Friday, October 31, 2008

Winter

So it's officially winter. The nights come sooner the mornings are crisp and frosty, riding in to work in gloves and hat, thermal tights on but there's something great about it. You see the one thing about this time of year is that you see more sunsets and sunrises, early fog burning off, frost melting in the sun. It's not all bad, that happens when it gets wetter..

I've had some time off recently as I've not been feeling too well, very unusual for me but I guess 18 months of straight working has to have an impact somewhere. Any how key to my recovery has been plenty of Vitamin C, so imagine my good fortune when I was out on the cycle path this morning and I discovered some of these lots of lovely rosehips. They are packed full of Vitamin C and this time after the first frost they are the sweetest. My enthusiasm for a spot of foraging was rekindled at the DO lectures when I met foraging expert Yun Hilder a really interesting chap who makes the most of what nature throws his way. Whilst on the subject of the DO lectures and food I should point you towards this place the Carreg Restaurant a fantasic little place with some great food if your ever heading toward deepest Wales..

So what else have we been up to? This November Luke and I have decided to get hairy and grow a moustache for Movember (November) to raise money for ‘The Prostate Cancer Charity’. If your keen on donating you can go here

That's it for now, in the mean time happy Halloweeeeeeen...

Friday, October 17, 2008

Exciting night

So last night was the Pride of Herefordshire awards. A chance for people in Hereford to be recognised for things they are doing, in their words...

'The Pride of Herefordshire Awards are designed to celebrate the very best of what goes on in our area. The awards, a joint venture between the Hereford Journal, Herefordshire Partnership and Sunshine Radio, are designed to highlight the achievements of the many people who are unsung heroes, or who work quietly behind the scenes but make a real difference to the success and well-being of Herefordshire'

It came as a surprise a few months ago when I found out I had been nominated for 'Environmental Champion', it was even more of a surprise to find out a few weeks ago that I had made it through to the finals. So yesterday I arrived at the award ceremony and was sat on table with the competition. All sorts of awards were given out, courage, carer, contribution and then it was time for the environmental award, and very shortly after that is was time for me to collect my award as Pride of Herefordshire Environmental Champion!

The best bit about the whole process was the realisation that someone had taken the time to recognise and nominate the achievements we have made. All to often we put our heads down and work, hard, all day and into the night to make this happen. When we do that we bog ourselves own in the small things, the fixing of bikes and the logistics of pickup and project management, things like this make us think that we are making a difference.

When we remember we're making a difference the small things don't bog us down any more. The reason we won was because we have instigated change in people and have fundamentally changed the way people go about their daily work. It was nice to be around people who are doing good things.

So thanks to Cynthia for nominating us, to everyone who voted for us and to all of staff for being part of our project.

Have a good weekend.

Will

Thursday, October 9, 2008