There are very workable solutions: walking, cycling, buses, boats and rail. The worst decision you can make is to fly, rather than travel overland – including oversea.
Diesel [internal sleep conversion]
I have contributed. My LandRover was stolen and rather than replace it I moved to an MG. Once a smaller car became available I ‘Dipped the Grand‘ dropping to a 999cc Picanto; it is more than sufficient for my needs. It has a 40, 40, 400 ideology. £40 tax, £40 fill and a reward of 400 miles. At most I fill up less than once a month; and my insurance has just gone down again … [under 5000 mikes a year].
Both cars were passed down from parents and so up-cycling practiced.
Great for a whizz, not so good for economy.
During Lent I have been substituting journeys, mainly on my bicycle, and no, I haven’t got wet yet. I have wasted some time scraping ice though on the brisk days I chose to drive.
So how do you get 400 miles out of a tank? Mostly by challenging yourself. The least efficient manoeuvre is pulling away. The lights here change quickly, so coast towards them rather than stop dead.
Pull away slowly utilising all of the gears. We have a short stretch nearby where the limit is 40, but drops quickly to 30. Most drivers accelerate to forty, braking hard … a waste of carbon and cause of pollutants.
See the maximum speed as that, a maximum.
Driving at sub-optimal speeds produces less carbon, costs you less money and introduces spaces into the traffic system – improving efficiency. It also improves thinking time making residential areas safer; no brainer. The ideology that the optimal is the maximum is wrong, air resistance increases exponentially with speed. ±
If you drive through a 40 limited zone at thirty your followers are also reducing carbon by 25%, and if it us a row of ten cars, so are they.
Sit on a motorway with the lorries at 50 or 60, a tank of fuel gets me up to the Lakes, from Dorset, §and back.
Mostly though, low carbon car use is about culture. Picking the kids up from school [why?], popping to the shops, the supermarket run, collate these ‘jobs’ and do them once a month with the tip run. Your children will grow up as expectant car owners, mine didn’t; they are walkers [for pleasure] and cyclists, neither have a will to drive.
We use water for three things: drinking, flushing and cleaning.
Drinking tap water over bottled water is one of the most immediate changes you can make. It is also used in cooking.
I drain the cold water from my tap into a series of litre high milk bottles as the hot water runs, saving two litres a day. These refill the kettle.
My toilet has both short (wee) and long (poo) washes. I also have a compost loo outside; very simple to use with solids in biodegradable bags and carbon cover, and liquids in seal top bottles in two places; these re-enter the garden via the compost.
I use less water than falls in my garden – sustainability
Grey water is collected via the shed roof – simple drainpipe system – and then lidded and rolled to the top of the garden for tree and flower nourishment and car cleaning.
Showers predominate and that is pretty much it. Bill below £20 pm, pretty much the standing charge.
Aside from our travel and heat, the main resources we consume as humans are through packaging. Mainly food. I now know more about the wrapping food and my ideas have shifted towards increased packets.
Supermarkets are not ‘bad boys’, sustainability is demonstrated through food gifting and charitable donations. Did you know they give free food to their staff to combat poverty?
There is a three way division of waste: biodegradable, recyclable and waste. I generate very little of the latter.
We are fortunate that biodegradable matter is collected from the doorstep in Dorset although I compost all of mine, including toilet paper – more elsewhere. I also wash my eggs shells, saving these to add a calcium layer to the outdoors compost bin.
Recycled material is collected fortnightly: iron [tins], paper and hard plastics mainly. Dorset initiated the use of light technology to sort hard plastics at their recycling centre in the late nineties leading the field at that time.
My waste is minimal. I sub-divide the soft plastics into a bread bag, up-cycling the remainder, which is often zero. If I was to add the bread bags to my black bin they would need to be collected once a year. Instead I recycle them at a large supermarket where they enter the recycle chain quickly as polythene plastic. This is used as covers, over cardboard for cases of bottles and packets. One of the most efficient recycle loops in the UK, with stripped plastic returning on the delivery lorries, alongside out-dated food and the bio digested methane utilised to break-down the polythene, and power the trucks.
I scratched my head about soft plastic on hard trays but the injected nitrogen lengthens food decay times, reducing waste further. I save the trays, lifting veg in my fridge drawer above the naturally transpired moisture and further extending decay times.
Fridge drawer with containers inspired by the research that Tupperware have completed recently
So how much waste do I actually create?
Very close to zero with my reuse, upcycling and donations; unwanted coat hangers went to the charity shop recently. My clothes are cotton, wool or silk so could be bio digested.
Wood is difficult but I tend to take to the pub fire, along with confidential documents.
It is not difficult to divide waste and reach zero, it should be all of our’s ultimate aim.
Bin collections are fortnightly and I am lucky if my green bin is full bi-monthly. Forgetting to put the bins out, or remembering to bring it in is no longer a problem. Glass goes with it but is mostly upcycled, more later.
The elements provide an excellent framework for laying out your green thoughts. Some use 5 with aether or spirit as an additional idea but I shall focus on 5 in this occasional series.
1. Earth – the giver of resources, mostly rocks but also fossil fuels. Aluminium, hydrocarbons, glass and wood. Talcum and kaolinite, lithium and slate.
2. Water – essential for life; drinking, washing and flushing. it could include other liquids, such as oil. Feeds our plants and makes us smell.
3. Air – the stuff we breathe but also our weather systems and the pollutants we discard, mainly carbon.
4. Fire – the power we use to heat our lives, cook our food and celebrate the key occasions. Mainly electricity or gas but wood for some and candles others.
I intend to bitesize my experiences from over the last two years. Buying a new house, shedding the unnecessary and making conscientious decisions to buy green.
The Ashen Faggot is a long bundle of sticks bound by ash bark strips and burnt annually at Epiphany. The girth is limited by the fireplace whilst the length is more contentious. Pagan, or Medieval, or Christian in origin it marks rebirth and the beginning of the traditional new year.
The timing of the bands breaking are significant and therefore the overall length of the faggot [bound material] important. Folklore suggests that these lengths were determined by the heights of giants, the tallest of the community. This is a similar argument to utilising their ‘foot’ length to determine horizontal distance.
A quick survey of my congregation revealed a maximum height of 6’8”.
This is a Somerset and Devon tradition, Ashton is in the former county. Here in Dorset, our giant is celebrated on the chalk but if you return to an era where little was written down altitude was measured differently. 1056 yards divide exactly by both 6 and 8 and so either could be adopted. The nautical mile is trickier, but more accurately aligns with the earths circumferences.
So, prior to recording numbers in common, site depth was measured in fathoms [it still is!] altitude was as well, mast heights, curvature and matelot heights. The most fearsome pirates were some fathom high!
In comes the faggot, potentially a fathom long to reflect the giants of our counties. Dorset has a reduced seafaring tradition compared to say Devon but the bloody assises and Tolpuddle martyrs link the sea to our red signposts and penal transportation.
Number 15
And so with Dorset faggots of potentially a fathom high, [they are constructed vertically and burnt horizontally] why has the fathom slipped out of common use. The clue here is with the quaint custom of marking direction and latterly distances. Miles were an obvious inclusion and inhabitants saw these printed for the first time. What about the sub-division? A mile was divided into 8 parts, the furlong. Occasionally these are still found on fingerposts and milestones.
One of the three protected grade 1 signposts in Somerset.
Furlongs divide conveniently into 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, or 10 chains. Even more conveniently, two furlongs can be easily represented as 1/4 [2/8], or 6 as 3/4. The fractions were easily represented on signposts, far easier than furlongs or indeed fathoms. The yard passed into common usage and fathom was confined to the sea. Mountains were measured in feet.
Credit: the Milestone Society via Geograph.
Who knows the true fable, it is locked in folklore.
Photo – Ken Ralph
It seems a shame that the fathom was superseded by the SI unit of the meter but a base of ten makes so much more sense.
Starting February 2023 I decided to revisit each square of the 365 project on line. There were reasons for this. Firstly I had forgotten some of the minor places and wanted a systematic way to reread the book. Secondly I wanted to share my [often poor] photography and also identify places for a revisit. I didn’t have photographs of Scorhill stone circle; for example.
The complete project
So how can you find my daily tweets? Simply follow @365Dartmoor on Twitter, or look for the hashtag #365in365
SRT [single rope technique] gives you a vertical freedom experienced in few locations. The opportunity to arrive with a rope, determine your own route and then carefully plan a descent is satisfying.
My return underground, with the committed gusto of my previous outdoor sports has been heartening. It is determined by location, and whilst the Mendip Hills are not renowned as a node of excellence there is plenty of challenging routes to inspire.
Rhino rift
There are about 8 reasonable trips, with a variety of challenges but Hunters Hole has it all. A very safe entrance approach, traverse and visible first Y hang and then choice from the ledge.
Sago pitch is straightforward, the Direct route includes two deviations and the Right Hand Route has a rebelay and overhead Y hang. A great place to develop,the skills of progression or rigging.
Y hang with cavers butterfly.
Rhino Rift is big; the rush of the committed drop, tied with some complex route finding provides a great challenge. I still haven’t got it perfect, but this encourages me to return.
The smaller problems; Spider, Star, Mangle all have a contrasting nature and tied with the above provide an all round apprenticeship and experience before stepping out to the more concentrated areas; Yorkshire for me.
Right Hand Route overhead Y hang in HH
My enthusiasm has returned and tied with a young enthusiastic Padawan Yorkshire beckons again.
With the summer holidays beginning and building work at home a trip up north seemed a no brainer. I lived in Cumbria for many years and the opportunity to meld Lancaster and Yorkshire was ideal.
Gateway view
It began with something of a mystery tour, heading across into Westmorland. Post boxes, signs, black horses and wriggly tin abounded.
The Black Horse junction.
We were heading to the Friends meeting house at Brigflatts, this solace of calm was both a surprise and a place to reflect and begin my wind down to summer.
The Friends meeting house.
Sedbergh beckoned next and tight roads led up onto Winder, the reward was a pint in town. Many fond memories exist, one of our first family holidays were here.
Winder
The next day my friends had a swim date where the Roeburn meets Harterbeck in Wray. We met up at the tearoom, they swam and explored wriggly tin at the George and Dragon.
We then headed across to Hornby to wander to the river mouth. Plague wells, post boxes and stiles filled the landscape.
Hornby
Wednesday was a visit out west to Morecambe and a piece of architecture I had wanted to see for years.
The Midland Hotel
I explored the viaduct on the way home, little to know I would be paddling this canal later in the summer.
The Lancaster canal atop the Lune.
This was a great break, thanks to Z who helped inspire me and was punished with Carcassonne. I did a little to help too; working my passage …
With storm Gina building at home my SUP on the Grand Western is likely to be shelved; an opportunity for new exploration.
Ventford falls
The Falls are well known but outside of 365, and so were a new location for me, about a year ago. The idea of a valley top Bench Tor to Mel Tor via the river has appealed for some time.
The upper Dart chasm.
Descending, abseils jump out at you, crying to be rapped. The Dart could rush with increased flow, making for an exciting transit. Downstream the classic swim spots – clogged up from below – will inevitably be quiet.
Unmarked tracks through the woods
A new type of ‘Southern States’ soft-touch canyoneering could emerge. Against the roar of the Dart an exciting destination awaits.
Alicemark 