Update

I'm sorry to put a damper on things, but for anyone puzzled over some of the comments on my previous post, my mother died during last night. It's not at all unexpected but it's nevertheless a sad time for us.

I am unlikely to be around a great deal in the next few days I'm afraid, but I will be back before too long.

PhotoHunter: sign

Yet again a difficult theme, but I've been intrigued by this Pudding Lane road sign for some time.

Of course Pudding Lane was where the Great Fire of London started in 1666, in the bakery. So off I went down Pudding Lane to see what was there.

So it was a delight to find the first house was called "The Old Bakery". The origins of "Laundry Cottage" are obvious., as I suppose "Poachers Paradise" is too, but I'm not sure why "Christmas Cottage" came into being.

This Pudding Lane is considerably more attractive than the one in London is now, so I set off on a short walk.

And I spotted a sign in a clearing in the woods.

And there I found what has to be an unusual sign by anyone's definition. I have never seen a stag beetle refuge before, let alone a signpost so that they know where to find it!

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Memories are made of this

The last few days have been spent clearing my mother's small house. My sister and I have spent a long time going through everything, deciding what we should keep and what has to go, putting everything in boxes and then talking most of it out again as we realised it was impossible to hang on to it all.

The large items, desks and tables and bookcases, weren't too much of a problem. We have our own, with our own memories, and so they are going off to auction and will no doubt be sold to someone who appreciates them.

The problem lies with the bits and pieces. One of the men who came to finish off the clearance apologised for seeming insensitive. It's much, much harder to part with all the tiny things that hold memories but mean nothing whatever to anyone else.

That's not a torn photo, that's my mother, the child who was never wanted, the mistake.

My father was ridiculously proud of that crumpled newspaper cutting and told us endlessly about the day he took down O'Sullivan Roach, even though his two daughters barely appreciated the finer points of rugby.

That's not any old Christmas card, it's the one my father sent to my mother after the war ended and while he was still serving in Italy. After it arrived she set out to join him there, the first civilian allowed into Italy at that time.

It may look like an old duster or a rag, but that was once my "posh frock" which I was allowed to wear on special occasions, sent all the way from grandparents in Ireland to a remote area in Africa.

That worn and cracked bowl was once my sister's favourite, and without it she refused to eat (even though she always managed to look like a little angel).

The ribbon with a rusty pin was once a badge I wore proudly for being top of the class. I had to learn how to curtsy to receive it, much to the amusement of all. That was the school where we were forced to eat up everything, and that almost gave me an eating disorder. It was also the school where I had to endure a reading class consisting entirely of listening to one poor child repeating "wisp" over and over until the teacher was satisfied with her pronunciation. Hmm, a lot of memories stored in one small piece of fabric.

That almost illegible letter on the finest of airmail paper was written to me on my eighth birthday by the minister of the local church. Almost twenty years and many thousands of miles later, he was to conduct my wedding service. We didn't live in his parish then, and had to have a special licence. After all these many years since then, I'm still not convinced it was legal.

How do you preserve all these memories? Will our own children have the same problems letting go?

Earth Day in Europe

Frankly it's hard to tell, there is very little mention of it anywhere, but there is a report about recycling in France, which says that, according to the results of a poll, French people have become used to sorting their waste for recycling and are happy to do it. They would even be prepared to do more to make it more cost-effective.

Photo from Flickr user Commune de Saint-Thonan. Creative Commons licence.

The sign made by children at school says, "Selective sorting is easy. Think of selective sorting".

In our area of France, rubbish is collected twice a week, from the roadside. We are expected to sort anything recyclable and put out tow bags or bins - blue for recyclable wasted, black for everything else. They will take almost all recyclable waste apart from glass which has to be brought to the depot.

In our area of England though it is a different story. The waste is collected once a fortnight, alternating between recyclable and other waste. There is a considerable limit on what can be recycled - only paper, cardboard, cans, some plastic bottles. No plastic bags, no yoghurt pots, no polystyrene, no aluminium foil containers.

It would be interesting to conduct asimilar survey, taking into account the different practices to see if that had any bearing on attitudes.

It would also be interesting to hear of other areas' recycling possibilities. I find our UK system very restrictive. Is it the same elsewhere?

PhotoHunter: thirteen

This was a tricky one for me.

You'll have to trust me on this last one, but if you look and count carefully, there really are thirteen!

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The moon

Taken last night but it refused to upload. Not quite full but we so rarely have a cloudless sky, I took the chance while I could.

As I took it, a nursery rhyme went through my mind:

The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
Eating cold pease porridge.

Why I thought of that I don't know. The only other moon rhyme I know is:

Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

There must be other, but I can't think of them at the moment. Does anyone know any?

Credit where it is due

People in the UK very frequently run down the National Health Service (NHS) and we hear all sorts of horror stories about the treatment patients have received.

I feel the need to redress the balance a little, because my mother has had wonderful attention and care since the beginning of her illness, both at home and after she had to move into a nursing home.

Today they told us her nursing home fees will be covered in full, back dated to mid March. I had no idea there was this provision available, and quite honestly it will be a huge weight off our minds.

It's been a hard time for us, but it could have been so much worse without the support we have had. Admittedly we are only a single instance, but that is our experience so far.

Oh, and we've just heard from neighbours in France - one of them had to be rushed into hospital with a suspected stroke, and he was left on a trolley in a corridor for 3+ hours. France's health service is often said to be one of the best but bad things happen there too.

Desktop

Tagged, by Max (not mad Max but could well be). On your own head be it.

See, boring, boring, boring.

Under duress.

Eight random things about me:

1. I like a cup of tea first thing in the morning but apart from that it belongs in the afternoon. Coffee is my morning drink, decaffeinated these days.
2. I remember my childhood in Africa fairly clearly and would love to go back some day.
3. I lived for three years in Paris, in the 90s. I knew I wouldn't be able to work there and looked forward to a three year holiday. I didn't enjoy it for very long - life seemed aimless, so I found myself some non-paying work to do, but still leaving time to explore.
4. I have always had a tendency to confuse the number 5 with the number 7.
   
5. I am using automatic numbering in this post so I now can't cheat in the way I intended :) Bums.
   
6. I am mildly addicted to Cryptograms these days. My games addictions vary over time. It used to be a Daily Jigsaw but I've moved on.
   
7. Nearly there. I have two sons, one 1,000+ km (650 miles) away and the other 5,000 km (3,000 miles). Thank heaven for modern communications.
8. This is the last time I allow myself to be tagged in this way :)

It seems an easy thing, doesn't it?

A green revolution in Costa Rica

Photo of Arenal Volcano from Flickr user the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Creative Commons licence.

It didn't particularly surprise me to hear that Costa Rica has 6% of the world's biodiversity although only 0.03% of land surface. What did surprise me was to learn how well they have conserved that diversity and how positively they defend the environment.

Few countries have taken such initiatives. There is a system of national parks and reserves recognised as one of the most advanced in the world, with about 28% of the land under some form of management or protection.

Costa Rica is the only country in the world to have abolished its army and it has been using the money for the last half century for social and environmental policies. A pioneer of eco-tourism and biodiversity conservation, 95% of its electricity is renewable and it is pursuing an active policy of reforestation, and expects to become the first State in the world to achieve carbon neutrality by 2021.

Photo of Playa Espadilla in the Manuel Antonio National Park from Flickr user Dan.. Creative Commons licence.

There are certain advantages that Costa Rica has, unlike other countries:

• A temperate and mild climate which generally ranges between 18 and 24 C throughout the year, reducing the need for heating or air conditioning.
  
• A poor road system which leaves many parts not easily accessible, and so protecting the environment.
  
• Plenty of water for renewable energy production.

But they have disadvantages too:

• Because of their success they no longer qualify for debt cancellation, but they do have large debts.
• The country is very heavily wooded so there is a limit to reforestation for carbon offset.
• Growth of 6% has meant it has more industry and growth in the number of private vehicles.

The Costa Rica Tourist Board has developed certification for sustainable tourism, awarding one of five levels depending on how well a tourism company complies with its criteria. It sounds a wonderful place to visit. - it looks idyllic, but with the distance involved I think it's unlikely I'll ever get there.

A green passport

Are people living in France the only ones interested in sustainable and responsible tourism?

I picked up a reference to le "passeport vert" on the Programme des Nations Unies pour l’Environnement (PNUE). I assumed it would be on the main unep.org site, but no, it's only in the French version, which I find quite strange. Stranger still, it's in English. There is no reference to it at all that I can see on the main site.

The aim of the Green Passport section is to introduce the traveller to some of the things that can be done to make tourism more sustainable - respecting the environment as well as promoting economic and social development in the tourist area communities.

It fits quite well with my earlier post about the awards for responsible tourism being promoted by the French rail company SNCF.

Don't be deaf to Darfur

Bloggers for Darfur

Five years ago the conflict in Darfur started. Since then millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands have died. So far there has been little action to end the situation.

Yesterday in London 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Sudanese Embassy as part of a global day of action. A group of children, survivors from the war, went to 10 Downing Street to meet the Minister for International Development.

British officials have been in contact with the Sudanese government and rebel groups to propose London host the peace talks on Darfur.

Photo from Flickr user thatsparklychick. Creative Commons licence.

Each flag represents a person killed in Darfur. The Prime Minister has said

"The effects on children of the violence in Darfur have been nothing short of devastating: one million children have been forced to flee their homes and now live in crowded camps in need of basic food and water; two million children depend on humanitarian aid to survive; and half of all children are not receiving any education."

Words are not enough.

Kiva

A quote from Thomas Szasz:

The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

There is a real need for direct aid in many circumstances such as the aftermath of war or natural disasters, but we can also help people help themselves. One was is to use micro-finance enable real people improve their lives and it can be done through an organisation called Kiva. Kiva lets you "lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty".

I first learned of Kiva through Grateful Guy. His blog is worth a visit in itself, if only to put your own day into perspective. Every day he writes a list of things he is grateful for - coffee seems to figure quite highly - and really it does make you sit back and think. So now you see, I'm grateful to him.

Updated to add the link to Grateful Guy - why didn't someone tell me! :)

Responsible tourism

Photo by Flickr user Alain Bechellier. Creative Commons licence.

As soon as I saw this photo, I knew I had to write this post. It is apparently a seaside railway station in Morbihan in Brittany, SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français) being the French railway company.

Last year SNCF awarded the first trophies for responsible tourism to promote respect for man and the environment. The categories were for

• humanitarian travel (winners: humanitarian trips to Vietnam and to Argentina)
  
• fair and equitable tourism (winners: Atalante and La Route des Sens)
  
• information and awareness (winner: Francois-Tourism-Ecorismo)
• local development (winner: MIT International Salon)
  
• travel and disability (winner: Voyagez Aussi)
  
• nature and the environment (winner: Cap France)
  
• business responsibility (winners: Orangeries, Hotel de Lussac, Huttopia)
  
• culture and heritage (winner: Villages Creoles)

They also gave a special mention to Nouvelles Frontières, a tour operator, for their information and policies.

They are now asking for nominations for the 2008 awards.

Source Les trophées du tourisme responsable (in French). However all the links to the winners are to Google translations of the relevant pages. Automated translation seems to be improving: they are for the most part perfectly comprehensible unlike the old days of BabelFish.

Some of the awards are for the holidays themselves, others for the way holiday companies conduct themselves.

I confess I have never been on anything that could be described as an eco-holiday, though we have been on some very simple holidays. Has anyone any experience of any? My concern would be to feel it's a holiday, not hard work! I'm too old for that :)

PhotoHunter: twist

Twisty things around the house.

The edge of a wicker basket.

A piece of dry pasta.

A jar that used to contain bath salts, but I re-use it from time to time.

The twisted stem of a champagne glass, one of a set of six we bought years ago in Venice. Sadly, only four remain.

Finally something from nature, a sleeping swan with its neck twisted over its body. Twisted doesn't really do it justice.

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It's criminal

Photo by Flickr user mondoagogo. Creative Commons licence.

The European Parliament is considering a directive that will make it a criminal offence to damage the environment.

Among the offences could be:

• Emission of radiation
• Dumping rubbish
• Trading in protected species
• Production or emission of substances that damage the ozone layer
• Unauthorised storage of nuclear material.

You'd have thought several, if not all, of those would already be illegal, no?

Amsterdam revisited

A brief guided tour of Amsterdam, just for you, Relax Max. Just for you.

First the canals and canal-side roads.

Then the multitude of bridges and locks.

An amazing assortment of boats, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

The unique styles of architecture.

And after that whirlwind tour, would you visit the flower market?

Then a meal at a canal-side restaurant...

or the floating Sea Palace Chinese reataurant.

Or best of all, the Vijff Vlieghen Restaurant. Touristy in a way, but wonderful food, wonderful service and a truly wonderful setting.

I know, I bet you'd just prefer some yummy biscuits.