October 29th, 2009
It’s centuries old but climate change and carbon emissions have made it highly relevant now. I’ve just completed our new hi-tec haybox [Internal dimensions: 53mm x 34mm x 30mm] and it’s passed the proof of concept stage with flying colours. Two slow cooked dishes, a lamb and mushroom curry (see recipe) and a steak and kidney stew, have got friends clamouring for construction details – and invitations to dinner!
It’s a good recycling story too. A schoolboy’s sturdy tuck box in the 1920s, it was converted into a traditional haybox in the seventies and then re-purposed again into a cluttered toolbox in the nineties. Neither of these uses had worked that well (hay is not a perfect insulator!) and a recent purchase of two smaller wooden toolboxes got me thinking of a greener future for the old family friend.
I found the ideal insulation material at B&Q for maintaining the existing heat in a casserole dish – a sheet of Polyfoam XPS 222551 Space Board (Dimensions: 1200mm x 500mm x 52.mm). Designed for lofts, it has the same energy saving capacity as 270 mm thick mineral wool insulation; and subsidised under the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction targets, it costs under £4 a sheet.
With a ruler, tape and sharp knife I soon had a central chamber created with two small cotton bags full of polystyrene packing chips to cover the lid of the 2-litre Le Creuset dish. A precisely cut piece of Space Board (with handles provided) is eased down to form the final sealing panel for the cooking chamber. It’s a simple way to cut energy use and save you money! (See photos below of the haybox in use).
Making it work is easy too. Prepare the stew or curry in the morning, fill the Le Creuset dish to within ½ inch of the top and bring the contents to a bubbling heat in the conventional oven. Then transfer it (Photo No 2) to the chamber of the Hi-tec haybox in the bootroom at The Larches and leave for 7-8 hours. There’s plenty for six people.
The verdict from Petra and Diana, our visitors this week from Schwerin in Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania? “Why’s it so hot after 8 hours and the meat so tasty and tender? …we need our husbands on the job next week to bring out a German version”!
Posted in Environment, Recycling, The Larches | 2 Comments »
October 6th, 2009
We’ve wondered for a while about the small unused plot of grass beside the garage at The Larches. Now it’s been given a new lease of life as a raised vegetable plot, adjoining the recently planted Himalayan rowan tree (The top photo shows the box in the process of construction). Two inch thick tanalised timbers to a depth of 18 inches should give it a long life and plans are afoot on the planting front.
Note also the pile of stones in the second photo. Rescued from an old building undergoing renovation, they’ll come in handy with a fellside rockery we’re designing for 2010. This will be on the left of the flight of steps leading from the Breakfast terrace up to the Belvedere. We plan to clear the ground of any bracken first. Let us know if you have ideas of particular alpine plants you’d like to see there.
This summer’s been warm – and wet at times – so plants and trees have grown rapidly. That’s not so good with the bracken which always needs pulling and cutting back, but the grass of the new south lawn (see photo opposite) has had a great start.
With the new containing walls, acer tree and seat it’s already looking like it’s been there for years!
Posted in Environment, Recycling, The Larches | No Comments »
October 4th, 2009
This last month we’ve been putting finishing touches to the path that leads from the cottage to the Belvedere. We wanted to recycle old materials if possible, so what could we use? And what was the problem?
Locking in the top of the path to the start of the stairway was always going to be tricky as we’d built the path a year before the Belvedere was even started and before we had decided how exactly the decking round the Belvedere would be linked to the path.
The result? The stairway down to the path was almost twice the width of the path and in limited light someone might step off the stairway – not onto the path – but onto a steep slope and lose their balance. The path needed widening. What could we use? Enter the old sandstone hearth (see top picture above).
This was making way for a new oak floor in a Victorian house of a similar vintage to The Larches but had been broken into separate pieces to enable its removal.
Measuring up showed we had a near perfect match (see 2nd picture) for the start of the path which could be then feathered into the existing path by adjusting the margin and using slate chippings. A great result! Good too that our first guests after installation were encouraged last week to have pre-dinner drinks in the Belvedere on six out of their seven nights here!
Posted in Belvederes, Recycling, The Larches | No Comments »
July 21st, 2009
Sorting out old books today, I came across a small 1930s brochure praising the delights of Keswick on Derwentwater. The author Hugh Walpole’s foreword got me thinking: ”We love this place because it is a land of perpetual change. Rain it may but even at its most savage the change in sky and colour is perpetual. Colour? No small square of ground anywhere in the world holds such vivid colour..”
It reminded me of Coleridge’s wonderment as he wrote to a friend in 1800 about his view from Greta Hall, where he was living in Keswick:
“Here I am, with Skiddaw behind my back; on my left, and stretching far away into the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale, the Lake of Derwent-water; straight before me a whole camp of giants’ tents,— or is it an ocean rushing in, in billows that .. reach halfway to heaven?”
Both their comments over a century apart struck a chord with me that ripples wider. Changing colours and shapes – Coleridge’s tents were Barrow, Catbells and Causey Pike – feast the eye and imagination. This certainly is the tonic for me as I walk the hills, but these same characteristics apply elsewhere and in other contexts too. Just recently I shot a series of photos (below) of street art in Valencia, both old and new; and got the same buzz from its energy, colour, zany humour and vibrant engagement.
What’s more the artists recycle existing resources – walls, doorways, corrugated iron – for their canvasses, so there’s an environmental advantage too! Photo No 1 is of Neptune surrounded by maidens and pigeon. No 4 shows the lively face of a young woman on an 18th century dish at the National Ceramics Museum.
Posted in Recycling, Walking | No Comments »
July 16th, 2009
This last week we’ve been to visit Seven Stories in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brainchild of an old friend of ours Elizabeth Hammill, the National Centre for Children’s Books is housed in a 7 storeys high 19th century warehouse on the river Ouse beside the Tyne. Refurbished for over £6 million, the building is a stunner.
This unique Centre is fast becoming a museum and showcase for the original scripts and artwork of many of the best children’s books of the last 70 years. It makes a magical day for children and adults alike as they move from floor to floor through different areas and changing exhibits (See photo left of the storyteller’s throne).
It’s not only encouraging youngsters into reading, but in the process is introducing them to questions about relationships, friendship, travel, climate change (Photo opp), the environment and much else. It was exciting to see children’s response to the little fancy-full ship moored outside (Photo above), made entirely of recycled material. There’s a superb bookshop too, where we bought for The Larches a children’s book, Love your world, which can be used with our Children’s Wildlife Quiz.
Make a date to go the Centre – you won’t be disappointed.
Posted in Recycling, The Larches | No Comments »
It’s centuries old but climate change and carbon emissions have made it highly relevant now. I’ve just completed our new hi-tec haybox [Internal dimensions: 53mm x 34mm x 30mm] and it’s passed the proof of concept stage with flying colours. Two slow cooked dishes, a lamb and mushroom curry (see recipe) and a steak and kidney stew, have got friends clamouring for construction details – and invitations to dinner!
