Urban Permaculture Inspiration at RISC

Please pass this on to anyone you know in the Reading area who might be interested. It's going to be an inspirational day at a fascinating venue, the forest food garden planted on a city roof at RISC. More at the Sector39 website here.

oh dear...

FTSE graph from the Financial Times

Maybe we'd get on better if we focused on re-building Earth capital and people capital.

Craig's mountain send off

 The death of one of my oldest and best friends, Craig, has been a real shock. I was able to go to Craig's service and for a walk up one of the Perthshire hills with his friends and family in his memory which really helped me to deal with the loss. I've been up the hill, Ben y Vrackie, "The Speckled Hill", many times with Craig and friends before as its so near Perth and also because its such a great walk, with lots of variety on the walk in. The climb itself isn't too much of a slog and the hill itself is a beautiful shape, a real little mountain at just under 3000ft. We were treated to perfect weather and fantastic views, a wonderful send off for the man. My friend Stone and I walked over to the hill's second peak - looking back at the tiny specs of our friends gathered below the summit lots of thoughts went through my mind, how short our lives are on the mountain timescale and how friendship can transcend the human life span.

Thinking long...

Sustainability? Does that mean patching everything up and squeezing our planet dry of its resources so we can carry on living our industrial society way of life for another few years? Or does it mean making a transition to a way of life that can be supported by the planet's resources indefinitely? Surely we should be thinking not just a few years ahead but thousands of years - isn't it just common sense?

Around Beauly

Just a few photos from around Beauly for fun, I'm up here for a few days with Laura and her boyfriend Chris.

a fine Beauly skyline

looking East towards Inverness from above Beauly

I'm not exactly sure why, but to me this is just typical of a Scottish Highlands village, the stone building, the traditional sash & case windows, heavy-duty door, the simple garden ...

and everywhere around Beauly there's lots and lots of wonderful trees

I can't help wondering how Scotland will fare as we inevitably make the transition towards sane living - people up there have several things in their favour, water, space and a long history of inventiveness. I reckon Wales and Scotland will be two of the best places to be in the near future... well they already are!