Deus in machina*

When Stuart placed the bambino Jesus in the crib, he reached over the wall and into the scene. And I mused, possibly less coherently than I'm stating it now: "It looks very deus ex machina; the incarnation wasn't like that." But not until I saw The Nativity, all 4 lots of 30 minutes of it today, had I ever really considered the sheer biological and emotional messiness of it all. God is not outside the machine, setting it whirring and dispassionately observing or even ignoring it; God is fully, intimately involved.

I was going to write more, but I'm tired and it's all gone right out of my head. Probably over-excitement engendered by Ian's excellent quiz. Who knew that Burnley Miners' Club is the world's biggest single consumer of Bénédictine liqueur?

* Deus ex machina doesn't really have an opposite in this sense, but you get the idea.

Nudge nudge

A friend sent me a book called "Nudge" for Christmas (thanks Stephen). It originally hails from the US, but my copy is the "New International Edition", which makes it sound a bit like a Bible translation (but doesn't appear to have influenced the spelling). And I suppose environmental and social activists could use it as a sort-of bible in the modern sense of the word, i.e. as a source of information, advice and ideas for influencing individuals, companies and governments. It's not about 'command and control' policies, but about designing how choices are offered to achieve desirable results, e.g. better eating habits, higher rates of pension scheme membership, more organ donations. Here are a few snippets related to the environment.

Framing
Campaigns to encourage energy efficiency are far more effective if framed in terms of losses than savings. In other words, if you don't insulate your loft, you'll be losing £200 a year to your gas company.

Following the herd
We choose what others choose. For example, people were told about how much energy they and others in their neighbourhood consumed in a week, and whether they were above or below average. In the next week, above-average consumers decreased their energy use. Unfortunately, the below-average consumers increased their use! But half of the households were also given an emoticon to indicate social disapproval :-( of their above-average consumption or social approval :-) of their below-average consumption. In this case, the above-average consumers decreased their energy use even further, while the below-average consumers kept their usage low.

Information disclosure
The Toxic Release Inventory was originally just intended to provide the US Environmental Protection Agency with information about the quantities of potentially hazardous chemicals stored or released into the environment by companies and individuals. It didn't mandate any behavioural change, but resulted in greatly reduced emissions as companies tried to avoid the adverse publicity of being on the 'blacklist'.
Labelling goods with their energy/water consumption when used (A-G rating) and ideally their embodied energy (energy consumed in their manufacture and maybe transport) helps in making decisions over whether to replace that old washing machine, and if so, with which model.

Feedback
Often we don't have immediate feedback on the consequences of our choices; the cost of turning up the thermostat isn't apparent until our next monthly or quarterly energy bill. Smart meters are being rolled out across the country, but will only provide information about your consumption back to the electricity companies. Many local libraries have stocks of electricity monitors for borrowing, and these will tell you how much electricity you are using at any one time - it may well be shocking!

Thaw

An awakening to above-zero temperatures, and the snow has mostly disappeared. My eyes are relieved from the insistent incident whiteness. Colours, which had been erased from the canvas, have been re-painted - the muted olives, bronzes, khakis, greys and coppers of dogwood, winter grass, bark and beech leaves. Scenes have regained their depth and three-dimensionality.

Another walk by the Thames with a friend and her children. There are still some patches of ice under the banks, thick enough for a little light moorhen strutting. The ground is still frozen, overlain by a thin layer of sodden grass and mud.

Frivolous research

TED posts the occasional 'best of the rest' on its Facebook page, and directed me to this fascinating talk by Prof Tim Birkhead. He describes a little of how we know what we know about birds. For example, only male canaries sing. But, when synthetic testosterone became available in the 1940s, unscrupulous canary breeders found that giving their female canaries a shot would cause them to burst into song for a time. In the 1970s, some researchers questioned how this could be, and found that the shots of testosterone caused new neurones to grow in the birds' brains. Scientists thought that was totally impossible; the conventional wisdom was that the neurones we're born with in our brain, are the ones we will die with. So one frivolous study of canaries changed the direction of neurobiology; if you know how to grow new neurones, then you can repair brain damage.

So to quote Birkhead: "In today's climate, the government is looking very closely at the kind of research that they fund, and they think that things like studying birdsong is kind of frivolous research. What possible economic benefits could there be from that? But in fact, birdsong is one of the most powerful examples of why you should fund 'frivolous' research, because the study of birdsong holds the promise of a cure for Alzheimers."

For'n parts

A hop,skip and a jump by car, train and bus, and I'm with my parents in Abingdon for a short break. There is a lot of activity in their garden, with a wheeling flock of black-headed gulls being shadowed by a greater black-backed. A red kite loomed huge and low - "we see them all the time".

We walked out of town past the house we moved from in 1973 to Thrupp Lake, a local wildlife oasis formed from a flooded gravel pit. The owners, npower, planned to fill it with fly ash from Didcot power station, but it was saved by locals and is now managed by the Northmoor Trust. One or two swans and a substantial number of the hundreds of coots came over to say hello, and presumably in search of food. Eight swans took off in formation and circled behind us. I thought they'd gone, but then one returned over our heads, and skated on the ice before settling into the water, and the others soon followed. A heron stayed aloof, huddled on the edge of the ice in the middle of the lake. And then it became skittish, several times making as if to launch into flight, but just moving a few metres. There were also a few ducks, including diving tufted ducks, and some very small grey ducks with black heads and tails that I can't work out but could I suppose have been juvenile coots. The power station fly ash was put to much better use in the fabrication of breeze blocks for buildings like Mucknell.

We then headed to the railway and the Thames, accompanied by the noise of revving motorbikes. More ducks, a black swan, a skein of something I couldn't identify (should have taken the binoculars and camera), a small swarm of sparrows, and unexpectedly a cormorant. Well, the RSPB says "it is increasingly being seen inland at reservoirs, lakes and gravel pits."

Mmm... Boxing Day

Got up... Went to chapel... Thought about going for a walk in the fog... Found some Ashes highlights online instead... Read some Brother Cadfael... Ate a lot... More chapel... Turned in...

Merry Christmas!

It started foggy, but the sun soon burnt it off, even though temperatures stayed well below zero all day. The roof of the chapel sparkled against the deep blue zenith, and steamed as the snow sublimated. The boiler flue also billowed steam, which rose vertically, as the boiler worked hard to keep us warm. Mucknell is still a winter wonderland, and from my window the snow looked pale blue as if it were reflecting the sky. A strand of spider's web outside the refectory window was covered in hoarfrost - natural tinsel - spinning in the very slightest breeze. There are animal and bird tracks criss-crossing everywhere, even in the thin layer of snow covering the ice in the pond and swales. A couple of birds, probably crows, have landed on Mucknell Mount (the mound screening the boiler shed), walked across the summit, and taken off again. Sunset brought a brilliant strip of orange framing the Malverns.

Saturday is meter-reading day. Being proper scientists/data-junkies/geeks (delete as appropriate), we made no exception for Christmas Day. The solar panels have been covered in snow all week, and no way of geting up there to clear them. While photovoltaics will still generate some electricity when covered with a thin layer of snow that lets some sunlight through, we've had too much. So despite the brilliant blue skies, solar electricity and hot water generation have been zero.

And we finished the day singing Compline by candlelight.

Around the crib

Bethlehem is situated within the West Bank, around which Israel is constructing a separation barrier. In some cases, the wall has separated Palestinian villages from their farmland. Ian and I based the crib on this political situation, and used some of the actual graffiti from this wall and the Gaza Strip separation barrier. On the left behind the holy family, is a reproduction of the Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel; in the centre, a tree with the words "Rejoice Palestine"; on the right, the dove of peace in a flak jacket, with sights trained upon it; out of shot, Banksy's girl with balloons.

Will the magi be allowed through?

God of justice,
you were born into an occupied land torn apart by anger, greed and insecurity;
be born in our hearts and make us instruments of justice for all peoples.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

Vulnerable God,
you were born and lived among the homeless, the marginalised and the poor;
be born in our hearts and make us instruments of healing.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

God of peace,
you were born as a light to Israel and all nations;
be born in our hearts and make us instruments of peace.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

Save Our Forests *

Imagine the following forests and woodlands being fenced off or logged, or turned into Center Parcs and golf courses - Forest of Dean, New Forest, Sherwood Forest, parts of Dartmoor managed by the Forestry Commission - and sign this petition against it... now!! Defra announced the plans in a letter to MPs on 29 October. I missed this the first time round, and nearly missed it this time round too. So bear with me if you've already protested. 38 Degrees have provided a short campaign briefing. The Forest of Dean has mobilised a Hands off our Forest campaign. I'd better not add what I think of our current 'government'.

In other news, I have made bread for the first time since leaving Broad Marston and the thumb incident. It was good to get back to it, but kneading was hard work! Preparations are continuing for Christmas. We have sang the last of the Great Os, 'O Emmanuel'. The product of seasonal tree-logging will be decorated tomorrow.

* I know there are lots of other things to protest about. This issue seemed to me to be in the spirit of the blog, and I am very angry about it. Thanks.

Guttering

Where did today go? Snow played a large part. Temperatures have occasionally managed to get to just above zero in the past few days, and we have had some thawing and refreezing, resulting in some impressive icicles. But all the gutters are struggling under the weight of thawed and refrozen ice and a roof-ful of snow. We noticed a section within the courtyard bending under the strain, and managed to clear it before any broke off, but were too late with most of the west side of the building. We don't have ladders long enought to reach the two-storey buildings, and are hoping that any avalanches don't take the gutters with them.

Off-white

The shortest day, so now the evenings will get longer more than the mornings get shorter. I tried looking out for the 'red moon', a total eclipse of the full moon in the shadow of the earth. The redness comes from sunlight which passes through earth's atmosphere, is refracted on the way, then reflected back by the moon to earth. The winter solstice and red moon haven't coincided since 1638. Unfortunately I couldn't see the moon, either because I was looking in the wrong direction, or because it was too low in the horizon to creep over the slightly higher ground to the northwest, or because it was drowned out by the orange glow of Worcester, or because of plain-old cloud. So a friend sent: "A text 4 u then. Ps 145.3-6. Even if there is no red moon to see."

Like yesterday, not really a day for going out much, but a group of us ventured through the sleet into Pershore. The snow that looks so beautiful and pristine on the fields and hedgerows had become ugly treacherous slush on the roads and carparks (there's an allegory in there somewhere). We could barely get out of the lane onto the main road - Ian and Thomas had to push while I kept a look out for traffic - or the carpark.

Libraries

The skies were grey and white and heavy with snow during the morning, and an inch or so fell during the afternoon. Not a day for going out much, and spent instead unpacking boxes of books. Finally the library is beginning to look like a library, and the poetry and fiction are finding their way to the community room.

We've found that the pipes from the rainwater harvesting tank hadn't been lagged and so have frozen - see posting on 8 December to work out the implications of this.

We also had another wee practice of the 'simple' music we're planning to sing at the crib service. By George, I think the basses have got it! I have Noteworthy Composer on my laptop, and can play accompaniments and/or 'supporting' lines through the TV speakers in the community room and the audio system in the oratory. I don't think they'll need support for our little a cappella number, but I could let on about the library of accompaniments available on the Net Hymnal website...

Zoom zoom

John and Denise and family came over from Worcester for a spot of sledging down the new landscaping. We had a few challenges! The slope down to the north of the Abbey needs to level out a bit more gently for it to be ideal, as it caused quite a few runs to come to an abrupt halt. And the snow needs to be a bit deeper to cushion the lumps of bare earth; my coccyx is feeling the effects! And their marvellously excitable dog Virginia Woof was running in front of the toboggan and biting our boots, only narrowly avoiding being run over, which was a little off-putting! All rounded off with a cup of tea or other beverage of choice.

Just before tea, a blue tit appeared at the top of one of the refectory windows. I was surprised to see it, as it is a garden rather than a farmland bird, and there are no peanut feeders here. It hovered briefly as if confused, before visiting the corners, presumably for some foodstuff. A few seconds later, it re-entered stage right and zoomed at the boiler shed, took evasive action by cornering impressively, and cornered again to disappear round the side.

Visibility and obscurity

Not surprisingly, the morning began with snow, a heavy enough 'white out' that looked like dense fog. It had stopped by mid-morning, so Thomas and I went out to clear the incline. By lunchtime, it had started snowing again and our efforts were obscured. Not wasted effort, as there'll be a bit less to clear tomorrow, and we were visited by an angel.

In the morning, Anthony pointed out a group of meadow pipits. According to the RSPB, "In winter they are quite gregarious and gather in small flocks, often invisible among the vegetation", unless said vegetation happens to be largely covered in snow, in which case they are very visible indeed.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, up to a depth of about 6 inches by dusk. Not much compared with some areas, but enough to soften the edges, drift picturesquely around chapel, put little hats on the bollard lights and provide a piste for tobogganing (on compost bags filled with snow). And enough to make us wonder whether the lane will be passable tomorrow.

'O Sapientia'

We woke up to another slight dusting of snow, nothing like elsewhere in the country.
Dawn was a sickly band of yellow under a dark louring cloud, and it was still almost dark after Lauds at 7.30am. I'll be glad when sunrise starts getting later again (not until about two weeks after the solstice). But the sun did manage to come out, and by lunchtime the snow had mostly cleared.

The biomass boiler has continued to throw up occasional 'overfill of combustion chamber' faults, and an engineer from the installers came today and made some tweaks to the set-up, which should solve the problem. The boiler had to be cool, and he was due at 8.30am, so we switched it off after Compline. But that gave us a chance to test whether the LPG had been fixed and was capable of fulfilling its back-up role... which it was.

Today is 'O Sapientia', as we enter the last seven days of Advent and start singing the Great O Antiphons with the Magnificat. The O Antiphons are most well known as the source material for the hymn 'O come, O come, Emmanuel'. Each one is a title for the Messiah, and each draws partly on the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah. The first letters of the titles taken backwards form an acrostic - "Ero Cras" - which translates to "Tomorrow, I will come".

Latin:
O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

English:
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Bluster

Here is a 'mood view' of House at Poo Corner with hoarfrost and sunset.

The House is a small-yet-over-sized ever-so-slightly-ridiculous not-very-aerodynamic shed, which houses the electric pumps, which pump air into the biodigester. It was a rather blustery day, and the poor shed was blown away, along with a water butt (unattached so unweighted by water), and a plastic wheelbarrow (nearly, but thankfully not, into the greenhouse). We also had a lot of other weather, including rain, sheeting rain, sleeting rain, low cloud, sunny intervals and a double rainbow. It's not very desirable for electric pumps to be open to sheeting rain, and one poor workman was out in it, trying to fix the shed before it got dark. By tea-time, the side of Bredon was white with snow. I wonder what we will wake up to. Or rather, up to what we will wake...

Cold weather risks

Another "Arctic blast" is forecast to reach the UK from tomorrow. We didn't get much snow here last time, and probably won't this time either. But all this cold weather has a serious impact on human health, and not just from slipping on ice. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in winter 2009/10, there were an estimated 25,400 excess winter deaths in England and Wales, which is a 16.6% increase compared to mortality rates during the rest of the year. Older people are particularly at risk - the increase among the over 85s was 23.4% - but young people are not exempt. The Mirror ran an article yesterday on "A day in the life of an NHS hospital": "SAFARI Ward [in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Woolwich, SE London] is for children aged from one day through to 16 years old. Today 70% of the residents are babies suffering breathing problems because of the cold weather." The excess is mostly linked to circulatory and respiratory diseases, and is particularly high during winters when seasonal influenza reaches epidemic levels. So try and keep warm, between 18 and 21 °C, avoid shivering, wrap up warmly outside and wear a hat, and be sensible!

At the beginning of the Eucharist, I could hear what sounded like a broken record of a Tawny owl. Not really their time of day, so it might have been someone wheezing close by or the carpenter drilling further off, but I could hear it again during Vespers. Anthony says he's heard a couple of Barn owls chatting down the field in the early morning, and there are one or two living in one of the willows along the stream.

Muckenhill

The available history of Mucknell is somewhat patchy, that is at least, the history which is available via Google. At some point, it became merged in the manor of Stoulton and followed the same descent.

A tree-ring analysis of samples from three timbers in the farmhouse showed that "the (probably) two trees represented were felled in the late spring or very early summer of 1439". The rest of the farmhouse was a mix of more modern building and had little heritage merit; when it was demolished, we preserved these 15th century crooks.  The tree-ring analysis gives somemore of the history: "In 1625 the Manor of Stoulton was sold to Samuel Sandys of Ombersley. Due to his involvement in the Civil War, Sandys mortgaged the property to the Somers family of Worcester, who subsequently acquired the freehold before 1716. It was bequeathed in that year to by John Somers to his two sisters, one of whom, Mary Cocks, inherited the whole. It was in the hands of her grandson, Sir Charles Cocks by 1781, at which time the estate covered about two thirds of the parish and was worth about £1050 per annum."

In Kelly's directory for 1900, 1904 and 1908, one Frank Smithin is listed as a Farmer at Muckenhill, Stoulton. Frank Smithin (1867-1916) was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth. He was born at Wadborough in 1867; registered at Pershore in the June quarter. At the 1891 census, aged 23, he was at home at Wadborough Farm. At the 1901 census he was living at Hill Farm, Stoulton. He died, aged 49, on the 17th June 1916; registered at Pershore in the June quarter. There is a memorial at Stoulton. Some time after this, Muckenhill Farm was put up for sale. According to the auction folder, the farmhouse had a well, six bedrooms, a servant's room, two store rooms, an American range and two furnaces. The farm was 198 acres in size, for which rental was £107 15s 0d.

Mucknell itself was a working farm and potato chipping business until 2004. By 2008, when we bought it, much of the land had been sold off and the farm buildings were derelict.

Various suggestions have been made about the root meaning of Mucknell. The one which finds most favour with us is "hill with a large [Anglo-Saxon: muckle] view".

Mokenhulle

History of the name and the place continued, derived from information I could find on Google. Today's source: what else but taxation records

Domesday had proceeded on a manorial division, and Mucenhil was a berewick of the manor of Kempsey.

By the time of the "Lay subsidy roll for the county of Worcester, circ. 1280", in the reign of Edward I, Mucenhil had become Mokenhulle. The 1280 Roll proceeds on the division into vills, which may or not be parishes, and Mokenhulle is listed separately. The introduction to the 1893 edition for the Worcestershire Historical Society makes the assumption that all householders were taxed towards the subsidy and therefore that the Roll shows the number of householders in each vill. Under Mokenhulle, the Roll lists Robert son of Walter, Walter le Vinch, Alicia of Mokenhulle, Richard of the same and Adam of the same, who together paid taxes of £4 7s 4d. Note that the inclusion of Alicia of Mokenhulle in the list of tax-payers indicates that she was a property owner in her own right.

In the "Lay subsidy roll for the county of Worcester : Edward I. [i.e. III]" (1895 edition), Mokenhulle is listed under Kempsey, and the detail is lost among a wider group of tax-payers. John of Mokenhulle is listed as paying variously 8d and 9d, but there may be others.

Later in the reign of Edward III, the "Lay subsidy rolls, A.D. 1346, and A.D. 1358" (1900 edition), list aid for knighting the King's eldest son: "And 60s. from Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, for one fee and a half in Muckenhill and Stockton, which William de Beauchamp formerly held, etc." Muckenhill is the Victorian version of the name.

Mucenhil

On reflection, my previous post asking for requests was a mistake. This blog is a scrapbook of things that have interested me. If they interest anyone else, that's a bonus, but I'm not writing for an audience. Sorry!

My body has returned from Devon, but my mind hasn't caught up with it yet, and I haven't really been 'present' all day. So it's good to remind myself of the roots of this place. Mucknell Farm goes back at least as far as the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as 'Mucenhil'. The relevant paragraph is translated:

"Of this manor Urse the sheriff holds 3 BEREWICKS of 7 hides, Mucknell, Stoulton, Upper Wolverton. There are 7 ploughs, and 7 villans and 7 bordars and 7 slaves, and 16 acres of meadow. For these 3 estates farm was rendered TRE, for they were always for the sustenance. They are worth 100s."

And by way of further explanation:

• BEREWICK - Derived from the Old English word for corn farm, referring to an outlying holding within a manor, separate but taxed as a part of that manor.
• hide - Measurement of land for tax assessment, of approximately 120 acres, depending on local variations in the acre.
• plough - A plough team with its eight oxen and the plough itself. The measure of a hide was originally the amount of land which such a team could plough in one day.
• villan or villagers - Member of the peasant class with the most land.
• bordar or smallholder - Middle class of peasant, usually with less land than a villager but more than a cottager.
• slave - A man or woman who owed personal service to another, and unable to move home or work or change allegiance, to buy or to sell, without permission.
• TRE - "Tempora Regis Eduardis", that is, in the time of King Edward the Confessor; by implication, when all in the realm was legally correct and ownership would have been rightfully secured.
• sustenance - That is, of the bishop of the Church of St Mary of Worcester.
• 100s - Shillings, for accounting purposes (there was no actual coin).

Intermission pt3

Intermission pt2

Intermission pt1

Request for requests

Yesterday the mains water supply went. Today the rainwater harvesting went, so no water in the loos. We haven't had much rain, so the tank had emptied, and the floats that were meant to trigger a mains top-up had tangled. Destructive testing R Us, and back came the guys.

I'm now away in Devon for a few days, so there will be a bit of an intermission. Thank you to everyone who reads my ramblings (more than 2,000 page views in the last month!), and for all your comments. If there's anything you'd particularly like to know about, subject to me knowing anything about it and to any necessary privacy, please leave a request in the comments.

Water and ice

Lots of architects, builders, contractors and sub-contractors turned up for the site meeting today. And a few workmen too, for good measure, looking into the water pumps, manifolds, thermostats, etc. It's my turn to clean, and of course as soon as I swabbed some deck or other, a few muddy boots immediately tramped past. So I reluctantly (!) gave up.When they'd all gone, we found that we were without water... so some of them came straight back and found that the pumps had been re-set up wrongly. They figure they may as well move in. They'll be back tomorrow.

Temperatures were down to -8 °C at Pershore last night, and it was probably even colder here. There was an incredible hoarfrost more than a centimetre long on the trees. Most of the colours were whites and browns, with the occasional splash of green ivy, yellow lichen and red hips. As I was wandering around trying to take representative photos, a fieldfare hopped ahead of me on the tree-guards, just like the robin leading the children to the beavers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Disappointments

We awoke to fog and went to bed with the fog still persisting. Around lunchtime workmen started popping up to work on the snags, because tomorrow is the One Month On site meeting by when all the snags were supposed to have been fixed. I have written previously of Mucknell as an earthly paradise, but today is a good chance to redress the balance and get a bunch of bad news out in one go in time-honoured political fashion. You have to expect snags with a new building, but here's a list of disappointments that are harder to deal with. They are both mine and others' (at the risk of misrepresenting them).

• Having to wait until the cusp of winter before moving in, and then have heating issues to deal with when it's cold, snowy, icy and frosty, and mud outside instead of incipient grass.
• There are squillions of security lights and other gadgets that seemingly have to be on all the time, consuming electricity.
• There are concerns regarding the trade-off between insulation and allowing the old building to breathe - just how sustainable is the building?
• We asked for excellent sound-proofing, but are still able to hear movements next door and above or below, and especially water running.
• Then there are the other noises: the squeaky flooring in the corridors; the fire panel humming in the Oratory; the underfloor heating manifolds whining in concert; the water pumps in the basement shuddering; and the malfunctioning security lights beeping.
• Stuff not finished very well, or not properly installed, or not done in the way that was requested.
• I was hoping that I would be able to sit and look out of my window, but it is too high.
• The new community building is reminiscent of a row of 1960s maisonettes.
• It feels as though some of the design has had an institution in mind, rather than a home.
• And I expect there are others.

Gin o'clock :-)

In the last hour of sun, I went for a second walk on the footpaths to the east, with Mary this time, and taking slightly different turnings through slightly different fields. Between the track and a series of paddocks, there was a strip of sunflowers, heads now bowed and shrivelled, but still providing sustenance for wintering birds. A flock of partridges whirred out of the long grass as we approached, and further on a flock of smaller birds. They could well have been redwings, but it was difficult to tell as they flew into silhouette.

A couple of bottles of sloe gin are now sitting in my ensuite... only to remind me to shake them every day for the next week, honest! The recipe says it'll be a couple of months before they're ready, so maybe in time to celebrate England's victory in the Ashes, T20 and ODI series down under... or something more monastic, such as Candlemas!

Lifting fog

There was fog to start, and the potential for icy roads, and I was worried that the wood chip lorry wouldn't get here. But he arrived at 9-ish, and the fog suddenly lifted as I brought him a cup of tea (milk and 2 sugars). So we now have fuel - hooray! We  chatted for a while about the fuel supply. He operates out of a depot near Worcester about 8 miles away. They source the wood from a radius of 10 miles or so, and do their own chipping, so it is a local operation. The chip is delivered by weight. He has a widget in the cab that he sets at 6.5 tonnes and it counts down as the lorry gradually tips and the chip is blown into the store. They're under pressure to deliver in this weather, as consumption doubles in the cold, and we'll need another delivery in 10-14 days.

So the electric oil-filled radiators can be put away again, although we'll probably keep the wood-fired stove going in the refectory. The LPG boiler has so far been as much use for back-up heating as a wet blanket but hopefully someone will come and repair it next week.

Holidays

I took Ian to the station today, and hopefully he will make it to Coventry and Kent. Gabriel managed to get back from Kent and Burford. Mary is stranded in more then 20 inches of snow near Chesterfield. Anthony and Thomas have probably got to Ayrshire and the New Forest, but will they make it back? I have to say it's quite hard work keeping things going without them, mentally as well as physically - that is, seeing other people under pressure and wondering whether there's anything more I should or could be doing to help.

A bit more shovelling of wood chip, and praying hard that the chip lorry will get throuhg tomorrow. Apparently the company asked Thomas whether we wanted a delivery on Tuesday, but he said later in the week would be fine. He may not want to get back from holiday; he's going to get lynched!

Warming activity

It's the weather for doing active jobs, rather than sitting and reading or surfing.

I swept the sloping part of the drive again, in a meditative kind of way, and saluted the Sainsbury man and the HDN man as they drove up to deliver stuff. We're not quite getting all of our food locally as yet, although Stoulton Farm Shop (founded more than 70 years ago) is an excellent source of fruit, veg and eggs, and there's a good butcher with meat from local farms. The Sainsbury man brought me my gin, so the sloes will come out of the freezer soon... and there are some still in the hedgerows if necessary. Anthony says the birds don't eat sloes except as a last resort, because the thorns can be lethal. They certainly make pretty enscriptions on my hands and forearms.

Then I started assembling a flat-pack desk (which the box says is made from FSC certified wood products), until I found one of the plastic bits (so not entirely FSC certified wood products) was broken, at which point I had to go on an extended quest for superglue. Maybe I'll finish that tomorrow too.

After supper, we all got into the wood chip store and shovelled chip into the path of the machinery. I was boiled at Compline; Henry Ford was right.

Chip chop

I walked in the snow down to the solitary oak and along the stream. As happened by the railway line, I got close to the buzzard without seeing it, then caught a brief flash of tallit as it flushed. I stood for a while listening to its mews, from somewhere in the line of trees running north, but it didn't reappear.

We're getting low on wood chip, and hoping we'll hold out out until our next delivery on Saturday. And we're hoping that they'll be able to get here! We have cleared the snow off the sloping part of the drive, but more snow is forecast tonight and on Saturday, so we expect to have to do it again. We also chopped some wood for the stove in the refectory, and inaugurated it, snuggling round at tea-time. Old Chinese Proverb (well, actually Henry Ford): "Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice."

Incidentally, google "How much wood would a wood chip chop if a wood chip would chop wood?" and you get the answer 13.  Hmmm.

Mountains to climb

Back to the fracture clinic for the third and, barring unlikely problems, final time. This time I was seen one and a half hours after my appointment time (these really are fictitious), and again my appointment lasted 30 seconds. I had William Fiennes "The Snow Geese" with me to read: my body was in a past-its-best waiting room lit by fluorescent strips and ventilated by two oscillating desk fans; my mind and heart were standing on top of a prairie knob and leaning back into the wind, surrounded by the bromegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, bluestem, western wheatgrass, echinacea and leafy spurge of the Missouri coteau.

We had maybe an inch of snow over night. The Malverns under their icing were looking positively Alpine, but of course they are much older. The Alpine ranges (Alps, Apennines, Himalayas, etc) were formed 60 million odd years ago. The Malverns are "formed of some of the most ancient rocks in England, mostly igneous and metamorphic rocks from the late pre-Cambrian, around 600 million years old".

Meanwhile, climate negotiators are meeting from 29 November to 10 December at Cancun in Mexico, to try to hammer out a deal on limiting future emissions of carbon dioxide. And I would like to take this opportunity to say that record low November temperatures are not by themselves evidence that the climate is not warming. First, the UK forms less than 0.05% of the world's surface area, and weather in the UK is not exactly representative of the rest of the world; while we are experiencing below-average temperatures, Perth in Australia has been having a heat wave. Second, weather and climate are different beasties. Weather happens day-by-day, and is changing all the time; climate is the 30-year average and is a trend. So, climate change is happening, scientists are more than 90% sure that it is the result of human activity, it is already affecting people in the poorest parts of the world, it is a major issue of justice, it is still possible to avoid dangerous climate change if we get on with it. Please pray for the negotiations in Cancun.

Advent already!

Yesterday was Advent Sunday... which means it's nearly Christmas! But in the 'outside' (aka 'real') world, I expect it's been 'Christmas' for two months already, at least, and there'll be more and more 'Christmas' piled high and sold cheap as the shopping days count down. And there'll be nativity plays and carol singing and carol services galore, because these days not even churches are able to observe Advent. So I am really happy to be in community, and able and allowed to spend time waiting in expectation alongside Isaiah and Mary and John the Baptist.

One thing I do miss, however, is the Advent choral music. For the past few years I was part of a choir singing a candlelit service at St Petrox church down at the furthermost tip of Dartmouth, and before then went to the Advent Sunday choral service at Exeter Cathedral. It is the most beautiful music of the church year. I dare anyone not to be moved by the final verse of "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree" by Elizabeth Poston sung as a seven-part round. The music of longing...

Not drowning but waving

Another bitterly cold start; the Met Office website says that it went down to -10.5 °C overnight in Pershore, and barely made it over -4 °C all day. Ice crystals formed on the glass wall of the east link, around the nuclei of imperfections in the glass and along a cobweb blown onto the surface. I found the macro feature on my camera and managed to take a decent close-up showing some of the detail.

Ian, Philip and I took advantage of the frozen ground to get closer to the front of the community building. We then walked south and round a neighbouring field, and stumbled upon the railway cutting. As we got there, we heard a train coming, and re-enacted the Railway Children. But it was going too fast to see if anyone saw us or waved back. The buzzard had also been waiting for the train, maybe for 'rail kill' or jettisoned sandwiches. It must have been watching watching watching us as we approached, completely oblivious, until it suddenly launched itself at about 3 metres. We walked back to the Abbey via the swales, which were frozen over, enough not to crack when we threw stones hard at the surface, but not quite enough to hold our weight. Of course, we were Very Sensible, and didn't venture far. The stones made an eery noise, submarine sonar sound effects translated to outer space.

Sabbath rest

I have no idea where the day went, but it was lovely to wake up to working heating, a warm room and hot shower, and a light dusting of snow! That is to say, I had no idea where the day went when I started writing, but it is coming back to me now...

• Saturday morning lie-in til 7.10am
• Slow start, shower, breakfast, wander round taking photos of the snow, sit in a guest room watching the northern bird scene
• 8.45am Lauds, moved from its usual slot at 7am to replace Terce
• Laundry til 11am or so, including cleaning, which should have been yesterday's job but didn't have time to set foot down there
• Quick cup of tea
• Quick job to make label for front door bell, except the laminator jams so have to take it apart, so not a quick job after all
• [No 12noon Eucharist on Saturdays]
• Write yesterday's blog, while still maintaining the pretence that I am writing it on the day itself; can't think of a title, so don't post it yet
• 1pm Lunch
• Should have been having a siesta, but back down to laundry til 2.15pm None
• Weekly meter reading round; still a discrepancy between mains water input and boosted cold water consumption, so email architects
• Finish off in laundry ready for next week's incumbent, but now have a sneaking feeling I forgot to take the clean tea towels back to the kitchen
• Phone parents
• Tea and conference at 4.30pm
• 5.30pm First Vespers of Advent Sunday
• 6pm Now on cook's assistant for week
• Manage to snatch 15 minutes of prayer before 7pm Supper
• Phone friend, post blog despite unsatisfactory title
• 8.30pm Compline
• Read for a bit
• Lie awake in bed pondering how I could have done the day differently, and resolve to do the bare minimum of work tomorrow, read more and go for a walk

I tried to get a photo of the front door in the snow before there were any footsteps around, but was too late. Here it is anyway.

Settling

Yesterday's heating farrago finished with the LPG back-up boiler showing a red light on the BMS. It was still red at 5.50am this morning, but mysteriously disappeared by 6.50am. We know how the biomass boiler works, the reason for any problems we now have (over-sized fuel) and how to fix them. It's like an old car; you lift the bonnet and can see the mechanics, and anyone (who knows what they're doing) can get underneath it and tinker. The LPG boiler is a whole different kettle of fish. When you lift the bonnet on a new car, it's an impenetrable mask of electronics.

A week last Friday I tried taking the 'short cut' to Pershore station and lost my front number plate in the ford. Gabriel noticed it was missing over the weekend, but then I squashed my thumb - common sense very much in short supply that weekend - so I waited until today to get a new plate. Driving back up the hill to the abbey, there were no vans or diggers in sight, and something within me settled slightly.

Later in the afternoon, gulls and rooks were jostling for position in the field next door while it was being ploughed. A group would start up, circle and feint to land, and circle some more. One or two would then set down, to be harried by one or two others, and start up again, and settle, and start up, and harry, and settle, and so on. As I was watching them from my window, three female roe deer came from behind the pond into my binocular sights, and strolled across the cut as cool you please. One was light brown; the other two were already darkening to black-brown, and one of these had a particularly pale scut. They mooched a while just where the slope hid them from view, then white tail led them off south, springing over the fence. The new-planted trees are being well protected from nibbling and rubbing, and the kitchen garden wall should be higher than their springing range.

Cold cold cold

Dawn was a thin red line on the eastern horizon, changing rapidly up into orange, yellow and green to pale blue, arcing over to indigo in the west and dimpled by Venus and the gibbous moon. It was very cold again but less of a frost.

I was outside in the dawn because I was heading for the boiler shed again; the heating was off, according to our 'towel rail test', and there was no hot water. This time, both of the main pumps had faulted, the pumps that are supposed to deliver all the heating and hot water to the plant rooms. The Building Management System was displaying an impressive array of red lights, and alarming every ten seconds as it tried to switch between faulted pumps. Thankfully, we were due to have another BMS demo at 9.30am, and the guy was able to fix things. The pumps were drawing too much current and had tripped, so he just reset them and turned a small button to control the current. I now know how to open the BMS panel and reset tripped pumps; another piece of little knowledge to add to my store of dangerous things! Unfortunately, when he was checking out the heat meters, he managed to dislodge a tube on the biomass boiler, which later caused a low pressure fault. We only notice these things when we feel cold and go out to check. It was easily fixed, but I at least felt cold all day.

The Met Office seems at last to be providing the general public with some probability-based forecasts (still in beta), to go along with the confidence-based severe weather warnings. Just for maximum and minimum temperatures, and only the mostly likely temperature and the 5% to 95% range, but it's a start. The cold snap is forecast to continue, so I hope nothing else goes wrong with the heating! Daft thing to hope, as none of us has any confidence in the thermostats. They have an error range of +/- 2 °C, but the one in the general office is showing 6 °C and cold though it is, it's not that bad! And the one in the Oratory is just blank.

Views

After last night's sunset, this morning we had another beautiful dawn. Philip's room has the only east-facing window on the first floor with a view that isn't obscured by roofs. But from my south-facing window, I could still see Venus aloft, and Bredon below encircled in mist, and many of the buildings climbing Malvern were on fire with the reflected sun. The frost was very hard, and the standing water in the cut was frozen. No snow yet, though.

Philip and I ventured up through the hatch onto the community building roof at 11am. The frost was still frosty underfoot, but the solar water panels were scalding to the touch. We had fantastic views, at the level of the Oratory (the wagtails had a good old chunter at us), down to the courtyard, Spetchley Park to the north, and the unfolding fields, hedge-rows, copses and wind-breaks around the compass. It would be a great vantage point for sunrises and sunsets, and an excellent spot for sunbathing, if a little chilly at the moment.

Then I speculatively went buzzard watching, but the only sign I saw was a second nest high in the solitary oak.

Thumbs up!

Back to the fracture clinic, where I had to wait over an hour (would have got a refund if it were a train) for a 30 second consultation. The thumb is doing very well, and the bandages are now off so it can be seen in all its gory glory (you are spared the photo). As we arrived, there was a BOC lorry at the trades entrance. Emblazoned on its side was "It's all about the image". Quite right! Substance is totally over-rated!

Sigh. I shouldn't read lorry slogans; they only make me cross.

I've taken some photos of the solar panels and, coincidentally, the community building and the barn. I've already blogged that we have 18.5 kWth of solar water heating capacity, which is on the barn and at the tip of the community building roof. The rest of the panels on the community building are photovoltaics, with a capacity of about 12 kWp and estimated annual generation of 9.4 MWh.

The sunset over the Malverns was amazing. I caught it when the sun was just touching the rim, but then had to rush away and only returned to see the red fading from the field of cloud. The builders commissioned a photographer, who was on site today, and had amazing light for it. He kindly said he'd send us a CD of his photos, so we'll be able to use them on the website.

Technology!

The telephone handsets have arrived, and I spent the afternoon running around checking various POTs* were functioning, making a list of extensions, figuring out how to work my handsets, and doling out handsets to all and sundry. All of which, compounded by a 'TV dinner', meant this blog didn't get written.

We were watching a DVD called "No Greater Love", a portrayal of the Carmelite community at Notting Hill. One section was about their attitude to new technology, about being careful it doesn't take over... I can't help but agree! The two stand-out scenes for me were completely different: a tender moment as one sister fed one of her older sisters; and a terrifying moment as one sister wielded a chainsaw with abandon, seemingly very close to another stood pruning the hedge. In some ways the film is similar to "Into Great Silence", about La Grande Chartreuse, but less artistically directed. A good difference was the chance to hear the sisters speak about their life, in particular two of them about the 'dark night of the soul'.

At the beginning of Compline, the moon, just past full, was framed in the high east window of the Oratory.

* I'm picking up engineer speak: Pretty Ordinary Telephones.

Mucknell metaphors

In today's Gospel we heard Jesus say to the criminal from the cross: "today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43; NRSV). Having spent some time wandering around the grounds in the sun on Friday, the verse spoke to me of Mucknell as an earthly paradise and of the 'today' of being with Christ. Other metaphors have already been used of Mucknell. Stuart has described Mucknell as a 'thin place', which has become meaningful to the men working on the site for up to a year. Also, one possible meaning of the name is 'hill with a big (muckle) view'. At our blessing in on 1 November, we had the reading from Matthew: "A city built on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt 5.14; NRSV). Well, we are built on a hill, and we cannot be hid, but we need to work out what that means in practice. 

This week it is my turn in the laundry, where I hopefully cannot do any damage, and which brings back memories. It is down in the basement, but still with lovely views over the cut and beyond. The basement corridor gets quite warm, and I found a painted lady butterfly sheltering from the falling temperatures outside, which reminds me of another metaphor... The community described their time at Broad Marston as being in a chrysalis, preparing for a new creation to emerge at Mucknell. It takes time for the butterfly to emerge and dry in the sun, before it can spread its wings; we are very much still emerging.

Onions, cheese and cake

I spent much of today glued to my laptop, still assembling all the information about the systems that we've gleaned from the various demos and from living with them. Wychavon District Council had a 'special interest' in Mucknell during the planning process, so they are visiting next Friday. I volunteered to give them a tour of the sustainable technology, and had better know my onions. All the operation and maintenance manuals now seem to have arrived - seven thick files for construction, three for mechanical and three for electrical - so a bit of light reading should provide the requisite information.

It being Saturday, there are hardly any workmen around - just one in the building and a bit of digger action in the northern distance. The list of snaggings is still pages long, and I am starting to expect to be living with workmen for ever. I suppose (WARNING! Cheesy bit coming up!) it's a metaphor for the journey of life: we can work on ourselves, put lots of effort into trying to be perfect, but there will always be more things that aren't quite right.

There is nothing much else to report. The days are flashing past, tomorrow is the feast of Christ the King, and it will soon be Advent and Christmas... speaking of which, tomorrow is also 'Stir-up Sunday', and Gabriel has made the Christmas cake... yum yum!!

Birding

After writing that I had barely been outside yesterday, I reflected that at the moment I probably spend less time outside now than I did at Broad Marston, especially during the hours of darkness. At Broad Marston, I looked up at the stars when I crossed the courtyard to get to chapel and breakfast in the early mornings, and to go to bed after Compline. At Mucknell, I walk down corridors, and although there are many windows and large doors, the light inside obscures the darkness outside. And so, I haven't yet seen a single star.

Today it was dawning pink over the kitchen garden as we came out of chapel - that I could see through the glass of the East Link. The sort of pastel colours that would look hideous if artificially reproduced, but in the sky are delicate and glorious. "Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning"; but the day belied the adage, and turned out mild and sunny and perfect for taking photos of the new bell. I had a wander round the grounds, my first reasonably long walk for a week. In the hedgerows, there are still some haws, hips and sloes clinging on. The brambles are still mostly green. But now is the time of ivy and mistletoe.

In the eastern distance, five men were walking in a line across a field, waving large flags, with their dogs fanning out ahead. Cars were parked in the lane. Then came the sound of whistles and gun shots - a shooting party. Possibly not surprisingly, there were hardly any birds to be seen or heard on that side of Mucknell, even along the stream on the north, beyond which sheep may safely graze. I did, however, see a buzzard. Anthony told me a while ago that one was nesting along the stream, but he wasn't sure whether the nest was still being used since our neighbours grubbed up a lot of the trees on their bank. I found it in the fairly mature oak by the stream, and then wandered over to the solitary oak, whereupon I saw the buzzard glide up to perch in one of the bank-side trees, then fly off to the north west. When I reached the base of the oak, I found a mostly eaten dove or pigeon, still quite fresh. So I withdrew up the ridge and furrow, and waited. The buzzard returned within a few minutes, but to the fields on the northern side of the stream, and flew tantalisingly to and fro. I had to give up, and squelched back through the area the diggers had recently smoothed. I put up a few pied wagtails, which had been enjoying the watery quagmire, and skylark from the more grassy areas in the cut.

The bells!

I was barely out today, a grey and rainy and windy day. Much of the morning I spent in the company of the fire alarm technician, who was on site to sort out the fault in the system and tweak our set-up. The problem turned out to be a faulty detector in my room, but there wouldn't have been much danger of me burning in my bed in this construction and this weather.

We now have a proper front door to the barn and a bell in our bell tower. I went up to the icon studio to video the raising of the bell, sneezing the while from dust or maybe chemicals, so it might not look like a completely smooth ascent! The vital statistics: it weighs 9 cwt, is tuned to F, and we are naming it Wulfstan. It came from All Saints Wokingham, which I visited a couple of times while living in Bracknell. Now it will sound over the Vale of Evesham, probably for miles around. Here's a photo of it waiting at the base of the tower. The scaffolding is still in the way of a decent photo of it in situ.

Peregrines

My bed-time reading at the moment is "The Peregrine" by JA Baker. The blurb on my US reprint says that he "set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fenlands of eastern England." There are at least three inaccuracies in that sentence! "...And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk." Perhaps it is the Land of the Free speaking in the blurb, glorifying the "journey to the limits of the human", or perhaps it is just a man thing. The very English Robert MacFarlane writes in the Introduction with greater insight, but doesn't seem to have noticed the book's dedication "To My Wife", which puts me in mind of an amused toleration; tracking hawks and dissolving self in the daytime, warm and dry and well-fed at night.

But don't let the blurb put you off! Baker touches on the inscape of the peregrine, and writes beautifully. Here he is on the subject of the Essex mud:

"All day the low clouds lay above the marshes and thin rain drifted in from the sea. Mud was deep in the lanes and along the sea-wall; thick ochre mud, like paint; oozing glutinous mud that seemed to sprout on the marsh, like fungus; octopus mud that clutched and clung and squelched and sucked; slippery mud, smooth and treacherous as oil; mud stagnant; mud evil; mud in the clothes, in the hair, in the eyes; mud to the bone."

Coincidentally, peregrines are nesting up high on a Worcester spire. It is a regular spot, and nest cams are installed. So of course there is a website, and activity updates on Facebook.

At about 4pm, a kestrel crossed the cut and hovered briefly near the pond, before gliding east over the farmland. It seemed to shine golden even in the greyness of the afternoon.

Boiler-room farce

Here is my latest rendition of the biomass boiler set-up, so hopefully the foregoing postings and the following para may make some sense. Click on the image to enlarge.

The boilerman came, and thinks the fuel delivered is the wrong specification - G50 instead of the required G30, for those in the know. BUT he also found a problem with the installation. The store auger and the stoker auger have different gearings, and the gears were fitted the wrong way round. So the store auger was gushing chip into the stoker auger, which was only dribbling into the boiler, and it was all piling up around the burn-back flap. He has now changed them over; we may get infrequent blockages until we've burnt the oversized fuel, but otherwise it should work. Alleluia! And in the meantime, alleluia for excellent insulation!

At this point, I'd like to defend renewable technology and say it's not just the biomass boiler; we've had a series of tragi-comedies in various areas. For example:

• The lift started off working but broke down after a couple of days. We waited a week for the repairman to get the parts, he came today, and he'd brought the wrong stuff.
• The bell also arrived today, but the installers hadn't brought any kit to drill fixings in the bell tower.
• The self-binding gravel hasn't been laid properly, so has turned into a mushy sandy beach.
• Two paper towel dispensers arrived for the kitchen and toilet in the kitchen area, but were fitted in nearby disabled toilets, because you don't need to ask, do you?

But overall, it's still fantastic, and the guys have worked really hard to diagnose and fix things!

Weather

Back to the Worcester Royal fracture clinic. The consultant asked me to draw a picture of what happened... um, well here's a metal corkscrew thing, and here's my thumb... and student years of playing Pictionary failed to come to my assistance. Then he confirmed the opinion of yesterday's excellent nurse. So I was just rebandaged, and will keep taking the antibiotics and go back next Tuesday for presumably another x-ray.

There was a hard frost overnight, and still fog on the hill when we returned at 11.30am. Meanwhile, east Worcester was bathed in sunshine. It looks as though we have our own microclimate - not so much a frost hollow as a frost eminence. And while it was sunny outside, I was stuck in a windowless outpatients waiting room with fans going. Ho hum. Still, it brightened up in the afternoon, there was a wonderful golden sunset behind the Malverns, and the boilerman is coming tomorrow.

Benedictines have a book read aloud at meals. We had been reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's "History of Christianity", but since the move, we think it is (deliberately?!) in a box at the bottom of a big pile of boxes. So for light relief, we are reading Kate Fox's "Watching the English". The first chapter is on the weather. Apparently we talk about it a lot, but not because of any interest in the weather or because English weather is interesting; it's a form of greeting, an ice-breaker, a lull-filler. "Cold today, isn't it?" "Yes, freezing." And it is bad manners not to agree with the first statement/question. So I hereby declare that I might on occasion break some rules by talking about the weather as though I'm interested, or not necessarily agree with you - "Actually, I think it's quite mild compared with the seasonal average" - but I make no apologies!

Bleeding eejit

In order to demonstrate the difference between knowledge and common sense, I have managed to squash my thumb in the boiler auger while trying to clear a wood chip blockage. Cue a trip to the Worcester Royal A&E, where I found I have a small fracture. A&E were superb, whisking me into triage and the x-ray department, then not long to wait before being bandaged up by a really excellent nurse. It is only my second ever broken bone, the first being a little toe. Of course, it is my right thumb, so only two months after my operation for a ganglion on my right wrist, my right arm is back in a sling, and I am having to have my food cut up for me! Tomorrow I go back for an assessment of the fracture. The nurse said it shouldn't need anything doing, and I am inclined to think that she knows at least as much as the consultant!

Solar photovoltaics

The photovoltaics were switched on yesterday... at last! We have about 12 kW in three strings on the community building, and a little display telling us the current output (kW), how much electricity has been generated (kWh), and how much carbon has been saved (kg). We thought we weren't going to be able to use the electricity ourselves, but it turns out that we can, and only the surplus at any point in time will be exported to the grid. So we can get a largish payment per kWh from the government's Feed-In Tariffs, a smallish payment per kWh for any we export, and avoid electricity bills. We do use quite a bit, even though we have low energy bulbs throughout. There are lots of systems in the background whirring and clunking and using energy: fire alarm panels, emergency lights, ultra-violet fly killer in the kitchen, and so on. But any electricity we import is from a green supplier, so I hope it has a high renewables and low carbon content.

A glorious calm day (for the time of year); Mucknell seems to do one extreme or the other. Lots of solar electricity, and even some solar water heating from the panels on the north wing, where the roof has a greater pitch.

Exploring

A free day, and a chance to explore some of the local paths. I struck out eastward in the morning, to get the best (least worst) of the weather. It's not quite flat; there are rolling fields running down to the brook. Beyond, on the neighbouring farm, there's a reservoir for anglers, next to a row of shooting butts. There are plenty of routes marked for horse riders, but the footpath across the field wasn't marked, so I took a route round the edge and past the reservoir. Two fine mute swans and their five grown cygnets glided over in curiosity, or seeking food. The waterline bushes rustled with chaffinches and blue tits, and other larger unidentified birds. Two moorhens scooted off to the other side, their wings playing ducks and drakes on the surface. The fields beyond, to the A44 and White Ladies Aston, were a mix of stubble and new crop planting, interspersed with small copses. The hedges are mostly hawthorn, punctuated by trees, with oak distinguishable at a distance by its tanned leaves. On my morning circuit, I met two of our neighbours, farmers father and son; and the churchwarden and two others at the church in White Ladies Aston. The churchwarden recommended I visit the chapel Churchill, a bit further north, which I found to be both peaceful and covered in bat droppings. My return route took in the Berkeley Arms, which does Elvis and Tom Jones tributes, wedding functions, and serves a decidedly unpleasant cup of tea.

In the afternoon, the rain closed in. I watched Have I Got News for You on iPlayer, to see my brother waving his hand as the camera pulled back and onto the audience during the closing credits.

1 Peter 5.8b-9a*

The biomass boiler stopped again at about 4am, this time due to chip piling up in the stoker auger preventing the burn-back flap from opening. We managed to sort that out and fire it up again, when a false alarm in the Oratory set the fire alarm off just before the Lauds bell. The boiler tripped again twice during the day, with the same problem. The ash also contains some unburnt fuel, which it shouldn't. So altogether it warrants getting someone out to make sure it's set up properly. The fire alarm was also triggered twice more, by steam or heat from opening the kitchen oven; and by dust from the delivery of wood chip.

But I wasn't there for the 'twice mores', as Ian and I headed down after Lauds to an inter-novitiate day in Oxford on "Why Community?" It was good to meet folk from other communities near and far, some old friends and new (to me) faces. There was a Great Wind during the night, and it was still howling when we returned. At Compline, it was beating on the prow of the Oratory, but everything holds firm.

* Verses often used at the beginning of Compline: "Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith"

When the chips are down

We really shouldn't have been let loose with a biomass boiler! We let it run out of fuel and stop overnight because we were waiting to see whether the Jurassic Coast cliff, which the collecting mechanism was eroding into the wood chip, would collapse.* Steve the site manager jumped in first thing with a shovel and brought the cliffs down so we still have heating and hot water. There's still plenty of chip in the store; it's just that the mechanism can't get at it. Thomas spoke to a supplier, who said that drier fuel is less likely to collapse because there is more friction between the chips, while we were thinking that wetter fuel was more likely to 'clump'. Our commissioning supply was apparently about 30% moisture content. We won't be using the boiler in the summer, and we're thinking of emptying out the store and putting in a bit of sloped flooring. That way, there will be less chip stuck on the floor and merrily composting or fermenting away.

I took the opportunity to go for a walk in the unseasonal sunshine, with the excuse of picking up pieces of plastic. Inevitably on a building site, there's a lot around, not least the blue plastic overshoes that the workmen have been wearing inside which have got EVERYWHERE. The ridge and furrow to the north was nicely picked out by the low afternoon sun. I haven't written about the photovoltaics yet, because they haven't been switched on. They were wasted today.

 

* We're making mistakes, so you don't have to!

Whirlybirds

Standing at my window in the early morning, I can watch the winter migrations. Flock after flock of birds, and the occasional solitary, pass over from left to right, always flying south west. This afternoon, a slightly different bird flew north east. There isn't an RAF base particularly near, but we get the occasional jet screaming over - Cosford? Brize Norton? This guy came for a bit of a closer look.

Otherwise, I spent the afternoon with the architect and mechanical installation guy, going round the snaggings with the thermostats. And we found out the slightly hard way that the biomass boiler will shut off if the ash box gets over full. Exciting times!

Vision for sustainability

Abbot Stuart is an ordained Anglican priest and Novice Ian is an ordained Methodist pastor, and they preside in turn at the Eucharist. Alison, another Anglican priest, will arrive next January to live alongside for a couple of months, and she will also take her turn.

Today we had our first Methodist communion* in the new chapel, and confessed: "You care for all that you have made, but we ignore the needs of others and misuse your creation." Later in the service, Ian used the "God our Father and our Mother, we give you thanks and praise for all that you have made, for the stars in their splendour and the world in its wonder and for the glorious gift of human life."

When I stayed at Broad Marston for a few days back in the summer, I wrote some blurb about sustainability at Mucknell Abbey in anticipation of the launch of the new website. To quote:

God delights in creation. At Mucknell Abbey, we want to show in our lives some echo of that delight. So we want to affirm the greatness of the created material order, and that we exist in relationship to God, to each other, and to the rest of creation. Why should Christians care about the earth? Primarily because God cares.

But it is also a question of justice. Human activity, mostly in developed countries, has caused great harm to our planet home, affecting the atmosphere, land and ocean. We have caused great hardship for our neighbours in developing countries, and damaged many ecosystems, often beyond repair.

It is also in our own self-interest. Because we are only one thread in an inter-dependent web, we are endangering our own future. We have caused the extinction of many species, and may cause the extinction of our own.

In moving to Mucknell Abbey, we are seeking to live more simply, more sustainably, more lightly on the earth. We want to become more aware of the web of relationships, and how our common life is lived as part of a wider ecology. We want to live our lives in celebration of God’s creation, in deep gratitude and humility, with generosity and hospitality.

Of course, this is a work in progress! We have had a long journey to where we are now, and have only just arrived at Mucknell. Much is aspirational, and there will be much more we could do, and probably much we haven’t even considered. Our current aim is to settle into Mucknell, live on the land and understand the place, and do our best with the other things.

But if we can still be an example to others, thanks be to God!

* Using the liturgy Holy Communion during Ordinary Seasons (Second Service)

Room with a view

My room faces south towards the village of Stoulton. If I stand to the right of the window I can see Bredon, and if I stand to the left I can see the Malverns. In the early morning, it was atmospherically misty, and at about 7.30am the sun came round and the mist glowed.

In the afternoon, we said goodbye to two of our four marvellous helpers. A big thank you to Madeleine and Liz, and also to Fraser and Bill for everything you've done over the last few days. And then I went to pick sloes in the sunshine, before...

Meanwhile, Stuart was holding a 'snagging surgery', and we all took it in turns to come with a great long list of the problems we have found with the buildings and grounds, big and small. One issue is the Oratory fire system and incense. We managed to isolate it from the main fire panel during the morning Eucharist, but it makes a horrendous humming, buzzing and beeping, distinctly audible through two sets of doors. And it was still registering the smoke at 6pm, when Ian re-enabled it on the main fire panel and set off the fire alarm throughout the building. Still, at least we know it works!

Beating the bounds

The sunshine returned, and I've at last had a chance to walk around the 40 acres of grounds. Here's a photo showing the pond (low in biodiversity but with potential), the hermitage then community building on the left, the top of the Oratory and bell tower centre, various other buildings centre right and the kitchen garden wall on the right.

We have a mature oak to the north west, which has now been surrounded by tree planting; a stream on the north boundary lined with some existing hedging, willow, oak and other trees; some scrappy bits of hedge along the east boundary, and mature hedge along the south west. The hedging is mostly hawthorn, blackthorn, rose hip and bramble. More specimen trees - oak, chestnut - have already been planted along the south boundary, and there are plans for a lot more trees, not forgetting the orchard to be planted to the right of the kitchen garden / hermitage area. A lot of the tree planting is native woodland eventually for coppicing and ending up in the boiler. The orchard will I think be local varieties of apple, pear and plum.

Today we had our first office in the new Oratory - the first Vespers of All Saints, having moved the feast from Monday 1st to Sunday 7th. I took a photo from the gallery of the space below waiting in expectation, and I've uploaded more photos to a Facebook album. There's a good one of sunset over the Malverns.

Damp squib

The first load from store arrived, and so did the rain. Everyone is tired. Today was also the handover meeting, and we now have two copies of seven large files of operation & maintenance information. There is also a snagging list running to 12 pages.

The sign for Pershore Fireworks disappeared from the side of the road yesterday. They must have sold out. So much for our idea of celebratory fireworks on Sunday evening.

Really moving!

The rest of us have moved, and there is nothing left at Broad Marston. That's not quite it, as there will be three loads of stuff that went into storage from Burford arriving on Friday, Monday and Wednesday. But we could all at last sit down together for our evening meal,cooked for us by the wonderful Janet.

The first tranche of movers have had teething problems overnight with water hammer and bleeping emergency lighting, and everyone is tired. The heating also needs to settle down. My self-imposed task in the afternoon was to go round the entire building setting all the room thermostats to something that was fairly reasonable, instead of the default 30 °C. We also thought the back-up LPG boiler was running too much... probably because the biomass boiler goes to sleep when the external temperature is over a threshold, and the external temperature sensor was sitting safely inside the boiler control panel and reading 29 °C! It's now been fixed to the north wall of the shed, so fingers and toes crossed.

It was blowing a gale later in the day. The Oratory windows, which haven't had their control mechanism installed yet, were flapping in a worrying manner. One of the main heavy doors blew off the building a few weeks ago. And they say there isn't enough wind resource for a turbine...

Gee, ain't it swale!

Today was demo of the building management system day, when we didn't quite manage to get our heads around the mass of pipes and valves and control panels. We also pottered down to Poo Corner to have a look in the biodigester. There is a mass of black plastic balls bobbing around on the surface, making a lovely environment for bacteria to grow and break down... well, perhaps too much information. But the water that comes out is good enough for animals to drink, and it pumped out into a series of swales. And here finally is a photo of the monastery, from the bank of the lowest swale.

There are quite a few workmen still on site, and many of them are fascinated by the biomass boiler. We often see one or two poking their heads round the door of the wood chip store, watching the metal arms sweeping the chip into the auger, or popping into the boiler shed.

Rain check

15 October was Blog Action Day. I found out after the fact, as I'm new to this blogging malarkey. But anyway, the subject was water, so I'm dedicating today's blog to Blog Action Day and writing about the rainwater harvesting system. Here's a schematic of the system.

Rainwater is used in all the loos and in six outside taps, supplemented by butts in the kitchen garden. When the rainwater tank level goes below about 60cm, the high level float triggers a top-up drip feed of mains water. When the level goes below 20cm, the low level float triggers an alarm, to tell us to stop flushing! But the tank is apparently the size of a house, so hopefully there won't be any shortages even in drought conditions.

Half of us have now moved, and the rest of us are due to move on Thursday. I popped into my room-to-be after the demo, to find a man in my wardrobe, varnishing at the last minute!

Moving!!

The first day we can starting moves things into the new monastery. A bit of a damp squib, not because it was raining, but because we only had access to the refectory. So Thomas and Anthony were going to sleep in the new building tonight, but we all came back to Broad Marston. Nevertheless, we still had our short service of 'blessing in' with John Bishop of Worcester. Steve, who replaced Tony as site manager for the last push to completion, managed to get the builders not to angle-grind or plane or hoover during proceedings.

The biomass boiler stopped working at 12.30pm. We found out later it was tripped by testing of the fire alarms, i.e. it was working. But our demo - we're learning to call these sessions demos instead of training, as our expectations have lowered - hadn't quite covered the useful information of which button to press to get it back on again. A quick email to the installers, and we now know. I'm slightly worried that the information we've been given is just theoretical, and might not be particularly helpful when things go wrong.

Getting excuses in early

We've packed the van and cars ready to go and take possession tomorrow. I expect my postings will now become even more erratic. According to Gabriel's cunning plan for the move, which I have read but not yet inwardly digested, the community IT will be taken to Mucknell on Monday or Tuesday, and I am going to be staying at Broad Marston until Thursday. So I'll be able to write, but I won't have an internet connection, and the actual posting may have to wait. I'll probably also be quite busy, what with one thing and another.

As for the weather forecast, Monday and Tuesday look as though they'll be OK, Wednesday less good. But maybe we'll be able to dodge frontal systems.

Displacement activity

I still haven't got around to writing up my notes on the biomass boiler, but spent some time investigating local sources and expected prices of wood chip. Mary and I also moved half of the furniture out of my room, the half that isn't going to my room at Mucknell, and I moved a few boxes in. The guys went to pick up the van we'll be using to transport the stuff that the removal firm won't take and the stuff we would prefer to take ourselves. Only about 36 hours, plus one hour for the clock change, until Thunderbirds are go.

Philip said the tops of the poplars were shining brightly in the sun early this morning, like flames atop candles.

Not the biomass boiler

Not surprisingly, the boiler is a lot more complex than the solar water system, and I haven't got around to writing up my notes yet. Some basic facts: its capacity is 80kW; it takes wood chip, of which there is a large store next door; it works; it won't work if we have a power cut; and it has lots of safety mechanisms.

The trees along the well-trod route between Broad Marston and Mucknell are getting more glorious by the day. There is a particularly fine stretch west of Evesham, and an amazing row of cherries (I think) by Simon de Montfort bridge. These have leaves of lime green lower green, rising through lemon yellow to orange red. It's unlikely Moses would have seen one in the desert, but at present they'd make good candidates for the burning bush.