Cold, need Canadian gloves

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This February old snap leads to questions about how people cope in really cold countries.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs). Pic is of my daughter Lola checking the post box hasn't frozen...  

Misery on my bike yesterday as both hands appeared to freeze during my 50 minute journey from Elephant and Castle back home. I wondered how cold it had to be to get frost bite. But I was wearing gloves - it's just that they are an old lady's pair, from a charity shop in Colchester. Moaning to fellow cyclists (forced to stop by me at red lights), all sympathised, but pointed at their cosy fingers claiming their gloves were warm as toast.

I think they meant bought in Canada or suitable for winter extremes.

"No such thing as bad weather, only bad gloves"
Although I have had toasty, ski gloves the problem is that one, then the other, always gets lost. Strangely I find it harder to ride my bike if I'm not in matching gloves (does anyone else have this problem?). So what I'd like to know is how to avoid losing wet gloves, damp hats and scarves. Do you know a system that makes it far harder to lose things? People living in cold places must have some secret - perhaps like gloves on a string I used when the kids were toddlers.

It's an east wind but shops are too hot
This particular cold snap comes with high pressure, and a very full moon so dry and bitter cold nights. You can see how the cold has leached the wet out of London's grey pavements. But on a shopping trip today (to get a warm duvet for Nell, for her birthday) Pete and I struggled to be warm enough for walking the streets, without dying of overheat in the Oxford Street shops.

Over to you
How do people manage this conundrum in really cold places like Moscow or Stockholm? Are there vast, efficiently run cloakrooms in their stores? Or do they just keep the store temperatures lower than we do in London .(In John Lewis quite a few of the staff were able to be in shirt sleeves - a habit which people often take home and might partially explain why the UK's carbon emissions rose by 3 per cent. It's the first time emissions have not been on a falling trend since 2003 (see story here). Horrible.

Staying warm in Sweden

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how those clever people in Sweden can still enjoy sitting outside a Stockholm cafe (without a patio heater) even when the weather is freezing. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs)  


To make sure my family is never tempted to turn on the central heating at different times to the specified 7-8.30am and 6-9pm (I think this what Pete has agreed to), there are four rugs in the sitting room that can be used to drape around the body creating a wigwam of heat. Unfortunately when our dog was younger he enjoyed chewing them and the result is a home that looks as if it has been blighted by giant moths. In the dog's defence, he does look cute when he sticks his head through one of the holes he made...


Wrap up warm
I told this story to my friend Julie on a recent two-day trip to her home, which is near Bath. It made her remember how she'd admired the rugs used by Stockholm cafe goers. To stay warm at an outside table they don't light a gas-guzzling, climate change destroying garden heater. Instead they use a rug that's been left on the back of the chair. When they've finished a smorgasbord of conversation (or more likely, a dagens ratt/dish of the day) they fold up the rug and put it neatly back over the chair. 


What a great idea - why can't more cafes and pubs (never mind home owners with patio heaters) do something similar in the UK?


Over to you?
How do you stay cosy during an outdoor winter picnic?

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...

Lapland by car club car

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

It feels mean spirirted to begrudge children a trip to see Father Christmas but that’s how I feel about the day trips by plane to the Arctic Circle. The answer has to be bringing Santa here and that’s exactly what Lapland UK has done in a secluded bit of Bedgebury Pinetum in Kent. Inevitably the pre-xmas, meet Santa tickets sold out within days of release so Lola, Nell and I decided to go after Christmas and just enjoy the snowy atmosphere reaching the site in a car club car so that we could also visit friends who live near the forest.

I’d expected to see reindeer and pat Husky dogs but did wonder how we’d pass two hours. However Lapland turns out to be a very captivating place which is staffed by cheerful elves who chat about their lives with Father Christmas to any child who wants to know. They eat elf salad (sweets) and gingerbread; are born when the Northern Lights flicker and believe that Lapland FC would beat West Ham 27-nil.

There’s two workshops – one for making toys and another for decorating gingerbread – but we were also able to explore the Post Office and write to Father Christmas. The highlight for me was sitting on a thick reindeer skin and listening to a traditional Swedish folk story in a kota (like a big wigwam or yurt). Nell was lucky enough to peep into Father Xmas’s log cabin and see the big man’s slippers warming by the fire (a woodburner). When we got home she told her dad that Father Xmas isn’t concerned enough about climate change…

Lapland UK was a really well-thought out adventure, run by enthusiastic people who stayed in character all the time. It also gave us real insight into life in the Arctic. Best of all we arrived at dusk and left in the dark so were able to enjoy the twinkly lights and crunch of foot on snow as we followed the trails around Santa’s forest home fortified by a glass of hot apple punch.