The Not New Year

It’s Friday, hurrah. Have I bought anything new….weeell that depends on definitions: Lunches over the week (about £15), a haircut (£7.50), a tank of diesel (£70!!!) Jeez. I must get hold of some biodiesel soon. Otherwise I think that’s it.

Yesterday I was in Chatham giving a short presentation on climate change. We’re helping out the World Development Movement on the campaign against the replacement coal fire power station at Kingsnorth (that’s Kingsnorth on the Hoo peninsula, not the village just south of Ashford). I’m humming and harring about going to the climate camp in a couple of weeks. CPRE won’t be involved directly, but I’d be interested in going along for a day. Though, if I get locked up without charge for 42 days, Tammy won’t be happy.

Today, I had a meeting with a project manager involved in the new Making Local Food Work campaign. It’s a 5-year project funded by the Lottery and I think it’s going to be brilliant.

Right, today’s top tip! Tammy had the great idea of using one our spare (clean) nappy buckets to collect “warm-up water” from the shower. Our shower is on the far side of the house from the hot water tank so there is quite a long dead leg of cold water that has to come out first. It’s not a total waste if it goes to the drain because it just passes through our septic tank and irrigates our lawn. ANYWAY, the warm up water fills about a 1/3 of the bucket, which is quite a lot of water over the year given the number of showers we take. So far we’re using the water on pot plants, topping up the rainwater tank and I suppose we could use it for flushing the toilet.

- Sean