Stories round the woodburner

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell spent the summer of 2007 travelling around Britain without racking up their carbon budget. We're home now but we still love travelling. Here's how we try and do it keeping to a low carbon footprint and getting a taste of everywhere in the world. This post is by Nicola.

One of the things I love about visiting people in the countryside is their tendency in the winter to have wood burning stoves. If the wood is sourced from the right place - and I'm working on this - then you can have carbon neutral space heating.

After long talks, debates and saving up we now have an Aga Little Wenlock woodburner fitted (suitable for smokeless zones) where our Victorian fireplace used to be. It's pretty warm today - 16C - but last weekend, when it was a bit colder, we set it alight both evenings with amazingly good results. In fact the woodburner's efficiency made our sitting room warm enough for me to stay up late (chatting), rather than retire with a hot water bottle to bed at 9pm. Its cosy glow reminds me of Hannah's in Wales and Exeter, and my childhood in Hertfordshire. Pete says - rather happily - that the atmosphere in our living room hints at warm ups by the pub after breath-freezing days in the Lakes and Yorkshire.

Of course you need kindling to light it, and so there's a new task for the children (see pic). Here's Nell and her three year old cousin Jago helping me collect up a big bag of twigs off an ash tree, which all fell down after a night of gales.

Searching for kindling, copying great ideas (I think the Swedes invented the woodburner, just checking) and being able to story around the fire make autumn and winter such a pleasure. next project may be to plant some more trees...

Cycling via Tashkent

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - but they don't want to hike up their carbon emissions by taking the plane. Here's how they stay home and satisfy their passion for travel

A month ago I was returning a borrowed bike to my sister-in-law in Hertfordshire the lazy way… ie, I wheeled it on to the Stansted Express train from Liverpool Street station, London to Bishop’s Stortford - knocking 30 miles off my pedaling. I probably could have been picked up in Hertfordshire but it was a lovely spring day so at Bishop's Stortford I got off and cycled the 7 miles to my old home near Little Hadham as happy as a cyclist with the wind behind them, and light panniers, can be.

The train journey was fun too as I had a long chat with the barista (if that’s the right word for the guy who runs the trolley service of hot drinks and snacks) who came from Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan (and once far better known in the West as it was a main stopover on the Europe to China silk road). The barista was a brilliant ambassador for Uzbekistan – he didn’t just give a check list of where to go (Samarkand obviously…) he also summarized what the place is like.

For example the autocractic president is head of state, and head of government – so no room for dissent. Indeed President Islam Karimov is already on his 3rd stint in office (only legal to do two stints according to the constitution). Interestingly he was raised in a Soviet orphanage which must have been tough. His Harvard-educated daughter, Gulnara Karimova, is maybe the one to watch. She secured popular support with her music video releases (using the stage name GooGoosha), groovy enough – listen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8BVcmj0B8&feature=related

Karimova is not just a wealthy woman – from her businesses and her divorce from Mansur Maqsudi, she’s a fashion designer, chicly dressed and my coffee-serving friend admires her hugely, calling her “clever”. From what I can see on the web she’s Islam Karimov’s heir apparent too…

Instead of watching the Lea Valley go by (you could do the same at the cycle ride here), I got a black coffee and a potted history of politics Uzbekistan-style. Lucky me. And to think I’d written off the Stansted Express as a rather expensive whiz to my old home with little chance of getting a seat as it’s so often packed by minibreakers (careless of their carbon footprints) flying dirt cheap to Scotland and Sweden – and a few other Euro airports. You can see why that's bad if you watch The Age of Stupid...

Big spin

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell are trying to visit as many countries as possible without increasing their carbon footprint. This entry is from Nicola

The mild spring days of February inspired us to get on our bikes to pedal around Broxbourne woods in Hertfordshire (reached via the train that seems to run from our doorstep straight to a hornbeam/oak ancient woodland). The stop is Bayford, and as an added bonus just a short cycle ride up the hill there's even a gastro pub specialising in home cooked food and real ale at the Baker Arms .

With the sun above, these lovely woods smelt of warming earth, and magic visitors to play. Nell set up a shop in one forked ash tree while I took loads of photos of buds and deer baskets (woven fences to stop the muntjac and other nibbly beasties from coppicing coppiced timber to death).

Pete wanted to time travel, so stared at the info panels hoping it would reveal how he could join the Celtic camp that's run annually deep in the woods near Brickendon. Sadly the panels didn't, but there's info here about how to join the history makers at the Celtic Harmony camp.

Cold Christmas

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell keep on exploring Britain. As we go we watch our carbon footprints... This post is by Nicola

Staying in the gorgeous country town of Buntingford over Christmas, we couldn't resist a detour (in the car club car) to a well-named, nearby hamlet. It may have been minus 2C at times over the Christmas holiday, but my mum's new cottage is lovely and snug. She has a new condensing boiler - and barely uses her electric oven - which may well make her house's energy requirements more efficient than mine.

On Boxing Day I was given a tour of an astonishing wood boiler (provided by Rural Energy)which is fed with wood chips. The plan is for it to provide all the hot water and heat a house, office and swimming pool, saving around #4-5,000 a year in bills. It's big - you need a large barn to house it in - but this is a real energy pioneer's gadget. The big switch on is due in February 2009.

If the Congo was in Hertfordshire

Dr Livingstone I presume?

The journalist Henry Stanley became obsessed with the Congo after he won the race to track down “missing” explorer, Dr Livingstone. This was back in the 1870s but it turned his life around – he then went on to explore the heart of Africa’s longest river.

Although the Congo has inspired some great fiction, such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, replicating Livingstone or H M Stanley’s adventures has been all but impossible. It’s not just the size of the rainforest or the lack of roads, it’s the numerous rebels that take refuge there – and the conflict over the countries’ mineral wealth (eg, copper, cobalt and gold). There’s some good facts about this in Tim Butcher’s book, Blood River (Vintage), where he shows clearly that Congo exploration is always a no go trip.

More recently we have had the western corner of the Congo being sanctuary for rebels and besieged during the Rwandan conflict. And now the TV pictures show that the area’s exploding again as rebels push displaced people - 200,000? - towards Goma, where the UN is no doubt sweating buckets after the debacle it (and tens of thousands of innocent people) experienced only a decade ago in nearby Rwanda.

Which is why Nell, now 7, and I went on a trip to the Congo via an overhung stream that snakes through the flood meadows of the River Ash behind the pretty (and mostly safe) Hertfordshire village of Much Hadham. Nell’s been studying rainforests at school and become impressively obsessed. So we borrowed a fallen tree to make our dug out canoe and then chillily paddled down Africa’s longest river watching out for okapi and other shy beasties.

We could hear the chainsaw in the distance, imagine the humidity and had the realistic pleasure of swatting fat mosquitoes. And then we drove home in the car club car, stopping only to buy an ice cream and wave hello at a man I presume is my mum’s former GP.

That’s how a journey to the Congo should be I guess.

If you want to help support the humanitarian appeal, check out Oxfam or Christian Aid here.

Get outside more

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

Canadian cousin Stacy, who lives in Japan, has emailed to tell me to read Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods. It sounds superb - and has spawned another childrearing trend (the child and nature network) in a bid to save kids from "nature defecit disorder". It still doesn't appear to be in the UK bookshops, nor even the American owned Whole Earth flagship store down at Ken High Street in the old Barkers.

I spent most of my holiday time outside as a child and I do my best to let the kids do that now, mostly by providing waterproof clothes, sunblock and incentives. Our chicks and garden mess help; so does not having a car. However on a recent visit to Granny in Hertfordshire our picnic had to be taken indoors thanks to an afternoon downpour.

If only we'd taken the wellies the children could have spent a happy hour splashing around in the river chasing raindrops and ducks. Instead we ate biscuits in the conservatory listening to the rain on the roof. I don't think Richad Louv would have approved.

Today we go home

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Mixed emotions for us all as Lola, Nell and I head back to home in London - Pete opted to be in the advance party so we won't get to experience an unusally silent house with piles of post, unfortunate dead insects, empty fridge and three-month-old mould covered dishes in the sink.

This wouldn't have happened anyway as my friend Tom who was staying there all summer only moved all his stuff out yesterday. He says he likes the area so much (to his surprise?) that he's opted to rent another place nearby. And also various lovely neighbours, but especially Nicolette, have been tackling post piles and overflowing water butts.

For the past five days the slow three have had time in Hertfordshire to join in a range of community fundraisers, chat with Granny Fiona, enjoy Anthony's delicious feasts, play with one-year-old cousin Jago, raid the secondhand shops in Bishop's Stortford, swim, swing and make blackberry jam.

I tend to worry about things one thing at a time (to the detriment of the future maybe) but my biggest concern today, five hours before we leave for the train is how I'm going to drag our backpack and extras up to London while keeping the mice and kids safe, and the jam upright. Once this is done roll on the rest of the things that matter - from traffic calming and world peace to when my organic veg box gets delivered again.

There are lots of jobs for September - back to school obviously - but also an autumn pulling together this travel blog into something that makes people really, really want to visit Britain, or at the very least capture the pleasures of travelling around it. And that task is obviously a lot more hard graft than the exhilarating freedom I felt from being agenda-free and on the road...

I think the girls feel the same way as they've already been suggesting places they'd like to go or see next summer - Chester, Taransay, Ullapool, Bristol, Cornwall, the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Isle of Wight, the New Forest etc, etc. We've been very lucky, not a single dud stopover, even during the wettest British summer since Celia Finnes did her epic ride around England in the 1690s (a mini ice age). Then again we've got Gore-tex, trains, mobile phones and daily newspapers so the odds were high that we would have an easy time.

What we haven't been able to do is pick out a highlight. Excellent moments included walking much of Hadrian's Wall; seeing a Roman slipper being removed from the mud at Vindolanda; spotting lots of live wildlife (eg, hare, deer) and farm diversification wildlife (buffalo, ostriches); going down a coal mine, and completing the Power Tour. Big days out may be memorable, but simple pleasures like going for walks with a borrowed dog, or playing in a ditch - preferably with a rope swing over it - are what Lola and Nell enjoyed the best. Clearly there's work to be done in our tiny garden and some rescue pet centres to visit.

Here's a huge thank you to everyone who helped us, but most especially the people who lent us their houses (plus pets and vegetable gardens), showed us the places to go, or had us to stay.

Teddy bears' picnic

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It’s all part of the excellent Little Hadham parish plan that we are turning up by the Millennium Wood in Bury Green for a teddy bears’ picnic – a free event for those with bears. The last time we were here it was for a polo match that only locals were invited to watch (held at Easter).

Lola and Nell are excited by the idea of a teddy party and ensure that my sister Eliza’s two bears get a makeover from Granny Fiona’s bit bag, and looking much smarter than they have for some time a sandy creature (Eliza/Hagrid) and a brown straw stuffed creature are soon in smart enough outfits to go down to the woods in.

Lola is in charge of Eliza’s old bear and is lucky enough to find it is the biggest – a bit impractical as we have to walk home with him later – but she also wins a beautifully designed teddy plate commemorating the occasion.

Nell is happy too because she’s picked for the magic show (note to Mums, dress your kids in red it’s a sure fire way to get them invited on to the stage, though white and every other colour works too…) and then wins a giant paper fiver that the cunning magician, Mr Ted, says her mum will swap for a real five pound note.

Even though I don't live here, I've lived in this area long enough while growing up to know enough people to really enjoy joining in. I absolutely love events like this - where there's a chance to get to know people, and zero pressure to contribute lots of money (unlike PTAs say). The organisers also have a brilliant recycling system - four dustbins labelled paper, cans, plastics and bottles - placed in the centre of action. Anyone could copy this idea, and I certainly will at the next event I find myself embroiled in.

Besides all the other pleasures - a family friendly event, old friends, prizes, veggie burgers on the BBQ and a fun trail to get you walking around the handsome wood (with wishing tree, lollipop tree etc) there was an ancient red London double decker bus (159) owned by a local man used to get visitors to and from the party via the village hall. Another brilliant idea, and free.

Family lunch

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Everyone says there have only been four good summer days this year in the south east and we are enjoying two back-to-back when an impromptu gathering of family occurs for a big outside Sunday lunch by the pool. There’s mum, her significant other, Anthony who is today's star chef (for that many thanks!); my brother Drew his wife Kate and their one year old Jago; Kate’s sister Hattie and her daughter, Izzy; my two girls and me. It’s sunny, no one’s at work and there’s just enough food to be turned into a feast that covers the trestle tables and some good wine.

I take some snaps of the six adults and four children around the table and reckon it’s as close to a magazine’s dream Mediterranean dining scene as I’ve ever been in, almost Tuscan even (though the nearest I’ve ever got to this area of the map before is Islington’s Upper Street and the infamous Granita restaurant where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did that deal). The conversation is lively, there are no tantrums and we eat in the recommended slow food manner – lots of chat and fork tines tinging as we chase tasty morsels around the plates.

Granny's moving house

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Since I was four years old my mum has lived in a lovely spot in Hertfordshire, not far from Bishop’s Stortford, but now it’s all change. She plans to move to what seems at first impressions to be a thriving villagey-town, Buntingford, once some work is done on her new home.

We’ve seen the new place twice now, once to admire and now to gawp at what the builders are doing to floors and ceilings. But we also got to clear out the pond weed; paddle with ducks by the river and arrange leaves in artful Andy Goldsworthy-type circles on the lawn. The cottage looks the sort of place that my mum could be very happy and Lola and Nell already have good memories as this is the place where they are able to purchase both mice and mouse supplies. I especially like the fact that there are no planes flying low and noisily over – something her “old” house is blighted by thanks to the seemingly endless expansion of Stansted Airport.

Strangely it is also the town where I first went to nursery school, so we are all coming back home too. I dimly remember Mum dragging my reins to stop me delaying her anymore as I climbed on and off the steps that jut out into the streets from the older houses. I also remember being shy at the nursery school when I looked at the other children (aged maybe three or four) and thought they looked so confident that I didn’t plan to even attempt to play with them.

There are times even now – more than 40 years later – when I feel exactly the same way about groups. You’d have thought I might have learnt to be a bit more skeptical about social glue by now.

Midnight walk

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It’s 10pm and I’ve just got back from taking Lola and Nell on their first dusk-to-dark nature safari. We crossed the common at dusk dodging puddles left in the ruts of 4WD while admiring the mist that had hangs like a willow the wisp across this area making it feel very spooky. But this isn't a ghost walk, so to cheer the children up we walk on the road past Norton Cottage where the owls are shouting out for company and then out into enough open space to see the full moon rising, and then getting caught up in the hornbeam trees.

Hearing the owls reminds Lola of the time we were camping by Ullswater in the Lake District and she was woken on a wet night by a hungry owlet barracking its parents for food. Owls don’t fly when it’s wet – presumably because the voles don’t show – so this poor owlet would have had two choices: pester power or munching up its sibling (assuming there was another in the nest). Lola was too sleepy to realize this and just sat up in her sleeping bag to say loudly, but politely, “Please can you stop making that noise.” I think it worked, anyway we all fell back into a very fretful sleep and the next night the little owl wasn’t so persistent.

The big block is a mile best walked anti-clockwise. It can be busy but at this time of night on a bank holiday Saturday there are only two cars. As they pass we press ourselves into the verge, me hoping they’ll dip their lights when they see my pale trousers. But when the road is restored to its usual tranquility we get to see lots of bats using the silvery lanes as if they are they are selecting insects from the pick and mix counter.

We then turn right and out into the country with a stubble field to our left and hay-scented golf course on the right. Wherever there’s long grass on the roadside verge the crickets are up for it, shouting and partying. But all’s quiet in the stubble tonight: yesterday there was a couple working the north west corner by the passing point with a huge metal detector. I think all they got was mud on their boots.

As it grows dark the golden light shillueting SPELLING the far hedgerow closes down the colours into a grey blue and then inky night. On the golf course the grass is now soaked by dew and the moon gaining enough strength to give us moon shadows.

"It looks like the moon is a planet," said Lola teasing me, she knows I get very mixed up dealing with the solar system. Nell agrees and I resolve to learn them once and for all - I'm sure there's a nymonic SPELLING where John Likes Susan's Violet Eyes to help me finally get those planets under control.

Then just as the kids grow tired and we can spot more stars than planes (hard near Stansted Airport on a bank holiday weekend) we are over the five-bar gate and into the farmyard. Here the children turn on their torches so they can dodge the giant puddles and avoid the pond. Now we are on the final straight – strolling up the lane arm in arm listening to a neighbour’s teenagers celebrate GCSE results with a loud – and good – rendition of I would walk 500 miles by The Pretenders. It's a good choice!

Back home Granny Fiona is mystified by a walk in the dark: the terrace is her night time limit. Yet when pressed she says she enjoyed night fishing as a child on Strangford Lough, in Northern Ireland, and coming back by the moonlight with the oars dripping phosphorescence. Our midnight safari is not nearly so glamorous, but what a fine way to end a summer’s day.

Mouse control

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

The mice have arrived. After two months plus of listening to my daughters dreaming up a way to be mice owners (an obsession while staying in Aberdeen where they discussed names and along miles of Hadrian's Wall where they thought up taming tactics), and seeing them get better on the web as they research how to find, feed and breed from mice we now have two.

Nell picked out Caledonia - 12 weeks and a skewbald colour.
Lola’s choice is Chilly - about 8 weeks and a dove grey colour (possibly known in fancy mice circles as chinchilla).

“They’re a lot smaller than I thought they would be,” said Lola gazing in awe at the mice. She’s seen plenty of run over rats and other mammals on her travels this summer but until then hadn’t actually seen a live mouse. “I thought they’d be 10cm not including the tail,” she says but fortunately not in a disappointed way.

Both mice are does (the bucks apparently smell but I’d say that these two lovelies do a bit too) and seem to be settling in well.

They are surprisingly relaxing to watch: we all sat around them at lunch time looking at them sniffing, climbing, pooing, munching and nesting. But I think the girls have plans to tame them so that they can let them run all over their arms. As pets go mice seem reasonably sustainable, don’t need walking and are pretty quiet. It’s a shame they have to live in a horrible, small, plastic barred cage but in my mum’s house this is the only safe place from Clio the cat.

Farmers' market at Little Hadham

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

When I first went to the Little Hadham farmers’ market, held indoors in the village hall, on sale seemed to be just two items - potatoes and bottled Hadham Water (the latter has very recently folded after a contamination incident, a real shame, not least because the company employed 50 people locally and as the nearest bottled water to the site of the London Olympics was gearing up to supply competitors and visitors to the 2012 games).

At the final Saturday of August a few years later it’s a different story. The hall is packed with shoppers and stall holders - selling steamed puddings, meat pies, honey, decorative olive oils, local beers and sheepskin rugs as well as bread, cakes, fruit and veg. Everyone is local.

My companion, Lola, (who walked down the hill via bridleways with me) has saved all summer to acquire a fiver to purchase a mouse so was aghast by the prices. “20 pounds for olive oil! That’s four mice…” Long may she use such a fascinating yardstick for my shopping basket.

On the walk back home we shared brownies and scrumped Victoria plums which are at their best at the moment, and even more so when straight from the tree.