Keeping in touch

 We are both finding it hard to keep you posted as we are so busy and moving around ,, so  if you really want to follow us , look up our Facebook Pages .......for the moment.


How's this though for me, the geomorphologist and student of the varied homes we live in and the roads we travel .....to find this old map of the geology of the Southlands. 

In the centre is old London town with the dear Croydon Hills  ( 4 U Monica)  and Mitcham  ( 4U Nevil )with its unique houses and more than enough chalk south of here to fill the earth with cheaper Gaviscon ( which the Irish , God bless them ) do sell here. 

More to come 


 

Decadence

We are living a truly decadent moment. 
New shoes, eyewear, pajamas, mattresses, blankets and lying down to sleep on a plane. 

It certainly seemed so to us when we thought of all the $ we had spent just to put our feet up on the Emirates business class journey across the world. You don't want to know!

And the decadence continued as we ate the absolutely best food and got ourselves washed with hot towels and slept in their lounge pajamas with blankets, mattresses, eye covers and slippers. `The washing and waste volume would have been huge, but what can you do as a conservationist but make sure you try to eat every piece of delectable chocolate and mid coarse meal you are primed with every few hours.
And decadence grows on you. I started to really enjoy it. 

And why not? The West in the rural setting has always celebrated the moment of excess because sometimes the earth produces more than we can eat or sell.
City people miss out on this wonderful moment when excess takes over;
I remember well when my Father (an Orchardist ) would just give away as much as he could because it was valueless once supply exceeded demand. Normal history for our antecedents, but a matter of choice( to give)  for us, the richest generation in history. 

My dad knew how to enjoy the moment of excess for others,  The moments of depravation for himself and us were less obvious but real to "our women"( G K Chesterton) 

These tensions between scarcity and abundance and how to live with them were a given to our forebears. Farmers and even landless serfs like the Modras (for hundreds of years ) who take a whole days rest on compulsory rest day know and learn to love life within its local limits ;
They found life hard  but to know that we all have enough ( and that the Lord of the manor cared in our case ) meant its Ok to enjoy a moment of indulgence and grace; even a moment of depravation. Hard to keep things in perspective though - isn't it, especially now our grandchildren are going to run short of at least one thing; fossil fuels and for all our wealth our governments do the sharing thing ( which is not so much fun ) The farmer where we are staying had to pay out over $100000 dollars in land tax this year and we were his first tenants in one of his barns . +

When my dad had plums, every other farmer had plums, so that wonderful and valuable fruit of his labor , like the watermelons we saw carted to Melbourne from Mildura was left to rot where they finally landed. That good reality is decay and its natural even when we do our best. 
Infact, in the big picture (the place of rest)  our soils and plants need that decay to keep life going,

Composition and Decomposition,

 Unless the seed of the fruit of labor dies, there can be no life. Noone talks of death which means we are not at rest about it and our people worry beyond reason. There is growth and there is decomposition and they are all in a cycle - a good cycle; a sustainable cycle
Our world panics about scarcity partly because it sees only the decadent side that eats at growth ;( and the one case of immanent high cost of fossil fuels) 

Thankfully for those of us who live on the land both scarcity and abundance live in harmony, Thankfully for those who live as recyclers every day, even the threat of paying more for liquid fuels does not worry us. 
Soon people will stop worrying about things they have only a smidgeon of reasons to worry about ; like the impact of CO2 concentrations on Global warming.  


YET it goes against the grain to the well educated and disciplined Westerner to rest easy with rot. By being productive for centuries and using that surplus of savings from selling more than we can eat, our forefathers invested in innovation that drove the adoption of innovations and further efficiencies for the leisure time we were now enjoying.  Those who force panic over a little decadence do not understand life and life in its fullness.
Make a stand when a resource is wasted but don't go woke and not see that life will continue with the same recycling systems that operate whether we abuse or use them . 

Decadence is not always bad 
A bit of decadence then is not bad; its even natural. What doesn't work in the shallow one sided worries of this world is the idea of a life without dying and decadence.

Decadence is not the complete answer, but scarcity and abundance are: more elsewhere 
you just have to know your own limits in your own area, 

The Decadence in the Desert


Landing in Dubia, those with more than enough mere money, wanted to sell us glass insulated swimming pools in the desert 6 stories up. ADS are all over the air as you watch the screen and even when you get to England . 

So, what does someone cocooned is such a place of lifetime decadence live?   For all the money from all that oil, they can't desalinate enough water to turn the desert into the gardens we enjoy back here, Death and decay, like growth, has its best place and timing.  The salts accumulated in the soils over eons in those places rise up and eventually kill most of the plants.
They have plenty of sand and water and they can dig it up and make cement cities. The more water you apply to soils there though, the worse it gets; abundance of one thing is not the answer, but it can be an answer for other things.  

There are so few leaves growing freely in such a materially rich place.
None of us can have it all but perhaps we can all find some abundance to be thankful for.


Leaves reconstitute the grand object of the West's current concern, Carbon Dioxide .
ALL leaves for all time which remind us of the grace of life in creation. 
Its leaves that source most of the good we can enjoy when taking the rest and indulgence that was always meant to be a least one day of rest each week for every one of us. 

 `   

   

The ARC conference

I was here in London on a search for people who had something to offer in the way of educating young people for better careers in conservation and, something positive and powerful to resist the incompetence of many in the Green political alliances around the world. 
The second issue was a clear concern for most but only a few seemed to have much to offer on the former;  I hope to introduce you to a few.

Meanwhile you can read more here  
    

This worldwide conference of mostly professional people is a big surprise to most of the 4 thousand who came. It's now nearly too big and diverse to properly tackle all the various callings represented,  
The presentations during the 3 days made sure the sense of unity, despite the isolation and difficulties 
will remain . Look the ARC authors up on the net.  We  didn't all agree with  each other .

KEY QUESTIONS 
1. Why does the West trust politicians and the "desperate for attention media" instead of the competent independent scientists who insist on the truth and who come together at meetings and forums like this.
2. How can our children build the future when so much of the values they hear are about short term gain which only brings long term gain ; When truth is not a hard face but the soft and self centred flacid stuff based on feelings.  

 

Some of us got invites and many just wanted to go because the idea of an "Alliance for Responsible Citizenship " has a huge amount of appeal to those of us who have had an effective engagement in a profession that works, but who struggle to see Governments and the media failing to create competence and the inspiration for it FOR OUR CHILDREN  

The competence of many who attended was staggering  (in politics , academia economy ) but as always happens , even among  such a large group , there are only a few whose competence is exactly in your area. 

Bjorn Lomborg is a key advocate for environmental education with a group called the Copenhagen Consensus,
His constant bruising, like that given to Jordan Peterson  (from the press ) won't stop him from doing a great job in that area, Why do the West trust politicians and the desperate for attention media instead of the competent independent scientists who insist on the truth and who come together at meetings and forums like this. 

Are we winning the war? Never know till it's over and most of us see the thrashing about amongst the Nay 
sayers and cancellers as just plain desperate.
If you doubt the need,ask yourself how much actual experience and competence now exists in some government services and government contracting arrangements.  










HUMOR is such fun in the context of this serious subject,.
Take the way  Konstantin Kisin does it so well

and this group  called UNHERD  uses the pin pricking idea that can effectively explode a few balloons .

Sendoffs

YOU wonderful people , I didn't expect anybody to rock up and yet so many of you did , It did make it so special so thanks !

Non performers ,
Our cats always do a good job of welcoming us back but they weren't to be seen when we left.
 The older one PUS especially, will welcome you too, if you walk by. She sits at the gateway or lies spread eagle on the lawn out front.
Please pat and say hi, especially if you enter to take some cucumbers, tomatoes or apples. Hate to see our produce go to waste, now we are " forced " to live the high life and let others cook and clean for us ---- a treat especially good for dear Christine.( you can follow her version of events here)
Yes ,,,,,we will be living the high life for quite a while- we reckon it's going to be a bit too cold to camp too, like we have been doing in Australia.

Don't be disturbed if things are not quite finished around the place; You should know what some Europeans say about the nature of the time when your house is finished.

Our Masters  are not so keen to see us go. Maybe it's all about food supply, but interpreting motivation is for the birds and we are just singing the song with you and them today as we leave.