My latest Greenbang Grumpy Environmentalist column has just been posted. It describes efforts to manage the waste on my family’s renovation project and discovers how truly rubbish we are at recycling and reuse in the UK.
Readers as contributors
My local NCJ Media hyperlocal web site has run the Cheviot sunset image that I snapped on Monday after I posted it to its Flickr group.
Your Place is a series of 22 local websites bringing localised news to every town and village in Northumberland.
It’s been grim up North, but Spring is coming
The weather at home in Northumberland hasn’t had much to recommend it during the last two months. I’ve spent more time in London than at home – more by force of nature than design. It has been a lousy winter altogether.
But driving over Alnwick moor tonight to catch the train south to London this is the view that greeted me of the Cheviots. There’s still snow on the hills, but maybe, just maybe, Spring is around the corner.
Technical data: Canon EOS 450D; Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200); Aperture: f/9.0; and Focal Length: 18 mm.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=eb49260b-15d2-4f87-822d-2185aa9c153e)
Update from the Grumpy Environmentalist
Greenbang has published an update on my family’s renovation project. We’re restoring a 300-year listed farmhouse in Northumberland and attempting to live by eco-principles.
It’s called the Grumpy Environmentalist because we started out two-years ago with the best intentions but are constantly tested by the need to balance historic restoration with eco-measures.
The latest article reports on wooden shutters and cling film as alternatives to double glazing, compromises we’re making over insulation and the restoration of an old cast iron kitchen range.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=8ebb725d-5d1e-4a03-92a7-6baba4e97b44)
Shedworking project: pig-shed to home office
Regular readers will know that I relocated my family from London to rural Northumberland 18 months ago and that I travel back and forth.
At home in Northumberland we’ve just completed the conversion of an old shed into an office. The building stands alone within the walls of our garden. It’s approximately 200 years old, maybe older, and during its lifetime has been a pig shed, a kennel and a garden store.
The office is now fully kitted out with broadband, electricity and heating. It has its own monitoring system and alarm which is monitored via an underground Ethernet link back to the farmhouse.
I’ll stick it on Twitter before long.
The Newcastle Journal’s hyperlocal project (and a new channel for chicken updates)
Regular readers of my blog will know that I occasionally depart from my PR brief and blog about collocation in London and Northumberland, my family, chickens and rural issues. I am delighted to report that I now have a more sophisticated channel.
I’m onboard as a community correspondent on the Your Place project in the North East developed by the Trinity Mirror-owned Newcastle Journal. It’s created a network of 22-regional micro sites each of which are fed with content by local bloggers.
As a contributor I’ve been provided with a set of content guidelines and invited to post local news and information.
Northumberland editor Graeme Whitfield provides a light editorial touch and readers are encouraged to comment on posts and submit their own content.
Each micro-site each carries sponsored links, local ads and Google ads. It’s a smart model that returns regional media to its grassroots embedded within communities.
Could the Journal founded in 1852 be developing the new model for regional media?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a221747f-5f61-44f4-9fd6-a107eb45f494)
Moon as a pollution indicator: snaps from last night
For the next day or so the moon is in a full phase. It’s also very low in the sky and so light reflected off it from the sun has further to pass through the atmosphere than when the it is directly overhead.
The result is that moon picks up a red, yellow or orange hue as light from it is refracted by the atmosphere as it hits dust particles and other pollutants. The snap above was taken around midnight last night at home in Northumberland where ambient light it very low, giving the moon the appearance of a large orange orb.
The image above was taken with a Canon EOS 450D with an exposure of 1/60 and an aperture of f/5.6. Have a look at my flickr feed to see other shots taken last night.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c9c18b2a-cbfe-4cd1-8727-944fa781e4cc)
