liz's blog

OK - here's a real kicker.

Today I finished a major report for a client and decided to celebrate by watching the channel 4 news (yeh - geek girl!). So, they have a story about Carbon Trading - something I know nothing about - so I took notes.

Here goes what sounds like science fiction (and will you all just join the online library so I can swap some sci fi books).

Carbon trading came out of the Kyoto Agreement (or disagreement depending on who signed it).

Essentially, this is how it works. The carbon trading market involves big business buying credits for their emissions (read major pollution). If you go under your emission quota you can sell you credits to another industry that is over their emissions quota.

After a few weeks of lots of work and travel I was able to slow down this weekend.

Coming home to Ballinamore makes me feel very happy. And now I have the added pleasure of seeing how my plants have grown. Nothing's died and everything seems to be thriving.

Today I had the coriander and parsley on my breakfast and right now I'm sipping the lemon balm tea I made from the leaves of a new plant I bought yesterday.

One of the downsides of the busy work at the moment is that I tend to be less interested in socialising when I get home. Thankfully I have very persistent friends who somehow got me out of the cottage and down the street to the pucheen fayre yesterday.

When the sun shines here in Ireland - and particulary Ballinamore - it's like heaven on a stick.

Within 2 days we've had Beltaine and a full moon so I hope everyone had a chance to make some great wishes about abundance and just great times.

Thanks to the people who have been sending me information on other self build and sustainable courses. It's going to be a busy summer as I'm going to try a few and see what I can learn.As always, I'll be happy to share what I learn.

I'm a plant growing neophyte and having lived in apartments for the last 14 years in Ireland, I'm really pleased now to have a few square feet of backyard to start learning. Bought some herbs and salad leaves from our 2 lovely garden shops in town. Some of the local kids dropped in and we had a great time patting plants out of their containers and into new containers with organic compost. I've told them to pick two tin cans (I'm recycling and reusing) and we'll paint them and write their names. Then we're off to the garden shops and they'll pick the plants they want to grow. We'll learn together and I'm sure I'll be posting questions that you'll be able to help me with.

Back from a week working and playing in Dublin. Gotta say, I love being there and I really love coming home to Ballinamore.

While I was in Dublin I dropped in to Cultivate in Temple Bar. It's been a few years since I had popped in and I think it's really improved. The library of books alone are worth the visit. It's a kind of one stop shop for anything on sustainable living. The shop has lots of interesting products including wooden computer keyboards. The free info pamphlets were also very useful - everything from suppliers of eco paints to bamboo flooring. Decided to join them as a member (4 euro a month) and offered them some free consulting time. They also run some fine looking courses.

Have developed a bit of a craving to learn how to make things.

When I was at school girls weren't allowed to do woodwork and my career has been more in the cerebral/community development area - more head/heart than hands.

I'd love to learn:
* how all the tools work
* to make some basic furniture - chairs, table, shelves
* some basic DIY
* an overview of self building

So, like any good researcher I went online and did a range of searches on those topics. I've found a few interesting 'how to buld a chair from local wood' course in Wicklow and West Cork. Urban VEC's do a range of woodworking and DIY courses. In the UK there are specific women only DIY and woodworking courses. I remember going to a woodwork night course in Oz and being completely ignored by the instructor who preferred to work with the guys who knew how to use the tools. Yeh - I did keep asking for help but it just got too tiring so I left.

I'm new here and not quite sure what to say.I'll give it a go.

I've moved around a lot in my life and my work has taken me into hundreds of different communities - In Australia and Ireland. Some of the communities have been geographic and others have been communities of interest.

When you live and work in as many communities as I have there emerge a number of common threads in the big pattern:

* I am the stranger in town
* It's up to me to make the effort of connection
* I take my time to get to know people
* Trust is built over time and not because you have an important sounding job title