The Angel of the South

Grand plans for watching the wife carrying race over at Dorking were swiftly cancelled when the rain persisted [hopefully next year the weather will play ball] and a new scheme was hatched.

En route to our final destination we stopped off in the small West Sussex village of South Harting. There's not a great deal there, but we did as per usual take a quick shuftie at the church of SS Mary and Gabriel. As it's never been on the radar really I didn't know what to expect, but as ever I have been surprised.

This is the Archangel Gabriel who is seen as an uplifting symbol of  hope. The near invisible suspension wires make him look as if he really is descending in flight. The figure is life size and was created by the sculptor Philip Jackson. Commissioned by a private benefactor it is in memory of Charlie. Whilst not a religious person, I was able to admire the piece as a work of art showing me once again the beauty of when humans are creative rather than destructive as is oft our wont.

Arilx

Taking the biscuit!

Naughty boy...he's my kind of rebel!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-berkshire-43671549/huntley-and-palmers-biscuit-tin-sex-secrets-revealed

Arilx

Collecting the collective

The first time I learnt the collective noun for crows...a murder of crows I was hooked on this often strange way of naming groups of animals and birds. Most will know a gaggle of geese, yet it's a skein when they're flying. These differing nouns occur with other breeds depending on their activity at a given time. Sometimes a breed will have more than one collective noun or one noun will cover more than one type- a parliament of owls or rooks anyone? From the lists I've got in a couple of my books they don't get any less peculiar the more you look into it either. Rather than repeat verbatim another's research this article offers up some theories as to where the descriptions derive from http://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/collective-nouns-for-birds-68344

These are just a few of my personal favourites.....a bouquet of pheasants, a piteousness of doves, a scold of jays, a convocation of eagles, a deceit of lapwings, an unkindness of ravens, a richness of martens or if you prefer the animal ones, a business of ferrets or a kindle of kittens. There are many more I could have chosen from! All quite intriguing if slightly barmy and unfathomable! And no don't ask me what the birds in hats is all about...I was just overthrilled to have found a corvid in a hat last week to match my pheasant in knitwear from last year!

Arilx

A rubbish outing!

Yes it definitely was a rubbish outing on Tuesday afternoon, but one I weirdly enjoyed....a tour round the local Biffa plant where all the black bag refuse ends up. I thought it might be pretty grim [images of the old landfill sites swirling round my head] and it certainly ain't pretty, but there's good work going on and a lot less stuff going in the big hole in the ground.

This pit has to be emptied of all the waste on a daily basis. The "spider" as it's known picks up the load and passes it into a machine which empties all the bags. It's then put through a shredder before starting its journey through the machines which sort it all into different waste streams and remove all the recyclable materials.

This is where the magic starts to happen. All garden stuff is separated and sold onto a company who turn it into compost, sand/grit/broken glass goes to the construction industry and all the combustible stuff like cardboard, plastic bottles etc is turned into Refuse Derived Fuel [RDF] and sold to Germany and Denmark who use it to fuel their incinerators [all the energy produced from these is used to power the local houses]. The incinerator route is hugely unpopular in the UK, but those European countries who have the highest recycling rates all use incinerators. I don't know enough about this issue to make an informed decision. The RDF contract is a new one and should see the amount of stuff being sent to landfill reduced from 50% to 80% over the next few years. 

The biggest area of recycling is the retrieval of all the waste food people have chucked out. Through various processes it is taken off first and divided into liquid and solids. The site has huge anerobic digestion tanks which turn the resource into biogas. This is used to generate electricity to run the plant and the excess is sold to the National Grid. The solids makes a very rich material which is used on brown field sites. You can see the final product in the back of the trailer.

It was interesting to learn just how differently things are done nowadays and what trials are being carried out- food waste, kerbside electrical collections and how to deal with nappies. Hopefully these will be successful and go some way to further reducing the black bag contents. Some are very resistant to change and 30% of potentially recyclable materials along with 30% food waste is still being thrown in with the general bin contents. Landfill remains the most expensive option.

The place itself is run on as environmentally friendly basis as possible. All the rain water is harvested for the toilets and the buildings have solar panels. They now have three nesting pairs of red kites [they are fairly new to this part of the world] who do a good job along with the five official birds of prey they have at deterring the scavenging gulls. 

The present landfill site closes in June, so we shall have to wait and see what happens next. The Biffa chap who took us around strongly suggested we pay a visit to the high tech recycling plant down on the coast to see the other side of the business and get a fuller picture, so that's hopefully on the agenda to go along with the lady I went with for later in the year. It's non stop glamour here for sure!

Arilx

The one that got away!

Erm I appear to have had a mad five and found this lurking in my draft box. I thought I had published this post, but obviously I didn't so better late than never eh!

Spring is creeping in quietly, but I'm a dame who doesn't do well on prolonged bouts of grey so without further ado I think it's time for a big old blast of colour. Seen in Liverpool a few weeks ago the stunning Metropolitan cathedral or Paddy's Wigwam as it's known locally!

Arilx

Free Medieval History Course

[Image from Pixabay]

For anyone keen to study Medieval history there is a free course from Yale here. http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-free-yale-course-on-medieval-history-700-years-in-22-lectures.html I haven't done it so can't comment on the quality [what would I know anyway!], but surely worth a punt if it's free and is of interest to you😊

Arilx

The Perfect Match

Hope the Easter break has been a good 'un for you. I've really appreciated taking a few days off the hamster wheel and pottering. It's an art I've perfected over many years. Of course, the upshot of all this staying under the radar is that it doesn't produce much in the way of blog post material. Ah well that's never stopped me now has it!!

Sometimes I buy a garment and for reasons I am unable to explain it just feels right for me. This cardigan came home with me a couple of years ago from the charity shop and I still love the colours in it.

I've worn it loads, but on a colder day with my great long neck and scrawny upper chest I've felt chilled and thought to myself idly on occasion how the addition of a toning scarf would just finish it off. Colour co-ordination is one of my things and it something my friends have complimented and taken the rise out of me for years. It seems that the universe has been listening to my inner musings this time. My Mum's been having a sort out and one of the things she's culling is this because she finds the wool too itchy to wear. The upshot is that she kindly offered it to me...

You can see where I'm going with this can't you.....

They look like they were made for each other and I'm dead chuffed. Recently another of my good swapping pals passed this gorgeous skirt my way as it was surplus to requirement.

Another polite request has been lodged with the powers that be for a suitable top to go with it. I shall be interested to see what shows up!

Arilx