Exciting day at the Manor House project - beautifully restored windows going back into the 17th C jettied gable.
Considering the whole gable was about to fall off & the windows were more gaps than glass its pretty amazing progress
My dad would hopefully be happy (despite the £🔥)

The men who spent decades telling you this couldn't be done also spent decades telling you global warming was a hoax.

Be careful to whom you listen.

An apple 🌳 can remove 0.0487 kg of phosphorus a year.
Walnut tree = 0.1580kg.
A new 🏠 using biological private treatment might generate around 0.2kg of P
Very sad so many orchards have been lost from the Wye but good time to plant more. And buy 🇬🇧apples & cider! And nuts.

30 years ago we won a contract to build an entire oak framed village in Japan. It was the 1st of many Japanese projects & saved us from the recession. It was also one of my Dad’s proudest achievements - Herefordshire craftsmanship sailing on the high seas to another world.

NEW ANALYSIS

⛰️🔥Fossil fuels fell to a record-low 2.4% share of British electricity, for 1hr, earlier this month
📉Until 2022, it'd never been below 5%
📊Record 75 half hrs below 5% in 2024ytd
🎯Grid manager NGESO says its on track for 0% next yr

1/

carbonbrief.org/analysis-fossi…

The claim: We'll never be able to run the grid without fossil fuels because <technical grid service needs>

The reality: World's 6th-largest economy nears fossil-free grid operation, hitting record-low 2.4% this month

carbonbrief.org/analysis-fossi…

In my column for The Times and The Sunday Times this week, I write about how the The Church of England can recover a sense of social mission by building a new generation of beautiful, charitable almshouses. Highly recommend looking at the great work AlmshouseAssociation are doing

thetimes.co.uk/article/how-th…

The Spring = 5 yrs since new housing was banned in nearly half of Herefordshire due to River pollution
It later transpired that new housing was not the cause, nor could it offer the solution - but we are still under a ban
Collateral & futile damage whilst the catchment declines

Defra UK has 'open, frank & often emotional behind-closed-doors conversation' with National Farmers' Union

NGOs & local communities - inc farmers at their heart - look forward to open-doors meetings with Steve Barclay

Starting with #Wye
RiverActionUK Save The Wye Coalition Feargal Sharkey

This verge close to St Pancras station has dropped kerbs so the rain can water the plants.
It stops almost 50,000 litres of water rushing into the sewers and cuts local flood risk.
2/2

It’s gathering ‘stuff’ but the ranunculus is still thriving in our brook. There are now more clumps of it all the way through the brook around our fields, and in the village mill stream.

50% self generated renewable energy this week at HQ.
We’re all electric: offices, 3 manufacturing workshops, staff barn, forklifts, 4 constant use charge points + 3ASHPs and around 50 people on site.
Still some tweaking to do.
Local grid was also decent for renewables too.

The glazing of this house is around 33% of its floor area. However, new regulations in Part O §1 allow maximum glazing of 11-18%. So *half to two thirds* of these windows would be blocked up. Do the British people really need their Government to protect them from this building?

It a plan that Defra will have calculated will give them a reasonable chance of defending inevitable legal challenges in future.

It buys them another few years.

It certainly won’t result in rapid changes of land use or practices.

It’s worth having a look at the GB electricity grid over the last 24 hours. It’s been a good one - over 90% low carbon energy - and gives some insight into how a renewables-heavy grid can look…
grid.iamkate.com

🤢 If you're eating, look away now!

🚽Remember to only flush the 3 P's - pee, poo and paper - or your drains could look like this!

👉 Find out more here: dwrcymru.com/stoptheblock

More Water Crowsfoot thriving in the village Millstream despite the huge silt/top soil deposition of a few months ago. Brilliant!
However the Arrow next door is looking sickly & is now permanently grey green, cloudy and smelly.
Time to tackle the catchments within catchments?

Manor House update
Roof repairs continue - which invariably means discovering a load of other stuff is rotten, falling apart, missing or leaking.
Pics from the 1 room we naively thought just needed a lick of paint.
I hope I’m going to oak framing heaven for saving this house.

wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/opinion/the-ma…

The Madness of Maize

Most people know Dutch artist Piet Mondrian for his block colours and geometric abstraction (far R), but here also are two of his earlier, naturalistic works created before 1910 ~ Houses on the Gein ■ Still life with fruit