The Sunday Muse!

Small "Panther" in the sun flecks!

Looking forward to spring!

 +Philip Spalding

This week has been the darkest of the year so far in the UK.  Dark  during the day because of the cloud.  Dark at night because of the cycle of the moon which ha made it apparently the best viewing conditions of the night sky.  We have had our astronomy "festival" on BBC TV Stargazing Live (may not open outside UK) with the comedian Dara O Briain (a comedian with a degree in Cosmology and Maths) and Professor Brian Cox current successor to the great Sir Patrick Moore.  As a nation we are captivated by these great televisual experiences.  We have even had Professor Brian Cox commentating on what to see in the Sun Newspaper (a British tabloid or red top) as I discovered while having a coffee in Deja Vu , local coffee shop that is run by local people.  Was almost tempted to get my telescope out (a Sky-watcher Reflector) but must be getting old as was a little too cold!

Looking forward to spring and the sun flecks starting to come through the leaves of the apple tree has started me thinking about vegetable gardening.  I have touched on this in previous years when blogging about micro-farms  or square foot gardening and green thumbs.  At the moment with snow predicted for tomorrow will probably have to make do with making vegetable soup.

The planning of the veg patch can start now.  The experiences I will relate in this blog as in previous years.  I have started an online learning community for Haverhill (Haverhill Online Learning Community or HOLC).  We have specifically marked in  a week for Urban Gardening on the Calendar of events starting the 11 th February 2013.  The Urban Gardening  page link will soon be available on the Projects Page.  There is a great increase in interest  in the UK in growing your own, with demand for allotments up in these times of austerity.  If everybody was to turn even one square metre of their back or front lawn  into a veg growing area we would not only reduce air-miles (and that's just the start) but also gain that satisfaction of producing our own food.  It does not even have to be a square metre even growing lettuce and salad leaves in plastic bottles tied like a terrace to a balcony wall can yield good results!

To finish off for this post then the new year's resolutions have been written.  One was to eat more Cretan/Greek food which I will do so once I have found my Cretan Cookbook.  Certainly I will be blogging more about the county that I love to be part of, Suffolk and it's great food and culture.  Will have to wait a bit for some more ducks to become available I think but you never know!      

Christmas is coming, is the Goose Getting Fat?

Almost another year over!

The last time I blogged about food was over a month ago!  A bit a year of change since the last Christmas since I no longer live in the house to the right.  Many things have moved on from January.  What will 2013 bring?  Probably more change! Will do my end of analysis a little later.

Been a really busy last month have been setting up some Online Learning Communities.  Trying to do some study with edX.  Oh and teaching a bit in the Isle of Ely!  Also taking on a  new role as an online tutor!  So really taking the bit between the teeth.  

Career change has now been effected.  The system we had in Suffolk Schools 2 years ago has changed whether for the better I will let the reader judge (a good article being http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_don_t_blame_the_headteachers_over_poor_results_say_nut_1_1743219   ).  The school outside the control of the education authority to have made the most progress is Samuel Ward, my old school, named outstanding academy  for the year (http://www.samuelward.co.uk/2012/12/national-outstanding-academy-award/).    A little bit of pride for Haverhill since we have not had the best of press over the years, even the "great" BBC made the mistake (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Jonathan-Dimblebys-downbeat-description-of-Haverhill-provokes-complaints-26112012.htm).

So Online Learning Communities, I have set up the Haverhill Online Learning Community  and ukonlinelearningcommunities.org .  Come along and have look for ideas for Life Long Learning!

Well have been working on the said communities since about 4 am this morning so will update the food blog later in the week!  Trying to figure out who has the best advice for cooking Turkeys, Jamie Oliver or the Poultry advisory board.  My money is on the producers board!    

Sunday Foodie Bit! Viticulture UK!

A vineyard on Jersey: still part of the British experience

Wine a British Drink!

A Sunday in the UK.  Clear sky, just approaching dawn, at 6 am still dark, moon is starting to set.  A  male Owl on old Railway Track at bottom of the Garden, no reply to his part of the twit-ter-whoo. Probably a Barn Owl. Cat has some competition for the local rodent population at last, maybe won't have so many presents placed next to and in food bowl!  

Recently I have been blogging about the Great British Apple.  An event of note is taking take place today (30/09/12) at Audley End House, an Apple festival.  This based around the Organic Kitchen Garden at the house and features experiences from the 1880s.  Apples in this scenario would have been important for large estates attached to the house for producing cider.  Cider was used as part of the wages for the estate workers during harvest time.  Greenhouses attached to the Kitchen Gardens would have been employed to produce grapes for the table, and in some houses pineapples.  Wine would not be made from grapes since the fashion was for grapes to be presented to honoured guests.  Viticulture was not an active part of the estate management over time even though wars with France often restricted the supplies of wine.  Alternative sources often were imported from England's oldest ally the Portuguese.  Port and Madeira have long featured in English cooking and may be making a comeback, especially white port, as more people visit Portugal.

Prior to the loss of Aquitaine,  England had control of large areas what is now the premier Red Wine growing region of France.   The red Bordeaux wines we import into England as Claret come from this is area.  England has a rich history of wine making if you go back to the time when half of the western half of France was under English control (do not tell the French this as they conveniently forget this sometimes!).   In fat today a lot of the trade is till controlled by English interests.  

Flag waving over, what is the English wine (this is a specific definition as there is also British wine made from imported grapes) growing experience? The standard argument most oenologists use  to justify growing wine in England is that Romans did so in Chester and if they could do it then we can do it now.  Climate change apart from then and now, it is possible to make decent grape based wine in England.  Hedgerow wine is a different product but can be equally good!    

As I like to blog about Suffolk I am going to concentrate on identifying the vineyards in the local area to me.  Haverhill is a market town on the Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire border.  We have very near to us (about 5 miles) one of the major labels in English wine Chilford Hall.  I have visited this conference/wedding/function hall and vineyard many times.  The wine is prize winning and does taste good, a white wine grown on the Chalk slopes of the start of the Gog Magog hills close to the highest point in Cambridgeshire.  The source of the River Stour is not that far from the vineyard and consequently the soil is well drained.

Very close to Chilford on the other side of the Gog Magogs on the approach to Cambridge is the Gog Magogs Vineyard .  This is a recently established vineyard (in 1995).  I personally haven't yet tried any of the wine but since it has the same basic terroir (can we use that in England, sounds better than soil) as Chilford Hall similar good results could be expected.

A vineyard that I visited about 7 years ago when the original owners were running it is Giffords Hall in Suffolk. My house at school was named after this hall, the other two being after Kentwell Hall, and Melford Hall so has a little connection to me.  A small vineyard operated by just one couple, the tour was pretty eccentric and entertaining as  the process was explained.  Impressed by the passion and knowledge I borrowed the video of the process and used it in Science Lessons to illustrate the fact that science is a very old profession not just a preserve of 19th and 20th Century white coated individuals.  The wine was good too.  Another visit is due I think!

A vineyard  near Wixoe a few miles down the road no longer exists.  Here they may have have been following in the footsteps of the Romans.  Wixoe and the surrounding area are rich in remains of Roman settlement   It is  near here that Boudicca may have defeated the IXth Legion after she sacked Colchester.

Still in Suffolk but a little further away towards Bury St Edmunds (home of Greene King) are the two vineyards Ickworth House and Wyken Hall .  These are two vineyards that I have yet to visit or taste their products but are in my list of things to do in Suffolk.

So these are the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire vineyards within about 20 minutes drive of Haverhill.  Few places have so many vineyards so close!

Suffolk Foodie Bit! The Friday Market!

Wintry view across Haverhill from the "new" market
Tescos (Super?) to the church where old market, stalls
can be found in it's shadow to the right!

Markets Ancient and Modern in Haverhill

Haverhill is a very ancient Settlement!  The new Haverhill Research Park  emphasises the similarity between the modern land use and the past land use of the area.  In developing the area a history stretching back to at least Roman times and prehistoric times has started to be uncovered by the Archaeological dig taking place as part oft he development.  Hints of the use of new technologies in the field of agriculture are being found in this site that echoes the biotechnology focus of the Research Park!

Along the spring line of the southern ridge of the Stour Brook the town of Haverhill developed.  The steeper northern  ridge has arguably a lot thinner soils and even today is known as the Chalkstone Hill.  Looking across to the church from the bottom of the Chalkstone Hill the more gentle rise supplies the bulk of the old town.  Haverhill market reputedly has a charter that goes back to the 1200s.  The positioning of it close to the crossing point of the Stour at Wixoe made it a convenient halt on the route from Sudbury to Cambridge. This local Livestock market originally behind the Bull, Queens Head and Rose and Crown continued  until the late 1960s and early 1970s.

So today I am going have a wander around the market square and have a look at the opportunities to buy fresh produce fresh produce on what was the Peas Market Site!  So a second blog post on this subject soon to appear!

    

The Sunday Garden Shed!

When is an allotment not an allotment?

The debate of what constitutes an allotment hit the news this week.  An allotment holder was taken to task for growing fruit trees on his patch (Telegraph 16th August).  The allotment holder was told that three-quarters of the allotment should be put to "productive crops".  A very loose term generally but not in this case apparently.

The picture to the left is an allotment society's plot that I was involved in a few years ago.  The trust that owned the allotments was apparently divided over whether to sell the land for housing.  This is a very rural village in West Suffolk. Arguably West Suffolk is one of the least developed areas for housing in the East of England because it is still essentially an Industrial Landscape.  An agricultural industrial landscape and has been so for hundreds of years.  It could be argued that without the Agriculture of Suffolk the sprawling metropolis of London would not have been able to grow.   

The value we put on allotments is very much in the eye of the beholder.  Allotments were originally provided for low paid workers to give access to the means of supplementing your own diet by growing your own.  Today we have food banks that can be used to supplement diets set up on the back of overbuying and production by the supermarkets.  A laudable green solution to disposing of mountains of food that the supermarkets would otherwise bin.  This, however, reflects a little of the aid culture we have developed.  Instead of giving food to developing nations (from whom we buy our supermarket produce all year round) We are now doing it at home with finished and packaged goods.  Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, give a man a fishing rod and he could also eat tomorrow.

In an ideal world it would be argued that everybody grow at least part of their own food.  However, in the time poor and on demand requirement for cheap food this is a rose tinted view.  Or is it? We tend to look at the cost of small parts of the food supply chain.  In supermarkets we buy either on price or perceived quality indicated by the marketing packaging.  The food contains the same major nutrients but may have those nutrients processed more or less depending on perceived added quality.  Everyday value brand or premium brand (often the same product) is a "choice" for the consumer.  Looking closer at the produce we have the major food chemical components of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous (and not forgetting water since  lettuce's water content is 94.5% making a 500g lettuce roughly half a litre of water) being transported at great expense around the world.  Kenya as an example may produce beans of different types all year round but is exporting a major source of nitrogen to northern Europe.  To produce grain it would then have to import nitrogen generated from expensive and potentially insecure oil supplies.  This is without considering the cost of composting waste nitrogen in Europe and the effects of eutrophication. How long before Kenyan economists start to do the maths and decide like Russia did last year that domestic consumption is more important and cost effective than the balancing act of  food export income and food production costs?   

In Haverhill we have the pressure of our green areas and allotments being developed http://www.haverhillecho.co.uk/news/latest-news/education-centre-proposals-are-slammed-1-3798542.  This is reflected in moves a foot nationally to build on green belt land, again!  A food security question needs to be addressed with a concern that globalisation may have made western consumerism vulnerable.  The  vulnerability being  of home consumption in the country of production as  populations becomes more affluent! 

The Saturday Foodie Bit!

Sqaure Foot Gardening

The Square Foot Garden!

First Earlies Arran Pilot not 2 minutes
 out of the ground

Sunshine across the veg patch today!  I started on this veg patch on or about the last day in March. I probably started a little late this year. The intention was to experiment with the patch to see if I could produce some veg for a family of four!  Weather permitting there was the potential to produce some veg. However, drought then too much rain and more importantly cold overcast days and cool nights conspired to make a poor showing!  However we did have some results with  potatoes grown in bags!

Square foot gardening is a concept readily achieved in any garden.    A good guide to square foot gardening can be found at http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/schools_organic_network/leaflets/SquareFootGardening.pdf .   This is a leaflet I have been using for many years.  I was very surprised to see the number of square foot gardening sites that turned up in the Google Search.  This is obviously a trending movement since a year ago when I last looked there were relatively few sites!  A blog article I wrote awhile ago explains a little of the theory behind this form of micro-farming http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=square+foot.

With Summer almost drawing to a close the all round veg patch can be kept going!  Now is the time to sow turnips, winter lettuce, japanese onions, winter radish, swiss chard ( very popular ingredient in a lot of Mediterranean countries), perpetual spinach, cabbage and kale.  These are all hardy and will survive most of what the British weather can throw at us.  If you are not going to want to produce produce through the winter, sowing a green manure crop is a useful alternative.  Not only can they add nutrients and structure to soils but also act as a weed suppressant as they out compete by vigorous growth and cover!  For adding nitrogen to soils deep growing Alfalfa (good for improving structure of soils) and crimson clover (sowing season March to August so just within the window).  Alfalfa can be left for a year or more before before digging in.  Crimson clover can be dug in just before flowering, this prevents self seeding and it becoming a weed (a plant growing in a place where it is not wanted).

New "sowing" has been a bit of theme this week.     I have been experimenting with starting off a sourdough culture.  This is a bit of ancient microbiology relying on natural airborne yeasts.  So potentially each batch of sourdough is unique in it's microflora owing to geographical position and time of year.  This is a bit like local honey that contains local pollen that some people recommend as a supply of antigen for controlling hay fever reactions.  Potentially also a good way of acclimatising the bodies immune system to local yeast strains.  Using River Cottages Bread Handbook as the reference I set up a culture.  A flour and water (1 cup flour, 1 cup water) batter was made in an earthenware jar and set aside to ferment.

The Batter

Fermentation and checking, started
fermentation within 36 hours  

Preparing for the first feeding of the culture
with 1 cup of flour and and one of water

Have found that the recent warm temperatures during the day and much cooler temperatures during the night do influence the rate of fermentation.  The aroma from the culture has also changed during the process to a now pleasant sweetish alcohol laden "nose" (makes it sound like a fine wine).

Next step is to discard halve and add more flour and water.  In the next next few days hopefully I will making bread!

Ten year Plan - How it is going!

With Hindsight!

Word Count 833 

A friends wedding nearly six years ago  prompted me to start considering where I was heading.  It may have been the beginning of the "mid-life" crisis or a realisation that we were heading for major changes in my career path at the time.  At the time I did not realise quite how much of the crowd I was!

An interesting career that had experienced a lot change up to that point http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipspalding66, was about to become more interesting.  I sat down in the pre-wedding gathering in Weymouth (it had only just been announced as an Olympic venue) and contemplated the 10 year plan.  I made a statement that I would not be teaching full time in the classroom by the age of 50 (Eddie Izzard's new 40!).  I had an early night on the final night went back to the B & B.  Early next morning I boarded the ferry from Weymouth to Jersey.

In Jersey I stayed at my usual hotel in St Helier, the Mountview, and contemplated my statement.  I had a few pints in the more traditional pubs in the West End of St Helier.  A very good one with sporting prints from "antique" times was the venue to watch the Test Match and listen to the sage at the bar who also turned out to be the chairman of the Jersey Cricket Federation.  Picked the right pub!  But then you only have to look at the outside of the pub sometimes and know it is not going to be just q quick half to test the beer and atmosphere.

A few days of visiting my distant cousins in the north of the island (http://www.durrell.org/).  The orangutans seemed well, the funky gibbons were being funky.  They share an enclosure to simulate the Sumatran and Borneo rain forest habitat.  By the end of the break as I flew back into Stansted I had a bit of a plan.  Not quite a cunning plan but one that had light at the end of the tunnel which did not seem to be generated by a Eurostar! 

Another year on from this the following August and certain career paths appeared to be getting narrower (now we see the result good or bad?  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060 ).  I was sitting in the bar in Pefki, Rhodes with a good friend shooting the wind as we  prepared for the Wedding.  A Rhodian escape started to be planned.  The mad engineer friend of mine combined with the agri-IT-scientist-teacher came up with a cunning plan.   A sustainable living/ well being plan, but in essence still a plan.

Two days alter back at work and the plan was shelved for another year until I went to Crete.  Fabulous island, cradle of European civilisation (forget mainland Greece)!  Schools Organisational Review (SOR) was just stating to come in and Haverhill along with Lowestoft was in the firing line.  A little bit of relaxation in Hersonissos led to realisation that work-life balance was really not balanced favourably on the cliff edge.  A couple of good nights spent in the company of a very attractive and relaxed Irish girl from Dublin and we started planning again!

The plan was expressed graphically in the Logo above. Sometimes you do not always need to write things down since the written word can always be misinterpreted by "experts".  Visit to a local print shop, and day later had the plan on a disc, five polo shirt (I went there and got the Polo Shirt, T-shirts were not good enough quality).  Scratch Rhodes, Crete would appear to be part of the plan! 

So back to work and another year of battling career change I finally hit the buffers.  An article in the Harvard business review started me thinking.  A position I had occupied through major career traumas such Ofsted, special measures, six (not really sure if some were actually allowed to be) head teachers and school federation was that of a Middle Manager.  The Harvard Review produced some insights (http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-middle-manager.html).      I had started to blog by this time.  The following March, I made a clean break and walked away from the pressure of achieving continual goals against the trickle down management culture of similar to First World War Generals.  Whistle goes and then over top! (Blackadder Goes Fourth clip here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IglUmgYGxLM).  

Two years on from the break with the treadmill and the BlackAdder goes Fourth clip seems apt in the context of the East Anglia Daily Times article  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060.  

Still have weathered all this, the ten year plan is half way through!.  I have achieved the stated aim of not needing to be in the classroom full time or managing change (for change sake?).   Last time I jumped out of a plane I definitely had a parachute, this time I have to construct it on the way down!  Necessity does become the midwife of creativity and invention!  Here is to more blogging and on ward and upward up with up hill skiing!

Καλημέρα σας και είναι εδώ για τα επόμενα πέντε χρόνια! Ή θα έπρεπε να είναι ένα νέο σχέδιο δέκα χρόνια!

Monday Morning Week 6 of Chinese New Year

Loch Ness  monster spotted on Holiday in Crete

Started Monday 7th March 0530 GMT
Words 531
S.I.= 106.2 % Aspirational Target not met
Week before the Ides of March


looking at the calendar planning what is going to be a very busy week I stated to think of the associations with the times of year.  The Ides of March falls next week on the 15th March.  I have not had a look at Pepys diary for a while, I wonder if anything has changed (ie similar situations different names).

What do I need to achieve by the end of the week?  The first priority is to make sure that I have considered a Wellbeing strategy.  I have found some of the course notes and literature from 2006 when I was a Wellbeing facilitator in my previous job in a school.  As a staff governor ( I really need to update my Linked in profile to reflect my experiences adequately) I took on this role at quite a difficult time for the school.  Special measures  looming again (we just avoided it again), eventually a change of head, acting head was in place, School Re-organisation taking place from 2007 (moves to close Middle Schools in Suffolk, happened in Haverhill and Lowestoft but unsurprisingly not happening anywhere else in Suffolk).

Against this background the one thing that senior management should have been putting in place was a wellbeing strategy but this did not happen.  Now I am running my own business with a view to employing others in the future it is time to make sure that I build my business to be a stress resistant organisation since I can set the agenda and learn from these experiences.

The first question should always be what do we want to achieve?  The second question is what are the benefits to us?  The this what are the costs, both financial and from an emotional intelligence perspective?  The most important out of the four process is the do next bit setting  out aims with a clear time frame and success criteria evaluation.  A detached non-emotional evaluation of the aims then needs to a priority no matter whether there is success or failure.  To quote one of my Twitter communicants    (I will not put her link here as you can search for me and then locate janeaninspires if you so feel inclined) "Tomorrow, instead of looking at what you don't have, examine all that you do have and be grateful! I'm just saying..... :)". Even better  is her comment, "Even if you win the rat race, at the end of the day, you are still a rat! :)" although I still like to win but maybe do it with the original spirit of Baron de Coubatin.

PS also start Advanced Electricians course to be able to install and certify Solar Panels.  A distance learning course I will be using the Wednesday Blog (have achieved career change so do not really need to revisit preparation phase) to be able to keep a reflective diary of the e-learning practice.

PPS Forget almost what was happening with Samuel Pepys? A little bit of blowing his own trumpet (but that is what most diarists do to a certain extent)?  And he was contemplating a career change.  Even then Lawyers and barristers were earning obscene amounts!

Web 2.0 for Educators and Business Part 4

Started Tuesday 1st March 2011 0547 GMT
Words 422
S.I.= 84.4 %

Fibre optic Broadband in Suffolk?


Fast Broadband is something that in Suffolk we aspire to, and I often feel as a rural county should be our right.  This would to a large degree redress the long standing imbalance of provision of services between city and country.  That imbalance sees central funds going to the same inner city deprived areas time and again either because it was the wrong project because the authors did not talk to the recipients about their needs or the population of that inner city failed due to whatever reasons to engage and take ownership of their received projects.

I have blogged abut my frustration with BT Broadband before.  However not one that is often guilty of the British disease of moaning and blaming the government,while forgetting they may not have voted, I am doing something about it.  This  is a Federation of Small Businesses meeting in Stowmarket.  A brilliant venue in the middle of Suffolk, which is  a surprisingly large county.  Being on the periphery in Haverhill many of the meetings in my teaching career necessitated I had to attend the "Big Houses" in Ipswich nearly 45 miles away.   By the time I  negotiated the poor roads out of Haverhill towards Bury St Edmunds this could take anytime from 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on the state of the A14.

The meeting this evening has a speaker whose name I vaguely remember to do with some past activities associated with education.  I have an interest on top of the purely personal business aspects as member foremost and lately Director of the  Teleworking Association (I have blogged previously about its origins, I won't include the link as it can be found in the list to the right of the blog).  The talk is about the coming Broadband offering in Suffolk and how it will be made affordable.  I won't prejudice my own thoughts for this evening by speculating on the content.  I hope to be presently surprised.  

PS St David's day today.  A friend of mine launches his website today. A pioneer of the fibre-optic industry (not intentional given the subject of this blog just happen to know Chris)  and former director a company making fibre-optics in the town, who saw the light choosing work-life balance and  is now a photographic artist (sounds better than a photographer who might only do passport photographs).  His exhibition at Haverhill Arts centre takes place on the 1 st April 2011.  I wish him well in this new career!

The Sunday Foodie bit part 5

Shot from Inside my parish church St Mary's Haverhill
( well it is Sunday) where I was dropped in the font.
Marble tablet on wall in refrectory states
date of first priest was 1190.  Last time I attended was
for the baptism.  

Started Sunday 27th February 2011 0744 GMT
Words

Fairtrade and buy local


Fairtrade fortnight starts tomorrow.  This is a great branding excercise for small producers (originally) from overseas that are looking for a recognisable symbol and who meet sustainable criteria.  A similar scheme to promote small businesses is the Buy Local  campaign.  A number of businesses are part of this Haverhill including the cafe (with internet) which I use.   De Ja Vu is run by a local business man which is even better, who has helped give youngsters help in their footballing endeavours.

Farmer's markets are another buy local group.  They have attracted some comedic criticism mainly based on the fact that some of the produce is from outside the 30 mile criteria (ie not a local as you would think).  However, with the olive oil trees in Coggeshall a farmers market selling products made from these would qualify in a farmers' market in the Haverhill area.

So the recipe for this week to be found on 2pointfiveageofman.net (later in the week I will put these on fully) is Cauliflower cheese.  A very topical recipe given the news (was on BBC Breakfast but again cannot actually find the actual story on the BBC website) about early Brassica crops in Holbeach St Marks.  The crops have been hit for the third year running by bad winters.  They were at the point of being ploughed-in. The story was that the solution to these climate change events would be to grow the Cauliflowers in more temperate parts of the country or to use new varieties bred for the changing climate while maintaining the yield of current varieties.  Any body have any old seed left from 100 years ago plus?

Sunday morning so just watching the Andrew Marr show.  Very interesting set of guests?  Peter Mandelson for some reason appears a little uncomfortable!

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Started Thursday 24th February 2011
Words 479
S.I.= 95.8 %

A small business person but part of a  a big organisation


A Thursday yet again.  As now a small business person I am taking today to reflect and assess my own wellbeing.  Three weeks since lighting the blue touch paper is the rocket still rising?

A big part of the overall consideration of starting your own business is whether you have the resilelnce and the motivation to succeed.  There was an old advert put out by one of the banks in the eighties showing a happy confident individual walking into the house swinging his briefcase.  He announced to his spouse (people did tend to be married in the eighties) that he had the bank on board, he had his backers etc while the being watched adoringly by the home maker.  The reality is and always has been not quite like the advert.

The reason to start your own business are often personal circumstances owing to career change due to redundancy rather than something that is planned.  A good way of assessing your readiness and suitability to a life where you are the boss is a new pack  Working from Home from Law Packs written by Shirley Borret the development director of the  Teleworking Association.  Advice on how to go about being self-employed and the considerations that have to be taken regarding Wellbeing are covered.

One of the biggest problems with being self-employed is the potential to be isolated and feel isolated.  A good way of avoiding this is to be a member of a local group such as a chamber of commerce.  I attended Haverhill Chamber of Commerce's  (part of the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce) informal evening last night at the Sturmer Red Lion (a village that has featured in a few blog posts previously).  I met very interesting people all committed to what they were doing.  There was Elaine who runs Best of Haverhill and has a number of projects on the go that I found refreshing to hear about and recognise as to how her skills complemented the aims of her customers.   I talked to Chris who had just started his own courier business that is now Defra registered to be able to transport birds and animals to shows.  I must though remember where I put the business cards in the many pockets in my jacket, though as we are all Haverhill Chamber of Commerce members it will be easy to get in contact.

The benefit of networking as a small business of events like this extend to Wellbeing .  We met in a friendly atmosphere, people may have been sometimes working in the same market area but it was not like a convention of double double glazing salesmen thrusting a card in your pocket as you shook hands. An opportunity to recognise that all small businesses do experience that fundamental work-life balance dilemma, but can still be smiling. 

Monday Morning Week 3 of Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 21st February 2011 0054 GMT
Words 381
S.I. =  76.2%

Training around Suffolk


A busy week ahead starting with meetings and continual professional training tomorrow.  A dilemma with increasing fuel prices is the attendance on time at places without having a large carbon footprint.
I am attending an event in Marks Tey.  I do not have to take any "tools of the trade" other than myself and a few pieces of paper.  How do I get there?

I could drive but the event would not be cost effective in time and working opportunities since it is at strange time of the day.  So the two criteria for transport selection are cost effectiveness and time effectiveness.

I am going to take the opportunity to go by train as it fits in with the general constraints of being relaxed enough to perform fully in the meetings and the ability to arrive with plenty of time to have lunch. I will leave Haverhill about 8 am and seek to get back by 9pm if all goes to plan.   I will then have first hand experience of the potential problems when arranging travelling to meetings where it may be more of a social enterprise function and therefore income stream limited or a microenterprise function where time as opposed to cost may be more important, while maintaining an eye on the overall carbon neutrality of the activity.

I may sound as though I am being pedantic but I can see a trend "green" certificated much as we are British Standard compliant for COSHH and other activities.  In other words the audit culture will not die, the systems will just become automated.  Rather than have to spend a lot of time later when the business cycle is more cluttered and it will cost more in time spent planning the audit trail and finding the records when I do go for the appropriate accreditation, I will start along the path now.

The week ahead should see more moving on the blogging front.  A former pupil of mine is due to start blogging about podcasting and his experience of digital recording   and web radio on .http://www.2pointfiveageofman.net/blog/?p=28, the social enterprise site .  He is graduate of the University College Suffolk where he was the first to graduate in his particular course. So some social networking opportunities to look forward to!   

The Sunday Foodie bit part 4

A shot of two solar power energy
converters in Impington, the old technology
powered by the wind which is generated by
convection currents from solar heating of the sea, and
the solar panel directly having electrons excited by the sun
( this is the approximate in a few sentences).
A couple of thousand years technology spanned  but
overall which is most efficient and carbon neutral?

Started Sunday 20th February 2011 0744 GMT

The Ultimate Eco Meal?


A little diversion here into green science on a Sunday. I have a great interest in the complexity of the environment around me.  I just happened last Saturday to be attending a seminar on how to gamble on the Forex market more out of curiosity to see what was actually being sold, a franchise almost based on using a software product that charts and maps stop losses against entry level and exit level with a bit of commonsense trading.  The little and often while not being too greedy strategy of target setting.  In essence a very elegant piece of software producing a WYSIWYG solution for non-mathematicians and betting addicts.


So back to the photograph, with my green hat (brown South African Veld hat)  I took the bus into Cambridge using one of day rider tickets for £5.20 return which allows multiple trip travel around Cambridge.  I needed to visit Maplins in the centre of town, after buying one of their very good Scroll Android powered touch pads the separate keyboard I found I could not get to work.  By visiting the shop I found out that the keyboard was not compatible on the port I had plugged it into, by plugging it into another USB port it suddenly was working very well.  If I had parked in the centre of town the charges would have been about 3 to 4 pounds (maybe more since I stopped parking in Lion Yard years ago).

I would then also have had to endure the Ben Hur type journey around the inner ring road avoiding the cyclists to go out  to Impington.  Cambridge City planners do not want cars in the centre of Cambridge.  This is fine by me but the same people seem to have applied the same yard stick to Haverhill.  It was actually quicker for me to walk at peak traffic times to work (8 minutes because I am a local I know the shortcuts) than be directed out of the town and around it (15 minutes with traffic).  We also notice that quite a few cars go down the high street the wrong way because they are following their SATNAV.  The maps do not realise that the street is no longer two way (and has been one way for at least 10 years).  So the photograph was taken on the return journey at the Impington Bus Stop!  

The Eco meal I am writing about today is Boiled Beef and Carrots.  The full recipe will be available on the 2pointfiveageofman website very soon.  The recipe can be cooked in a slow cooker or on the hob, or possibly a halogen cooker.  this gives a hot meal on one day and then you can eat the meat as a cold cut on the next day.

The ingredients are as follows, 2 to 3 Ibs of topside or silverside of beef, 2oz of butter, 2 large onions (sliced), 8 -10 medium carrots sliced, I small swede, thickly sliced, 1-2 teaspoons of dried herbs.  These are accompanied by 1/2 to 1/4 pint of vegetable stock with salt and pepper to taste.

By using the left over the next day the excess is not wasted and going into the land fill site.  The electricity used by the slow cooker is minimal, the vegetables are seasonal cutting down on air miles.  An Eco Meal!   

The Sunday foodie Bit part 4

A Fishy on the Dishy (poor pun here)
A Mackerel is shown not a Herring, no red herrings
 intended

Started Sunday 6th February 2011  0953 GMT
Words 303

Bacon and Herring in Suffolk


Bacon and Herring were the two main protein sources  rural Suffolk used to rely on in it's daily diet.  The part of the world where I am from West Suffolk was the pig production and processing area (not quite so much as it used to be compared to even 15 years ago).  Lowestoft was one of the main East Coast centres of Herring  fishing.   A fish that provided the essential oils in the diet that now most people only experience in capsule form.

I have taken a picture of one of the plates of a non-matching set.  I bought these from the factory shop of the Jersey Pottery, they were delivered by their agents who turned out to be a major high street department store. Back then, eight or nine years ago, this was a major saving on the high street prices.  This was a spontaneous buy along with a set of soup/spaghetti bowls.  There were eight different designs showing various different types of popular seafood from around the shores of Jersey.  Herring sadly is not really commercially viable to fish as it was in the heyday of Lowestoft.  When my nephew came to Sunday Lunch he was just starting to read.  As the Roast beef was being put on his plate he noticed the picture and the script around the edge of the plate.  We then had an impromptu marine biology experience as all the plates had to then be read and commented upon.  My brother-in-law is an enthusiastic fisherman so suspect there were a few conversations going home in the car.  

In a previous blog   I detailed a Pork and Cabbage dish.  Later in the day or tomorrow a recipe for Herring and one for Mackerel will appear in the Blog for 2pointfiveageofman.net.

The Friday Analysis

Started Friday 27th January  2011  0936 GMT
Words 296
S.I. = 59.2

Have I got to Friday yet?

Websites that have been visited and thought to be useful

Olive trees - they can be grown in this country Villagio Verde
Teleworking Association -  http://villaggioverde.co.uk/

Looking back to Monday, have I had a non-reactive week?  It certainly has been a very busy and hectic week.  The tracks that I talked about in the blog four days again had literal truth. On Tuesday I attended the AGM of the Teleworking Association.  This was just off Haymarket.  In order to reach this destination I had to train it.  I returned back to Cambridgee station by way of Liverpool Street, the tube to Haymarket followed by another journey underground to King's Cross.  They seem to have sorted the one system of people flow well ahead of the 2012 Olympics.  I passed the by the  Emirates stadium on the way back on the non-stopping train to Cambridge.  I was therefore back in Haverhill (my home town) by 4.30 pm having taken the bus on the final leg of the journey.

On Wednesday I attended in the afternoon a  lecture on Steam in Agriculture delivered by Tom Doig  at my Local Arts Centre (see Link in near the title above).   This reinforced my growing conclusion that things do not really change in production only the distance the end user is from the field.  As with everything the further you are the way from the event the more like magic it appears to be because of the disconnectedness.  Hence we now have a lot of children answering surveys who do not connect cows and milk.

 So in conclusion for today, yes, I have had a week that was non-reactive since I did  not have to perform Newtonian mechanics and send the problem back in the opposite direction after meeting head on.

The Friday Analysis

Started Friday 21st January 2011 Time 1005 GMT
Words 517
SI = 103.4 % Aspirational Target of not achieved

Videos found this week, on Tuesday the classic John Cleese and two Ronnies.  This was accompanied by Village Preservation Society sung by originally Ray Davis and latterly Kate Rugsby.


The ten year plan - fourth year report 


On the 2nd December 2010 I started to tentatively write a blog.  If you are not used to writing a reflective blog (which everybody can see unlike a diary) it can be a little daunting as you have to be aware of the dangers of social networking.   The blog can sometimes turn round and bite you if you are not careful.

The things that have worked is recognising when the skill you have matches the current trends as thy are happening.  The theme that has been constant this week from Monday  onwards is that we are undergoing massive changes in work style and lifestyle in the UK.  The skills discussed on Tuesday match those needed to effect the career change as we go from a management driven economy to a society that is tailored to the individuals working needs   The sense of Wellbeing found on Thursday was what I have been planning and working towards since I stepped out teaching seven months ago.

A really encouraging piece of news for my home town is that our Locally Funded School and our Academy are in the top 10% in the country (this story is in the print version but does not appear to be on the web, puzzling).  I feel I have a little self-interest in mentioning this since I taught some of  the children referred to between 5 and 7 years ago.  This was when I was Co-ordinator of Science and ICT in the feeder middle school.  We must as teachers have laid some firm foundations even though it did not show in our SATS results (science, maybe, I will let you make up your own  mind).

 The phrase that was common from when I was at school in the town was "What can you do with the kids from Haverhill?".  Obviously they can do quite a lot on their own given the right opportunities.  Also with the first Free School opening outside town the opportunities for a great start on the journey to where they choose to go, not where others think they may be allowed.

Tomorrow being Saturday I will be blogging about square foot gardening and planning a cook's planting sequence.

PS Why the ten year plan?  On Rhodes four years ago while the moon seen in the initial blog  was above I sat with some other friends around the bar.  Thirsty six of us had all chosen to attend a wedding of two of our fiends.  During this time I formulated my next ten year plan. This was not to be teaching in the classroom full-time at the end of the plan.  Four years into the plan I would not at the beginning have thought I would be writing a blog.  If my new 6 year plan runs it's course (intended or unintended outcome) , it will be time to make another 10 year plan.

The Sunday Ramble

All rambles have a beginning

 Started Sunday 16th January 2011  1010 am

Sunday in what now appears to be the dim distant past used to be a day of rest.  I used to put a notice up on the board in the Australian Arms .  Next to the board was the story I wrote about how the pub acquired it's name.   Terry who had lived in the house that was what is now the back half the pub had explained to me one lunchtime how the pub came to be named.  I used to pop into the pub on Tuesday (pension day) lunchtime during half term just to listen to the stories of old Haverhill.

I am technically a local first generation born although I was born in Newmarket. As were all people of may age from the town were as that was where the maternity hospital was situated (14 miles  away) and home births weren't encouraged then.

On the Sunday mornings we would set of for a walk of between 3 and 5 miles.  The footpaths as were surprisingly short in distance between town and villages than the roads.  Haverhill is situated in a very ancient area of human habitation.  According to the book  Suffolk's Ancient Sites Historic places the town's name has it's origins as the "Billy Goat Hill".  The first ramble I planned was across the hill to Kedington.  The half way point was  the Barnadiston Arms named after the local  family of whom  Nathanial Barnardiston, the original Roundhead of the English. Civil War, was a member.  The medieval stone effigies of the Barnadistons can still be seen in Kedington Church which is built on the site of a Roman villa whose floor can seen by lifting a trapdoor halfway up the aisle.  The village had the workhouse for the area which later became the local Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Walking back over the hill past the British Legion you start to get an idea of how large Haverhill has become since the early  1960s (and still no railway ).   Looking down the hill you can see the church. Dotted also around the town are a large number of non-conformist chapels.  The Ward family sired a number of protestant preachers one of whom John Ward was the first preacher of Haverhill in the USA.  Samuel Ward after whom the school I attended before University was named is another non-conformist.  The school is one of two outstanding post 13 years  soon to be post 11 years old institutions who can be viewed by clicking the links near title relating schools and academies.

As you get to know Haverhill more you find the reason that the locals do not talk much about much about the town to outsiders is that results in many areas of the towns endeavours are self evident if you only take the time to look.

  

Monday morning in Suffolk

View across the snowy rooftops to the Church, the bells are still rung in this
 church on a Sunday , practise on a Monday night.  The Church clock
still chimes the hour. 

Monday morning and the skate to work for some has begun.  I have been out today already Turkey hunting.  the frozen variety.  As the roads are frozen it was my job today to walk down to the supermarket (benefiting of 1 in 7 pounds of retail spend, alright we'll dare to mention that name Tesco).   This is actually a new store on a town site right next to the main streets.  A far better arrangement than a remote out of town centre that has no proximity to smaller retail outlets such as independent shops.  I bagged my Turkey, very few finest bronzes left about 7 and no more for delivery.  The Bernard Matthews standard large were also in very short supply  after I Iifted my bird.    So if you have a large gathering to feed you may have to settle for smaller and less calorific consumption.

Any way  not  a lot of time today as I am still waiting for BT to re-connect me so I can start to blog and social network.  This could be the most important Christmas yet for job or social networking. The prolonged holiday time with Christmas and New Year falling on a Saturday gives plenty of downtime to be creative with self-marketing and planning for next year.  I have already had invites to twitter from various recruitment agencies so it could be the embracing of this for more business related activities by the general public may take place.  If we are all honest a lot of tweeting that has happened so far is from the technologically precocious.  When it becomes a habit because time invested can lead to productive opportunities it will have reached maturity.   So here's to acquiring a healthy habit for  the new year.  Having been cast upon a digital ocean island with only the occasional message in a  bottle received and thrown  I have started to think more of the whys of social networking rather than the I will because I can aspects.   So I will be recording some of my experiences over the next few weeks.  Ther is only so many re-runs of classic films you can watch!!

Sunday in Suffolk

Not a car in sight -  a very quiet neighbourhood, Old Independent
church in the background, Victorian cottages (1896) on the right  

The first of the snow has arrived.  West Suffolk has been very lucky compared to the rest of the country.  We have only just had our first snow.

In the outlying villages such as Hundon they may even be cut off.  The  land around the villages in this part of Suffolk is the highest in the county, all of 116m above sea-level.  It is also surprisingly rolling in nature.  This is near the lower limit that 20,000 years ago glacial ice sheets pushed down into what later became the UK.  Many of the roads in this part of the Suffolk are actually below the level of the fields.  In snowy conditions this often leads to hardly any snow on the fields but roads that are impassable due to 4 to 5 feet of snow.

Impassable roads in the rural context of the farming communities of the past was not a big problem as people did not generally travel far out of their villages in winter.  the services that they needed were local.   The butcher, baker, and general grocers were still to be found in many villages into the 1940s and even 1950s in Suffolk.  If weather did come along the "distribution centres" were local.  We now have the economy of scales that make supermarket shopping the only oprion, but in winter conditions very hit and miss  because of transport issues.  Speculation on supply and demand is rife at the moment in the UK with  heating oil  a major problem for  a lot of rural dwellers.  Reports of rise of up to 100% in prices compared to a few months ago are reported daily upon the news.  That is assuming that supplies can be had for immediate delivery.  Reports of 4 week delays are common.  Thefts of heating oil are on the increase.  We are not talking about the odd litre here or there in a small can, but equivalent of a small tanker disappearing.  But then again apparently road salt is being stolen and then sold on the black market.  I doubt though these are so called lovable rogues (if they ever were) of folk memories.   This could see a small return to a use of coppiced wood (a sustainable and carbon neutral fuel) for heating, or an increase in the sale of woolly jumpers.

The amount of coppiced woodland is relatively small compared to before the intensification of farming.  Hedges no longer ring fields so potential for wood from the odd tree here is also restricted.  The people capable of also harvesting wood without killing the tree are also in short supply.   So a machine to make compressed paper bricks might be the answer, especially, at Christmas when there is all that paper about to be shredded.




Stourbrook flowing through Haverhill

   As the snow fell  late Saturday afternoon meant that the snowscapes were untouched by human traffic rushing to get to work.  The scene to the left shows the view along the brook in the town.  This looks quite isolated and rural.  However, it is right in the centre of the town.  We have some quite green areas near the Essex end of the town.  The view path running up to the church actually marks the border between Suffolk and Essex until the about the 1840s.

The brook ran through the water meadows as were until the expansion of the town in the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s.   A friend of mine whose family were local butchers and farmers could trace their ownership of the land back to the 1750s.  When the butchery business closed I photographed the documents one Easter.  The documents were on parchment (cured animal skins) that did actually almost  crackle with age as they were gently smoothed flat.

The land that was to the left of the brook was owned by the Sainsbury family of supermarket fame and then transferred to a friend's family at about the 1780s,  ( I will have to check this date) on which cattle were grazed in the summer.  The  Sainsbury family  have many connections with this part of Suffolk, owning at one point the house that was the dairy in Kedington, just over the next hill.   Sadly my friend is a part of old Haverhill that is no longer with us, but the documents are apparently still in the family and being cared for.

The right bank of the brook was up until recently a dairy.   Manor Farm is now a housing development which according to the Environment Agency map is at risk of flooding.  This is built upon the flood "plain" which even I can remember seeing cattle upon.  Haverhill has had some very notable floods in it's time which I will go further into at another time.

View of the Cricket Pavilion in snowy splendour,  this is
 not the original as the wooden pavilion was burnt down by an
act of vandalism 30 years previously to this shot.  Haverhill one of the
founding members of  Suffolk Cricket.

The left hand bank of the brook had for many years up until the early 1970s been underdeveloped.  The building of the Sports Centre which opened in 1972  was off what was then called the relief road but now Ehringshausen Way (named after our twin town).  The cricket pitch has been in it's position for over a hundred years, again on the flood plain.   This land was given to the town under a covenant by the local industrial entrepreneurs family  to ensure the land could only be used for cricket.  Really good piece of foresight here.   No local authorities suddenly selling off land that had been given for a specific purpose to a town.  Interesting point of law here do local authorities have the right to sell of land that is historically "inherited" from another entity that received the land given in good faith for the amenity of the people at the time.   We have a number of pieces of land in Haverhill that I feel fall into this dubious category.  But again that is another tale.



I have given a small insight into views of Haverhill in the snow.   I have not had as much chance to write about food this week but hopefully my BT Internet finally, will be up and running tomorrow.  With time in front of the screen I will write a little more of the food of Suffolk and how it has influenced some of the traditions of the older members of Haverhill that have been born and bred here, as have their families before them.   This is the season of roasted meats.  Turkey has not always been the traditional meat of celebration.  That is equally true of other places.  another place of interest to me is Crete.  The main festive meat this time of year being Pork.  Pork is a meat long grown and used in Suffolk.  Suffolk Black Hams of which I will write later in the week are a speciality that takes preparation and also planning if you are to have it as part of your festive fare.  

So final shot of snowy Haverhill.......