Sustainability evening

On Thursday, we have a welcome event for some of the local folk involved in sustainability and conservation. I've been busy putting together some factsheets about the various sustainable aspects of Mucknell (and will have to re-read them to stir my memory before Thursday), and an overview (pdf, 153kb). One day, when I get myself together, the factsheets will all go on www.mucknellabbey.org.uk.

Preparations for Thursday also include a good tidy of the kitchen garden by Anthony, and general cosmetic weeding. We'll serve some of the elderflower champagne I made at the beginning of June, but today we thought we ought to try it out first. Verdict: a bit watery, but has a little bit of something and is refreshing.

Nature writing

From "Beechcomings" by Richard Mabey:

I'm still in a state of puzzled excitement about that odd synchrony between scientific description and picturesque sentiment. I know the cynical Gordon is closer to the truth than the romantic Rosemary [in their reactions to Burnham Beeches, in George Orwell's "Keep the Aspidistra Flying"], but I don't see that their truths are necessarily contradictory. At school, I was educated as a scientist, and enthralled by the mechanics of life. But I became uneasy about science when I started writing, fearful that in some way it might 'contaminate' my imagination. I kept it in quarantine in a kind of mental biohazard enclosure, taking it out only under the strictest security. But I'm wiser now, and increasingly believe that finding a common ground between respectful, objective views of nature and respectful views of our own visionary images is what 'nature writing' ought to be concerned with. So I dig deep into the biochemistry I once knew, and swat up on what is really happening in the rites of the fall, hoping that it may reveal something about the beauty of trees in autumn, or at least their meaning.

Kitchen garden progress