Last week was a week of firsts for me – my first Zero Waste Week, my first litter pick and my first Thanksgiving!
Focusing on Zero Waste week, I pledged to bring in ‘leftover lunches’ and soon discovered that Love Food Hate Waste has made an impression. Planning my meals for the week I now have very little leftover after each meal that I wouldn’t be using for another day. Great for my shopping bill, but I ran out of food!
My second pledge, to start composting for my sister’s garden has been a lot more successful, and has given me food for thought about my non-recyclable waste which goes to landfill. Checking the labels for packaging which can be recycled is quite revealing and makes you think about what you are buying, but also makes you realised that it’s nigh on impossible to eliminate all waste going to landfill. However, this week I have discovered the joys of finding ways to reuse my waste. From simple things like holding onto plastics for food wrapping, using mushroom boxes as compost caddies and putting spice jars back into circulation, to the far more crafty making Christmas decorations from egg cartons, cutlery holders from milk bottles and even bird houses from soup cartons!
I enjoyed my week of firsts, even the litter pick and the competition to find the weirdest item – I guess a bike seat by a bike path isn’t that weird, but I was still proud of my find, and Thursday I was thankful for a fantastic Thanksgiving spread, and even more thankful for leftover veg, yorkshires and gravy on Friday.
Visit Riverford local organic veg box company at Sacrewell Farm and Country Centre on Sunday 12th June, from 12pm-5pm!
They are taking part in the national Open Farm Sunday, flinging open their barn doors and inviting local people to come and have a look round. It is a free, family friendly event, teaching about how an organic farm runs.
See the crops Riverford grow and taste them fresh from the fields! There’ll be children’s activities, games, tractor rides, and you can enjoy a Riverford style afternoon tea!
Open Farm Sunday is an annual event that gives everyone the chance to meet the farmers who grow food and care for the countryside. It is coordinated nationally by LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming).
Willowbrook Farm are also hosting an Open Farm Sunday on the 12th for the Green Festival grand finale, visit the website to find out more!
For more information and direction details visit the Riverford website.
Journey along the beautiful Nassaburgh Green Wheel cycle route to Willowbrook Farm, where delicious food and family-fun activities await!
On arriving you’ll be ready for a cool drink and to enjoy tasty local food at the Granary Café and free BBQ. Feeling adventurous - try the Willowbrook Giant hot-dog challenge!
There is so much on! The family can hop on a Willowbrook trailer ride at 11am, 1pm or 3pm to encounter the sights and sounds of Castor Hanglands National Nature Reserve.
Enter the mini-beast art competition to win a Bumblebee goody bag and a year’s membership to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust – prize draw at 3pm!
Discover life on Britain’s farms and learn about nature!
Find out where your food comes from on a real working farm
Learn what farmers do and how you can get involved in the countryside
Do a butterfly count in beautiful Swaddywell Pit Nature Reserve
Mini-beast safaris at 12pm and 2pm
Become a bee-detective and help us count bees for the national Beewatch Survey
Learn how you can help bees in your garden
Meet real animals
See you there!
Find us celebrating the 20th Green Festival finale at Willowbrook Farm (Stamford Road, Helpston Heath, Peterborough, PE6 7EL) on Saturday 12th June at 10am to 4pm.
Catch bus 401 from Queensgate bus station bay 9 or cycle along the Nassaburgh Green Wheel route.
Bring a picnic, invite your friends and enjoy the buzz at the Bee Wild Big Lunch – a national one day community picnic! Find out all about bees from experts at this free, fun, family event.
With loads of activities including an observation hive, advice on planting a wild flower garden, making bumblebee nests and tasting honey made from different flowers…there is something for everyone.
Visit the ‘Big Bee Marquee’ to find exhibits from Riverford, beeswax candle-making and photography.
Give-aways and a prize for the best-dressed queen bee and Heart FM’s Angels will be handing out free bee education packs, including wildflower seeds, donated by Anglia Regional Co-operative!
Cross Keys Homes tenants from Dogsthorpe, Westwood, Paston, Orton and Hampton can take advantage of free coach travel to the event by calling 01733 385148!
Location: Ferry Meadows, Country Park, Oundle Road, Peterborough.
Take part in a Ready Steady Cook style event at the Green Festival launch this Saturday from 12.30-1.30pm!
Delicious feasts will be made from typical leftover ingredients, supplied by Riverford Organics. There are brilliant prizes to be won! Judges include chef Paolo from Toscanini’s, the Mayor of Peterborough Penny Thacker and Heart FM’s Ros.
To enter look out for the famous Love Food Hate Waste giant tomato in Peterborough City Centre from 10am this Saturday.
Get tips and advice from the experts on:
How to save up to £50
Reducing food waste
Recipes for your leftovers
Menu planning
Food storage solutions
The event is part of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Waste Partnership ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ campaign to reduce the amount of food being thrown away.
For more information visit the Love Food Hate Waste campaign website.
Don’t miss an opportunity to meet the Riverford team! They’ll be supporting Green Festival leading events such as Swish and Bee Wild Big Lunch.
Bring a picnic, invite your friends and enjoy the buzz at the 'Bee Wild Big Lunch' at Ferry Meadows on Sunday 5th June! Enjoy a range of activities on offer and find out all about bees from experts at this fun, free event. Visit the ‘Big Bee Marquee’ to find the Riverford team exhibiting. Get growing tips and learn more about their local, seasonal, delicious produce!
Ladies are invited to the Green Festival 'Swish' ‘frock swap’ event on Thursday 2nd June. Come along for a guilt-free solution to a glamorous, green new wardrobe! Get fashion tips and advice, see live Trashion Show model demos and win a Venture Photography prize. All swishers receive a tasty organic drink and healthy snack provided by Riverford Organic!
To find out more about the Green Festival visit the website and check out the programme!
Riverford are back – supporting the Green Festival for the third consecutive year!
This award-winning organic veg box company will be exhibiting at the Green Festival launch on Saturday 28th May.
Meet the Riverford team who will be serving up freshly cooked food and demonstrating healthy, seasonal dishes! These experts are full of tips, advice and recipes. Based at Sacrewell Farm, all the food is grown locally in Cambridgeshire.
In addition to these important taste and green credentials, the veg boxes can save you money! Riverford offers free delivery and their veg boxes are overall 20% cheaper than supermarkets. Their new cook book, ‘Everyday and Sunday recipes from Riverford Farm,’ was unveiled only this week!
Find out what’s on during the Green Festival fortnight by checking out the programme.
So it's that time of year again; the weekend when cupid curls his finger around the twine and takes aim. In some cases, lets hope he strikes the bullseye and melds people in a bubble of happiness. In other cases, lets hope the little mite misses just a tad and actually severs the bonds that hold the more unsuitable couples together. I for one will bid a fond farewell to the unfortunate duo who seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Poundland is a building soceity, and that by investing their jobseekers allowance there they are safeguarding their litter's future.
But nay, my whinge this week isn't about the great unwashed, rather about the absolute waste of everything that Valentine's Day has become. For starters, it has its origin in Christianity - some Pope or other decided it would be a good idea at some point - so if you're an atheist or a non-believer or of some other faith, there is a confusing issue to start with. Nowadays this celebration of love seems to be owned by a number of high-street card shops, lingerie outlets, chocolatiers and city-break touting travel agents. And I, constantly suspicious of what 'the man' is doing to distract the proletariate, am convinced the placement of Valentine's Day six weeks after Christmas is a conspiracy theory. Most people have just been paid for the first time following the glutonous spending in late December, and the coffers are back in the black. Put Valentine's on 14th January and it's a dead duck - nobody could afford the petrol to the garage to buy a cheap posy of wilting daffs, let alone an elaborate bouquet of roses. Seems to me old Pope Gelasius I knew what he was doing - probably links in to the Da Vinci Code somehow but I'll leave that to Dan Brown...
Anyway, back on to the waste side of things, lets look at the classic Valo gifts one by one...
Chocolates - Milk, yes. Milk means cows. Cows mean methane. Methane, like carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas but is twenty-five times more potent than it's more famous cousin. I'm not going to get started on the over-packaging, or the food miles or the fact that they make you fat. Alternative suggestion - locally-sourced produce, or a nice pint of organic milk.
Flowers - According to the Guardian, 55 million roses are traded around the world on the 14th. That means that 55 million roses are put in the bin on the 21st. If you work from the estimate that each rose stem grown in Holland produces 3kg of carbon dioxide emissions, when you hand over that beautiful dozen to your loved one, why not also pass her a bag and a half of building sand, just to demonstrate the carbon effects of this oh so common gesture. Alternative suggestion - some kind of origami flower, or just one rose?
Cards - We all know the scores here don't we; "You had me at hello..", "Love you baby..." and "You're the only one for me... (until next year when we've split up because you were seeing the guy from work behind my back for three months and I only found out because you text the wrong person by mistake one night!)" The global postal industry's carbon emissions are three times that of the much-maligned aviation industry, with 12 million cards delivered by the Royal Mail alone on Valentine's Day. Alternative suggestion - send an e-card, make a card or at the very least give the card to your loved one as opposed to putting in the post. Or don't bother with a card and just tell her how you feel, you cold, awkward thing...
I could go on... jewellery and gold mines and exploitation of workers in developing nations, clothes to replace ones that are pefectly wearable, beauty products that contain palm oils that contribute to the distruction of the rainforests.
How do I ever buy anything you might wonder, if I look behind every product to such a degree?
The answer is simple, I don't. I keep my money in my mattress and only use things I find on the street. This year I'm giving gifts of half eaten chicken tikka kebab, shoe and damaged wooden pallet, all wrapped in an old tarpaulin and sealed down with spent Hubba Bubba. Somehow I don't think I'll have to worry about it next year...
I’m not going to get involved in politics in this blog. Partly because I’m not allowed; the very mention of one of Nyree’s infamous ear-bashings would make David Haye quake in his boots; and partly because I think most politicians are self-serving, self-aggrandising, self-obsessed prats and berks. I also know nothing about politics really, other than the fact that ‘Margaret Thatcher’ is an anagram of ‘That Great Charmer’. I smell ironnnyyy! Anyway, I digress...
I don’t know much about politics really, but I do know that those marginal parties that don’t have a realistic chance of gaining an outright majority for themselves can make fairly outlandish claims in their manifestos to try and entice gullible/extremist voters. The BNP promise to... well I don’t know, but it’s obviously madness. The Liberal Democrats make vague promises they actually meant to do the opposite of – they really should sack whoever edited their manifesto as they appear to have mistaken the word ‘eradicate’ with ‘triple’ in all the sentences relating to tuition fees. Easy mistake to make. Any WWE fans will remember one of the great wrestlers of the early 00’s – ‘Eradicate H’. Might be a bit of an obscure reference that actually... Where was I? Ah yes, and the Green’s, in line with their core policy, promised to create a sustainable society... by reducing a working week to just 27 hours...
The logic behind this is to eradicate (or is that triple?) economic growth, based on the idea that it is impossible to continue to accumulate wealth (often at the behest of nations we imprison in the chains poverty), whilst also reaching a state of absolute sustainability.
27 hours? It sounds like an innovative economic model, and a pirated copy of the new Danny Boyle film. Knocking off after lunch on Thursday? Friday night would be the new Saturday night, so you could go out on the new Saturday night and still watch The X Factor on old Saturday night, and then go out on old Saturday night as well, knowing that normal Sunday is there for eating eggs, ironing the curtains and making jokes about the “bloody squares what used to work thirty-eight hours an’ that!”
Everyone would be less stressed, so ailments like heart disease, high blood pressure, depression and the like would decrease (saving the NHS billions). People would have more time to exercise and stroll around, ridding the world of the super-obese (saving the NHS billions). And crucially, the majority would have more time to get green-fingered and start growing food in their gardens and on allotments, improving the general health of the nation (saving the NHS billions). At this point it is probably worth mentioning I don’t work as some kind of NHS fundraiser, just so you know.
The problem then? If everyone works 28% less hours, it’s only logical that everyone is paid 28% less. Less money basically means less ‘stuff’, and we in the West are obsessed with ‘stuff’. I’ve no doubt that whoever is reading this (well done for getting this far by the way – I know it’s useless ranting but I find it very cathartic) currently has a pile of ‘stuff’ in their house that they got for Christmas that they simply don’t want. Probably £10-£20s worth? I’d say a fair proportion (say 50% for argument’s sake) of the nation has a similar pile. That’s £350-£700m already wasted. Or 118,043,844 work hours at minimum wage. Or enough to supplement the wages of 1,809,655 people on minimum wage to the tune of 11 hours, reducing their working week from 38 to 27 hours...
Is this ever going to happen? No, it is not. Are we more likely to spend billions on a nuclear deterrent system that means we can at least contribute to Earth’s destruction when Kim Yong-Il decides he’s sick of being “wonewy” and presses the red button? Yes. Are the Green Party ever going to be in a position of power that enables them to make this a serious debate? No. But neither is Nick Clegg, so nerrrr...
Ooo, just got political. I can hear Nyree stomping down the doors looking for me. Better dash...
Up until recently, supermarket giant ASDA held the record (UK, but maybe not world) for the biggest Naan bread ever made. I don't know the specifics about whether it was garlic, peshwari or just plain, but it's some feat nontheless. However, the Walmart-owned grocer has recently lost it's crown to a Brewer's Fayre establishment in Lincolnshire. More commonly known for their all-you-can-eat carvery's than their curries, the staff at the North Hykeham branch pulled out all the stops in creating the 10ft x 4ft side order. And I for one am proud of them.
"Naan bread? I know this guy spouts some rubbish but why is he telling me about naan bread?"
I'll tell you for why... naan bread is the dipper/scooper of choice for one of the most environmentally sound food stuffs going - curry. Officially the nation's favourite cuisine - move over sausage rolls and cod and chips - an impromptu curry is a wonderfully green dish (not literally, obviously).
Curry is such an adaptable dish you see - there's hardly anything that can't be curried up. okay, you've got your classic meat-leading options, with your chicken, lamb or prawns. Beef can be used, as can pork, mince makes a cracking keema, and white fish can be made with tikka principles to provide a mouthwatering dish. And I haven't even started on vegetables and pulses...
Chickpea and potato for a vegetarian delight? Pepper and tomato and you're talking rogan josh? Bang some peas with your mince to add a bit of coulour to your keema? Use a lentil base for your classic daal? Something to do with spinach or cauliflower for a derivative of aloo gobi? And any combination of the aforementioned can be wrapped in some filo pastry and labelled a samosa...
these are things people always have left in the cupboard. A tin of chickpeas bought during the latest health fad or left over from student days where that spare pound was better spent on 3 litres of Diamond White; Bird's Eye petit pois that have been at the back of the freezer since Thatcher was in power; potatoes because... well, everyone has potatoes in the cupboard don't they; and on and on and on. Bang these left-overs in a pan, add a bit of garlic and few herbs and spices and you've whipped a meal out of nothing. Granted, you could probably make the same things into soup as well - but let's face it, homemade curry sounds loads more impressive the next day when you're trying to impress that attractive receptionist/postman/waiter [delete as applicable].
"Oh... so you can cook?..." they'll say as they twirl that loose strand of hair, "...you'll have to make something for me sometime..."
So you've turned an onion, a sell-by-date bag of spinach and a cauliflower left over from Sunday lunch into a hot date with that certain someone. You've saved the ten quid you would've spent on a Lamb Bhuna from the corner takeaway. You won't have eaten as much so those jeans will fit nicely tomorrow, and you've refrained from throwing good food in the bin - so done something good for the environment as well.
And if you're lucky enough to live in North Hykeham, there'll be plenty of naan to go around to wipe that plate clean, so no need to do the washing up either.
11:42:54
