crop 2

I read the other day in my trusty copy of 'Food for free' that acorns can be roasted and used as a coffee substitute. Well, there are a lot of oak trees in the allotments, so we decided to give it a try. First impressions: it tastes vaguely like weak coffee with a tea-like aftertaste. Might be worth trying again..

blackberry jam

We made 16 jars of blackberry jam. Mmm nice.

crop 1

We collected our first crop from the allotment yesterday... more details later..

travel

This is something I wrote for our parish mag about my recent travels:

“What difference do you think you can make?” the short young intelligence officer said, “You're only one person.” It was eight o'clock in the morning and I was the only traveller attempting to cross the Sheikh Hussein bridge from Jordan into Israel.

Before long, and after several more confused questions (and bizarrely taking a photo of me in my crumpled cricket hat), I was let through. In half an hour I had completed a crossing that in 2005 took all day.

[oops - the parish mag contained a typo I didn't notice until I saw a copy. What an idiot]

My tired eyes once again took in the landscape of the land We Once Called Holy. Past the small enclosed city of Jericho. Through the bustle of Jerusalem. Past the flags, the fences, the security walls, the soldiers and guns, the children with goats, the roadside fruit stalls, the ragged refugee camps. The miles and miles of nothing very much.

Eventually we reached the town of Bethlehem. I was visiting the suppliers of our clothing, small family-owned factories amongst the flat-roofs. In the midst of the troubles in the Middle East, these are not terrorists or even helpless victims, but workers with families to support and bills to pay.

In recent years, the tourists have stayed away and the hotels are mostly empty. Many of factories have closed leaving 25% of people unemployed. With the travel restrictions in place, trade is extremely difficult and nobody can go far without stopping at numerous military checkpoints.

Hope is an extremely rare commodity in the Palestinian territories. Many people have been living on savings, most seem to have stopped believing that things can get any better.

allotment day 1

This is the front gate to the Limbrick Avenue Allotments














this is what the allotments look like in one direction













and this is the other direction. How scary is that?














and under all those weeds is our plot.

They're not even sure what number it is.

Introduction

Hi,

In case you don't know, my name is Joe. I am married to Heather and have a 5 year old called Bethany. We live in Coventry in the English West Midlands, where people eat proper food like faggots and pork scratchings.

We're founders of the Freedom Clothing Project - a clothing company using producers in the West Bank.

We're involved in the Generous project which is a collective effort by a bunch of people to try to make our lives a whole lot more sustainable. Over the years we've made some pretty major changes to our lifestyle.

One of my friends is called Karin, she has a fine blog here and a growing website here. Karin often watches my back and looks out for my blog even when there is nothing to see.

We've just taken on an allotment which is pretty scary as it is in a very run-down and underused site.