ecoexplorer.co.uk

Spent the weekend wandering around Bristol, doing a bit of Banksy-spotting. The highlight - other than the splendid company - was St Werburgh’s City Farm, a gorgeous little green corner, next to a Ashley Vale Allotments, with chickens, goats, sheep, rabbits and pigs. They’ve got fruit and veg growing in their greenhouses, and once you’ve finished petting the piggies there’s a cracking and spectacularly painted pub just round the corner, aptly named The Farm.
Blissful. Really wish Coventry’s abandoned city farm could take a leaf out of St Werburgh’s book to breathe new life into a fairly forgotten corner of Hillfields.

…ooo, and also (more…)

In case you didn’t look to the skies last night, here’s a peek at the Perseid meteor shower from three years ago. I remember watching it on Southsea beach after an evening picnic. Magic.

There’s an awesome slide show by National Geographic here. Coventry folk on Twitter are planning to meet up somewhere on the outskirts of the city to watch next year’s. To get involved look up the aptly named #tweeteorup

Remember the curious incident of the fir tree growing in a man’s lung? Just when you think it couldn’t get any weirder comes the man with a pea plant sprouting in his lung…

The Boston Herald broke the story that Ron Sveden had been eating peas when one went down “the wrong way”, nestled inside his breathing apparatus and began to grow.

I love the quotes in stories floating round the Internet make Ron sound like a jovial old soul. I suppose if a case of suspected lung cancer turned out to be a harmless, if slightly gruesome, spot of grow your own I’d be ‘a pea’ too. (sorry)

These beauties have kept me feeling great about the garden despite it turning into a bit of a jungle this summer. They’ve been unstoppable.

It’s the first time I’ve grown beefsteak tomatoes and each plant has (more…)

Tonight? Not. Too bloody lazy.

A new campaign is urging Coventry to go meat-free on Mondays. And there’s a stack of evidence suggesting it would make us both greener and healthier.

The idea has been taken up city-wide in Ghent, while Belgium and Manchester have made school dinners meat-free on Mondays.

But by the looks of some of the comments from readers, Coventry might take a little more persuading.

As far as meat fans go, I’m up there with the best of them. I like my steak blue, I go potty for a pork pie and it’s hard to beat a bit of pigeon breast.

But I love vegetables too and I can’t stand them being sidelined and made to play a ‘bit part’ in every meal. Sometimes they deserve to be cast in the starring role.

So Meat-Free Monday makes sense to me. But I’m intrigued to find that for a lot of people not only does it not make sense, it actually upsets or offends them.

None of us get shirty when health professionals are pushing us to eat 5-a-day, so what is it about meat that makes us feel so defensive?

a vision of blissful, safe and popular cycling from a land where the car isn’t king

TO the raft of risks that stop children cycling independently (heavy traffic, stranger danger, etc.) we can now add the threat of a visit from social services.

That’s what faces a couple who have encouraged their nippers, aged five and eight, to cycle one mile to school along the pavements of Dulwich.

Having weighed up the potential pros and cons of their kiddies journeying to school alone, Gillian and Oliver Schonrock decided the benefits were so great they outweighed the potential risks.

The ten-minute journey consists of cycling on wide pavements through the leafy suburb and, half-way there, crossing a road with the help of a lollipop lady.

But when the school got wind of the Schonrocks’ travel plan, the head teacher called them in to explain that under current protocol the school has a duty of care for children on their way to and from the building and that the parents must either supervise the journey or be reported to social services.

This isn’t the first time schools have frowned on cycling pupils.

Those of us with any sense of perspective know there isn’t a paedophile lurking in every bush, nor a child catcher on every corner.

The major danger on the journey to school is the school-run traffic itself. So surely schools should be tackling congestion rather than berating people who are cutting it.

This is part of the Simple Acts campaign. It’s not terribly complex or high-brow but I guess the point is to be child friendly. And it is.

Ok, they sound weird but rhubarb cocktails are the perfect tonic to this sticky heat.
I first heard of them in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Year cook book.

Chop 400-500g rhubarb sticks and simmer with the juice of two oranges and 4 tbsp sugar for about 10 minutes in a frying pan.
The rhubarb will break up and go gorgeously gooey. Strain it through a sieve, keeping the rhubarb for a crumble (you can freeze it till you’re ready) and the rhubarb syrup for cocktails.
The syrup will keep in a sealed jar in the fridge for a month.

Rhubarb G&T
Rhubarb goes really well with gin. And the lemon really brings out the citrusy taste of the orange juice in the rhubarb syrup.
Pour one part rhubarb syrup to one part gin to two parts tonic over ice cubes. Add a squeeze of lemon and run another lemon slice around the rim for a citrusy hit.

Rhubarb Bellini
Posh drinkers might use Champers but I used a sparkling wine and it was lovely.
Run your glass under a cold tap and dip the rim in sugar. Crush some ice and pour one part rhubarb syrup to three parts fizz.

Rhubarb Mule
This is gorgeously tart. A stick of rhubarb in the drink is just like having celery in a Bloody Mary. I like it to eat it but even if you don’t the sugary coating will make the drink sweeter the more you sup.
Chop a thin stick of rhubarb, and dip in egg white before rolling in sugar.
Crush some ice and pour one part rhubarb syrup to one part vodka to two parts ginger ale. Add a squeeze of lime if you like and serve with the sugary rhubarb stick.

Hurrah! Good work Brighton.