Reflections under the trees

Mirror for sale at Meadows Festival, Edinburgh

There's also a nice reflection in the top photo in this post 

for Weekend Reflections

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

This is a wonderfully rich novel following piano tuner Edgar Drake as he travels to the interior of Burma to tune a piano. This is 1886, the piano belongs to Major Anthony Carroll, an enigmatic British officer and medical doctor. Edgar has an eventful time getting to Carroll's home and is then won over by the beauty of the place and of Carroll's mysterious companion.

The novel is full of insight into the Burma of the time, British colonial ideology and also the value of individualism vs national policy.

Anthony Carroll proves himself to be very much in tune with the locals, he is always prepared to learn from local herbal cures for illnesses (and leads Edgar on botanical expeditions) which probably made him way ahead of his time.

I was very drawn into the narrative and descriptions in this book. It is also a very good example of a book that is not overtly about an environmental theme but through one character (here the Major and his interest in local botany) manages to cover quite a lot of ground about nature and the environment and hopefully can reach people who are not 'interested' in such things.

I reviewed this as part of Brighton Blogger's Reading Challenge 2012. 

More Flowers

 Yellow Flag iris, Blackford Pond

Forget-me-nots, buttercups and red campions, Hermitage of Braid 

for Nature Notes

Yellow Flowers and Dipper Families

There are lots of these yellow daisies in Colinton and Craiglockart Dells (Water of Leith) just now. 

Here's a neat hideaway for a young dipper! Click on the photo to get a better view! I saw two families of dippers on the river today.

Several buttercup meadows too! 

For Nature Notes

Coming Soon - Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs this year from 20 June - 1 July. As last year, I have a press pass, which I hope to be able to make full use of! To get myself into practice, I've posted a some film reviews recently in this blog and over on my Over Forty Shades blog, you can read them by following the links below:

Free Men.

Robert Mugabe - What Happened?

Even the Rain.

I thought that last year's film festival was the best ever - the highest number of films that I had ever wanted to see in a festival and the fewest disappointments in those I did see. This year's programme looks to be equally promising, here are just some of the films that most appeal to me (just follow the links to find out details and screening times):

Bestiaire - a meditation on the relationship between humans, animals and the environment

Demain? - the life story of the Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini

Fukishima: Memories of the Lost Landscape.

Future My Love - an exploration of alternatives to monetary capitalism

It's the Earth Not the Moon - life on a tiny island in the Azores

No Man's Zone  and Nuclear Nation - two more documentaries about Fukushima

Rentaneko - a comedy about a woman in Japan who rents out cats to people who want company

As long as I can get to all the press screenings I'll review all those films on this blog (and perhaps some more, there really are a lot of excellent films in this year's programme!).

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Summer Fairs

This morning we went to the Corstorphine Fair, where amidst the usual mix of stalls (second hand books, plants and home made cakes) the highlight was the photography competition exhibition. Crafty Green Boyfriend had three photos on display, one of which was commended and his Mum had three photos on display, one of which won first prize! (The photo here shows all three of Crafty Green Boyfriend's entries and his Mum's prize winning entry (with the orange label by it).)

After celebrating with a coffee, we caught the bus back into town and went to the Meadows Festival, where amongst the usual mix of stalls (second hand books and music, vintage clothes and homewares) the highlight was the music stage. Several local bands were performing, including Jen and the Gents (see photo).

Several years ago, I became one of  the few poets ever to have performed on this stage (you can see a photo of me mid-poem on my Over Forty Shades blog here).

There were lots of lively dogs around and the Dogs' Trust had a tent where they were giving out pet care advice and even had a couple of rescue dogs for people to look at. I hope these dogs find loving homes over the weekend!

Before leaving we bought a coriander plant to add to the mini garden on our windowsill.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages where you can find out more.

Coming Soon! Recycle Week

It's Recycle Week 18-24 June 2012. To get us all thinking about recycling, here are some interesting facts about plastic:

 The first plastic bottle was sold in 1947   

Any plastic bottle can be recycled now (though this may depend on the facilities available in your local area!) Just wash & squash them.

The flag planted on the moon by Neil Armstrong in 1969 was made of Nylon. 

Plastic is the most used material in the world, and has been for 35 years.

Recycling 1 tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of carbon emissions. 

It only takes 25 two-litre plastic bottles to make an adult-sized fleece. 

Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours

We now recycle 20 times more plastic than we did back in 2000. 

Over 90% of our local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles, either from your kerbside or recycling centres. 

If all of us in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle every year, we could power over 71,000 plasma screen TVs indefinitely using the energy saved (though personally I would have thought there were better things to do with that energy!

  

Thanks to WRAP for the information in this blog post.