Bogs Bridge

Bogs Bridge across the Water of Leith has now been repaired and is open again - as promiased a few days ago here are some photos. The masonry has been repaired and new green handrails have been added, which detract somewhat from the view, I think!

For Sunday Bridges

Waste Land

Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker, is an inspiring and moving documentary about a project undertaken by the sculptor Vik Muniz. He accepted the challenge of returning to his native Brazil to work with the catadores (people who scavange recyclable materials) at the biggest landfill site in the world, just outside Rio di Janeiro.


He gets to know the remarkable individuals who spend their lives doing this dangerous and unhealthy work, but who retain a remarkable spirit and sense of humour. He takes their photos and then works on creating giant canvases reinterpreting these photos using material reclaimed from the landfills, with the catadores involved in the artistic work.


Finally the amazing pictures are sold and the money invested in a learning centre, library and vehicles for Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho - the catadores' union. The work of Vik Muniz and the catadores has ignited a movement in Brazil, currently with the support of the Coca Cola Foundation, to build a legitimate recycling system and hire the catadores in Brazil as consultants.


This is truly inspirational cinema! Waste Land will be showing until Tuesday 10 March at The Filmhouse in Edinburgh.


As ever, red text in this post contains hyperlinks to take you to other websites where you can find out more!

Influential Environmental Blogs

Wikio put together a list of the Top UK Environment blogs every month. The rankings are put together by Wikio a news and blogs search engine that also put together Top Blog rankings for various categories including environment, politics etc. I wasn't aware of this listing until Wikio emailed me about it and I was delighted to find myself listed! You can find the list here. Thanks to everyone who links to this blog and helped me gain this listing!

Tree Year

Bogs Bridge across the Water of Leith has now been repaired (I'll post photos of the bridge at the weekend) and is open again so I can get closer to the hornbeam tree that I had chosen to study for the Tree Year Project. As you can see from this admittedly not very good photo, the catkins are just budding and will open up into the most beautiful chandelier like shapes later in the year.

The birds were all very busy along the river today. I had a very close encounter with a treecreeper which was very low in a tree and kept poking its head round the trunk and then disappearing again. Also got very close to a goldcrest, a tiny bird that often stays right up in the top of the trees, but this one was flying from branch to branch just above my head. I saw a dipper collecting nesting material in a different part of the river to the ones I saw doing this last week. The tits were all very excitable, chattering away and dashing around from tree to tree, including a medium sized flock of long tailed tits that were flurrying around one particular tree. Robins were singing beautifully, as were chaffinches and a song thrush.

It definitely feels like Spring!

As ever, red text in this post, includes hyperlinks to take you to other websites where you can find out more!

Seasonal Confusion

beech leaves and hazel catkins

Dates for your Diary

I am hoping to do a reading with Mary Johnston and Jane Wilde at Wordpower Books, 43-45 West Nicholson Street, Edinburgh at 11am, Saturday 11 June. So if you're in Edinburgh, please do come along!

I've also just had confirmed the dates for the summer courses I'll be running this August for the University of Edinburgh Office of Lifelong Learning:

10-4 Monday 1 August Writing Inspired by Nature at the Water of Leith Conservation Trust Visitor Centre, 24 Lanark Road, Edinburgh.

10.30 -3.30 Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 August (2 day course) Introduction to the Water of Leith. Day one at 11 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh day 2 at Water of Leith Conservation Trust Visitor Centre, 24 Lanark Road, Edinburgh.

There will be more details in the Office of Lifelong Learning Summer Brochure that will be out soon!

as ever, text in red contains hyperlinks to other sites where you can find out more!

Thoughts about Consumption

Yesterday I posted a review of The End of Oil by Paul Roberts, which outlines how we are effectively running out of oil. Towards the end of my review I talked about some future approaches that I felt were missing from the book. One of these was addressing consumption and I suggested that we need to look at ways of reducing consumption that don't destroy our quality of life.

I just thought it might then be worth thinking a little bit about how this can be done. Firstly we need to be clear that there is a difference between quality of life and standard of living. There are many ways of reducing consumption that effectively reduce our standard of living as it is defined by society in general that don't decrease our quality of life.

For example, some ways in which I consume less than many people: not having a car; not taking holidays abroad; not working full time; not having a widescreen tv and huge music centre; not buying new clothes every season. I accept that many people will consider me therefore to have a lower standard of living, but I don't for a minute think it means I have a lower quality of life!

We don't need loads of stuff to have a good quality of life!

As Rabbits' Guy pointed out in the comments yesterday, efficiency and energy conservation have important roles to play in helping the oil we do have last for longer, enabling us to transition to a future less dependent on oil and stuff.

And as bunnygirl said, although we all need to do what we can, politicians and companies have much more of a role to play than they seem to accept.

If we can all reduce our consumption then we can help to secure a sustainable future. Otherwise we may find ourselves in a situation where run-away climate change and associated disasters force us into a poorer quality of life.