Poetry and Music at North Books

 On Tuesday 12th November, at 7pm, there will be an evening of poetry and music at North Books.  

Music will be provided by Steven Broom on viola and Rod Paton on piano (not sure where they're going to fit a piano in!  Maybe it'll be a keyboard).

Simon Pettifar and Omar Majeed will provide the poetry.

The evening is to raise funds for the Prison Phoenix Trust, which teaches yoga and meditation in prisons, and is in support of Cressida Gethin, from Dorstone, who was one of the Just Stop Oil climate activists who was sentenced to four years in prison recently for causing serious disruption on the M25.

The event is free, though donations to the charity are welcome, and drinks are available.

Lest We Forget

 

The post box toppers have come full circle with the Remembrance topper.  Last year it was a head with a helmet, and that was the start of all the creative and imaginative designs through the year.

Cabinet of Curiosities

 Henallt House, the Cabinet of Curiosities, will be having an open day on Saturday 9th November, from 11am to 7pm.  

This will be the last time it is open in its current form, as renovations will start soon.  As the house is a listed building, everything has to be done very carefully to fit in with the historic fabric of the building - I'm sure they'll do a wonderful job.

Phosphates: Too Much of a Good Thing?

 I went to St Mary's to watch the film about phosphates the other night.  About 20 or so people were there.  

The people who made the film had originally made a film about COP26, the climate summit in Glasgow, and on the strength of this West Country Voices in Somerset asked them to make a film about their main environmental concern - the build up of phosphates in the Somerset Levels.

They did a lot of investigation.  They visited a sewage treatment works in Wincanton, which is now removing phosphates from the water - previously the phosphates just went straight through to the river.  There was an organic farm that produces biogas - they use the waste products from livestock, and also buy in stuff like scrap bread from supermarkets.  Apparently 50% of bread in this country goes to waste, which is a whole other problem in itself.

They talked about the back up in the planning system, since applications have to show that they can deal with the extra phosphates from human waste when they are building new houses.

And they had some good footage of Our Lady of the Wye being paddled down the river on the pilgrimage that Father Richard organised.

The question and answer session after the film was very interesting too - there were several people in the room who knew a lot about the subject.  One chap said that the discharge of phosphates into the Wye used to be about 50/50 from sewage and agriculture.  Now all the sewage plants along the Wye have phosphate strippers, so the balance has gone to 17% sewage and 83% agriculture, but the total level of phosphates has risen because of people like Cargill not dealing with their waste products.

The point was also made that phosphates are a valuable resource that is being wasted by being washed into the rivers and out to sea.  There are places where more phosphates are needed to grow crops - and the stuff being wasted, and polluting the rivers, could have a use in agriculture instead.

Meanwhile in government, a few years ago, a rule was made that there had to be a balance of nutrients going into farms compared to the output of the farms, so the farmers didn't use more than was needed to grow the crop.  However, Therese Coffey, the government minister in charge at the time, decided that this would place an unfair burden on farmers, so the Environment Agency didn't have to enforce it.

Someone said that it would be a very good thing if people started writing to their MPs to get that ruling enforced.

So there are lots of solutions to the problem, if the will is there to make the investments, and to enforce the regulations that already exist.

Athene English

 More sad news - Athene English, of The Great English Outdoors on Castle Street, has died after a short illness.  She ran the shop, full of leather goods and blankets, for over thirty years.

There will be a small, family funeral (her son Louis has made the announcement on Facebook), followed by a celebration of her life at Penpont Estate on Saturday 9th November from 2pm.

In lieu of flowers, the family have asked for donations to a charity close to Athene's heart - Action for Conservation - with a link in their announcement.

The Great English Outdoors will continue to trade for the forseeable future.

Biodiversity in Your Back Garden

 This month's Enchanted Hour at the Library is entitled Biodiversity in Your Back Garden, and it is presented by Stewart Roberts.  He posts photographs of local nature regularly on Facebook, along with information about the birds, or fungi, or what ever it might be, and the names in Welsh.

In his introduction to his talk, he says: "You have to know what is there to love it. If you love something, you want to protect it".

Enchanted Hour is on Friday 8th November at 2pm, and is free.

Phil Rickman

 I've just seen on Facebook that local author Phil Rickman has died.  I think he'd been ill, but it was still unexpected.

Phil wrote the Merrily Watkins series of mysteries, set around Herefordshire, including The Magus of Hay, with one body turning up in Cusop Dingle.  Merrily Watkins was the Herefordshire Deliverance Minister - or exorcist, and a lot of local folklore was included in the books.  There's even a tie-in book called Merrily's Border, which explores all the real local places mentioned in the books.

He also appeared several times at Hay Festival, and at smaller local events, sometimes with our other local author Barbara Erskine.  One of his book launches was at Hay Castle, with Rob Soldat dressed as a Knight Templar, which was great fun.  (I'm pretty sure that was the book that was set around Garway).

His other books include the Dr John Dee series and the Marco series for children, set around Glastonbury, and stand alone novels like The Man in the Moss.  He had another mystery series with a Welsh shaman/trans character called Cindy Mars-Lewis, which also included local settings.  In fact, I was reading Mean Spirit, which is partly set around Malvern, only last week.

He lived in Urishay.