this time we lunch with a cormorant

Two weeks ago we lunched with the porpoises, this time it was just as sunny, but there was only a cormorant to keep us company. Rain had been forecast for the morning and there was a thick mist as I drove over the Moors, but once again the luck of the Coasties, www.northyorkmoors.org.uk, held and as we parked at Runswick Bay the sun came out. First we carried about fifty step boards and several packs of stubs (the short pieces of wood which hold the step board in place), up a muddy, slippery path for a job to be done in a few weeks time. We were out of the wind and I was soon shedding layers of clothes.

can you see the acorn, the
National Trail sign, pointing
up the beck?

the cormorant drying
its wings

Then we carried on along the beach to Hob Holes, where the Cleveland Way leaves the beach, along, or even in, the beck, up stone steps and then up the steps that needed cleaning and repairing. www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cleveland-way. It was hard work, scraping off the grass, mud and shale to try to get the steps back to their original width and also to give the wooden step boards a chance to dry out. Some needed replacing, a job I always leave to others. We sat on the edge of the beach for lunch, watching the cormorant drying its wings, and all the dog walkers enjoying the winter sun. Not a bad way to spend a winter Wednesday we all agreed.

The previous day had been another Short Stop, lassn.org.uk/, day, but once again no referrals. However the evening was very busy as we had a local Fairtrade group meeting to discuss our plans for Fairtrade Fortnight, foncho.fairtrade.org.uk. As well as the usual run of stalls we also have a banana producer visiting and we are organising another of our Fairtrade and local craft fairs. So the usual discussion about tables, posters and stalls. We seem to sort it all out and various tasks allocated out between ourselves. if you are nearby it is Saturday March 1st at the Friends' Meeting House in Malton, from 10am to 4pm, www.quaker.org.uk/malton.‎


On Friday it was the annual Fairer World, www.fairerworldyork.co.uk, social. All the volunteers and local stall promoters meet in York; we bring food, Charlie and Moira lay on wine, soft drinks, tea and coffee and we have a chance to meet some of the other volunteers. A lovely evening and an opportunity to chat with people I usually just meet in passing.

Yesterday in Manchester I visited a wonderful museum, www.phm.org.uk/, the Peoples' History Museum, which gives the history of how the rights we now take for granted have had to be struggled for over the centuries. Yes there are still changes we need to continue to push for, but this reminded me of how much has been achieved by people working together.

Tomorrow I am off to Leeds to meet my now settled friend. I haven't seen her since Christmas so a good chance to catch up, share some food and meet some of her other friends too.

 

lunching with the porpoises

the Cleveland Way climbing
the hill in the January sun

Well OK, we were sitting on a high cliff at Cloughton and the porpoises (about four) were in the sea beneath us, but still it was a lovely Coasties  www.northyorkmoors.org.uk lunch break. I know they weren't, but it really did look as though they were playing. It was the first Coasties of 2014 and we were doing a really big cut back of blackthorn along the sea ward side of the Cleveland Way. The weather for early January was perfect, sunny, not much wind and not too cold, by lunch time I had even taken off my thick fleece! A colleague and I had been asked to cut right through the hedge to open up a view of a headland as walkers climbed up the steps; "don't fall over," the Park Ranger asked us, we thought maybe we wouldn't.

the view and the barrier

Eventually we had cut through to the cliff edge and made the view asked for, but then it was decided that perhaps a barrier of some of the cut branches would avoid loosing walkers as they admired the view, so this is what it now looks like. If you read this and then walk this section, please do admire the view, it is lovely and it was hard work. I was too nervous to do the very edge bit, my colleague must have nerves of steel.

The previous day, in theory, was Short Stop, lassn.org.uk/, but there were no referrals at all. This always worries me, is there really no one destitute, do they all have friends they can stay with? Several of the referring agencies have had to close some of their drop in facilities, making it harder for destitute asylum seekers to access their help.

Today the person who organises LASSN's befriending scheme rings me, she is wondering whether my friend would help someone in a similar position to her, who has just moved to the same area of Leeds. I say that I am sure she would be delighted, what a lovely idea to go from being supported to being a befriender.

Last Saturday another Voluntary Ranger and I continued cleaning up the board walk in the Forge Valley. If the gap between the boards is not kept clear for water to drain away they will rot, as some of the boards already have. We discuss how far apart they ought to be for this drainage to happen, a lot have been put in almost touching, our hoes do not stand a chance. I even try with a penknife, hopeless. Later I email one of the senior people at the National Park, these boards are very expensive, if they can't be properly maintained it is money wasted. He replies in some agreement and says he will check the standards that are being used, a small triumph for we amateurs? I hope so. After all if volunteers are being used for essential maintenance then it is only right that we can and will have an opinion as to the original construction.

Finally to Fairtrade; last week I gave a talk to a group in Pickering, Sight Support Ryedale, sightsupportryedale.org/. We had a good discussion, the question of fairness for UK farmers came up, I said I agreed, but that was for another pressure group and we could only do so much. I sold a lot of chocolate and snacks and came home feeling that at least a few farmers in developing countries had had their case heard and supported. As usual thanks to Fairer World, www.fairerworldyork.co.uk, for supplying the goods.

I am off on my travels tomorrow, to Bath to stay with an old friend, so once again My Small Society is taking a rest, good thing it doesn't run really essential services.



last post for 2013 - or only post in December!

wooden animals on sale at
Ryedale House

Time flies, they say, when you are enjoying yourself. If that is so then December must have been a most enjoyable month. Much of it was taken up in organising Fairtrade stalls at several different venues. The goods had to be collected from Fairer World in York, www.fairerworldyork.co.uk/‎, taken to the venue, usually a school, and then the things left over, as well as the takings, picked up several days later. I did my best to minimise my mileage and usually managed to pick up or drop off at two places in one journey. One school ran out of jelly beans (yes Fairtrade) and earrings, but a friend in York picked  more of those up for me. I ran a stall myself at the local Council offices, the lovely staff in the canteen invite us there twice a year. This year shiny pens and children's toys were the most popular items. Last year it was earrings and bangles.

After the last few boxes of goods were returned to York and the money counted we had sold over £850 of Fairtrade goods. The schools keep something for their funds and the rest will help Fairer World continue to promote Fairtrade goods in York and its wider neighbourhood.



Sorry it's all gone

Meanwhile Coasties continued as usual, and I squeezed in a trip to see my grandsons. The last Coasties of the year was at Ravenscar, but not above Robin Hood's Bay as we usually are, but slightly further south, right by the 'centre' of the village. Those of you who know Ravenscar will understand the humour of the work centre! In a howling gale and some sharp showers we were cutting back the ever present blackthorn, a helpful off shore wind blew the cuttings far out to sea. However the best was at lunch time, warm mulled wine, mince pies and Christmas chocolate ginger biscuits as a thanks for all our work, thank you Bill and Andrew. www.northyorkmoors.org.uk

I had a trip to Leeds to see my friend, she has had a few problems in her new home, a break in and some precious things taken. Her friends have rallied round and I made several phone calls to try to sort other things out. Her phone is pay as you go, luckily I have a contract with masses of spare minutes; just as well as one call to her housing provider lasted over thirty minutes. We ate together, and I left her a little happier than when I had arrived.

So to the holidays. Short Stop is closed until the New Year, lassn.org.uk/, several of the long term homeless asylum seekers have been found a place to stay for the whole period, others have friends who can cope for the holidays with an extra mouth to feed, but it will not be easy.

As usual much voluntary activity will close down until the New Year, once again I must point out that we are the icing on the cake, essential services cannot and must not be run by the likes of me and my colleagues.

Lastly I remember the Palestinians in Bethlehem; Christians, Muslims and the few non religious people, hemmed in, suffering from power cuts and water shortages, not much holiday fun for them. They are still occupied by a foreign power, just as they were 2000 years ago. So, no change there.

Coasties is mud again, but lots of sunshine too

A few days away with a friend, then family to stay and now back to the usual round of mud, sun and the phone.

Coasties, www.northyorkmoors.org.uk, last week was at Falling Foss, a massive task which will probably take several weeks to complete. Part of the internationally famous Coast to Coast path goes through here and crosses the stream at a ford. Recently there has been a spate of accidents in the wet and the mud so the solution is a very long and, despite ups and downs, level board walk. It is near a well known beauty spot so the plan is to make it suitable for all ages as well as long distance walkers. The engineering and practical skills required are beyond my capabilities, but there are hundreds of pieces of timber to be moved, all across the swamp that is to be bridged. No-one wants to fall over, or lose their boots in the mud, so we set up a chain gang and hand each piece across the worst of the mud and carry them where is it slightly less wet.

Eventually the builders have all they need for several days and some of us set off to do some ditch clearing and then some path clearing. Luckily the sun is shining and we are surrounded by a fabulous woodland, unfortunately I have left my camera at home, so you will have to take my word for it!

Short Stop, lassn.org.uk, has been very quiet for the last few weeks. I am afraid that this is because several of the referring agencies have reduced their opening hours (because of cuts to their funding), rather than a reduction in the numbers of destitute asylum seekers. So more people are probably sleeping on the streets and also not receiving the advice and help that these agencies can give them. I have one referral one week and just two the following week, both placed fairly easily.

One evening I run a Fairtrade stall, www.fairtrade.org.uk, at a craft evening organised by Sight Support Ryedale, sightsupportryedale.org/. I don't sell a lot, but several people come up to tell me that they bought things at our big shop just a few weeks ago. it is a lovely evening, so thanks to Sight Support for inviting us. Still with Fairtrade, at the beginning of this week I take delivery from Fairer World, www.fairerworldyork.co.uk, of several boxes of Christmas things, food and crafts for West Heslerton School, www.westheslertonschool.co.uk. They are having a stall all week and I will collect what is left next Monday, thank you West Heslerton for spreading the word about Fairtrade. By special request there are lots of chocolate coins!




just starting

some of the wood
to be burned

Finally Coasties is back by the seaside at Hayburn Wyke, working with the National Trust. There were two main tasks, burning a lot of dead wood, far too much for habitat piles, and pulling out the invasive  rhododendron that the Victorians planted as a visitor attraction. I opted to help with the fire and got very hot. By mid afternoon most of the wood was burnt and a lot of rhododendron pulled out and cut down, again the sun had shone, but very little mud this week. Finally we used water from a nearby stream to damp down the fire and went home, smoky and tired.

Another good two weeks for me, and, I hope, for the wider society I live in. Certainly the homeless asylum seekers and the walkers in the woods seemed pleased with our activities. Next year in Fairtrade Fortnight I hope to meet a Fairtrade banana producer to find out more about how Fairtrade is helping them. Earlier this year I met an olive farmer from Palestine who produces olive oil for Zaytoun, www.zaytoun.org, Fairtrade and sometimes organic too.




Musings on Palestine

 

These are some personal musings from my recent stay in Palestine. Others can and have recorded the history, this is something different.

•  We are walking on the ramparts of the old city of Jerusalem, ahead of us a middle aged woman shouts, in English, abuse at a man in a garden below us. She is accusing him of throwing rubbish onto the old Ottoman walls, she is probably right. He swears back at her. She looks at us, expecting support, she has heard us speaking and knows we speak English, she speaks to us. I turn my shoulder and blank her; normally I would have agreed with her. But this is his quarter of the city, he sees her as the other, an interloper, despite the rubbish we know he is right, it is his city, and he may do as he pleases.
• We are walking through the old quarter of Nablus; our guide shows us photos of a family on a wall. They were killed when the occupying force thought that one of theirs had been killed by someone in the house, so they all died. The last time I saw photos like this was in a village high in the Apennines in Italy, there a whole village had been killed by the occupying force when someone in the village had killed one of the occupiers. Plus ca change, plus c’est the meme chose.
• Now we are in an olive grove, high above the Jordan valley, the land below us is rich alluvial soil; in this climate it could sustain two crops a year. But the people whose land it is may not irrigate, so only one crop can be taken, wheat or maize and the vegetable which could have been grown must be imported. Meanwhile the occupiers, in their new properties high on the hill tops, have lawns and swimming pools. Anywhere in the Middle East that sort of use of water would be profligate, like the green ornamental shrubs I saw in Dubai being irrigated, but here it is wicked beyond belief.
• As we walk along a short stretch of road a young conscript jumps out of his jeep, he is almost young enough to be my grandson. He is not quite sure who we are, so he cautions us to be careful. I resist the temptation to ask him if there are lions around, as all the local people couldn’t be more friendly.
• After a picnic lunch we visit one of the few water treatment plants that are allowed by the occupiers. One of the men treats us to an impromptu concert; the style in which he is singing comes from medieval Andalucia when the Moors ruled in southern Spain. It is ironic that in those ‘barbaric’ times all three Abrahimic faiths lived in a sort of peaceful co-existence, rare today indeed.
• Two days later we are in Bethlehem, standing by a Banksy cartoon, which happens to be on a very big wall, odd how the height of the houses in the old ghetto of Venice look very like a wall too. I wonder why this wall makes me think of that?  I think of other walls I have seen, Hadrian’s Wall, the Berlin Wall, the former now a tourist destination, the later crumbled into dust, one day here too………
• We return to Jerusalem on a local bus, our large suitcases in the place under the bus for big items. The soldiers of the occupation get on at a check point, they look at our passports and wish us good day, no one and no machine has checked our cases; clearly this is not a security check, but a system of control and humiliation. We’ve lived in London, we know what a security check it. Or is it a form of profiling, we are elderly and not Arab, we have seen profiling in London too, we know what it looks like.
• Later in the souk, there are soldiers of the occupation  perhaps two hundred metres apart, the souk is crowded, one could do a lot of damage before they could stop you, so what is their point, simply that they can?
• Finally I am at the airport. There is a huge water feature, water spraying up from the ground and down from the ceiling, I am sure it is recycled, but what a mockery of the country which I have just left, where water can be turned off at the whim of the occupying power. I spend no money, but drink a lot of the (free) water and childishly flush a lot of toilets.

taking the message to Palestine.
 Can you see the bullet hole in the
top right hand corner? This is the
entrance to the Church of the Nativity

 

this mosque is opposite
the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem

 

that wall

Back from Palestine

A new place to walk, in the olive groves and wadis of Palestine. It was too late for wild flowers, but we caught the end of the olive harvest. It is a small and encircled place, with a wall and the Jordan river as its effective boundaries. But the people we met were kind and generous, both the guides who led us and the people in whose homes we stayed. We also met many volunteers, mostly women, encouraging and leading other women to become economically independent. It made me feel rather inadequate; in their circumstances, water cut off without warning, constant harassment from illegal 'neighbours', their olive trees cut down, would I still be as resilient as they are? I am not at all sure. I will do a separate post of my musings.

this beautiful rowan tree
will be in a glade where
several of the new paths
will meet up

I returned home tired and rather dispirited, but luckily the first day back after a few happy days with my family was Coasties, www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/. The weather was perfect, and we were in Ravenscar with the National Trust, www.nationaltrust.org.uk, as regular readers will know one of my favourite places. It was an exciting new project, opening up an area of bracken and dense undergrowth so that new paths can be laid for families to walk and cycle in and other wilder tracks for intrepid mountain bikers. It is part of the National Trust's programme of encouraging more visitors to use their country side properties as much as the 'big houses' that some people associate with them. So we cut and lopped and laughed and joked the day away. By the 2 o'clock, nearly an hour before we usually finish we had all worked so hard that the day's task was complete. Once again Coasties had exceeded expectations!

fair trade toys for sale

I can't decide what
to buy

Then two days in the Friends' Meeting House in Malton www.quaker.org.uk/malton ‎for our annual Fairtrade shop, all the goods from Fairer World in York, www.fairerworldyork.co.uk/.



Both mornings a colleague and I tied arrows and signs to lampposts in the town, it seemed to draw people in on Saturday, but not so well on Friday, maybe the rain didn't help. However we still sold over £1500 of food and crafts, all fairly traded, giving the producers in developing countries a fair return for their labours. If you live locally you can see even more lovely crafts at the shop itself.

sloes, I had left it a bit late,
but the ones left were very big!

Then on Sunday the rain blew itself away and the sun came out and luckily I was being a voluntary ranger on the coast. I was blown along from Hayburn Wyke almost to Ravenscar and then back in the comparative shelter of the old railway line. On the way I managed to pick enough sloes for several bottles of sloe gin.




So lucky me, a safe and open country in which to do my bit for my small society. I listen to Joan Baez singing Jerusalem as I drive home and try not to cry.

The next post will be my second political post in this series.

A pretty standard week

A week with a bit of most of the things that my small society is involved with. So nothing of great excitement, but often that is the way, we volunteers plod on. Nothing wrong with plodding, so sorry if that sounds a bit Eeyoreish. I just mean that people who volunteer expecting excitement and constant change soon stop, because that's not how it is.

So on Monday I was to be a guest at the Pickering and area Fairtrade group's AGM.www.pickfair.org.uk/‎ They are more formal than we are in Malton and Norton, our AGM is usually tacked onto an ordinary meeting. Just as well we can be different, how boring it would be otherwise. It was interesting to meet another local group and see how we differ (mostly the activities we do) and our similarities (mostly frustration with local cafes).

Tuesday was my regular Short Stop phone coordination for LASSN, lassn.org.uk/  It was another quiet Tuesday, a man from Iran and another one from Zimbabwe, both placed quickly, only one phone call from me for each one. It has been quiet recently, but now the weather is getting colder and wetter the street or park option will become less likely, so more calls can be expected. Next week we move up a technological stage, with a constantly updated lists of hosts, so I am hoping for another quiet day whilst I come to terms with how to manage it.

Wednesday was Coasties, www.nationaltrail.co.uk/clevelandway/, we were working on the section of the Cleveland Way south of Scarborough. A section prone to frequent landslips; the path I was clearing of overhanging brambles and nettles is a long standing diversion from when the original fell into the sea many years ago. Unfortunately, being on the edge of the town, it is also a dog walkers' path; much used it seemed by dog owners who imagine that putting their pets' poo in a bag and flinging it in the hedge will magic it away. Actually it won't!

Saturday I was being a Voluntary Ranger for the National Park, www.northyorkmoors.org.uk. However rather than patrol along paths a colleague and I continued work that Coasties had started some months ago. Board walks are useful things when they are maintained, this involves clearing the vegetation from the edges and trying to keep the gaps between the boards clear of detritus so that they can drain. So we used hoes and shears and stiff yard brooms to continue clearing the board walk in Forge Valley, a beautiful National Nature Reserve www.naturalengland.org.uk. If this isn't done the wood, however treated, will eventually rot. However the task would have been easier if the installers had left better gaps between the boards, note to future board walk makers. We didn't finish and hope to come back in the winter to complete the task.

Well that's all for this post. Sorry about the lack of photos, some next time I hope. I am off at the end of the week for ten days, hoping to meet some volunteers in foreign fields, more next time.

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