13 September 2013

Are cat food cans better value and/or better for the planet than pouches?

A friend recently asked the question: "Are cat food cans better value and/or better for the planet than pouches?" Here is (a slightly edited version of) the response I offered:

Inasmuch as a can can (cue Parisian cabaret orchestra) be, and is quite likely to be, recycled, possibly to make a new can, whereas pouches may not be recyclable at all, cans win an easy first point.

The amount of fossil fuel burned to make / recycle a can compared with the petrochemicals that go into making a pouch requires a little bit of calculation.

It takes approximately 4kWh of energy to produce a kilo of recycled aluminium, which means that manufacturing a 15g aluminium can of fizzy pop consumes 60Wh of energy (equivalent to a 60W electric light bulb burning for an hour).

It takes approximately 2kWh of energy to produce a kilo of recycled steel, which means that a 45g steel pet-food can consumes 90Wh of energy. To produce 1 kWh of electricity requires approximately 0.16 litres of crude oil, so to produce a steel pet-food can, 14 ml of crude oil would be required.

It takes 23.6 kWh to produce a kilo of plastic. Assuming that a pet-food pouch weighs 10g, it would take 236Wh of energy to produce the pet food pouch (38 ml of crude oil).

In conclusion, then, to the second point, ideally, one would buy pet-food in aluminium cans, but the manufacture of steel cans is still less energy intensive than the manufacture of plastic pouches.

Soup without

I prepare a lot of soups, mostly for lunch. A soup often provides the opportunity to use up left-over cooked vegetables and small quantities of uncooked vegetables that got left behind. Sometimes my soups can be closer to a stew than a broth. Some soups invite bread or toast, whereas others don't. I rarely garnish, although I probably should, and I rarely prepare croutons because they involve a lot of fiddle for not a lot of result. I rarely even consider buying soup in a can, tub or packet. (I did buy, about a year ago, a can of Blue Dragon, 'Wonton Soup', mostly because it was labelled as suitable for vegans.) Cooking soup from scratch is much more satisfying.

It must be a couple of years ago now that I prepared a tasty green-coloured soup which I served to my wife and daughter for Saturday lunch. I usually make a pea-based green soup on Saturdays, and whilst on this occasion the soup was the same colour as my Parisian pea soup, it tasted different, and had a mouth-feel more akin to the watercress soup that I sometimes make. With minimal discussion, my wife and daughter each decided, perfectly reasonably, that I had made and served  them asparagus soup (which I do anyway from time to time). After they had mopped up the last of the 'asparagus soup', I disclosed that there was no asparagus in the soup. Earlier that day, begloved, I had gingerly cut nettle tops from an overgrown part of the garden and cooked up a nettle soup.

Not long after that, I was in the process of preparing a rich miso soup with tofu, shi-itake mushrooms, arame seaweed and ramen noodles, which makes an excellent evening meal, when I discovered that I had already used up the last of the miso. It was too late to drive to the shops to buy some more, so I decided to improvise. Suspecting nothing amiss, my wife and daughter enjoyed their 'miso soup', as they usually do. On that occasion I did not reveal that there was no miso in the 'miso soup', although my wife found out about it some months later when she read my weblog posting about the occasion.

A few days ago I planned a soup for our evening meal. Although it was not my intention to prepare anything special, I was keen to experiment using a herb and a spice, each new to me. The process began at breakfast time, but required little further attention until the evening. When it came to the eating, what we tasted was a gorgeously creamy mushroom soup - much creamier than my usual mushroom soup - with fried shreds of onion (stirred in, because I rarely garnish). In the context of writing this piece it is almost needless to say that all the mushrooms (common [Agaricus bisporus], shi-itake [Lentinula edodes] and oyster [Pleurotus ostreatus]) remained untouched in the fridge.

Reflecting about these experiences, several interesting observations can be made. Expectations play an important role in determining what we perceive. If I anticipate eating miso soup, and am then presented with a dish that looks just like miso soup, then I expect to taste miso soup. If nothing significantly contradicts my expectations, I am likely to experience what I expect. (Isn't this one of the reasons why statements given by witnesses to an event can vary so greatly?) However, I think that the business about the 'miso soup' goes deeper than simply a Jedi mind-trick. According to its Wikipedia entry, the McGurk effect is a phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound (sound A) is paired with the visual component of another sound (sound B), leading to the incorrect perception of the sound. That sound heard could be the perception of a modified version of sounds A or B, or even the perception of a different sound (sound C). The attention that sighted people give to what their eyes are seeing can easily over-ride what their ears are hearing. When expectations are added to this brew, that is, when a person expects a certain visual or auditory appearance based on the semantic information leading up to it, the McGurk effect is greatly increased.

Although we tend not to think about it, speech is perceived by various senses working together. Taste is similar. The brain is often unable to separate the various different sensory components of what it perceives. The basic tastes (salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami) contribute only partially to the sensation and flavour of food in the mouth, other factors include the look, smell, pungency/spiciness, texture and mouth-feel. Therefore, soup that conforms to miso soup in all other respects, is quite likely to be experienced as miso soup.

Memory also has a role to play. If I am familiar with the taste of asparagus soup, but am unfamiliar with the taste of nettle soup, it makes sense to relate any new experience to past experiences, regardless of whether this is a conscious act of cognition or an involuntary process of which I am unaware. If I am not specifically attending to the soup I am eating, provided that it does not depart too far from what is already familiar to me, then I am likely to relate it to what is already familiar: mushroom soup. (At this point I am reminded of the role played by memory in the Seagull Sandwich Riddle q.v..)

I think that there is a further level at which the soup issue operates, relating to the persistence of what is already in my mind. Despite cognitively knowing that there were no mushrooms in the 'mushroom soup', but aided by my treacherous sensory experience, I was unable or unwilling to over-ride my overall experience of the soup as 'mushroom soup'. It was as though I had some emotional commitment to maintain the fiction that the soup I was eating was mushroom soup. We do this kind of thing a lot, mostly below the level of our awareness, with people and relationships. In counselling, it is termed transference.

I shall continue to make soups, partly because my daughter finds them easy to eat, but mostly because we enjoy them. I shall continue, at least from time to time, to experiment with all manner of interesting ingredients. I made an excellent miso soup yesterday evening. It had all the right ingredients (although perhaps insufficient ginger for my taste), and if it had come in a tin ...

11 September 2013

Incomplete gestalt: Sunday 8 September 2013

My daughter is quadriplegic (unable to use any of her limbs) and spends much of her life in her wheelchair. We have a VW Sharan that has been converted to carry her sitting in her wheelchair towards the back of the vehicle. She enters through the rear hatch door, up an extendable ramp, aided by an electric winch. When the vehicle is in motion, the ramp is folded in half and sits vertically between the wheelchair and the rear hatch door, providing some level of protective safety in the event of a rear-end shunt. When my daughter is boarding or disembarking, the ramp extends about two metres beyond the car. We often choose to park the car bonnet-to-tail with other parked vehicles (serially), leaving a gap of several metres at the back of the car to allow the ramp to be extended and for our daughter in her wheelchair to be lined up in preparation for ascending the ramp. However, in supermarket car parks, parking is in parallel with other vehicles, and when the ramp is extended it protrudes, by about two metres, into the driving lane. As I do not expect motorists, especially those who are looking for a car parking space, to be alert to a ramp temporarily protruding into their path, while my wife secures and loads our daughter and her wheelchair into the Sharan, the process takes a couple of minutes, I stand sentry at the end of the ramp so that there is a sizable object visible for which a motorist in a car park will be on the look-out: me. I typically face in the direction of any oncoming traffic so that I can deliver a Paddington Bear-like 'hard stare' at any motorist with insufficient patience who considers trying to scrape past, although my ploy is not always successful. At worst, in the unlikely event of physical contact with another car, then at least it would be me who was hit and not our daughter.

We were in the supermarket car park of Sainsbury's, Canterbury, having just completed our shopping, moving through the process of loading our daughter and her wheelchair into the back of the Sharan. I was indeed delivering a hard stare at a motorist in a white sports car who was eager to be past. Suddenly I felt a jarring thump on the back of my calves: a car from the other side of the driving lane had reversed into me, and unbelievably was continuing to do so. My wife screamed. Although I felt no pain, I was in a state of shock. Our daughter was in danger from the reversing car. I pummelled on the rear window of the Mini, which then stopped and was driven slowly back into the parking space from which it had emerged. Then, nothing. Neither the driver, nor their passenger, got out of the Mini. The driver of the white sports car, who must have witnessed it all, but did nothing, continued to do nothing, with the implied threat of squeaking past if I moved from my sentry position at the end of the ramp. My wife hurriedly loaded our daughter and her wheelchair into the Sharan. Once it was possible to do so, I part-folded the ramp, at which point the white sports car reversed a few metres and drove down a side lane to search for a parking space elsewhere.

I walked over to the Mini and was ignored. I tapped on the driver's window, which was reluctantly would down. I told the driver, a young woman that she had reversed her car into me and hit me. She said that she was very sorry. I told her that had she not hit me she would have hit my daughter in her wheelchair instead. She said she was very sorry. I asked her how she could not have seen me. She said that she had checked in all the mirrors, but I must have been standing in her blind spot (thus making me responsible). All the while, the young man of about the same age as the driver said nothing. She repeated that she was very sorry, not in a way that was insincere, but without any depth of feeling behind it. Being in a state of shock, I was unable to think clearly, and in fact unable to think of anything further to say, so I walked away.

I felt indignant that it was left to me to take responsibility for addressing the issue, when it was not me who was culpable. I felt discombobulated because the outcome of addressing the matter had been so unsatisfactory. I felt let down because a driver had witnessed the event from t minus one to t plus one, and had done nothing to prevent it or to offer support afterwards. I felt dissatisfied with myself because I had been unable to imagine, never mind bring about, a satisfactory resolution. I cannot even feel consoled that the driver will learn to drive better as a result of the experience, because it seemed that in her view she had done everything correctly. In trying to find some closure regarding the experience, all I can hear are trite clichés such as: "Well, at least you weren't injured." and "It could have been a lot worse had you not been standing there." and "The poor woman was only young. Maybe she'd only recently passed her driving test." usw. In conclusion, I am left with an incomplete gestalt for which I am unable to find adequate closure.

08 September 2013

Sarah Tether to stand down

I composed the following posting for Facebook on learning that Sarah Tether, Liberal Democrat MP for Brent, was to stand down as an MP.

I consider it likely that the political reality of managing a nation state involves interfacing with huge numbers of powerful vested interests, and to achieve anything requires forming alliances with organisations one might personally find distasteful. I have little doubt not only that the issue is the same the world over, but also that one's own moral purity could be preserved only under a highly authoritarian regime, assuming, of course, that one's moral principles aligned with that regime. The part I am not so keen on is that UK government ministers are required to pretend that they like the decisions that are taken in their name. I should rather they were honest, told it like it is, and then MPs such as Sarah Tether, and formerly Estelle Morris and Claire Short, would not be required to say things that we know they don't believe.

28 August 2013

Against Western Military Involvement in Syria

Pouring petrol onto a fire tends to make matters worse, and also risks burning those who do the pouring. In terms of the likely consequences, in the history of bad ideas, Western military involvement with the civil war in Syria, however well-intentioned, would be very high up in the charts.

It is, of course, possible that, as with any war, there are vested interests, like crows around a battlefield, eager for the financial rewards of a military conflict.

It is the job of military leaders to think about military involvement in any situation (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), whereas there can only be political resolutions (Northern Ireland, South Africa). Without a political resolution, there is no resolution: the First World War begat the Second World War begat the Cold War, usw.

Military spokespeople tend to talk earnestly about ‘surgical strikes’. Yet In Afghanistan there have been many civilian causalities, as well as so-called ‘friendly-fire’ incidents. I suspect that the explosions in Baghdad that we watched on television at the start of the Bush (junior) administration military adventure in Iraq, however well-targeted, killed many people who themselves had been victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein. Explosions do not discriminate who they kill – best not to use them. And besides, soldiers are people, too. Just because they have got caught up, some of them probably fairly arbitrarily, on one side or the other, does not mean that they deserve to die violently.

I may be quite wrong, but I suspect that some of the Syrian anti-government soldiers are not polite, liberal-minded people fighting because the Syrian government is a jolly rotten lot. I suspect that a proportion of the anti-government soldiers are motivated by an ideology that is as implacably opposed to western liberality as it is to the current Syrian regime. In supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Russian ‘occupation’ in the 1980s, the CIA inadvertently spawned the subsequent wave of international terrorism through which we are still living. Giving military assistance to such people sounds like a seriously bad idea.

I am as terrified of weapons of mass destruction as anyone else. However, I believe that Western politicians are responding with their hearts not their heads about the suspected / likely use of chemical weapons in Syria. 

Although it goes against the grain for many people, non-interference by the West could be the best course of action. Western electorates generally appear to support the idea that almost any action carried out by Western states must be experienced as desirable and beneficial for the people on whom it is inflicted. I suspect that the Islamic world, post-colonial Africa, and parts of Asia think somewhat differently.

If the West wishes to do something constructive, then giving significant humanitarian aid, both for the direct benefit of the casualties in the conflict, and also to the neighbouring countries to accommodate the huge number of Syrian refugees, would be a good start. At the diplomatic level, trying harder to build bridges with the Putin regime in Russia (with which the Assad regime in Syria has some kind of ongoing relationship), and trying even harder to broker a rapprochement between Israel and a Palestinian state, could, in the long-term, be of much greater benefit to the people of Syria and of countries surrounding Syria, than simply firing missiles into Damascus.

16 August 2013

Twenty first century Egypt at a crossroads

I have no special knowledge about Egyptian politics, and I assume that I am neither more, nor less, adequately informed than the average person on the number 417 bus service from Crystal Palace to Clapham Common.

It seems to me that Egypt is flirting with the threat of a civil war between several groups: the socially-conservative but politically-radical Islamists, along with their supporters: the poor and dispossessed, who favour Shari'a Law; the socially- and politically-conservative military, along with people loyal to the rejected Mubarak regime, who favour order (and if that requires repression, then so be it); the mostly-secular progressives who overthrew Mubarak, but from whom, in their eyes, victory was snatched by Morsi and the Islamists.

From the news reports that I heard, I am left with the impression that Morsi, when he was President, was governing Egypt not as one nation, but for the benefit of those who wished for the institution of Shari'a Law, and in the teeth of opposition from those who wish the Egyptian state to have a largely secular future. Had Morsi and his government been willing, or perhaps simply able, to govern for the whole of Egypt, maybe the euphoria of the revolution that ousted Mubarak could have swept the rickety caravan along, at least for long enough to permit the establishment of a wider base of democratic institutions. However, the attempted Islamisation of Egypt's constitution was never going to win support from other than his own constituency, and ultimately led to his demise. What Morsi and his democratically-elected government were attempting to practise was effectively dictatorship by the majority, leading to the oppression of the secular minority.

I believe that the military had little love for what Morsi and his government were doing, but tolerated it while there was order on the streets. I believe that the military had equally little love for the secular progressives. When order on the streets descended into chaos in Tahrir Square, the military did the only thing they could do (apart from do nothing): they removed Morsi, re-installing themselves as the authority. (Had they chosen to attack the secular progressive protesters, they would have inevitably have undermined the authority of Morsi's government.) When Morsi supporters, outraged that a military coup was overturning a democratically-elected government, created disorder and chaos, the army did what armies are for: they killed a lot of people.

I hope that all the stake-holders in Egyptian politics are able to see that this is a fragile time, with the risk of a bad situation becoming much, much worse. It would be good if everyone felt able to take a step back away from the brink, but that takes trust, of which, I guess, there is now precious little - everyone feels betrayed!

If Egypt is to return to the democratic path, then maybe for the time being it needs the kind of power-sharing democracy that is practised in Northern Ireland, in which representatives from both communities share decision-making. The kind of representative democracy that is found in states with a long history of democracy is typically supported both with a panoply of other democratic institutions, and with a ballast of civil and judicial administration so that it is hard for the democratically-elected government to tip too far towards dictatorship by the majority. That kind of infrastructure takes time to create and take effect: the EU has been in existence for 60 years, and its structures are still far from fully accepted across the Union.

It is too much to hope for a Gandhi or a Mandela to come forward. However, I hope that some of the politicians in Egypt prove themselves to be statesmen and stateswomen.

14 August 2013

Day Fourteen: The Plan

Self-employment
Having been employed by the University of Sunderland for the past eight years, my plan is to return to self-employment: I set up and ran my own business, Alpha Word Power, in 1985. For fifteen years my small business, which also employed several people, one full-time and others part-time or on piece work, offered word processing and publishing services. Nearly thirty years ago, we were at the beginning of desk-top publishing. We produced quite a number of books, sometimes for other people, sometimes under the imprint of Blue Button Press.

Authentic Counselling and Training
I also set up, and ran concurrently with Alpha Word Power, a counselling training organisation called Authentic Counselling and Training, which is still in existence. As well as having delivered training in counselling, we also deliver a variety of personal and professional development short courses, such as stress management, assertiveness training, team development, group leadership and participation skills, and so on. Part of my plan is to relaunch Authentic Counselling and Training in south-east England, adding further professional development courses to the portfolio.

Holiday Let
On an entirely different level, we intend to let part of our new house for holiday lettings. The house is ideally suited to being separated into our own living area, on the one hand, and generous holiday facilities for a couple or a small family. There is even a sizable separate garden. We intend to market the holiday let at several market segments: a) walkers and cyclists; b) people who want a countryside holiday, but with proximity to a wide variety of places to visit; c) people who want a short break with the opportunity for some personal coaching, counselling and spiritual development; d) people travelling to/from elsewhere in Britain/France who require one or more overnights close to the Channel Tunnel. 

Recreation
The Elham Valley, designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is a gorgeous place in which, and from which, to walk, with countless lanes, by-ways, bridleways and local footpaths, as well as three long-distance footpaths (the Elham Valley Way, 22 miles from Canterbury to Hythe on the south coast of Kent; the North Downs Way, 153 miles from Farnham on the Hampshire/Surrey border to Dover on the south east coast of Kent; and the Saxon Shore Way, that follows the Kent coastline for 160 miles from Gravesend in north Kent to Hastings in East Sussex). The area is very popular with cyclists, with regional cycle route 17 running from Dover and the Channel Tunnel via Elham to Canterbury and beyond. Close by there is the wild and ancient Lyminge Forest, in which it is possible to wander for hours watched only by buzzards; or for people who have mobility issues, the Royal Military Canal runs westwards from Hythe. Also starting from Hythe is the delightful Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway that runs as far as Dungeness, Britain's only official desert.

Places to Visit
There are far too many places to visit to mention here. They include Folkestone (beach), 8.5 miles; Howletts (famously humane zoo), 10 miles; Canterbury (history, shopping, dining out, etc.), 11.5 miles; Dover (history), 13 miles; Leeds Castle, 30.5 miles; Sissinghurst Gardens, 32 miles; Calais (France), 45.5 miles; Pooh Corner, 55.5 miles; London, 70 miles. An hourly bus service runs each way along the Elham Valley between Canterbury and Folkestone. Both Canterbury and Folkestone are on high speed rail lines into London. From nearby Ashford International railway station it is possible to be in Calais in 30 minutes, and in Paris in under two hours.

Counselling, Personal Coaching and Spiritual Development
The house we now have is quiet and peaceful, making it an ideal venue for continuing, extending and developing the therapeutic work in which I have been engaged for more than 25 years.

Herbs, Spices and Vegan Ingredients
Again, on an entirely different level, I intend to set up a consumer-facing online business supplying herbs (culinary and medicinal), spices and other vegan ingredients by mail-order. As part of this venture, I also intend to grow less common culinary herbs for supply fresh to restaurants and companies that prepare food.

13 August 2013

Day Thirteen

Bear with me on this one. I am trying to get all sorts of jobs underway, but repeatedly find that, in order to make progress, I am having to journey through time.

Elham is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Charter of 855 AD, and later in the Domesday Book of 1086. Evidence of neolithic occupation includes hand-axes and flint scrapers. There are Bronze Age remains, including tumuli; Roman coins and pottery; and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in neighbouring Lyminge. St Mary's church dates from 1200; the market square dates from 1251; a large Tudor building greets people who alight buses from Folkestone. All that said, the village emanates a strong sense of the nineteenth century. The population of Elham in 1881 was 1,192, and today, 140 years later, it is 1,465. A railway, the Elham Valley Line, ran from Canterbury to Folkestone between 1887 and 1947, with a station at Elham, but the first world war closed the line after which significant passenger traffic never returned. Elham had its own brick works, a chalk pit, a ropery and two windmills: the district was largely economically self-sufficient. Cherry Gardens and Cherry Tree Lane point to former orchards

As well as the Anglican church, Elham also has a Methodist church, a village hall, a primary school, a GP surgery, two pubs, a restaurant, a tea room, an estate agents, and a very small shop. A pub, a bookshop and an antique shop all closed down in recent years. The smallest post office imaginable is hosted a few days each week in the King's Arms, and a mobile library visits Elham for twenty minutes every Thursday morning.

Looked at from a different standpoint, the nearest (expensive) petrol is 4.5 miles away, the nearest (cheaper) petrol is 6.5 miles away; the nearest supermarket is also 6.5 miles away; the nearest shopping centre (Folkestone), including banks, is 8 miles away; the nearest cinema for us (Canterbury) is 12 miles away. The nearest railway stations are in Folkestone and Canterbury. We have to buy heating oil because Elham is not on the natural gas network. There is no cable broadband, and the BT broadband signal fluctuates wildly. BBC radio signals are poor. There is no Vodafone signal at all, and the O2 signal is patchy. Elham is due east from Gatwick airport, and every evening a huge number of jet planes overfly on their way to continental Europe and the Middle East.

It seems that we have chosen to live in a place that, despite witnessing the aerial dog-fights of the Battle of Britain, has avoided many of the ravages of  the twentieth century, but as a consequence has been substantially by-passed, and is now something of a little world of its own. I am reminded variously of Brigadoon, The Shire and the Island of Sodor. Whilst both attractive and desirable, perhaps there is something a little unrealistic about living in a place that has a kennels for the local fox hunt, but very few of the features of twenty-first century life in an economically- and technologically-developed country.

12 August 2013

Day Twelve: A New Rhythym

A different rhythm both to my day and to my week is starting to emerge. It is no longer the mechanical rhythm of commuting to and from paid employment five days each week, my hourly schedule regulated by the clock, fitting food shopping, cooking and leisure into evenings and two-day weekends. Nor is it the kind of relaxed daily routine into which one slips during a holiday, in which the week as a whole follows a schedule but no rhythm.

My week still retains a reasonable differentiation between the days: so, for instance, I still cook pancakes for Sunday breakfast, and we have returned to attending the Sunday morning Quaker meeting. Most mornings I walk between four and eight miles before breakfast, and as a result am getting to know the geography of the area, and to encounter people out jogging or exercising their dogs.

It is hard to ignore the fact that we have committed ourselves to a massive undertaking, and there is an enormous mountain to be climbed. My temptation is to press on relentlessly. However, as a friend pointed out, it is important to try to pace oneself. I recognise that from mid-morning until lunchtime my energy will be higher, and I feel readier to embark on heavier work. This morning I launched into carving an office out of a solid block of still-full packing boxes. The crowning achievement was re-assembling and setting up my desk-top computer. Afternoons bring with them a serious risk of flagging, so I try to do something less strenuous (than box shifting) that involves lots of movement. On several occasions last week the activity was grass cutting; today it was skip (dumpster) diving. A few days ago I spotted some wooden palettes beside a skip. Today I was able to request the palettes, and removed them on a sack barrow (station porter's trolley), palette by palette, wheeling each noisily along the road. My intention is to construct a two-bin garden compost unit, for which wooden palettes are reputed to be ideal. Nous verrons. By the time I had rescued seven wooden palettes, two large, palette-like wooden crates and five 60 cm concrete kerb stones, it was nearly time to start vegetable preparation for dinner. However, I was determined to rearrange the kitchen before I started the cooking. This was not a distraction activity, just trying to make the slowly emerging space work a little more efficiently.

After dinner, we each visit Facebook to catch up with people. The living room is still solid: which is how it will remain until I have some furniture straps with which to secure the book shelves, and as a result we are unable to watch television (a situation about which I do not feel especially unhappy, although my daughter does). It is usually well after midnight when, having drunk a hot (soya-)milky drink, I switch off the bedside light.

11 August 2013

Day Eleven: A trip to Samphire Hoe

A brisk 90 minute walk at dawn, up hill and down dale, decorated like a William Morris design with the usual complement of rabbits, squirrels and assorted birds. Nearly back in Elham, I greeted an old, old man dressed in his Sunday best, on his way to church. I slowed to his pace and we talked about how he had recently moved to Elham, along with his daughter and son-in-law, having spent much of their life in and around Romford, Essex. Sadly, he had lost his son seven years ago, and his wife twenty years ago. A passing neighbour greeted him as "George". We parted at the lytch gate. Almost every day someone stops to talk with me. It was the same sitting in the garden of the Quaker Meeting House in Canterbury later that morning - Friends came over to talk.

In the afternoon we visited Samphire Hoe, a somewhat underwhelming country park beneath the Shakespeare Cliffs, created from land reclaimed from the sea by the spoil removed from the construction of the Channel Tunnel. The car park was nearly full: clearly a popular destination for a Sunday 'blow'. Samphire, sea cabbage and sea buckthorn (sanddorn in German - we encountered sanddorn saft in Stralsund last summer) were all thriving in the harsh littoral environment. A stiff breeze was whipping up the white horses as we walked over a kilometre along the sea wall. At the far end of the walk, a middle-aged man with his young daughter were standing watching the waves crash onto a pebble beach and sibilantly scour the shingle. Without ambiguity his appearance, including a lengthy beard, showed him to be an Orthodox Jew. A little while later, as we were arriving back at the car park, he approached me, explaining that his car battery had failed, and asked if I could help restart his car using jump leads. From the other side of the car park I drove our car over to his, and opened the bonnet to expose the car battery. His (now) three daughters were all in their car, and his wife hovered, expressing considerable gratitude. I concluded that the length of my beard, and having a daughter, must have allowed him to feel a sufficient degree of association that, out of the many people in the car park, he felt comfortable requesting my help.

10 August 2013

Day Ten: The Concert

Today was emotionally dominated by one event - The Concert. Twelve of Elham's ukulele group shared a platform with the Cherry Town Warblers (a Cheriton community choir) in All Souls church, Cheriton (a suburb of Folkestone). The choir performed some songs a capella, whereas others were accompanied by a keyboard and a flute, and some were accompanied by the ukuleles. Half the concert was given over to the ukulele group alone, playing (and singing) a medley of Beatles, Buddy Holly and other '50s and '60s numbers (including, oddly, the Postman Pat theme song). Fortunately, I had had a few days to practice some of the songs, but saw others just once last Monday, and had to sight-read one (which rather took me by surprise).

Apart from a few ukulele-accompanied songs at a Durham community association Christmas fete, and a quick flash-mob in Durham City centre, this was my first proper concert playing a musical instrument. There was an audience of three dozen, and they paid good money (three pounds) for their evening's entertainment. 

I wonder if the ukulele group might secure some paid gigs (like in The Blues Brothers).

09 August 2013

Day Nine

It is unreasonable to expect everything to go well all the time, especially having made radical changes in one's life. Today was a day when some things went wrong, and other things just didn't happen.

I felt fatigued when I woke up, but determined to make some space in a room we have been calling my 'study', but I think I shall revert to my preferred term: my 'office'. I turfed countless heavy boxes out into the hall, and because I have not yet moved them back, it almost impossible to use the front entrance to the house.

I needed some furniture straps to secure book cases to walls, so decided to drive to B and Q and Homebase in Folkestone. After spending ages scouring their aisles I was unable to find any in either, as a result of which I did not have time to do a supermarket shop. I also needed to get to the Post Office, the bank and the council offices, but failed at the latter for the second time. When things go wrong or don't work out, questioning whether we have done the right thing (most of the time, lurking in the shadows) skulks more openly.

I guess that there are bound to be demoralising days.

08 August 2013

Day Eight (Week Two)

We have now been moved in for a week. I doubt that we have yet managed to unpack ten percent of the boxes which, in some rooms, remain four or five deep. I doubt that we shall have fully unpacked before Christmas. At least the kitchen has become sufficiently functional to permit the preparation of a full roast (vegan) dinner.

I shoveled gravel, and lugged paving slabs from a variety of locations, in order to improve wheelchair access at the rear of the house (we await a ramp from social services to help with the front entrance).

I have produced (and part shredded) huge heaps of woody prunings, although the garden close to the house still looks like a set in Jurassic Park. I spent several hours making myself very travel sick cutting the grass using the ride-on tractor mower - it sounds as though it should be fun, but not for me.

I found a neighbour's cat in our kitchen - maybe a sign that it is now time to acquire our own felines.

07 August 2013

Day Seven: Welcome To The Arboretum

We live in an arboretum. I have by no means fully enumerated the number and variety of the trees. The property is infamous for the massive line of Leylandia that camouflages the house from the road (yesterday a visitor had to return to Ashford having driven past several times and failed to find us). The huge poplar trees that mark a far corner of the property are visible from elsewhere in the Elham Valley. A different corner is marked by willow trees. There is a majestic yew, and a tall and elegant silver birch. Several varieties of conifer are vying to attract the term pinetum. The mature sycamore outside the bedroom window was hacked back to trunk and a few limbs at some point last year. A horse-chestnut is reaching towards maturity. There are at least three dead trees, bare, gnarled and twisted, as though props in a production of Macbeth. Overgrown stands of hazel (awaiting pollarding), hawthorn and elder can be found in several places. I discovered an apple tree hidden in the Jurassic Park shrubbery. There remain many trees that I have not yet identified.

It is something of a jungle, with nettles two metres tall, and thistles with stems as thick as my arm. There are drifts of cuckoo pint which flick intensely poisonous sap into my face when I strim. The yew trees, the leaves and berries of which are also fatally poisonous, require some serious management. Some of the shrubs have thorns that would have not embarrassed the movie set of Jumanji. My wife found a spider in the kitchen: it was the size of a saucer. I shudder to think what reptiles live in the jungle.

06 August 2013

Day Six: A Trip To Dungeness

Trip to Romney Marsh and Dungeness. I was proud of having successfully navigated my way across the Marsh, simply relying on my sense of direction. Despite the looming presence of the hideous nuclear power station, Dungeness is fascinating. It is Britain's only official desert, and consists of one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world, yet has an amazingly rich bio-diversity. We watched dolphins catching their afternoon tea. The photogenic wooden shacks, scattered across the shingle landscape, are like out of a (cowboy) Western movie: the late Derek Jarman (movie director) owned one of the shacks. Dungeness is the other terminus of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway, and seeing the little engine with its long train brought back memories of my only previous visit (by rail) in 1962.

05 August 2013

Day Five: The Ukulele Group


The highlight of my day was attending Elham's ukulele group. I was welcomed with great enthusiasm, even though there were fifteen of us (which is quite a lot). We rattled through a lot of material. I had to sight-read all but one piece, which was exhilarating. Their overall approach is slightly more 'professional' than that of the Durham group, which suits me because it feels as though I shall be given the opportunity to develop.

Afterwards we retired to the Kings Arms where I started to learn people's names. They were highly impressed when they learned that I had made enquiries about the ukulele group even before moving to Elham - and it was not me who informed them of this.

We shall be performing in a ukulele concert in Cheriton (Folkestone) on Saturday evening. I have no idea for whom we shall be performing, but tickets are on sale.



04 August 2013

Day Four: A Trip To Canterbury

Attended the Quaker Meeting in Canterbury. After the meeting people were so friendly. Bought some tempeh at Canterbury Wholefoods, and some cauliflowers and a cabbage at a farm shop in Broad Oak. Almost every time I drive from Canterbury to Elham I am able to find a different way home. It is delightful to live in such gorgeous countryside. Almost back in Elham I had to stop the car because a baby rabbit was sitting, probably petrified, in the middle of the narrow lane. My wife got out of the car and lifted the rabbit into the hedgerow.

03 August 2013

Day Three: Visiting The Acrise Flower Festival

We visited Acrise Flower Festival, held in and around St. Martin's Church in Acrise. It was like stepping back in history. Hundreds of people turned out for a rural village fete straight out of The Archers, including a real coconut shy, ploughman's lunches, and historical photographs. The tiny, ancient church (a simple chancel and nave) was dressed with floral arrangements, and in the organ loft the village organist played Bach.

02 August 2013

Day Two: A Trip To Howletts

Day Two began with a protracted thunderstorm and some much-needed rain, so instead of going for a walk in the rain I backed-up the contacts from my now-old Sony Xperia X1, and transferred them to my brand new Sony Xperia E, in preparation my cellphone number being ported from Vodafone to O2 - the Elham Valley must be the only place in the world without a Vodafone signal. The afternoon was given over to a restorative activity: a visit to nearby Howletts Animal Park. Famous for its gorilla colonies, Howletts is strongly animal oriented, focusing on breeding programmes for some of the most endangered species. I enjoyed spending a long time observing the gorillas behave in ways that are more natural to them in the wild. Seven million years ago the forebears of the gorillas I was watching would also have been my forbears.

01 August 2013

Day One

Shuffling packing boxes as though in a three-dimensional version of the sliding tile puzzle; pruning bushes and trees that belong in a set for a Jurassic Park movie; inventively cooking with three sprouts, an olive, and some black pepper, or at least that's how it seemed.

31 July 2013

Day Zero: Moving-in Day

A team of removers arrived in an articulated lorry. They unloaded, and unloaded, and unloaded (300 cubic metres) all our worldly goods, and then had to call in additional help. They left at tea time, and we are treading water in an ocean of of cardboard boxes. We also have telephony and broadband, and hot water. I already have council tax, water and electricity bills to pay, and the requisite forms to register with the local GP. It is strange that a simple statement such as "I live in Elham" appears to be made up of a multitude of confirmatory components, without which there would remain some uncertainty.

30 July 2013

A time to scatter stones


10:17 

The removers are busy removing the final items of furniture, boxes of crockery, and disability-related equipment. At the moment this feels like moving-out day - although, interestingly not quite yet moving-on day - that comes a little later. Ecclesiastes 3: "A time to scatter stones."

13:06

The removers have gone, and all our possessions are trundling southwards in a lorry and articulated trailer. The house is empty and quiet. Soon my wife and daughter will be following in the wake of the lorry. At some point today BT will sever telephony, at which point I am recalled to all centuries prior to this. Once the estate agent has checked over the house and I have returned the keys, I shall close the door for the final time, and drive away. Crossing the Tees to the west of Darlington, I shall have left County Durham and the North East of England. 

End of Book Three.

29 July 2013

Cooking pizze in a wood-fired pizza oven



Last night we sat beneath a starry sky, keeping warm in the 'afterglow' from the pizza oven: I cooked wood-smokey pizze in a real wood-fired pizza oven - a culinary first for me. Sadly, I did not prepare a vegan pizza for me, so only my wife and daughter benefited from the wood-smokey flavour.

It was an intensely summery activity: sitting outside beside a warm fire counting the stars as they twinkled into existence. Small pleasures. However, I resisted the temptation to inflict my ukulele playing on the immediate neighbours - I reserve that pleasure for when we move into our new house in Kent where there are no immediate neighbours on either side.

24 July 2013

Less than a week to go

In less than a week we shall emigrate almost to France. I have forebears and relatives who emigrated variously to New Zealand, to Australia, to the United States, to Canada and to France; in addition to many former colleagues who emigrated to Australia. Even my father made it as far as Cornwall. Somehow, given all that context, emigrating to Kent really doesn't sound especially adventurous ... and yet, is that a television advertisement for Hovis bread I can hear, or is it simply nostalgia upsetting my tinnitus?

We have asked to transfer our membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to East Kent Area Meeting, and will mostly attend Canterbury Friends Meeting. Folkestone Meeting is closest, but meets only fortnightly, and I am told is a small meeting. Ashford Meeting is also only small. Canterbury Meeting, which I have attended several times, is similar in size to Durham Meeting.

22 July 2013

Good Energy

Moving house has presented us with the opportunity to select a new energy supplier. It has long been a matter of deep principle to me to distance myself utterly from nuclear power, and to move away from electricity produced by fossil fuels. I am happy that Good Energy both supports micro-generation and has its own wind farm.

14 June 2013

Our future plans

We intend to make part of the house into a mid-price holiday let, especially to accommodate walkers (the area is thick with footpaths), vegans, people with physical disabilities and people who live in France (which is less than 30 miles away). I intend to replant the orchard with apples, pears, cherries, plums, damsons, greengages, mirabelles, and maybe some figs and persimmons. Some nut trees would be good. There will be substantial vegetable beds, and cages for soft fruit. A principal challenge will be to encourage the rabbits to emigrate (there are six warrens), to discourage the badgers from eating the intended strawberries, to dissuade the wood pigeons and collared doves from snaffling the buds and seedlings, and to re-educate the mole population about where it would be best to dig.

13 June 2013

Soon to be on the move


We shall soon be on the move. We have bought a house between Canterbury and Folkestone. We shall be leaving Durham and moving to Kent in July. I shall have lived in Durham for almost 37 years, so this is a significant move. It will be sad to leave behind the people who have been part of my life for so long. However, it will be exciting to be creating a new life, especially so close to France and to London. 

The promise of multiple trips to Howletts, and a wealth of new places to visit in Kent, in and around London, In northern France, and elsewhere in continental Europe is part of what is pulling us towards this corner of the UK: new horizons beckon.

16 May 2013

Health & Safety

There are several different points here.

First, correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I understand Health & Safety, I cannot facilitate someone else in taking an identified risk for which they have not been assessed as competent to manage, and therefore if I assess a situation between a person and a risk as non-compliant then either the person must be prevented from taking the risk, or the risk itself has to be reduced to bring the situation into compliance, otherwise I am responsible if an incident occurs.

Second, like everyone I hear mocking reports on the radio news about this or that "not being permitted for reasons of Health & Safety", when there is probably much more behind the issue than journalists are willing to report or even discover. However, it does sometimes feel like if electricity had been discovered / invented last week, Health & Safety concerns would ensure that it never reached consumers. I have been able, safely, to change a fuse in an electrical plug for the best part of fifty years, yet I am not permitted to do so at the University. Instead, I am required to post online a request for a University electrician to come and replace the fuse, and then wait for a week until the overworked electrician arrives, only to find that I am counselling and cannot be disturbed so they go away again.

Although it is not a Health & Safety issue, a similar attitude prevails over the use of IT equipment. I have been using computers on a daily basis since 1976, long before many of the IT departmental staff were born. Unsurprisingly, therefore, I became increasingly frustrated with the extreme level of control that the IT department maintained over the desktop computer that I used at work. The irony is that I was also required to keep a major piece of legacy software, essential to the operation of the counselling service, running for eight years with no support whatsoever from IT department.

It is as though a change has taken place, and we are now all considered to be idiots unless we have umpteen certificates that purport to prove otherwise. In reality, I suppose, as frustrating as the issue is to me, it is not about me: it is about the institution protecting itself, mostly for legal reasons, but also from people who are not competent and might pose a danger to others. Were I permitted to change a fuse, then every Abbott & Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and Marx Brother would want to be permitted to change their fuses, too ... and a fine mess that would cause. Were I permitted to perform disk housekeeping on my office computer, then every Mr Bean, Norman Wisdom and Frank Spencer would be on the telephone to the IT department asking for their hard drive to be restored, having accidentally wiped the drive as clean as a whistle.

03 March 2013

Turning Albatros: How to sail half way round the world

(1st draft)
Carl Hughes equipped and stocked his yacht, installed his family as crew, said goodbye to his work colleagues in Monaco, and sailed off into the sunset until reached Tahiti. This book is about that ten month voyage, and the years of preparation that he invested in his dream. For a person who has a similar kind of life-changing dream, Turning Albatross will be an inspiration. For the yachtsman intent on sailing round the world, Turning Albatross will serve as a checklist.

The book falls into a number of categories: it is part manual, part adventure story and part reflection. I am reminded of a literary genre of the 'old salt' sea captain setting down his memoirs.

Carl demonstrates that he is a superb yachtsman. Handling a small boat in mid-ocean storms would terrify ordinary mortals. Add a leak that threatens to sink the boat unless your wife and daughter constantly hand-pump the water back into the sea and the jeopardy becomes unimaginable. Carl reflects on how he handled that and other perilous siutations. His discussion about pirates is both thoughtful and sensible.

Conclusion
I read this book because Carl is my brother and he sent it to me. I have no intention of setting foot in a boat, never mind sailing round the world. Still, I found the book interesting.