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Yesterday we went to the Dojo Eco shop in Manchester, to see and order an organic and natural double mattress and accessories.  Our friend’s have one of the mattresses already and they are great.

We travelled by public transport as usual - train, free city shuttle bus and then a short walk - it’s out of the centre in a more industrial area.

The shop was amazing; lots of wonderful eco products - even more than they have on the website it seemed.

We ordered the Firm/Springy double mattress (£495 - cheapest organic one we’ve found), a cotton mattress pad (£100 - I love my comfort) and two millet husk pillows (£27 each) - all of which we were able to try out first at the shop.

The mattresses are made of organic British wool, organic cotton, natural latex and coconut fibre.  They are made to order in Manchester (ours is even been made to measure at no extra cost) and are delivered in approximately two weeks which is great.

We left a deposit and the balance is due when they ring to organise delivery, which is very fair.

We also bought a selection of FSC wooden brushes with plant fibresbristles (£1.25 to £6.50) , an organic cotton duck soft a toy for our friend’s new baby, an Onya Back Bag (£10 - alternative to plastic backpack),  a ball of natural jute twine (£3.75) and a wooden juicer (£3.50) …..and we could have bought so much more.

There was lots of great eco toys, organic fabrics, organic and eco household furnishings and eco garden products - the list goes on and on………

We also visited the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, which is free except for special exhibitions and was enjoyed by all the family.

In preparation for our straw-bale self-build, from the 11th to the 13th of July 2008 Grandma (my Mum) and I (Sarah) went on a straw-bale building course organised by the Low Impact Living Initiative, run by Chug Tugby (strawbale-building.co.uk) and hosted at Unstone Grange.

There was a very good balance of theory, research based information, and practical.
Even though the building we did was only for demonstration / for us to have a go - we all had chance to learn about and try our hand at most parts of straw-bale building - both weight bearing and infill.

Chug’s knowledge of straw-bale building is astounding, he has gather so much knowledge and her is great to listen too - a very good story-teller whilst imparting his wealth of knowledge too.  See the course details for more information.

The only improvement really would have been working on a real straw-bale building, but the one that was lined up fell through unfortunately.

The staff at Unstone Grange made us all very welcome, the food was great and the rooms were comfortable, but the Grange needs lots of work on it - so it was good to be able to support it financially.  The Unstone Grange gardens are also Soil Association certificated and we were give a great talk on the gardens and the wine they brew (with a tasting) too!
They are having an Organic Gardens Open Day on Sunday 12th August.

A wonderful weekend - its given me lots of confidence for project managing our building, answered my questions and given me vision for the home we can create.

We have also been on Amazon Nails Straw-bale building courses which are great too.

Photo’s coming soo

The Sword and Chalice - The Essence of Energy Medicine

This is a brilliant workshop from William Bloom, no matter how long you’ve been interested in or studied energy - an amazingly refreshing, simple and effective approach to a subject that is so often over complicated.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course in Glastonbury and highly recommend it.

I have two of his books and they are great too - Psychic Protection and Working with Angels, Fairies and Nature Spirits.

Go to William’s website for more information and future dates of course and venues etc.

www.williambloom.com

Last night I got back from a long week end in Glastonbury - totally exhausted due to the heat and climbing up the Tor so many times!

The Tor is beautiful,

so are the views from the Tor,

and the wooded areas around the base and all the wild life - the bird song was nearly deafening as I watched the sun set on Saturday night.

Glastonbury it’s self was a massive surprise and takes a lot of getting used to.
I had this (strange maybe) expectation that it would be quite sacred, a play of pilgrimage, including for us Goddess minded - well it was and it’s wasn’t.

There’s such a mish-mash of architecture, spiritual traditions and peculiar energies (some good, others not) and - in a traditional market town! and it changes from day to day depending on the persuasion of the incoming visitors and what’s on it seems.
People were friendly and there seemed to be a strong sense of community between local people too. From an estate agents window people there definitely had a sense of humour too - for example photo’s of people pulling funny faces between photo’s of the front of houses and kitchens etc!

I personally found the strong Christian vibe, with little lip serve to the ancient traditions/association in the attractions a bit difficult at first and still disappointing - maybe I missed some of them?

But by grounding myself very deeply - thank you William Bloom (see my next post for William’s Sword and Chalice course I attended over the weekend) and been very selective with the energies I allowed myself to experience/connect to, I came away having really enjoyed the place and wanting to go back soon - especially for the Tor, beautiful trees and countryside and the specialist book and Goddess type shops.

It’s a place that opens up to you on many levels, as you search deeper and really open you eyes and heart.

The journey was quite long: Steeton and Silsden to Leeds and Leeds to Bristol by train (aprrox 4.5hrs), then Bristol to Glastonbury by bus (1.25hrs), but with advance tickets the train was only £16 for a single and the bus was £5.20 for a single ticket.

I stayed at a B&B called Hillside - wonderful hosts, an amazing breakfast (fresh fruit salad to start!), great garden and views, lovely rooms and just a couple if minutes walk from the tour (approx 20min walk to Glastonbury centre although I never timed it).

The first place I visited was Chalice Well Peace Gardens and maybe it’s because I’d just arrived, but I couldn’t settle there. The gardens were lovely and quite naturally planted which I like, with lots of birds singing and flying around and the shop was quite good too. Maybe it needs another visit?

And the shops - were quite something else - the usual market town shops, Woolworths, Morrisons, some spiritual/ethnic type shops, amazing crystal shops, (the Glastonbury Experience is good), pagan/witchcraft/Goddess shops (including The Goddess and The Greenman which I love), lots of very good alternative bookshops, a couple of eco/organic shops, a nice toy shop……….unfortunately quite a lot of the stuff was overprices though (even people who live in the south of England said so too).

I went to two very nice vegetarian cafés/Restaurants - Galatea and The Rainbows End Café and they seemed quite family friendly too.
Finally I visited the Abbey
It’s seemed very strange to me that Glastonbury Abbey and it’s grounds takes up an enormous chunk of the centre of Glastonbury that can not be freely used - £5 for an adult!
I didn’t really look at the exhibition - far too Christian for me and just looked at the ruins a little - where King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere were buried - and mainly enjoyed the beautiful park, trees and small lakes as it was very hot and sunny.

I also didn’t get to the Rural Life Museum (which is free) due to been too busy, but locals recommended it.

So a very interesting an enjoyable weekend!

And more photo’s coming soon on future posts.

Nature has always been very important to me, even as a child, and for years now I’ve been intuitively drawn to explore the energy of the Goddess.
As a family we have begun to privately celebrate the Earth based festivals too, because this feels right for us and we all enjoy it - about it’s reclaiming of our ancient British culture and connecting with the Earth and her changing energies.

For a while though I have felt the push to explore the Goddess more deeply and discovered Goddess Within over a year ago or more. I knew I was disconnected from the power of my feminine energy for many reasons and felt the workshop below was my next step of personal healing -

So on the 12th and 13th of April I did Goddess Within’s Journey to the Goddess Workshop - it was wonderful and I can highly recommend it!

Everything I expected and so so much more.

It was wonderful to learn about and explore the British Goddesses and their energies in the wheel of the year - I was able to relate to them in a totally new way and understand myself more deeply through them.

Not surprisingly really, the Goddess I related to most was the Goddess of Water, Domnu, direction - South, festival - Summer solstice. I love beaches and the sea, streams, rivers and the Lake District. And since the workshop I’ve enjoyed exploring her energies further through arts and crafts.

I was very apprehensive about the evening ceremony - I definitely have past life issues related to the burning times and I’m am very self conscious of been different. We were instructed to bring our Goddess clothes and a mask of our choice and told no more and not much more on the day. I shouldn’t have feared anything though, it was an amazing experience - nothing weird, no removal of clothing - just our masks, lots of individual space, wonderful energy - especially that created by the rhythmic drumming and singing and lots of fun dancing.

Sunday went deeper, talking about our experiences of the ceremony and was quite emotional and cleansing for most of us. Then we went on a silent vision quest in nature - not surprisingly my was very water based and all about the “flow” of life. In the afternoon we talked about our vision quest and made clay Goddess figures - I was very draw to creating a shell?!

And all of this was encapsulated in ceremony to create a very special and protected space and led by four wonderful Priestesses.

There was so much space and calm and peace, the weekend felt wonderful and like forever…………..

If you’d like to explore the wheel of the year and the Goddess, here are some books I recommend:

Sacred Celebrations by Glennie Kindred

The Ancient British Goddess by Kathy Jones

Circle Round by Starhawk, Diane Baker and Anne Hill

And to our friends who may not have known about all of the above:- we are still the same, please talk to us about this if you want to - we’ll never force our view and beliefs on others.
Spirituality should be based on freedom and joy!

This morning I discovered the Eco Duvet from Eco Sleep available from the Ethical Superstore and here’s a link.

Recycled Fibre Duvets etc. from £19.95

Okay it could be covered with organic cotton, but the filling is 100% regenerated hollow polyester - so less land fill and it’s vegetarian too.

Here’s our favourite eco gadgets:

Here’s our favourite eco gadgets:

My’n is the Eneloop USB Battery Recharger.
It recharges AA and AAA batteries and the charger comes with two Eneloop AA rechargeable batteries. Also the Eneloop batteries come charged and their blurb says they still have 90 per cent of the charge after 6 months and 85% after 12 months.

We use if for recharging all rechargeable batteries - it probably says on the instructions for recharging Eneloop batteries only, but we have had no problems.
It’s really convenient, we just connect it to the USB extension on the computer desk and when they light stops flashing the batteries are charged!

Here’s a link to it on Amazon where it costs £13.99 for the Eneloop charger and two Eneloop AA batteries.

Paul’s is the Solio - a solar powered source for portable electronics. Charge it in a sunny place - even the inside of a window and also main rechargeable too. Then use it to recharge mobile phones, MP3 and MP4 player etc. etc. It comes with a selection of connectors and more can be purchased for particular devices. It looks great too and come in a small protective pouch.
Paul carries this everywhere for on the move recharging and is great for camping too.

Here’s a link to it on Ethical Superstore where it currently costs £49.95

Is food and drink labelled organic really organic?
Not always!

We’ve found wine labelled organic in supermarkets - where only the grapes were organically grown, resulting in the in the hangover you’d only expect from a none organic wine after only 1-2 glasses.

And own brand supermarket soup - that has organic in big letters on the front, and whilst it contains mainly organic ingredients, it also contains none organic flavouring!

So read your labels carefully!
Here’s a helpful link to the Soil Association website:
How do I know it’s really organic?

I also had an interesting discussion yesterday with a supermarket on-line deliver person - she commented that the own brand organic lines were a lot cheaper than the none organic own brand lines!
Are they marketing them as loss leaders OR are the petroleum based chemical additives in none organic food and the rising price of oil making those foods more expensive?
Another consideration of the impact of peak oil on world food!

Here’s more information on peak oil:
Peak Oil

The calculator is quite simple to use, very visual and I experienced no time lag between screens.

Our Carbon Footprint Results

The CO2 emitted from our homes heating is 3.09 tonnes per year
The C02 emitted by our appliances is 1.68 tonnes per year
The C02 emitted by our travel is 0 tonnes per year

Our Family Carbon Footprint is 4.77 tonnes per year

The national average is 10.22 tonnes per year!

Our home heating is 1.47 tonnes less
Our appliances are 0.12 tonnes more
This is probably because Paul’s a software engineer and we all love gadgets!
It still surprises me though because we never leave appliances on standby and buy the most energy efficient appliances available?
Our travel is 4.10 tonnes less - as we choose not to have a car and not to fly for work or pleasure.

The target footprint is 3.8 tonnes per year
We need to reduce our heating CO2 by 0.63 tonnes per year
We need to reduce our appliances CO2 by 0.34 tonne per year
And we are already on target of 0 tonnes of CO2 for travel

The top tips were:
1. Fit draught proofing around doors and window - maybe I should have ticket this box, do we need extra draught proofing with UPVC windows and doors?
2. Install underfloor insulation and save a third of a tonne of CO2 per year - a bit difficult with solid floors on the ground floor and what about wooden first and second floors spaces with wires and pipes in them?
3. Fill your dishwasher up to full and use the economy setting more frequently - we already do this!
4. Turn the brightness and contrast down on new TV’s - can’t stand over bright pictures anyway and our LCD TV is naturally quite dark.

The Full Report

In the full report it goes into more detail about the top tips and has links to sections on the Energy Saving Trust’s website where there is detailed information.
Highlights the things we’re already doing well, along with the CO2 savings they are already making.

My Thoughts

It’s quite a long test - the top tips lack basic information - will everyone make it to the full report which is quite good?

I was also disappointed that the Energy Saving Trust is still recommending traditional materials like mineral wool for insulation - when sheep’s wool and paper based insulation are now more and more widely available.

So now for more research into the draught proofing and floor insulation!
And again it depends on the eco credential of the materials and upheaval and cost - in relation to our children’s special needs/learning disabilities and moving house soon

Well, not sure if it was our computer as we have been having a few problems, but the check was quite slow. Then the pdf of the results was a page full of symbols, so I had to opt for them to be emailed to me which arrive within about five minutes as an attachment.
The report says:

“you could cut your annual fuel bills by £94 and production of climate damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) by 0.7 tonnes.
It also rates your home from A (very good) to G (very poor) in terms of how energy efficient it is - and could potentially be!”

Our energy efficiency rated currently is a “D” and could potentially be a “C”

There’s just one improvement the report identifies:
Solid wall insulation, which is describes as:
“Solid wall insulation involves adding a layer of insulation either to the inside
or outside surface of a home’s external walls, which can reduce heat loss
through the wall by up to 80?

And is we make them all, it says we could save 18% of the energy we use every year.
Further recommendations it give (which we already do) include:

TRVs - Make sure that thermostatic radiator valves are set appropriately for the occupancy of the room.
Domestic Appliances - Purchase ‘Energy Saving Recommended’ domestic appliances when replacements are needed. Energy saving
products use less energy and therefore have less of an environmental impact, as well as being cheaper to run.
Heating Programmer - Make sure you regularly check the heating pattern of your heating programmer to ensure that it stays in line with
the current occupancy of the house. Make sure the programmer does not accidentally get set to, or left on CONSTANT by mistake. If there is a power outage, check your programmer has not lost its schedule or the clock
changed

It then goes on to provide general information on saving energy and reducing CO2 - through good we buy, to how we travel, saving energy around the home, generating our own electricity

My thoughts:
Well for anyone new to saving energy and reducing CO2 there’s lots of useful information, and reminders for the rest of us.

We had considered solid wall insulation - but we don’t want to cover up the stone on the outside of our home as it would loose it’s character and could be an eyesore in a street of Victorian stone terraces. As for interior insulation; it would depend on the material - the environmental pollution it could introduce (especially for our middle child who reacted to a recycled wool carpet with a return of his asthma), how environmentally friendly the insulation products was, how much space we would loose (as our home is only small, too small for all of us!), the upheaval as we home educate and have children with learning disabilities/special needs who don’t cope with change well and of course the cost of the insulation and potential re-decoration as we’re looking to move within the next few month.

And we try to be very environmentally aware and friendly!

If we were staying in the house we would search out an environmentally friendly option to insulate our walls, but I will still look into the options and pass them onto out buyers.