Chicks on film

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 10, and Nell, 7, like travelling around Britain on public transport (don’t laugh). We spent three happy months exploring during summer of 2007 but now we’re home, you can still join us for the occasional sightseeing - plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

This pic ought to be of Pete and Xuesong Yu during a break in filming a three minute short for you tube. Instead it's just piles of Pete's new book at Waterstones. Xuesong (aka Emily) is from Beijing. She’s also one of my communications students, and currently on a placement at Friends of the Earth, but she kindly offered to help do a bit of filming. The camera was borrowed too.

The film of Pete reading from There’s A Hippo In My Cistern – with background noise of our hens cheaping – is on you tube here. It's already had 81 people watching it (amazing!). But as it stars fowl, foxes and flapping dressing gowns – and is very funny - maybe you should too. Let us know what you think.

Plum taste

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 10, and Nell, 7, like travelling around Britain on public transport (don’t laugh). We spent three happy months exploring during summer of 2007 but now we’re home, you can still join us for the occasional sightseeing - plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

Xuesong Yu, one of my communications students and currently working as an intern at Friends of the Earth, brought in dried plums, her favourite treat from China, for us to share. They are astonishingly good – part sweet, part salt, part toffee. Unfortunately they aren’t sold in the UK!

New start

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 10, and Nell, 7, like travelling around Britain on public transport (don’t laugh). We spent three happy months exploring during summer of 2007 but now we’re home, you can still join us for the occasional sightseeing - plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

I’ve worked at Friends of the Earth for nine years (this is my desk after a serious clean up) and it seems like a blink. Working to magazine deadlines for Earthmatters (and all the others) is rather like being in the tropics – you just don’t feel time passing because of the lack of seasons.

When I lived in Solomon Islands (working as a magazine trainer at a development education NGO) I tried to notice time by noting when the mangoes were ripe or the flame trees blooming but it didn’t work. When I think back to Solo now, 16 years on, I just remember blue skies, blue sea, sweat, dust, magazine deadlines and friends.

Maybe I'll compress the whole Friends of the Earth experience similarly: stormy deadlines, sweat, paper, shut windows and friends.

But right now I'm remembering a really enjoyable goodbye pub drink plus some of the most perfect presents from my team, and ex-colleagues. These included a Baird poem; inventive vouchers from colleagues to cut my hair, photograph my pets and create a poster; and a Eurostar voucher for a great escape. An incredible, and lovely haul!

So here's a big thank you to Friends of the Earth - t h a n k y o u.