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.

Solar water heating

So, today we learned that we have six 4.4 m² flat plate solar collectors, two on the north wing serving the guest rooms and four on the community building, which are equivalent to 18.5 kW thermal. Here's a picture of how I understand (!) each system to fit into the rest of the hot water provision.

I don't know many of the details of the system yet, e.g. pitch of the roofs, % efficiency, or how much thermal energy is expected to be produced. The engineering design report is packed in a box somewhere, but the commissioning certificates will tell us more when they arrive. We can keep track of the hours that the pump operates as a proxy while we are looking into how best to monitor the kWh produced.

After Vespers, there was a band of red sky glowing in the west, so I jogged over to the yellowhammer and skylark field to watch it fade. The field had been ploughed - great coarse wedges gouged out of the clay and turned over. I hope the birds had flown before their homes were bulldozed. I revelled in the glory of shepherd's delight for a few minutes, until my over-indulged imagination transformed the scene into a dark grey ocean shining wanly in the half light of a dying red dwarf star. It is still mild, but the wind had got up and was soughing* in the poplars as I walked back to the house.

* 'soffing' - a word that is used so often so poetically, yet really isn't!

Bella utilitorum

Today, it's Bella's turn for a cat story. As I walked past the back door this afternoon, I noticed her sitting on the window ledge outside Mary Bernard's bathroom. I stood still and we looked at each other for a minute. Her eyes are almost round, which makes her look continually surprised. Eventually she looked away, as if to ask "when will this eejit get the message?", then got up and stretched out to prop her front paws against the glass of the door. As she is normally very frightened of large humans, I eventually did get the message that she wanted something, and opened the door to let her in.

Tomorrow we get our first insights into the renewable technology at Mucknell - the solar water heating. The biomass boiler demo has been put off to Friday, owing to 'technical problems with the installation' which would make good material for a Flanders and Swann update. At Broad Marston, the boiler controls are playing up again and tripping the electrics, so no central heating tonight.

Packing

Time is doing funny things at the moment. There was a short power outage this morning at about 7.30am, but by 4pm, I remembered it as happening last night. It has been a grey and gloomy day, raining on and off, and promises to be a dark and stormy night. Bertie the cat steps very fastidiously through the puddles in the courtyard, shaking the water off each paw as he goes. In the afternoon, I got as far as packing some boxes and sticking coloured labels on everything in my room except the carpet and curtains. We are really really really hoping that it won't be raining as we move.

Training Pt I

Our first session of training at Mucknell, which didn't go quite according to the agenda we were given (which for a start had lunch at 12.15 and the afternoon session starting at 12.00). But anyway, today was the turn of the fire, audio and general electrical systems. Audio training meant spending time in the oratory and refectory, so we got good look at them. And general electrical meant wandering over the whole building, testing the emergency lighting as we went. There are lots of distribution boards, manifold underfloor heating manifolds, miles of pipework, rooms of interesting-looking plant (heating and water training later). Hopefully there will also be plenty of (accurate) labels by the time we move in on 1 November. Only a week to go! And there seemed like a lot of work still to do...

We ate lunch in greenhouse, the warmest part of the site, and watched pied wagtails jumping around the roofs and perching in the 'bat portal'. A clattering of jackdaws looped-de-loop as a bonding exercise, and four skylarks tumbled past, possibly en route south for the winter.

Not walking country

After our last service at Marston Sicca church, I walked home across the fields. The countryside is very flat, apart from the up and down and up and down over a ridge and furrow field of grass and thistles. It's not really walking country, I guess, at least compared to say the Cotswolds and Malverns. The paths are not very well looked after; the stiles are a bit 'token', foot bridges are decaying and many direction arrows are missing. The hedgerows don't look as though they harbour much in the way of biodiversity, being mostly hawthorn, barbed wire and old gates. But the walking is still good, with views of the Cotswold scarp and Meon Hill. We are looking forward to discovering the paths and circuits around Mucknell.

A grey cloud passed over in time for Vespers. Once the shower had stopped, I noticed one of the trees beyond the DIY shed shining brightest yellow in the sun against a dark sky. As Vespers progressed the colour dimmed to copper orange, and by the end it had faded to a dark weathered copper against a light grey sky.

Bells and things

Yesterday the bell tower was installed at Mucknell, and today we saw the video. It is the same height as the oratory, but looked like a matchstick as it dangled from an enormous crane. Collective breath was held as it was manoeuvred over the community house and down to its fixings. Immense precision on the part of the crane operator, who couldn't see what was happening, and his director on the walkie-talkie.

Also yesterday, an impressive array of ride-on and push lawnmowers rolled up to Broad Marston, and some grass was mowed. One of the ride-on lawnmowers has been left outside the front of the house. Did they forget to take it away? Can we adopt it?

There was a deluge overnight, and the courtyard was awash with puddle first thing. Everyone in the area is wary of floods, since the major event in Evesham Vale in 2007. Within the first few months the community was at Broad Marston, flood water lapped at the small garden in front of the house. Everything was subsequently raised on wooden blocks, but today we knocked them out from under the freezer.

Birnam forest came to Dunsinane, as Anthony and Alex moved the collection of trees from Burford from the front garden to join the rest of the plants on the patio, ready for transporting to Mucknell. They are small and most have lost their leaves, and they all look vulnerable on the concrete.

Why

So why am I writing this blog?

As I wrote a week ago, two of the reasons are to prompt me to become more aware and observant of nature and to learn a bit about the things I've observed. When in the countryside, I tend to see the 'big picture' of the landscape, or patterns in the rocks and clouds, rather than to notice the actual details of a plant, bird or insect, if I see it at all. And while I can appreciate, say, the sound of birdsong, I would very much like to know what I am hearing. Then there is biodiversity and ecosystem - understanding which species are be in the ecosystem and the web of relationships between them, which should be there and aren't, which shouldn't be there and are, and what are the implications of losing this species, or being invaded by that species. Being more aware helps provide me with subject matter, which for a daily blog, even when the posts are short, I'm already finding might be an issue!

I'd also like to keep something of a record, although it's not remotely about 'what the community and/or I did today'. As I've said to some, it's more of a scrapbook of 'things that have interested me'. Even so, I hope it helps to keep my family and friends up-to-date with what I am up to, even when I am having technical problems in reading emails, and being tardy at replying to them.

But I suppose the main reason I started was to give me the discipline of writing something each day, and to see where it leads. Maggi Dawn blogged a few months ago about what keeping a blog has done for her, which sort of inspired me to give it a go. While I'm not doing it to get a book deal, and I'm not even sure I want to be a writer, I was attracted by the idea of 'finding a voice'. Most of the writing I have done to date has been technical - economic, scientific or business analysis - and I would like to develop a more, well, creative or accessible or informal voice.

And it gives me an opportunity to spread bad jokes and puns across the world :-)

Hibernation

It started off as another cold fine day, but clouded over and got a lot milder later, as the wind swung around fromnortherly to the south west. I realise I am writing less about observing nature as the days get colder and shorter, and I just want to go into hibernation instead of going outside much!

An owl has been howling since last evening and off-and-on throughout the day. Well, that woodpecker would peck her.

We now have all the dates for training in living in the new building and using the new technology:

• Next Monday is electric systems, including sound, fire alarms and solar photovoltaics
• Thursday is solar thermal and biomass boiler; and the kitchen
• Tuesday after that is rainwater harvesting, biodigester, ventilation and domestics; and IT
• Wednesday is building management control systems. No idea what those are, but I expect we'll find out :-)

Cold and clear

The coldest night of the year was forecast, but it didn't feel any colder in the Coach House than it has been on recent nights. Observations showed that it went down to 0.9 °C at Pershore. The graphs also show yesterday's squall at tea-time quite nicely. The stars were good first thing, but it was too cold to linger and gaze.

And it stayed cold all day, even in the sun. My parents dropped in en route to Pershore and north Wales, and we went for a wander around Hidcote Manor Garden. The kitchen garden had a large (now empty) expanse of plastic mulch for pumpkins, and boasted badger and rabbit-proof electric fencing, powered by solar-charged batteries. Worth looking into if we have problems with rabbits at Mucknell. There were also a couple of Berkshire pigs snuffling in one of the beds. According to a sign, Berkshire are "said to be the oldest British traditional breed." The pigs will be "rooting out vegetation, clearing grubs and in the process aerating and breaking up the soil with their snouts. They're also adding fresh, nutritious fertiliser as they go." They'll be there until winter, when presumably they'll become ham, bacon and sausages. Yum yum! The gardens are elevated on the Cotswold plateau, and there are fabulous views south and west. The rest of the formal and more informal gardens are also very nice!

After Vespers, the moon was clear and bright in the half light, with Tycho crater and the largest Mares clearly visible as it swept over the DIY shed in the east. It will be full in a couple of days.

Pershore

In the morning, I popped over to Pershore to register as a new patient at the Pershore Medical Practice. The surgery is newly built, with an open airy atrium and lots of doors and corridors leading in all directions. There is a Ficus growing in the centre, the base encased in an octagonal box, the trunks plaited, and the tops of the branches reaches to the windows in the ceiling. It enhances the ambience of the atrium, more than its setting enhances its living conditions. I wonder how long it will last. Pershore High Street has a slightly run-down feeling, and I wondered why I felt that. It has quite a few nice-looking independent shops, and there are nice views down lanes down to the Abbey. But a deserted and decaying petrol garage and attached car sales room are fairly prominent, and it doesn't help that it is main road with associated traffic and grime.

Later, standing in the kitchen at Broad Marston with a cup of tea and left-over apple sponge, there was a sudden squall that whistled straight through the windows, followed by a spectacular cloudburst. Poor Ian was cycling back from the Mickleton Post Office and got drenched.

Three articles

I've uploaded some photos of Broad Marston and Mucknell to a Facebook album. Let me you if you can't access them. There are more on www.mucknellabbey.org.uk.

Three articles have caught my attention:

• Otters have returned from the brink of extinction in England (except in Kent, I wonder why), following the banning of nasty chemical pesticides. Along the River Wye and in many watercourses in the southwest, numbers are at maximum capacity. A pretty rare good news story.
• Meanwhile... The UN biodiversity convention is meeting in Japan, and opened with warnings that the ongoing loss of nature is hurting human societies as well as the natural world. "We are now close to a 'tipping point' - that is, we are about to reach a threshold beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible, and may cross that threshold in the next 10 years if we do not make proactive efforts for conserving biodiversity."
• And George Monbiot has written on his blog about a report recently published by the WWF. The report applies recent advances in the field of psychology to explain why people accept policies which counteract their interests (blue-collar workers in the US angrily demand that they be left without healthcare, and insist that millionaires should pay less tax). Monbiot suggests it could offer a remedy to the blight which now afflicts every good cause from welfare to climate change, i.e. provide them with the tools to change minds and society.

Patterns

The first frost of the autumn, the jays were having a party in the poplars, and I took my morning my peppermint tea out to stand in the field. The grass was encrusted and edged with white, and crunched underfoot. Leaves were falling with a gentle crackle, and crouching low to the grass, I could hear the underlying murmur of frost thawing just audible below the birdsong. It was warm in the sun, but the tea and my breath were steaming. And then I noticed that the specks of tea leaves in the last inches of tea had formed a wave-like pattern, the motion of liquid in the mug acting like a mini version of the wind in the Sahara forming sand dunes.

Benoit Mandelbrot has died. The BBC article said he "discovered" fractals... discovered or invented? One could say instead that he 'invented' fractals, and 'discovered' that cauliflowers and coastlines and other natural phenomena exhibit fractal-like properties. But others might say that fractals, and other mathematical constructs such as infinity, complex numbers or the delta function, were there to be discovered. Discuss!

Past, present, future

Channel 4 are showing Time Team's visit to Burford at 5.30pm tomorrow: "They have just three days to uncover a medieval hospital under the front lawn whilst searching for Anglo Saxons in the vegetable garden."

Another trip, probably the final one before we move, over to the kitchen garden at Mucknell. I have been struck by how many apple trees there are between Broad Marston and Mucknell, in orchards, front gardens, back gardens, and at the roadside. They are laden with fruit, from pale green to lustrous red. Evesham Vale is the fruit and vegetable basket of England, and apples and plums are particularly important. Local varieties still grown include Pershore Purple and Pershore Yellow Egg plums and Hanwell Souring, May Queen, Gladstone, Lord Hindlip, Worcester Pearmain, Pitmaston Pineapple, Catshead and Green Purnell apples. And yet in the UK, we are grubbing up orchards and losing varieties (wow, never thought I'd link to the Daily Mail!), while the supermarkets import blandities from Argentina and New Zealand.

In the Old Testament reading set for morning prayer, Isaiah prophecied to king Hezekiah that "Days are coming when all that is in your house ... shall be carried to Babylon ... Some of your own sons who are born to you shall be taken away". Hezekiah responded with " 'The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.' For he thought, 'Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?' " (2 Kings 20.16-19; NRSV). Woah! And he was supposed to be one of the good guys! But this is how many people in this country respond to the issue of climate change: it's not going to affect me in my lifetime, so why should I care? But the generations who it will affect are being born, and it is already affecting millions of people in the developing world.

Observations

I went for a walk with Philip along the small local road, past Broad Marston Priory and Farm, and through the silver birch wood. We were joking about how little we, especially I, know about nature. Right on cue, a Little Brown Bird flew across the road and into the hedge, then we spotted some Unidentifiable Red Berries. Philip later saw some asparagus in the verge and some deadly nightshade - more red berries. I thought nightshade was dark purple, but apparently there are varieties. Perfect illustrations of two of the reasons for writing this blog: to prompt me to become more observant; and to learn a bit about the things observed.

The field before we got to the Priory was ridge and furrow. It would be interesting to know more about the history of the ploughing, enclosure and the hedgerows, and uncover other pieces of evidence for what the area might have been like 200 or 500 years ago.

The silver birch wood isn't just silver birch, but also includes British and American oak, and probably some other species which I can't now remember. Some of the trees are being felled and cut to a length; the birch had a pale cream wood, but the other heartwood (probably the American oak) was a glorious warm orange. Philip told me the land was bought and the wood planted for the village by Felix Dennis as a philanthropic gesture. I still think the tree planting could have been better executed, without the straight lines!

Oxford Diocese has a project called Earthing Faith, which is a collaborative website to resource and encourage us as we connect our spirituality and faith with the earth around us, and provide a space to share ideas and experiences around the environment. This autumn, they ran a competition "Inspired by Creation", and I submitted a poem inspired on Iona. Today I got an email saying it wasn't in the top three, but was one of five other poems commended by the judges, which was quite nice!

Monastic charisms

From this morning's set reading from Philippians: "You shine like stars in the world" (Phil 2.15b; NRSV). Polaris, the Pole Star, is in the constellation of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, at the end of the bear's tail. It is a humble star compared with the brilliancies of Vega, Sirius, Aldebaran or Capella. But it is the most useful star in the northern hemisphere. Sailors and other travellers have navigated by it for centuries, as it lies due north, and the angle of the star above the horizon indicates latitude. The night sky nowadays is often overwhelmed by street and other lighting. Broad Marston is a long way from a major population centre, so is a good place for viewing, and hopefully Mucknell will be too. But cloud cover meant no stars were visible this morning or evening.

David came over from Stratford for our second conversation, and the second part of the discussion became what the monastery means to each one of us. I said I was helped in my thinking by Sandra Schneiders outlining in of four levels of charism of the Religious Life*. Her levels are: first, the fundamental call to Religious Life itself; second, the call to contemplative, apostolic or mixed ministry; third, the ministry of the individual order or community; and fourth, the call of the individual members who bring into the community their particular gift. I'd misremembered the levels as: first contemplative, apostolic or mixed ministry (the community is contemplative); then the order (Benedictine); then the community (Mucknell Abbey); then the individual. But my points still stand: that Mucknell will be fundamentally Benedictine, but will have its own different way of expressing that, whatever it may be; and that individuals will have different callings within that, which might have different mixes of 'being' and 'doing',and different ministries. And these are both OK; Schneiders' outline effectively gives 'permission' for diversity between communities and individuals. Schneiders says: "This is why the actual type of ministry of a Religious congregation might change in changed circumstances without disrupting the fundamental continuity of the charism." So Mucknell's ministry can (and hopefully will) be different from Burford's. And each individual's ministries and mixes of being and doing may also change over time. But I was not quite that fluent; it's much easier to write it down afterwards than to say it at the time!

* Sandra M Schneiders IHM "Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a new Ecclesial and Cultural Context", Religious Life in a New Millennium Vol.1, Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah NJ, 2000.

Sheddings

Yesterday, Anthony and Ian saw various large diggers and other plant being loaded on to lorries and taken away from Mucknell. Today we found out that it was because the company undertaking the groundworks on the site has gone into administration. Our prayers are with the men who have suddenly found themselves without a job, and their families. The site manager very quickly found another company to finish the works. I expect they are glad of the contract; there must be too many companies chasing too little work at present.

The afternoon was bright and still, with blue skies. The willow leaves crunched under foot in the field, and several dragonflies were darting around near the edging ditch. The leaves on the horse chestnut have gone golden-brown, and the lime and poplar at the front are also turning and shedding leaves. The ashes are still largely green, and although the keys have dried out and seem about to fall, they will probably hang on through the winter.

Energy Performance Certificates

My letting agent has just sent through the Energy Performance Certificate I had to have done in order to let my house in Exeter. The consultant was very nice and let me tag along while she measured and made notes, and explained what she was doing.

The building's performance is "rated in terms of the energy use per square metre of floor area, energy efficiency based on fuel costs and environmental impact based on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions". Here are the headline figures for my house. I suspect Broad Marston Manor would come out as H, but Mucknell should be very good.

 

The Certificate also lists recommendations to improve the house's energy performance to the "potential" ratings given in the right-hand columns. In my case, this was just to replace the boiler with a condensing boiler. It then suggests "further measures to achieve even higher standards" - solar water heating and photovoltaics, which would improve both the energy efficiency and CO₂ ratings to B86 and B82. It gives more information about all of these measures, and a list of simple actions that can be taken today to "save money and reduce the impact of your home on the environment".

The problem with the recommended measures is the old landlord-tenant conundrum: if the landlord makes the investment, the tenants benefit from the savings on bills; and if the tenants make the investment, they might not stay in the property long enough to realise the benefits, and the landlord benefits from the property's increased value. So unless the Certificate gives suggestions for how to get round this problem (e.g. where the landlord could get grants or about the companies that are fitting PVs for free and taking the Feed-in Tariffs) it's a bit of an academic exercise. I do hope, though, that my tenants at least follow the simple actions.

Kitchen garden

A group of us went over to Mucknell again, to strim around the trees and work in the kitchen garden. It was almost summery weather, especially in the shelter of the kitchen garden walls, and I was glad of my sun cream.

The soil in the garden is a lovely friable loam, I'm told slightly alkaline so good for growing veg. There were no worms visible, but there may be eggs incubating. The soil was imported from near Elvington, in the Derwent valley in Yorkshire: alluvial soil created in the 17-18th centuries by deliberately damming the river to flood the land. It's a bit unfortunate that it couldn't be brought in locally, but the local soil is clay.

The greenhouse is also very lovely and very large, a veritable Crystal Palace. The windows in roof are automated, a hydraulic system powered by wax, which as it heats, expands and opens the windows, and as it cools, shrinks and closes them again. It must be pretty finely calibrated.

In between our visits to the greenhouse, a meadow pipit had got in, and must have died from a heart attack or broken neck trying to get out. From a distance they look to me like just another brown bird, but up close it had beautiful mottled yellow-brown plumage. I could also see the long hind claws, and this one had a deformed beak, with one side splintered away.

10:10

Today is the anniversary of the death of Thomas Traherne, from Hereford so a local-ish lad. Of the Metaphysical poets he was probably the one who was most celebratory of creation, exploring its glory with little mention made of sin and suffering.

I had my own celebratory moment while sitting in the sun with a cup of tea. I was joined on my bench by a dragonfly for a good ten minutes, probably a mature female Common Darter. Its finest filigree wings shone silver in the sun, with some black edging at the end of each. Its body was brown, paling to almost orange on the back, and it had large brown insectoid eyes. It had a continuous kind of swallowing motion under its head, like a frog, but also a similar motion under the end of its tail, which was slightly odd. I suppose instead of 'body' and 'tail', I should say 'abdomen' or some such.

The 10:10 campaign has been asking people and organisations to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010, and then to do it. It's a first step towards reducing emissions by the 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 needed to avoid dangerous climate change. A while ago, I tried calculating my carbon emissions using various carbon calculators, and wasn't overly impressed with them. Given that I've made a fairly dramatic lifestyle change, it's a bit pointless trying to estimate and compare 2010 with 2009, so here are some figures derived from my utility bills and MOT certificates:

• Electricity down 5% in year to mid-August 2010
• Gas down 10% in year to end-August 2010
• Water down 12% in year to mid-September 2010
• Car mileage up 15% (ahem) in year to end-September 2010

I excluded journeys on behalf of Exeter Diocese from the mileage calculation, so it's even worse! And I'd meant to sell the car in June 2009. I confess I stopped worrying about mileage in the summer of 2010; I had things I wanted to do in Devon and people I wanted to see before I moved to Mucknell. Lots of difficult small decisions not taken. Thankfully, so far at Broad Marston, the car has barely moved.

Cats

Bella and Bertie are the two cats who deign to be associated with the community.
Both are mostly black, Bertie with tiny smidgeons of white, Bella with a white bib and zebra-style paws. Bertie is confident and independent and stays out at night, but Bella is much shyer and stays in and around Mary Bernard's room. She starts at a crackle of the fire, and rockets out of the room if someone gets up. This morning, one of them left a shrew on the wooden floor in the living room. I didn't see it on the way into breakfast, but thankfully managed not to step on it.

Today the community had our first meeting with David, who has very kindly offered to help us in our conversations between now and next Easter. We have a long list of things to discuss re how we will live in Mucknell... from cats to cars. The poor man must be feeling overwhelmed!

In the afternoon, Anthony was cutting willow rods to mark the beds in the new kitchen garden; Stuart was potting up geraniums; and Mary and Alex were climbing trees to pick apples.

Tomorrow, briefly, it will be 10:10:10 10/10/10.

Decisions

The Czechs have been burning the hedge and tree cuttings, probably because the nearest tip is half-an-hour away. The fire has been belching acrid smoke right at the courtyard and buildings. It caught at the back of my throat just crossing the courtyard, and my room smells of it. There is also a light rain of ash settling on cars and cobwebs.

The leak of caustic red sludge in Hungary gives perspective. But what on earth do we think we are doing when our industrial processes are so toxic and our management of them is so poor that they have potential to cause such problems? But still the coalition is in favour of restarting the nuclear industry! Each smaller decision is symptomatic of the greater. We take the easy way out by burning green material and creating pollution, instead of composting it. The greater decisions give 'permission' for the smaller, but taking one great decision isn't enough; living sustainably means taking myriads of smaller decisions day after day after day. And how are we going to learn to take difficult greater decisions in favour of sustainability if we don't start taking the difficult smaller decisions?

On Bredon Hill

Today is National Poetry Day 2010, so in honour my blog post makes slight allusion to Housman and Hopkins.

I went into Evesham Tourist Information to get hold of an OS Map and copies of walks on Bredon Hill. While there, I pottered into the Almonry Heritage Centre, which among many other items is full of 'tools of the trade'. Two titbits sprang out at me: the area is famous for its asparagus; and pot hampers were labelled with the letters "PPPP", which variously stand for Pershore Produce Properly Packed, or (according to the packers) Pershore People Poorly Paid.

Then I drove over to Ashton under Hill to do my chosen walk of 5 miles / 3 hours. The parish church is, unusually, dedicated to St Barbara, the patron saint of military engineers, artillery, miners and others who work with explosives, and mathematicians (hooray!). The only other such dedication I've seen was in Brittany. There were the remains of harvest offerings of hops and apples in the porch, and plenteous yew berries in the churchyard. I now think the red berries I saw in Pebworth were probably yew and guelder rose (drupes).

The first bit of hill was a bit of a shock; my last Dartmoor walk was about six weeks ago, and I felt very unfit. After a short climb, I sat in the shade of an oak, having evicted a ladybird from a convenient root, and gazed down on the church and across at a windhover on the thermals. On the plateau of Little Hill, there was a heavily-pollarded beech among a small group of trees. It had managed to put forth some new growth, but didn't look happy. The air was quite still as I climbed further, through fields enclosed by dry stone walls and profuse and fructiferous hawthorn, and a few gnarled elders still bearing some sprays of berries on leafless branches.

Up on Great Hill, the noise of a tractor ploughing broke the stillness, but the views were superb. The Malverns were just visible to the west over further contours. To the east the fields of Vale of Evesham, to the south Oxenton and Langley Hills, and aloft fields of cumulus with a very clear cloud base, with smears of cumulus and contrails directly overhead. As I stopped to look round, another kestrel flew across me to seek rodents in the wall below, and then I turned and spotted a horseshoe cemented into the wall behind me, hung with a heart-shaped metal tag stamped 'Spartan General 1964-1997'.

There was a small wood beside the path on this rise, mostly ash and beech, mixed with hawthorn and a few pine. The wind got up a little, and rustled the autumn leaves. My route turned right and downhill into the wood, where the ashes soared as they competed for light, and struggling sycamores lined the path with tar spots on their leaves. A brilliant yellow beech stood on the corner as the path exited the wood.

But then I managed to miss a path off to the right. By the time I'd realised, I'd gone downhill some way, so didn't want to retrace my steps and worked out another route. I didn't have my compass with me, so had a go at finding north using my analogue watch and the sun, which was somewhat imprecise! So I had to concentrate on map reading rather than Noticing Things. My route took me east of Ashton Wood instead of west. Although a bit of a longer way round, it looked as though it involved many fewer contours.

The last part of the path lay along the edge of a large ploughed field heaving with dozens of pheasant. Some instinct made them seek cover, so they all moved to my edge of the field, and then had to fly off with much panicked beating of wings. And then I was back on the village road.

Battle stations!

In a spare ten minutes, I did a circuit of the field. The wind in the row of trees (some sort of aspen?) just beyond was whipping their upper branches back and forth, exposing the lighter underside of their leaves. Then what looked like a green-veined white butterfly alighted in the grass at my feet - white wings with dark tips, dark veins leading to two dark spots on each.

A man and a woman from the Czech Republic have been coming on and off to work on the high hedges and copse. They have cut one of the hedges into high battlements with impressive crenellations, protecting the house from the neighbours and from much sight of the sun.

Mary Bernard was pottering around her plant pots just before tea, and had a bit of a tumble. But she did all the right things that she'd learnt in her falls clinic, and we got her back up and reunited with Boudicca, her zimmer-chariot hybrid.

Patterns

Another fine day, and a fine morning sky. The lower level of clouds were picked out in pale gold by the low sun, and blown by the wind across the grey of the higher clouds and eggshell blue sky.

And another trip down to Mucknell. This time, while Stuart was at a site meeting to determine when we'll be able to move in, Anthony and I started marking out the raised beds in the kitchen garden. We were aiming for a mini ridge and furrow effect, but we dug the first trench too deep and had to fill it in again. Various work creation schemes sprang to mind! Billy the dog from next door came to say hello, a kestrel hovered aloofly for a time, and there were a couple of skylarks above the next field. Then we discussed water butts and rabbit-proofing the gates with the architects. That is, we discussed with the architects; I'm not sure they'd be particularly suitable as material for rabbit-proofing. As we walked back down the drive to the car, we disturbed a flock of meadow pipits.

The chapel at Broad Marston is really the kitchen annexe, so office is often chanted to the drone of the dishwasher. When not looking out of the window, I'm often staring at the floor tiles, which are a geometric design of squares and rectangles, and making patterns. Here's a tile and one abstract crucifix...

Brother Sun

The feast day of St Francis, blessed with Brother Sun and blue skies! But there was some fog first thing - "Praise the Lord from the earth... Fire and hail, snow and mist..." (Psalm 148, Common Worship) - and the pyracantha berries against the coach house really stood out in their bright red splendour. There were lots of red berries in Pebworth the other day, on many and various trees I couldn't identify. They're all shouting "Eat me! Eat me!" to the birds, then "excrete my seed or drop me on a nice patch of damp earth!" so they will become strong and sturdy plants and produce more red berries.

I finally got around to asking Anthony about a bird I heard one night last week. Apparently, assuming I remembered the call aright, it was a little owl. There are tawnies somewhere as well, I think.

The fine weather lasted all day, which meant a bit of a chill later. As I wandered up and down the drive trying to get a signal on my mobile, the stars started appearing, popping out one by one behind the poplars. And then a bat flew over.

Hearth and heartland

It poured with rain most of the day, puddling in the gravel courtyard, and it all felt very autumnal. Today was a day for staying indoors by the roaring fire. We are still burning the wood saved when the old Mucknell farm house was demolished to make way for the new community building. I've had no experience of laying fires, not having been a girl guide. In my first attempt, I discovered that the Church Times doesn't burn at all well, but the Independent is much more inflammatory.

However, there were a couple of interesting articles in this Friday's Church Times. Matthew Oates writes about how poetic language, such as the idea of 'heartland', is vital for understanding ourselves, our spirituality, our relationship with nature and our environment, and with the Almighty (you may need a subscription to view). He wants to discover a meaning for heartland that is similar to Welsh cynefin or Scots Gaelic duthchas. He writes: "The concept of cynefin ... is central to Welsh language and culture, though it has no straightforward translation. It is a spiritual and poetic idea concerning relationship with a place of true belonging, expressed primarily through the Welsh language." This reminds me of my own vision for Mucknell; Jonathan Bate writes in "The Song of the Earth" about eco-poetry, or oiko-poesis, literally making a dwelling, or using poetry and other arts to create a belonging and a relationship with place.

Then there was an article about churches which have signed up to the 10:10 campaign, which commits them to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. A full two-page spread, which was good in its way, but there was not one mention of the Church of England's Shrinking the Footprint campaign. Not very joined up.

Dewteronomy

A fine day with a heavy dew first thing. The grass in the field behind the house was white with droplets, and there was still a low-lying mist after 8am. A robin sat on the gate and pip-pipped, and another trilled in the high hedges. I stood listening to other unintelligible bird song, and the sounds of chickens being let out next door, until the sound of cars heading off to the shops became too intrusive.

We chanted from Deuteronomy 32 at Lauds - speech condensing like the dew, and the eagle stirring up its nest - while I watched the dew steaming off the DIY shed.

In the afternoon, I mistook horse chestnuts in Pebworth for giant walnuts - a variety of spineless chestnuts I'd never seen before - a few conkers still sprinkled on the pavement as evidence. There was the mangled body of a grey squirrel, mouth pulled back into a grimace, lying on the edge of the road out of the village. In the early morning, I'd watched a relative break-dance across the field. "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life..." (Deut 30.19; NRSV).

Energy!

At Broad Marston we bake our own bread. In Exeter I used a bread machine, so this is an opportunity to bake bread properly. My first attempt wasn't bad, though I say so myself! It came out slightly denser than the previous baking, but looked like bread and tasted like bread. The physicality of kneading is good for me, as I live in my head for most of the time. Expending that energy makes me really feel that I am making something, and as Mary Bernard says, it is good for working out any frustrations!

Today at our corporate lectio divina we read: "The Lord replied, 'If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea", and it would obey you.'" Everyone had their mulberry tree story. Sadly mine was about the wonderful tree in the cloisters of Exeter Cathedral, which is to be cut down to make way for the relocated Cathedral shop. And my mind pottered along the route of physics and E=mc². Suppose a green mustard seed weighs approximately 0.002 g, and the speed of light is 3*10⁸ ms^-1. Then the amount of energy in a mustard seed is 1.8*10¹¹ J or 50 MWh, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 8 people in the UK. One mustard seed could power almost the whole community! As for me, faith at present means being faced with a long journey, and taking the first step, and then the next step, and the next, and the next... without looking too far ahead.