I'm back! Me and Ailsa (with Ailsa highlights in brackets, mainly to confuse), we've been to Hull (the rays) and Scunthorpe (the squirrels) and Malton (the water slide) and Howden (the birds) and Newcastle (the ice age) and Durham (the quill pen)and now we're back - and fantastic it is to be back too. We survived the travel and most especially the geezer sat across the way from us between Edinburgh and Inverness who sang, discussed and argued with himself all the way. It started off being mildly amusing: - but not after four hours. But it was quite funny - he had 10 minutes of duetting with himself waiting for the trolley car to return so he could get more sugar for his coffee:
'I'm waiting for the buffet car for my sugar yeah yeah yeah'
When it arrived he got his sugar and a sandwich - and for the next half hour he had a new song:
'Oh man I need some seasoning yeah yeah. I can't taste no bread, I can't taste no egg, I can't taste no watercress no no no, I need some seasoning - I need salt SALT yeah yeah, I need sugar SUGAR yeah yeah, I need brown sauce, tomato sauce carribean sauce yeah yeah I need seasoning {Spoken} but salt and sugar is bad for you man {sang} but I can't taste my food no no no, I need salt yeah yeah yeah....' etc.
Amusing for a whle, but not for very long.
And Jussi (and Rebecca) have kept the garden good and have sold most of the kid meat. Kids seem to be worth more dead than alive.
And for now, the weather is glorious, and it is good to be back.
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Firstly, there is nothing more important than me and my family. The most precious thing I can give them (including me) is time. In my job, with all it's pressures, I singularly failed to do this. So we run for the hills and try to redress the balance.
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
If you think there's something wrong, change what you can to make it better. I'm trying to lower my carbon footprint, step out from the 9-5 grind, rise from the weight of leadership and responsibility and have some fun again.
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Contributors
Where I"m coming from - !CAUTION! a bit of a polemic
Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.
Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.
And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.
Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.
There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)
Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.
Things I"m going to miss
- Jour Fixe - especially Tagd and CDs from Sean
- Lennie's coffee, bacon rolls and flapjacks, always served with such...erm...charm
- Liz's happy hello in the morning
- Unpacking the Crunchy veg box (people of Dunbar - use them! - http://www.crunchycarrot.co.uk/crunchy_carrot_4/services.html)
- Our wood burning stove - we had a hybrid - http://www.dowlingstoves.com/stoves.htm
- Oh and that pumped up sense of self importance you get from being the big cheese
- Financial security
My quick links
Cheapskate jazz collections
4 comments:
Glad the weeding was up to scratch, guv. And given it included one large lettuce, roots and all, which is even now sitting in water being plucked at will it was certainly worth it (much better than yon bagged stuff). And chard is suprisingly tasty.
But that sounds like faint praise - the culinary highpoint was a lunch of homemade goats cheese, on homemade toasted bread accompanied by homemade rhubard and ginger jam (OK sauce, but it completely delicious) and freshly picked salad, accompanied by fabulous homemade pate (there was some shop bought salmon too but at least it originated in Shetland). Overwhelmed as I was by such a cornucupia, it was all perfection! And that's before I even mention the devilled goat's kidneys (probably for the best, before I start drooling over the keyboard).
And very glad to hear you had good time down south and got back safely, before the veg goes completely wild without you. Fruit trees are looking good too.
Hull? Scunthorpe? You do choose the strangest places to go to. But you seem to have escaped more or less alive anyway; that's lucky!
Rebecca! - brilliant comment - I think you should become a guest contributor to the blog waxing like that.
And Nick - don't knock 'em - Hull is the only place in the universe you can get a truly decent fish supper - and in Scunthorpe I saw the best veg patches ever..
Ithankyew. Just 'cos I said nice things about your pate!
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