New thinking for new year's day - Clerkenwell history

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK in order to reduce our impact on climate change. All is quiet on New Year's Day, so it was fun to go on a rebel footprint tour around Clerkenwell and see the exact spots that social justice was challenged and changed thanks to people from Italy, India, German, Soviet Union etc. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Walking a chapter in Rebel Footprints by David Rosenberg was an interesting way to spend New Year’s Day. When the big blockbuster shows are on in London covering revolutionary art and ideas there’s a tendency to focus on the Soviet Union and France. But Rebel Footprints offers a guide to “uncovering London’s radical history”. Turns out London is packed with historic incident plus the places – often coffee houses, but pubs too – where these events were planned.

As I live in Islington it’s always fun to learn more about the area (see the 260+ interviews on https://islingtonfacesblog.com ) so instead of a cobweb-blowing New Year’s Day walk along a cliff edge we picked a guided tour (reachable by local bus) of the trailblazers for democracy who lived, worked and plotted around Clerkenwell, EC1. This is a short walk – 7,000 paces for those of you living by fitbits. For me it was very familiar so a chance to look again at places and consider the power of politics. Here’s what I found most interesting:

Spa Fields (a paved green space) looks a bit sad in winter, but it was a huge area bordering Exmouth Market and ideal for rallies. It was the centrepoint for bread riots that broke out in London in 1800-01 which the authorities blamed on Newcastle-born Thomas Spence who was a shoemaker and radical teacher who wanted egalitarianism, land nationalisation and universal suffrage. His followers were known as Spenceans.

Plaque marks the UK's first black MP - who won his seat in 1982.

The Old Town Hall on Rosebery Avenue, opened in 1895, used to be where Islingtonians registered births, marriages and deaths in ink. I have two millennial daughters – one was registered with an ink pen, the other in a more high-tech environment using new technology. The Old Town Hall is now a dance studio for 16-21 year olds, Urdang Academy. Here we spotted a plaque commemorating the first black (and first Asian) MP, Dadabhai Naoroji, who was elected as a liberal MP for Finsbury Central in 1892. He won by just three votes! This is a good place to people watch: in just five minutes we jam-packed history and spotted a policeman on a skittish horse; a woman dressed as a suffragette and an ambulance responder on a bike. Often you can see queues for Urdang auditions which makes me think of the 1983 movie set in the thriving industrial steel town of Philadelphia, Flashdance – best songs What a feeling and Maniac.

Italian family and home of Joey Grimaldi, London's most famous clown

Exmouth Market was the home of Joey Grimaldi, the famous clown. He was the son of Italian immigrants and went to work as a dancer, on stage at Sadler’s Wells from just three years old.

On the site of a prison...

Mount Pleasant – now a reduced Royal Mail operation although it does have a postal museum and underground postal train to try – was the Middlesex House of Correction, also known as Coldbath Fields Prison. 

The Italian church is still busy.

Clerkenwell Road is where you can find St Peter’s Italian church, built in 1863. It still holds joint Italian and English Sunday mass and is the place to go for an Italian experience in London (especially if you go for coffee or pasta before or afterwards). Back in the mid 19^th century the church doubled as a labour exchange and the area was dubbed ‘Little Italy”. Since the 1880s there’s been an annual Italian parade around Clerkenwell – known as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In 2018 the parade and carnival will probably be Sunday 22 July (please check date before you go!).

From this building, now the Marx Memorial Library, the first red
flag was flown during a rally

Clerkenwell Green is the hotspot for radical explorers. Here you can find the Marx Memorial Library, which is in the building where the first red flag was flown in London, hoisted at a rally in 1871 in sympathy with the Paris Communards. It used to be a radical printing workshops where Lenin worked... Here's a fascinating film about the building's history.

short MML film3 from Christopher Reeves on Vimeo.

Under the clock

The Crown Tavern, 43 Clerkenwell Green. At the table under the clock
is where Lenin drank (possibly coffee and not just beer) and planned.

Just over the road, also in Clerkenwell Green, is the pub where Lenin drank – The Crown. Head to the back room and you’ll find the conspirators clock, which is helpfully marked by a plaque.

There are plenty more radical history exploring possibilities – I’d recommend borrowing or buying the book. Do you have any guide books that get you outside and learning about other places or times that you think other readers of this blog would enjoy? If so please let me know. Thanks.

• Rebel Footprints by David Rosenberg (Pluto Press, 2015)

When did you last plant a tree?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Recently Cicerone Guidebooks kindly gave Around Britain No Plane a very young oak tree. But where to plant it? Words by Nicola Baird 

My new oak tree, safe for a while in a big pot away from the bantams.

If I've got a proper life regret, then it's that I haven't planted enough trees. We all know we should plant more trees - to mop up pollution, provide habitat,  maybe even offer a sense of continuum - it's just that I don't really have anywhere I can put trees. My back garden is titchy and the hens and dog are expert at ruining any planting schemes I might have. And I live in London where the dreaded word subsidence is always linked to trees. Subsidence by the way is allegedly caused by street and garden tree roots undermining your home in their search for nourishment and water.

Worse for my tree planting dreams, my last purchase was a bowsaw which I intend to use to reduce the height of my giant privet hedge.

But I still long to plant trees. One a day is the Man Who Planted Trees mantra - and I have planted a few, maybe 100. Some highlights include:

• Acorns taken from trees later felled along the Newbury Bypass which are now growing at my brother's house.
• The mini orchard (you only need five trees to make an orchard!) in my home's front garden.
• The new whippet thin hedge saplings planted when I was doing a three month long course with British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, now the TCV.
• The small native woodland trees my friend Hannah has got me to plant in Wales. Always done when it's freezing.
• The olive tree that got put in my children's primary school grounds when the playground was remodelled.
• At Christmas my brother and I had the fun of planting two crazy trees in his garden - a little hazel which has truffles added to the root ball; and a weeping willow which he hopes to use as a picnic den, about 10 years from now...

Where to plant this baby oak?
This obsession with wanting to plant more trees means that I was thrilled to be given an oak sapling in February during a promotion for Britain"s National Trails by Cicerone, the publisher that specialises in long distance travel guides. I love the variety of Cicerone's guides and have The Danube Cycleway by my desk and on the kitchen table there's The Great Glen Way, just in case I have to take off, now... In some ways there is too much choice - Cicerone has 350 guidebooks and as a result has provided me with proper anorak information about Britain's National Trials... for instance 2016 will be:

• 45 years since Offa's Dyke Path was established
• 30 years sionce the opening of The Peddars Way and Norfolk coast Path
• 20 years since TheThames Path became a national trail
• 51 years since Britain's first national trail - the Pennine Way - was opened.

My husband and kids exploring the oak and hornbeam
woodland of Hatfield Forest, Essex - just beyond
Stansted Airport's runway.

Who will help me plant trees?
Walking and cycling across a long distance route are exactly the sort of times that get you thinking about landscape. Should the UK look so denuded?

Well it probably wouldn't if there were less sheep on the uplands and a different emphasis on land use. But that doesn't mean people aren't still planting trees. And the great thing is that it's possible to have a go yourself, even if you have zero outside space. For example:

• The Woodland Trust is a fabulous organisation doing a lot of tree planting - thanks to people like you and me (well actually not me, but I hope soon to have a go!). See more about how to plant trees with them on local community land, at schools and even in urban areas, here.
• The National Forest in Leicestershire is transforming 200 square miles into a huge forest. They rely on volunteers - so if you live in Leicestershire, Staffordshire or Derbyshire, or can make a trip to the Midlands, then you can help them out in their ambitions to plant more trees. See all the info here.
• You can also look at Trust for Conservation Volunteers website - just type in your postcode - and loads of green (management tasks and tree planting) pop up. Rather sweetly some of these are called green gyms.

Seeing the wood and the trees
I can see a couple of trees from my window as I type this, but amazingly 45% of the land in Russia, more than 50% of Brazil, 31% of Canada and 30% of the US are forested.

In the UK only 11% is forested.

Depending on your point of view woods can be beautiful, calming, wildlife and ecosystem havens. They are also a huge source of our cultural capital - lots of stories hint at the dark deeds that could happen "if you go down to the woods today". That mix of oasis and death trap does perhaps confuse the way we react to the idea of a walk in the woods. I certainly prefer to go into woods with my dog - although he's no friend to the larger animals we meet there (squirrels, munjac deer etc). But in the woods I notice how much calmer I always feel, it's almost as if time stops when I make the effort to touch and smell the bark of a large tree trunk or look up into the canopy.

Devon woodland - a place to stand & stare.

What to see
In winter I love the architectural quality of trees. In spring it's fun to compare the shades of the new green leaves, and see if you can spot love birds quarrelling over which is the best tree. In summer they just offer wonderful shade, and then autumn it's the joy of catching falling leaves and enjoying the array of reds, auburns and yellow displays.

Thank you
So thank you to the trees, and thank you to anyone - like Cicerone - who has ever made it possible for me to plant a tree. As you can see from the photo at the top of the page my baby oak is currently in a pot and at some point is going to need relocating so the roots can get growing properly. But here's to a year of planting many more and enjoying the ones that we know best. Let me know your tree planting stories. Here's a cheer to anyone who manages to plant even one tree, and proper envy and big respect to whoever plants the most!

Thinking about American crackers & climate change

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at the joys of tasting something I enjoyed aged 18... Big hugs to lost innocence about salty snacks and climate change. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

The news about how bad climate change is - and that it absolutely isn't a made-up phenomena - has upset what for me would have been a fundamentally happy, carefree weekend life...  Reading the summaries in the Guardian, and also the New York Times about how much scientists estimate climate change is going to effect our home is horrific. This was September 2013.  

Now it's worse - March 2014 - with the IPCC saying climate change is no longer distant. The panel makes it seem more real than seas rising and coral dying by suggesting that my daily cup of coffee is now at risk (as are the jobs created by coffee growing).

And yet we don't seem able to make politicians act with any sense of purpose. There are good reasons for this, see New Scientist here 

In 2009 action by the world's leaders at Copenhagen to do something ended up achieving yet more years of inaction. Apparently in 2014 the UN will have another go to do something...

However critical I am of politicians the truth is, that like most people, I am not doing enough to reduce my carbon emissions either. And yes, I did join in 2014 WWF's big switch off - much to the bemusement of my dinner guests who thought I was too chicken to reveal the veggie food I'd cooked under anything other than candle light...

The thing is we've all got to change. And yet we don't... When I first drafted this post over an autumn weekend I had one daughter visiting friends in Hertfordshire (via car), a husband in the Lake District climbing mountains before winter sets in (he travelled from London via train) plus me and my other daughter zooming around London via tube to enjoy what's on offer here.  Perhaps that's why my teen and I visited Harvey Nichols, a posh Knightsbridge shop I haven't been into since I was a teenager (and that visit was a one-off!). 

I've heard so much about Harvey Nicks over the years (probably read as much about this shop as I have about climate change, which is an extremely disturbing thought).I know it's for the super rich, but I was still knocked out by just how many people were hanging out on the 5th floor in the food hall at 3.30pm on a Sunday (what kind of time is that to eat anyway?).  Lola, who is 15, and I are well trained when it comes to window shopping, so we walked around  admiring macaroons, sushi and tasty looking paninis until I spotted a snack for sale which I've not eaten for decades - American-made fish shaped crackers.

Fins can only get better. Ha.
If you don't already know these crackers (see pic) I assume it's because you're not familiar with the US, or have i just missed these tasty treats in UK shops? Just for old taste's sake I decided to buy a bag. Fortunately they cost £2.40 which didn't seem too indulgent - but that's what comes of taking escalators up fice floors past hideously expensive fashion and a Jimmy Choo outlet. It stops you double-taking at anything under a tenner.

Four hours later Lola and I were home and decided to open the packet. Apart from being a zillion times saltier than I remember, and the fish now having little smiles (cute?!) everything tasted just the same. I was back in New York in the 1980s - a time when no one seemed to mention climate change (except scientist Maggie Thatcher).

 In contrast Lola, who is well aware that the planet is warming and sea levels are rising loathed her first bite....

Soul searching
This little incident proves nothing, but it did lead to a big conversation about what life will be like in 40 years time. And, perhaps more to the point, what skills regular people are going to need to cope with the upsets coming. What's on your list?

Running all over the world, via London

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Setting yourself sporting challenges demands international conversations. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Lola, my sporty 14-year-old has now run the Mini-Marathon - the last three miles from Blackfriars Bridge to the Mall - four times. Kids in London boroughs are really lucky to get this chance, especially as the other Mini Marathon race runners are already elite athletes (see pic caption). 

Lola's learnt a lot about pacing herself, plus an A-Z reboot of her mental map of London during these races. And on her 2011 race she also raised a bit of cash for charity too - books and science equipment for students at Woodford School in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

In 2013 Lola's joined by our friend Lucas, who is 11, and  zipped around the 2013 course
in 21 mins 30 seconds. The winner of the under 17s managed to complete
the race in 12 minutes - that's three four minute miles!

Near the finish spot the race commentator explained that the Africans (Ethiopia and Kenya) would dominate the winners. He was right too - Kenya won the women's race; Ethiopia the men's. And though it wasn't easy to see, every Marathon competitor wore a small black ribbon in memory of the stupid attack on Boston, US competitors and spectators last week. As a result all three countries played a big role in conversation with my younger daughter, Nell, while we waited for the runners to pass near our watching spot opposite Buckingham Palace.

Paula, Nell and Pete framed by flags. We all agreed that one of the best parts of the Marathon
is being able to walk down a road that's normally a traffic jungle.

The Mall is often a sea of flags - it's the only place in the UK that seems to do this (unlike say the US where flag raising and saluting are big parts of formal life). I did my best to spot the Solomon Islands and Kenyan flag as we passed the Commonwealth building, and was suitably rewarded with a flutter through the cherry blossom.

Over to you
What sporting occasion makes you feel as if you are in another world?

Travel tips from travel writers

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post has a look at the way travel has changed - from adventure to grim necessity. Seems like a shame to all of us who still feel that travelling is a joy, and it is often better to travel than to arrive. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   


The photo above is of a gorgeous certificate my Great Aunt Aline was given for gamely taking a flight on 1 August 1949 across the Atlantic Ocean from London to Boston. It's an "overseas flight certificate" from the "captain of the flagship, Scotland" which states, "may all your journeys be pleasant ones". Ahh. Nowadays getting on a plane is so often the worst part of the journey - not just for you, but for the planet. So how did well-known travellers face up to the burden of getting there?


What the Dickens
I'd have loved to talk to Charles Dickens about his travel snaps. If he wasn't listening intently, ready to nick your lifestory then he was getting slightly over excited about how to get around, say taking the train to France (and remember he had no Channel Tunnel so had to use a boat too). Later, in 1865, he survived a train crash coming back from France close to Stapleton, Kent - it'd be interesting to find out what mental revisions he made to train travel then, although he comes close in this letter.

"There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying. I wonder where it was, and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow a parliamentary train, with a crowd of heads and faces looking at us out of cages, and some hats waving... What do I care? 

Bang! We have let another station off, and fly away regardless. Everything is flying. The hop gardens turn gracefully towards me, presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl away. So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn sheaves, cherry orchards, apple orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now and then a church. Bang. Bang! A double-barrelled station! Now a wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a - Bang! a single-barrelled station - there was a cricket match somewhere with two white tents and then four flying cows, then turnips - now the wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and spin, and blur their eges and go up and down, and make the intervals between each other most irregular, contracting and expanding in the strangest manner."
Charles Dickens on Travel (Hesperus Press, edited essays, 2009 from The Flight, 1851, p55)

Orwellian
What a contrast to George Orwell.

"So long as a machine is there, one is always obliged to use it. No one draws water from the well when he can turn on the tap. One sees a good illustration of this in the matter of travel. Everyone who has travelled by primitive methods in an undeveloped country knows that the difference between that kind of travel and modern travel in trains, cars, etc, is the difference between life and death. The nomad who walks or rides, with his luggage stowed on a came or an ox-cart, may suffer every kind of discomfort, but at least he is living while his is travelling; whereas for the passenger in an express train or a luxury liner his journey is an interregnum, a kind of temporary death. And yet so long as the railways exist, one has got to travel by train - or by cr or areoplane. When i want to go up to London why do I not pack my luggage on to a mule and set out on foot, making a two days of it? Becasue, with teh Green Line buses whizzing past me every ten minutes, such a journey would be intolerably irksome. In order that one may enjoy primitive methods of travel, it is necessary that no other method should be available."
The Road to Wigan Pier (Penguin, original edition 1937) p175

Backseat driving
See how jaded poor Bill Bryson, writing in the early 1990s, had got.

"If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance that most Americans would happily go to get a taco, your companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say, "Well now that's a bit of a tall order," and then they'll launch into a lively and protracted discussion of whether it's better to take the A30 to Stockbridge and then the A303 to Ilchester or the A361 to Glastonbury via Shepton Mallet. Within minutes the conversation will plunge off into a level of detail that leaves you, as a foreginer, swivelling your head in quiet wonderment."
Notes from Small Island (Black Swan, 1999 this edition specially for World Book Night p31)

Over to you
In contrast I tend to love where I go - else why leave? Let me know where you hope to go this year without using a plane.

Thinking Japanese

Shakespeare at the Globe in all the world's languages (well, some), and next door at the Tate an art show doing its best to help us spot what's an international language.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to enjoy a long wet weekend learning new languages.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Japan - the home of cute and fluffy. Diminutive. Polite. Actually the polar opposite of Japan's most famous female artist - Yayoi Kusama. She was born in 1929, an immense length of time ago, in a town 130 miles away from Tokyo.

Now 83 years old, she's got a major exhibition at Tate Modern (rivalling Damien Hirst's naughty shock show of sharks, jewel-encrusted skulls and butterfly farming).

Kusama spent years living in the States - imagine that leap of faith after what her generation had lived through during World War 2. She seems to have fallen into pop art before the pop artists and is without fail going to impress you.

Nell's 10-year-old friend Anna went to see it and claimed the show was mostly about spots. I was quite surprised to find it's mostly about willies in the early 1960s, although spots definitely become the main focus as she grows older.

It's sad that she's spent so many years living in a Japanese hospital - but the spots keep multiplying, and her output is amazing, and very pricey to buy. Clearly that's the sign of fabulous health care.

See Kusama until 5 June 2012 at the Tate Modern.

Around the world in 80 days - bookshelf inspiration

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how Around The World in 80 Days inspired this blog (and how books all to often inspire travel). This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  

Have you guessed that this blog aroundbritainwithoutaplane is named after Jules Verne's classic book Around the World In 80 Days? I hadn't read the novel when I dreamt up my blog title, but during winter 2011-12 read it aloud with my then 10-year-old, Nell, and we found it fascinating. You can find copies easily in the library or secondhand shops - ideally choose one with illustrations, especially if you are reading it aloud to a child.

The main character, phlegmatic Phileas Fogg (who most of us know from the snack brand), is an insufferable bore who travels in the exact opposite to the way anyone should. He prefers the card game whist to views; timetables to experience. But his uncharacteristic comment: "I will bet £20,000 pounds that I will travel round the world in not more than 80 days," creates a marvellous novel (and, shhh, geography lesson).

Starting from Number 7 Savile Row, finishing at the Reform Club, P Fogg Esq plans to go:

• From London to Suez (Egypt) (via Mont Cenis (the pass over the French Alps) and Brindisi (Italy)) by rail and steamer - 7 days
• Suez to Bombay, by steamer - 13 days
• Bombay to Calcutta, by rail - 3 days
• Calcutta to Hong Kong, by steamer - 13 days
• From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan's 2nd largest city), by steamer - 6 days
• From Yokohama to San Francisco, by steamer - 22 days
• From San Francisco to New York, by rail - 7 days
• New York to Liverpool and on to London - by steamer and rail - 9 days.

Slow travel is actually quite fast, but it's expensive too. It costs Phileas Fogg close to £20,000 to make the journey (admittedly he travels in some style, and with at least one companion, his man-servant, the loyal Passepartout).

Just for the record, the cheapest round-the-wold air ticket I can find on offer in April 2012 is £749 but the flexibility is extremely limited and doesn't include any accommodation. Add on 80 days of food and beds (say £40 a day but no trips) and you need at least £4,000 to go around the world in a rushed three months.

Step into the great man's shoes (on a different route)
After a quick google I also found a copy-cat Phileas Fogg 80-day journey, see here, which costs £6,400 (and needs two people to be doing it). But what a journey, what an itinerary - completely organised for you with a complete disregard of the things that happen as you travel: lost purses, ill health, a desire to slow down and chat to people, and most of all weather...

Over to you
Jules Verne teaches us that travel cannot be micro-managed. He shows us how the unexpected turns up, and urges us to step in where wrongs need to be righted. He's half mocking the people who want around-the-world tickets, half luring us into buying them. Maybe this blog is doing the same for it's readers. For me, the blog writer, it's satisfying an insatiable desire to travel simply by looking for stay-at-home-but-feel-abroad experiences.

Let me know if it's helped.

Riddle: What's ancient but still growing?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here are three bits of wood that were felled when they were already 1000s of years old, have done one job and are now treasured gifts offering just a hint of colonial America and pioneer Australians. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs).   


The answer to the riddle what's ancient, but still growing, is wood - wonderful wood. The picture is of my three most treasured cut pieces of wood. From left to right in the picture are pitch pine, red oak and huon pine. This post is their story.

RED OAK
This is my favourite. The plank of red oak was cut down by the first colonists from virgin American forests in the Appalachian mountains. The tree could have been about 1,000 years old when it was felled. The pioneers cut it down with a massive handsaw, and then made it into planks with a steam powered saw.

It became floorboards at a factory in North Carolina.

What's so exciting about red oak is that in some planks you can find Civil War bullets, and even native Indian arrow heads embedded inside and only revealed when the planks are de-nailed in modern sawmills. Lots more information about this at my friend Jason's brother's website www.thehistorictimbercompany.ie.

It's been with Jason for a while - he uses a similar plank piece to put behind his sink taps as a splashback. I gave him a bottle of whisky as a swap, and will be giving it to my godson who is about to be confirmed. George is 18, and is considering studying American history at university - no doubt because of summer 2010 which he spent visiting Amish communities as documented by Channel 4 in its documentary Living with the Amish. I'm sure he's expecting cash, I just think this is a richer gift (sorry George!). Pic shows George eating an Eton Mess pudding off his i-plank gift...

PITCH PINE
It smells so good and you can see beautiful knots in the grain. This is a piece of tongue and groove flooring from a cotton mill in North Carolina.

When the colonists first explored the new continent of America they met vast forests of pitch pine (also known as longleaf pine) - stretching 150 miles wide from the Atlantic Coast of south western Virgina down into Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico and into east Texas. The trees can live for 100s of years and grow up to 300ft high and 5ft wide. They are seriously big.

These virgin forests were used to source tar, pitch, turpentine and resin for the British navy. They are resitant to pest attack and survive well in water, even sea water.

According to www.thehistorictimbercompany.ie " Heavy exploitatiton of virgin longleaf pine beagn after the American Revolution and intensififed with the development of railroads in the late 1800s and on to England where the timbers were a key building material during the Industrial Revolution. By 1930 virtually all the old growth longleaf pine had been cut and used to build the factories, warehouses and terminals of industrial America and Europe.
"Today only 2 per cent of the orginal forest remains, with fewer than 1,000 acres of virgin timber still standing.
"A lot of the old structures the pine built are now being demolished which allows the painstaking process of re-salvaging a small piece of history. The Historic Timber Company rescues these timbers and ships them to our yard in Ireland where they are de-nailed, re-sawn and machined into historic pitch pine flooring."

My plan is to use it as a doorstop. I already have a box made from an old apple tree which works well as a doorstop - pity we tend to keep the doors shut all winter!

HUON PINE
This is scrap wood reclaimed from a dump in Tasmania, Australia. My friend Paula brought this Tardis style box back to us after we helped look after her daughter Izzy and their pet guinea pig. It's a much paler wood and was turned into a box by workers at Resource Work Cooperative, a not for profit which runs the Tip Shop  and Collectables - both sell items found on the South Hobart tip, mostly from McRobies Gully tip site. This is a real example of art for trash. Here's what Paula said about it when she gave it to us:

"Huon pine is one of the slowest-growing and longest living plants in the world. It can grow to an age of 3,000 years or more. Only the bristle-cone pine of North America lives longer.
Huon pine is found in western Tasmania, the central plateau and in the Huon Valley. Houon pine is a relic of Gondwana - the first pollen records date back 135 million years. 

"International headlines were made with  the discovery of a stand of Huon pines on the west coast that is more than 10,000 years old. [Wow!] All the trees are male and are genetically identical. No individual tree in the stand is 10,000 years old, rather the stand has been in existence for that long.

"Convicts on Sarah Island in the west of Tasmanai cosntructed ships from Huon pine. The wood contains an olil which retards the growth of fungi, hence its early popularity in ship bilding. later piners on the Franklin and Gordon rivers felled Huons and floated them downstream.
Today the tree is wholly protected and cannot be felled. However wood on the forest floor remains usable after hundreds of years and is still prized by modern woodworkers, not least because of its sweet aroma.

"Huon pine can be seen along the Huon pine walk at Tahune in the Huon Valley, the Teepookana Forest Reserve, West Coast, Heritage Landing on the Gordon River and near Newall Creek on the Mount Jukes road south of Queenstown. The working sawmill in Strahan will give samples of the timber to visitors and many craft outlets sell Huon pine woodcraft.

Over to you
Go admire the wood you are using - it's sure to have a fascinating story to tell. And if you do buy any new wood (or wood products) be sure to check that it has the FSC tick logo that assures you it has come from a woodland that is sustainably managed.

Great Britain campaign for 2012

I love these ads, they seem to  pick out some British highlights.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No, not with these ideas to get the world celebrating Great Britain 2012. This post is by Nicola Baird 


PM David Cameron (don't ya just want to sit him down and give him a fierce talking to?) went to New York in September, and while there found the time to launch a boost British trade campaign. I love these cheesy posters (see pix) and look forward to stumbling across them in mags and on billboards. It's a great reminder that we are lucky to live in a country (well countries) with such amazing history. And things to boast about - from the good looks of Henry VIII to the entrepreneurial genius of Richard Branson.


For the past month I've felt so homesick for my other country, Solomon Islands, and really don't know how to feel better - that place just gets under your skin. I asked a friend, who moved last year from Sao Paulo to London with his Brazilian wife, how he coped being back home seeing as he loves being an expat, and adores hotter weather and, dare I say it, the way they wear clothes in Brazil. 


But he was positively animated by the things that make London an exciting place to live - the history, the way the pubs were used by Dickens (admittedly not really a Londoner), and Pepys; the clues to the Fire of London or the blitz or the shrapnel marks on the V&A. He loves the food from all round the world. The vibe. The way the power is always on and the rubbish gets sorted into recycling. The multiculturalness of London got a big thumbs up too.


There's no reason for me to be in a giant sulk. With the internet you don't need to be at your cultural home to be working - if I really wanted to, I could be sitting in an office with the best view in the world (say, blue skies and an island not far off) plugged into broadband...(ah dream on).


However it seems Cameron is keen for 2012 to turn Britain into a honeypot. If nothing else there will be 17,000 competitors and officials at the Olympics. It feels churlish not to try and support him, it is after all supposed to be a pleasure to show people around your home. Besides, time's moved on (and we've had this amazing hot start to autumn with blue skies and climate changing temperatures) so I'm feeling better. Ready to look forward to planning for 2012. Here's some dates for the diary:


2012 dates 
2-5 June The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Weekend 
27 July-12 August the Olympics
29 August-9 September, the Paralympics