What to do when you've eaten all the biscuits....

the giftbox of biscuits becomes a useful storage box for craft materials.

All the materials here are either from nature, used items waiting to be reporposed or items that are halfway made and include a stash of broken jewellery and other miscellaneous items my sister gave me. I've already made a necklace out of a broken earing and will post that probably in a week's time. I also have a box full of fabric scraps and a small box full of buttons.

Light. Leaves. Shadows

Climate Change and Behavioural Change

I was at the Evaluation Support Scotland conference on Wednesday. Despite being involved in organising it, I was able to attend several sessions including the workshop facilitated by the Climate Challenge Fund. There were some very interesting discussions not only about how to evaluate projects that aim to change people's environmental behaviours but also how to encourage people to change their behaviour.

Some projects take a Weight Watchers type approach to helping people reduce their addiction to carbon. People set themselves targets on carbon reduction and then meet to talk about how well they've done in meeting their targets.

Other projects focus more on activities such as gardening, encouraging people to work together on a project. My experience in this is that when the ground needs to be cleared to make gardens, people are very keen to work together. However often once the gardens are up and running many people are more likely to work on their own garden and be less interested in communal activities.

Another approach is to stress the additional benefits of greener activities such as the health and cost saving benefits of walking or cycling rather than using the car.

What motivates you to cut your carbon footprint?

snowfall -
the fat squirrel poses
for raisins


this previously appeared on Winter Haiku 2009/10. You can see all my haiku posted to that site here.

Icicles along the River Almond

I promised yesterday that I would post photos of the amazing icicles along the River Almond, so here they are! Click on the top photo to get a closer look at the icicles across the river.

Things are actually thawing now so these icicles probably won't last much longer, though more snow is forecast for the coming weeks.

I've got a short story up at the Clarity of Night Silhouette competition, you can read it here. While you're over there you may want to read some of the other entries as well, there are some excellent pieces.....

Snow and ice on the River Almond

On Saturday we caught a bus to Cramond. The light was wonderful on the estuary where the River Almond meets the River Forth. There were lots of birds, including swans, dabchicks, mallards, tufted ducks, goldeneye, red breasted mergansers, lapwing and ringed plovers. (Click on the birds names to find out more about them!).

After a hot drink in the cafe we walked upriver into an amazing winter wonderland. The river is partially frozen (though this isn't ice you can walk on at all!). There was a very large group of mallards who looked as though they were enjoying slalom-ing between the icy rocks. The riverbanks were covered in icicles, which were so magnificent they deserve a post to themselves, so come back tomorrow to see them!

Things are thawing now, though more snow is forecast!

Frozen Canal

Large parts of the Union Canal are frozen solid enough to walk on and cycle on. Official advice is don't walk on it, but there are places where it is very thickly iced and you can walk on it safely as long as you keep away from under the bridges where the ice thins. There's something surreal about walking down the middle of what should be a flowing canal! It was heartening to see too that we're not the only people leaving food out for the birds, there were scatterings of seeds and other goodies along the edges of paths, on walls etc as well as some well stocked bird feeding stations in gardens. We saw a bullfinch, a redwing, a fieldfare, lots of house sparrows (the canal is one of the Edinburgh strongholds for this species, which is declining rapidly across the country), blue tits, robins and blackbirds, Also some forlorn looking swans, mallards and moorhens (see photos below, both taken by Crafty Green Boyfriend). One of the moorhens was bizarrely sitting in a tree!