Practical action Energy Vid

Access to energy - video - Practical Action

Access to energy - video - Practical Action

Question Time

What one thing;

directly kills 1.2 million people worldwide a year

causes injury to 50 million people a year

kills or injures many more poor people than rich people

kills or injures more children than any other age group?

A growing list of really nice things

To keep on top of my vow to try and eat only things which are really nice I'm making a list and checking it twice(sorry couldn't resist the Christmas song link. I'm actually just making it, not checkin it twice at all. This will grow as, hopefully, I find more and more nice things or other people suggest them and I venture to check them out.

Coffee and Walnut Cake from The Hollies Farm Shop in Little Budworth You can almost excuse them calling it a "Concept Cafe" Whatever the monkeys that is, I've not encountered many concepts over my coffee and cake thus far.


Flourless chocolate cake from Cafe Curio, near the bridge in Berwick Upon Tweed Of course it may only be quite this memorable if you have just slip slidded through the snow to get there.

Almost anything from The Goshawk pub, just off the train at Mouldsworth Particular memories of a deep fried Jam sandwich which I don't think they sell anynore, Shame.

Bread from the Cheshire Smokehouse Especially when you have been bus hoping from Knutsford and sit on the green to eat it.

Banana and date Cake from my oven when I get round to stirring it up and putting it there.

Cakes at Delemere Forest Station Cafe best when you have raced up on your bike just in time before they close for the day.

To be continued. Please feel free to post comments with your suggestions for me to check out.

Elderflower cordial hunter gatherer

In the olden days, much further back than those olden days that older people say were much better, women would be the gatherers. Spending long amounts of time foraging with the aim of staying alive. The thrill of the hunt was all very well and good but it was these hours of spine bending stooping, looking and picking which formed the bulk of early humans diet with meat only on the menu once in a while. I can't say that I had all this in mind when I set off on my bike to find elderflower. I was inspired by a lovely matt paged book called Homemade by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson. It features things to make each season. Being spring/summer the thing to make is elderflower cordial. What started me thinking about being a gatherer was the process of doing this. You begin to see nature differently when you are looking for something in it. Its not just a background to your activities it is your activities. The book said that I needed 10 flower heads. The flower heads were high up, this would require a tool, a forked twig was employed for the job of pulling down the branches. 10 flower heads in the bag and a conversation with some nearby goats later I set off back towards home. But it wasn't in the same vein as usual. I stopped my bike three times along the way. One was to pick some more flowers from a much healthier looking crop I spotted closer to home. The next to cut some beautiful white lilac to go in a vase and the third at the local shops to buy further supplies for my brew. All mixed up and sat for 48 hours under a cloth in the pantry it could turn our tasting really bad but that probably doesn't matter too much. Life's enjoyment is most probably directly proportional to the amount of effort you put into it. Modern day life aims to make everything easier, more convenient. You can pick up any nationalities food processed and packaged from a supermarket shelf. If this was all so great why does it always feel so fulfilling when you do things like bake a cake and it comes out roughly cake like, travel to get something you really want to eat, walk miles and suck on an orange at the top of a hill? Our memories aren't made up of things like, "Do you remember that time we went to the shop and bought a packet of Findus crispy pancakes (other crispy pancakes available). Aren't memories often made up of the times we inconvenienced ourselves and really felt the glow of our efforts.

Oxfam fundraising group

Have got involved in the start up of an Oxfam group in the local area. It was nice to have the odd trip to Manchester to take part in their events but will be even better to be involved in something closer to home. The other ladies (for we are all women so far) seem really nice with a good mix of skills. Hopefully the more strategic organised ones will help keep my creative feet on the ground. We decided to keep the committee to about 5 people to make sure it manageable and at the last meeting there were about 3 places left. We also decided that there may be folks out there who want to get involved but not so intensely. With this in mind we need to make it easy for people to help out at specific events or just keep up to date with what we are up to. Ideas flying around thus far are sports challenges, tea parties, fashion shows, geocaching events etc etc etc, the list goes on and on. So if anybody reading this fancies a challenge to help make the world a better place drop me an e mail bethbarlow@bethbarlow.com

Walk the world