A very British Infusion

A site in Cornwall now exports its own highly exclusive tea, reports the BBC. Apparently the local climate is very similar to the foothills of the Himalayas. They even sell the tea to India!

And Yorkshire is not far behind.... Taylors of Harrogate could soon be using Yorkshire-sourced tea, after founding a plantation in North Yorkshire. Perhaps that will cause trading standards difficulties with their flagship brand Yorkshire Tea, however, unless they can grow sufficient quantities of the real Yorkshire Tea to cover the 10 million cups that Taylors claim is consumed per day !

More Ingleton photos

Sigrun has posted three "albums" of photos from the Ingleton Weekend on Facebook (note - you don't need to sign up to see these):

• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday

Infusion walks the Cotswolds

Infusion spent a weekend away in Stow-on-the-Wold in August 2006, staying at the local Youth Hostel. We enjoyed good food, fellowship and walking. On the Saturday we did a full-day walk, which was remarkably hilly towards the end and on the Sunday we headed to the Malvern Hills. This photo is of the British Camp from the Malvern Hills; there are additional photos on the website.

Long Distance Walkers’ Association

Helen recently mentioned the Long Distance Walkers’ Association in an email - so it seemed worth publicising their website. They organise lots of events around the country - both Challenge Events and Local Group Events. The website includes a database of over 1,000 long distance paths (with brief route summaries, lists of maps and publications, and cross references to linked routes) and lots of practical tips.

Credit Crunch theology

The blog post Credit Crunch theology: Does God want us to be poor? raises a good question. However, the writer of Proverbs offers a balanced and timeless perspective:

give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:8-9)

Bird-feeding ban!

This is hard to believe but council staff in Berwick-upon-Tweed issued a public health warning to a retired couple telling them to stop feeding birds in their garden. See: RSPB supports couple warned not to feed birds

Recycle a pet?

If you don't want to adopt a retired greyhound (especially Dixie), then maybe you would like to consider adopting an unwanted chicken? The lifespan of an egg-laying battery chicken is 72 weeks, but a rescued 'ex-bat' can live for up to 10 years.

Google Maps: walking directions

Google Maps are beta-testing an application for walking directions.

Eat kangaroo to 'save the planet'

Switching from beef to kangaroo burgers could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It seems that the methane gas produced by sheep and cows is more potent than carbon dioxide in the damage it can cause to the environment.

Alternatively, one could go vegetarian.....

[picture courtesy of Free Nature Pictures]

Infusion walks Ingleton

It would have been nice to title this Infusion walks the Three Peaks but only three of our number managed that (although a further three managed two out of three Peaks). However the sixteen participants on the 2008 Infusion Walking Weekend all made it up Ingleborough.

Our stay at Ingleton Youth Hostel (lower pic) was made more interesting by the boiler breaking down on Tursday so there was no hot water on Friday night / Saturday morning. As the Hostel was full, four people stayed in a B & B (top pic) - although the proximity of a sign saying "Elderly people" may give the wrong impression!

Ingleton photo gallery

Father, son and holy toast

From today's Guardian comes the story Father, son and holy toast - a discussion of the JesusPan, kitchen gadgets, and religious images appearing on food. The sort of news story that could only appear on a Friday.

The obligatory Olympics post

The 2008 Olympic Games commence today after what seems to have been a very long build-up.

I caught this morning's TFTD on the Olympic Games are a metaphor for life itself with a reminder of Paul's use of this metaphor in 1 Corinthians 9. I also appreciated the mention of Olympic athlete Eric Liddell , who was immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire.

[Posted on 08/08/08]

Time Travel: Is Life Without Plastic Possible?

Following on from all those reports about what plastic is doing to sea life (cf David Shukman's reports from Midway island in the Pacific), and how it is absorbing toxins which are then introduced into the foodchain, BBC reporter Chris Jeavans has taken on the challenge to spend the month of August without plastic. (Where she fails, she is collecting the evidence and comparing it against her usual amount of plastic, to see how much it is possible to cut down.) Cutting down plastic when you live a wasteful lifestyle already is probably pretty easy, but cutting it out entirely sounds like no mean feat & I'll be interested to read how she gets on.

Walking with the fishes: swimhiking

Following lighthouse-bagging, here's another option for those who find merely walking up (and down) hills is not challenging enough: swimhiking. This combines swimming and hiking and the creator says it is the perfect way to get fit and explore the countryside. Read the Guardian article and perhaps the book: Swimhiking in the Lake District and North East England.

"With swimhiking you are freed from the constraints of hiking. On foot, rivers and lakes become a barrier, but if you swimhike you can go much further, or at least in more directions"

Word Spy

The Reader's Digest used to carry a regular feature on "How to improve your word power". Now you can do this online with Word Spy - a Web site devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't "stunt words" but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources.

Lighthouse bagging

Some people like to "bag" Munros or Corbetts but a recent a Guardian article describes the somewhat different challenge of lighthouse bagging:

"You need a head for heights and sturdy sea legs to conquer these pinnacles of engineering achievement and testimony to our ceaseless struggles with the sea. The walkers who bag Scotland's 284 Munros have it easy compared with those who undertake the ultimate challenge: visiting all 209 working lighthouses that mark the most treacherous corners of Scotland's coast".

The term pharology is used for the study of signal lights and lighthouses, It comes from Pharos - the huge lighthouse of Alexandria that was built in the third century BC and was one of the tallest man-made structures on earth for centuries.

Making time to think

From the BBC website:

When Barack Obama met David Cameron, the pair got around to discussing thinking time - and the lack of it. It's not just potential leaders of nations who are short of opportunities to reflect on the bigger picture. How can any of us grab thinking time during the working day?

... few of us complain of having too much time, whether at work or at home. As a public service, the Magazine asks how to grab yourself some thinking time - from those who've had time to think about it.

[Image from FreeFoto.com]

Keep taking the Tablets...

Hundreds of pieces of Hollywood movie memorabilia are up for auction on 1 August. The autction will include the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments (click on item 8) from the 1959 film Ben-Hur. The film starred Charlton Heston and is famous for its chariot race. The tablets were made in consultation with experts in their field and only five pairs of the tablets are known to still exist.

If you prefer not to let Hollywood act as your commentary on the Ten Commandments you might be interested to read God's good life: the Ten Commandments for the 21st century (David Field), Mere Morality: What God Expects From Ordinary People (Lewis Smedes) or Smoke On The Mountain: an interpretation of the Ten Commandments (Joy Davidman).

Hitting the high notes on Snowdon

Forget concert halls and theatres: three cellists have scaled new heights to perform their music.

This is a wonderful news story about a trio of cellists who climbed Snowdon, carrying their heavy instruments on their backs and then played together at the top. It was the latest mountain in their challenge to play at the top of the highest peaks in the UK and Ireland. The self-styled "extreme cellists" have so far raised over £3,000 from their mountain music challenge, which will be donated to a spinal injury charity and mountain rescue organisations.