables that grow plentifully round here. Local farm shops provide lamb reared on the South Downs, biodynamic eggs, organic veggies from my allotment and several local farms, Golden Cross goats cheeses, and I can get delicious unpasteurised milk and even Sussex Downs butter in paper wrapping from the Lewes Friday market.

Starch-wise I’ve ordered a sack of Boathouse potatoes from the Ashurst veg box and I’m going to drop in on Plumpton Mill later today as I hear they mill wheat and rye grown by Plumpton College. Interestingly, a lot of the real bread we eat locally is made from wheat from Shipton Mill in the west country. I’m finding it much harder to source oats, which we eat daily in porridge, muesli and oatcakes. Dried beans, too are almost non-existant in Sussex; in the longer term that would affect the diet of the vegetarians and even more so the vegans in our family. I’m not sure one could be a vegan locavore in Sussex.

In terms of drink, there are several local wines, I hear, though Harveys sadly won’t be included, as the malt and most of the hops come from out of the region. I drink green tea, and will have to give that up in favour of the herb teas I’ve been collecting this summer. That’s probably my only real sacrifice.
As far as condiments grow, I’ll sadly have to do without pepper. Which would be hard long term. For now there’s horseradish ready to harvest from my allotment, dried herbs and chilis I got at last weekend’s great ChiliFest in Southease – Adrian there grows dozens of varieties in his unheated greenhouse.

The one and only thing I could not do without, even for a week, is salt. I’ve researched the matter and realised that there is no place in Sussex that creates its own salt. So I set off on yesterday’s Indian summer day to Bishopstone to collect 10 litres of sea water.

I strained the murky water through three layers of muslin before setting it on to boil on a charcoal/wood burning stove set up outside my back door. After about five hours, the salty water was reduced right down and started to gloop and spit. I transferred it to a shallow bowl, where it’s sitting in the sun, turning into salt. It’s a bit grey, and strangely bitter. But it’s about a cup’s worth, plenty for my 10 days as a locavore.

life preserving

2011-09-15T22:53:00.002+01:00

Boy, I’ve been working hard! I’m spending all my spare moments storing food for the winter. All the apples, pears, plums and quinces from the allotment, the runner beans, courgettes, tomatoes, onions, beetroots, and other people’s windfalls too, as well as foraged berries, are being wrapped, chopped, boiled, pickled, jammed, brewed, frozen and stored away for the winter months. Why? Perhaps because it’s been an abundant harvest, perhaps because I’ve reached a new level of competence/obsession. It’s extreme.

As I spend yet another evening with my face over splattering vats of vinegar, I often ask myself whether it’s worth it. I can pop down to the shops and buy this stuff, for not much more than it costs me. Certainly, if you build in my time, it’s not worth it at all. So what’s it about? Part of me wants to develop skills that I feel we’re going to need some time soon. Part of me is almost invoking the spirit of my pre-supermarket forebears, who had to do this to alleviate winter food boredom, and I can also feel their joy and gratitude for the food that sustains our lives.

But mainly, increasingly, I want to preserve food for its own sake. As we live more and more from the food I grow on the allotment I can feel in advance the taste of sunshine in the autumn raspberries taken from the freezer in February. I can taste the summer echo in my tomato pickle eaten with a root stew in March. The damson jam will be brilliant on hot toast on a cold day. And of course some of it will go as presents.

Really, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Next year I’ll just have to make sure I set aside time in September to focus on preserving, just as I prioritized vegetable growing in March and April this year and bees in May and June.
Such deep pleasure, even just in anticipation! Is it possible that by simplifying we are inviting more abundance and happiness? It’s all a great mystery.

Pic by MG Montoya

finishing touches

2011-09-06T08:23:00.000+01:00

I’m just putting the finishing touches to my permaculture diploma, which I’m presenting for accreditation this Sunday. It’s the culmination of nearly five years of work, during which I was designing and creating resilient systems in response to climate change and peak oil. When I took the introduction to permaculture course about 25 years ago, followed a few years later by a two week design course, it revolutionised me. Here was a holistic, systemic approach to life that had a brilliant ethos at its core: earth care, people care, fare share. That ethic applies even more today when the problems identified then are now threatening life on earth.

Five years ago, when I left Lewes New School, which I’d co-founded, I wanted to devote myself as a permaculturalist to the urgent issues of the day and decided to take on this self-managed learning course, which includes meeting with tutors and fellow designers. In five years I’ve helped establish Transition Town Lewes, and have been deeply involved in several of its projects, including the Lewes Pound and communications. In that time I’ve also co-started a community car club, made our house more energy resilient and also a generator of both heat and electricity. I’ve established several growing places, including my allotment, woodland and small forest garden near our house. I’ve become a natural beekeeper. And I’ve written about all this for Viva Lewes online. It’s been fun.

I’ve been able to focus on this work mainly without pay by reducing our costs – we buy very little stuff any more – to the point that we can live on one income. For me, whether I’m paid or not, recognised or not, successful or not, it’s my path. I’m deeply grateful for permaculture as a practical way of making sense of life.

Three people are accrediting in Lewes and two in Worthing this weekend – all leaders who are helping design resilient communities. You are welcome to attend. 2 – 5.30pm this Sunday 4 September at Lewes New School. You can read my 10-module diploma here.

nature is my cathedral

2011-08-24T21:12:00.002+01:00

I’ve been on a quest all year for silence, the natural kind. I found it on midsummer night on Mount Caburn, in a bivvy bag surrounded by rain and wind and a host of fireflies. I found it on the Isle of Wight in a hotel on the beach, waking up to the sound of waves and sea. Then I had a whole glorious week of it in a secluded, off grid, yurt in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees, with only my family and cicadas for company. We swam in the mountain rivers, we bathed in the intense heat, showered with water pumped up from the spring and cooked together in a simple outdoor kitchen overlooking a valley. Graus, the nearest town had only Spanish people in it; the sound of Spanish people chatting over a beer in the square in the coolness of the early evening is somewhat like a natural sound and it rang in my ears for some days. We visited hillside towns that had been abandoned, and some that had been squatted or reoccupied by young people starting a life on the land.

It was a little shocking to return to Barcelona to catch the wonderful and inexpensive overnight train hotel back to Paris. So many tourists visiting the Gaudi places, his work is impressive, particularly the Sagrada Familia with its architecture and decorations inspired by nature. But, personally, nature herself, especially wild nature, is my cathedral.

I’m off to Sunrise Off Grid festival in a mo, where I will be offering a workshop on low-carbon food storage and preservation in the ‘Off-Grid College’ - a 13 module series of presentations and talks looking at various aspects of sustainable, locally resilient, low impact, off-grid living.

nutritious soup

2011-07-22T15:32:00.001+01:00

I was reading a permaculture manual last night in which the author describes needing to put some time and effort (and muck) into a new food garden before things went ‘pop’. I laughed as I realized that this describes what has just happened in the forest garden that takes up a third of my allotment. In a permaculture design you’re advised to put 80% of the work into the design and initial structure so that you only need to put in 20% of your energy into maintaining it – unlike most systems which are the opposite. After two and a half years (and some before that by Chloe and Tilo, the previous owners of the allotment) of mulching, feeding, planting and weeding, I now have a garden that is more of a steady state, where weeding will become reduced as the perennial clovers and self sowing bee-attracting understory of phaecelia, annual clovers, borage and poached egg plant have settled in.

That ‘pop’ view of systems reminds me of my friend Mike Grenville’s talk to Transition Town Lewes last week. Change doesn’t happen slowly, incrementally along a timeline, he told us. Rather, the pressure to change builds up when an old system resists change. The more it resists, the more the pressure builds up, until it can’t resist any longer and it inevitably ‘pops’ or flips into a new state, with a period of turbulence in between. So Transition, he said, is totally different to the old environmental model of trying to persuade more and more people to change. That doesn’t work. Most people don’t want to change until they are forced to. Transition Towns are about engaging people, when they want to, to help each other create resilience in their own communities: preparing for the pop, so to speak.

He told us a story that’s apt for this time of sudden and unexpected change: The Hungry Caterpillar. When a caterpillar is nearing its transformation, it begins to consume ravenously (sounds familiar?) It becomes bloated, shedding its skin many times and, unable to move, attaches itself onto a branch, forming a chrysalis. Within the chrysalis, cells which biologists call ‘imaginal cells’ begin to appear. These are completely different to caterpillar cells. At first the caterpillar perceives these new cells as foreign and attacks them. But the imaginal cells increase, bonding and clumping, until the caterpillar’s immune system is overwhelmed. The caterpillar’s body then becomes a nutritious soup for the growth of the new butterfly.

trouble in store

2011-07-14T15:33:00.007+01:00

I’ve started to store food. I feel slightly embarrassed to admit this, because it’s not normal behaviour. Last year our family waterproofed our under-street coal hole, turning it into a dry, cool store for both fresh and dry food. In the autumn I stored 12 squashes from the six plants on my allotment. This year I’m growing 15 squash plants for the winter store: Uchiki Kuri, Potimarron, Turk’s Turban, Butternut, Crown Prince. They’re as exotic to eat as they sound, making golden, warming, nutty soups and pies all winter.

But why, when you can simply feed your family for fifty quid from the supermarket? Because big change is ahead andThe World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Assessment shows that the greatest risks facing us in the coming decade are climate change, ‘extreme energy price volatility’ and fiscal crises. Some say that high food prices are here to stay. I’m not saying that we’re going to go hungry in the south east of England, but I do want to live in a world where responsibility for feeding ourselves doesn’t lie with multinationals; I want to get more food skills under my belt; and as food prices rise and our income is vulnerable, we might just be happy to have some hearty food to hand.

So, it’s time to get resilient, no matter that the politicians, corporations and popular media would prefer us to be shopping. Over recent months I’ve deliberately created more time for growing food and learning how to preserve it. I’m growing most of our vegetables for about ten months of the year from my allotment (apart from potatoes, onions and carrots, which can be grown in fields and stored in sacks in my basement). Now, as summer brings abundance, I spend some time each day growing, harvesting, drying, pickling, fermenting, freezing and storing.

And I’m about to take another step: next time I put in my bulk order with Infinity Foods, instead of a five kilo bag, I’m going to order a whole sack each of rice (25kg for £28), chick peas (£35) and lentils (£36) – all from Europe - and I’m going to store them in our food store. I know that I’m only as resilient as my neighbours are, and I'm not planning on defending my stash. Maybe I’m mad, or a decade ahead of my time; maybe in ten years our town will have a huge food store under the castle. Who knows. But my gut is telling me to do this and it feels really good.

this is evolution

2011-07-07T16:18:00.005+01:00

There’s talk about a change of consciousness ahead that will help us humans move to a new way of living. It seems popular to imagine that a ‘rapture’ type of experience will happen on 21 December 2012 and until then we can talk and read about it and speculate, in fear, hope, whatever. There’s a whole new age industry focusing on these transcendent ideas, and I view this as another form of escapism and denial of the real issues facing us.

But what if a change of consciousness is already happening? I was having tea with my friend Jemma recently and she told me about a recent article stating that Ikea’s 2008 cotton harvest in Pakistan used the equivalent of the drinking water of Sweden over 176 years. Such shocking information had led her to question her use of cheap cotton products, just as watching Food Inc had led to her changing her diet to one that’s more local and healthy. Yet, she said, many of her friends had the same information but didn’t choose to do anything about it, often saying that one person couldn’t make a difference. Maybe Jemma's consciousness is changing. She reads information and she takes personal responsibility by acting on it.

It’s not a high-faluting spiritual thing, this, but it’s based on common sense, ethical imperatives and a feeling for the collective, the whole. Perhaps we are moving to a more global, tribal mind, where it’s widely unacceptable to live in a world where 15% of the world’s population use 85% of the world’s resources, and where we see every living being on this planet as an Earthling.

Although it can be isolating and even confusing at this time to be undergoing the consciousness shift to a global mindset, it also helps to make sense of what’s happening. As this Hopi elder says in this short video, ‘America is dying from within because they forgot the instructions for how to live on earth. It’s not negative to know there will be great changes. This is evolution.’

queen of the sun

2011-06-30T15:31:00.000+01:00

We’re coming to the end of the lime blossom nectar flow, with the trees casting their heady scent across Lewes. With friends I’ve been gathering the flowers to dry for my winter linden teas – great for calming nerves and for heading off colds. Part of the heavenly experience of harvesting the blossoms is the intense sound of the bees that cover the trees during the short nectar flow. Lime blossom is a major food source for honeybees during a hungry gap between the spring spurt of blossom and the long-flowering brambles and ivy that they forage for winter stores.

It’s great to connect with all the bees at this time of year – their intensity seems to match the height of the sun. I can and do sit for hours watching the entrance to the beehives I keep in Lewes. Unless the weather is making them agitated, they let me sit nearby because as a natural beekeeper I don’t interfere with them – basically we see the hive as their home, as though a body – to be left undisturbed. And once a year, if there’s enough, we might take a few combs of honey, for medicine.

I’m delighted that the Linklater Pavilion is promoting the marvel of the honeybee and to see so many visitors at their recent Bee the Buzz event. But why are the bees being kept in such an artificial ‘observation hive’ with their frames laid out in two dimensions and with sugar syrup being permanently fed to them? There are more indignities I won’t go on about, because I feel strong feelings of outrage, despair and shame when I think about that hive. Surely a centre of ecology should be modelling the natural, holistic approach at all times? There are other ways of observing bees that don’t involve sacrificing them to the cold glamour of science.

In a lovely film I are hoping to show in the autumn, Queen of the Sun, biodynamic beekeepers point out that we owe our very lives to the honeybees, as they pollinate most of our food. Most ancient cultures saw bees as sacred beings, not just for the work they do for us but because, as anyone who has encountered bees on the bees’ own terms will know: they have so much to teach us.

be not afraid

2011-06-02T18:21:00.001+01:00

Over in St John's Sub Castro’s churchyard a little area of wild is regrowing, protected from strimming. It’s where I keep my honeybees. All around them grow wild grasses, flowers and weeds, tall and lush despite the lack of rain for two months, where many other beings live: small insects, birds and mammals. At the other end of the churchyard, only daisies and lawn-level grass are allowed to grow. The few trees remaining when a dense copse was thinned a couple of years ago have now died, the soil around them dried out from the lack of shade, their leafless branches bearing witness to an act of pointless interference.

Alan Watts once wrote: ‘You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.’ This terrain, my body, is not only interconnected with but continuous with all other beings. The Lakota native Americans acknowledge this in their prayer Mitakuye Oyasin - ‘all our relations’.

I’m still struggling with feelings of outrage and grief from the dire news this week, including the announcement that the world emitted more CO2 last year than ever before. Being alive today is a challenge to my sanity and my physical health, and I know I’m not alone. Sometimes I just need to return to the wild places around Lewes, such as the rewilding church yard over the road.

As Wendell Berry writes in The Peace of Wild Things

‘When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.’

swarm catchers

2011-05-26T21:47:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday I was working on my allotment, near my bees, and heard a loud hum. I looked up and saw a swarm of bees that quickly moved over my head towards the woods beneath Landport Bottom. I jumped on my bike and tried to follow them but they were too fast and disappeared quickly towards their destination. They were not my bees but from another colony, excitedly and purposefully creating new life.

The air is warm, the nectar flow is on and swarming season is upon us again. Perhaps because of the decline of the honeybee, we now have over a dozen new natural beekeepers in the Lewes area. They keep their hives, often home made, in gardens, allotments and on roofs. Seeing themselves as ‘bee guardians’ rather than ‘honey farmers', they work on a very different basis to conventional beekeepers. They leave most of the honey for the bees to overwinter on, they try not to open up the hive without good reason – especially taking care not to disturb the brood chamber - and allow their bees to swarm as a natural part of the cycle. As a result, swarming is on the increase, thanks to natural beekeeping, as well as from the increasing number of wild bee colonies in Lewes trees, chimneys and eaves. So swarming in May and June will become a more common occurrence.

There’s fear and projections attached to swarming bees but really they are almost always docile. For example, last year I captured with my bare hands a perfect swarm hanging low from a small tree on Talbot Terrace; the children loved watching me do that; it was a community event. Swarming is abundance itself, the honeybees’ natural way to reproduce and break disease cycles. So if you see or even hear about a swarm of bees, stop to celebrate and marvel at them, and note where they land. Then ring one of Lewes’s swarmcatchers, who will transfer the bees to one of the many Lewes people who are waiting to start keeping bees naturally. Write these numbers down: swarmcatchers Adrienne Campbell 07774793158 or Mike Millwood 07971216075

photo: Natural Beekeeping Trust

a riot of flowers

2011-05-19T23:11:00.001+01:00

There’s a riot of flowers going on and it’s hard to ignore. Roses and honeysuckle hanging over the twitten walls flood my senses with their smells and gorgeous appearance. It’s blissful – just imagine how a honeybee feels on a day like this.

I’ve been so distracted by fear for the future of life on earth that I’ve been hooked out of the pure pleasure of existence. And yet I’m getting reminders that the future isn’t a linear scenario. Although I feel sad that the starlings who normally chatter in the lime tree near my house are no longer there, and the housemartin who has inhabited my neighbour’s roof for a decade hasn’t returned this year, I’ve also been pleased to see some species return. In my woods, the small pearl bordered fritillary, a butterfly that had shrunk down to only a few mating pairs in Sussex, has made a delightful comeback – I saw about 30 on one day last week.

My friend Persephone sent me an article about the reappearance of a red tree rat in Colombia which had been thought to have become extinct a century ago. And I’m over the moon to hear that the Great Bustard was reintroduced to Wiltshire from Russia in 2009 after a long absence from the UK. I last saw one of these amazing birds, which can grow to a metre tall and weigh 20kg, a while ago - stuffed - in the Booth Museum in Brighton and had never forgotten it. So perhaps, even if species withdraw, they can return given the right conditions, and this has to be one of the future scenarios.

The problem with fear is that it makes me (us) ill and that’s why I got cancer a while ago. I choose to live. So I’ve come up with a plan: no newspapers, keep the internet to a minimum, and take a break from the stories of mass extinction for a while. Of course, I’m still going to live simply, because that’s what makes me happy anyway. I’m going to smell the roses for a while.

Picture by Nick Robinson

web site

2011-05-13T09:01:00.000+01:00

Take a walk towards the bridge out of town, preferably with spookable children, and you’ll come across an enormous web created by ermine caterpillars over entire trees. A notice from Lewes District Council warns us not to touch the exotic caterpillers, which have stripped bare the trees and are hanging in clusters of web bags.

I find the notice, like the one at County Hall I mentioned last week, rather condescendingly human-centric. The reality is that we humans are as endangered as those beings we well-meaningly seek to protect. We utterly depend on all life to sustain us, not simply as ecosystems services, such as soil to purify water, plants to anchor carbon and willows to soak up flood plains, but as beings in their own right.

A Guardian editorial this week wrote that ‘although the cost of conserving biodiversity will be considerable, the price of not doing so could be truly terrible’. And the Funeral for Lost Species being held this weekend by my friend Persephone is all about remembering the ones who have gone and perhaps cherishing a little more the ones who are being obliterated by us.

Meanwhile, an eviction notice (court attendance Tuesday 17 May 9-11am, Brighton County court) has been served on the people occupying the land at St Anne’s School to prevent its demolition and sale, without consultation. If you care about this 3.5 acre of biodiverse wild land which should really be kept as a park or growing space for not only the humans but for all the other beings of Lewes, please come and help out (entrance at Rotten Row) or email stannesdiggers@gmail.com or turn up en masse at 9am outside the court.

Photograph courtesy of Abbie Stanton.

whose land is it, anyway?

2011-05-05T15:16:00.000+01:00

At the climate camp last week there were discussions of what to write on a banner to drop off the side of County Hall. ‘Get off my land’ was a popular choice: after all, whose land and whose council is it anyway?

The Climate Camp passed peacefully and met its main aims (see this sweet short video): to practice and demonstrate living lightly together on the land as well as carrying out peaceful direct actions against nearby climate ‘offenders’. But, as one interesting column asked, is that all that Climate Camp is for? Is there a call to work more deeply with locals on their issues? And a Lewes academic reminded us of the role of local in preserving things we value when democratic routes fail.

A consensus at the closing of the camp agreed that a group of people – activists, homeless people and local residents – stay on the site as long as possible to buy time for Lewes residents and councils to allow us to have a say in the future use of the three acres of prime ground in central Lewes. We put in some Freedom of Information requests, with the help of a government employee codenamed Puffles, for information about what has been discussed, planned and surveyed for its future. Rumours abound from within County Hall that demolition of the buildings had been imminent. We need to know. Whose land is it to dispose of for building, car parks and the like? STAND – St Anne’s Diggers – is forming around this issue and will be putting a call out for participation. The grounds are open for any resident visitors or campers as well as every Sunday a picnic from noon and community meeting at 3pm.

Last week, as I was scouting St Anne's boundaries with County Hall, I came across a little sign hidden in the undergrowth next to one of County Hall’s car parks: ‘Designated Biodiversity Area’. This was a thin strip of cow parsley and long grass, a portion of which acted as a dumping ground for the clippings from the lawns. The huge County Hall site itself is probably 98% buildings, car park and lawn. It says a lot about the mentality of our council that it even trashes, unopposed by any employees, the tiny area allocated to ‘biodiversity’.

Because biodiversity means ‘wild’. It means the place that many other beings live, because they can’t live on concrete and lawns. That’s what’s so lovely about the St Anne’s site: it has been kept secret and virtually unused for seven years, allowed to grow and stretch into itself. Having spent 10 nights on this land, belly to belly, I have started to fall in love with it, as have other Lewesians coming onto it for the first time. Strong words, but a completely natural response to a gorgeous terrain. It’s this visceral response that helps us to care about natural places, especially wild places which are inhabited by the other beings such as trees, bats, birds, hedgehogs and bugs and which makes us grieve when those places are ripped up and turned into money.

I’ve seen a strong desire to interact with this place, to tame it, plant it, inhabit it with treehouses – turn it into something for our use – and County Hall says it has a fiduciary responsibility to make the most money possible from land. But my personal sense is, for now, let’s leave it, let’s visit it lightly, let’s go gently and leave only footprints. Because, whose land is it, anyway?

pass it on

2011-04-28T13:36:00.000+01:00

I’m sitting in the far corner of the grounds of the disused St Anne’s School in Lewes. It’s 6am and the blackbirds are just ending their chorus. I’m on gate duty, part of a 24 hour rota guarding three gates. Climate Camp South East, who is occupying (squatting) the 3 acres of unused land, is meticulous about security: past climate camps have taught us that the police can behave aggressively and unlawfully.

Climate Camp came to Lewes last Thursday and is spending a week modelling how to live lightly on the land, working collectively using consensus; inviting local people to visit; and training in creative direct actions culminating in a non-violent direct action on one of the many climate crime scenes in Sussex: perhaps the proposed biofuels plant near Shoreham , oil drilling in ancient woodland in the National Park or the Newhaven incinerator. One of the benefits of climate camps is that people learn to self-organise and self-manage – an essential skill in the coming age of less stuff and more connection.

Bizarrely, soon after we occupied the site, we heard from several sources that East Sussex County Council, the owners of the site, had recently condemned the building and that demolition was imminent – apparently common knowledge in County Hall. ESCC even, we were told, believed we had occupied the site in protest of the demolition.

So the climate camp called a community meeting on Tuesday, attended by 70 people including a representative from all three levels of Lewes councils, to discuss the issue. We sat on the land, outside. By the end of the meeting it was dark but it was clear that although ESCC was evasive about demolition, Lewes District Council was prepared to do everything in its power to prevent the building from being demolished and that Lewes residents wished to use the land and start to vision for future interim uses, which ESCC said it would be open to proposals.

Although it seems likely that ESCC will try to maximise the money it can make from (our) land by intensive development deals, possibly already in the pipeline, it does seem possible that Lewes resident activists can make a stand. Indeed, the residents at the meeting formed a group called STAND – St Anne’s Diggers. Their first events are a Royal Weeding this Friday and a Beltane Picnic on the land at noon on Sunday. Everyone is welcome. Pass it on.

escape like squirrels

2011-04-21T13:13:00.001+01:00

It was incredible to witness the level of support for community energy generation at the launch this week of Ovesco’s share issue for Britain’s first community-owned solar power station (see photos here). The launch raised the amount pledged close to the £200,000 mark, with a total of
£306, 000 to be raised by the end of May. I feel so glad to be part of a community where big visions are held and then realised together – despite all the power struggles going on at government level. There’s still time to make a pledge at the Ovesco website.

For those who also like to agitate in a more physical way during these strange and disturbing times and the tipping points of climate chaos loom ever nearer while our leaders procrastinate, a week-long Climate Camp is coming to a place near Lewes this weekend. It’s shaping up to be a brilliant event for anyone who would like to become a little more radical. In true Climate Camp style, the venue will be a surprise: watch this wonderful website closely for news and directions, and come along for a cup of tea and a spot of creative direct action.

DH Lawrence: ‘When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power. We shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper’.

solar so good

2011-04-14T23:27:00.002+01:00

It was odd last week to have two Viva Lewes columns with opposing views about solar pv, with me singing its praises and The Trouble With feeling quite grumpy about it. At the risk of boring some readers, I’d like to address TTW’s concerns one by one.

Our demand for electricity is in the winter, when the sun shines less.
Sorry, but this is irrelevant. Every kilowatt hour of electricity produced by renewable energy, summer or winter, is a kilowatt hour not produced by fossil fuels. Both CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain and David McKay’s excellent online book Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air outline how Britain can power itself renewably through a spread of technologies, including solar photovoltaics (pv).

Solar PV is too expensive.
Partly because of feed in tariffs (FITs) being taken up with gusto in 40 other countries, prices are falling, fast. Industry statistics show that the price of modules has halved in the last ten years with most of that drop in the last three years (see graph here). There are plenty of developments documented in the technical press that ensure there will be further drops as long as the market keeps growing. Even without FITS, solar pv is becoming affordable: on a good, medium sized roof a 3kW system can be installed for £10,000. Given industry projections for the cost of electricity, the payback for that is 18 years. The cost of electricity is rising by 6% a year (the average over the last 10 years) and set to rise faster, as fossil fuels deplete.

The rest of us subsidise the Feed in Tariffs.
The total cost to date of the FITs has been less than 1p a month to domestic bills and meanwhile thousands of new green jobs have been created along with tax and national insurance income to the government. In fact the inverse is true: those people who continue to use electricity from fossil fuels are being subsidized by those of us who use renewable energy. The cost of climate change is enormous; according to the influential Stern Report, the financial cost to society of not going renewable is far greater than the investment costs of renewables. FITs are a way of shifting costs to the polluters.

We should spend the money on alternatives to fossil fuels.
To get off fossil fuels we need to invest in a spread of renewable technologies, including solar pv, according to the sources sited at the beginning. If TTW is talking nuclear, David McKay cites a 2008 statistic of the cost of simply decommissioning – let alone building - UK’s nuclear power stations as up to £73 billion or £1200 a person. Out of the Department of Energy and Climate change budget of £3 billion and falling, nuclear decommissioning alone will cost £850 million this year, £950 million next year and £1.1billion the year after. And that’s just the financial cost.

Is shareholding in a local solar power station a good bet?
Well, TTW, that’s up to you to decide. Myself, I am investing (£250) not just because of the money but because it’s something I want to help make happen. If you want to find out more, the full share documents will be issued at Ovesco’s launch of the share offer next Tuesday 19 April, 7-9pm at Lewes Town Hall. Anyone’s welcome, investors or not, to the event, which will include an Energy Question Time and free refreshments. There’s an incredible energy revolution beginning here and I’m proud to be part of it.

the sun is up, the sky is blue

2011-04-07T07:19:00.000+01:00

...and the solar panels on my roof are chugging away – or would be if they had moving parts, generating just under 2 kilowatt hours peak, which is why we bung on the washing and cook the weekly oatcakes because all that electricity is free to use. The Feed In Tariffs of 41p per kilowatt hour mean that our roof is earning us about £900 a year, making the payback period for the panels about 12 years based on their cost of £11,000.

More importantly for us, every kilowatt of electricity generated by the sun means we avoid burning the same amount of fossil fuels, which create CO2 emissions, which… as we know … is a serious problem for our planet. When I read research such as yesterday’s – that rapid artic warming is likely to affect the gulf steam, which keeps our land temperate – I am even more committed to creating a renewable future in order to avoid the horrorstories that are already being created by climate change.

Nuff said.

Third and perhaps more important of all is that oil and gas prices are creeping inexorably upwards and free electricity from the sun creates personal and collective resilience – if enough of us do enough things (including HMG, ahem) we’ll be looking at a clean future powered by the elements.

Dear Prudence open up your eyes

Dear Prudence see the sunny skies

The wind is low, the birds will sing

That you are part of everything

Dear Prudence won't you open up your eyes?

Walking around Lewes I cannot understand why more residents don’t invest in solar pv. Here might be some reasons and my responses. ‘I don’t own my own roof’: ask your landlord to invest in them. ‘I don’t have the cash’: see if you can increase your mortgage or take out a loan subsidised by Lewes District Council from South Coast Money Line. The FITs will more than cover the loan repayment. ‘The planning conservation officer says he will recommend refusal’: I say a polite ‘Bull’. Unless you are living in a listed buiding, don’t be bullied by these council officers whose job it is to be conservative; bung in the application and ask your local councillor to ask it to be referred to the planning committee. All applications put to them so far have gone ahead. And tell them that you don’t need to pay for the planning application because we are in an Article 4 Direction. Contact me if you want some free advice.

Finally, if you don’t have a south facing roof but want to invest in power from the sun, consider getting on board with Ovesco’s share offer to pay for Britain’s first solar power station – another fabulous Lewes first.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day

The sun is up, the sky is blue

It's beautiful and so are you

Dear Prudence won't you come out to play?

revolution

2011-03-30T16:14:00.000+01:00

Last week’s march in London was a blast. Nearly half a million protesting about growing inequalities caused by the cuts to public services, with the backdrop of bonuses for the bailed out bankers and unopposed tax evasion. Such a sense of power and determination.

I went up with a gang from UKUncut, who have their supporters here in Lewes. Our home-grown Lewes Four, who were arrested for peacefully protesting outside Boots a month ago, are themselves going to Eastbourne police station tonight to face charges. Though I truly doubt the police has a good reason to charge them. Myself, I am lodging an official complaint with Sussex Police and will also take legal action for my own small arrest and subsequent ‘dearrest’for not giving my name during the same protest.

Far from being the violent anarchists portrayed by some of the media, UK Uncut were peacefully making their cause known up and down Oxford Street by ‘baling in’ tax evaders and banks, ie conducting sit-ins. The finale was a mass occupation of Fortnum and Mason, who are, apparently, themselves tax evaders. You’d think they could afford to pay towards the country’s coffers. Though, sadly, the arrest of the Fortnum and Mason 138 may signal the end to peaceful protest, says solicitor Matt Foot.

If you are reading this and wondering why the lady doth protest too much? I can only say, isn’t it totally obvious that we need to stand up for what we believe in and if necessary make a scene, ideally as playfully and adventurously as possible?

Do please watch this very brilliant and funny video from Rap News Revolution for some context....

domestic extremists

2011-03-24T17:13:00.000Z

I watched the rushes this week of a new film Just Do It, following the lives of some of the climate protesters who are mostly young but who include the awesome Lewes resident Marina Pepper. It’s a pretty moving story of people who literally put their bodies in the way and who have managed to help stop such climate polluters as Kingsnorth power station and Heathrow’s third runway. These activists call themselves domestic extremists, and their clear aim is to help preserve life on earth.

One of the interesting themes from the film is the realisation that we have to tackle climate change at its source, and that is our industrial growth society and the institutions that perpetuate it: corporations and banks and governments that do not regulate and tax them sufficiently. You don’t have to be an anarchist to be saying that now: mainstream institutions such as nef, the Bank of England and the recently CEO of pharmaceutical Glaxo Kline agree that the system isn’t working. Which is why I will be to march this Saturday with UK Uncut - taking the 8.07 to meet up at 8.30 in Brighton and 11 in Kennington tube. Uk Uncut is a very new movement playfully occupying high street corporate and banks to demand that corporations stop evading paying their taxes. We’ll probably all end up on Oxford Street.

I remember Joanna Macy’s story about there being three types of action necessary for humans who wish to support the Great Turning (away from the industrial growth society to the life sustaining society). Holding actions – such as those of UkUncut, Plane Stupid and Climate Camp, trying to prevent further damage to life. New realities - and the Transition Town movement is firmly in this camp by creating parallel public infrastructure. And change of consciousness.

The latter can be a problem as I notice it’s an easy excuse for some of my spiritual pals not to change their behaviour – ie trusting in God without tying up their camel.

But at any one time, it’s good to be wholeheartedly and realistically involved in any one of the above – after all, what are we here for if not to be co-creators of our world?

where now?

2011-03-17T20:51:00.001Z

The Lewes Pound CIC (Community Interest Company) held its first AGM last night during which director Patrick Crawford talked us through the story of the Lewes Pound, right from the first small article in the Argus, through the spectacular launch, during the strange week in Septemebr 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the rest of the financial world seemed on the brink of collapse, and CNN had regular updates going out all over the world: Lewes launches its own currency.

A week later, and all 10,000 of the Lewes Pounds printed had been bought and swiftly put up on people's fridges and scattered around as souvenirs. Totally the opposite of the group's plan: to create a workable currency and to keep money circulating locally. The following week, the sold-out Lewes Pounds were selling on ebay for £30 a pop, amid rumours that the whole exercise was just to make money.

After the first year, about 150 traders were interviewed by a university researcher and about half said that it had made no difference to their business and the other half said that more people had come into their shops. The traders encouraged the Lewes Pound group to print higher denominations, which entailed another fabulous launch at Harvey's Depot, complete with pig roast, loads of stalls and even a specially written song.

Now, nearly 2 1/2 years on, circulation of the Lewes Pound has significantly slowed. Recently-polled traders agree, but are mostly still very supportive of the idea and keen to see it adapted or at least for other ideas to be developed to support the local economy.

The annual accounts were presented by the accountants Knill James, who'd done a lot of pro bono work and said they'd been quite chuffed to create the first annual accounts of a British local currency in well over a century. £5,000 this year of the £12,000 leaked funds had been set aside for a local project to reduce carbon and increase resilience but the CIC's call out for proposals had a meagre response.So the five grand will be put in the care of the Sussex Community Foundation until a suitable cause is identified.

The second part of the evening was a World Cafe session with three questions in which people were encouraged to discuss some of the issues around the Lewes Pound. Basically: What are our values? What's our vision? Where can we take the Lewes Pound next? Some really juicy ideas came out of the session, including the idea of a Lewes lottery; that it be used as a token; that it await a crash and be put into real use; that it transform into electronic form; that the council accept it for taxes; that it help promote development of new social enterprises; that it work with a credit union or issue microcredit. One thing was clear: it was so good to disuss these issues openly, though many more people should have been at the meeting to discuss the future of OUR money.

be prepared

2011-03-10T22:59:00.000Z

One of the most interesting outcomes of the revolutions in the Middle East is what that is doing to oil prices. Nomura merchant bank’s commodity team writes that crude oil prices could double to over $220 a barrel causing an oil crisis like that of the 1970s.

Jeremy Leggett, my favourite oil commentator, also writes that we’re entering a time of consequences, that with peak oil now a prospective above-ground situation as well as a below-ground.

‘Nobody – whether individual, household, community, city, government or business – can responsibly afford simply to hope for a comfortable outcome on the peak-oil risk-issue any longer. We all need to be drawing up contingency plans, and taking whatever proactive measures we can.

‘Not all the potential outcomes of this latest human drama are negative. There is upside potential for a road to renaissance beyond, including in Saudi Arabia. But we will be challenged, and we will all need to play our parts in holding society together in the tough times ahead. The more proactive we are, obviously, the softer the landing, and the quicker we can engineer the road to renaissance.’

With so much dire news coming our way – including today’s coverage of a UN report of global decline of honeybees – I actually welcome the breakdown of a way of being – caused entirely by the human race - that no longer serves us (and probably never did). The question is, are we facing renaissance – rapid evolution - or revolution? One could be conscious and willing. The other could be bloody, with many losers.

baby, it's cold outside

2011-03-03T14:58:00.001Z

So. Fucking February is over (our family swears our way through the month) and with luck this week is the last of the cold snaps before the spring bursts through, as it always does in March. But I do feel a little nostalgic this year for the winter behind me. It’s been a good one, maybe because I’ve been so close to it and have had to work more creatively this year for my comforts instead of simply avoiding discomfort.

We’ve had the central heating on only briefly at the beginning and end of the day (for the kids’ sake, really) and since we work from home have had to bundle ourselves up in rugs, hot water bottles, socks, slippers, hats, padded jackets and all that jazz when working on computers. Beds piled high with blankets at night... Keeping the wood burner fed has in itself kept us warm, as have twice-weekly forays to the allotment. And hot soups at lunchtime have stoked the fires too.

I recently read a fascinating article that describes the body itself as a heating system. Although we talk so much about insulating our houses these days we focus very little on keeping heat in our bodies through good clothing. The article goes into detail about the kinds of clothes we need to use to keep our skin temperature at a comfortable 32-33 degrees. Two layers of long thermal underwear under normal clothes can reduce the need for space heating by 80%, for example.

The only problem with longjohns, I have found, is that as soon as I start moving about and generating internal heat through exercise, I need to take those layers off. And if they’re near the skin, it involves an entire strip, in the cold. It has been quite hilarious this winter turning up to Transition meetings in an overheated pub room and for half the hardy attendees to have to strip off to their undergarments.

Perhaps this sounds a bit holy or poverty-minded to some people, and I have had varieties of sneer-back about this kind of talk. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure that this is the way to go. Maybe it's true what some people say: 'they' will invent some kind of infinte clean fuel. Or, since 'they' don't seem worried, we don't need to do anything yet. I don't know why I actually enjoy pushing my comfort edge. Maybe it's because when I reach the edge, I realise that I am still at ease, still happy and playful in my own domain and maybe that makes me feel less fearful of a future with less, and more excited about all the new creative possiblities it brings.

the real 'big society'

2011-02-24T13:18:00.000Z

One of the great things about Lewes is that the Big Society has already arrived in another guise; perhaps it has never gone away. Wherever you slice the cake, you see layers of people doing things for other people for nothing. Take public transport, for example. The uber site for this in Lewes is Travel Log Lewes, an up to date website full of ideas and advice of how to travel around without a car, and which also offers a free monthly newsletter. According to Chris Smith, the (unpaid) editor, there are no less than four different walking groups around Lewes, some, including Lewes Footpaths Group, offering free walks.

On the cycling front, Cycle Lewes has a great website, full of local information and routes and has created a wonderful hard-copy cycling map, with help from District Council funds, available free at the Tourist Information Centre. They also campaign for more cycle routes, including the Lewes-Newhaven route and completion of the route from Ringmer.

Bus-wise, our hands seem to be tied by the bus companies and East Sussex county Council who seem not to realise what a lifeline buses are to the vulnerable and isolated. I didn’t realise, though, we do have a community bus, according to Travel Log Lewes, whose existence is owed to Ruth O’Keeffe and other dedicated local councillors (who by the way are also unpaid).

Trains, obviously, are operated by commercial outfits, but I didn’t realise that, according to Travel Log Lewes, you can get Daysave tickets from the Tourist Information Office that allows you to travel anywhere on Southern Trains for £10 for one and £20 for four if you avoid the rush hours.

In terms of car clubs, Lewes has two informal, volunteer-run car clubs, one, the Silver Bean Car Club is an informal car club I helped start and which reduces the money and hassle that comes with owning a car. If you want to start your own group you can read about how we did it here. And the District Council has also started a car club, run by CommonWheels CIC, with European money, open to everyone in Lewes.

Most Lewes schools now have volunteer-run walking buses that take children to and from school on foot. The District Council’s Think Air campaign still continues to try to relieve the congestion and resulting illegal levels of NO2 emissions on School Hill and Fisher Street. And Lewes Living Streets is, I believe, still campaigning for a 20mph speed limit throughout Lewes.

Everything I’ve listed above is run by Lewes people for Lewes people, all for free. In a world where the corporations suck money out of the land and out of communities, and try to seduce us so loudly, it’s easy to forget this huge layer of community expertise and goodwill, our local immune system, underlying our wellbeing and ready to spring in to action when necessary. Let’s remember that this huge, often invisible, source of people power is where our resilience lies.

don't bank on it

2011-02-18T20:11:00.000Z

My cousin Comar has decided to reinvent himself. This week he receives his last paycheck when he packs in his City recruitment job and starts up a local food business, initially selling from a stall at the top of Ladbroke Grove in London. He has a big, permaculture ethics-based vision and I have no doubt he will end up creating his dream of a network of small local food enterprises.

I was telling him on Google Chat about feelings of outrage against the corporate tax dodgers and the banks (Barclays announced a 30% increase in annual profits to £6 billion this week). He pointed out that the government would not be willing or able to curtail their greed. And that no alternative to capitalism exists for us to segue over to. After batting back and forth the issues he pointed out that the best way forward is to no longer depend on any of these systems. Our job is to create effective alternatives.

Looking back, that seems to have been my life’s mission, to cut loose from The Man and help others to. I get a bit fed up with people who think that change has to come from the top. Change will only come from us, and there’s plenty we can do right now. We can change our bank to an ethical bank like the Cooperative. If we have spare money we can put it in an ethical bank like Triodos. We can change our energy supplier to Good Energy, so that all the electricity we use is from the sun and wind. Those are big, easy wins that also make us collectively more resilient.

The point is, together, we’ve got to get off the global money system as it is. Tony Greenham from the new economics foundation told a group of us in Better Banking group of Transition Town Lewes that the problem with banks is that they have unregulated permission to make money out of debt, which essentially transfers money from the poor to the rich (this great 3-minute cartoon says it all). Plus, banks are reluctant to loan to small businesses because there’s too much risk for relatively low rewards. A local money system, which the TTL group is investigating, would mean that money is lent to known people in known markets, by people who want to support other local people; this is what bank managers used to be for.

The banking system, which was designed to serve us, has completely betrayed us. But we can all choose better futures.

I protest

2011-02-10T19:19:00.000Z

Of course I was embarrassed that a photo of me being arrested last week appeared on the front page of the Sussex Express. Not only was it unflattering, but the headline, ‘OAPs arrested in Boots picnic demo’ was equally humiliating (I am 50). However, once my ego got over the shock I realised that the whole fiasco, including the illegal arrest, was effective because it had got loads of people talking about the issues. Several schoolchildren who remembered me from Lewes New School were very concerned and gave their parents the chance to unpick the story.

I’ve been occasionally protesting over the years since I was a teenager, and I tend to do it when the feeling of outrage rises up and needs expression. It’s an intuitive thing. Revolution seems to be in the air, yet the underlying causes of the problems – a capitalist system designed to reward the wealthy – economic growth based on increasing use of finite resources and polluting fossil fuels – peak oil imminent – are so endemic, it’s hard to know where things will go.

The sane place for me to turn, when my heart literally hurts, is always towards nature. I’ve been escaping off to the allotment this week whenever I’ve had enough of the computer. Finishing preparations for the spring which is tangibly starting to happen. Harvesting green salads daily from my polytunnel, which feels at times like a little chapel. This week, inspired by my friend Tali, who has a stall at the Friday market, I’ve been picking the first tender shoots of chives, sorrel and parsley and chopping them up fine with goose grass from the hedgerows and mixing with lemon juice, salt and a little olive oil, for a spring zing on our supper.

I’ve been sowing the first seeds into a small propagator I bought over the winter, a little mantra: cucumber, tomato, celeriac, celery, chillies, aubergines, dreaming of sunshine and abundance. I wonder if we’re dreaming our way out of the dark times.

I protest

2011-02-06T23:02:00.000Z

Most of us would agree that it is morally wrong for a company to avoid paying taxes in the country in which it is trading. Especially at a time when ordinary citizens are being asked to embrace austerity. And that is why I found myself, with my husband and a few other friends and allies, holding a peaceful protest on a picnic rug in front of Boots in Lewes this Sunday.

As I have written before, if injustices are not being addressed by our leaders, we need to use the power of protest to challenge those injustices. Over time, many changes have been brought about by such protests – such as the votes for women by the Suffragette movement or the end of slavery by the Abolitionists. At the time, the campaigns were denounced as marginal or wrong-headed. But at some point, the issue that was being campaigned about was overturned as a new reality came into play.

There are now some very dark injustices being revealed in our world, and I am particularly exercised by the barefaced bonus culture of baled-out banks and the tax-avoiding greed of corporations and some very wealthy individuals. Boots recently moved its headquarters to Switzerland from where it now pays £14 million in taxes annually compared with £100 million in 2007.

So we settled in on our picnic rugs and I poured a nice cup of green tea from my Baltica teapot and Susan supplied us all with biscuits. We read out Tom Paine quotes. Inevitably, the police arrived, two van loads full. We were politely asked to move, and given a five-minute deadline. I moved just 30 seconds before the time was up and was grabbed by three coppers who demanded I give my name and address. I refused, believing this was my right. They told me that they would arrest me if I didn’t give my details. I refused. They tried to handcuff me; I resisted. They twisted my arm behind my back and marched me, bent over – very undignified – to the police van where I was handcuffed and arrested. My shoulder and my pride were hurt. I was told I would be ‘de-arrested’ if I gave my details. After a while I did, to a police video camera, and was released. Presumably I will now be joining the rising numbers of people logged on a protesters database. My information is this kind of intimidation is illegal and I will be taking legal advice.

Meanwhile, four of the protesters who refused to unblock the entrance were arrested and taken to Worthing police station and released by midnight, a full 12 hours after the protest.

It seemed appropriate to be celebrating Thomas Paine’s birthday (on 29 January) on the doorstep of Boots because he had some pretty sharp things to say about wealth and tax back in the late 1700s:
‘Separate an individual from society and give him an island or continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property, cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected to the end in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes, on every principle of justice, gratitude, and of civilisation, part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

‘This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little from the labour that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.’

nature happening out there

2011-01-31T02:14:00.000Z

A lovely short video with Alan Watts, the Buddhist who helped make sense of my late teens

Our fundamental self is not something inside our skin; it's everything around us with which we connect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mXmz605GAnc#

rooted

2011-01-28T09:35:00.001Z

I find that one of the best antidotes to January is to make marmalade. Over a few days the golden Seville oranges from Bills are converted into a steamy, pungent, sticky mess that is captured in the warmed jars for eating with thick butter on my mate’s oatcakes.

Now the 20 jars sit alongside treasures accumulated over recent seasons: Sophia's plum jam from the young tree on our allotment, pickles and chutneys from summer veg surplus, exotic swaps from friends. In the freezer we're coming to the end of the blackberries and stewed apples and the transluscent red wild plums from the tree by the Tally Ho pub. Summer fruit always seems like a chore to preserve at the time but is so welcome in the midwinter. Down in the food store that we converted from the coal hole last summer, my last pumpkin was made into a nutty soup for my sister in law last weekend and the last two Bramleys from my neighbour's tree are waiting for the final crumble.

Just in time, frothy green shoots are appearing in the hedgerows to supply me with the spring greens my body is craving after a winter of roots. Dandelion, nettles and Alexanders will go into soups and salads along with the greens that have sat patiently through the winter in my polytunnel, anticipating the lengthening days to bring me bitter salads of chicories, endives, turnip tops, parsley, corn salad and small heads of the hardy lettuce Valdor, whose seeds I collected from a bolted lettuce that survived last winter under snow.

It's Imbolc next week, the turn of the year when our ancestors welcomed the tender glimpse of spring, the lengthening days and the first tentative blossoms. Gradually, over the years, I've aligned myself with the seasons and their harvests. With less central heating and light but more wood fires, blankets and hot water bottles, I've enjoyed withdrawing into this winter, accompanying my honeybees, clustering in their hives. Now I'm just starting, slightly reluctantly, to feel the pull of the sun, drawing outside on to the land, just as the bees will, I hope, soon be foraging among the first crocuses and catkins.

energy boost

2010-12-22T19:18:00.001Z

We got our first Feed in Tariff payment today of £150 for generating electricity from the solar photovoltaic (pv) panels on our roof, on target with what our installer, Southern Solar, predicted. We get paid a guaranteed rate that will pay off the hardware in 12-14 years, plus we get free electricity when we use what we are generating. So we cook, clean the house and wash our clothes on sunny days, reconnecting ourselves with natural cycles too.

Good Energy, who is our electricity supply company, tells us that there are 10,000 households in Britain generating electricity in this way now. It wrote telling us that it’s keeping its prices fixed despite mainstream suppliers putting theirs up by up to 7% this winter – scandalous given they also announced huge profits practically in the same breath. So if ethics is important, it would be worth thinking of changing supplier to Good Energy, who deals only in renewable energy.

But no man’s an island and true resilience is when all of us have access to the means to locally generated power. A transition group of us is starting an initiative in January called Roof Power Lewes (provisional name), a free service to help Lewes residents get solar power in their homes. Anyone with a south(ish) facing roof should at least consider getting involved – with Feed in Tariffs, at least this year, offering guaranteed incomes of around 7%, most mortgages can be extended to easily pay for the installation, which costs from £9,000. And now Ovesco has made an agreement with South Coast Money Line, who is working with the District Council to offer low-interest loans for renewable installations, including solar pv.

Given the Feed in Tariff incentive has been in place since April, and electricity prices are only set to go sky-high over coming decades, how come more than a handful of Lewes residents haven’t installed solar pv yet? Maybe they are deterred from the outset by the District Council’s planning conservation officer who, recommends refusal on street-facing roofs (I checked the other day) on the grounds of much of Lewes being a Conservation area (untrue, all non-listed roofs in conservation areas are permitted) and also being an Article4 Direction area (true, but it means that the £150 application fee is then waived – something they don’t tell you). However, the planning committee generally favours renewable installations, so there’s a definite knack to getting planning permission.

That’s what this group is setting out to do: to support Lewes residents to get group-discounted, funded, permitted solar pv on their southish facing roofs in 2011. It’s free, for now. We’re launching the project on 14 January. So if your new year’s resolution is to start to generate your own power, please contact us. Here’s wishing readers a warm and restful break.

throw off the duvet

2010-12-02T15:32:00.000Z

I’m amazed at how empowering DIY can be. The sudden drop in temperature has catalysed us into getting our house shipshape for the winter. Homebase now has a brilliant line in draughtproofing and insulation materials, and Bunces and Wenban- Smith do too, only a bit less choice. Last weekend we brought home two rolls of Carbon Zero loft insulation (for £10 total), sawed a little hatch in our bathroom ceiling and stuffed the roof void full of this wonderful stuff, a bit like candyfloss, spun from recycled bottles. This weekend we’re going to put our judgements aside (about not wanting to seem like poor students) and put double glazing film up on the bedroom windows. I’m more determined than ever, with the prospect of a second cold winter, to save up for double glazing throughout our house, which, like so many old Lewes houses, seems to be one big window.

Maybe I’m unconsciously aware of a great financial crash looming on the horizon. I’ve just read the nef booklet ‘Where did our money go?’ which describes the government and our economy/society as being inextricably linked with the banking industry and, so, unlikely ever to put in place the regulations needed to stop its suicidal growth at the taxpayer’s expense. It quotes Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England as saying, ‘Massive support extended to the banking sector around the world… has created possibly the biggest moral hazard in history’. Transition Town Lewes is going to be talking about this booklet and possible local solutions at an event next Thursday.

Attending a talk by Stoneleigh earlier this week only added to the impression of collapse as inevitable but also as a necessary part of the process of breaking through to healthier, local ways of running our society fairly on finite resources. As I wrote this summer, it really is time to prepare by getting out of debt where possible (and no, sorry, the banks will never forgive debt), to get interconnected and to start building resilience across the board. That means being strategic and investing our time and money into solutions – not escape plans!

So rather than snuggling under the duvet for the duration I’m going to dress up warm and get out there and engage with the snow and it all.

put the kettle on

2010-11-25T17:09:00.001Z

When I got home yesterday I discovered that all four of my children had taken part in the student protests, independent of each other. I'm proud of them for being active citizens, willing to participate in protest when democracy is not working. I'm actually amazed that more people haven't been protesting, given that the cuts coincide with the record £7 billion the bankers are about to award themselves in bonuses.

Rose, who is 17, was one of a hundred students who got kettled on Brighton seafront late yesterday afternoon. That means that she was surrounded by armed and helmeted police and not allowed to leave the cordon to pee, to get warm or for any reason at all. They were kept like that, freezing, for two hours and only allowed to leave after that if they gave their names and addresses and were photographed. The kettling was much more severe in London.

This is apparently how police are being taught how to control peaceful demonstrations and although it is no doubt intended to intimidate citizens into being less likely to protest, I feel it is likely to radicalise a whole new generation of children and youth.

We are probably entering a time of material hardship and therefore increasing unrest. I grew up with a feeling of national security. My kids will almost certainly not have that privilege. But maybe that's a more real perspective; looking back I can see that the price of our comfort was too high.

mending our ways

2010-11-18T10:41:00.000Z

My coat’s so old that it’s practically falling off my back, plus last winter the moths got to it. So when the weather turned I found myself coat shopping. In vain. Nothing, even the expensive coats in various Lewes chains, matched my friendly old pelage for comfort and cover.

Just in time, a friend of a friend, Yvonne, came to the rescue, turning up at my house one afternoon. We started with a cup of tea, then, confident yet respectful, she encouraged me to take out my favourite old clothes, many too far gone for wearing but lingering in the back of my cupboard hoping for rehabilitation. She left in a while, with my coat, four old favourites and a pile of unwanted clothes to use as patches. A fortnight later she returned with a magnificent redeemed coat, replete with a new fur collar from an old purple fleece and patches all down the sides where the moth holes had been. Good for at least another ten years. And my beloved old rags now have a new lease of life. Plus, while on the case, I took three bags of clothes to the charity shops.

OK, I am now in danger of becoming the patchwork lady but for me, nowadays, comfort and playfulness are more important than status. Anyway, with this double dip/long descent, however you see it, repairing things is going to become the norm. How do we respond to life in a degrowth society, where our children are likely to be poorer than we have been? I say let’s embrace it, and let’s be a bit creative together.

flight spike

2010-10-29T20:42:00.000+01:00

Last month we broke a four-year pledge not to fly, and took a 90-minute plane across Turkey. The two-night train sleepers were full and we had a stomach bug, so couldn’t go by toiletless bus. And we ‘had to’ head home.

In retrospect I think we should have waited a week for the next sleeper compartment, for when I returned home and filled in my weekly direct fossil fuel emissions on Carbon Account, I found that our carbon budget, carefully tended and pruned, was well and truly busted. We’d managed to get our household emissions really low, through a careful regime of draughtproofing, turning off appliances and lights, using big machines when the sun shone to use electricity generated by the sun, and wearing jumpers and using our woodburning stove as our sole heat source for most of the winter.

That one flight now sits, a massive orange spike towering over the steady thin line of frugality. Damn! 685 miles of flying means 70% of this year’s direct emissions to date, or nearly half a ton of CO2 each. And no matter how much we try to remain frugal, that spike will haunt us for the rest of the year.
I’m not one for guilt, generally, nor smugness. I just take this as a sobering reminder: there’s absolutely no point in making small changes like recycling and walking to the shops, if we don’t reduce our flying. In terms of making a difference to our carbon footprint, that’s the Big One.

So, I’ll just renew my Gold flight pledge here and encourage others to do so – there’s a Silver Pledge for those starting out on the learning curve.

frugality

2010-10-25T14:27:00.000+01:00

Listening to the press coverage of The Cuts today, you’d think we were on the brink of deep poverty. When that idea was put to Marguerite Patten, the War Food writer and home economist, at a talk in Lewes recently, she laughed derisively. As travelling outside Europe recently reminded me, we are extraordinarily well off in this country and few of us are likely to starve. Yet whatever the cause - bankers’ greed or government over-ambition, or simply because resource depletion equals economic decline - we are going to have to learn to live more frugally. It doesn’t help that our leaders and the press all express their great desire to get the economic machine back on track. Or that the collective dream of consumption continues unabated. The inconvenient truth is that small is inevitable. And like the proverbial ants, the ones preparing now will be more resilient and more relaxed.

Our family is still muddling towards frugality. This is the title of a book given to me by my friend Jim. The author, writing 30 years ago, tell us that the roots of the word frugality in Latin are frugalior meaning useful or worthy, and frux, meaning fruitful or productive. Unfortunately over the years the words have come to mean thriftiness and abstention, whereas their full meaning reflects a full and ‘fruitful’ use of all resources.

At this time of year, everything feels fruitful, and with my allotment is giving us fruit and veg for most of our meals. We’ve got a whole lot of greens planted up in the polytunnel which I hope will mean we can eat a salad most days of the year. Best of all, through the winter we’ll continue to harvest solar energy through our solar photovoltaic panels, carefully saved for and installed after a long and challenging planning process. Since they were installed in July, we’ve generated about ¾ of our household needs.We have wood for our burner and are still obsessively draightproofing.

I wonder, though, if frugality will take off. It doesn’t sell stuff. So the media wont sell it, nor will the shops. And it takes a little more time and effort for those too busy to bother and used to a convenience culture.

Yet, a frugal life is not something to be derided as hair-shirt abnegation. With less need to work and more time to play, it’s bloody brilliant! Let’s reclaim this frugality as a very juicy idea.

whiff only

2010-10-21T00:20:00.001+01:00

We’ve recently returned from a long train journey through Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus. A month to celebrate being alive, together after 20 years. A cross-reflective journey in search of the exotic after four years of not flying. We’re still having travelling dreams, where the smell of sewage mingles with the call to prayer and the beautiful, dilapidated, ancient and chaotic has its own cohesion. It’s hard and unrealistic to try to make sense of such rich exposure. As difficult as interpreting the curly script of Armenian or the professional fleecing techniques of the Georgian taxi drivers. It’s enough just to wonder.

As a food lover I was struck by the inverse relationship between the wealth of a country and its interconnected, employment-intense food infrastructure. As soon as we crossed the Bosphorous in Istanbul, that marks the divide between Europe and the East, we saw people growing and selling food all along the roads, from women knocking walnuts out of the trees growing along the main roads, to horsedrawn carts piled with produce. Outside our homestay in Tblisi, Georgia, a man and his wife sold freshly-made khachapuri – cheese-filled pastries – from their front window, an old lady sold tomatoes and grapes from a little shelf outside a shop to supplement her tiny pension, and the next-door shop employed five women attending five counters, each selling different goods: fresh, preserves, alcohol, toys and household goods, cooked fast food: a whole department store in one little shop the size of Bill’s. And yes, it smelled very good, a mixture of fish, pastries, tobacco smoke, bodies and fruit, with a whiff of sewage.

Returning home, through Austria and Germany, I became chilled by the cult of efficiency – acres of clean pavement; supermarkets with minimum employment: materialism gone too far. Back in Lewes, I have mixed feelings; we’ve definitely lost our food resilience, being 98% dependent on Tesco and Waitrose. But we have a weekly market. And we’ve created a kind of token ritual in the Octoberfeast. Maybe, tentatively, we’re coming back to our senses.

parallel worlds

2010-08-26T16:40:00.001+01:00

Since previewing a brilliant short film called Beyond the Tipping Point, which is to be shown and debated in Lewes this autumn, I’ve been pondering the issue of how people are coping with the now well-established information that our collective behaviour (in the West) is taking our stable climate to the brink, some say beyond the point of repair (well, for a few million years).

I’m bewildered that so few people are talking about it. You’d think there’d be a mass conversation going on right now, as there would if, say, a world nuclear war was about to break out. But it’s a bit of a conversation stopper, the scale of the problem overwhelming people, sending them into a place of denial or hopelessness, or hedonism. No wonder alcoholism and gaming addiction is on the rise. Then there’s the problem, my young friend Bethia told me, of ‘why should individuals change when society isn’t?’ An extra disincentive to make real personal change is the fear of being ridiculed for being green, extremist, abnormal, a fear of not fitting in, of not being liked by friends for taking an ethical stand, one that can be interpreted as mad or superior. I’ve been accused of that lately; it shouldn’t hurt but it does.

Yet I’m also meeting individuals who tell me –‘I’ve given up flying’, ‘I’m making my own clothes’, ‘I’ve installed a solar panel, ‘I’m loving local’. I’ve heard some voices accepting that it’s not BP who is responsible for the Louisiana disaster, it’s us, who buy BP oil and who invest in it. And, come to think of it, maybe it’s the wealthy citizens, living on 3-8 planets, as we do, who are partly responsible for the flooding in Pakistan. One can, as my friend Anuradha Vittachi writes, measure how many lives are affected by one’s choice to fly. I know this talk puts people off change, but how big does the crisis have to be for us to start to talk about it?

And there are some pretty creative community-wide moves afoot. Lewes District Council last week launched a town-wide car club. Using cars to reduce car use, an initial two cars in central Lewes are now available for the pubic to book and drive; they’re inviting membership now from the Commonwheels website. The Lewes Car Club is a venture being partnered by Transition Town Lewes, who wrote the feasibility study. TTL is also still going strong, with a new weekly market and a renewable power station in the pipeline, plus a website, promoting among other things, events every Wedneday at the beautiful Linklater Pavilion. TTL isn’t out to convert everyone to being green. Rather, I think, it’s being pretty successful in gradually co-creating a basic parallel public infrastructure that can be scaled up as and when.

pilgrim's progress

2010-08-19T18:34:00.000+01:00

I walked to Forest Row last week, a walk of about 20 miles that I will remember for many years. It took three days, though some people can do the walk in one. My daughter Sophia and I set out at seven in the evening and reached the Anchor Inn in Barcombe at nine, just in time for a glass of wine and a quick meal and then a bed down in our warm sleeping bags and all-weather bivvy bags in an adjacent field, with the river at our heads. I was woken later by splashing in the river and hoped we wouldn't get trampled on by an otter or rat. Next morning we woke early and set off up the Ouse, swimming after breakfast in a gently sloping swimming hole surrounded by himalayan balsam and honeybees. A short while later we passed a woman who must have been about 80, lustily smashing rubble off bricks a a volunteer with the Sussex Ouse Restoration Trust, repairing the lock at Isfield. There we once 19 locks on the Ouse, which could, in their heyday 130 years ago, be navigated all the way to Haywards Heath. Their restoration, one by one, is a courageous act, and may prove to be important to life after cheap oil. After Isfield we headed off towards the pretty village of Fletching, where we had lunch and stocked up on provisions. That prompted a little nap in a field, then we got distracted by field mushrooms growing in fairy rings. We got lost later in the Sheffield Forest and arrived in Chelwood Gate at six, just as it started to rain. After supper of (field) mushroom risotto with friends we set up camp on the Ashhdown Forest, most of which is closely-grazed heathland. We spread our sleeping mats out and did some shooting-stargazing, on the night of the gorgeous Perseads. Because there was no moon, and little light pollution, the stars were like a blazing blanket above our heads. We camped in a little copse, sensing that wild camping on the Forest is frowned upon. I slept deeply, belly to belly on the soft, pine-scented soil. We slept late, and emerged to amble over to Gylls Lap on the other side of the Forest, meeting friends for a picnic before walking in to Forest Row.

Apart from the joy of spending uninterrupted time with my daughter, what struck me was how gentle and - feminine - the experience was. Walking over the land, a slow exploration, is kind and non-violent, especially compared to the cars we encountered a couple of times. Walking through fields of corn and wheat, at the beginning, which gave way to sheep and cattle towards the Forest, you get to know the land's intimite details, to appreciate the roll and the plains, the brooks and the different trees. I was strangely moved by the experience. My body ached by the end of the walk, but I feel great now and I'm longing to walk again, further, longer, to be, as Satish Kumar recently said in his talk in Glynde, not a tourist on Earth but a pilgrim.

staycation

2010-08-10T01:25:00.000+01:00

I started writing about staycations a week ago when faced with a fortnight with nothing much to do. Kids gone to festivals, and apart from one day's work, my diary was empty. So since we’re not going away this month, I decided to attempt a staycation. In my own home.

Here are some of the things I did the first week. Stay in bed late. Have a long bath in the morning. Paint my toenails. Check out 20 books and dvds from the Library. Go back to bed in the middle of the day. Walk around town, slowly, looking in shops I don’t normally look in. Sit in a cafe, with the papers. Have a cranial treatment. Have lunch with a friend. Fall asleep on the sofa with a hot water bottle and a book, in the daytime. Spend a whole day on my allotment. Drop in on a friend. Cook a different recipe every day from Ottam Ollenghi’s brilliant vegetarian cookbook Plenty. Spend an afternoon sitting by my bees. Scrump plums from the Landport and make plum jam.

Here are some of the things I didn’t do: turn off the phones. Turn off the computer. Stop doing the chores. Get sidetracked into a drama. So one week in and I'm not doing that well. Holiday is a state of mind, but a very difficult one to achieve.

And now I’ve had a holiday forced on me. Our router has gone bust; it’ll take ten days to get back online. And I’m setting off this afternoon on a walkabout, with my daughter Sophia. We’re taking sleeping bags, bivvy bags and a stash of food and water. We’re turning left out the door, left up the river towards the Ashdown Forest and, ultimately, Forest Row. We’ll sleep when tired and eat when hungry. I'm looking forward to it.

meadowsweet

2010-07-22T14:59:00.000+01:00

I recently had an encounter with the plant meadowsweet. I was on a course, camping, and my friend Anna Richardson suggested a tea of meadowsweet for the headache and aching joints Grace and I were experiencing, instead of the paracetamol we would normally have turned to. She handed me a sprig she’d picked earlier and we immersed it in boiling water. The taste and smell were amazing – a sense of hay and almond, a light dusty fragrance, full of sunshine. And that night, in the dark, my dreams and even my pee smelled of meadowsweet. At the end of the course Grace and I made a pact to make our own herb teas this year rather than buying them.

Meadowsweet, with its frothy, creamy heads, is abundant in the ditches and meadow margins at the moment, and I went out to gather some on a hot afternoon this week on the back lanes. It’s drying on my kitchen table, now, filling the room with its presence. I rang my friend Haskel Adamson, the herbalist, for guidance about what to do next.

‘Now is a perfect time to be collecting herbs’, he said, ‘because the intense heat brings out the essential oils. I went on a walk last night,’ Haskel continued, ‘and I saw yarrow, agrimony, mugwort, St Johns Wort, self-heal and tansy, which all make good herb teas. And in the meadows I saw meadowsweet, vervain and walnut leaves.’

Plants from the garden include sage, lavender, thyme, and rosemary, which are good to dry now before the oils diminish in the winter time. It’s a perfect time to pick lemon balm, before it goes to flower, and it might then grow again before the winter. You can also pick and dry flowers for herb teas, such as marigold and borage.

To dry the herbs, says Haskel, either hang them up out of direct sunlight in a warm, airy place, such as your kitchen, or for smaller flowers, dry them on a rack or muslin in a similar condition then store in paper or fabric bags in a dark place for up to a year. It’s also a perfect time to make St Johns Wort Oil. Fill a jam jar with the flowers, cover with olive oil and leave in a sunny window for a month until the oil turns red. Remove the flowers and store in a dark place, using the oil for wound healing and aching muscles.

Of course, make sure you know what you are picking and don’t over-exploit them (the Wildlife and Countryside Act makes picking all wildflowers illegal). Pick only a small proportion of the plant, and check that there are plenty of other plants left.

For me, the experience of gathering and drinking herb tisanes involves a good deal of reverence and gratitude; isn’t it amazing how the plant nations all around us are there for our nourishment, healing and delight? Some might even say that we can learn directly from plants in much deeper ways. It seems to me that this re-connection with the plant world is pretty much essential for us to make the transition, to become healed and viable as a human race. Thank you, meadowsweet.

Anna Richardson and Anne Lynn are running a plant journeying day on Saturday 31 July in a local woodland to learn how to deepen our relationships with plants 01273 858154

Haskel Adamson is available for herb consultation and remedies, and personal herb walks 07842192614. Picture from Wikimedia.

naked

2010-07-15T18:27:00.000+01:00

As the summer reaches its peak, I’m immersing myself in nature whenever possible, and this year I’m particularly enjoying being naked wherever I can. There’s something about being bare that brings out the playful rebel in me. And I’m fascinated by what it brings up in all of us. When inviting my friends to the recent Pells Skinny Dip, the responses included What Fun! How Disgusting! How Embarrassing! and What’s the Point? To some extent, I agree with the latter perspective, the skinny dip being late in the day, most of us rather chilly and the setting rather un-natural. But I went there because I could.

My pleasure in nakedness has certainly increased with age. When I was younger there was always the real fear of being leered at by the male predator types. Now there is no chance of that, particularly since I now only have one breast, and that freedom from fear of being pounced on is liberating. When I had the operation last year I was grieving never being able to skinny dip again, but a friend pointed out that that was a ridiculous thought. Many women have lost a breast to cancer, and being relaxed about it would do us all a service. In some ways, being seen and accepted, scar and all, has been part of my healing journey and I wonder whether it’s not just being naked but being seen naked that is healing for others too.

I’m finding my favourite place to be naked is in deep nature, especially, this summer, in rivers. I’ve swum in the chocolate brown waters of the River Dart, under the cool, mossy oaks. I’ve dived into the muddy waters of the Ouse at the turning of the tide. And last week I swam at dawn every day in a Gloucestershire river that meandered through fields and woods. Feeling the smooth flow of cool water, standing in the hot sunshine with a gentle breeze, lying in the soft grass, unclothed, is, to me, a hugely sensory experience, one that’s available to anyone of any age or body shape. Being naked in wild places can be deeply empowering: at times I start to vibrate as I feel the earth’s energy flowing through me. At the same time, it can remind me of my vulnerability, as though, as we strip off clothes we strip off the layers of pretense and protection with which we clad ourselves in the ‘civilised’ world.

My friend Philip Carr-Gomm, a Lewes resident, writes about all this in his lovely, illustrated, new book A Brief History of Nakedness,
‘Awareness of ourselves as embodied creatures lies at the heart of our sense of self, which explains why so much money and effort is spent on trying to change and cover our bodies, since the way we perceive them and our appearance radically affects our experience of ourselves and of the world.’

the money loop

2010-06-17T23:33:00.000+01:00

This year’s Transition Conference in Newton Abbott revealed a new level of maturity in the movement, with hundreds of communities all over England – and the world – creating positive projects and bringing a low-carbon culture into being. Apart from several workshops with great relevance to Lewes – Energy Descent Action Planning and Working with Local Councils, one talk left me and most of those that attended reeling.

Michelle Foss, a Canadian financial commentator who writes as Stoneleigh on The Automatic Earth, spoke with great authority and in technical detail about a systemic financial crisis that would be upon us within two years, probably starting this year. The rapidly decreasing energy return on energy input of fossil fuels and a collapse of access to cheap unregulated finance will mean that we can no longer leverage the derivatives creating artificial wealth in the last few decades and we’ll experience a return back to the real economy, which is very much smaller.

We’ll be experiencing the world’s worst financial depression, she says, on the back of the world's biggest financial bubble, with house prices falling 90% and cash more or less drying up. Her key advice was to get out of all debt and get into transition. See here for Shaun Chamberlain’s great commentary. And there's a recording of her talk here at Indymedia. In the aftermath there was much discussion, which was summed up beautifully by Peter Lipman, chair of the Transition Network.

During the conversations someone talked me through a thought experiment: think of the times when you’ve been most happy, fulfilled in your life. What was happening then? Now think of the times when you’ve been most stressed, most shut down. What was happening then? Good, healthy experiences are usually not to do with money; they’re about being bonded, with each other, with nature.

here comes the sun

2010-06-10T15:08:00.000+01:00

I'm jumping for joy because we’ll soon be installing solar photovoltaic panels on our roof on St Johns Terrace. Last night’s planning committee gave us permission, going against the conservation officer’s (lengthy) recommendation for refusal, as well as opposition by Friends of Lewes and the new Conservation Area Advisory Group. (Though with loads of support from residents and Transition friends).

It’s a coup for several reasons. The chair of the committee, who is very supportive of renewables, agreed that the council’s interpretation of the Article 4 Direction (which places extra conservation measures on Lewes) should be reassessed. It’s a ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ money and residents’ time for householders in central Lewes to require planning permission, where in all but four towns in England, solar panels are permitted anywhere except on listed buildings.

Second, our roof is central and visible, and will, I hope, inspire others. Ovesco, by the way, Lewes’s non-profit energy company, is investigating low-cost loans for people who can’t raise the cash. £11,000 in our case, from a job that practically did Dirk in when he spent three months solid earlier this year playing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Third, these panels will enable us to generate half our current electricity needs, probably more if we made a bit more effort – and all once the children leave home. All our electricity will be free when the sun shines, and when we’re not using it, it will be used by one of our neighbours.

The new Feed In Tariffs make solar pv affordable, with a payback of 12 years in our case, through an income (£900pa) that is guaranteed for 25 years. So once we’ve paid off the system, the payments will continue, much like a pension.

There’s quite a ‘phew’ element to all this for me, as it’s the latest in a long list of resilience measures our household has been putting in place over the last couple of years. Peak Oil, which three years ago, when we started Transition Town Lewes, seemed like a distant mirage, is getting more and more real, with even Paxo leading a 15 minute discussion on it as Newsnight’s main story last night. Peak Oil means that easy oil has run out, and the fuel we have become so addicted to is becoming more expensive, more damaging to nature through extraction and CO2 emissions, and more unethical, in some cases, deeply, disgustingly so. Personal and community resilience is a sane response to this: growing food, working locally, building community, enjoying consuming less, and – finally – generating our own power from the sun. It’s a powerful feeling!

the swarming of the bees

2010-05-27T13:08:00.000+01:00

The recent sultry, heavy weather has been perfect for swarming bees. And they have been swarming. Last week I helped collect a swarm from an apple tree in New Road. And then two days ago, an empty hive in St John Sub Castro cemetary near me was suddenly inhabited by a swarm. I wasn’t there to witness it, only came upon it late in the day when the queen had already entered and the bees were outside the hive, abdomens in air, fanning the pheromone scent that calls the other bees to the queen.

That makes fours swarms I’ve been involved with so far this year. Every time, it’s an incredible honour. It’s a strange experience, one that involves total trust in the bees and some courage, especially as my intention is to gradually stop using the veil and other protection for most bee work. In fact the two seem to go hand in hand; many beekeepers, with protection, can be quite clumsy and inconsiderate of the bees. Being vulnerable makes one far more gentle and observant.

When I collect a swarm I feel like a midwife, and try to be someone who is simply observing, supporting and there to help in case of any problems. The ideal midwife, to me, is someone who is both invisible and very present.

I read today that bees have existed for 45 million years (dated from a bee preserved in amber). Compare that with humans who have been around for at most half a million years. Yet, in one human generation we’ve managed to bring 45 million generations of bee to the brink of their own existence. Or, if you think of the bee as one organism, we have brought the bee being who has lived for 45 million years, to near death. And, according to some, when the bees go, our days are numbered.

Clearly humanity has gone very, very wrong and the bees (and most other beings) are telling us this. Yet society’s response to the bee collapse is more funding and research involving genetic and physical manipulation of bees to help make them varroa resistant and so on: more focus on the symptoms rather than the cause.

My belief, and that of the Natural Beekeeping Trust, is that honeybees need to be left alone to do what they have been doing for millions of years. We have got to start understanding their needs, not ours. They simply need a healthy environment – both a (natural) hive environment and also biodiverse, non-toxic air, water and food/foraging, which is what we need too. The bees are our greatest teachers, and I deeply hope that we can start to learn from them.

letter from the future

2010-05-20T23:26:00.000+01:00

I'm planning a trip this summer to visit my brothers in America and Canada. I’m taking three months – one to cross the Atlantic and back by Clipper ship, one to spend with my brothers and other friends and one getting around. The electric train network, especially down the East Coast, runs really well now the electricity companies have sorted out the solar fields around cities and the major train junctions. I’ve been saving up for this trip for a couple of years and I’m really looking forward to travelling slowly.

Travelling wasn’t always like this for me; I was in the local paper in 1960, for being the youngest child in England to fly transatlantic – for my New York christening. When I was in my twenties Freddy Laker figured out how to run cheap transatlantic flights – I was at university in America then, studying science, and I remember getting standbys for £50 to come home for holidays. Later, I took cheap flights when I could, and when the children were young we had holidays in St Lucia, Sardinia, Morocco and all around Europe. Those holidays deepened my sense of awe and respect for all life and people on earth. That global mind was one of the good things to come out of the century of flying. 

 Which is why, in my 40s, when I discovered the effects of burning fossil-fuels, in gory scientific detail, I had to stop all that flying and buying that I’d been brought up to believe was my birthright. I was sad to leave it behind, but my conscience made me do it. Some friends got the message long before me, in the 70s; others continued flying for a few years, often because, like me, their family had scattered around the world in the age of cheap flights. But gradually flying, like smoking, became socially unacceptable; people started to discover that flying was not a resilient or – real – way to live, and that other ways, like conference calls, or just working closer to home and family were more relaxing and effective. That’s when other modes of transport also became more common and more affordable.

I think the turning point was around 2010. That was a bad year for the airlines. First the early stages of the economic contraction left many of them bust or consolidating. Then fuel prices started going up and that made it more difficult to run cheap flights; the whole scandal of the tar sands didn’t help either. The Icelandic volcano erupting grounded airlines for the first time since they were invented and made some people long for quiet skies, and that uncertainty started a trend towards trains for short-haul. Plus, everyone was saying how unpleasant flying had become, with the anti-terrorism checks and so on. And then I remember the new government - it was that brief Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition – announcing that there would be no more new runways built at Heathrow, Gatwick and Standsted, the main hubs.

I remember storming parliament to demand this, dressed as a suffragette, linking with the right for women to vote. Your mother also had a big sit-down picnic in the arrivals lounge at Heathrow, and your aunt Anna too; I think she still has the Flash-Mob T-shirt. To them, as teenagers, it was so clear that new runways were incompatible with the move away from fossil fuels and the age of earth repair that we could see coming by then. Yes, if there was a day to celebrate, when the age of air travel turned a corner, I think it was the day they stopped building new runways.

I hope that helps with your essay about ‘flying in the olden days’
With much love, your granny, May 2030

the lewes bubble

2010-05-13T09:01:00.000+01:00

It struck me the other day that not a single one of my friends has a proper job. That is, a 9-5, Monday to Friday job. So are they all dossers? Far from it; on analysis they work quite intently at their profession, or should I say professions. It seems that most people I know do a range of jobs, mostly part time, mostly self-employed, some paid, some unpaid, some as a hobby, some as part of a training. Take one friend, for instance. She’s not well off but manages to rent a room in Lewes. She works with disabled children three days a week, and as a yoga teacher some evenings. As an accomplished artist, she does occasional community art projects, paid or unpaid. The rest of the time she grows food, spends time supporting friends and experiencing life to the full. Take another friend. He occasionally works for the Royal Shakespeare Company as a musician; he composes library music when the opportunity comes up and the rest of the time he works for community projects in Lewes for free and sunbathes. Lewes is full of people like that.

I know, Lewes is a bubble, but I’ve noticed that what happens here tends to be what the national trend will be. People are becoming ever-so-slightly uncomfortable with mass consumerism, and this feeling seems to have intensified since the banking and politicians’ expenses fiascos. Class isn’t a factor: the class system is far less defined these days in terms of prosperity. Perhaps conscience is the motivating factor these days. Either way, consumerism is being dismantled, invisibly: a revolution that’s not being televised.

I find the trend towards self-employment exciting. By embedding themselves in the community with their work, such people (including me) are more self-determined and therefore more resilient. Recently, I’ve been bartering with friends who are manually skilled – a polytunnel erection for a cord of wood; a beehive for help with marketing. This is a serious game – one that’s incredibly fun, it’s bucking the money system, and it’s so much more real than this plastic world we’ve been living in for most of the 20th century.

veg out

2010-05-08T21:47:00.000+01:00

Something is happening to me and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I had to go to the supermarket a couple of times last week - I can’t remember why - I was in a hurry or my usual shops were closed. Standing in front of the vegetables my stomach spoke to me: ‘Don’t eat that stuff. You don’t know where it’s from.’ I walked up and down the vegetable aisle but there wasn’t a thing there I felt like eating, even organic. Normally I get a little joy-song from my body when I think of eating the food in front of me. But the sullen silence meant I left without the planned supper. Maybe it was seeing Food Inc a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I’ve gone off industrial food.

What to do? The allotment is still mid-hungry gap, and my Ashurst veg box is still fortnightly. But there are a few things to eat. There’s the last leeks and some chard, just about to bolt. I’ve been steaming chard, chopping it up with the end of the garlic and olive oil. There’s nettles, of course, which make the best soup on these cold days. There’s rhubarb, loads of rhubarb, still. And there are some good salads around, if you use the young lime leaves along the Pells to replace lettuce, and mix in a few odd leaves like dandelion, kale and rocket. I’ve got some spring onions left over from last year, some just-up chives plus the last parsnips from the old lady in the nearby allotment.

So, in fact, there’s plenty of food. It’s free and it’s incredibly tasty. It’s what there is, until June when the variety starts to grow.

Someone commented recently that I am a rich woman playing at the good life. And the Tesco supporters at the planning meeting implied that local food is for wealthy people. These facile repetitions need to be challenged. I am technically quite poor – poor enough to qualify for tax credits and maximum grants for my children in education, and happy to be so. But I am educated and I read about the world, and so good quality food is a priority, and I forego much of the ‘stuff’ and activity other people seem to find so essential. I’m not alone on the allotment in growing my own food partly because it saves money, and will do so increasingly as economic growth continues to stall and peak oil starts to be felt. The kind of food we eat is a choice. We are not victims of our economic circumstance; we are partners in our own destiny.

Our vicar in Firle, Pete Owen-Jones seems to feel the same in a new BBC2 series, How to Live a Simple Life.

the buzz about bees

2010-05-02T22:36:00.000+01:00

Honeybee swarming season is upon us again and I collected a swarm from a garden in the Pells last week. The bees are now safe and cosy in a beautiful Abbe Warre top bar beehive made by my Lewes beekeeper friend Mike Millwood. Abbe Warre was an abbot, living around 1900, who spent his life experimenting on 350 different hive designs to find the best kind of hive for bees to be live in naturally and with minimal intervention. The design allows bees to make their own foundation and comb and it assumes bees will swarm. The whole art of natural beekeeping is observation. Needless to say, I’ve been sitting on a little log near the hive observing the bees (and they have been observing me).

My new hive is on my allotment on Landport. Blessings on Steve Brigden, the Town Clerk. I asked him if I could keep bees on the allotment and he then all Lewes allotment holders whether they object to honeybees being kept on allotments. As far as I know, there were no objections, only replies of delight, and Steve is now writing a new clause in the allotment contract allowing bees to be kept on all Lewes allotments.

Three other lovely things have happened this week. First, I heard the great news that the North St industrial estate has been redesignated functional flood plain by the Environment Agency. The definition of functional floodplain is land where water has to flow or be stored in times of flood. Which effectively means no new build on almost the entire area. Presumably for the duration of the transition, in other words, a long time. So Angel Properties and the likes will never be able to get their hands on Lewes land. Hooray!

Industrial land like this shouldn’t be built on. It’s meant to be flexible and open for use by the creative, local livelihoods that are emerging as a result of the transition. There’s already a lot of local employment in the area. Some of the warehouses, such as Zu, Pop-up and Arthole, are already buzzing hubs of innovation. Hooray for Lewes Matters, Phoenix Action and the Lewes Community Land Trust. Hooray for Marco Crivello, Anthony Dicks and John Stockdale, our local heroes.

On Sunday I heard Satish Kumar (founder of Resurgence and Schumacher College) give an extraordinary sermon at Glynde Church in a service led by radical pilgrim vicar Peter Owen-Jones. He spoke of the difference between people who are like tourists in this world, seeking what they can get from life, consuming. And people who are pilgrims, who celebrate life and seek to enter a relationship with all beings.

Tomorrow morning I accompany Steph Bradley, a Transition storyteller, on a walk out of Lewes towards Forest Row. She has walked from Totnes along the footpaths over the last month, and is walking around England for six months, visiting about 200 of the transition towns and cities in England, listening to and sharing our stories. Steph is an Earth pilgrim, documenting and celebrating England in transition in 2010.

clipped wings

2010-04-22T23:38:00.000+01:00

Blessings on the volcano. I still feel a little giggle inside when I think back on the week the skies went quiet. There’s something immensely reassuring to know that nature is still in charge. Amongst the news babble, Alan De Botton’s lovely A World Without Planes stood out, a transition-style story from the future when our elders will tell tales of the great, noisy machines in the sky. In those times, people will still travel, but slowly, quietly.

It’s so hard to imagine, in this generation of overconsumption, but a world without planes is totally and utterly inevitable. For two reasons. The scientists tell us we must decarbonise by 80% by 2050 – or 95% if everyone has equal consumption rights (by the way, see here for the Guardian’s new national carbon calculator, which helps us to discover our options quite graphically). In that world – assuming that as a race we will choose to avoid our own demise through runaway climate change - flying will be very rare because of its intense use of fossil fuels and therefore pollution levels.

The second reason is the end of cheap oil, peaking sometime soon, apparently. Planes exist purely as a result of cheap oil. There’s currently no fuel to replace fossil fuels for flight, apart from biofuels, which, in cars, are already competing with an increasingly short food supply. A few years ago, when I gave up planes for ethical reasons, the feedback was invariably: ‘Some new, clean fuel will be invented’. Well it hasn’t and, given the science, it probably won’t.

George Monbiot, in his excellent column this week, warns that because of cheap oil our society has built a level of complexity that is highly vulnerable to shocks. We’re starting to see the effects of various kinds of shock – natural and man-made - on our globalised world, and Monbiot’s point is that we need to simplify in order to build resilience and to avoid collapse of any part of the system, which could lead to global collapse. ‘We can start decommissioning the system [aviation] while there is time and find ways of living happily with less of it. Or we can sit and wait for physical reality to simplify the system by more brutal means.'

paradise lost

2010-04-15T23:25:00.000+01:00

If I stand on my doorstep by St John-sub-Castro I can smell the balsam poplars down by the river. Their powerful scent draws me into their web of life, a web that seems to spread very far in this expansive springtime when the planet breathes a long breath out. At the other end of the North Street industrial estate, the wild patch along Green Lane has been cut to the ground, and with it has gone all the diversity of life that lived there. I was especially fond of the many little birds that lived and sang in those big scrubby bushes. Every time I walked through, almost daily, my heart would sing a little in celebration. A few years ago someone identified the birds there, and it was considered a bit of a bird haven. Now it's gone forever. I wonder what will replace it. Perhaps some concrete or some turf. Pity.

There’s also a community garden springing up in the middle of North Street, behind Pop Up Studios, which used to be the old fire headquarters. A group of artists and designers have been given a lease for two years while the estate is in limbo, along with many other creative small businesses populating other warehouses in North Street. So a few of us are starting to clean up the land; call it earth repair. We’ve removed the rubbish, cut back the brambles, made paths for the people who use it as a walk through from the car park, including willow arches, bowers and hideouts for children. Huge pallets from the Cuilfail tunnel work are being filled with soil from Freecycle, edible perennials and vegetable seeds. Young gardeners are teaching other people how to make compost and grow biodynamically. You’re welcome to join in. This is rebuilding a web of a kind, a community growing around growing food together. Because of the demand for land to grow food on nationally, these initiatives are cropping up all over England, and in response the government has created a Meanwhile Lease, to officially make undeveloped land available to grow vegetables. Now, about those lovely several acres of St Anne’s School in Lewes that ESCC is sitting on...

I do hope that loads of people turn up to the exhibition of visions for the North Street area, under the name of Phoenix Rising. Back at the end of last year, many disparate people came together, after wide invitation, to pool their ideas, one of which was the community garden referred to above. It’s a real, grassroots-led but thought through initiative serving Lewes, a chance to add our own hopes for the North Street area. So do make time to go along to the Town Hall next week.

My last posting about Tesco

2010-04-08T22:49:00.000+01:00

So Tesco won its application to expand in Lewes yesterday, increasing its already massive share of Lewes’s money and further undermining an already fragile and complex local economy and employment structure. It was interesting to watch how the drama played out in the formal planning meeting. The two members of the planning committee who spoke to accept the application said they opposed it but could find no material objection that would stand up to appeal. In my view, having read the documents, if the committee members had been minded to, they could have called on a number of laws now in place to prevent this kind of monopoly. They could have commissioned better, independent research. But they didn’t and the legal officers, ultimately, ran the process last night. A sad day for democracy.

But hey, I’m not sad. I did everything in my power to prevent the extension. I researched and wrote about it here. I had fun taking part in publicity antics like the Tesco whirl. We got 1,000 signatures, which meant that those 1,000 people are thinking more carefully about the ethics of their food. I got to know the wonderful Marina Pepper a little better. And I learned more about how corporations and local government work.

And much more importantly, I’m also helping create better alternatives. I’ve joined a Transition Town Lewes group forming to create a weekly local produce market, thanks to the support of the Lewes Town Partnership and Lewes District Council. We met yesterday, before the Tesco debacle, and had really positive meeting with vision, skill pooling and can-do. It’s going to be a wonderful market, with affordable, nutritious, local food providing creative enterprise opportunities for many people and rebuilding our relationships with each other and the land around us.

The old paradigm and the new are so poignantly juxtaposed. Here we are at the cusp of transition from an industrial growth society that has, especially in my generation, all but destroyed our collective natural capital. We live in the last days of unchecked greed; the machine is running out of fuel. And little by little, this creative, collaborative parallel public infrastructure is forming, not just through the Transition movement but in many, many different individual and collective ways, quietly, gently, persistently, beautifully.

Tescopoly - again

2010-04-06T14:10:00.000+01:00

Marina Pepper and I spent the whole of Tuesday in the planning office of Lewes District Council sifting through documents looking for holes in Tesco’s application to expand by over 40%. Let’s be clear: Tesco is a multinational corporation and its consultants, Montague Evans, have the arguments down to a tee. Much of their evidence is estimated, predicted or extrapolated. By predicting a growing economy, they can claim that the effect of ‘only’ 4-5 shops closing will be remedied within two years. By linking the predicted increase in employees to increase in floor space they inflate the job numbers created by the expansion. They use a complex impact argument to claim that a £4.88 million revenue increase in their comparison goods will have a tiny effect on the town centre.

Many claims border on the hilarious. Tesco says that by increasing local jobs it will increase the local multiplier effect (used to measure money circulating in the local economy). It plans to become carbon neutral (rather difficult if much of your profits are based on transporting largely non-organic goods around the world) and it claims to support local food production.

There’s hidden information too: the plan shows four new bays for the dotcom local delivery business but there’s no mention of the increase in traffic that would be caused by the vans themselves or the produce vans supplying them.

According to the Retail Consultant hired by the District Council (and Tesco’s own figures) under the Competition Test, which was due to be incorporated into the new planning policy PPS4 last December, Tesco’s plans would have failed on all three counts. It’s taking over 60% of the convenience market; there are only two supermarkets in Lewes, and it’s not a new entrant.

There’s a clear case of monopoly here. How sad it would be if Tesco Lewes was the last superstore allowed, before the Competition Test became law, which might even happen before the General Election.

mind the gap

2010-03-25T18:54:00.000Z

I bought a cucumber and a bunch of grapes from the supermarket yesterday. The only odd thing about that is that I’d not done that since last September when they were in season. Nowadays, eating fruit and veg mainly from veg boxes and my allotment, such things are a rare treat, in this case an attempt to get my son to eat cheese sandwiches for lunch and a treat for my daughter who craves grapes when she’s ill. In terms of British eating season, we’re entering the hungry gap, when the roots all go floppy and start to sprout. I’m finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for cooking up, again, the swede, celeriac and parsnip in my fridge drawer. Yet, just in time, the greens are starting to come into their own and now every meal is green, rotating between chards, sprouting broccolis, various kales (this year I’ve grown Pentland Brig, Borecole and Red Russian) and the early pungent salads, a mix of rocket, lamb’s lettuce, dandelions, fennel leaves, various herbs, chives and young cleavers and brassica leaves, all coated with a honey and tahini dressing to offset the bitterness. The hungry gap means that the apple season is over, oranges from Europe have nearly finished and bananas are now a rare occasion in our fruit bowl. For the next two months, rhubarb is our main fruit and when strawberries arrive we will so very much enjoy them.

Am I a joyless self-flaggelating purist? No, on the whole – apart from, ahem, the roots - eating locally in season is pure pleasure, and the range of vitamins and minerals soaked up from our local, natural, unpolluted soil, water and sun are perfect after a long winter without sun, fresh local veg and exercise. Mankind has been finely, intuitively, tuned to nature for 80,000 generations, and just because one generation of Brits has bought the marketing message that supermarkets mean progress, doesn’t mean that it is so.

taking the 'ate' out of corporate

2010-03-25T11:09:00.000Z

I’m still buzzing from a talk by Patrick Holden, chair of the Soil Association, at Pelham House last night, during which he described the mad vulnerability of our food chain to the complex man-made crises ahead. He reminded us of the collapse of other civilisations, usually because they ran out of food or fuel, often precipitously, because they continued apace until the final collapse. And because we globalised in the 20th century, the crisis in the 21st century is likely to be global, he said. Factors contributing to this include fossil fuel depletion, resource depletion (including phosphates we use for fertilisers), climate change, a rapidly growing population, diminishing growing land, the industrialisation of agriculture and a complete failure by our leaders to ensure we have a resilient plan B.

In our lifetime, in one generation, we’ve used up half of the world’s resources, laid down over hundreds of millions of years, including topsoil, fossil fuels and fish. Pause a minute to let that sink in; it’s deep. We’ve lived way beyond our means and we’ll pass down a severely depleted planet to our children. We’ve all been responsible, he said, even organic growers, so now it’s time to reverse the trend and start to take personal and collective responsibility. He said he sat next to Professor John Beddingham, the government’s chief scientist, at a lunch recently, and asked him about his thoughts on our resilience. Beddingham replied he thought that things would get very challenging in 15 years.
Holden’s main concern is that our food systems are far too concentrated in the hands of a few corporations and physically dangerously centralised, making them vulnerable to fuel price rises when peak oil hits. In the US 80% of arable land is planted with only two varieties of crops: maize and wheat, both genetically modified, so the seeds cannot be saved. A lot of that is used to feed animals in feedlots covering as far as the eye can see. It’s getting that way in the UK, he said. If you buy own-label milk in supermarkets, it comes from one of five milk processing plants. All of Sainsbury’s meat comes from one abbatoir. Even in Waitrose, if you buy carrots they are likely to come from one of 10 carrot producers, who produce 80% of all carrots.

Some of my best friends still shop in supermarkets, even though they admit that they don’t really want to. It’s almost addictive, the rut of supposed convenience and supposed savings that supermarkets tie you in to. They say they are too busy or can't afford to do otherwise. Yet I notice that cost isn’t such an issue when it comes to other expenses such as holidays and entertainment. But this isn’t about making people feel guilty or stupid; it’s about trying to raise awareness and talk about the issues. I’m wondering if we might need a sort of Supermarkets Anonymous – a 12 step programme to help us get off shopping and hand ourselves back to nature to feed us – any takers? Though a simpler start could be to simply join one of Lewes’s vegetable box schemes listed here.

And as I’ve said before, we shouldn’t demonise the supermarkets; they are doing what it says on the packet - maximising profit mainly through economies of scale and externalising costs (that means using our common natural capital as though it’s interest and exporting the pollution/cheap labour to somewhere invisible). And apart from being unsustainable and abhorrent, this practice is not resilient. The great thing about resilience – the ability to withstand shock – is that it’s about self-preservation – whereas the response to climate change is essentially a moral one. My hope is that once the penny drops and we all – from individuals, communities and governments, realise that the corporate food system, including Tesco, is not only unhealthy and immoral but also makes us dangerously vulnerable to shock - we will come to our senses and start to treat food as though our lives depend on it.

the convenient truth

2010-03-13T22:38:00.000Z

The proposed Tesco expansion fascinates me. I keep wondering why so many people seem so unconcerned about giving their power and money to a global corporation that doesn’t have our welfare at heart. Far from being true to its strapline – Every Little Helps – Tesco cares mainly for profit. That’s what corporations do. Recent research from the Guardian revealed that in the week before Christmas last year, Tesco raised prices on a large number of items by over 10p average, when people really could have done with a little help but didn’t have time to shop around, while hyping price cuts, the majority of which were under 1p and 10p.

Many of us have a gut feeling that shopping at supermarkets isn’t great for anyone. But, the perceived benefits are price and convenience. Supermarkets are supposedly more convenient for two main reasons.

1. Because you can buy everything under one roof. I remember that smug feeling of loading a week’s shopping in the car after half an hour in the convenience store. But I believe that with a little creativity and willpower, it’s even possible to shop locally mainly from the sofa - ordering deliveries from Infinity Food/Just Trade, a veg box and the milkman, with the odd delivery from Bills to top it up, as I described here, here and here (ooo-er! I have got a bee in my bonnet!)

2. Because food from supermarkets is easier to prepare. I also believe it’s possible to cook, fairly quickly from scratch using the palette of amazing pulses, vegetables, cheeses and other goodies available from local shops. Just take for example the humble baked potato, which can be the basis at least once a week for a sumptuous feast.

And what’s the fuss about convenience anyway? How have we managed to turn the values in our lives upside down so that we’ve relegated what’s essentially a deeply pleasurable and nourishing experience to a drudgery to be rushed through? During my encounter with cancer last year I had time to question our notions of how we spend our time. I realised that once you reconnect time with pleasure, absolutely everything can be a deeply pleasing adventure, whether it’s shopping in local shops or cooking fresh food for family. And the more I honour time, by living simply, locally, slowly, the more juice I get out of life.

Lastly, convenience is the opposite of resilience. The more we vest ourselves in Tesco and the likes the less resilient we are in food, individually, as a community, and nationally. In 2000 during the fuel protests, the chair of Sainsbury had to ask Tony Blair to concede to the truckers because the supermarkets were running out of food. We’re not resilient to sudden food shocks, nor the ‘perfect storm’ predicted of food shortages caused by climate change, energy price hikes and the likes. Basically, we need to move away from convenience and towards local resilience. Transition Town Lewes has invited Patrick Holden, chair of the Soil Association to talk about Food Security in the 21st Century next Wednesday (7.30, £4, Pelham House). It should be fascinating. Meanwhile, let’s fall in love with real food, like chef Dan Barber did in this powerful, humorous short video.

every little hurts

2010-03-04T18:02:00.000Z

I joined in the Whirl at Tesco last Saturday along with a disparate group of local concerned citizens and un-consumers, to try to raise awareness about Tesco’s proposed expansion. It started at 2. We filtered through the line of policemen - who were tipped off - at the entrance and past the rows of arms-crossed managers at each aisle and started our non-shopping, initially nervously and then playfully, eventually ending in a delightful conga line of empty trolleys. At which point we were politely asked to leave. I hoped the red-faced manager would add, ‘For not shopping,’ but he said he didn’t need to give us a reason. We certainly were not, as he claimed, being disruptive. So we decamped to the entrance, where the younger ones started playing music and dancing and gave out leaflets to the shoppers, who seemed on the whole very open and a little alarmed to hear that Tesco wants to expand. Later that day, May’s General Store reported pre-Christmas levels of shopping and another long time Tesco-shopper friend told me he’d stop buying at Tesco if it expanded: ‘Enough is enough,’ he said.

Of course, many Lewesians support Tesco’s expansion but I suspect they don’t have the full facts, and if they did I believe many people would refuse to shop at Tesco and the likes, thus bringing on their demise. The negative impacts of Tesco are well documented and include destroying the local retail networks, local employment, they suck money from the local economy, their food production creates massive amounts of CO2 and waste, they depend on cheap imports and degrade biodiversity, land and water supplies in poor countries. Yet they’re not, nutrient-for-nutrient, calorie-for-calorie, cheaper than local shops. The inconvenient truth about supermarkets is that convenience is their only selling point.

I remembered the words of Joanna Macy, the Buddhist deep ecologist, who says that the Great Turning (from an industrial growth to a life-sustaining civilisation), which is happening now, is taking place concurrently on three dimensions. One is Holding Actions, which slow down the rate of social and ecological damage – such as boycotting, blockages (such as the Tesco whirl) , regulations (let’s hope Lewes District Council planning department has done its research well). The second is Shifts of Consciousness in which old materialist ways of thinking give way to understanding the interconnectedness , interdependence, of all things, such as we see in systems thinking; at that point, shopping at Tescos (and, probably, any supermarket) will be understood to be deeply damaging to the whole. The third dimension of the Great Turning is Structural Changes – which include new economic and social formations – new ways of owning land, sharing housing, measuring prosperity, an example of which is Transition Towns, local currencies and Community Land Trusts.

It seems that people sense we’re in the Great Turning but don’t feel empowered or inclined to do anything. That powerlessness is part of the old paragidm, and some would say, the ‘plan’ to have us all be consumers. Yet, there’s plenty we can be doing, including changing the way we do everything – work, eat, travel, spend our leisure time, relate – to reflect our deep human values. And the very best thing to do now, the most radical action, would be to move away from the global corporate-owned supermarket system that feeds us and start buying food locally, supporting local farmers and shops. Start now, even if it takes a year. Food will become fresher, tastier, more nutritious and simpler - and possibly cheaper. And while you're at it, why not join the Facebook campaign ‘We’ll do Whatever it takes to Stop Tesco Expansion in Lewes’.

ban the draught

2010-02-26T14:54:00.000Z

I dreamed of draughtproofing last night, which shows me how obsessed I've become about blocking up the winds that sweep through our Victorian house. Until this winter I'd been quite happy to live with the cold until my stepdaughter came to stay to have her baby and we needed to have the house at a steady, warm temperature. Then I realised that as soon as the heating went off the temperature dropped back down to the icy levels of the outside, with frost on the inside of the windows, and so on.

It all culminated in a Transition Town Lewes Draughtbusting Sunday last weekend, a demonstration of all the things I had done and was planning to do. In the amazing absence of any online resources the energy group and I prepared a basic information sheet. The research was so complicated, my lack of basic carpentry skills so lacking, and the learning curve so steep that we felt that we needed to start pooling our wisdom and courage to get anything moving. Half the housing in Lewes is pretty ancient and as I keep on saying, many of us are totally unprepared and unresilient for when energy prices really rise, especially if climate change means more winters like this last one.

Apparently, since up to 20% of our heating goes straight out the door, windows and other cracks, that's a potential 20% of heating bills saved withe some draughtproofing, much of which can be done on the cheap. My favourite tool in the draughtproofing armoury is a roll of gaffer tape, available in white or black from Wenban Smith. As a quick fix, you can go round the rattling sash windows and simply tape them up in the winter. If you don't want to mess up the paint, there's other proprietary brands, including brushes for under doors and around the front door, from Architectural Seals, who are offering a 12.5% discount (thanks to Transition Town Lewes) for Lewesians (code LEWES125). A lot can be done with secondary glazing, which can range from cheap plastic film that you put on each year to the full blown replacement windows, via a cheap local chippie, Kai - all revealed in the instruction sheet.

But I'm obsessing. I really need to get out a little.

you're welcome

2010-02-18T23:07:00.000Z

This week we welcomed a baby girl into our household. It’s a deep privilege to support Hester, my stepdaughter, with her rite of passage that is motherhood and to help her practically with Wren’s transition in to the world. Wren’s birth has reminded me of the miraculousness of life creating itself, and the total innocence, nakedness, with which we enter this world.

And how does that innocence turn into the level of overconsumption and unbalance that we are witnessing today, with one billion people obese and another billion starving? How have we brought ourselves to (some say, over) the brink of our own survival? How did the indigenous soul, used to living in balance for perhaps up to 100,000 years, go wrong? I don’t think mankind is programmed to self-destruct, as some people say. I prefer the line taken in extraordinary novel Ishmael in which author Daniel Quinn describes our ‘taker’ culture as simply a culture of beliefs, that arose about 6,000 years ago, with the advent of patriarchal societies, religions and agriculture. Unlike genetics, beliefs can be changed.

Innocence is a big theme for me as I try to shed blame from my communications about climate change, whose facts still remain. I’ve been wrestling with the question: how can we do what we do in full knowledge of the effects? How can my neighbour, a green activist, fly around the world, knowing what he knows? And inevitably, as my finger points with three fingers pointing back, the question is most usefully turned around to me: why am I behaving self-destructively, knowing what I know? As someone who has lived through the near-death experience of cancer, why do I indulge in alcohol and dark thoughts?

All I can say is, I’m working on it, just as we all are, of course. It helps to remind myself that I’m innocent, to ask forgiveness for my flaws, and to be immensely, wondrously, gloriously and joyfully grateful for the wonder and flow of life living itself.

the wasteland

2010-02-11T15:32:00.000Z

A little pleasure garden is rising out of the rubbish and brambles on the North Street industrial estate. In the marginal land between a building that used to house the fire brigade and the walled-in river, a patch is being tended, tenderly, by a few people thrown together through the love of it. It’s a community garden in the making, so everyone’s welcome. On the first day we picked up the litter and cut back the brambles. The stronger among us hoisted logs to make a hexagonal raised keyhole bed. At the next session we planted strawberries, raspberries and an artichoke in it and made some paths using an old pile of woodchip. A little boy pitched in with his bucket and spade. An artist made a path around a welcoming mound by the entrance, on which we’ll plant crocuses, primroses and forget-me-nots. Soon we’ll make a swing, a fire pit and somewhere to sit, and a willow dome for the children, all out of scraps and unwanted things. A friend is running a biodynamic compost making workshop there soon, which will help revitalise the polluted soil. It’s becoming a place of beauty and intention.

Last week’s Costing the Earth spent 30 minutes covering the New Diggers, a new wave of people reclaiming unused land all over Britain in order to feed themselves. It’s a visceral collective response to climate change and peak oil, a move to empower ourselves in the face of uncertainty.

We all garden for different reasons, and this patch is special to me because of the people I am working with and because I love marginal places, derelict land where nature shows up through the cracks. That’s the reason why I never pay to visit National Trust gardens and the like; to me they’re sterile, forced arrangements in comparison. No, the wild places, the edges, are where it’s all happening. Last night’s totally gorgeous Natural World focused on the Wild Places of Essex. And there are plenty all around Lewes, when you start to look. From the moss on a wall to the tall grasses on the mounts and the wild patches near the castle, nature is constantly reasserting herself; you can never keep her down, never tame her. So we’re helping her along, a bit of Earth repair in our little Pop-Up garden, a place where people can be together and do what comes naturally.

my planet too

2010-02-04T15:54:00.000Z

I’ve finally come to terms with something that plagued me for the whole of January: blaming so many of my friends for taking long-distance flights. It was for the usual reasons: spiritual gatherings, second homes, conferences, filming, swimming with dolphins (really)... I have sympathy with people who fly to visit family: Love Miles, they’re called. But non-essential flying at this time, especially by people in the know, is questionable. You might say it’s none of my business, but it is: it’s my planet too, you see.

Part of the problem is that the very people who’ve been flying are the light bringers, friends who are on a psycho-spiritual path or profession. While many of my practical friends are being mindful about flying, these light bringers seem to feel some kind of absolution. I’m hearing some bizarre reasons: that nature is so ‘old paradigm’, that the spiritual work they are doing somehow offsets the damage of the flight. The reasons boil down to ‘God will sort it out.’ So I wonder, is the New Age betraying nature, by transcending rather than transitioning?

I’ve been Theodore Rozak’s fascinating Ecopsychology, in which author Ralph Metzner writes that the the big problem of modern man is that the human-nature bond has been so broken – through the religious beliefs that we have to overcome our ‘lower’ animal instincts and conquer our body to become spiritual and attain ‘heaven’ or enlightenment. ‘For most in the West, their highest values, their noblest ideals, their images of themselves as spiritual beings striving to be good and come closer to God, have been deeply associated with a sense of having to overcome and separate from nature.’

But, he writes, ‘We are part of nature, we are in the earth, not on it. We are like the cells of the body of the vast living organism that is planet Earth. An organism cannot continue to function healthily if one of its cells decides to dominate and cannibalise the other energy systems of the body.’

The fact is that we 20% richest westerners are consuming 80% of the world’s finite resources, and thereby creating 80% of the pollution. So, it’s clear that we need to consume less, especially flying, which increases our personal carbon footprint so massively. Yet much of the New Age/psychospiritual, ‘Ask and it shall be Given’ thinking reinforces this sense of abundance in a closed system. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and while I totally agree with the main idea, which is to align ourselves with what makes our heart sing in order to manifest abundance, flow and health, I feel we need to combine that with practical action. Not from fear or scarcity, but because we’re mature and wise enough to see that not just our thought and feeling but also our behaviour is totally linked to the whole. Trust in God and tie up your camel, as the Sufi saying goes.

fear of flying

2010-01-28T16:09:00.000Z

I’ve just returned from Paris, where I was visiting my daughter Anna. I took the scenic route – on the Newhaven ferry to Dieppe and then by train to Paris. Including a leisurely lunch in Dieppe with a fellow passenger, the trip took about 10 hours, during which I worked on my permaculture diploma and read a good novel. And for £70 return door to door, it probably cost less than any other public transport.

There’s so much to be said in favour of slow travel, and I needed to get away from Lewes and my own head and heart, feeling deeply upset this month about so many of my caring, intelligent friends flying long-distance despite everything we know about the real cost of flying. I despair for our future if we can’t let go of such things. Anyway, going away helped me get away from this great shadow and get some perspective and physical ease.

I love Paris. The sound of the French talking, the smell of rubber in the metro, the fuggy bistros, the awesomely beautiful architecture. Perhaps because I was born there and lived there the first year of my life, I feel completely at home in a visceral sort of way. Anna and I figured out how to work the fantastic Velib system, a bicycle hire with banks of cycles on every other block. You just swipe your card over the dock and the bike is released; the bikes are free for the first half hour. We whizzed around Paris, which is pretty compact, down the dedicated cycle lanes and weaving through the traffic jams. On Sunday, a crazy bookshop on the Left Bank where Anna hangs out, called Shakespeare and Company, has open teas in an upstairs room crowded with books and people. Our 70-year-old poet hostess, PanMella, poured us cups of china tea with ‘a dose of love’ while the resident Brit and Yank writers read their latest stories and poems.

There’s a daily fruit and veg market round the corner from Anna’s tiny apartment, which comes with her au pair job. We visited the organic stall in the market daily, then did the round of the flea market. Not that she can afford to shop; she’s living on 20 Euros a week, about £18. But, she told me, ‘I’d rather be poor in Paris than rich anywhere else in the world.’

power to the people

2010-01-14T12:02:00.000Z

In April this year it’s going to be possible for a typical household to generate much of their domestic electricity needs from their own rooftops, with a payback period that’s very reasonable. The reason why this is suddenly possible is that our government is introducing a Feed In Tariff for household energy generation. That means that for every kilowatt hour I generate, I will be paid 36.5p, as opposed to the 14p per kWh I currently pay my electricity supplier. Not only that, but I get to keep what I generate, as well as be paid for it, effectively earning myself roughly 50p per kilowatt. And, during this first year that the tariffs are introduced, that level of tariff will be guaranteed for 25 years.

The British government, obsessed as it is with central as opposed to local power (and that’s political as well as energetic) has definitely dragged its heels behind other countries, but this move could revolutionise the way we generate electricity. The German government introduced FITs in 2000, and 5% percent of Germany’s electricity is already generated from solar.

I was told this news by the good people at Ovesco, the company (which has just become an Industrial Provident Society) set up by Transition Town Lewes’s energy group and who are funded by Lewes District Council to give advice and grants to Lewes residents. I’ve just received a quote from our local supplier, Southern Solar, for 8 solar photovoltaic cells on my average-sized Lewes terraced roof. With those panels at our particular pitch and orientation, the company estimates that we will generate a peak of 1.7kw, or 1,382 kw hours per year, earning me roughly £700 per year (untaxed, it was recently announced). This means at a cost of £9,337 (after an installation grant of £2,500, available nationally until April this year) the payback period would be roughly 13 years, a fabulous return rate of 7% and, perhaps most importantly, would insulate me against future fossil fuel price rises. For those who don’t have a flexible mortgage or imminent lottery win, watch out for forthcoming loans and mortgages to help people make that investment.

I’ve started to become energy literate this year, with the help of an Owl Energy monitor (£37 from Argos), which is surprisingly engaging gadget. With its help, we’ve nearly halved our electricity bills, mainly through replacing and turning off lightbulbs, though we still use about 2,500 kWh per year, which is about twice what we’d have the capacity to generate. I’m pretty confident we could reduce our needs quite a lot further, through using less of the big machines such as our oven and dishwasher, and because our children are leaving home. Apparently, it’s immensely empowering to watch one’s meter go backwards and to know that we’re producing our own energy and making money at the same time.

Now, the only question is whether the LDC planning officers and committee have the vision to allow Lewesians to generate electricity from our roofs visibly in a conservation area/national park-to-be. I guess I’m about to find out.

jam today...

2010-01-07T16:54:00.000Z

The organic Seville oranges have arrived at Bills and I’m making marmalade. For the past decade I’ve made a batch that lasts at least until July’s pick-your-own blackcurrants get turned into summer jam. My kitchen store cupboards are stacked with honey and pickles, my basement cold-store shelves still house home-grown pumpkins and Jerusalem artichokes, supplemented with bags of onions, potatoes and carrots from local farms. Plus the sacks of rice, lentils, oats and olive oil delivered by Infinity Foods. Yesterday, before the snow came, I picked kale, rocket and leeks from the allotment. Next week the veg box resumes. I have a good log store in my basement, from wood from our woodland, and my curtains are now interlined. I’ve been doing all this because it makes me feel more happy and more resilient, more interdependent, and because I want to help others be resilient.
As we enter a new decade, many commentators are predicting great change, uncertainties around money, livelihoods, food crops, energy, water, fish, weather (!), and other climate- and energy-related issues. Snugly snowed in with not much to do, it’s is a good time to review our resilience, our flexibility to change. Right now I’m looking into much-needed draughtproofing.
For me, there’s another imperative, and that’s one of justice. If we, the 20% of the world’s population who consume 80% of its resources, are living on 3-8 planets - or more if we fly - that means that on our one planet, other people’s lives are at stake as a result of our overconsumption. As the activist Joanna Macy, writes, it’s quite appropriate to feel the deep emotions that arise when I consider the effect of my life on other beings such as the tiger, the Maasai people and the butterflies in my wood. It’s from that raw emotion that I can then take action and not remain numb and paralysed.
In the absence of other solutions, the most obvious way about this is, I believe, is to gradually, over the next decade, reduce our living costs to one planet: to a third to an eighth of current levels, depending on the size of our current carbon footprint. That’s doable, without any loss of real needs. Yet, despite it being accepted in green circles, who embrace the idea as being something we’d want to do anyway for a wide range of reasons, the idea of consuming less and rethinking our economic growth paradigm, is still hugely unpopular, as reflected by our world leaders’ inability to reach consensus in Copenhagen. It seems that this fear of having to live with less accounts for a large part of the denial, excuses and obfuscation going on.
But I know plenty of people aiming to live locally and simply in Lewes; that inspires me. As does this short video by Eckhart Tolle.

the darkest hour

2009-12-21T22:41:00.000Z

Pretty much everyone agreed that the Climate Talks at Copenhagen failed. Although it was brilliant to have all the world's leaders agree, in one room, the scientific imperative of keeping our global temperature under 2 degrees, they failed to make an agreement that would make it happen.

The commonly agreed target for safe levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm). We've already overshot that: there is currently around 388 ppm in the atmosphere, with a need to reduce emissions as soon as possible to safe levels. According to my daughter Sophia, a calculation of emissions agreed in Copenhagen would lead to a very unsafe level of CO2 of over 700ppm by the end of the century and we'd have reached the point of no return long before that.

Two commentators have this to say today in the aftermath of Copenhagen.

In Requiem for a Crowded Planet, the Guardian's George Monbiot gives us some bitter medicine

Johann Hari wrote in the Independent that we're finally realising that Daddy is not going to look after us and only grassroots practical and even protest action will get us the changes needed.

I've been struggling with despair for the planet for again lately, which is not good for my new-refound physical health nor my mental health. I don't know where to put this information, and I wonder if anyone does. My belief in God has transformed into worship and gratitude more akin to that of indigenous people so that's no help. Perhpas, as Philip Carr-Gomm said on the solstice on the tump yesterday, when it's dark, just wait. The light will come.

I will have 10 days off with my family and friends over Christmas. I'll eat and laugh and sit by the fire and walk in the cold. I'll love my wonderful life. And then, come the new year, I'll start again to do whatever I can, anything in my power, to Be the Change I want to see. I've seen this coming and, alongside many others, I'll see it through.

the joy of socks

2009-12-10T15:54:00.001Z

I recently visited the Land Girls exhibition at Brighton's Pavilion museum. It's a vivid illustration of how a group of people respond to a sudden change in circumstances. The general message was that although life was tough for the young women volunteering to feed the nation during the wars, good times were had. Freed from the binds of domestic life, some women, certainly, seemed to come into their power, driving huge tractors, managing teams of workhorses, barrowing muck from dawn to dusk. There are some hilarious stories, some from videoed interviews, of sharing bath water between several people and parties at the local officer's mess.

The girls were issued uniforms, with strict instructions about how to maintain them. Along with three pairs of socks came the advice to darn them using the gusset of old pairs of socks. Those well-worn socks looked so robust, so much better than the flimsy socks I get from M&S, on which darning hasn't worked, and which need constant replacing. So when I walked past Cathy Darcy's excellent Vintage Shirt Company on Mount Place, and saw some very fine pairs of English socks in the window, I had to buy a pair.

Made of Shetland wool in subtle colours, these socks are a wonder to behold and, frankly, I haven't taken them off since buying them. Along with a warm head, warm feet are important in winter. And although they cost £22, they are eminently darn-able, so these socks and I, we're going a long way together.

Behind the white noise

2009-12-03T14:19:00.000Z

In the lead up to the UN's Copenhagen Climate Conference this month I'm feeling a sense of awe and prayerfulness. The understanding of our planet's situation deepens and matures, with some insightful pieces of writing. Behind the white noise of Christmas advertising, some of us are starting painfully to understand the degree to which we are all complicit, as western consumers, in an unstable world, of which climate change - waves of rain, flood, heat - is only one symptom. And we're slowly, achingly, waking up to the idea that a better future is within our reach.
Last week, around 100 people of all shapes and sizes turned up at Lewes New School to discuss the future of North Street, since the developer's companies, who bought the acres of riverfront land, have gone bankrupt. In the Open Space discussion that ensued, lots and lots of fabulous ideas emerged, which will be presented to the town for discussion. Ideas for the land, healthy, sane, useful, inclusive ideas are emerging from people who live and work in Lewes, including those really essential people who work on North Street. These acres, surely, should be kept for a resilient, practical transition, rather than to feed one person's greedy neediness.
And despite all the western world's displacement activity, which includes flying here, there and everywhere for crazy reasons - holidays, spiritual retreats, sunshine, weddings, last chance to see... - some people, many people, are discovering that slow and simple are what we want anyway. Slow and simple. Breathe. Relax. The poet, Wendell Berry, says it all.

eating local

2009-11-27T11:56:00.000Z

It's great to see a new butcher in Lewes as Martin Tebbutt of Boathouse Farm recently moved in to the Riverside. He sells almost exclusively local, organic meat, the best kind, really, for all sorts of common sense reasons. Recently, when I couldn't get to Boathouse's farm shop outside Lewes, I bought an organic chicken from Waitrose, and found it insipid and unsettling.

There's been an interesting debate about the future of meat in a low-carbon world recently, with Sir Nicholas Stern of the Stern Report suggested we become vegetarians. That's fine, if you're inclined to be one, but I do like to eat a small amount of local, organic, meat about once a week. In fact, I'm moving rather away from pulses, grown overseas and more towards local food, with high proportions of nutrition-packed local fruit and vegetables and small amounts of high-quality protein. Last weekend I got a small amount of stewing steak from Boathouse and stewed it in loads of gravy, long and slow with leeks, swede and carrots and topped the whole thing with a thick layer of sliced potatoes. The meat cost £2 for the four of us and the whole thing less than a quid a head. Yum yum!

Traditionally, that would have been a typical meal, with the Downs supporting sheep and the market gardens supplying our veg. Now, of course, the dozen or so market gardens of Lewes are all car parks and housing developments. An acre of land on North Street, now that it's no longer in the hands of Angel Properties, would grow a huge proportion of Lewes's food in raised beds, which is what they reverted the car parks to in Havana when Cuba ran short of oil recently. Growing on North St would also be a great source of training and employment, and a real, handy use for an area that was always a productive, working area and, let's face it, never really meant for a developer to grab for housing and take out of community use (come to this Saturday's hugely important Open Space if you want influence the future of the land).

All around the world, amazing urban food projects are springing up in vacant lots. In Chicago, where there are huge problems with urban blight, residential areas are being re-zoned and re-prioritised for food production over housing. And in Britain, Incredible Edible Todmorden, with the support of the council and businesses, is aiming to grow a significant amount of its food within the town.

According to Local Food, a Transition book, there is a myriad of ways to grow food locally. Transition Town Lewes's food group, for example, has run a successful Open Kitchen Gardens project, opening edible gardens for public inspiration; its Food up Front Lewes has run a year's pilot and is considering another year; Common Cause is running food-growing workshops on the community Lottie, and a few transitioners created, in an afternoon, Eat Lewes, a mini forest garden of perennial edibles in a tiny triangle of land outside my house. In this, its first year, the plot yielded rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, tayberries, horseradish, 10 different herbs and greens, and an impossible amount of Jerusalem artichokes.

I also notice an increasing number of Lewesians growing food on land out front of their houses, a celebration of resilience. You can grow loads of food on small urban patches, measured in food feet, and it's terrifically exciting to think of the delicious food we'll be growing all over Lewes in a decade's time.

plastic forever

2009-11-18T16:27:00.000Z

I've just returned from visiting our oldest daughter Sophia as she settles in to life at Exeter University in Falmouth, Cornwall, where she's studying environmental geography. It's been a strange experience having my first child, who's been with me for 20 years, leave home. I don't miss her, or my second daughter Anna who's also left home recently, although I think of them both very, very often. I have a sense that they're still with me, in a timeless way.

I've returned from my visit feeling excited by Sophia's idealism and optimism in her new life. As part of her new, experimental life, Sophia's decided to give up plastic for a week, inspired by a fellow student who has been living what she calls post-plastic consumption for three weeks. Her friend Ruthie 'got to the point where she physically felt sick when she threw away plastic. Because it can't disappear - that's only an illusion - it stays around for a very long time.'

Curious, I asked Sophia for tips for people reading this column about how to kick plastic out of shopping. She told me, 'The main way of doing this is being prepared in advance - taking tupperware with you when you go to the fishmongers, carrying cotton bags, having a network of friends who can help each other out, like picking apples from your neighbours' trees when they're not using them. I'm not using supermarkets as there are enough local shops around and I have the time. It's a very idealistic way of living because there's not a widescale framework for this way of living.

'The main reason I'm doing this,' she told me, 'apart from reducing my carbon-embedded consumption, is to inspire other people. As a young person I realise I'm a symbol of the future - I am the future, and that's powerful.

'When people say that I'm just being idealistic, I say, idealism pushes the boundaries of the norm, allowing more movement for mainstream society to be radical. I'm not saying what I do is feasible for everyone, but what I can do is to help remind people that it is possible to live in less carbon-intensive ways. It's also about community and helping local farmers in Cornwall, remembering the traditional way of living and maintaining that for future generations, at the same time as living in modern times. You can't go backwards, you can only go forwards.

'My friend Mark, who created the Freeconomy, writes a blog on his year of living without money, which ends on Buy Nothing Day on 28 November. I know a lot of people who are getting into this kind of thing. Living without money, or with less money, living more simply, is very related to buying no plastic. A life like this is also a lot less mundane, it's a life where we rely on and connect to each other more. This way of living is an integral part of inhabiting the earth, which is the only direction we can go in.'

jump up and live again

2009-11-12T10:46:00.001Z

During this week's World Cafe conversation at Bill's Cafe about supermarkets, I realised how insane it is to eat supermarket food when delicious, vital, colourful, word-free food springs up out of the ground all around us. For instance, last night our family ate a wonderful organic supper of baked potatoes with butter and a yoghurt sauce, butternut squash roasted with masses of garlic, and rocket salad with a honey dressing - a very cheap meal using what was available, now, from my allotment, from my home stores and Laportes. Sure, I did have to grow some of the food and tend the bees, but I probably spent less time and probably had more pleasure than many people do earning money to pay for supermarket food and other accoutrements of the modern world.

Meanwhile, Tesco's application to expand in Lewes by 50% is still pending, despite already taking a full 2/3 of our retail spend out of our community; Waitrose is arguably simply a plusher little brother. We know that industrialised fossil-fuelled supermarket-driven agriculture feeds on and uses up soil, community, health and wellbeing. Yet the sheer rut of habit runs deep.

Many people I talk to know they want to change their food-buying habits but feel powerless over the situation. Yet as with all addictions, change can be easy, one step at a time. To step out of the rut, it can be as simple as: Turn off the TV, get informed and get a veg box delivered from this link. In these extraordinary times, when our addictions to lifestyle threaten life itself, I believe we are called to question everything. We're being called to adventure, to live at our own edge and reconnect the broken threads. Deep within each one of us lives an indigenous soul, a natural human being. It's time for that being to jump up and live again.

Abenaki nation

2009-11-05T22:48:00.000Z

Duck and Dive Abenaki dance and song

How the Abenaki would have lived in 1609

thinning of the veils

2009-11-05T09:27:00.000Z

This whole week is the time of all Hallows, or Samhain, the celtic/druid festival. A time of year when the veil between the worlds becomes thinner and we can, say some cultures, connect with our ancestors. During my spiritual practice this morning I felt the qualities of a young native American ancestor within me. I often wonder who he is, his story having come to me in glimpses of ancestral memory over the past three years. So, this evening I decided to ring my aunt in New York. She’s an amazing aunt, free spirited and visionary, who lives in the same apartment she was born in, in Queens, New York. When she was growing up, this place was surrounded by fields, but now she’s the only white person in a barrio of Columbians, at home, aged 84. My sister, who visited her recently, urged me to ring her. So tonight, after 15 years, I did.

She told me of our ancestors, some of the early settlers in Eastern Maine. Life was hard for them, and the local Indians, a woodland tribe called the Abenaki, helped the early settlers to grow food, give birth and so on. She told me that interbreeding was common in those times. She spoke of how my grandfather used to love to take a canoe out on the lakes in Michigan where he grew up; how he used to walk about without a coat in the snow. When I did more research about the Abenaki nation – which is still seeking recognition from the US government - I felt a strange mix of powerful emotions. The young basketmaker who is interviewed here speaks with the kind of sentiment that comes from my heart too, at times. And this paragraph, Darkness Falls, describes so poignantly how Europeans influenced the native ways. Scraps and echoes coming through the ages.

I’m fortunate to have native ancestors who are so recently connected to the land. Since the first Cro-magnon (wo)man, we have lived close to, and utterly dependent on, the earth for 40,000 years before that. So the vast landscape of our collective ancestry is native. Sometimes I wonder whether, in these pressing times, these people, my people, are talking to me now, across time. I would like to slow down enough to hear what they’re saying.

Since writing this blog, I watched Ray Mears's TV programme about the settling of Canada, describing the hunting to extinction of the estimated 7 million beavers to make felted European hats. You can watch his inspiring programmes here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nsh7c/Ray_Mears_Northern_Wilderness_The_Company_that_Built_a_Country/

give and take, and take, and take

2009-10-30T12:23:00.001Z

As the Indian summer turns to a mellow autumn, there seems to be an intensification in the air of all good things. It gets to me every year, in small surprising bursts, like the sight of rose hips lit up by the low sun, or in whole blasts, like a walk past the autumn colours or watching the bees bring in loads of ivy pollen for their winter stores, like little bundles of late sunshine. And the more I’m out there, in nature, the stronger it gets: a harvest festival of the heart. Yesterday I spent a morning on the Landport allotment, moving compost to a new bed, raking it out and planting next year’s garlic and onion sets. It was a perfect confluence of elements: a couple of days before the full moon, on a root day, the sun was on my back and the earth was warm and moist. I moved through the soil with my bare hands, crumbling, smoothing, patting it, before sprinkling over a thin layer of straw mulch.

I worked slowly, savouring the moment. I had time to think about the things I’d read about the world, the previous day on the internet. Things are happening fast. Science and politics seem at last to agree that we’ve got a problem, or a great convergence of problems. Most still seem to think that technology and carbon agreements will get us through, though the pragmatists say: look folks, we’re already beyond the 350ppm tipping point. At 387ppm we in the West can only now look at radical reduction of consumption and conservation of forests, soils and oceans.I hope this isn’t the autumn of the human race, even though the external signs indicate that it is. I’d rather believe that we’re growing up at last. Mother Earth has given and given and we have taken and taken. I’d like to think we’re starting, one by one, on a very personal quest, in which we will learn to take personal responsibility, to become accountable. In the blessed absence of a judgemental God, we only have our own conscience, our sense of interdependence, our own mothering instinct, to be accountable to.

This video made me happy.

the great turning

2009-10-28T17:25:00.000Z

Like a hunter tracking its prey, I’m always on the look out for signs of the Great Turning. Sometimes you find the tracks in the oddest places. Last week I got a flyer in my door from Milk and More. My milko, now celebrating 150 years, has, over the last couple of years, evolved from a beast at the edge of extinction, under threat from the great supermarket giants, to a multitasking, all-song-and dancing delivery scheme. He now offers me not only our usual organic cows and goats milk, but 150 ‘essential items’ including bread, yoghurt, cheese, veggies and baked beans. OK, these are big national/international brands delivered by a national chain, but that will change. And, surely a sign of the times, among the usual tacky Christmas offers, there’s an energy-saving ‘novelty’ draught excluder – in the form of a cat or a dog – for £2.99! But most brilliantly of all, I can order online, up till nine, the night before my 5am delivery. No more last-minute bread baking/neighbour cadging (which used to be supermarket dashes) for lunchbox materials. Milk and More has come to the rescue.

Why is this a sign of the Great Turning? A recent important report from the UK Energy Research Council, authored by Lewes resident Steve Sorrell, predicted that despite recent discoveries, peak oil would hit within the decade, with very little government preparation for a bumpy, chaotic, irreversible energy descent. In a future with less cheap oil, we are going to have to be more resilient, that is, flexible to unexpected changes and shocks. Mainly, that means, more interconnected, more local. Local means fresh, real, food, which means more local markets and, probably, more deliveries. Life will – if we make a planned, managed, rather than resisted, Turning - look a bit like Victorian times, in terms of food, though in other ways, very different. Problem is, much of our resilience/infrastructure has been destroyed in the meantime. But not the milkman. Long live the milkman.

the vanishing of the bees

2009-10-15T21:02:00.001+01:00

At last loads of people are getting concerned about the plight of the honeybee and some interesting things are happening locally in response. On Saturday, Zu Studios was the venue for a Celebration of the Honeybee. My friends Clive and Philly hosted it, and it included an undescribable, full-body, bee experience, as well as song and dance of various kinds. Clive and Philly are two of my beelover friends, and they have created a walled bee garden in their new home in Polegate. The day before the Zu experience, I spent the morning with my beekeeper friend Mike, who made three beautiful topbar beehives last winter and filled them with swarms this spring. We visited the bee garden of another new friend, Heidi, who has just started the Natural Beekeeping Trust. Her place is heavenly, with a feeling of wholeness and integrity about it. And it’s home to all kinds of hives full of bees – none of which have died out because of varroa or Colony Collapse, which killed about 30% of the British bees last winter. Heidi, as a biodynamic beekeeper, takes a whole-system husbandry approach that includes agriculture, the moon and stars, and a high degree of observation and loving kindness.

Conversely, ‘traditional’ beekeeping has involved increasing levels of intervention and, one could say, corporate violence. Some people have likened this approach to the way chickens are kept in battery farms. The film Vanishing of the Bees, which I saw on Tuesday at the Duke of York’s, implies that there’s no one cause of the vanishing of the bees, and although nicotinoid pesticides are likely to damage the bees’ resilience over generations, there are other factors, including lack of biodiverse foraging, and the way the bees are treated by traditional beekeepers.

Despite the British and US governments’ refusal to ban nicotinoid pesticides, and as the British Beekeeping Association continues to be sponsored by Bayer, the manufacturer of the main nicotinamide, there are many voices calling for change. Meanwhile, there’s lots we can do to help the honeybee, apart from training as a natural beekeeper. As Michael Pollen, food commentator from the University of California, says, simply by eating organic, local food we are creating an environment with less toxicity for bees. And, he added, we can turn our lawns into bee-friendly havens.

Rudolph Steiner predicted – 50 years ago – that in half a century, the traditional approach to beekeeping would cause a crisis for the honeybee. He rightly pointed out that our existence depends on honeybees (2/3 of our food species are pollinated by them). In order to take care of ourselves, then, we have to take care of the bees.

goodbye to all that!

2009-10-07T15:14:00.000+01:00

My treatment for cancer finished last week. Hurray! My friends want to know whether the cancer is gone and all I can say is that the tumour was removed, along with my breast, in June, and that the radiotherapy I've been having daily for three weeks was to zap any cancer cells remaining on my chest wall. Will it return? I don't know, but for the rest of my life I will be much better at nurturing my terrain of wellbeing.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer nearly a year ago I set out on an urgent quest to find the cause. The toxic mix for me was a combination of despair about our planet (along with an echo of grief about my mother's death and even from lives beyond that) and a great attraction to alcohol; no doubt the two were related. I didn't tell many people, but for most of the last year, the cancer was suspected (but no longer is) as being a rare and agressive form of cancer, 'inflammatory breast cancer' from which only 40% women are left surviving after five years.

That really focused me on healing in a way that perhaps nothing else would have. So apart from handing myself over to the good people of the NHS - who really are wonderful despite working within a very limited paradigm - and all the other healers from whom I've learned so much - I've been developing (it's still wobbly) a 'trust that goes beyond time' about the process our world is going through I've also finally got the hang of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is one of the sanest, funniest bunch of people I've ever come across. It sometimes strikes me that the one billion of us who are so determined to follow an over-consuming lifestyle that we would even destroy our own home and the people around us, are behaving much as an addict does towards alcohol. Watching myself and the people around me gradually letting go of flying, giving up the aspiration to material wealth, this feels like a kind of withdrawal, with all the sadness and loss of deluded, pseudo-identity that goes with it. But as I've found out this year, losing things can actually be quite liberating.

BeWild-erment

2009-10-01T15:11:00.000+01:00

I’m in a state of utter bewilderment. My planet is at risk and the people I love are causing it. It’s like abuse in the family, but speaking up is dangerous. To some extent I’m colluding. And oy! The flying! Everyone I know seems to be getting on a plane this month. Isn’t it bonkers? Don’t they know? One long-haul flight (10 tonnes) is about a decade of bearable emissions (1 tonne). But the addiction is strong, and as the song goes, Don’t take my freedom away!

My only refuge is to reconnect, with Spirit, with nature and likeminded souls. So it was with relief that I turned up to the Transition Camp, last weekend, convened for all the Transition initiatives in the South East of England. It was hosted by Wo-Wo, a wonderful campsite just 20 minutes north of Lewes, that allows open fires and gives a fantastic welcome to families. We were in a field surrounded by woods and a little stream, where nestled yurts, a wood-fired sauna and compost loos. In true transition style, several dozen of us turned up and tuned into what we could offer and what we wanted.

So this glorious Indian summer weekend was filled with rich experience for my head, heart and hands. One minute a wild food forage, the next an intensive Joanna Macy Conference of all Beings. A bicycle workshop, a seed saving talk with a biodynamic expert, and exchange of seeds. I helped someone make fire with friction and led a visioning session. Much of the time we just sat and chatted. In the evening, after a delicious meal, we sat around the fire receiving training in consensus decision-making followed by music and a warming sauna till I tumble into my sleeping bag with owl song all around.

In an insane world, it’s healing to let go of the pain of bewilderment and allow myself to be Be-Wild-ered.

get a life!

2009-10-01T09:55:00.001+01:00

More and more people are discovering the joy of living a low carbon life. One of the first steps for our own empowerment starts with measuring our carbon footprint. This is the amount of carbon dioxide we emit each year as a result (mainly) of using fossil fuels: petrol, oil, gas and coal. There’s a good website for doing this. The Carbon Independent tool is both accurate and easy to use; it takes a few minutes.

Currently the average emissions for someone living in England is about 12 tonnes. The average emissions of someone living in India is about 1 tonne. That’s about where we have to get to (by 2050) and what the Copenhagen agreement is about, if we want to aim for a world where every person emits (consumes) equal amounts. In an unequal world we need to aim for 3 tonne living.

Over the last couple of years our family has been able to halve our emissions from about 9 tonnes to about 4.5, quite easily, through small steps that have also saved us money; I've documented many of them in this column. Roughly 1.2 tonnes of that is emitted for me by the government in terms of roads, hospitals and war.

One of the easiest ways to go on a carbon diet is to reduce inessential flights. A return flight to New Zealand or Australia emits 12 tonnes – doubling our annual load. To South Africa, Beijing and Bangkok it’s 6 tonnes; New York, India it’s 4 and to Greece, Moscow, it’s 2; Rome is one tonne and Dublin is .5 tonne. We’ve become rather addicted to non-essential flying and somewhat forgotten the joys of local living. So by getting a life you’re also getting other people a life. Which can only be good.

Source: 3 Tonne Handbook, written by Ann Link, a transitioner – available at Lewes Farmers Markets on the Lewes Pound stall.

fallout from the future

2009-09-22T22:48:00.000+01:00

I wrote about the economic downturn in these pages long before it happened and it’s now very interesting to watch the fallout, as it were, from the future. Newsnight commentators, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, a year on from the Lehman bank collapse, agreed in this fascinating debate, that we were probably in for a long period of little or no economic growth, and that this would be a good thing. And they also agreed that they did't know what might replace capitalism as a more viable culture or ideology.

The environmental imperative is that economic growth that is based on consumption is brought to a halt and then even reversed. You can have a growth in services, in value added, and so on, however, and that’s what the new social entrepreneurs are going to be taking up in the future. But continuing to over-consume trees, metals, fossil fuels (especially by travel and transport) water and topsoil (thanks to supermarket-fuelled agriculture) is taking us to the brink of existence.

My personal view is that the change will take many forms – emotional, practical, spiritual - and is in the form of a wave. For many of us early-adopters, we’re already focused on building our own resilience, localizing, downsizing and changing the way we work, shop and spend our time. We’re aware of the paradigm shift and in some ways, say, through the Transition Movement, spending our new-found spare time helping precipitate it in a 100-monkeys kind of way. This isn’t a smug, middle-class indulgence. It’s more about cutting edge survival: learning to live realistically within the limits of our planet. And, as a writer commented in a piece about the ethics of climate change, it’s about becoming the kind of person I want to be.

the buzz about bees

2009-09-15T13:07:00.000+01:00

Things are looking up for honeybees as a small but significant number of people are looking for new ways to support their continued existence. The commercial world has latched on in the form of the Beehaus - plastic horizontal beehives that were launched in high excitement this summer. I don't think it's a good idea, because plastic beehives aren't great for bees, who like natural materials that breathe, to live in. But urban beekeeping is the general trend, as there's far more biodiversity and fewer pesticides in towns. Yesterday's You and Yours featured the urban beekeeping phenomenon. It appears that the Cooperative Bank has funded a movement to populate the allotments of Manchester with bees - next stop London and Birmingham.

But more and more people are questioning the promotion of this 'traditional' way of beekeeping, which has remained unchanged for 100 years. This involves taking off almost all the winter honey supplies and feeding the bees with sugar over the winter - surely a disaster for their immune system. It involves going through the brood - the intimate core of the integrated bee colony - every 10 days during the main flow to check for pre-swarm queen cells. And it involves chemical intervention for disease instead of creating a terrain for general good bee health.

The Soil Association this summer launched a campaign to get the government to ban nicotinamides, which have been found to be one of the causes of colony collapse disorder. The British Beekeepers Association, still the source of most of the standard beekeeping courses, receives sponsorship funding from Bayer, a major manufacturer of nicotinamides. So beekeepers are having to flout their association and go to the Soil Association's petition.

New forms of beekeeping are emerging - or perhaps a revival of old forms based on an old, indigenous, more caretaking attitude towards bees and nature in general. One of the pioneers, Biobees, last week launched the Natural Beekeeping Network, which is also a research arm as well as supporting top-bar beekeeping. More locally, in Ashurstwood near Forest Row, the Natural Beekeeping Trust, based on biodynamic beekeeping, also launched last weekend. They have two courses coming up in October. For more about biodynamic beekeeping, read this page.

Lewes's walled, biodiverse gardens were once full of beehives. Wouldn't it be lovely if Lewes's gardens, allotments and parks were, in a couple of years, buzzing with honeybees? There's already a bunch of us supporting, mulling or experimenting. Contact me if you'd like to get involved.

first step 10%

2009-09-03T16:30:00.000+01:00

The Silver Bean Car Club of Lewes is now the proud owner of a brand new Toyota Yaris. Our carbon emissions are so low - 106g/km - that our annual road tax is only £35. I've been involved in this car club for about three years and it has been so easy and saved us so much money that I never want to own a car ever again. The average car driver emits about two tonnes of CO2 a year and CarPlus estimates that sharing cars can cut that dramatically as well as create huge savings. The car is centrally parked and it costs £2 an hour to book, plus petrol, after an initial registration fee of £75. Nobody's making any money on that but it pays off the cost of borrowing. With 11 of us in the club, we're full at the moment, but we might well take on more people in the future. If you're interested please email silverbeancarclub@googlemail.com

Talking about cutting carbon emissions, this week saw the launch of an exciting new national initiative called 10:10 whose aim is for us all and collectively to reduce our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. The point is that it's all very well for us to aim for 85% reduction in emissions/fossil fuel use by 2050 a la Copenhagen, but it's what we also do in the interim that matters: the line of trajectory. Transition Town Lewes's forum agreed last night to take this on as a major theme and I will be writing about this in the months to come. At present we in the UK each emit roughly 13 tonnes of CO2 per year. We'll need to aim for around one tonne by 2050 (if we're going for international equity). The first step is interesting: 10% - that's more than just recycling and turning down our thermostats, which I think we've all done now. It's about changing our habits more profoundly: changing the way we source food, buying far less stuff, halving our flying, sharing things. See here for some ideas about practical actions.

It's actually quite diffucult for our family to reduce our carbon emissions further: we're down to about 5 tonnes of emissions since we started as a household a couple of years ago, and apart from not flying, it's all been quite easy. Two of those tonnes are down to central government decisions on roads, airports and schools. But Dirk has just had a thousand pounds of surprise royalty from a piece of music he wrote and, inspired by Transition Town Lewes's Open Eco-house event in July, we're finally going to spend it on on an eco-lite retrofit of our house: perspex secondary double glazing from http://www.365plastics.com/, interlining our curtains in our main room; low-energy lightbulbs throughout (except the main kitchen light), reflector behind the radiators and draughtproofing windows and doors. I find the prospect strangely exciting.

hook, line and sinker

2009-08-27T22:26:00.000+01:00

Every time my birthday comes around I ask Dirk for something useful. This way, in recent years I've acquired a storm kettle, a bivvy bag (for sleeping in the rain), a book about plants, a new beekeeper's outfit and a Hennesey sleeping hammock (which I've slept in for the past two nights, rocked by the young trees in my woods). This year I asked for a fishing rod. Dirk sourced it from Percy's Fishing Tackle on Cliffe High St. I tried it out last week with my young friend George. We stood on the jetty near the cliffs at Seaford. Having figured out how to tie on the hooks (cunningly disguised as little fish) and lead weight, we cast off. The first few times the cast was all over the place. Then a fisherman showed us the proper way (you have to hold the line in your index finger) and suddenly the line just flew - swish - over the water. 'That's a good cast,' our helpful fishing friend said, 'At least a hundred feet. And a good rod.' We didn't catch a fish but I've heard that you can catch mackerel on a rising tide before October. Just standing there, casting out, reeling in, casting out, reeling in... in the warm evening light, with dozens of other fisherfolks was a sublime experience in itself, one I plan to repeat soon. George Monbiot recently wrote the most beautiful feature article I've read in a long while - and it was about fishing from his kayak.

PS last week's column about Tesco's proposed expansion was incorrect - Lewes District Council's planning office says the decision will be 'some time in the autumn', when all the necessary information has been gathered. I hear that there is a zombie invasion of Tesco afoot (If you want to join in, please ring 07910411071).

putting our house in order

2009-08-14T23:15:00.000+01:00

Everywhere people ask: "What can I actually do?" The answer is as simple asit is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, 25 years later (p252)
with commentaries by E.F. Schumacher.
Hartley & Marks Publishers, Inc., 1999.

emissions admission

2009-08-14T21:34:00.001+01:00

I'm spending the week at my friend Cat's in the Languedoc region of southern France. As ever, it's a hugely sensuous experience. My daughter Sophia and I spent one day cycling down lanes through the grapevines that cover the plains, along the Canal du Midi and through quiet stone villages shuttered against the midday heat. The dry wind sweeps through the bleached grasses and wild fennel, the air is scented with fig trees and the cigales sing with intensity. Most meals are spent leisurely eating largely the produce of Bernard's garden, including all kinds of incredible-tasting tomatoes. Although I eat only English tomatoes while at home, they are a poor relation to these ones, ripened in intense sun - and after such an experience I know I'm going to find it hard to eat tomatoes in Lewes, even those from Bill's.

Bernard, Cat's boyfriend, comes from this region of France, and he is passionate about keeping local crafts - incuding stonemasonry - alive. He has reclaimed this old garden fom the maquis, the scented, thyme-filled scrub that covers the hills behind the village. There is a spring on the land, that waters the crops by gravity. Like all good gardeners, Bernard has been busy making humus-rich soil in raised beds.

Last night we took a tortilla and a bottle of Bernard's own wine up to the garden, to have a late supper, as the sun set. Fabiola, Cat's 2-year-old daughter, pottered around nibbling on an onion she'd just picked, and Sophia and I picked and ate some ripe figs straight off the tree. We settled Fabiola to sleep in the hammock, and watched the stars come out. Much later, Sophia and I, on our way home, lay down on the warm earth and watched the Persiad meteor shower.

This has been a bittersweet week, and I felt like weeping in the road. Not only will I be giving up English tomatoes but these French tomatoes too. Although my carbon emissions from my rail journey here are a half (0.1 tonnes of CO2) of those of our road trip last week, that's still too much for me. I'm aiming to live within a one-tonne budget (generally accepted as the annual level of emissions that will avert climate meltdown). To this end, over the past couple of years I've changed a lot of habits quite easily, but this final frontier - giving up travel - is a lot more painful.

As Bernard said, most tourists travel because they wish to see other people living the authentic life. Why, he asked, don't we learn to be more authentic in our own terrains?

westward ho!

2009-08-07T00:51:00.000+01:00

Now that our children are just old enough to be left alone for a week, Dirk and I decided to go on a road trip, our first time alone for that long since we got married, 20 years ago. Unlike the road trips of the past, I planned it carefully, to take in permaculture projects and friends throughout the south west and Wales.

First stop Ourganics, a 4 acre field in Dorset, lived in by Pat Bowcock. Run on permaculture lines, the field is irrigated by sluices from a spring and is off the grid, using solar and wind to power Pat’s lights and laptop. The veg, grown on no-dig beds and in tropical-feel polytunnels, are part of the lunch, eaten by us and the WOOFER volunteers, who include our friend Penny Barltrop from Transition Town Lewes. One of the best things about Pat’s integrated plot was the anti-mud patio made from bits of stone and marble, and weeded by the geese.

We spent the night with friends Franny and Justin Owen in Lyme Regis, hearing of their stories of opposing the Tesco Express in town. They live elegantly in a house that’s falling about their ears and we harvested a huge bowl of salad for supper from their first-time food garden. The next morning Fran took us to Fivepenny Farm, run by Joyti, an amazing American woman. This was a much larger mixed farm, with different kinds of livestock and plants, also powered by solar and wind, and including a household of four children. Joyti is clearly a grant magnet, and has built a huge barn used by a cooperative of local producers to process their food and add value to it. Both Fivepenny and Ourganics are having to apply for ongoing planning permission and may not get it – it’s gutting that such pioneers of new ways of farming are not being fully supported.

Next stop the Transtion Network headquarters where we spent a happy hour exchanging news with Ben Brangwyn, the coordinator. One of the most exciting bits of gossip was that the Transition network is talking to the Cooperative Food, apparently the second largest landowner in the UK, about how to feed Britain on a low-fossil fuel diet. According to research being carried out by Rob Hopkins and Simon Fairlie, it’s just doable, if we eat far less meat. That evening we had a tour of the Forest Garden, an abundant, layered edible landscape, run by Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust. Perennials, especially nut trees, are an important part of the mix of future food: walnuts yield tonnage more per acre than wheat. Quite a few of his plants, such as the Italian alder, are nitrogen fixers or support microrrhizal networks, which distribute nutrients across the land.

The next morning, after a scintillating breakfast with our friend Sapphire, we moved on to Cornwall, where we visited the Keveral Farm community of 13 adults, 10 children, which has been going for 36 years. Sarah, who has lived there for 15 of those years, showed us their approach to collective growing, which is divided up into separate areas of enterprise. One man, Oak, has planted most of the trees that tower above this lush and productive valley, and they now have a business allowing people to come and camp there. After a night with Dirk’s old friends Dave and Barb, who happen to live across the valley, we moved on to stay with another old friend in Stroud, Steve Hurrell, who first introduced me to permaculture when it came to Britain in the 80s with the Australian founder Bill Mollison. Steve took us up to see the Stroud Community Supported Agriculture project, where people commission the farmer to grow their year’s supply of veg, thus sharing the risk and rewards with the farmer rather than the farmer carrying all the financial risk. It’s a brilliant system and I’d love Transition Town Lewes to catalyse one here. The next day we went to Stroud Farmers Market, a weekly market that’s so successful that it spills out through the town and creates a real market day buzz of real people shopping for affordable local food. Again, wouldn’t it be great to have one in Lewes, a real antidote to the Tesco expansion. Let’s hope the new coordinator will facilitate that.

Up to Wales, where we stayed with our old friends Marcus and Daniela Lampard. Marcus, who farms cattle and sheep, is dubious about permaculture but over the years I’ve noticed a shift in his practice away from herbicides and pesticides and towards low-impact tilling, green manures and interplanting. The farm is really gorgeous, with lots of mature trees, many of which were planted in the 40 years he’s tended the farm. They also run a successful bed and breakfast, and have recently put in a shepherd’s hut with a woodburning stove in one of the fields, along with a solar/wood heated shower and compost loo, and we stayed there for two nights, waking to an awesome view.

On, through the rain, to the Centre for Alternative Technology, set up 30 years ago and now a real centre of excellence, with the Welsh Institute for Sustainable Education being built to cater for the hundreds of people being trained in Masters degrees from CAT each year. That night was spent with our friend Siam, who has just bought a piece of lush land in the remote hills, to run courses from and plant trees. She’s just starting out, not letting her ripe age or lack of funds stop her.

The next day we landed up at Park Attwood, Britain’s only anthroposophical (Steiner) nursing home, where I’ve been having mistletoe treatment. They hold a rare vision of a truly integrated, holistic approach to health.Our final stop was not permaculture but Ryton Organic Gardens, a demonstration site for everything organic, started by Laurence Hills, many years ago by experimenting in his back garden ways of growing food and feeding the soil to combat his allergies. There we ran into our friend Anna from Lewes taking a short introduction to permaculture course – merry met at the beginning and end of this unforgettable road trip.

For me the week was about two things. It affirmed that Dirk and I can survive being alone together for long stretches, post-kids, because I still find him very interesting and funny. Second, it reminded me that there are many successful visionaries out there, people who care and who are really making a difference, usually against the grain for their time.

As someone who’s trying to reduce fossil fuel use, can I justify the trip? If we’d had longer time we could - just – have reached even the remote places by public transport. In the car, we travelled 1,000 miles, which is the equivalent of .43 tonnes of C02 emissions for our medium-sized community car. Given that most Westerners are emitting 13 tonnes of CO2 annually, and our family currently emits about 5 tonnes per head, that’s a significant proportion of our budget*. The same trip by train and bus would have emitted a quarter of that. Which I didn’t realize. Till just now. So perhaps that’s the last road trip I’ll ever take.

*Ref the 3 Tonne Club handbook by Ann Link, a Lewes resident and Transition Town Lewes member

baked beans

2009-07-16T16:41:00.000+01:00

Here's a little success story of how a few people can help build the world anew. Nearly three years ago, my friends Raphaella and Hermione decided along with Dirk and me to form a car club. Raphaella had a small orange Daewoo Matiz, so we called it the Baked Bean car club. We book it through the google calendar online, and we pay £2 per hour plus petrol to use it, which covers all the costs, including replacing the car periodically. Our current car is silver, so it's a silver bean club. Some of the joys of our car club are finding out how to share stuff and have fun. But it's also saved us bucketloads of money and hassle. I've rarely not been able to access the car when I want, which is parked in central Lewes. Looking back, I can't imagine ever wanting to own a car ever again. One of the reasons for forming car clubs is that people realise that they can use other forms of transport. Car clubs use cars to reduce car use. But that creates a strange problem: our founding group is using the car less and less because we've discovered the joys of a car-free life. So we're looking for new members. In fact, we've just had a meeting to decide that we want to buy a new, hire-purchased eco-car, and in order to do that we need to take a step up and expand the car club to ten members. So this is a rallying call for people to join our club. Please email us at silverbeancarclub@googlemail.com

some notes on the notes

2009-07-10T07:30:00.000+01:00

The launch party for the new higher denominations of the Lewes Pound was a blast - with hundreds of people from all walks of Lewes life, at the stunning Harveys Depot. A woman in the pub afterwards actually kissed me when she heard I was one of the team behind the Lewes currency. I feel deep delight to have been part of this initiative, and though I've only been cheering from the sidelines for the last few months, I've held it in my heart (like so many others) and keep on buying and spending Lewes Pounds at every opportunity.

A few months ago the group asked Lewes traders for feedback about improvements - in fact we have asked for frequent feedback wherever we can spare the time, as volunteers (none of us are paid a dime). Three consistent messages were - higher denominations, more issuing points and more incentives for locals to use it instead of spending sterling in town (some people already realise that 80% of money spent locally stays local whereas 80% of money spent in chains leaks out of Lewes, according to the new economics foundation). After some consultation we devised a plan whereby 5% of Lewes Pounds go into a Live Lewes fund - the first fund specifically to support eco-projects in Lewes. This money goes into the fund when traders trade LPs back to sterling. So for every LP21 traded for sterling £1 goes to the Live Lewes fund.

Some traders will now be deterred financially from simply going to their nearest issuing point and turning the LPs spent in their shop back into sterling - which some of them have been, We wish to discourage this since if the LP continues to circulate locally it builds wealth locally. Traders can still keep LPs circulating by paying for local goods (perhaps finding new local suppliers) or paying their staff or themselves or by giving it back to the customer as change - a popular move among high-volume LP traders such as Laportes. And they can, after all, simply opt out.

We really do have it in our power to build the world anew. But together. This transition is not going to happen if we sit back and wait for someone else to tell us how it's done, or complain if it doesn't work straight-off. That's the old paradigm. What's new about the Lewes Pound and the whole Transition Town concept is that - like it or not - the new world is going to be built, brick by brick from the foundations. I won't go through the reasons for this imperative, though Colin Firth put it well in a recent column: 'We are not in a position to choose whether or not we have a relationship with our own society or with the world's poorest people. We can choose the nature of those relationships, but either way they're there'. Last week it was announced tht a billion people are living in chronic starvation, but I digress...

Yes, we can do it different and better but we're not sure how it's going to happen. We'll get there, not through fear, opposition and polarisation, but through creativity and courage, by developing a conversation about how we can do this together. The Lewes Pound is an experiment. It might not work. But I say it deserves the chance to be tailored, cherished and nurtured into being by us all.

hive alive

2009-07-07T18:10:00.000+01:00

Why are you reading this and not cavorting outside from dawn till dusk? Why am I sitting inside writing this? I'm far too busy being obsessed with sailing boats and allotment and bees. This last fortnight has been dramatic on the honeybee front. First, three young lads pushed over the beehive in the churchyard near my house in Lewes and ran off. Thanks to my neighbours I was alerted and the hive and bees, clustered together in the toppled box, were reinstated a day later.

Then Mike, who's one of my friends developing the natural top bar approach, helped me catch a swarm from a hedge in Newhaven, and I put it in a topbar beehive I'd made over the winter. Normally, on a secondary swarm, or caste, the virgin queen is bullied out of the hive by the workers into her once-in-a-lifetime mating flight with 5-15 male drones up there in the drone congregation area. But when we peeked in the hive we noticed the young queen staggering about, unable to make it out of the hive. And the next day she was dead, surrounded by workers on the hive floor. A hive without an egg-laying queen is doomed to die, so when a few days later Mike and I took another swarm from a low hedge in Rodmell, we decided to unite this with the queenless swarm in the hive. Unfortunately, although they did unite, they decided to swarm off together, clearly unhappy with the situation. I caught the swarm first time, hanging outside the hive in a cluster. But they swarmed again, this time to a branch of a nearby holly tree. Again, I got them in the box, but they'd already decided to fly far. I hope they found a dry place, or even better, were taken by a beekeeper.

I was feeling pretty low about losing all the top bar bees, though there is a conventional colony in the churchyard and one in the woods. But Mike invited me to visit his bees today - he's taken three swarms this season and they are well established in his top bar hives on a farm outside Lewes. They were actively flying in and out of the hives and took no notice of us gingerly lifting up the lid. Inside the hive it's nothing like a standard beehive. The bees get to make their own comb, hanging in arcs from the topbar. I don't think I can describe both how natural and right that appeared. It's what I was trying to say last week - the man/nature balance; it's subtle and we need to do things differently. This fortnight I made some mistakes and also the bees had a mind of their own. I learned a lot, and I feel more humble.

a walk on the wild side

2009-06-26T17:35:00.000+01:00

The allotment has been invaded by ladybirds. At first I didn’t understand what was happening; tiny scales coloured orange and black were appearing on the logs and the stems and the leaves. I knew some predator was coming, just not what.

Then one day I turned up and next to a shrivelled larva shell was an yellow ladybird with no spots. When I next looked at the beetle, the spots had gradually faded into being. Was it next going to turn red? Now there are hundreds of red ladybirds with spots all over the plants. Just in time to consume the aphids, which are also proliferating on the fruit trees and other sensitive plants.

Last week a large snake appeared in the long grass at the edge of the allotment, to die. It was three feet long, probably a grass snake. I sprayed water on it but it was on its way out. After it died, I noticed it had been bitten, perhaps by a fox, which had left its poo on the path edging the allotment.

Perhaps the snake had been attracted by toads there. I noticed one when I was picking redcurrants from the forest of currants; it’s cool and dark and damp there, a good place for a toad.

The blackbirds are still singing as I pick the currants. They love redcurrants particularly, and I wonder from the poo on the leaves whether they’ve had their fair share. The hungry gap is over and the land has started to yield a crop for us humans as well as others.

I am in love with the whole thing, and every part, as well as the interconnectedness. Of ladybird, blackbird, snake and cabbage. Compost, soil, nettle and worm. The lessons just deepen and will never end.

I look at the yield of my allotment neighbour, who used to be a farmer. It’s far better than mine, at least double, even triple. He's a top-notch grower, and everyone's envious of his yield. Yet I doubt whether he has any ladybirds, snakes or toads. There’s no room for wild places on his allotment; he uses every square inch and he’s an avid weeder. He uses slug pellets and goodness knows what else. Bless him. This is the situation of our world: we humans want to maximize our crop, our income from the earth’s ‘resources’, but what happens to wild nature? I doubt we can exist without it. I welcome a time when we humans discover our own interconnectedness, learn to walk on the wild side.

malling brooks

2009-06-23T11:13:00.001+01:00

What would the world be, once bereft,
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left.
Oh let them be left, wildness and wet.
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerald Manley Hopkins 1844-1889

what doesn't kill us heals us

2009-06-18T15:12:00.000+01:00

I am now a woman with one breast. Don’t be distressed by this news – I am not. I’m recovering well, resting, doing only what makes me happy. What’s surprised me about this surgery to remove the tumour is that I still feel entirely ‘me’. I’d somehow expected to feel diminished, more vulnerable or less worthy. But so far, and it’s only been a few days, it’s increasingly clear to me that even if I lose my hair or a breast, or my work or identity in my role, I am still essentially me. The me that is not me.

It’s often been said that what doesn’t kill us heals us and I’ve felt for a long time that this cancer has come to teach me how to really live. You could even say that I have chosen this path. As Aristotle commented a couple of thousand years ago, breast cancer can be caused by grief, and part of my healing is to end – now, in this time and for my line - the huge grief and even despair I have felt for mother earth, which is linked to and sensitised by my own mother’s death when I was three.

So nowadays I’m living firmly on the lighter side of my own edge – in full trust in the process of the Universe, which is where meaning is for me. And by trust I don’t mean sitting back and watching life unravel like a movie. I mean being actively involved in the extraordinary art of co-creation, yet with trust and acceptance.

I recently walked with my friend Viviana past this sign on the building site off Western Road. At first glance I was convinced it said No Hat, No Boobs, No Job. A zen-like description of how I feel, and how perfect that feels.

save Malling Brooks

2009-06-10T15:57:00.001+01:00

I’ve been wondering about how visionaries appear and manage to influence the society of their time and place. Tom Paine, for example: did he emerge from the crucible of a world ripe for revolution and revolutionaries? And how has Barack Obama appeared just at our hour of greatest need? I do have a sense that doors are opening very easily nowadays even for ordinary people with vision, perhaps because the underlying instability of our times allow us to make large changes using small leverage points.

What got me thinking of this was John May’s new Vision for Malling Brooks (read it at the new Lewes Coalition website). This is a wild piece of green-field land of 2.7 hectares surrounded by houses, which the developer Charles Style has proposed to pave over and ‘develop’ in to light industrial units and parking. The land is a cornerstone for Style’s proposal to develop North Street, so he can move the remaining light industrial users to Malling Brooks.

Malling residents are outraged by the proposal, since the land was under four metres of water during the last floods; further development of this floodplain would, they claim, increase the risk of flooding to their homes and be dangerous to the development itself. The District Council’s planning committee has twice postponed a decision about the application on technical grounds, and it goes back to planning in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile I ran into John May at the Farmers’ Market and he told me how he’d come up with the vision. He’d been trying to find a fault in the application on the basis of damage to the wildlife. But Style’s plans had included a comprehensive survey and proposed moving the wildlife to a corridor in one corner and managing it more intensively. May took a long walk around the site and woke up the next morning with a vision for the whole area – to leave most of it as a managed wildlife sanctuary as well as creating some much-needed allotments for Lewes residents. One of the reasons why our planet is becoming eroded is that money and markets and national development policy speak louder than nature. As Prof Michael Sandal said in this week’s Reith Lecture by turning everything into commodities, we lose sense of its real worth to us. OK this vision doesn’t make anyone money, but it is deep ecology and it is common sense, which, says May, is lacking in our society.

I love the way that visions, however impossible-sounding or against the materialistic status quo, have an irresistible magnetism, a life of their own. Positive visions seed themselves in our minds and take root; they grow in our imagination so that pretty soon we’re living AS IF they have already happened. I do believe that once you have a vision, it’s virtually already happened. So kudos John May and the Lewes Coalition for dreaming dreams.

queen bees

2009-06-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

So the swarming season is in full swing and any colony of honeybees that has an old queen or wants to multiply is now looking for new places to swarm to and colonise. It’s that perfect combination of heat, light and moisture that affects all beings in different ways. My fellow beekeeper Steven and I have tentatively welcomed two colonies in to the Lewes churchyard near my house. One is an artificial swarm: frames with queen cells from my colony in the woods and lots of unhatched brood and worker bees to support the emergent queen. It will take a month before we know the queen bee has hatched successfully and then flown out and mated with the 5-15 drones hanging out in the ‘drone congregation area’ high above the land and then returned and started to laying - half her bodyweight in eggs in one day.

The other colony was a swarm clustered on a wall along the Winterbourne seasonal river last night. They’d been there for at least a day and were unusually tired, hungry and aggressive. I got a sting to my ankle, which has swollen up. But Steven got the bees in to the box and then in to his top bar beehive. When I looked yestarday many of them had died – of starvation. I fed them syrup to try to save the rest – assuming there was a queen –and today they are flying in and out quite purposefully, but it will be a month before we know whether both queens have survived and their larvae are hatching.

I am starting to form a relationship with the bees. I visit them and ‘tune in’ to their energy – sometimes I sit and hum and sometimes I just sit. Ever since my scrape with death I just don’t care how that sounds. My hair is growing back now the chemotherapy is over and I have dared to expose my head to the sun and other people – which has been really liberating. I suppose that after a certain amount of life experience, or surviving a serious illness, you can either batten down the hatches and live within your comfort zone, or just let go of, or leap over, self-limiting inhibitions and boundaries and feel an intense freedom. I love being around people who embody that freedom, and here’s a video of someone else who seems to know a thing or two.