River Ribble in spate on 8 Dec 2011

The high winds and high rain demanded a walk to Stainforth Foss

Looking up to Stainforth Foss Packhorse Bridge ...

... from the foss itself

Common Polypody fern (Polypodium vulgare) beside the Foss

A mile downstream here is the seat near the Paper Mill

Settle Community Christmas Day Lunch and Tea - 25 Dec-2011

I am organising this lunch. I am wondering how I can make it a "green" lunch -

Follow LOAF principles (to some extent) - locally sourced, organically friendly, fairly traded, and animal friendly.

Well watch this space!! (or blog)

(And send in ideas!)

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And if you know anyone who lives near Settle who will be by themselves, or just two or three people, or old, or young, who would like to come let me know. Or if you'd like to volunteer to help

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This is some of what it says on the posters I have put up in Settle:

Welcome to:--

· People to come
· Committee to help plan this
· Volunteers to help

This is a follow on Christmas Day Settle Event, held for over ten years in the past at St John’s Church Hall, Settle as either Settle Community Christmas Lunch or as Age Concern Christmas Lunch – we hope Age UK People will come but also people of all ages.

Venue:- Townhead Court

Transport can be arranged for people who need it. (Transport to church beforehand for those who need it could also be arranged.) Start: 12midday for coffee. Finish (as planned so far: but could have later session)- c. 4.30pm after Christmas Cake.

Price: £10 - (Reduced rates for children) (Formerly it was £12 but we have sufficient numbers now to keep it to £10 as on 23 Dec)

For details contact Judith Allinson

A big welcome to people of any age who will be in the Settle/Craven Area of North Yorkshire on 25 December. Please book.

See pics of last year’s lunch at St John's Church Hall

 

Hartley Wintney raises money for forests - A Rocha - The Big give - World Land Trust

St. John's, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, are having an alternative Christmas Card this year to raise money for the rainforest fund.

This Christmas Card Tree was made from an old cardboard box and members of the congregation are invited to write their Christmas message on a "bauble" and stick it on the tree instead of buying individual cards.

Money raised by the 9th of December will be donated on line to A Rocha's tree-planting programme in Ghana which is part of the "Big Give" where signed-up charities receive double the donations between 5th and 9th December. -

See the Arocha International part of the Big Give Website

If Hartely Wintney raises and donates £100 then it will be the fourth church in CEL's 100 churches project .
Another project taking part in the Big give  which CEL's 110 churches project encourages people to support is World Land Trust.  For £100, WLT can purchase and protect an acre of critically endangered tropical forests and other vital habitats in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico.

If you would like to donate to either of these - please donate early in the week - early on Monday straight after 10am preferably - as there is only so much matching funding available to double what you give... If you are too late on Monday, try giving early on Tuesday.

100 Churches Project

The 100 Churches Project is a campaign run by the national organisation Christian Ecology Link (CEL) in which CEL is encouraging 100 churches to raise at least £100 each for "saving wild habitat" projects.

I paste the details from their website here:-

100 Churches

CEL is seeking 100 churches to raise £100 each for habitat conservation projects

One quarter of the world’s mammals and one fifth of the plants are under threat of extinction
                                                                                                
Could your church have a fund raising event?

• to save habitat or species

Please tell Christian Ecology Link. We will celebrate the fact by

• putting a link to you from the website,
• by sending you a certificate and thank you card.

We want to show the world that Christians care about the gifts God has given us – and care that future generations should enjoy them too.

CEL can suggest projects to support.  For example a church in Settle is supporting three charities: World Land Trust, Cool Earth and A Rocha Ghana.

• Click for details of these three charities
• (see blog about fundraising for them).

If you support a church abroad, why not ask them about conservation projects near them, thus increasing both their and your awareness. Contact Judith Allinson   

“Whatsoever is good” – Philippians 4 v.8

Spending £1 to save rainforest from being destroyed can prevent 330kg carbon dioxide being produced that's one third of a ton – a better return on £1 for preventing climate change than any other way

Species extinction rates are now 1000 times as great as the natural rate due to habitat loss

Churches which have raised over £100 so far:

1. Eco-group at Clun Methodist Church, Shropshire raised over £300
2. Churches Together in Settle and District
3. St John's Methodist Church, Settle

Leaf insect

Fundraising - Cards at Langcliffe

Would you like to buy some beautiful greetings cards?  I held a stall again at Langcliffe Instiute Christmas Coffee Morning on 3rd December 2011. Another £32.50 was raised for the fund. Thank you to all who bought a card.

On the wall behind is the Langcliffe Tapestry.  The big soft toy hippopotamus was bought as a cuddly visual aid from a stall nearby.

I have lots of cards left .. and will keep on making them.. Contact me if you would like me to run a stall near you.

Dactylis glomerata - Cocksfoot

This is all millimetre  graph paper

"A grass a month" has been going two years now.

For December for  the 24th grass ...
we''ll have the one everyone knows, the one you've been waiting for:-...

Cock's-foot!

Easy to recognise in-flower
AND
out-of-flower,
and big enough to poke up above the snow should we get any.




To be sung to "Frere Jacque"

Shoot section flying saucer

I'm a cocksfoot,
I'm a cocksfoot
Succulent shootbase
White sticky succulent shootbase
Section flying saucer
Section flying saucer
Big and folded
Big and folded.

There, got it!

In USA it is known as Orchard Grass

Orchardgrass was introduced to the eastern United States from Europe in 1760.

The shoots provide good nutrition in spring, but the dead shoots in autumn are not so palatable.

Two shoot sections

The panicle can sometimes show vegetative proliferation

panicle viewed through lens.

Uses: http://cocksfoot.askdefine.com/

Here,s a cocksfootleaf covered in "hawfrost-snow" from last December

Craven Speakers Club and Cards

I sold some Greetings cards for the Rainforest Fund and one calendar and took £18 at Craven Speakers Club last night. thank you all who contributed!

Next week there is a fundraising scheme "The Big Give" when money contributed to certain charities will have their money doubled  including World Land Trust and A Rocha. - Just from 5-9 December.  So I shall put the money in online then.
http://www.thebiggive.org.uk/

These pictures were actually take 2.5 month's ago at the beginning of the season - celebrating Gwendolen and my birthday at coffee break time, and Val had some books on display..

Speakers Club which meets in Skipton on Monday nights is a very friendly group and we really do improve our speaking skills

You are not alone

Ever feel like "Just where is life going?"
That's what I felt on Saturday morning 12 November as I dragged myself out of bed.
But by the end of the day I had done so much I thought "I'll make a record of it - at least there will be lots of links"

A RANDOM DAY - BUT ONE - WITH LOTS OF LINKS

1. I check my emails etc (sad isn't it when the first thing you do after waking up is to go straight to the computor..) A girl called Claire  has written to CEL Facebook group about the Youth -Climate Justice Caravan to UNFCCC COP17 Climate Negotiations! Nairobi to Durban  ..

Lucky her, travelling across Africa!

and  what a vital project - raising awareness about climate change amongst the youth of Africa - Yes the ordinary people really since more than half the people are less than 19 years old!!

2. I make some porridge - Sainsbury's. Raspberry flavoured. One sachet plus semi-skimmed milk  contains 1/10th one's daily requirement of fibre and almost 1/5th one's requirement of sugar. So I would have to eat 10 sachets to get enough fibre!! and by then I would have had twice as much sugar  as I should do.  - then would I be running the risk of diabetes? I  Oh well, I do not have milk with it, only water. And it contains soya. (Soya as in "They are chopping down the rainforest for soya)

2. Events email. Having been told what an excellent play/musical "1611" is last night by Ken and Angela, I spend most of the morning writing an "Events email" to send to the people on my Settle and Area contacts list. "1611" is a musical about events at the time the King James Bible was written. This takes all morning.

Mycena pura

3. Christmas Day lunch posters.  I am going to run a "Settle Community Christmas Day Lunch and Tea" on 25 December - yes I am -  similar to the one we held last year. - So I have to make some posters and get them up, to give people time to see it and decide to come.
         Last years Christmas cards -cut up - enliven the posters.

Hypnum sp? or Homalothecium lutescens?

4. I go down town to put up the posters.  I put one on the board in the church hall schoolroom. I put one in Age UK. I put one in the Tourist Office. I put one in the Coop. I stick one through the door of the doctor's surgery. I fail to put one in Townhead because I cannot find a letterbox. I fume. Well just a little.

Ctenidium molluscum

5. It is a sunny late afternoon - It is a shame to go home. I drive up to Winskill Stones, Plantlife Reserve.




I aim for the high pavement close to the road. I admire the mosses.
And Cladonia.



And Mycena pura. Here is a link to my favorite fungus site - Champimaginatis - this site describes in French but gives the description in English.




I wander back towards the car as the sun is setting - to the south south west over the forest of Bowland - It is only 5 weeks to the shortest day now.


I remember my mother who died just nine weeks ago, and mourn.. even though I know she wouldn't want me to.

Back at home I have two hours before the musical.

The latest issue of "Green Christian" Magazine fell through the letter box this morning, so I read that.
"Great!" -  it has given a mention to the 100churches project:- " CEL is seeking 100 churches to raise £100 each for habitat conservation projects" - So far we have three - (1) Us at St John's (2) Churches Together in Settle and (3) Clun.  How can we get more?

Nearly everything else in the magazine is about climate change or sustainability - plus two articles that look a bit detailed so I'll try them another time. I wish we had more on the importance saving species and habitats. I wish we still had a green songs page.

I spend half an hour making five new greeting cards and putting several already made ones in cellophane envelopes which makes them look really classy.  Last night at the hymn evening four were sold. It all helps.

I had been reading "Liberating the gospels" by John Shelby Spong - Who shows that much of the New Testament is midrashic. Today I looked at three more of Mum's books. Will write more on these if I get any further with them.

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"Get there early to get a good place" I had said to people in my email about the 1611 play. So I set off very early, stopping off to buy reduced price food at the petrol station. Finding bargain food gives the same sort of satisfaction as discovering wild brambles or edible mushrooms.  I discover a family sized trifle well reduced.

Sitting in the front seat at Giggleswick church is Maureen Ellis. "I read your email and came" she said!  Then next to me came Ruth and Dan B and then Mr Leaky. Ken and Angela are in the similar front seats on the left. Behind are Sally and Keith and their friends. Being at the front I can easily take photos albeit from a low angle.

These pictures are pictures of the cast - the audience of 72 was behind me

In the interval we have coffee and biscuits - I am delighted to see they still have the booklet about Giggleswick churchyard mosses on display - and also a poster for Speakers Club

&
See the ampersand on the flag above the "boat" - The word "and" was used over 4000 times in the New testament/bible  (I forget the statistic)  and the & was used instead of and to save effort and space.   King James wanted & to be used as the 27 letter of the alphabet

There is a song saying that 188 women are mentioned in the bible by name.

The two lead characters are King James and William Shakespeare.  Shakespeare wrote 7 plays during the time 1604 from when James commissioned the bible to 1611 when it was printed.  Then the plays he wrote afterwards included quotes from the King James Bible.

There are masses of fascinating facts - I wish I had a printed copy. They deal with Hudson who sailed to try and discover the NW passage to China.. and gave his name to many landmarks en route until the waters froze. Next spring when the sea melted his men mutinied and returned to England, leaving him in a small boat.

They mention that James had wanted a bible without comments in the margin (as had had the Geneva bible). But they do not explain why he did not want comments.

Songs include:- Old Yorkshire songs, a Leonard Cohen  song, Negro Spirituals,  By the rivers of Babylon, While Shepherds Watched to On Ilkley Moor, Zadok the priest, ...

What an insight into "1611" life and into a host of music styles afterwards.

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I come home. I pop in to see Nellie my neighbour. She was watching the Remembrance Day service at the Albert Hall on TV. The members of the forces were marching in - It reminded me of watching it when I was young - with my father.

I have eaten the whole trifle - so much for fibre!!. Checked my emails; put a link to the Africa Climate Change Caravan site.  Time for bed. Tomorrow  I need to go through this and put in lots of similes and metaphors.
And do the jobs I really should have done today.
Why the title? - You are not alone - well because I saw it on a web site - but I think it is appropriate. Thanks for reading.

Green Pilgrimage to Canterbury 1989

The launch of the Green pilgrimages network this week (2 Nov 2011) in Assisi is perhaps a follow up of the pilgrimage to Canterbury 22 years ago... 

• Green Pilgrimage Network Launches with joy,hope,faith and practical plans (1 Nov 2011)  and 
• Green guide to the Haj (Nov 2nd 2011)  

This account of this 1989 pilgrimage (involving BCC, many faiths and WWF) can be read as a follow up to blog post of the 1987 pilgrimage to Winchester. 

1989: Plodding beside the river carrying our our pilgrim staffs.. Meeting hop pickers ..  Sleeping outside under the stars in the flower rich warm graveyard, to avoid the snores of the other people sleeping inside on the church floor,.. (though we then had faint sound of traffic in the distance)  .. memories.

Hop pickers

Banner -
pilgrimage for Earth Survival

In September 1989 WWF organised pilgrimages from three places ending up at Canterbury- from Coventry, from Winchester and from Letchmore Heath: to arrive on the 16th for a weekend of prayer and celebration.


Did I go on the whole fortnight's pilgrimage along the pilgrim way from Coventry to Canterbury?
Rod and Jane Everett did, from Middlewood Trust.

Material outside hop house.

No.  (I was working for Nature Conservancy Council then, surveying grasslands in Richmondshire)

But I made my way down to the deep South East and stayed with friends at Tonbridge (or Tonbridge Wells?)  and enjoyed walking with the pilgrimage for an evening and a day.

We met some hop pickers. There are very few hops grown in England now.

In order to attend the workshops on the day before day before the pilgrimage itself would arrive,  I came early at Canterbury.  I wanted to set up a Christian Ecology Group Stall  (It was CEG then, not CEL).  The British Council of Churches was organising some workshops (History of BCC)

Picture me struggling across the road to a traffic island  with a  huge black  unweildy corrugated plastic Artist's A1 size folder containing large posters from Malham chapel wayside pulpit, and other CEG posters, plus much other luggage and rucksack.

• "Donkey's work best heavy laden" a lady's voice cheerfully said, 

and a stranger  kindly helped me carry it across a busy road. I'll always remember her - and laugh at myself trying to carry too much.  Carrying the material was worth it because it made a good display. There was plenty of interest at the stall.

Christian Ecology Group Stall at BCC conference at Canterbury in 1989

(Considering I had not even heard of CEG/CEL at the pilgrimage two years previously, it is interesting to see from the display how much I had been involved with in 1988 and 1989 - but that's another story)

After the workshops I dismantled the banner from the top of the stall and took it to the "Welcome of the pilgrims entering Canterbury"

The pilgrimage arrived on the Saturday afternoon
and people at the conference joined them

Rev Nigel Cooper helped carry the CEG Banner.

There was TV/Press publicity but not for "Care of the Environment" but for a  fundamentalist  Christian Group who were protesting at Christians associating with other religions or at Christians associating with New Age people . Hey, ho.-

On the Sunday, the service at  Canterbury Cathedral went well.  Jonathon Porritt was there. (He is now a CEL patron and the main speaker at our next conference

I hope you enjoyed through reading this blog post - sharing in the pilgrimage at Canterbury
And if you DID attend it in 1989 do let me know!

http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/21st-august-1987/3/rich-and-poor

Lichens flourescent in bonfire light

Horton in Ribblesdale bonfire is held on the playing field, base for the three Peaks Fell Race, and home of Horton Gala.

The fireworks on bonfire night were set off by two men and lasted a long time with lots and lots of rockets and bangs.

I met some friends from Settle Harriers, and a friend from Malham Tarn Field Centre. 

There were Beefburgers, hotdogs, parkin, soup and cinder toffee for sale. 

After the fireworks had finished we were allowed to go much closer to the bonfire... and warm up. On the far side of the bonfire the sycamore tree beside the river was lit up by the fire -- but what was lit up was the lichens on the branches -

 Maybe I will go back in the daytime but I know the lichens will be: Physcia tenella, Xanthoria parietina and a few Parmelias. The ends of all the branches - this years growth were not lit up because there had not been enough time for lichens to grow on them.

I am not sure how much of it is flourescence or how much reflection - probably both. I did not use flash - just the camera and then adjusting the photo as it came out rather dark initially

Green Pilgrimages

Lunch break on the Multifaith Eco-pilgrimage from Petersfield to Winchester in August 1987
(JA in dark green sweatshirt on top of the hill)

Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?

All journeys and holidays can be treated as a pilgrimage - but some events are especially special

It  is  25  years  ago (from 2011)  since  the Multifaith Pilgrimage to Assisi  (in WWF's 25th year) when faiths got together to pray for peace but also for the environment. The Duke of Edinburgh was there.

25 years on there has been another big event at Assisi 31 Oct -2  Nov 2011- when  with the Duke of Edinburgh  the  Green Pilgrimages network -has been launched - more of that  another time (Radio 4 Sunday of 31 Oct - interview with Martin Palmer - 17 minutes in)

I  want to tell you about 1986 and more importantly, the two following years, 1987 and 1989.

I remember hearing about the multifaith event at Assisi in 1986 when I was at Kindrogan Field Centre in Scotland in late summer (teaching grasses - or was it attending a mosses course?)  and  thinking "Oh, I would have liked to have gone on that."

It  was  a year later that I was spending time in Lancaster for their "Green Festival Week". I  read about an organisation called Christian Ecology Group (later called Christian Ecology Link, and since about 2012 -ish- called Green Christian)  in the Catholic Cathedral   in   Lancaster   on   a   noticeboard.

And at that Festival I went to a talk by Martin Palmer held in the University Chaplaincy to which only about 14 people came.. He told us about the upcoming weekend multifaith pilgrimage walking from Petersfield to Winchester -culminating in a service in Winchester Cathedral.

I had been reading a book by Sean McDonagh (To Care for the Earth: Call to a New Theology Aug 1986)  - and seen an a colour supplement (? the Observer) in which he suggested that the church ought to have a Green Festival to Care about Creation.

"Ahah, Perhaps this is it!" I thought.  The Green Church Festival he was talking about.

Four of us then arranged to pile into Rod and Jane Everett's car and to drive down to  Petersfield  to  the  Multifaith  Pilgrimmage  - Rod and Jane Everett of Middlewood Trust and another girl. We  drove down on the Friday. We walked  from Petersfield  to  Winchester  staying on the floor  in  a  church  hall and a sports pavilion overnight..

Walking and chatting

It was good meeting different people. Walking with someone is a good way to get to know people and to talk and listen about different faiths and concern about the environment. Then move on or drop behind and chat to someone else. One Buddhist monk told me how he was only allowed to have a small 1 bar electric fire (1/2 kw) and only allowed it a certain number of hours per day. Or was it one hour per day?

Ploughed downland

 The shapes of the rolling chalk downs were beautiful - but I noticed this because the ground was mostly ploughed up and  native species rich grassland gone.

The sun shone. Towards the end of our journey we got our banners out.

Not far from Winchester now

We walked across a footbridge over the motorway and down into Winchester.

Over the motorway

A reception by people of the city welcomed us.

A reception by the people of Winchester city welcomed us. (You can see our Middle Wood Trust banner)

Then supper and bed on mattresses in a sports pavilion.

Next day at the cathedral on the Sunday there were lots more people. A school choir sang the beautiful song "The world is a garden you made"  - the first time that I had heard this song by Ann Conlon - and the tune SAMOS by Peter Rose.

(In fact it may have been written for WWF for this event.  Josef Weinberger have the copyright - I have the book and music should anyone I know want to borrow it.)

In the cathedral some of the Buddhist nuns meditated,  just sat there.

Several faiths had produced booklets/statements about their faith and religion and about creation stories and some of these were launched at this event.

We returned home, the long drive up north to the Lancashire Yorkshire border..

I wrote off and joined Christian Ecology Link.

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And  the  following  year  there  was  a  bigger  event at Canterbury, involving a (equivalent of CTBI) weekend conference ,  and a multifaith event.  Rod and Jane joined in a fortnight's pilgrimage leading up to the weekend. I just travelled down early and accompanied them for an extra two days before the weekend...

But I'll save description of this 1988 event  for another day.

Till then I'll just say I carried a CEL banner at Canterbury and Rev Nigel Cooper came and helped carry it.

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Surely a pilgrimage to "Care for our world" and to say "Thank you God" for our world is about the most important pilgrimage there could be!!

See also follow up pilgrimage in 1989 to Canterbury