Wave magazine

Katie Glass tries her hand at the dark arts – and all for the sake of saving energy

“Less is more” is always my mantra when it comes to ecomatters. As in, the less I have to do, the more I like it.

Eco may be chic-o but it is also a pain in the ass; so after my last two green efforts embroiled me in washing-up the rubbish (recycling) and struggling through town heaped in junk (not using a carrier bag), this time I was looking for an easier eco task.

Could I be environmentally active in a way that involved doing nothing at all? I wondered. And then a light bulb went off. No, not in my head, in my hall. And (ironically) I saw the light.

Even someone as un-environmentally-aware as I has noticed that eco warriors are switched on to the idea of switching the lights off. Maybe you remember that whole Lights Out London event, when even Buckingham Palace agreed to flick the switch off for one night?

OK, so I wasn’t sure exactly what the fuss was about, but I was sure I could manage a week in the dark. And incredibly I was right. After taking the precaution of removing all the light bulbs in the house – so I wouldn’t be tempted to cheat – I quickly learnt that living without light was easy. Actually, I rather enjoyed it. I flung open the curtains to make the most of the daylight and found myself waking up in a room flooded with sunlight. I sat at my desk captivated by the afternoon sky as it gently faded to grey. In the evenings I lit candles, sending wafts of votive fragrances drifting from room to room. It was all rather romantic, idyllic even.

True, stumbling up the stairs of a blackened hallway in fourinch stilettos at 3am was not without its hazards. But ultimately I found my ankles, and my resolve, to be remarkably resilient.

‘In the evenings I lit candles, sending wafts of votive fragrances drifting from room to room. It was all rather romantic, idyllic even’

By the end of the week I had become a master of the dark arts. Thrilled with my efforts I called my hippy ex-boy to boast. But as I basked in the natural glow of my own glory he interrupted, “Is there something wrong with your phone? I keep hearing a humming behind you?”

“Oh, that’s just the fridge,” I explained. “I’ve got it open so I can read my book for a bit.”

The line was quiet.

“Or maybe it’s the telly,” I offered. “I’ve been keeping it on so I can find my way across the sitting room. Or it could be the stereo. I’ve got it on loud because I got a bit nervous sitting in the dark alone. Or maybe it’s my laptop?”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Um, do you know why you’ve been living without light for a week?” he tentatively asked. I had to admit that no I didn’t, but I did know that Buck Palace had done it.

“Is it because the dolphins don’t like it too bright?” I hazarded a guess.

He took a deep breath and gently explained the concept of “Energy Saving” as my cheeks burnt red in the cool breeze of the fridge (still open).

I hung up the phone, embarrassed, gently closed the fridge door, turned off the telly and crawled into bed. But not even the soft black space under the duvet could hide what I realised I had known all along. That with eco issues – like with everything else – less can only ever mean less.

Richard Fishbourne, of natural gardening mailorder company Wiggly Wigglers, on controlling slug invasions

I was recently chatting to a friend of mine who has an allotment in Manchester. Mike, who led a team of physicists in his professional life, equates gardening to physics. It’s all about deducing the most effective means of achieving goals, and the stimulation comes from overcoming the challenges of the gardening processes. Mike doesn’t garden organically – he still insists that the only solution for blasting slimy invaders is to liberally scatter little blue bullets around his prize veg; slug control is his Achilles heel.

Admittedly, one of the hardest things to swallow is seeing your lovingly grown greens systematically munched away by the local wildlife. However, whilst not as simple as scattering poisoned pellets around, there are many creative ways of controlling pests. Barriers – be they in the form of copper straps, wood ash, bran or baked, scrunched-up egg shells – can be a little more expensive than slug bait, but work extremely well.

“One of the hardest things to swallow is seeing your lovingly grown greens systematically munched away by the local wildlife”

Nematodes, which are microscopic slug parasites, exist naturally in the soil and are commercially available as a powder. Stir it into water and use a watering can to introduce them into the soil. The next generation of spinach-munchers will be bumped off in a matter of days. Another really neat trick for controlling slugs is to simply amputate a plastic water bottle and fill the shallow dish with some beer, and put it into the ground. Just ensure the lip of the dish is a couple of centimetres above the ground, so that non-target species like ground beetles don’t inadvertently plummet to an inebriated end.

I spend my pest control life in a constant state of dilemma. I can’t use beer traps because I worry that our incumbent glow worms might attach themselves to an unwitting big old garden snail which fancies a swig and end up in the drink with the snail.

One real quandary came when I was picking caterpillars from my brassicas one day, only to notice a tiny parasitic wasp adhered to said pest, curling its abdomen around to impregnate a hapless leaf lover with its egg. This egg would subsequently hatch and the wasp larvae would then feast on its host from the inside out! Of course, if I kept picking caterpillars I may well have been compromising the reproduction of this ‘pillar’ of garden allies – so what to do? I had to forsake my grub-picking ritual but, you know what? I still had a glut of purple sprouting broccoli the following year.

Lewes-based mother-of-three, Tallulah Ellender, is suffering from sleep deprivation

It is impossible to write about parenting without discussing sleep – or rather, the lack of it. The subject is a tricky minefield of opinion, emotion and desperate measures. No other topic of conversation seems to veer so quickly from problem-airing to heckle-raising disagreement. However much we acknowledge that we are all just doing our best, this goes deep. (Unlike my sleep.)

“I crawl out from under the duvet in denial that it could actually be the end of what was supposed to be sleep time”

Parents are divided into two camps: one lets their children ‘cry-it-out’, and the other (my camp) follows the idea of attachment parenting – responding to our children’s night-time calls for help. Neither way is easy.

In my more twisted moments I imagine the former leaping out of bed, glowing after a full night’s sleep and tumbling gaily into their day. I, on the other hand, crawl out from under the duvet in denial that it could actually be the end of what was supposed to be sleep time, and stagger into the world blearyeyed and blotchy-minded. But, and for me it’s a big but, I feel that sleep training weakens the bond of trust between parent and child.

I totally understand how debilitating sleep deprivation can be (apparently, it’s even acceptable in a court of law as a valid defence for some crimes). Relationships and work suffer in the fuzzy haze of perpetual sleeplessness, and we have less patience for the small beings at the heart of this dilemma.

We did try ‘controlled crying’ with our first son, but after an hour of his stomach-wrenching sobbing I tearfully vowed never to put him through it again. Other parents are made of tougher stuff and this method obviously works for them, but I just find it physically impossible to ignore a crying child. It seems to go against everything I have tried to be as a parent: responsive, empathetic, nurturing.

I did find a book that offered solutions for helping a child put themselves back to sleep – without any crying. Unfortunately, due to the large amount of preparation involved, I felt I should be going to bed with a clipboard and stopwatch. But it worked. Slowly. Mostly it made me feel like I at least had a plan, that I was empowering myself and my baby to move towards that elusive blissful night’s sleep.

I still envy those blessed with unbroken sleep, but crying it out is too high a price to pay.

Sian Jasper explains the Quaker way

For most people the word “Quaker” conjures up images of porridge oats and people in rural communities wearing old fashioned clothes and living in the past. Others believe that the movement died out centuries ago.

In fact the Quaker way is very much alive and is followed by approximately 25,000 people in the UK today. The porridge oats company has no connection with the Quaker movement and the people in bonnets are the Amish!

Quakers (officially called the Religious Society of Friends) were founded in Britain around 350 years ago. The basis of Quaker spirituality lies in the belief that it is the direct encounter with the Divine in the depths of our being, rather than reliance on either religious institutions or Holy Scriptures, which lies at the centre of human spiritual experience. Quakers often speak of the “Inner Light” of the Divine/Source/God/Spirit/Ultimate Reality that lives in the hearts of all people.

Quaker worship takes place mostly in silence. It is a silence of waiting in expectancy, uniting worshippers in a common purpose as they try to come nearer to each other and to God as they are caught up in the still spirit of the Meeting.

So do you have to be a Christian to be a Quaker? Certainly modern Quakers are indebted to the Christian heritage from which they came, and for some the teachings of Jesus are an important part of their lives. But for others the term “Christian” is a label which they are less comfortable with, and they prefer to use other language to describe their beliefs. Both of these positions are welcome within the Quaker community.

Quakers are also famous for their participation in humanitarian works. Quakers were at the forefront of the anti-slavery movement, have fought for the advancement of women’s rights and now continue to work to promote human rights and conflict resolution throughout the world.

Starting on 18 October, and for eight consecutive weeks, Brighton Quakers are running “Quaker Quest”, a series of open evenings where local Quakers will discuss aspects of Quaker spirituality and share with others how this has shaped their lives. There will be opportunities for discussions and questioning, as well as a chance to experience Quaker worship.

Meetings start at 7pm at Friends Meeting House, Ship Street, Brighton. Attendance is free and all are welcome.

For further information visit www.quakerquest.org and www.britainyearlymeeting.org.uk

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