Hippo at the printers

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

This is the face of a man (left) who's finally sent his corrected book proofs of There's a Hippo in my Cistern: one man's misadventures on the eco-frontline off to the printer. Now there's the long wait until 2 June 2008 when it comes out. I reckon he's done a Feverpitch for the eco generation. If Pete's funny book gets a lot of readers then Pete May could do more for climate change than most of us ever can.

Here's a summary of the book (lifted from the back cover):

WHY IS THERE A HIPPO IN PETE MAY'S CISTERN, YOU MIGHT ASK.

Back in the nineties, Pete May was busy watching football and drinking beer. He was quite happy surrounding himself with countless pizza boxes, beer cans and other environmentally unfriendly consumer stuff. Then along came Nicola - an environmental activist intent on saving rainforests. Pete, surprised to find himself drawn to someone so far removed from his planet-killing laddish lifestyle, began to wonder whether two people so different could really fall for each other?

Would Pete ever change his ways and sign up to the green lifestyle of composting loos, chicken rearing, energy saving and general self-sufficiency? Would he ever get to grips with devices called Hippos that he found himself dunking in his cistern to save water when flushing?

This is the charming and funny true-life tale of one man's struggle to grapple with the good life. GO GREEN and get the girl.

Using a storm kettle

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

Inspired by our oven and hob breaking (a boring detail which was easily mended once the loose plug wires were coaxed back into place) we had a weekend breakfast in the garden. Porridge was cooked on the emergency gas ring which is a very sobering way to see how greedy for energy the hob can be. But our new storm kettle (see flaming pic on the left), a really useful xmas present for Pete, proved to be star. It was easy to light and boiled fast even though we only fed it with bits of unwanted weekend supplements and some green twigs.

The oven's all fixed now, but I think we might try boiling up a brew again - not least because it gives us some crisis cooking practice while our hens enjoy some supervised exercise in the garden.

Horses in the high street

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

I've found a simple way to entertain myself - and the kids. Walk around London talking to the statues. This Elisabeth Frink bronze horse in Piccadilly gave us all the sort of energy boost that a packet of sweets can provide. Not all Frink's sculptures offer such free enjoyment though. Next trip we plan to hunt down all the statues in Charlie Fletcher's clever kids' story, Stoneheart, many of which can be seen using the Number 4 bus through the City.

Cutting our carbon footprint

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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 the first of 2008 and it is from Nicola.

My new year promise is putting me under some pressure.

Easy as it will be "to do something positive about tackling climate change every day and explain/share these actions with others in a non-hectoring way”, when I am back at work three days a week for Friends of the Earth later on in January, what do I do on the other days? More specifically how can Pete and I go out on a date and still be doing some climate good?

Visiting London’s first eco restaurant, Acorn House – currently Observer Restaurant of the Year (newcomer) – seemed to be the answer. It’s a newish eatery near King’s Cross which The Times food critic reckons is “the most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years.” That’s because it keeps a light carbon footprint, sources all food from the nearest farmers/growers (not quite inside the M25 but nearly) and trains 10 new eco restaurateurs a year who look set to go on and set up their own environmentally aware kitchens serving sustainably sourced produce and recycling as much kitchen waste as possible.

The two of us spent a heinous amount of money on lunch (#82!) but we ate three courses each and definitely were a bit greedy drinking the Bacchus Chapel Down white from Kent. For foodies the dishes were celeriac, chestnut and horseradish soup followed by a pumpkin tartine and a cheddar cheese board (for me). Pete had the same but went for the ginger sponge as pudding.

I tried to get the staff to show they loved veg by quizzing them about where the celeriac came from etc. Their answers lacked the specificness of farmers’ markets, “England?”, but at least it was localish.

Best of all Pete and I were able to enjoy a hot lunch date at the most eco venue in the big smoke. Thank goodness I’ve managed to live up to my new year pledge today, all I've got to do now is dream up something for the weekend…

Footprints in 2007

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

Summing up: it's been a year of adventure and we had no need to spend any part of it on a plane or at the airport. Fog chaos holds no fears. The best memories include...

• 40 countries visited and no plane used


• three months of travel around Britain even though we don't own a car (although we've sometimes used them by borrowing, sharing, renting and also as a member or a car club)


• being aware of the need to tackle climate change makes it easier to make decisions about leisure and pleasure.


• adventures on our doorstep have been easy to organise (you can even be spontaneous), are carbon light and have made us all appreciate our home a bit more.


• when we set out a Daily Telegraph travel journalist called our doorstep tour of the globe "either mad or genius", hopefully readers of this blog will be able to make up their own minds.


• thanks to everyone who helped us.
  

First Emperor's warriors

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

The terracotta army of 7,000 bigger than life size warriors that was built to guard their meglamaniac boss in the afterlife is an obvious wonder of the world.

It’s younger than the Pyramids and Stonehenge, but older than the Colosseum, Hadrian’s Wall or the Mayan pyramids in Mexico. The show at the British Museum is constantly sold out but after getting on an email alert list I managed to acquire tickets for a new year’s eve eve slot (and as it runs until 6 April 2008 there must be a chance to go). Unfortunately Nell didn't appreciate this show was so special, so I had to go around it too fast, but we still managed to get to know some of the figures, and think about how they would have looked painted. We also enjoyed the seated figures (musicians) entertaining the cranes and other bird life on the artificial river.

I know a few 13 year olds – lovely as they are they also like sleeping and Facebook more than running a war machine - so it is even more of a mystery how the young Emperor managed to boss everyone around, keep winning battles and not get assassinated. He died of natural causes when he was 49, a very distinguished age for the time especially as he was constantly at war with the neighbouring states.

The Emperor is the architect of modern China but his legacy to the world has been a mix of wonder – at these figures only relatively recently dug from a farmer’s field – and suspense because the main tomb will not be excavated until technology can do it with the least harm. And that, apparently, is not in our lifetimes. The best we can do is go and see this amazing taster of what is already excavated in China and simply enjoy the unique details – from beard and hair styles to clothing - on everyone.

Lapland by car club car

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling 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

It feels mean spirirted to begrudge children a trip to see Father Christmas but that’s how I feel about the day trips by plane to the Arctic Circle. The answer has to be bringing Santa here and that’s exactly what Lapland UK has done in a secluded bit of Bedgebury Pinetum in Kent. Inevitably the pre-xmas, meet Santa tickets sold out within days of release so Lola, Nell and I decided to go after Christmas and just enjoy the snowy atmosphere reaching the site in a car club car so that we could also visit friends who live near the forest.

I’d expected to see reindeer and pat Husky dogs but did wonder how we’d pass two hours. However Lapland turns out to be a very captivating place which is staffed by cheerful elves who chat about their lives with Father Christmas to any child who wants to know. They eat elf salad (sweets) and gingerbread; are born when the Northern Lights flicker and believe that Lapland FC would beat West Ham 27-nil.

There’s two workshops – one for making toys and another for decorating gingerbread – but we were also able to explore the Post Office and write to Father Christmas. The highlight for me was sitting on a thick reindeer skin and listening to a traditional Swedish folk story in a kota (like a big wigwam or yurt). Nell was lucky enough to peep into Father Xmas’s log cabin and see the big man’s slippers warming by the fire (a woodburner). When we got home she told her dad that Father Xmas isn’t concerned enough about climate change…

Lapland UK was a really well-thought out adventure, run by enthusiastic people who stayed in character all the time. It also gave us real insight into life in the Arctic. Best of all we arrived at dusk and left in the dark so were able to enjoy the twinkly lights and crunch of foot on snow as we followed the trails around Santa’s forest home fortified by a glass of hot apple punch.