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!

18 Folgate Street - London with the Hugenots

This blog is about low-carbon family travel. Here's a way to visit the 18th and 19th centuries on a silent-tour of Dennis Severs' house at 18 Folgate Street, E1. I love mini-museums (London has many wonderful small houses to visit) but this is particularly challenging as it forces you to confront a different style of living. Perhaps comparable to a visit to a grand palace like Versailles in France where you truly imagine you are a guest; or the modern slum tourism of Kiberia in Kenya, Dharavi in India or Rio's favelas? Prepare to be a Hugenot, rich and poor. Post by Nicola Baird 

Dennis Severs' house at 18 Folgate STreet is on the left, below the 'gas' lamp. To the right is the block that British Land wants to obliterate (Norton Folgate) under a "hideous corproate plaza". See how to help stop this at Facebook/savenortonfolgate or "@spitalfieldsT (spitalfields trust)

Tucked behind the busy Spitalfields Market - which is packed on Sundays - you might find a narrow street providing a quiet route back to Liverpool Street station. This is Dennis Severs' house at 18 Folgate Street. It's a handsome Georgian building and Dennis - who is dead now - did it up to resemble the way a Hugenot family of silk weavers would have lived.

It's a place you visit to explore. It's small: there are only two rooms per floor so sensibly you're asked to visit in silence. Together with the candlelit rooms this quickly provides an enticing atmosphere. You are walked into history, becoming a guest of the family - the noises of whom can be heard just off in the next room.

There are half finished cups of tea, unmade beds, wigs and nit combs. For the nosey among us this is a wonderful histronaut experience, and very different from seeing a grand National Trust house with it's 60+ rooms. This house isn't so different to the one I live in, it's just set up differently.  What it made me realise was how much I love electric light?.At Dennis Severs' house it's just fires in the grate and candlelit - even as early as 3.15pm (the last entry on a February Sunday) it's dusk indoors (and the thick curtains, net curtains, dark walls and over-crowding ornaments don't help). With this afternoon half light and of course evening dark it seems quite amazing that people of the 18th and 19th centuries were so keen on embroidery - or even managed to read. I felt like a giant crashing around, night blind, and I'm sure if I'd been wearing a long skirt I'd have knocked over endless items.

Door to another world at 18 Folgate Street, E1

There's a surprise on the top floor and Nell, who was celebrating her 14th birthday, was visibly shaken by the sudden slum. But this part of London became a place for the super poor from mid Victorian times (forgive my unsophisticated analysis). Many families could only afford to rent just one room - many were so poor they didn't even had bedclothes, something that in the 1930s George Orwell writes about so revealingly in The Road to Wigan Pier. We have tremendous poverty now, but I don't think it's as life-threateningly awful as it has been (though it's obviously shocking that in a rich country like the UK children can go to bed hungry). Of course I'm lucky and live with my family in a house which has electric light, bedclothes and central heating.

For anyone who loves eccentric characters or evocative places then Dennis Severs' house is a must visit. 

It's a wonderful way to get the feel of what it was like to be a silk weaver (caged birds, jellied fruits for visitors, plenty of tea without milk, rose water to wash in) living in a house which horses trotted by and the city bells kept you awake.

Of course this remarkable restoration is right by the City - it is in the City - where land values are for the speculators. As a result many of these old houses are at immense risk of being flattened and made into a different sort of work space, usually towering (see that top photo).

Even now there's a campaign on facebook asking us to facebook/savenortonfolgate in a bid to convince British Land from demolishing a whole block of historic houses so they can create a "hideous corporate plaza".

Inspired by my visit I'm going to add my voice to the campaign. I hope you manage to make a visit one day to Dennis Severs' house, but maybe help the campaign too.

VISITOR INFO:
http://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/
Dennis Severs' house, 18 Folgate Street, London, E1 6 BX.
Visitor info: house is bookable for Monday evening tours. Drop in on Sundays. £10 for an adult, £5 a child. Remember you have to be silent...

Over to you
Where have you visited to get a real sense of how the past was lived? Do you find it easier to imagine this in an empty building, or a perfect recreation - inside or out?

Brazil hints thanks to street art

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at just one football image to get into the World Cup 2014 Brazilian mood. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Street art by Bambi in Islington, London. But who's the boy - he looks kind of familiar.

Sassy urban street artist Bambi reminds us that World Cup football isn't that important, and that it's kicking off big time in Brazil. I like football but 11pm starts for us UK viewers are hopeless - I doubt I'm going to watch any games this time.  For an interesting look at how to get a taste of football in as small as your own locale have a look at my other blog, here. You should be able to find a taste of every country, without  leaving your postcode!

For any non UK readers, do let me know if you also play this low-carbon, low-cost travel game.  

Good luck to your World Cup favourites.

Where's that bird from?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. A half term visit to Wales introduced me to some south american locals.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs). 


We've had Chilean hens for some years. Now it turns out the two Muscovie ducklings I brought home from Wales also have a South American heritage (so they are not from Moscow as I'd always thought). See pic above of mummy Muscovie and Berry (mostly yellow) and Walden (the other one).


The word "Musk-ovie" - is possibly a reference to their smell (although good news birds, this goes when you're cooked!). An American website tells me that "in southern Europe and northern Africa they are called the Barbary duck. In Brazil, they are known as the Brazilian duck, in Spain the pato, and in the Guianas the Guinea or Turkish duck."


Just like the potato, I think of a Muscovy duck as a traditional local. When it's actually anything but...


Over to you
What's something you use or see or eat that blends in with the landscape to such an extent that you've just about forgotten its original home was far, far away?

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

Darwin trails

Pete, Nicola, and daughters Lola and Nell love to travel without wrecking the planet. This blog looks at ways they travel the world without leaving Britain. This post is by Nicola.

4 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon sees Lola and I, just minutes from home, sharing Charles Darwin's favourite teatime snack - cucumber sandwiches with the crusts off, strawberries, ginger and treacle cake and homemade lemonade. We're in Caledonian Park, Islington along with children from nearby schools, the Mayor and an impressive number of Charles Darwin's relatives to enjoy the opening of the new Darwin Trail.

In Islington the Darwin Trail is a 10-slated loop around Caledonia Park with quotes by the great writer of The Origin of Species that link the borough, the plants in the park and naturalist knowledge. The trail cleverly bridges science and literature with some meditative finger posts set by park highlights: a hedge, a bird feeder, a holly tree, an oak and a walnut tree.

Snakes and tortoises
The oldest and boldest of the relatives, Randal Keynes, a great, great grandson (author of Annie's Box) told the crowd that he'd opened Darwin Trails throughout the world. Each has a distinctive character - but in Brazil the first users had been obliged to detour past a boa constrictor, and in the Galapagos Islands there were tortoises to avoid. In Islington we spotted a cute dog, a fluffy dog and two scary dogs as well as the famous pigeons who are descendants of Rock Doves.

Look closely and even in this uber-urban setting all is "beautiful adapatation". It's a lesson for life, by the great mapper of life. A wonderful adventure for our armchair travel diary.

Where to watch the World Cup 2010?

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell spent the summer of 2007 travelling around Britain without resorting to planes (simple!). Now they're home and keep up the carbon-lite world travel habit in all sorts of ways. This post is by Nicola

So where's the best place to watch the World Cup this July? I'm asking this less for myself, more as a puzzle. I know one sports writer/lecturer who is taking her toddler to South Africa for the full atmosphere (but worrying as much about which malaria tablets to take as how to get tickets). My Brazilian-based friend plans to come back "home" to London just in case England does really well - I also happen to know he likes being around the UK for the soft fruits season, so that's two draws. Meanwhile his wife thinks it might be more fun in Brazil, just in case her team does really well. While the Dads group from Nell's school look set to fall back on a CAMRA (ie, real) pub near Baker Street that serves Abbot Ale and when they drank there last undoubtedly set up England's recent victory in the friendly against Egypt. A winning ritual should not be broken they claim.

Where you watch and how you get to that place can be a brilliant way of sharing the joys and blows of being a football follower, or it can be rubbish (yes, that's why there's a picture of the rat infested rubbish truck from the recent Rio carnival!). I'm guessing I'll see some of the games with friends and family on outdoor screens, walkable distances from my home.

It's been 10 years - this coming April - since Lola and I took our last flights (first as well in her case as she was not quite two years). Nell is nine years and still hasn't gone on a plane. Pete has flown in the past 10 years but only twice, once for fun and once for work, so our family footprint has stayed low for a significant length of time compared to our friends.

Our no-plane boast is not so great if we compare with our own childhoods - Pete never took a plane journey with his family, it wasn't until he was 18 that he set off for an airport check-in. I think I made one return flight to Northern Ireland as a toddler (apparently noisily confusing nuns with Father Christmas) and then another aged 15 when my Dad suddenly took us all to Paxos, a Greek island.

Our family's experience shows you can have fun at home in the World Cup (why, even Lola was born at the start of the 1998 kickathon), in fact home is probably the only place you can watch every game, keep up to date with every bit of information and still keep that carbon footprint a blistering zero. Here's to an England win...

Festival land

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

Current travel supplements are awash with places to go, things to do, etc, over the summer. I’m not a big festival-goer but in a bid to make it to Brazil we went to Camden Green Fair for dancing (tea dancing in fact!), partying – and some green info. Apart from the obvious, the only way you could tell it wasn’t really Brazil was the serious over-dressing by festival goers. A brave few were in T-shirts but most had raincoats somewhere nearby.

This pic is during the carbon footprint game run by Camden Friends of the Earth. Most people use 10 tonnes of carbon (much more if they fly) during a year. With our various improvements to our house (eg, insulation, solar hot water, Good Energy's renewable electricity supplier) our family gobbles up about 6 tonnes of carbon per year. The problem is that everyone in the UK needs to be using just 2 tonnes - that's either a lot of giving up, or a lot of energy-efficiency innovation.