I’ll admit it, I’ve tended towards despairing a bit at the media releases in the lead up to another global conference on limiting climate damage. First there were lots of reports about arctic ice melting, then there were similar discussion about the fact that some people, ‘science be damned’, weren’t going to be changing their…
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A week at the Prom
In what has become a little bit of a family tradition we have just returned from a week at Wilsons Promontory. The concept of escaping the ever building commercialism that is the pre-Christmas run-up and also an opportunity to spend a week with a group of families in one of the most beautiful places I…
Read MoreMore Party Time!
We’ve got a great mothers group (and yes I realise that’s a bit odd from one of the fathers, but parents group just doesn’t have the same ring to it!). Not only does it provide a great opportunity for the kids to make friends but it also does two things that I think are absolutely…
Read MoreIntroducing the Cargo Bike
One of the things that we thought was going to be a really tough to change was our reliance on having a car. We’ve reduced our usage over the years but it’s a pretty different concept to go completely car free. That said this has been one of the things that has been easier than…
Read MoreGetting in to Training.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do little. (Edmund Burke, 1729–1797) An article in ‘The Age’ read “when even the earth is melting”. It referred to unprecedented melting of the arctic permafrost and the potential of that to release enormous amounts of CO2 or methane into the…
Read MoreLocavorism
I’ll admit this is a test at the very bounds of my technical skills, so if it all falls in a heap then my many apologies. One of the aims of writing this blog was to let people know what we were doing but also to share information so that eating and shopping locally becomes…
Read MoreWhat to plant when, and how!
I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for a while but two separate questions from two people I work with has made me think that now is the time. I’ll start by saying that I’m no gardener. We never really did any gardening when we were young, though I do remember lots of tree…
Read MoreThe Problem With Cows!
Turns out we like planning things, while drinking wine. Or do we just like drinking wine, and in our weakened state doing things like riding home from the UK or going for a year without oil seems far more sensible. Either way we approached this year in a ‘planned’ way. The idea was to try…
Read MoreHarvest Day
Actually the title is a little bit misleading as the weather got completely nasty this afternoon, but harvest “half” day just didn’t sound right! There’s nothing really more fundamental than our ability to grow our own food. So it’s kind of amazing how dislocated we have become from our own food supply. One of the…
Read MoreGetting Us Together
It’s been a busy week already and it’s only Tuesday. One of the challenges that we face is that it is really easy to come across like you believe that you’re the only one doing anything to change the way we live. This is not only arrogant but it’s simply not true, there are loads…
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A Life of Treading Lightly 