Science Fiction and Fantasy Author
On a slight tangent from my normal topics on this blog: I have my first published story out in this anthology, now out in ebook & at 15% off! I’ve been reading the other stories as well, now that I’ve got my contributor’s copy, and can whole-heartedly recommend the whole book. “Magic that detects crime, magic that heals, magic that destroys: all this and more and in hands of queer women who use their powers to shape their worlds and their destinies.”
For the second time in a year, I travelled to France by train last week. This time we didn’t stop at Paris, but crossed town to the Gare du Lyon (a pretty well-joined-up journey, requiring only 2 stops on the RER) to go down to Bourg St Maurice for some snowboarding.
On the way back, I found myself wondering how the costs — in carbon, time, and money — stack up in comparison to making the same journey by air. I compared London St Pancras – Bourg St-Maurice by train (the journey we did); London City – Chambery by plane (then bus transfer to Bourg St-Maurice); and London Gatwick – Geneva by plane (then bus again to Bourg St-Maurice). I included the journey from my house at the London end, but excluded the journey from Bourg St-Maurice up the mountain since it’s the same with all three routes (the funicular then a shuttle-bus service).
Helpfully, Eurostar have conducted some specific research to accurately measure CO2 generated by their trains. The ski train as of 2010 measurements was 9.4kg per passenger single trip (18.8kg return).
London to Chambery or Geneva by air is about 1,000 km (620mi). At 0.2897 kg/mile for a short-haul flight, that’s 180kg of carbon per passenger return. The Eurostar research quoted above gives 102.8kg per passenger each way (205.6kg total) for London City-Geneva (the discrepancy is due to the specific load factor which is low for that route, so the per-passenger output is higher). Even using the lower value, rail still has a tenth of the carbon cost of air. (And that doesn’t account for the transfer bus carbon, although buses are low-carbon travel.)
The winner: train, at 90% less carbon.
Train: 30min Tube, 45 min check-in, total time London – Bourg St Maurice, 7h15. Total 8h30.
Plane, London City-Chambery: 30 min Tube, 2 hr checkin, 1h35 flight, 1 hr transfer to coach, 2 hrs on coach (estimated from this page which gives 1h45 for a minibus; coaches can be assumed to be a little slower). Total 7hr.
Plane, London Gatwick-Geneva: 20 min Tube, 40 min train, 2 hr checkin, 1h35 flight, 1 hr transfer to coach, 3.5 hrs on coach. Total 9 hrs.
The winner: plane, at 20% quicker (but only if you take the right route).
Our tickets on the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice cost £119 each (return); plus £3.80 each in Tube fares. £123 per person, return.
The cheapest airfare I could find to Chambery, the nearest airport, is £60 each way. That’s from London City, so same Tube fare; but then you need to take a transfer coach at 70 EUR (£60) return. £183 per person, return.
The next closest airport is Geneva, for which I found a £46 return fare with Easyjet; plus £18 each way baggage fare to take any hold baggage. That’s from Gatwick, so £4 Tube fare to London Bridge, then £16 (ish) return to Gatwick. Then there’s the transfer at the other end: 126 EUR (£107) return. £191 per person, return.
The winner: the train, at 50% cheaper.
The overall winner: train, cheaper, lower-carbon, and only slightly slower.
The train comes out better not only on environmental impact (by a long way, and unsurprisingly), but also on cost (by a significant margin, and more surprisingly). It even beats the ‘super-cheap’ flights (actually the most expensive option all-in) in time taken. The plane is slightly quicker for the London City-Chambery route, but 7 hours compared to 8.5 hours isn’t that big of a deal; especially when you think about what you’re saving in cost and carbon.
Plus there’s the fact that it’s simply more pleasant to sit in a train and watch the countryside go past than it is to sit in an airplane and look at clouds (pretty though clouds are). The food available is better; the booze is better (French trains do quite well on this front!); there’s more space per seat; and you’re much freer to move around when you want to. Even without the cost savings!
The details are of course affected by where you’re going. Snowboarding holidays mean mountains, which means airports some distance away. The calculation if going to, say, Geneva or Lyon would be different for time and money. (Although not very different for carbon, of course.) Nor does this address the environmental cost of the holiday itself. What’s the effect of thousands of skiiers and snowboarders on the mountains they’re careering down? But that’s a subject for another post.
I wrote about veganism as carbon footprint reduction over on Carbonfeet last week.
There’s not that much growing at this time of year; but you will find fresh chickweed in UK gardens and allotments, even in the middle of the snow. It’s usually considered a weed, but in fact it’s edible, nutritious, and even quite tasty.
You can eat it raw, but I’m not very enthusiastic about it like that. Alternatively, you can treat it like spinach leaves and wilt it before eating. Or you can make chickweed pesto, which is what I did.
When harvesting chickweed, take only the tops of the plant. The lower leaves are tougher, and also by taking the top, you just encourage it to branch and produce more tops for future harvesting.
Chickweed pesto recipe
Throw all the ingredients into a blender and keep blending until it looks like pesto. Add the olive oil as needed to help the blender out (you can also add a very little water), and as needed for texture.
It worked well on pasta, but I also enjoyed it on crackers for the next few days as a mid-morning snack. And since chickweed will, apparently, grow on my allotment regardless of what I do, I might as well make the most of it, especially at this time of year.
In the cloakroom queue after seeing Leftfield last weekend, while London was still covered with snow, another punter spotted my bike pannier.
“You’re cycling?” he asked in tones of mingled surprise and enthusiasm. “Wow!”
“I’d far rather that than hanging around for the night bus,” I said.
“Nice one!” he said with a grin that indicated he still thought I might be a little deluded; and I went off to start layering up for the ride home.
But really, the weather has to be really pretty dreadful for public transport to be a better bet than cycling. (Even more so when, as on Friday, the public transport option is two night buses and a very chilly 20-minute wait at Elephant & Castle, watching inebriated revellers throw up into the gutter). There are a few precautions that are worth taking first.
Wrap up warm
Perhaps an obvious one, but cold hands don’t operate brakes well, so find yourself some long-fingered gloves. Woolly gloves are better than nothing, but the wind tends to blow right through them; really you want gloves that are at least windproof and preferably waterproof as well. If, like me, you have really rubbish circulation, consider glove liners as well.
A Buff is useful as a scarf/hat; alternatively, if you’re wearing a regular scarf, make sure the ends are safely tucked into your jacket and can’t get caught in any of the moving bits of the bike. If you’re suffering from chilly feet as well as chilly fingers, waterproof overshoes are really helpful*.
Check over your bike
Letting a little bit of air out of the tyres is a good bet if riding on slippery surfaces like snow, slush, or ice, as it increases the amount of contact surface with the road. If you want to take the really hardcore route, you could switch to studded tyres (or do your own DIY version either with screws or with cable ties!). Tyres with tread may be a good idea if you normally ride on skinny smooth tyres.
You should also clean your bike a bit more regularly, as grit and salt splash up onto the frame, and are bad for the metal if left there. Your chain might need a slightly heavier-duty oil than in the summer, and will probably also need oiling more regularly. If you’re nearly at the point where you need to replace chain and/or cassette, it’s probably worth waiting, if you can, until the spring, as they’ll wear much more quickly in this weather.
Make sure that your brakes are working well — slippery rims will slow your braking down.
Riding in snow
The most important thing to remember is not to make any sudden moves. Stop and turn more slowly and carefully than you normally would, and don’t corner too sharply or your back wheel may come out from under you. Brake well in advance, and gently.
Be more aware of hazards like metal access covers, which get very slippery in rain, snow, or ice. Watch out for black ice, and if in doubt, it may be worth getting off and walking for a bit if the surface is particularly treacherous (minor local roads may not have been gritted well or at all). However, if you find yourself already riding over the ice when you notice it, just stay calm, keep pedalling, and don’t turn or brake if you can avoid it. (If you have to, brake very gently.)
Stay well out of the gutter, which is where all the snow and slush will have been pushed by the cars. Of course, you should always be riding well out of the gutter to maximise your visibility, but in poor conditions you may want to ride even further out. You’ll be more readily seen, and you’ll be more likely to be able to stay on the dry part of the road. Where possible, choose where you’re riding to stay on the dry patches, but be careful – don’t put yourself in danger by riding over on the wrong side of the road unless you’re very, very certain that it’s safe to do so. If in doubt, get off and walk until it’s safe again.
If it’s dingy, foggy, or actually snowing, put your lights on to increase your visibility, as well.
In summary: take it carefully, allow more time to get where you’re going, wrap up warm; and you’ll be sailing merrily past all the bus queues despite the weather.
* This year I’ve been wearing bike sandals and waterproof socks, instead of switching to my lightweight bike shoes in the autumn. (I confess that a significant driver for this is the fact that the dog chewed both velcro and laces off the bike shoes back in April, and I still haven’t sorted that out.) Somewhat to my surprise, it turns out that thick socks + waterproof socks + sandals has kept my feet warmer than my closed-toe shoes ever did. The overshoes are good if it’s below zero (when I’d need them anyway). I think this is probably because wearing two pairs of socks in my regular shoes doesn’t leave enough room for my toes, reducing circulation and thus making them cold. This doesn’t happen in the sandals. Of course one is then wearing sandals with socks, but I am less bothered about that than I am about having cold feet!
It’s been a fantastic year for berries, so I decided the time had come to experiment with rosehip and hawthorn jellies.
Finding a sufficiency of rosehips and haws to cook up was straightforward; half an hour in the local park with a shopping-bag produced enough for a small jar’s worth each of rosehip and hawthorn jelly. I took maybe a third, and left the rest for the birds. There’s plenty I can’t reach, anyway.
My first attempt at rosehip jelly turned out more like a cross between jelly and syrup. Rosehips don’t have much pectin, but I didn’t have any to hand, so I threw some lemon juice in, and relied on boiling it down to get it to setting-point. This was probably the root of the problem. It was also a little too sweet (at 1 lb sugar to 1 pt juice).
My first attempt at hawthorn jelly turned into hawthorn toffee instead, and had to be boiled back out of the jar. Haws do have plenty of pectin, but more importantly, there was a small quantity to start with (so easier to make mistakes), and I got involved with something else and went slightly too long without checking on it. It was very tasty, though (at 0.75 lb sugar to 1 pt juice).
Last weekend, I had another go at rosehip jelly, but with a double-handful of haws in to provide the pectin. Initial tastings indicate that it’s done fairly well, although I thought I might have detected a slight underlying bitterness. I’ll see what happens when I finish the test-jellies and open one of the jars.
Basic recipe:
– Pick over the hips or haws. In theory you should pick off all the twig parts, but I only took out the worst of them, on the grounds that it gets sieved anyway.
– Put into a pan, and cover generously with water. Boil for a while, mashing with a potato masher after 10 min or so.
– Strain through a jelly bag (or a muslin cloth) after about 30 min. If you leave the bag to drip, the jelly will be clear, but you’ll have less of it. I always squeeze, myself. If you haven’t got time to finish the job today, you can put the juice in the fridge overnight at this point.
– Put the juice into a pan with 0.8 lb sugar to 1 pt juice (this is my current ratio; experiment according to the sweetness of your tooth). Rosehips need either added pectin, or pectin-containing sugar.
– Bring to a boil and simmer until it sets. Test for setting by spooning a dab onto a plate and leaving it for a minute. Pull your finger across the dab, and if it wrinkles, it’s good to go.
– Put into sterilised jars (sterilise by washing with hot water and putting in a 100deg oven until dry, after which you must REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE HOT), put a jam paper circle over the top, and screw on the lid.
– Label once cool.
(It’s only free-ish because the sugar costs money.)
Down the allotment this week (at sunset in only a T-shirt — in October!), I noticed that the raspberries are cropping again. Admittedly they are autumn raspberries, but ‘autumn’ in raspberry parlance usually means August/September, not October/November. They’re not as sweet as the earlier ones, possibly because less sun means less sugar developing, but they’re big and juicy and still quite tasty. I reckon I’ll get at least another pot-full, and maybe two.I also harvested what I think will be the last couple of smallish courgettes. There are still some more setting on the plant, but it’s late enough in the season that the insects aren’t really doing the pollination job any more; one of the harvested ones obviously hadn’t been pollinated properly. I’ll leave the plants for a bit longer, but I think that’s it. The end of October is very late to be harvesting courgettes, though!The chard is doing nicely, as are my late planting of broad beans (not a huge crop, but worth the effort of chucking a few seeds in the soil in August, I think). It’s also time to cut back the asparagus and shovel a good helping of compost over it; to dig up the last of the potatoes; and to finally tackle the Horseradish Horror (planted several years ago, and never dug up since digging up one of the four took so much effort).
The season is definitely turning, and it’s time to think about planting on the allotment for autumn and winter.
For me, autumn planting falls into two categories: things which you can plant now to harvest in the spring; and things which you can plant now to harvest over the autumn and winter, possibly with the help of a cold frame or two.
In the first category, this year I’m intending to plant broad beans and early peas in November, as usual; onions, after reading something suggesting that you can get an early spring crop with certain varieties planted in October; and purple sprouting broccoli.
I’m intending to plant lots of broad beans this year; previous years have seen only a few, and they don’t crop all that heavily. They finish very early, so something else can use the same ground afterwards. I also have a catch crop of broad beans in currently (planted in August) which may yet produce the odd bean if it stays mild and the sun comes out.
In the second category, there’s kale, broccoli raab (which will probably do better in a cold frame), mustard greens, and pak choi. All of which I’ve tried before with varying levels of success.
More experimentally, I’m going to try an October sowing of carrots and turnips, to see how they do. They’re unlikely to get very big, but apparently a late sowing of carrots can yield a few small but tasty roots, so we’ll see what happens.
And there is, of course, all the usual tidying-up to do: dig up the potatoes and other roots, cut back the asparagus, mulch various things with compost, pick the rhubarb (and make jam!), dig up the horseradish that has now been there for 2 years due to being enormous and very difficult to extract, cut back blackberries and raspberries and dig out any rogue interlopers, prune the blackcurrant bush and perhaps the apple tree… Still busy despite the end of the main growing season!
Having harvested a handful of new potatoes from the balcony the other week (and then having to deal with the ants’ nest thereby uncovered), I then noticed that I still have a couple of seed potatoes left from earlier in the season, which whilst a little wrinkled look basically still sound. Then, I came across a blog post talking about planting potatoes entirely out of season for a Christmas harvest.
This fits nicely with my beliefs about experimental gardening, so I’m off this afternoon to dump the earth back in the potato-box, and see what happens. I will report back.
In other balcony-gardening news: the red arrow-head lettuce appears to be flowering and setting seed (much to my pleasure), as is the dill (which pretty much just bolted the moment it was a real plant). I shall try planting some more of both.
The cherry tomatoes are doing well (2–4 to harvest daily, which isn’t bad at this time of year), and are still busily setting more of themselves. I am tempted to try planting seeds from the earliest-growing one (a Peace Vine Cherry), to see if I can get a second batch of plants to provide a late harvest. It might, of course, just be a late harvest of green tomatoes; but this would suit me fine, as I very much like green tomato chutney and I’ve just eaten the last of last year’s.
It may already be the end of July, but it’s not too late to plant a few salad leaves for this season. Unlike a lot of vegetables, which really do need the whole of the summer to produce a reasonable crop, loose salad leaves are sufficiently fast-cropping to be worth planting in July or even August.
Rocket germinates very fast and is worth planting at nearly any time of year. Throw a few rocket seeds into a pot or into the ground, cover lightly with soil and water in well, and you should start to see seedlings within a week or two. Rocket is actually better started either well after midsummer (so, about now) or well before it (early spring), as around June it will bolt (run to seed) much faster.
Leaf lettuces (lettuces that grow lots of single leaves rather than forming a ‘head’) are a better bet than headed lettuces for late planting, as you can start picking leaves as soon as there are a handful of true leaves on the plant. Lollo rosso is one popular option; as is royal oakleaf. Real Seeds sell ‘Bronze Arrowhead’ oakleaf lettuce seeds. I’ve had great success growing these lettuces at all times of year, and they taste great; however, they do take a while to germinate.
Most lettuces, helpfully, are at least a bit frost-hardy, so you can expect them to keep cropping well into the autumn. You can extend this further by building a cold frame. Last year I had rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce growing throughout the winter, even when it snowed. The plants outside the cold frame survived, but didn’t grow any new leaves until the spring.
Finally, if you have any pea seeds left over, or can get hold of some, they’re also worth planting late. Some mange tout may yet produce a proper crop (experiment!), but at the very least, you can harvest and eat the pea tops as salad.
