Cycling to another country gives you time to ponder

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 31/10/08 at 10:10:51 am

The day before yesterday my bike trundled over the Scotland – England boarder.  It was a great feeling seeing the flags of St Andrew in the distance then slowly crossing the boarder. It was one of those moments that you uncontrolably grin from ear to ear, I automatically looked around for someone to share this moment with and thought better of nipping over the A1 and waking up one of the truck drivers to tell him, I decided that he might not be as excited as I was.

Today I am writing this from John Headstrong’s computer, the fella that re-designed selfsufficientish and set up this blog for me. Seems odd having worked with this bloke for the last 6 months and never having met him. There is something about the folk that this website seem to attract (the ones that stick around), they are all very easy to get on with and are just genuinely good folk. 

I was in Hadington and Edinburgh yesterday and decided to break my self imposed not buy anything new rule. So I am sitting here in what is now called a thermal base layer, formerly known as long johns ready for the next bit of the trip onward to St Andrews.  I don’t think I will be playing golf though. Not sure where I will stay yet, I guess it all depends on at one point it gets too dark and I get too knackered to carry on and where there is somewhere to stay. Might not even end up being St Andrews but it does have to be on the road to Aberdeen!

I think I can start to be philsophical about this trip now, it does feel like it is something that has shifted some of my outlook and solidified some of my previous ideals. Seeing what chemical works, fertalizer factories, landfill sites, power stations and oil refineries look like and what they do to the surrounding areas can only further my thoughts for a more natural lifestyle. With each button left on stand by, each plastic wrapper put in the bin, each unecessary car journey or each spade full of chemical fertilizer we are all causing a part of our country (wherever that might be) to become glittering eyesore or an area that just feels unhealthy, my lungs felt like I had smoked a packet of marlboro in some places just because of the smoke filled air.

Anyway small rant over and time for a new one, the other thing that really jumps out is how much money is in the South and how little is in much of the North of England*.  Essentially how much money runs around our capital and how the mining communities that have litterally helped fuel the economy and have been squeezed dry of their natural resources (human and mineral) and left to rot. (I guess that must mean its dry rot). * I know some of it is prosperous but I am concentrating on some of the places I have seen.

This recession is being called a middle class one, there is no longer a manufacturing base and it is jobs in banking, estate agency and other high powered ‘city’ jobs are being lost instead. Basically the people who are the money illusionaries, the ones who make us believe that that we need it are loosing their jobs. Don’t feel too sorry for them though as they have earnt in bonuses in the last year as much money as many of us have earnt and I mean ever.

There is a point I am trying to make here about the massive North South divide and this recession, perhaps it will be a great leveler. Hopefully when the dust settles in 4 or 5 years time (yes I believe it will last that long) and we see what legacy it leaves the country, it will be postive. There will be have to be a more sustainable and cleaner way of producing power, over consumersm will have to decrease, we will have to realise that we can no longer rely on our greatest god of the West (oil) and we can’t have a country that has one smaller infanelty more prosperous one inside it within the M25 existing in it’s own little bubble, sucking the life and money out of the rest of the country.  

Ok, last little rant Holiday homes and out of town shopping. These two things are also massive players in the distruction of communities around our country. There are villages with whole streets being deserted during the winter, imagine 20 house and only one family living there. This is what happens when you rent out a holiday home, it means no village pub as there is not enough people to sustain it all year round and the post office is no longer needed either. The out of town shopping centres also mean that the other local shops have gone, unable to compete. This might all be old news to many but until you have seen comunity after community left as shadows of their former selves then you might not feel too gulity of shopping where “every little hurts”.  But you are helping to fuel this when you shop, it could not be too long before none of us have a choice.

Well, I am in a ranting mood this morning, strangley I am in a pretty good mood ready for the next leg of the cycle tour.

Bristol to near Alnwick by bike

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 28/10/08 at 12:10:23 pm

Well here I am sitting on the computer at Helen and Chris’ house, a couple of ishers! Due to some misscomunication they are the first on my trip. Well, if you don’t include my Mum.

It’s been an interesting journey so far to say the least, some highs and lows as I expected.

So first with a synopsis of the highs, there is nothing like seeing signposts for where you want to stay after a days cycling, or habing pheasants flying over your hear, stoats jumping through the hedge rows, the first glimps of the East coast, a warm house after a day in the cold or just meeting people after hours even days without really talking to people face to face, save to give a food order or ask for directions. Or coming downhill after going up.

The lows, well to be expected really, cycling uphill, getting soaked to the skin and still being miles from the destination, not being able to see the “cycle path” which at times has been nothing more than a badger track, getting a bottle thrown at me, bed and breakfasts with no breakfast, five punctures, my gears not working properly, cycling past chemical works then oil refineries then a landfill site one after another and five punctures.

But in all it has been a really good experience so far and testament not to how much stamina I have but to how pig headed I can be when I have a strong idea in my head.What has kept me going in a lot of places is the thoughts of seeing the people on the way.

Well I will do a more comprehensive run down as I have written a bit of journal (if I can find it).

Thanks for the good luck messages and to some of the Scotland ishers, hope to see you soon!

Just about to leave for Aberdeenshire

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 20/10/08 at 11:10:11 am

My panier bags are packed, I have a selection of maps, new tyres on my bike, refelctive things, new lights so I am just about to go. Apart from one thing my bike is no where to be seen. It is ok as it is sitting at a bike shop being serviced, it should be ready at 1pm. Great timing as that is when the rain will stop, the weather forecast says so – No rain from 1pm until I arrive. I have checked the forecast for the whole way and it will be clear and bright with a tail wind to push me along every day….. IF ONLY!

Winds are picking up and the temperatures are dropping as we approach winter time. I can’t help thinking that this journey would have been much nicer in the Spring, saying that we had so much rain this summer that this is possibly the best time to do anything. Espeically gardening, I heard that this summer there were more slugs in Devon and Somerset than people in the world. So despite cycling in it I am kind of hoping for a cold snap.

I hope I am fine when I set off I do have a mate that dabbles in alimentology who thinks my gut is stressed and so I need to calm it down before I set off that was last week and I think now I have everything sorted all of me is less stressed and I am just looking forward to the journey despite the weather.

Virgin Media = Rubbish, Bristol-Aberdeen Cycling tour update

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 17/10/08 at 12:10:52 am

Virgin Media = Rubbish

Been having Virgin Media hounding me with calls for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I ignored them a little as they were leaving automated messages. I also got an email telling me that they were going to cancel my service, which obviously I will need, this morning I got a letter saying that I owe £53. What a nerve, they still owe me money. I called them and got put on hold for 10 mins and was left listening to some god awful song. I hung up and called back today. Again I was on the phone for 10 mins, I ask you when a company messes up then asks you to call them back and has the cheek to keep you on the phone for 10 mins at a time something is not right.

The upshot is that Virgin were going to pass my details onto a debt collection agency due to the fact that I owed them £160 for a non existent broadband connection. It seems that I had cable and adsl broadband for a while both supplied by virgin one for £17.99 a month and the other for £18 a month rather than one for £10 that I should have had. Ah well they say it is sorted, I am not so sure Will wait and see. I will certainly switch to a more reliable company when all of my money has been refunded. An apology would have been nice too, is that asking too much. The moral of the story NEVER EVER, EVER, SIGN UP WITH VIRGIN MEDIA.

Anyway seems I am not alone, I found a web forum dedicated to people with Virgin media problems.

Scottish Bike Ride

Well I have been through the route a number of times and am now knackered, happy though I think I have a good solid route sorted. I got really excited today as I bought a map book with cycle routes on it. I even got two new tyres for the first time ever. They are some kind of magic tyres that are puncture resistant, it’s one thing to say fingers crossed and quite another to spend an extra £5 on tyres to try and evade the inevitable.

So almost all set.

I have set up a webpage to collect donations for our little cooperative , they made me set a target so I paniced and put £2500 that is the figure we need but I doubt I will raise that on this trip, would be nice but I doubt it.

Bike trip – Bristol to Aberdeen panic and preperations

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/10/08 at 05:10:00 pm

Bike trip

I am starting to get rather nervous about the bike trip from here (Bristol) to Aberdeenshire, it seems that everything is conspiring against me having time to sort the trip out. I tried to get my bike put in for a service thinking that it would simply be a matter of bringing it into a bike shop. How wrong could I be, I called a few and they are all fully booked up and I had to book mine in for next Monday (20th October).

This means I will have to leave on Tuesday 21st October, which is back to my original plan. I toyed with the idea of leaving on the Monday just to take the first step a bit easier, stopping off at Swindon overnight on the way. It looks like I will have to go straight to Oxford on day one. Luckily I have a place to stay, my one and only published writer friend Paul Kingsnorth. I emphasise published as most of my mates are unpublished writers.

It will be a real push for day one Bristol to Oxford though at a distance of roughly 90 miles if I follow the cycle routes. I think that I can bring that down a little just by altering the route slightly. Otherwise it will knacker me out before I even start. I think I can make that a more managable 70 miles by doing some of the route by road. I might even try and go straight off to Swindon on Monday. hmm options.

I really need to sit down with my relief map and sort out this trip as it is starting to stress me out a little. It gets a bit hazy from the midlands to the borders as to where the route will go and where I will stay. I need to travel a distance of over 40 miles a day to make this trip work and at the moment the most generous offers are a little clustered. Meaning I could do 20 miles one day and 100 the next. It is difficult as I really want to stay with as many ishers as possible as the whole reason for doing this trip is to meet more of them (You).

Planning the route has become a bit like doing a tax return for me I keep staring at google maps or constantly searching for alterantive routes with OS maps whilst not actually planing a route or even getting in touch with the lovely ishers who are offering me a room and food for the night. I put today aside to get this done then got waylaid on my allotment and getting that sorted for 16 days without me. I will have to the same for my homebrew too.

Tonight it out for stuff as I am taking Emma to a restaurant as a kind of pre-aniversary meal. It would appear that I will be on the road for our actual aniversary (oops!). So I guess in a way I am getting Emma ready for 16 days without me, although I am sure she would not like to hear that.

I just decided that I might as well join a bike forum and see they can help me sort out a route. Must be other people out there who have traveled at least some of my proposed route.

Ethical Terrorist and bread soup

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 09/10/08 at 12:10:32 pm

Ethical Terrorism and the birth of the Ecorist

If you ignore what is going on with the banks and look at the bigger picture the news has been dominated in the last few years by two big topics namely the environment and the “War on Terror”. I was having a chat with a few mates about this and we wondered what an Ethical/Eco terrorist would be like. As journalists are always coming up with new names I thought I would too and our Ethical/Eco Terrorist would simply be called an Ecorist.

So what would define our ecorist? Firstly they would not be able to hurt anyone as it would be immoral. This would mean that all normal forms of terrorist attacks would be redundant as in general it would involve hurting people. They would also be concerned about where they bought their tools of terror ensuring that they are fair trade and sustainable. On top of that the Ecorist would be very aware of their carbon footprint ensuring that they terrorise in a carbon neutral or even carbon negative manner.

This meas they could not get on a plane as they would be increasing their carbon footprint. Nor would they want to destroy anything as it uses valuable resources that are no doubt sourced from dodgy dealings in Africa, raping the natural environment and giving next to nothing back to the local inhabitants. Indeed the only thing that they could even contemplate destroying would be a building built with sustainable and FSC materials. This building would also be part of what the Ecorist would be campaigning for so what would be the point.

So if the Ecorist can’t destroy anything or hurt anyone then I guess they will be left with protesting. We all know that travel is one of the highest personal contributers to greenhouse gasses this would rule out the protest march, unless you could get enough people to one place by bike. How would it then be advertised? You can’t flyer it or put posters up as they both cause litter they would also be unfair to dsylexics and non native speakers who might be unable to understand them. So protesting is out.

There are not many options left for the Ecorist, the only thing that we could come up with is going through peoples bins and pulling out the recycled products and sorting them out for them.

Bread Soup

Using the book I mentioned in my last blog, You can’t ration these I decided to give one of the recipes a go. It was a real war time make do recipe of Bread Soup. I basically cut up some stale bread (2 slices), boiled it for a little (in 1.5 pints of water) then simmered for 30 mins sprinkling some salt and pepper to the mix. Adding an egg yolk whipped up in some milk just at the end.

The results were certainly interesting. I wolfed mine down as I will eat almost anything whilst my two guests were not convinced.  It was just bread in hot water, it tasted almost like egg bread but not as nice and almost like bread and butter pudding and again not as nice.

I think that if you sweated down some onions in butter and added a little spice of your choosing this might be saved. It is not one however, that I would recomend unless you really don’t have any food in the cupboard.

Forage course and They can’t ration these

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 07/10/08 at 01:10:05 pm

Foraging Course – Our first all day one!

Dave and I had our first foraging course yesterday and to make sure it felt like a baptism of fire we invited along a film crew who were filming something for Irish National station RTE. There were smiling faces all round at the end and the whole group got on really well.

It seems that our forage is something slightly different than the usual forages some of the comments we got were, “I expected to be baffled with Latin names but you made it really assessable” and “I really enjoyed it and it was lovely to have the opportunity to learn so much with good company.  You both did a really good job of explaining things whilst keeping a good sense of humour and it showed in the light and friendly atmosphere.”

I am not just posting those comments to advertise the latest course here in Bristol on Saturday 11th October, 10am-4pm. But just to say what a great way we could earn a living. Well actually my motives are to try and fill the last few places we have left (email me for more details).

I keep being asked why we do this forage in a city and there is one really good reason, there are simply more plants. Think about the seed that gets planted in the countryside, acres upon acres of corn, maize, rape or whatever. Whereas every gardener seems to spend hours leafing through seed catalouges and will plant a huge array of different plants year after year.

Just as one gardener for example, I try to grow a new plant every year, this year being tomatillos and I also try different varieties of courgettes, tomatoes, basil, sweetcorn, beetroot and beans every year.  One year my fennel and my lettuce went to seed and Emma had also planted some evening primrose, now everyone on our allotment site is weeding out those plants.

The little extras that we gave out really seemed to go down well, I am just hoping that I can have some homebrew ready for the next one. We did instead have rowanberry and hawthorn berry jelly, sumacade and something else that will remain a secret until the RTE program is aired that the presenter Baz Ashmawy seemed to really enjoy!

He was a pretty nice bloke in the end, just a normal chap not sure how famous he is over in Ireland (or should I be saying Eire??). I asked him if he had a fan club and he it seems he does not, not sure if that is a real mark of fame or more of a reflection on the sorts of people who follow you. It made me and Dave realise that TV work really is not that hard and I hope it we will come across well. I would love to meet the editor though and just make sure that we do come across well!

They can’t ration these

I just picked up a book called “They can’t ration these” by Vicomte De Mauduit. It was recomended to me twice so I had to get it really. Quite an odd little book perhaps one for people who have made their first steps in foraging as it does not have much of a field guide. It does tell you how to cook Hedgehog though!

I guess this book for some would have more of curosity value as it does feel like a little window into what Britatin would have been like during the war.

There are some recipes about how to make food go further, others for wild food and it even tells you how to make the selfsufficientish old favorite the haybox oven. It was a war time book after all and I can really imagine someone during wartime treasuring it for the wisdom it opertunes. It would have really empowered the reader to make their rations last.

Cycling from Bristol to Aberdeen

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 03/10/08 at 10:10:59 pm

I looked at my series of events for the coming weeks recently and realised that after the 19th October I did not have to do anything until 6th November. I decided that I would use this time to cycle up to Scotland from the South West of England.

I am not super fit, in fact I used to smoke 30-40 a day right up until March this year when I decided that if I was going to be a spokesperson for ethical living and the environment smoking would be rather hypocritacal. I still sucome to the odd one now and then, but nothing like I did. Anyway, I must stop digressing.

The furthest I have cycled in a day is about 70-80 miles and I don’t cycle every day. It will certainly be a challenge to see if I can get up there. I have planned a route that I think will have the least amount of hills, even the Scottish bit seems to be pretty flat. Looking at the map I think I won’t cycle above 200m as I keep to coastal roads – despite the reservations of some of the Scottish Ishers it is not the hills that should be the problem but the weather! Possibly a bit stupid to plan this for the start of winter.

Day one 21st October – Bristol to Oxford
Day two 22nd October – Oxford – Northampton (I have somewhere to stay as my Mum and Dad live here)
Day three 23rd October – Northampton – Nottingham
Day four 24th October – Nottingham – Gainsborugh or Scunthorpe
Day five 25th October Gainsborough or Scunthorpe – York
Day six 26th October – York – Middlesborough or Darlington
Day seven 27th October – Middlesborough or Darlington – Alnwick
Day eight 28th October – Alnwick – Eyemouth
Day nine 29th October Eyemouth – Edinburgh
Day ten 30th October – Edinburgh – Dundee
Day twelve 31st October – Dundee – Aberdeenshire
with 1st – 4th November – Aberdeen train booked to get me back.

Anyway, I am going to set up a page to collect sponsorship money for this to raise funds to make our local bookshop/cafe/photo lab/venue into a co-operative. We need to buy the stock, fixtures and fittings and goodwill from the owner.  It is also going to be the 4th Year of the web forum. So I hope to get every isher I meet to sign a copy of the Selfsufficientish bible and then it will be offered as a prize in the next competition we hold. Oh yeah I am hoping that people will put me up on the way, I do have that much faith in Human kindness you see.

I feel pretty nervous about the whole trip and I do have reservations. Talking to a friend earlier I think I could be right in saying this is likely to be one of the worst and best things I have done in a long time I am bound to really love parts of it and really hate other parts.

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