I’m indebted to the clear exposition of a popular ‘domestic sewage treatment plant’ served at CrystalTanks, for much of the information in today’s entry, which was inspired by a chance overhearing of a friend’s woes during their new building project….
Category: Environment
Monday: Wash Day
I’m pretty sure that Monday is the traditional clothes washing day. Apparently we can thank the Victorians for this practise, which had the advantage of offering the household plenty of time throughout the week for the drying, pressing, folding and…
Preparation, then anticipation . . .
For a Sunday homily, I guess I can do worse than to ruminate on the conjoined concepts of ‘preparation’ and ‘anticipation’. But it feels like I’ve been looking forward to harvesting these potatoes for years, rather than the usual months!…
Allen Mill — a walk’s half-way point maybe?
The big reveal, facilitated by the North Pennines AONB in the Allen Valleys Landscape Partnership, funded by the Heritage Lottery (2013-2018), opened up the remains of the old smelt mill so that the place became re-imbued with a kind of…
Mains water and sewage . . .
The diary entry today owes its provenance to several comments and notes: i. Our own challenges with our private water supply and sewage system; ii. Peter Armstrong’s comment about dealing with the waste after the Sparty Lea Poetry Festival; iii….
What is it about older folks and wild birds?
I suppose the wild bird thing isn’t exclusively the territory of older folks, but it’s certainly a truism that the two somehow go hand-in-hand. I wonder why that is? On Father’s Day, it does feel fair to wonder why ageing…
The River Path
In the first of a new Saturday series featuring free activities to enjoy throughout the Allen Valleys, based loosely around the activities described in the Allendale and Allen Valleys Pocket Directory, Joan Morgan writes about her love of Allendale’s River…
Solar panel slump
Apparently, with the demise of feed-in contracts, the installation of photovoltaic solar panels across the country has come to a shuddering halt; numbers have crashed by 94% since the hey-day of the big subsidies, and the industry here in the…
Ok, let’s have some sunshine
I was taken by a vox pop comment the other day about Chernobyl, the new holiday destination; one gentleman opined that he preferred natural sunshine to the radio-active kind! But it’s almost getting to the point that we’d settle for…
Travels, with or without the grands, on the 688 bus
Paul Mingard writes in with a lyrical essay on the joys of the rural bus route: “For some people riding the 688 bus is so mundane they hardly think about it. For others who never travel by bus, the trials…