Yorkshire July 2022 - part 1

Well, it's high time I finished this post - the trip was three and a half months ago! In early July I took a trip up to beautiful Yorkshire with my friend. We decided to spend two nights in York and two nights in Whitby, and get out into the North Yorkshire Moors National Park a bit. As usual, it's quite a long post, so I've split it into two - keep an eye out for the second one soon :) 

Saturday 9th

After a mildly stressful start to the trip due to a missed train and the worry of being charged for being on a different train than specified on the ticket (thankfully we weren't charged), the journey up to York was a pleasant couple of hours from London. We arrived in York around 3:30pm, were greeted outside the train station by a knitted Viking perched atop a postbox, went straight to the B&B to check in and leave our heavy backpacking rucksacks, then went out into the hot, sunny afternoon to look around the city.

I immediately loved it. The B&B was just outside Bootham Bar - the large fortified gateways of the city walls are called bars - so we entered the old city on High Petergate - the streets are called 'gate' from Old Norse 'gata' - which led straight to the Minster. It's all winding cobbled streets and centuries-old buildings looming overhead, very pretty. The minster was gorgeous, and the gardens, though busy, were quiet.

On Goodramgate (''guthrum-gata" - Guthrum was a king) we found a little gelato shop and cafe called Roberto. I got passion fruit sorbet and my friend got lemon and basil sorbet; both were delicious and we resolved to go back again before the end of our trip. It was right next to Monk Bar, so we went up the steps and onto the walls to walk the 2-mile city walls circuit. (A large proportion of the walls are intact, but there are some sections missing, with a trail all the way around where they would have been.)

It's a nice thing to do, and free. The intact sections of wall and grassy ramparts are medieval - the latter concealing the earlier Roman, Viking, and Norman defences - but the walkway on top is Victorian; before it was built, anyone manning the walls would have stood on wooden platforms. On the parts of the route where the walls no longer exist you're just walking next to a busy road next to an industrial estate / retail park - which was once a large marshy wetland area that the king used for fishing or something - but a lot of it is nice and quiet, often lined on one side by trees and the other by the grassy ramparts and more trees. You can also make a short detour to see Dick Turpin's grave, which we did, and York Castle which now contains the York Castle Museum and the Crown Court, as well as the medieval keep of Clifford's Tower. There's a timeline of the city's history set into the ground in front of the Tower, and a memorial stone to the massacre of the city's Jews in 1190.

After a couple of hours at a leisurely pace we reached the riverbank by the Museum Gardens, and decided to sit and rest on a bench for a while in the shade of a tree. It was in a small park and I was sad to see that the grass had all been walked over so much that there was no grass left and it was just dry earth - stick to the paths, people! Anyway, my friend got out the sandwiches he had brought from home for lunch (which had instead been Hainanese chicken rice bought at a food market near King's Cross) and we ate those as a makeshift picnic dinner. Eventually we continued on our way and passed through Bootham Bar and began the last section back to Monk Bar. There are great views of the Minster from there, so we ended up stopping to linger in one place and just watched the light change on the Minster as the sun set. As the warm golden light on the ancient building turned to shadow, we started walking again, but just a little further on we noticed the moon rising above one of the towers and stopped to look at that. When we finally started to move on again, we were ushered back the way we had come by two wardens in hi-vis as the walls close at dusk. We would have to go back and finish that section another time. 

It was nice just wandering around the town as it got darker and wonderfully cooler. There had obviously been some sort of event happening as most people were wearing formal outfits and out celebrating something. We stood for a few minutes amused by a large crowd of people gathered round a busker and singing along to Sweet Caroline and an Oasis hit. At one point a guy with a couple of his friends passed by and asked us if we were from York; when we replied in the negative he muttered something like oh that's why you're dressed boring and wandered off again. I found out the next morning it had been the York Races. We got a drink from a pizza place just off the Shambles Market and sat at an outdoor table to enjoy the summer evening before heading back to the B&B.

Sunday 10th

Breakfast at the B&B cost extra, so we went out to a nearby cafe where I had granola with yoghurt, and a disappointingly small number of berries. Then we made our way to Exhibition Square, opposite Bootham Bar, for a 10:30am guided group walking tour by the Association of Voluntary Guides.

"In York, the gates are called bars, the streets are called gates, and the bars are called pubs." - One of the first things our tour guide told us. After a brief introduction he led us through a little walkway out of the square past some of the old perimeter walls of St Mary's Abbey. In the Museum Gardens, a lovely park outside the Yorkshire Museum, a large section of one of the Abbey walls remains standing, which is cool to see. I can't remember a lot of the detail of what we were told over those two hours, but I did really like seeing the section of still-intact Roman wall and tower in the Museum Gardens. I mean how often do you get to see an intact Roman wall, 2000 years old?! Cool :) There's also a Roman column in the Minster Yard, which was found underneath it in the 1960s when, like Winchester Cathedral, it was discovered that the building was in danger of sinking/collapse and the foundations had to be reinforced.

We passed through the famous Shambles, which isn't named due to the shambolic appearance of the ancient buildings but because historically it was a street of butchers shops - the name comes from "shammels", the wooden shopfront shelves on which butchers displayed their products. Pretty and very quirky, the street is now a heaving tourist hotspot. The marketplace still has a daily market, and to one side there is still a row of old, low stalls with wooden shelves outside. 

Leaving the Shambles, we came to an old side street next to the Treasurer's House and Garden, and our guide told us one of the city's most famous ghost stories, which I recognised and must have read somewhere once. In the 1950s, after the National Trust had taken over the Treasurer's House, a teenage apprentice plumber was working on the boiler in the cellar when he heard trumpet sounds, which gradually grew louder as if getting closer. Suddenly a soldier in armour and a plumed helmet emerged from the wall, blowing a trumpet, and was followed by a horse and a dozen or so more soldiers marching in pairs, all looking dirty and worn out. They were only visible from the knees up, their lower legs and feet were below the floor. Despite his terror, it seems he was able to mentally note and remember such detail about what the soldiers had been wearing that an expert in Roman history was able to identify them. Our tour guide said it was the 9th Legion, which is famous for vanishing without trace from the historical record in the second century AD - what happened to them is a mystery, and the last record of them in Britain was of a battle in northern England. Other online sources say the green tunics and round shields the plumber described were in later decades revealed by new evidence to be of local reserve soldiers who took over the garrison when regular soldiers began returning to Rome in the 5th century. Later excavations also revealed a Roman road 18 inches below the floor level of the cellar.

The tour was excellent, I do recommend it if you visit York. After a morning of walking and taking in information, even though it was a hot sunny day I could think of nothing better than a sandwich overflowing with roast pork, stuffing, apple sauce, and crackling, from The York Roast Co. My friend got the same and we went back to the Treasurer's Garden, a beautiful little walled oasis where we could sit in the shade, listen to a water fountain, and look at the lovely flower borders and tall trees and the Minster.

One of the things I definitely wanted to do while we were there was visit Jorvik Viking Centre, so we went there after lunch. It's located in Coppergate ('koppari-gata' - street of the cup-makers), right on the site where Viking-age houses, yards, and workshops were discovered and excavated by archaeologists in the late 1970s and early 80s. The centre houses a reconstruction of the 10th-century city, which you travel through on a ride that immerses you in the sounds and smells of the scenes, with narration piped through the headrests. Everything is highly detailed and based on what was found during the excavations, from the species of plants and animals, to the splashes of natural dyes in a backyard, to the games being played. Animatronic characters with facial features and clothing based on meticulous research show what a multicultural hub the city was, welcoming trade from all over the Viking world, and you can hear at least three different ancient languages being spoken on the way around (recognising them or telling them apart is another matter). The ride through the Viking streets takes about half an hour, and then there's a museum gallery. It's cool, and interesting, I enjoyed it.

Leaving Jorvik, we bought ice-creams and joined the crowd watching the Wimbledon final on the big screen set up outside the shopping centre. It wasn't too long before it finished, and we made our way back to the river to take a stroll along the bank. The path on the Museum side is named the Dame Judy Dench Walk. We continued maybe about a mile and crossed the bridge to come back along the other side; it's a nice walk, there are lots of lovely big weeping willows and poplar trees (along with quite a bit of invasive non-native Himalayan Balsam - friendly reminder to Check, Clean, Dry your footwear to help stop the spread of invasive species!). We sat down on the bank to just enjoy the evening and watch the numerous greylag geese.

Around 8pm we decided we'd better not leave it too much longer to go and find some dinner, so we stood up and headed to Little Italy, opposite Roberto on Goodramgate. It was hot and stuffy inside, but the food was good. Afterwards we went back to the riverbank to watch the finale of the York Proms - complete with fireworks - through the fence of the Museum Gardens. There was an exhibition of landscape photos by the Royal Photographic Society Landscape Group on panels along other parts of the fence, so we looked at those too.

Dorset 2022

Saturday 28th May

Yay, holiday!

This is a much-belated week away for my stepdad's 50th with his side of the family, after we were all meant to go to Spain in 2020. It's a two-hour drive down to the Bridport area, and we arrived in the town with a bit of time to spare before we could check into the cottage a few miles away, so stopped at a petrol station to get some Magnums and ate them there in the forecourt, haha. I made a mental note of the local independent farm shop and bakery opposite.

The cottage is lovely, part of an old farmhouse out in the winding single-track lanes near a village called West Milton. The building has three cottages: one for the owners, and two holiday rentals. It's chilly indoors, but outside there's a little terrace that catches the afternoon sun, and a lovely big garden area the other side of the drive that's just for our use. That'll be lovely to visit early in the morning when people aren't up yet, or at night to look at the stars. From one spot on the driveway you can even see the sea in the distance. I'm looking forward to trying the cider in the fridge, a complimentary bottle of local stuff from a farm up the road. I spent a few hours working on my final college assignment before dinner (and thankfully the house warms up once the heating comes on) then the six of us who have arrived so far enjoy dinner outside. I didn't like the cider, haha, but at least it won't go to waste with so many people here. Later I wander over to the garden and stroll through the adjoined meadow as dusk falls. I don't stay up late enough to see the stars fully out, but gaze at them for a few minutes through my window when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Sunday

Despite leaving the blinds of the roof windows open - there are no streetlights out here - it's not till an hour and a half after sunrise that I wake up. I'd like to leave the windows open more than they are, too, to hear the near-silence and birdsong of a country morning, but it's too cold.

Others are due to arrive in the afternoon so four of us set off in the morning on a 7.5-mile walk from the cottage around the local countryside. I noticed a couple of orchids - common spotted orchid and pyramidal orchid. Lots of long grass, stiles, and some steep hills. We stopped for a rest and lunch at a spot overlooking a road and a hedgelayer I follow on Instagram drove past in his shepherd's-hut van, haha. We had to shelter under a tree for a few minutes during a shower, but got back to the cottage just in time, five minutes before the rain really hit.

Too tired to do much in the afternoon. Cast Away was on telly so we watched that. Had chicken and ham with salad and warm crusty baguette for dinner. Weather cleared later on so I went out to the garden. Saw some bats, yay! No hedgehogs or foxes or owls, though.

Monday

Spent a few hours in West Bay. After an initial walk along the pier, I went off on my own and made my way to the Discovery Centre, which sadly was closed. But behind it is the fossil shop, which sells ones found by a local expert in nearby Charmouth, and I gave into temptation and bought one, hehe. Then I decided to go for a walk, up and along the East Cliffs. There are so many 'desire lines' worn into the steep slope up from the beach, criss-crossing all over it, I'm surprised there aren't any proper maintained steps, although there must be a reason for that I suppose. One day all the little paths up will be eroded down together and there won't be any turf left for a foothold.

I walked along to where the cliffs next slope down to the beach at Burton Freshwater. Only about a kilometre, 15 minutes or so, but there are a few steep hills to climb up and down. It's the third time I've been to West Bay and walked that short fragment of South West Coast Path in the last year, haha. Took my shoes off and went back along the beach. Spent too much time looking down at the pebbles for fossils! Had to make myself look up and around. It's gorgeous there. And I just love stopping to look up at the cliffs, impressively tall and awe-inspiring with all their layers, layers that give hints about the distant past if you take the time to notice. I picked up a small piece of rock from a pile of collapsed cliff; it really is just compacted sand, it didn't take much effort to crumble it up in my fingers. Blew my mind that it had been a solid cohesive chunk for like 175 million years. I wondered what the blue-grey rocks at the very bottom of the cliffs were, how they were formed and when, but apparently they're the same stuff as the rest of the rest of the 45+ metres above it. The particular type of sandstone there contains something that oxidises when exposed to air, turning the cliffs that golden-browny-yellow colour - the blue-grey rocks are relatively recently exposed and therefore still un-oxidised.

I had a lovely time there, thoroughly enjoyed those few hours. And to top it all off, several minutes after making myself stop scanning the pebbles for fossils, I stopped to look at the waves for a minute, then looked down... and saw a fossil! Hahaha! What luck! Nowhere near as impressive as the one I'd bought from the shop, but still cool, and very exciting. Another rock to add to my growing windowsill collection, haha.

Tuesday

Mapperton House and Gardens. Well, just the gardens really, the house (home to the Earl and Countess of Sandwich) is only viewable on scheduled guided tours. It's a gorgeous exterior though, an L-shaped 17th century Jacobean mansion made of the lovely warm golden-yellow local stone, with ancient wood-framed gates set into the low wall surrounding the house, enclosing a small square of manicured lawn and flower borders full to bursting. The gardens are reached through another gate along the side of the house, leading to a rectangular lawn and more flower borders along the boundary wall. It started to rain shortly after we arrived; the others took cover in a stone gazebo of sorts a little further along, while I happily stood underneath a mature tree and didn't mind the odd drop reaching me. After about ten minutes the rain passed and we continued into the formal Italianate gardens, terraced into the steep little valley the house sits of the edge of. It was pretty. Large areas were paved but it was old so plants were growing through the cracks. There were more flowers, and topiary, and trees and shrubs, and a fountain, and two rectangular ponds one of which is now used as a swimming pool.

I wandered off to explore the wooded part of the grounds for a while, then rejoined the others for lunch in the restaurant; the carrot and coriander soup was nice, but everything took quite a while to arrive.

The final two members of the party arrived late afternoon. After dinner we all sat in the living room and listened to everyone's favourite songs; there were 11 of us so it took a while, but was a nice way to spend the evening :)

Wednesday

Lyme Regis :) I went off on my own again. Decided to visit the museum, which I enjoyed. They had lots of info about Mary Anning and her contemporary fossil hunters, as well as lots of fossils, and other things on the history of the town. My favourite thing in there was the Cabinet of Curiosities. A History of Earth Time Line wraps around the four sides of the box; it contains our planet's history in a single calendar year, with 1cm representing 12.5 million years. You may have heard it before: when geological history is represented as a single year, Homo sapiens appear in the last few minutes of December 31st. It's mind-boggling. I quite like that we are, in this way, utterly insignificant. My favourite thing in the Cabinet of Curiosities were the small rock samples you could look at through hand lenses placed inside the glass. I was literally looking at them open-mouthed, going "Wow!" like a child, especially at the Oolitic Limestone - made up of tiny grains of calcium carbonate - and the tiny fossil of a freshwater snail in the Purbeck Marble.

After a couple of hours in the busy museum, I returned to the fresh air and sunshine and bought a honey and ginger ice-cream from a kiosk on the beachfront, and sat on the shingle to enjoy it. Then I made my way past the half-term crowds on the sandy beach over to Monmouth Beach on the other side of the Cobb. I wanted to see the fossil beach and Ammonite Pavement, a limestone ledge containing large ammonite fossils, but didn't realise how far down it was, so I didn't get to see it before having to turn back to meet my family to go back to the house. I did find, though, a tiny piece of crystal geode inside a rock that someone had broken open; most of it had been taken but the end had snapped off and been left behind. Fossil-hunting is encouraged there, to prevent many being lost to the sea, but there are guidelines. I'd like to go back one day, and go on a guided fossil-hunting walk.

Oolitic limestone viewed through a hand lens

We had a dinner reservation at the restaurant at nearby Bredy Farm. It's a working farm that's diversified with a campsite and restaurant and events, etc. I had stayed there one night on the camping trip last year, and by complete coincidence it's where my grandad decided to book to stay in his campervan on this holiday, and where my stepbrother-in-law's dad works. On my camping trip we arrived there late at night so didn't get to see the restaurant - so I was expecting a casual woodfired pizza place... but no, it's a proper Italian restaurant with pricey dishes, and is so popular that you have to book weeks in advance. We sat outside and it was very rustic and pretty, with wooden tables decorated simply with white pillar candles and tankards filled with herbs and wildflowers, and to my delight there were swallows and house martins darting about to and from their nests on the old farm buildings, the yellow stone lit warmly by the sunset. The menu was puzzling though, with dish names largely in Italian so that the waiting staff are obliged to explain to probably every table what half the dishes are. And there were no carbs with most of them; there was just one pasta option, and that a spicy one. For carbs and the relatively low cost I ordered one of the woodfired pizzas with fennel salami on, which was nice.  I also ordered a half-pint of one of their own ciders but didn't like it, haha, but that's just me, I'm very picky when it comes to alcohol. For dessert I had a rhubarb and strawberry crumble, which was yummy! 

Thursday

I took my sister and stepbrother on a 7-mile walk along the coast path from Charmouth to West Bay. I did that section last summer on the camping trip with my friend and it's challenging with lots of steep hills, but that means the views are stunning. It was sunny and warm and we took it at a leisurely pace, pausind when we needed to, and thankfully there was a nice breeze. After about an hour and a half we reached Golden Cap, the highest point on the south coast, and lingered there a while taking in the views stretching down the coast, all the way to Portland in the east and - just visible in the haze - the headlands of Torbay and hills of Dartmoor in the west. 

Less than an hour later we reached the just-over-halfway point of Seatown, where, as we were just about to head off again after a quick loo stop, a text message informed us the whole family was down there at the beach! So we went to find them and sat down for a while. We were quite conflicted, partly wanting to stay and enjoy a family day at the beach, but also feeling like we wanted to finish what we set out to do. So we stayed a while and then set off on the second half of the walk. The walk up the hill from Seatown was the steepest one yet.And at one point I looked up to see the path I was following fell off the edge of a cliff a short way ahead! Quickly moved left away from it, thankfully it was an open piece of land so another route had started to be worn into the grass. I don't remember seeing that cliff fall last year, with the fence literally hanging off the edge and still connected at both ends. We reached West Bay around 3pm, about 4 hours and 20 minutes after setting off in Charmouth, and sat down to enjoy some well-earned food! I finally got some fish'n'chips and Dorset apple cake :)

As the sun sets I go to sit outside on the terrace. After a while a white bird flies overhead from behind the house and I just assume it's a gull - until it glides low and continues into the orchard and over to the meadow. BARN OWL!!!!!! I've never seen a wild one. I stand up, jaw dropping, and quickly tiptoe over to the orchard where I sit down to keep watch. To my delight it does appear again, several times as it moves around the fields in the area, hunting. Interestingly it doesn't cross the middle of the meadow, but always flies around the edges - which meant it flew within ten metres of me a few times, which was wonderful. What an awesome experience :)

Friday

Three more of the party left in the morning. We would be dropping my sister off at Weymouth train station later in the afternoon so four of us went east to Abbotsbury Beach (part of Chesil Beach) to spend a few hours there before she left. It was quite busy and the people next to us had music on, which bothered me, so along with the uncertainty of what to do with myself that I always feel at the beach, I quickly grew restless and decided to go for a walk to see the nature reserve. Only it turned out you can't. The South West Coast Path turns inland, so after following that for a few minutes I turned around, wanting to stay near the sea especially in the warm, stuffy weather. I thought I might be able to walk along the beach so I could see the lagoon, but didn't want to risk it after seeing signs saying it was private land. So I sat down in an empty spot where I couldn't hear the people I could see, finished my book and watched and listened to the waves. The empty, lifeless, shingle bank stretching out into the distance looked very lunar, if that can be an acceptable description for a place by the sea, or like it belonged to some remote desert-bordered coastline. After being gone a couple of hours I rejoined my family, and we stayed about half an hour longer before leaving for Weymouth - and just in time too, for it started to rain shortly after we left.

The rest of us departed on Saturday morning.

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It was lovely to get away for a week to somewhere so gorgeous. I love it down there and really want to go back. I even bought an annual membership to the Lyme Regis Museum as it was just £1 more than a day ticket, haha, and I know I can get the Jurassic Coaster bus down there from Weymouth or Exmouth during the summer months. I do have a few adventures planned over the next few months to look forward to though, starting with North Yorkshire with my friend next month! :)

Turning 30

Today was my 30th birthday! So I just wanted to write a little something, because it's a milestone. Having said that, I don't really know what, haha.

It's been quite a nice day. I had college, and instead of normal lessons we had the practical part of our synoptic assessment. So I spent most of the day in the library working on an assignment, and then a couple of hours outside in the afternoon clearing some pond vegetation. The snow showers were amusing! but the physical work meant we kept warm, and I'm glad it was fairly easy and straightforward so I didn't get frustrated like I usually do in practicals. But I had some lovely messages from friends in the morning, and this evening has been very nice, just spent at home, I got some really lovely gifts and enjoyed some yummy food :) Looking forward to more celebrations over the weekend.

Of course, I don't feel any different to yesterday. But I do feel different from two years ago. Generally, my teens and twenties weren't that great, although of course there were good times which I do need to remember. Much of it was filled with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, stress, loneliness, feeling stuck and directionless, and things I would rather forget. But I have come a long way, and over the last couple of years things have changed. I'm now the happiest I've ever been. I'm on a path I want to be on and that feels right, even if I don't know what's ahead and am a bit nervous. I understand myself better and accept myself more, and am clearer about what I do and don't want. I'm figuring out ways to deal with things I find difficult. I'm comfortable and content, and have some wonderful friends and family. So, actually, I'm quite looking forward to my thirties, they may be my best years yet :)

Weekend in London, March 2022

Last weekend was wonderful :) I spent it in London with my friend, on a weekend away we were originally meant to go on two years ago. On Friday evening I enjoyed a catch-up over pizza with my oldest friend - we've known each other since we were 5, and will both be turning 30 in the next few days! And then I spent Saturday and Sunday with another friend on this little trip, enjoying the sunny spring equinox weekend in a couple of the city's large green parks, and some great food, before a breathtaking concert on Sunday afternoon.

First - the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew!

Neither of us had been to Kew Gardens before so we were very excited! London traffic meant we arrived an hour later than planned but thankfully there were still parking spaces (just), and we got inside the gates quickly. And yaaay we're in a lovely green park full of grass and trees and flowers! Of course the trees are still mostly bare, but there were daffodils, and glorious pink magnolia, and marvellous cherry trees just bursting with beautiful blossom. It'd be a wonderful place to have on your doorstep as a local, somewhere to go and while away a few hours or a whole day, with a book and a picnic in good weather.

One of the first things we came to was The Hive, an interactive art installation that represented a beehive. From the outside it looked like an enormous roll of wire mesh, but from it emanated a low vibrating hum and orchestral music. Inside, a thousand LED lights flickered in time with the music and humming, which were created to mirror the fluctuating intensity of vibrations produced by bees communicating with each other, as recorded in one of Kew's own beehives. It was a bright sunny day so the lights weren't particularly obvious, but standing in the middle of the installation and being surrounded by that loud vibrating hum was quite impressive. It was a cool example of environmental interpretation, which we've been covering at college this year, something interactive and immersive that engages different senses. The Hive itself it was surrounded by a wildflower meadow (which obviously doesn't look like a wildflower meadow at the moment, but will be a visual and olfactory feast in a few months time) and little boards giving information on bees and the importance of wildflowers.

Wonderful big old trees. Victorian glasshouses full of exotic plants. (Both of us smiled as we entered the tropical section of the Princess of Wales Conservatory - the heat, humidity, plants, and smell of it all reminded my friend of home in India and me of visiting my aunt in tropical Queensland.) Carpets of daffodils and little purpley-blue flowers that weren't bluebells. A pagoda built in the 1760s. A treetop walkway with views over the park and all the way to the City. A lake. Woodland walks and open parkland. Ring-necked parakeets. Cherry blossom! Oh and a tasty lunch - I had a quiche made with mushrooms, spring onion, and nettle. (I must go forage some nettles and make something.)

I had a mooch around the gift shop, hoping to find a hand lens - small little things that anyone can use to look at plants and insects in greater detail (or rocks, or jewellery, or archaeological artefacts, etc.). But to my astonishment they didn't have any!? I thought that Kew Gardens, which must want to encourage people to have an interest in plants and studying botany, would sell the simple accessible tool that is the hand lens. They didn't even have magnifying glasses. Tut tut.

By 4pm we were pretty tired from all the walking around, so just sat on a bench for a while looking at the trees and daffodils in the sinking sunlight, and we left around 5pm. It was a really lovely day, and we only saw half the park. Definitely a place to go back to, especially at a slightly later time of year when the trees are in leaf and there's more growing.

Cherry blossom and the Palm House at Kew

For dinner, we went decidedly out of our way to Southall, to an authentic Punjabi restaurant called Raunka Punjab Diyan. There was an Indian sweets shop next door so we went in there first and my friend bought a selection. The restaurant was busy, and loud, and I was the only non-Indian person in there; my friend asked if I was happy to stay or if I wanted to go to the quieter Turkish place next door. Had I been on my own I probably wouldn't have been quite comfortable, but an Indian restaurant full of Indian people is a sign that it's good! As a food lover, going to a local, family-run restaurant where they serve authentic and delicious dishes, which you don't get in typical Indian (or any other) restaurants that cater to British/tourist tastes, is one of the best experiences.

My friend recommended several dishes, and ordered for us (the staff interacted with her as she speaks the language). To start we shared paneer shashlik - marinated paneer cheese chargrilled with green peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Then we shared two mains and sides: sarson da saag with makki di roti (cornbread roti), and daal makhani with garlic naan. All was delicious! Sarson de saag is a mixture of mustard leaves, spinach, and other greens, cooked down with spices then pureed and traditionally served with a makki di roti. Daal makhani - black lentils and kidney beans slow-cooked with tomatoes, butter, and spices - is one of my favourites anyway... but oh my goodness this one was incredible! In contrast to the chili heat of the saag, and other daal makhani's I've had, the daal was mild and had a lovely sweetness to it, and it just tasted wonderful. Yummmm :)

The sweets aka desserts sounded amazing, so of course we got some. I ordered ras malai, a chilled dish of a soft cheese dumpling in saffron milk, and my friend had dudh jalebi, coils of syrupy deep-fried batter served in a bowl of hot saffron milk. Both were utterly delicious! Mine was lovely and light and refreshing, the milk ever so subtly fragrant. We also ordered some aloo tikki chaat - potato patties with chickpeas in a spicy sauce, chutneys, and yoghurt - from the 'snack' part of the menu to take away with us in case I got hungry later in the evening... which of course I did not after the filling meal. We left it in the cold car overnight, and ended up having it for lunch the next day. And, for a change, I was enjoying myself so much that after the starter I forgot to take photos of the food! Haha.

It's sad we can't really get anything like that closer to home. In Southampton, my friend says Sanjha in Shirley is good, more authentic than most Indian restaurants, and there's an Indian sweets shop in St Mary's, but neither are as good as ones in London. I wondered if I would be able to try and make ras malai at home but my friend said Indian sweets all take a lot of time and effort to prepare. But I might still try and make something similar, perhaps with ricotta. And the sarson da saag has given me an idea of what to do with those big bags of spinach that I usually end up wasting half of because I can't use it all in time - I'll try cooking it down with onion, garlic, ginger, and spices, blend it to a coarse puree, and serve with a flatbread. Decent healthy snack or lunch :) 

Holm oak in Greenwich Park

We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Limehouse. Parking was £20 so the man at reception suggested parking in a nearby residential street instead - but after driving around my friend couldn't find such a place, at least that felt safe, so pay £20 we did. In the morning, breakfast was included so I enjoyed some scrambled eggs, baked beans, and a Cumberland sausage, plus a yoghurt and a croissant, though I was feeling quite dehydrated from not drinking enough the day before (there weren't any water refill stations at Kew that we could see), so was disappointed to find no bowls of fresh juicy fruit, or even canned fruit salad, to rehydrate with, though I had a few glasses of water of course.

Our plan for the morning was to go to Greenwich Park. Wandering down the avenue of trees towards the Royal Observatory I was very happy to see a magnificent holm oak - an evergreen species from the Mediterranean - its limbs spreading out in a wide circle around it, a real parkland oak. (Parkland trees grow outward as well as up because they are surrounded by open space, whereas the growth of trees in woodland is more upright. This can give you a clue as to the history of a place, e.g. if you see a parkland tree in a wood, or an upward-reaching tree in an open park.) 

The Royal Observatory, which has the Prime Meridian marker, was closed, but we could see the line through the gates and I noticed it went down a wall and onto another footpath - so we got to see and stand on it anyway :) One foot in the eastern hemisphere, one foot in the western hemisphere. We continued down the hill and went to see Cutty Sark - the world's last surviving tea clipper and one of the fastest ships of its time, built for the China tea trade and launched in 1870 - which was impressive to look at from the outside. I do admire the sailors, who had to clamber up the rigging in the middle of the deep dark ocean as the ship rolled about in the waves. Ambling back through the streets I was tempted by food several times - at the stalls in Greenwich Market (a cute little covered market), at a gelato shop, and at a bakery that filled the street with the scent of baking cinnamon buns. Alas the latter had only just come out the oven and weren't ready for sale yet, and the staff couldn't tell us how long it would be, so we didn't wait, and made our way back to the park. 

The reason for going to London in the first place was to see the matinee of 'Planet Earth II Live in Concert' at The O2 on Sunday afternoon. I had been given tickets as a birthday or Christmas gift in 2019, and the show was originally booked for March 2020, then for obvious reasons rescheduled twice. So it was great to finally go! I should have done some research beforehand and pre-booked parking, as we ended up paying an absurd £36 to park for the afternoon. We ate the aloo tikki chaat for lunch, which was of course very tasty, and had some of the Indian sweets my friend had bought, which were really nice. After the ridiculous stressful faff that was collecting the tickets and getting in, we could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the concert.

Planet Earth II, the TV series, was of course stunning. I think it was the first Attenborough series that I watched in full, so it's stayed with me and remains my favourite, though of course they're all amazing. I especially love the soundtrack - composed by Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea, and Jasha Klebe - and the main theme is one of my favourite pieces of orchestral music, probably in part because of its association with the spectacular cinematography of the series; it always sends a shiver down my spine and brings a smile to my face. The concert was basically screenings of some of the more well-known clips from the series, on the big screen, without Attenborough's narration but with the soundtrack being played by a live orchestra. It was spine-tingling, breathtaking, and we both sat there in awe, absolutely loving it. Science presenter Liz Bonnin hosted, coming on stage in between clips and talking about them (and of course the importance of protecting the natural world), with the series' Executive Producer, Mike Gunton, who could tell us about how they made it, which was cool. While Sir David Attenborough is brilliant, the actual production teams are the ones who envision and create these spectacular documentaries. Each clip is a mammoth task and the teams do astonishing work.

After that fantastic concert, we went to find the gelato place within the O2 - I had been wanting some ever since passing the shop in Greenwich. It was of course going to be stupidly expensive, but oh well. I chose a scoop of hazelnut, and my friend got white chocolate-pistachio; we each tried a small spoonful of the other's and her's was amazing, I should have chosen that instead haha. Afterwards we got an early dinner in the Design Quarter's street food hub just outside the O2; I got an Indian naan wrap with minced lamb and salad, but sadly it was very spicy so I regretted my choice a bit. But once back at the car I thoroughly enjoyed finishing off the two Indian sweets I'd had half of at lunchtime. My favourite was a bright orange cardamon-flavoured syrup-drenched ball called a ladoo. 

And that was it, homeward we went. This weekend in London, enjoying so many great things with my friend, was just so lovely, really special, and was a great way to have an early birthday celebration :) I know this has been a long post, but it's more for my memories than for an entertaining read, haha. But thanks for reading if you have.

Bringing Back Beavers

A few weeks ago, I was asked by Conker Nature Magazine if I would be able to write an article for them, about the beaver reintroductions in Britain. The editor is a friend from college and likes my writing on here. We didn't have any college assignments to do, so I said yes! 

I knew almost nothing about the reintroductions, so I really enjoyed researching and writing the article. As I mention in it, it's easy to find information on beavers and their benefits, so I focused on the story of the reintroductions themselves, which was really interesting. (I would like to write a post on here soon, though, about beavers and the importance of wetland habitats in general.) It was also quite nice, as an overthinker and perfectionist who usually spends an extraordinarily long time writing blog posts and college reports, to be given a specific topic to write about, and a deadline of just a week. It still took a long time, though, haha.

Anyway, the article was published two weeks ago in Conker Nature's February 2022 edition, to mark the one-year anniversary of Natural England basically giving the green light to future beaver reintroductions. I was so chuffed to be asked and it's really cool to have my writing published in a magazine - thanks again to the editor for the opportunity! I was sent a digital copy of the final "tearsheets", the pages with my article on, and have kindly been allowed to share the article text on here too :)

You can find out more about Conker Nature on the website linked above, Like/Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, and, if you're interested, purchase print, digital, or print and digital copies of all issues of the magazine at MagCloud.com. I hope you enjoy the article!

Bringing Back Beavers

Many of us grew up associating beavers with North America, not knowing they were once an integral part of British landscapes too. The Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber, was hunted to extinction in Britain in the 16th century, prized for its fur, meat, and the oil from its scent glands which was used in perfumes and medicine. Reintroductions have been going on in Europe for around a century after the population dropped to just 1200 individuals, but we are finally catching up, and the last two decades have seen efforts to bring these amazing rodents back to our island.

It is very easy to find information on what beavers are and the benefits they bring, so I won't go into that here. Instead I'd like to tell the story of the reintroductions themselves. It started in Scotland. After the European Habitats Directive 1992 encouraged Member States to consider the reintroduction of extinct species, in 1995 Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) began feasibility studies. They looked at the historical evidence of beavers there, suitable habitat sites, appropriate sources from populations on the Continent, possible beaver movements across the landscape, and their potential impacts. The first licence application for a trial reintroduction in 2005 was rejected, but this led to the Scottish Wildlife Trust becoming more involved and joining forces with the Royal Zoological Society for Scotland, and in 2008 a licence was granted. In May 2009 three families of Eurasian beavers from Norway, 11 animals in total, were released in separate locations across Knapdale Forest in Argyll, beginning the five-year Scottish Beaver Trial.

In the meantime, wild beavers had also mysteriously appeared in eastern Scotland, on the River Tay in Perthshire. In 2012 the Scottish Government decided to allow them to stay for the remaining duration of the Scottish Beaver Trial, and set up the Tayside Beaver Study Group to monitor them. It would then take the findings of both studies into account and make a decision on the future of all beavers in Scotland.

South of the border, beavers have been living wild again in England since around 2008, when they were spotted on the River Otter in south-east Devon. As on the River Tay, these were of unknown origin. When kits were seen in 2014, the UK Government intended to capture and remove all the beavers there to stop further breeding and spreading, but, backed by huge public support, the Devon Wildlife Trust stepped in with a plan for a five-year trial reintroduction, which was approved. Once the animals had been caught and tested to confirm they were of Eurasian origin and healthy, they were returned to the river in 2015 - and the River Otter Beaver Trial began.

Estuary of the River Otter. (Photo mine, not used in the article.)

There have also been around a dozen licensed releases onto enclosed sites around England and Wales, in efforts to help restore vital wetland habitats and improve biodiversity. As early as 2002, Kent Wildlife Trust were the first to import, quarantine, and release two families of Eurasian beavers into a 30-hectare enclosure on one of their nature reserves to help restore the south-east's last remaining fenland habitat at Ham Fen. In 2011 a pair were released into a 3-hectare enclosure on private land in Devon, followed by Cornwall in 2017, Essex in 2019, and Cheshire, Cumbria, the Knepp Estate in Sussex, and the National Trust Holnicote Estate in Somerset in 2020. And in 2021 beavers were released in Dorset, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, a National Trust location in the South Downs, and for the first time in Wales at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust's Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve.

There are of course conflicts and opposition, particularly with the wild beaver trials. Beaver activities may damage vegetation or cause flooding, affecting agricultural and forestry crops. Although they are herbivores and don't eat fish, their dams may prevent upstream migration of species like salmon and trout and affect fisheries. Their creation of wetlands can cause concern of increased flood risk, or flood risk to new areas. Their underground burrows can erode riverbanks. And they could carry and spread disease. Of course people are going to be concerned about potential socio-economic and public health issues. Plus, we humans don't like change very much, and in 500 years we've forgotten not only how to live alongside these animals but also that we once did. Our landscapes are vastly different to what they were when beavers were last here, and there are tens of millions more people. 

The wild beaver trials rigorously monitored every possible aspect: the ecology and health of the beavers themselves; the local populations of otters, fish, dragonflies and damselflies, and other fauna; the woodland, loch, and river habitats they inhabited; hydrology; water chemistry; scheduled ancient monuments; socio-economics including agriculture and forestry; and public health risks. The vast amount of information gathered by the Scottish Beaver Trial and the Tayside Beaver Study Group were summarised in Scottish Natural Heritage's 2015 "Beavers in Scotland" report.

After reviewing the report, in 2016 the Scottish Government made the landmark decision that the beaver populations in Knapdale and Tayside could stay. They would be allowed to expand their range naturally, though careful management was needed to minimise negative impacts, and the government would work towards securing European Protected Species status for beavers in Scotland. In 2017 the three-year Scottish Beaver Reinforcement Project began, to strengthen the Knapdale population with further releases from different genetic backgrounds. In 2019 the Protected Species status was granted, meaning it is illegal to kill beavers or destroy their dams or lodges, although culls when difficulties cannot be mitigated or managed another way are permitted under license. The most recent NatureScot figures estimated the beaver population in Scotland to be somewhere between 600 and 1380, mainly in the Tay and Forth catchments.

In England, the UK Government hailed the success of the River Otter Beaver Trial in 2020, particularly the impact on the local ecology and flood risk reduction, and likewise allowed the beavers to stay, roam free, and expand their range subject to management. At that point there were 15 beaver families across the river's catchment. In 2021 Natural England published their recommendations for future licensed reintroductions into the wild, namely that they should be done at a measured pace to allow habitats, species, and people to adapt and time for problems to be resolved.

Reintroducing beavers to Britain has been a resounding success. While it may be nice to think that this is due to the charisma and good work of the animals themselves, it is to the outstanding work of the countless people involved that we owe our thanks. From Wildlife Trusts to government bodies, university research teams to local government environmental health departments, farmers, fishermen, local community members, partners in Europe, landowners, enthusiasts, skeptics, and more. We have a habit of simplifying and overlooking how much work things take, but I hope I have given you a better idea of just how much has gone into these reintroduction efforts. As the climate and biodiversity crisis continues, the wetlands that beavers create are vitally needed - for storage of carbon and water, flood mitigation, and as habitat for species under pressure - and this work must continue. These trials have paved the way and left us with excellent guidelines to use going forward. Hopefully as time goes on we will see wild beaver numbers grow in new areas of the country - and maybe a glimpse of the wonderful creatures occasionally too.

History of the British countryside, part 2

Following on from my previous post, here is...

A simplified history of the British countryside, from the Stone Age to the present - Part Two

14th - 17th centuries

The early 14th century saw a boom in agriculture, woodland cover was down to 7%, and the population was around 7.5 million. After the Black Death of 1348-50, the population was down to 3.5 million. Deserted villages and abandoned farms were left unmanaged, so woods started to develop again. After centuries of being contained in private parks, rabbits escaped into the wild, and quickly became so numerous as to be seen as pests due to their grazing. The Tudors needed enormous amounts of timber for ships and forts – Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose alone needed 1200 trees – and their large-scale removal of large and ancient trees, mostly oak, changed the appearance and wildlife of woodlands. In the 1660s, silviculture and plantation forestry began as landowners were encouraged to plant, grow, tend, and harvest trees for timber to support the Navy. Serious efforts to drain the East Anglian fens began.

Enclosure Acts, 1750-1850

As the population increased and more efficient food production was needed, and workers were required for growing industries in the cities, successive Governments passed Enclosure Acts for thousands of parcels of land across the country between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries. These broke up and privatised previously open communal land and changed the face of the countryside dramatically. Barriers and boundaries sprang up everywhere to enclose the new private properties – walls, fences, hedgerows, banks, ditches, roads and tracks. Rights of Common were removed, denying people the ability to live off the land, and there was mass migration to cities. Inside the estates, some good habitat management practices like coppicing were continued by gamekeepers to provide good conditions for game birds, as game sports became popular with the wealthy new landowners.

18th - 19th centuries

Coppicing peaked in the early 18th century, as the new industrial furnaces needed 10,000 acres of coppice each. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, coal became the preferred fuel, and large timber was needed for coal mine pit-props and railways. As coppice and other habitats declined, so too did a wide range of species which relied on them. Botanists explored the world and brought back exotic plants, including ornamental but invasive rhododendron and new fast-growing conifer trees for forestry. Many landowners turned to sheep grazing due to the high value of wool, and we still see the legacy of this today in areas like the Lake District and Scotland. The Victorians straightened many rivers to create more usable land and to try to prevent flooding by allowing water to move more quickly through an area. Muntjac, Sika, and Chinese Water Deer were introduced from Asia and soon escaped into the wild.

World War One and Two

Declaration of war in 1914 meant another increase in demand for timber, both for the trenches and for mine pit-props to ensure a supply of coal for Royal Navy ships. Trade links were almost completely cut off, preventing cheap imports, which resulted in more woodland inclosures being felled. By the end of the war woodland cover was at an all-time low of just 5%, so in 1919 the government established the Forestry Commission to ensure a supply of homegrown timber for the future with fast-growing conifers. Farmers had to produce more food with fewer labourers and horses so tractors were introduced, and the “Ploughing Up” campaign led to an extra 2.5 million acres being turned over to growing wheat, oats, and potatoes. In World War Two, a similar campaign meant the area of arable land in the UK increased by 50% in just five years.

Mid to late 20th century

Following WWII, agriculture and forestry intensified further, and even into the 1980s hedgerows were being dug up to create larger fields. However, the need for people to be able to access the countryside for wellbeing was also recognised and National Parks, nature reserves, and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty were created. In the 1950s, disease decimated wild rabbit populations, and, without their grazing controlling regrowth, many grasslands became overgrown with scrub and trees. The following decades saw rapid advances such as increased mechanisation, introduction of new crops like the now-widespread bright yellow oilseed rape, and increased pesticide use. Environmental awareness spread during the 1980s, and agri-environment schemes were established to encourage landowners and farmers to take actions that benefit certain species or habitats.

Present day

Today, around 65 million people live in Britain, and to the 85% of those who live in towns and cities the countryside is largely regarded as a place of recreation rather than work and survival, although around 70% of land area is farmland. There are still many pressures, changes, and challenges: the constant construction of new housing estates, polluting industries and lifestyles, species decline and biodiversity loss, climate change. However, the ecological importance of a diverse range of habitats is more widely understood, and there are widespread efforts to restore woodlands, grasslands, hedgerows, heathlands, river meanders, and wetlands; reinstate traditional management methods, upon which many species depend to create the conditions they need; and reintroduce nationally-extinct species. Understanding the history of the land may help us create a sustainable future. 

Modern farmland in winter

History of the British countryside, part 1

I love history, and I love the countryside. One of the very first lessons we had at college at the start of last academic year was, to my delight, on the history of the countryside. I wanted to write about it back then, but never got around to it. But then last term we had a Specialist Project unit at college, so I decided to create a booklet on that very subject :)

The booklet was submitted just before Christmas, so the text for this post has been written for about two months. I did want to add to it, to include more interesting things I found in my research that I didn't have room to put in the booklet. But because I made the booklet directly from the notes document and not in a separate one, the notes I omitted no longer exist, and I just don't have time right now to re-do it all (or go back through the document Version History), sadly. So here it is...

A simplified history of the British countryside, from the Stone Age to the present - Part One

Key terms:

• BCE = Before Common Era (instead of BC) 
• CE = Common Era (instead of AD) 
• c. = circa = around, roughly 
• Tundra = open arctic landscape of lichens, mosses, short grasses, dwarf shrubs, reindeer and wild horses 
• Aurochs = ancient wild cattle, up to 2m tall at the shoulders, became extinct in Britain in the Bronze Age 
• Coppicing = periodic cutting of tree stems to allow regrowth of multiple stems – sustainable way to produce wood 

Mesolithic ("Middle Stone Age", c. 10,000BCE - 4500 BCE)

At the end of the last Ice Age, the climate began to warm. As the ice retreated, the land slowly transformed from treeless open tundra, to boreal forest of pine and birch, to dense broadleaf woodland – the “wildwood”. Animals such as red deer, boar, and aurochs migrated up into this north-western corner of the continent, and humans followed. The natural grazing processes of these large herbivores created a shifting mosaic of woodland interspersed with open areas of grasses, flowers, and small shrubs – trees covered about 60% of land area. Humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers, following their food, and had a relatively small impact on the landscape - although not none. Some began to create clearings to attract the herds and allow fruiting plants to grow, for easier hunting and foraging. The land between what is now Britain and Europe was slowly taken over by rising sea levels, finally creating an island around 6000 BCE. 

Neolithic ("New Stone Age", c. 4500 BCE - 2200 BCE)

Small-scale human organisation and impact on the land increased as rudimentary agriculture with crops and domestic animals reached Britain, and humans began living in more permanent settlements. Quarries and mines were established for flint and other useful stone. Settlers made use of difficult areas, for example by building wooden trackways across fens and marshes. Woodlands started to be cleared and managed – coppicing began – and after a few generations the loss of nutrients on well-draining soils meant that trees could not regrow: grasslands and heathlands established, and were used for grazing. Watercourses would have become cloudier with silt as soil washed into them, no longer held together by living tree roots. By the time Stonehenge and other monuments were created there were large areas of open land with views unobstructed by trees. 

Bronze Age and Iron Age (c. 2200 BCE - 43 CE)

Better metal tools meant easier, faster tree clearance for settlements. The first field systems were established, in some places marked out with stone walls known as ‘reaves’ which can still be seen today. Mines for copper, gold, and tin were created. Coppicing increased to produce charcoal, which was needed to fuel the smelting of copper and tin for bronze. By the Iron Age, small settlements and farmsteads scattered the land, surrounded by fields of crops and pastures for livestock. Woodland clearance continued to increase, as did coppicing for smelting iron. The introduction of iron-tipped ards (an early type of plough) meant heavier soils could be cultivated. Humans had organised into large regional tribes, and on hills across the country the treeless slopes were dug up to create ramparts of steep banks and deep ditches, known today as hill forts. 

Bronze Age burial mound

Roman occupation (43 CE - 410 CE)

The Roman conquering of England and Wales brought enormous change, and their engineering innovations left huge marks on the landscape. They created the first urban infrastructure, building towns and cities, 16,000km of roads, and canals and aqueducts carrying water to the towns, as well as military forts and luxurious villas with formal gardens for the landowning aristocracy. The landscape became more planned and regulated, with clusters of farms serving an estate, and, as war-going people who needed timber and money, the Romans began to manage woodlands as commercial crops, and hay meadows for animal feed. Non-native plant and animal species were introduced, including rabbits for meat and fur and the sweet chestnut tree for nuts and timber. Their heavier iron plough allowed expansion of farming, and in some places Roman field systems are still in use today.

Anglo-Saxon period (410 CE - 1066)

The Germanic tribes that came to Britain after the Romans left were farmers, so lifestyles largely reverted to those of pre-Roman times. Coppice woodlands were divided into compartments for families and villages, marked out using boundary wood banks, and the practice of leaving “standards” within coppice – selected trees left to grow naturally as one large stem for timber – began. Scattered farms with enclosed arable and pasture fields were replaced with villages and open strip fields farmed communally – as a result, wood pasture for livestock grazing increased too. Eventually towns began to establish again, and estates linked to the early Christian monasteries. The composition of tree species around the country was affected by a warming of the climate between around 800 CE and 1300 CE, known as the Medieval Warm Period. 

Norman period (1066 onwards)

William the Conquerer designated huge areas of land as Royal Forest, i.e. hunting parks – originally, “forest” meant an open area given over to hunting. 90% of the population lived in the countryside and were suddenly banned from hunting deer, wild boar, and hares, but in return Rights of Common were established, which allowed people to collect firewood, graze livestock, and dig turf or peat for fuel, among other things. Hunting favoured open areas, so many grasslands, heathlands, and wetlands were protected and kept open – and survived for centuries because of this. Meadows increased in area as hay became more profitable than grazing, and most floodplains were utilised as meadow. The Normans also introduced pheasants and fallow deer, and re-introduced rabbits.

--

Next week I'll cover the late medieval period to the present day. If you like this sort of thing, I recommend reading Nicholas Crane's The Making of the British Landscape. Archaeologist Francis Pryor has a book of the same name and that looks good too. Oliver Rackham's History of the British Countryside may appeal to those with more of a scientific interest, I didn't find it to be very easy reading and the chapters are by habitat type rather than in chronological order. And Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens is fascinating in terms of humanity's general development and how we changed from being one of numerous human species, very much a part of the ecosystems we inhabited, to being the only human species and dominating everything.

Museum visit

If you like such places, I recommend a visit to Salisbury Museum. I went there last weekend and really enjoyed it.

They have an excellent new exhibition on for the next few months, 'Ancient Sites from the Air' by photographer David R. Abram - aerial photographs of ancient sites across the country. Each image was created by stitching together hundreds of individual photos taken from a drone moving over the site - so each one is really high resolution and super detailed. It's really impressive. Plus they're just cool photos anyway, quite abstract. 

Two of my favourite images in the Ancient Sites from the Air exhibition by David R Abram. You're encouraged to take photos in here (not the rest of the museum though), for personal use and for social media use to promote it. 

The state of the art Wessex Gallery of Archaeology is great too, which has thousands of finds from prehistory to the Norman period. The museum website says it's one of the most important archaeological collections in the country outside of London, with many artefacts from the Stonehenge landscape, Old Sarum, and Wiltshire as a whole, including the Pitt-Rivers Wessex Collection. Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers was the first to use a scientific approach to exploring and excavating historical sites, as opposed to just digging and looting without any method or recording, and so laid the foundations for modern archaeology. 

I really liked the largely intact 4th-century mosaic found in the village my family used to drive through regularly on the way to see my grandparents. I was impressed with just how much time and care it would have taken to remove it from the site and then put it together again. The website says the latter took 3 weeks. 

Out of everything in the Wessex Gallery, though, I think my favourites were the oldest objects in there: the 450,000-year-old stone handaxes. Simply because of how mind-bogglingly old that is. 450,000 years old! That's from an inter-glacial period, waaaay before Britain was permanently settled. 

What was just as mind-boggling was the meteorite in the corridor. It's just a 90kg ball of rock. But it's 4.5 billion years old. And not from Earth. If it was from Earth it would be one of the very earliest rocks. It's from outer space. The asteroid belt to be precise. Obviously I know that meteorites are from outer space, but I've not actually seen one before. So cool! 

Finally, the museum cafe does good lunches too - I recommend the mushroom lasagne :)

I've always loved history and archaeology but it's fallen by the wayside over the last several years. I was disappointed to find out I'd missed 8 series of 'Digging for Britain' when I watched the new one a few weeks ago. It's nice to be getting back into it all. 

This may have just been a load of waffle, haha. Next week I'll finally publish what I was originally going to post now - the first of two posts on the history of the countryside :) 

Winchester Young People's Climate Assembly

Back in November I spent a Saturday participating in the Winchester District Young People's Climate Assembly, organised by a number of local groups and held in the University of Winchester's Business School. Excitingly, it was the city's first Citizens' Assembly, a group of people brought together to learn about, discuss, and make recommendations on an issue or set of issues. The aim was to explore what young people in the District, aged between 16 and 30, want to see in a zero-carbon future and think should be done to get there faster but fairly. 

Power. Intersectionality. Action. We were charged to remember these three things over the course of the day. That is - that we have power collectively; that climate justice cannot happen without social justice; and that it is vitally important to actually take action.

(If you don't know what intersectionality is, it basically means that various factors such as race, gender, sexuality, age, disability, poverty, etc, overlap. They exist on their own but compound to form unique life experiences and challenges, and determine who has power and privilege in our society and who does not. Anyone wanting to tackle a social justice issue must consider and try to understand the multiple ways in which a person or group may be impacted, and make sure they are included in discussions and listened to. For example, people on low incomes and people of colour are more likely to be exposed to pollution, less able to afford organic and sustainable products, and less likely to be invited to join the conversation (or to have the time, money, or energy to attend) and have their say in creating change. So, climate justice is totally interwoven with social justice, it cannot happen without it.)

After the introductions, the day kicked off with talks by expert speakers on energy, transport, homes, food, and lifestyles. After that, we had about an hour to discuss on our tables what we thought were the main challenges around those topics. After lunch (which was a delicious vegan buffet held in the new sustainable West Downs Centre next door), a local Councillor talked about the roles of Councils and how they can be influenced, and then we each chose one of the five topics to focus on for the afternoon and moved to new tables, where in groups we discussed actions that could be taken to help reach a zero-carbon future faster. The day then rounded up with everyone voting on the suggested actions, and the organisers and guest Councillors giving responses.

I warn you - this is not a concise review of the event, it is long post of my notes taken over the day. Obviously there was a lot of information to take in, all of it fascinating, so I couldn't note down every point. I wish I had a copy of the slides used by the speakers, but that's probably a good thing for this post, as it would be even longer if I had that extra info, haha.

Expert talks

Transport and liveable places (by Sustrans South)

• Older towns and villages that existed before WW2 are/were more livable - they were small, walkable, and all or most amenities residents would need could be found within the centre. That is not the case now, and developers don't often consider this when creating village-sized swathes of new housing. 
• Electric vehicles will still produce around 14 tonnes of CO2 over their lifetime, 10 of which is just to make it. Nor can they be made fast enough to fulfill the demand for new cars by 2030 when the no-new-fossil-fuel-cars law comes into effect. We have to reduce our use of private cars.
• Lots of our infrastructure doesn't work for us.
• Demographics are changing - e.g. young people are driving less and having fewer children - but infrastructure isn't changing to reflect that.
• We need to rethink public spaces. Make places equitable and liveable first. "Healthy Streets". Create neighbourhoods, designed around people not cars. (The speaker said about how she lives on a busy road, an unpleasant and unsafe place to stop and have a chat with neighbours - as a result, they don't know each other, there's no sense of neighbourhood and community and no interest in making the area nicer.)

Sustainable homes / Building design (by Guy Derwent Architects)

• We need intelligent design with passive sustainability. This takes into account the effect of natural resources like sunlight, wind, and vegetation on the site when designing the building's lighting, heating, and ventilation systems etc, and takes advantage of them. E.g. face the main living area south to get the most light, even if that means the houses on a street aren't in a straight line, and place a sun shade over windows at an angle that will shade the interior during summer and let light in during winter. Or orient houses so that gardens get the most light, better for growing food. Again, designing places for people first rather than what is going to be most profitable.
• The average lifespan of a building in England is just 50 years.

Food (by Winchester Food Partnership)

• Eat less but better meat - locally reared, grass fed, high welfare, etc.
• We need less protein than we think - the average woman needs 50g a day.
• Plant-based diets are not necessarily more sustainable or environmentally-friendly. As with everything, it depends where and how a product was made, what resources were needed, how the farmland was created and is used, how the people working there are treated and paid, the supply chain, how much the product is processed, how and how far it is transported to the consumer, etc.
• We need more community composting.
• Do we focus on encouraging dietary changes or reducing food waste?

Lifestyle changes (by the founder of Earthian Zero-Waste Shop)

• Plastic can only be recycled 2-3 times.
• Less than 9% of plastic ever produced has been recycled.
• We need closed-loop supply chains, for example where suppliers take back empty containers and refill them. (Circular economy.)
• There is only 1 landfill site left in Hampshire (at the moment), a lot of waste goes to energy recovery plants (waste is burnt to produce electricity).
• Best to worst: Refuse (say no), Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot (bin).
• Maybe start by making one change per month to make it more manageable.

The talk on energy was given by a rep from Wessex Green Hub, but I didn't take any notes on that for some reason. She mentioned Doughnut Economics, though, which is a cool framework for sustainable development. And the idea of local energy production, such as lots of miniature power plants each generating and providing energy to a street or two or three.

Challenges

Sustainable and affordable housing

• Acquiring long-term thinking and strategies instead of focusing on short-term profit
• Evaluating current building use more
• Making sustainable development more economically viable for developers
• Getting developers to engage with and consider the needs and wants of the public (e.g. what amenities would be useful in a new development, gardens/allotments on the roofs of blocks of flats or offices, communal spaces to foster community, etc.)
• Getting the government to address things from the top down, e.g. put into law building regulations such as double insulation, triple glazing, solar panels, heat recovery, rainwater harvesting, green roofs etc for every new building
• Developers are set in their ways. Target councils, housing associations, local organisations to make decisions, change their policies and standards for what developments they approve, put pressure on from the grassroots level.

Food

 - How to support those on lower incomes to buy better

 - How to eradicate the discourse that continues consumption (not just food)

 - How to make people more open to diet change

Lifestyle changes

 - How to scale up sustainable products to supermarkets

 - How to support employers and local businesses to be sustainable and support sustainable working

 - How to celebrate small changes rather than dismiss as "not good enough"

Energy

 - How to reduce energy consumption

 - How to decentralise energy production and make it more local and zero-carbon

 - How to better share energy use

Transport

 - How to improve public transport - cost, reach, accessibility - cheap and fast

 - How to incentivise main demographic users of private cars to use public/clean transport

Council duties, responsibilities, and how to influence them

District/borough councils (in this case Winchester City Council) are responsible for council housing, planning for businesses and homes (use of land/buildings, appearance, landscaping, environmental impact, etc.), the Local Plan, housing benefit, housing the homeless, household waste collection, car parks, leisure spaces like parks, and air quality. County Councils are responsible for roads, highways, and pavements, cycleways, waste disposal, planning for minerals and waste, flooding, and buses.

Regarding energy, Councils can do what they like on their own land - so for example there is a lot of potential for County Councils to generate energy on the roofs of schools and care homes. With transport, councils can have policies but no decision-making powers because most public transport is now privately-owned. With buildings, again councils have their own buildings, and can set standards for the design and construction of buildings to ensure health and safety. With food, WCC has the Environmental Health Department which monitor restaurants, noise, air quality, etc, and HCC buy food for schools and has some farms.

So how to influence the councils?

• Official ways - Write to councillors. Attend Full Council meetings, and make a deputation (10 minute talk) on any topic to the County Council, or ask a question to the District Council (however you must be registered to vote in that area). Attend a Committee meeting and make a deputation on an agenda item. Petitions. Run for election.
• Unofficial ways - Campaigning (best as a team - recruit, build case including surveys). Get lots of people to write to councillors. Write to papers. Media/social media.

Proposed actions

Transport / liveable places: Ban cars in the city centre, but maintain a single bus lane and access for hired mobility scooters and timed deliveries. Subsidise buses for everyone (including free bus travel for under-16s and Universal Credit recipients), paid for by increasing residents' parking permits and workplace parking levies based on vehicle emissions. Improved and continuous street lighting for safety, solar-powered and with motion-sensors. Increase extent of bus routes outside of city centre, especially out to rural communities. Cycle highways linked to network of cycle lanes.

Energy: Infrastructure upgrades for social housing that includes district heating, electricity for charging EVs, internet - cheaper if done all in one go. Open up roofs of public buildings for community renewable energy projects. Change Planning to ease installation of renewables. All council parking to include wide availability of EV charging. Visible and celebrated generation of renewable energy and supporting information at all schools and hospitals.

Housing: Student housing needs to be warm, dry, and affordable - create tenant unions, regulate landlords, have rent caps. [Frankly that should apply to all housing not just student.] National regulation on new builds to create sustainable homes - Councils need to lobby central government. Affordable retrofitting with well-administered grants and accessible financing. Increase council housing stock and make them pleasant homes. Counter NIMBYism - more brownfield site development, avoid wealth-influenced decisions.

Food: Community campaign to educate and change behaviours on food waste. Household food waste collections by Council (e.g. Eastleigh Borough Council do this). Council incentives to encourage more sustainable food businesses with more accessible opening hours. Local organisations and councils to encourage more sustainable diets by offering sustainable choices and education (e.g. by serving those foods). Council to develop a Local Plan for local food (e.g. including more community gardens/allotments and spaces for growing food).

Lifestyles: Free access to green spaces by public transport during school holidays. Audit empty spaces in towns to give room for sustainable businesses and homes. Councillors actively engaging with young people more. Funding youth climate activities and pathways into environmental jobs. Smarter planning to allow people to live their lives locally. Divest pension funds from fossil fuels.

After the participants voted on the actions - we were given 10 sticky dots to place on our favourites - the organisers and guest Councillors reviewed them and made a response. It was mostly very positive and encouraging, but a local Councillor also gave reasons why some of the actions would be really difficult to do - which was good and useful, and largely appreciated, he didn't do it in a dismissive way.

...

Obviously, there will be reasons why all of those proposed actions would be difficult or have a negative impact on a group of people. But they're a starting point for discussion, compromise, and taking action. Whether or not recommendations made by Citizens' Assemblies are followed is up to politicians, but CAs are increasingly being used and listened to. We in the UK are technically a 'democratic' country - and we do indeed have freedoms and rights that many countries across the world do not - but in reality there is hardly any public participation in the way our country is run, we have very little say and almost no way to hold the people in power to account. Citizens' Assemblies are an important part of a more democratic future. Along with more action.

If you've read this far, thank you! I know it's a long post. I really enjoyed this event, and I hope they organise future ones, and bigger ones with more than 25 participants and voices from a range of backgrounds. The organisers will be presenting the list of actions to both local councils soon, and letting us know their response. It was so energising to be around like-minded people who really care about these issues too. Especially people younger than me, many still teenagers, passionate and no-nonsense - the sort of people who, when somebody says "Well, no it's not fair but that's just the way it is" respond with "So make it fair!". When the local Councillor made his response at the end, two girls on one of the tables spoke up and said that actions like the ones proposed need to be taken, no ifs, no buts. They need to happen; adults - councils, businesses, governments, normal people - need to start making them happen, standing up to powerful individuals and corporations. There have been four decades and more to take the actions needed and it hasn't been done, and now we are the ones being left to clear up the accumulated mess. We're simply telling you what needs to be in place for us to start doing that. We've had enough of the myth of unlimited growth, and profit over people and planet, and exploitation, and rampant consumerism and short-term thinking and ecological destruction and all of it. We want a better world. 

There is widespread apathy, and a big reason for that is simply the scale of the problem. It is enormous, too big for most of us to see as we go about our daily lives with the more immediate stressors that occupy our thoughts. It is enormously complex, like a vast web, and solutions to one issue will create conflict elsewhere. It's terrifying, and our minds shut the issues out so we don't get overwhelmed by them. Western society wants to be able to tackle climate change while still retaining the lifestyles and level of comfort that we have, but that's just not possible. We have to change, dramatically. The society and systems humanity have created are mind-blowingly complex. But that doesn't mean they can't be changed. We have to band together, step up, and find a way forward.

Thanks for reading!