Day 121: Bristol Bristol Bristol

Phew. What a positively mental few days. I am finally getting round to putting a few words together about a couple of events I was lucky enough to attend over the weekend - Bristol's Organic Food Festival and Bristol Green Doors.

The weekend kicked off with the food festival. A wonderful display of organic produce - everything from locally grown veg to organic and ethically produced bedding - it was well worth the £5 entrance fee. I won't bore you with a stall-by-stall lowdown of what was on offer, suffice to say good times were had by all (especially when you throw in some Bath Ale). One stand-out stall was The Community Farm which is a lovely little project that brings together local produce from around the south-west. The volunteers were amazingly knowledgeable about the food and were damn proud of it too. They offer a weekly delivery of veg right to your door for a very reasonable price and, if you're feeling green, they welcome a hand at harvest time too.

So after a swift half of Bath Ale, it was time to hit the city of Bristol and have a sneaky peek into a few of the homes that had very kindly offered to open their doors and show us their greens. I only had time to visit three homes, but was lucky enough to visit three very different set-ups.

The first was a beautiful terraced Victorian house with the synonymous high ceilings and intricate coving - a total pain in the ass when trying to reduce your energy consumption. They had installed a solar water heating system that had practically slashed their gas bills to zero during the sunnier months. Another similar house had made the effective, but slightly less visible change, of insulating the walls, sealing the wooden floors and installing a wood burning stove (using sustainable wood, of course). The third house, crammed into a row of terraced houses on a narrow street, really was breathtaking. With little space to play with, they did what good ole' IKEA tells us - 'think cubic'. A Dahl-like stair case led up to a raised 'workshop' where a solar powered train-set whizzed around much to the delight of the children. Up yet another, even more tiny staircase, and you emerged in the middle of a greenhouse atop the roof of the garage (two-storeys up by this point) to find a fully utilised vegetable garden and 'green roof' - really quite an amazing feat. All the work of the home's owner, Simon Lewis and his marvelous company Bristol Green Roofs.

So, all in all, a very fun and very informative weekend. It was inspiring to see energy saving techniques that I had only heard about in the flesh and actually working, to see how it was making a difference to the environment and also to the lives of the people living there was invaluable. Now, if only I had a garage I could build a green roof on...

- James

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Day Ten: Planning for The Future

I've not posted a blog in three days - tut tut. This is not because I've decided to abandon this project, quite the contrary, I've been busying myself with research and, a bit of first time venture for me - the garden.

I'm lucky enough to have a manageable little spot here that, I hope, will one day become a great resource for both myself and my partner in future years. Now though, I need to garner my green skills by finding out how to actually make the garden work for us. I confess, apart from growing a few pansies in a pot on the patio, my knowledge of horticulture is limited and so, this year, I've taken it upon myself to take those first tentative steps into the world of 'grow your own'. Spurred on my the likes of the wonderful Alys Fowler, I have done the impossible (in my mind anyway) and have actually cultivated plants from, wait for it, seed. This may not seem like a big deal to many people, but for me it's quite an accomplishment. In my garden at the moment I have a few herbs - Rosemary, Thyme and Mint that seem to be doing well. I have successfully grown peppers, chillies and tomatoes from seed that, after a few nail biting weeks, now seem to be getting stronger every day. I find myself weeding, pruning and also, much to my surprise, consciously thinking about my garden rather than just sticking some plants in the ground and hoping for the best. Last night, for example, saw the first real downpour of rain in quite a while and, as I lay in bed listening to the rain, I was wondering - I hope my plants are okay. I awoke to bright sunshine again this morning and to find my little seedlings looking healthier than ever - hopefully a modest crop will present itself later in the year. 

Aside from my new found gardening pleasures, I have found some interesting little nuggets of information through my research. The Green Build Expo, for example is a two day event in Manchester that promises to showcase all the potential renewable energy sources we could be using. The event is free and, by targeting large national builders, tradesmen and the like, seems to me a great sign that the environmental agenda is getting pushed more and more into the limelight. You'll also be please to hear that the few shopping trips I've taken have all been either on foot or by bike, and I have made a conscious effort to buy the right sorts of food - environmentally friendly, organic, fair trade and with minimal packaging. My recycling boxes now greatly outweigh my 'non-recyclable' waste and, apart from a snotty note from the bin men asking me to cut my cardboard into smaller pieces, the whole transition seems to have gone without a hitch. I've been washing my clothes at 30 degrees, taking showers instead of baths and have become a full member of the Green Party. Phew. That was exhausting. What remains to be seen is how all of this will pan out over the coming weeks/months. I am still far from leading a 'carbon neutral' life, but feel I'm on the right track.

- James

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