Category: General Musings

Just a quick one to say that today was the first day in 4 months that I haven’t had to use my wool coat. I have been noticing that in the last week I haven’t needed my gloves or my hat but the scarf and wool coat where still in use.

But today, finally, the sun was shining, there was actually warmth radiating from the sun and it was time to take off the coat to show my incredibly fluorescent white arms and legs to the world. Woo hoo, bring on summer!

Last Monday night we attended a presentation entitled “Hope for Planet Earth”. Put together by a Christian organisation called the John Ray Initiative their key vision as a charity based educational group is to bring together scientific and christian based understandings of the environment and how we interact. In short – understanding climate change and our responsibilities in relation to the earth as custodians of this while we are here.

At the end of the day there are often a lot of christian organisations valiantly trying to convey gods word but they often fall short because of a lack of resources or possibly drive to meet the high expectations of a media savvy society. So often the talent that many christians possess in their day to day jobs is often not used effectively. Why are our expectations of quality lowered and accepted if it is run by a christian organisation? In short, I wasn’t expecting a lot out of this but was keen to attend.

We were both pleasantly surprised. Yes, the hall was freezing, it was 4 minutes late starting (just within my tardiness tolerance range) and the sound issues were unpleasant. However, the content was informative, well balanced and took a new perspective on what we have heard many times before from many different angles. Key things I personally took away from the presentation were as follows:

1. In Mark 12:33 we are given the great commandment to love God with everything in us (I paraphase here) and to love our neighbour as yourself. I get this but hadn’t been applying it far enough outwardly. Our relentless drive for more is obviously impacting our environment which in turn significantly impacts poorer nations more so than us due to the effects of drought, floods, deforestation etc which creates environmental refugees. We might quite enjoy the warmer weather here in England however the pressures placed specifically on struggling nations means the concept of loving your “neighbour” is broadened.

2. Population growth. Limiting population growth or the opportunity to industrialize in developing countries is short sighted. We need to look at our use of resources. We have had our time of getting to a point where we can generate income and resources to be sustainable, now we need to look at how we use these wisely. Did you know that the resources used to raise one child in Britain is equivilent to resources required to raise 12-16 children in a country such as Bangladesh. With low wages, limited or no access to public services such as hospitals or aged care facilities etc a support system is required and this comes in the form of a large family. Each one of those family members is needed in order to survive. This is what our nations did before the “nuclear” family scenario set in. Over the years wages got better which we feed back into taxes which supply our basic services, we have money for our luxuries and less need for a big family to take care of us in old age. We have gone from an average sized family of 7.3 children to 3.2 children between 1800-1900 (note latter half of 1800 was a key time in the industrial revolution) to today in England it is at 1.86 children per family. What does this mean? We need to limit our excessive need for more and live within our sustainable range. Also, we need to support our neighbours in the developing countries so they can get to a point of sustainable balance.

3. Carbon air miles. The big issue on many peoples minds at this stage. It is driving many people to buy locally etc which is great but we need to ensure that we are not inadvertantly punishing struggling nations from becoming sustainable themselves. Think about where and what you are buying. Where it can be sourced locally do so but think about other products that are assisting developing countries in getting out of the poverty cycle.

4. Alternative fuel sources. Initially a fantastic idea however the issue now is land usage. Greater deforestation is occurring in some developing nations in order to grow this crop which kind of defeats the purpose in many ways. In addition land for food production is now being used for this fuel source leading to food shortages in the nations most needing it. Biofuels are not the be all and end all answer to our woes. Biofuels possibly make us feel better about our carbon emission decrease but don’t address the issue of consumption.

I am still digesting the information at this point and wanted to download from my head what I got from it. It is an ongoing dialogue with myself and I am sure in 5 years time I will look at it again and say “what was I thinking?” given new information and advances in technology etc. Anyway, that’s the download at this point. Hopefully it has given you food for thought, digest it, rebuke it, add to the discussion or whatever takes you fancy.

Todays blog is dedicated to Phil so he will actually read this!

OK so it was really cheap, I have never actually ridden it as yet, it had a flat tyre (hence not having ridden it yet) and it was chained up outside our house for the last 6 months in an area prone to lifting anything that isn’t bolted down. What did I expect?

Darn it!!!!

One year since this blog has been in action (date of the first entry was 26th December 2006) and I have had fun looking back through our year. So far I have written up 12 movies (however we have seen far more than this). I have failed to add anything about the books I have read this year which is a shame as there have been a number of good ones, there have only been 3 “Observation” entries however I have now completed the 101st entry to date.

I have never been one for extravagant new year resolutions as situations can change so quickly and there are few things more demoralising than looking back at a list of plans and feeling as if you have not accomplished anything. However I do think it wise to plot a “destination” just as we did when we decided to move to the UK although it is not always a literal location that I refer to. This way we have the direction but because we are not so fixated on the rock solid unwavering plan of getting there we have time to listen, take notice and be proactive to what is happening around us. I think this also holds well in day to day life. We get so caught up in our tunnel vision of where we need to be that we forget to really look and listen to what is going on around us.

So here’s to a new year of listening, seeing, undertaking wise counsel and being proactive.

Finally I was all warm and toasty for a change. Off in a lovely deep sleep when the next thing I know hubbie is wide awake and peering out the window. As all I have on the brain at the moment is the hope of snow I thought the time had finally come. We have had continuous days of temps that haven’t gone above 0 and in particular Thursday saw many a car that was still covered in ice, ice covered gardens and even iced over ponds.

However, it was not meant to be. Outside our place were 4 fire trucks, lights blazing, fighting a house fire 2 doors down from us. I don’t know what was more scary. The fact that we didn’t even hear these trucks pull up in the first place or that the smell of smoke did not wake us up. Then again, that’s why so many home fires are fatal without an alarm as smoke inhalation is the majority cause of death in house fires. Thankfully we do have an incredible alarm system in our place and it was only faint wiffs of smoke so not enough to raise the alarm.

Then this morning the police were out in force door knocking to see if anyone heard anything. We obviously were not much assistance. However, I did glean from them that it was most likely not arson (which is a relief as we have 2 empty buildings either side of us) and unfortunately someone was inside at the time and was injured. Thankfully it appears that the injuries were not too severe.

As I was half expecting a fireman to knock on the door to order an evacuation a number of things went through my mind. The first obviously a prayer for safety for the firecrew and anyone inside the house, secondly where our warmest clothes were as it would be freezing outside and third what must be taken with us regardless of time given to move. Living in such a digital age it was the laptop as this is our link to everything and everyone we know and next any important papers for identity purposes as they are a vital requirement to get anything done in this country. Finally, the fact that we really should take out insurance as replacing things like passports can get really costly. We don’t have a lot which is great and quite liberating but the few links we have to home are vital. Anyway all worked out well.