365 days to be greener

Jensen recently had a school trip to Shoreham Harbour Lifeboat Station.

It was built to replace the old building which went up in 1933 and was due an overhaul.

I think the new building is a thing of beauty – well worth a visit.

This month’s choice was inspired. We decided to read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Most of us hadn’t read it since school (and some not at all), so it was a rare treat to have an excuse to re-visit a book that you probably wouldn’t naturally decide to go back to without a good reason. I remember loving it when I was 15, but I couldnt remember why and I wouldn’t have chosen a book about the second world war and one man’s apparently futile attempts to get out of fighting when there is Swedish crime a-plenty out there.

That said, I loved it all over again. The perspective that a bit of extra life gives you on a book like this is wonderful. I found it all the more poignant reading it as a mother and a wife, and all the more hilarious with twenty more years of comedy behind me. Heller’s writing is fantastically well observed, he manages to shock, thrill gladden and sadden all at the same time and for a few days after I finished it, I found myself pathetically googling the main characters to see if anyone out there has figured out exactly what became of them. Definitely add it to your list if you haven’t done it already.

After Catch-22 I went for something a bit different – set in the future and describing a post-apocalyptic world that is all too easy to imagine coming true, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, was my favourite book of the year so far. A love story, the story of a man’s struggle for survival and a techie-nerd wonderland of possible-almost-true-too-terrible-to-contemplate-likely-futures, it was riveting. I love her style of writing and I was gripped, depressed and forced in to slightly deeper thoughts than usual as a result of reading it. Everything you could want from a good read. Magical.

Finally for this batch, I tried Couples by John Updike. It starts out by introducing us, rather vaguely, to a group of families (couples with hardly-ever-present children)  living in a small American town called Tarbox. They are post-war adults looking for a beautiful way of life where their children are independent and well educated and free, and they live in beautifully rennovated, authentic houses, with varied interests, witty friends in a lively community.

The reality is they are a bunch of grubby snobs with all the social inadequacies you would expect from people in unhappy marriages, who are very rarely exposed to anything other than a mirror of their own fatuousness. If everyone else is at it, why shouldnt I…..?

They judge others as a way of life, and if they manage to find themselves wanting it is not with chagrin or remorse, but with a fascinated zeal that they might discover they are somehow more interesting than they first believed. They slip in to easy and unnecessary adultery, their children are basically neglected and they all seem to pitch their lives to revolve around the study of how special and miserable they are.

Updike’s prose is florid and sometimes burdensome but it helps to lift the story from the mundane and slightly tawdry in to the realms of something worth experiencing. The women are all either pinched or fullsome and the men are spectactularly unattractive, one description of a man’s wet bottom lip and forever-pursed mouth will stay with me forever. The idea that we might be embarking on a journey where women other than his wife might choose to kiss it is tough to take.

I didn’t like any of the characters (and there are many). They were either simply stereotypical window dressing to provide context and fodder for the main characters, or they were just spectactulary selfish, ignorant, deluded folk.

That’s not a good enough reason not to read it though. Updike is writing about a class and group that we can see glimmers of in every group of “couples” that move around eachother socially. His novel transcends time and gives us all an opportunity to reflect on religion, love, parenthood and relationships whilst also being able to sit in judgement of his “fictional” characters. Good therapy.

Friend Jess has just started her own website called “Bartie”.

Its a lovely premise – she has shopped for gorgeous gifts so that you dont have to fry your brains browsing thousands of options. Everything you buy is gift wrapped and ready to go and she also sells cards, so it can be a one-stop shop for those folk in your life that it becomes increasingly hard to shop for.

Lovely things!

I have long fantasised about owning a campervan. Neither myself or my other half are particularly handy so the thought of trying to maintain a “project” van is terrifying. Anything that doesn’t require serious maintenance is beyond our budget by a long way.

In the absence of being able to look at one on our driveway 11months of the year, we occasionally hire one and we did just this from a company in Chichester called “Landcruise“. Extremely helpful, very organised and with reasonable rates, the camper we hired was immaculate. It drove beautifully and was very easy to manoevre. In fact its really hard to find any bad points.

The only thing I would do differently next year is hire something a bit older and slightly more tatty. We suggested to Landcruise that they look seriously at the idea of hiring out older vans to families with children. We would probably pay the same for the privelige of being able to relax properly in to the holiday without fear of messing up a beautiful vehicle.

A few dents, either manufactured or genuine would have done wonders for our peace of mind.

With a title like that who is likely to read this all the way through…..?

So I went for my colonic.

I don’t know which adjectives it is appropiate to use to describe this given that it went quite well…

Useful? suprising? satisfying?.Umm….Anyway, it was exactly as you would expect. The very nice lady in charge rolls you over, and puts a greased tube in your bottom. This bit I FELT, due to the fact that nothing ever goes up my bottom. Mostly stuff just comes out. Stuff going in was new and lets be honest, not the best thing that has ever happened to me.

However, after that it was not entirely unpleasant. The water is heated to body temperature, so although it appears that gallons and gallons of the stuff is going in, you cannot feel this at all.

The therapist made it very clear that the tube could not shoot out of me and spray her and the room with liquid poo. She also made it clear that the substances coming out of me were no more horrifying or repellant than anyone elses, so my repeated questioning on both of these points was worthwhile. Eventually I believed her.

The whole process took about an hour and after you finished being filled and emptied, you then have a hilarious toilet trip where although nothing leaks and there is absolutely no call for embarrassment on the way to the toilet, you then have THE runniest poo you have EVER had. Not even runny. Beyond liquid. Practically a mist. But without the benefit of poorly stomach cramps, it all stays firmly in place until you are ready to evacuate the last of the water. The human body is amazing.

After the process, I left and walked about a bit, and gradually over the course of the afternoon, felt steadily, more and more healthy until I felt absolutely incredible. It was lovely. Despite not eating for the morning in order to ensure I didn’t break any foul efluvia records, I wasn’t hungry and when I became so, I actively wanted something fresh and pure. The sensation of feeling clean inside and out was overwhelming and I really didn’t want to mess it up.

I would thoroughly recommend this treatment if you are feeling at all sluggish and tired. It pepped me up and for a good few weeks I felt lighter, cleaner and somehow more efficient. My skin has definitely been clearer, my step lighter and my movements more regular.

And now this is going beyond the bounds of decency as far as sharing is concerned. Have one. See what you think. And then keep it to yourself.

Friend Ro recently ran the Brighton Marathon in aid of Winston’s Wish – the childrens’ charity. They look after bereaved children and families. Magical Ro managed to raise enough money for two families to be put through a full program of bereavement counselling and support and she ran the 26.2 miles in a very respectable 4hrs and 35 minutes.

This was a special feat as not only was it her very first marathon, but having trained all winter long in snowy Monmouthshire, the day of the marathon was the hottest of the year so far and instead of bowling up to the start line in leggings and sleeves, she was busy buying sun hats and finding her sunglasses….it was hot and long and she ran the whole thing. Incredible.

Here is the link to the charity – , and here is the link to the marathon for next year if you are feeling suitably inspired!

Here is the latest one word review summary. In the case where emphatic expletives are required I have waivered the one word rule and just let rip. In fact to be brutally honest, the one word rule is total load of cobblers.

Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go – Totally perfect novel. My absolute desert island mix of sci-fi reality, friendship, love and tragedy. Huge moral issues running alongside a narrative that captures tiny, brilliantly well observed (and sometimes deeply unattractive) human traits. Oh the irony.

Alex Garland – ComaIllustrated with wood cut pictures by his famous dad – Nicholas Garland, this is a really interesting tiny book about the idea of a man who is in a coma, or is he? who wakes up, or does he?

Naomi Novik – Temeraire  Ok. Bear with me. Set during the Napoleonic wars, with the small catch that dragons exist as part of the fighting forces. I LOVED it. Really dear.

Kazuo Ishiguro – An Artist of the Floating WorldSadly, although this is supposed to be the more perfect of the two novels, I preferred Never Let Me Go to this one. Perfectly executed and gentle in its probing of dark secrets, but did not have the same grip on me that the aforementioned did.

Jo Nesbo – The Snowman Truly horrible. I read it because my marathon running friend said she listened to it on her iPod to get her pace up through the dark woods of Monmouth when she was training over Winter. I would have broken the sound barrier if I’d had to run around in dark woods on my own listening to this. Its a shocker.

I think I may have posted about these lovely fellers before, but this is my new favourite noise in the whole wide world….

Devotchka – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfi1UQ_PKQI

How it Ends is very swirly and melodious, which is always fine by me, but some of their early stuff is pure klesmer. Best of All Worlds. Magic.

If you didn’t catch this first time round, you must put it in the diary for May 5th, 23:45 on BBC4

Everything and Nothing, presented by Dr Jim Al-Khalili attempts to explore firstly, the true size and shape of our universe in all its splendiferous glory. Nothing, the second part, then looks at the true nature of the gaps in between and tries to make some layman’s sense of how the universe may have come in to being.

Dr Jim is very gentle and makes no secret of the fact that he is simplifying impossibly difficult concepts in to brief analogies for our benefit, and on that basis, there is a chance that the odd crucial detail may get entirely lost in translation. The explanation of Heizenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as a basis for the possible creation of our world was special to say the least. And he did. But it was still marvellous.

I loved Brian Cox’s latest effort, but this one will stay with me for much longer.

We went to the UK Aware exhibition in London Olympia today.

Unfortunately there was also an eco-friendly event on at Excel which is one stop away from Olympia. We got off at the wrong stop – should never have followed all the people in brightly coloured hessian and cork shoes – and ended up being very environmentally sound as we trudged the “London mile” from Excel to Olympia on foot.

When we finally arrived it was lovely. There were stalls, talks, demos and an all pervading smell of lentil dhal. (I know its cliched but there really was!). There was also a free-book stand – its a simple enough premise. Instead of putting your books in to landfill, donate them to the book folk and they give them away again for you. Sadly, my not-so-green-three year old rather liked a Barbie book that took batteries, so we undid all of our good work by bringing that all the way home to re-fuel it.

We also joined the Wildfowl Trust as their HQ is just down the road from us. I am already starting to plan Summer events based on previous experience of even the shortest of breaks from school now being the stuff of nightmares. The book of nature-walks alone will fill a fortnight of available time and was worth the membership just for that.

I also bought Seren a drinking bottle for school and earmarked a cycle basket for my birthday. (Will post up their credentials in due course).

Despite all the rampant consumerism it was also a handy day for refreshing our understanding of just what is available now. From ethical banking, to compost-able ”plastic” pots, ideas for clothes swaps to green ways to travel, it was very informative and “buzzy” day.

The next one is in Bristol at the Festival of Nature on the 18th / 19th June. For more info – http://www.ukaware.com/show/index2.php?mid=41