Website of the Month - River Cottage Community

I'm a big fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the River Cottage programmes and books. Only yesterday a friend and I were out foraging for fungi, using the excellent River Cottage Mushroom Handbook, which identifies both edible and poisonous species. Not that much help was needed with this Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria):

Fly Agaric

The River Cottage Community website is an excellent resource for lovers of food, whether grown, caught or foraged - see http://community.rivercottage.net/.

Vanna Art Exhibition - "Nature's Bounty"

Yesterday was the first day of my wife Vanna's "Nature's Bounty" exhibition in the Noverre Gallery at Norwich Assembly House. We spent Wednesday morning hanging the pictures.
The exhibition features over forty of Vanna's paintings including acrylics, watercolours and linoprints and continues daily until Thursday 23rd September 2010. The Assembly House is in Theatre Street, Norwich, NR2 1RQ.

Website of the Month - Moneymadeclear

This month's website provides help with personal finances, including budgeting, savings and guides to everyday financial issues.
With Britain's financial future looking ever bleaker in the face of ConDem cutbacks, this site could be very useful.
See http://www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/.

PV Panels - Update

Well, it's nearly two months since our six PV panels were installed. In that time we've generated 247 units (kWh) of electricity. This is about twice to three times the amount of electricity that we've used.
At the moment we're generating about 3 - 4 units per day. In early July, when it was very sunny and days were long, we were generating up to 6 units per day. However, on a few dull and rainy days we only managed to generate 1 unit.

Vapourer Moth

A couple of weeks ago we found a lovely Vapourer Moth caterpillar on a Pelargonium in our back garden and decided to rear it.

Today it hatched into a wingless female. We transferred it onto the garden fence, next to an apple tree, along with its cocoon.

Within half an hour it had attracted a (winged) male and shortly afterwards the female began laying eggs. By 5pm there were 150 to 200 eggs and we'll be keeping an eye on them to see when they hatch.

Website of the Month - The Man In Seat Sixty-one

It's the summer holiday season and many people will be flying to their holiday destination, massively increasing their carbon footprints and contributing to climate change.
But it doesn't have to be like that - especially for for short-haul destinations. The Man In Seat Sixty-One shows how to travel by train and ship in Europe and throughout the world.
It shows that another world is possible and that is why it is my website of the month.

Rain At Last!

The recent sunshine has been great but going to the allotment every other day to water crops that would otherwise frizzle up was becoming a bit tedious. But today it is raining in Norwich and I can personally vouch for the fact that the rain is wet!

Today has been a good day for getting on with work, such as adding photo galleries to the Grapes Hill Community Garden website for yesterday's fundraising stall at Norwich's St. Benedict's Street Fair and new pictures to the Vanna Art website.