We're screening the Age of Stupid on 2nd June, 6pm, John Clare Theatre, Peterborough Central Library - it's free to come along!

I swish, you swish, we all swish, hurrah!

I have just been to my first swish...and it was amazing!!!

The Green Fetsival is in full swing now - we are a whole 4 days in!! The launch was a super fantastical sucess and tonight we held our Swish. (Find out more about the Green Fetsival at www.pect.org.uk/greenfestival)

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about a swish is a posh clothes swap for ladies. It involves wine, nibbles and lots of clothes on rails just waiting to be swapped and given a new lease of life by someone else!

The environmental benefits of swishing include that it's about reuse rather than buy, buy, buy. The other benefit is that it's a fun free way to a new wardrobe.

Read more about swishing here.

Anyway, I am very excited because I picked up some amazing items at the swish. I took six items (two bags, three skirts and a jacket) and picked up two new items that I love.

I was also very pleased that an old favourite that I unfortunately no longer fit into (lovely brown jacket) found a good home with Nicola Francis from Travel Choice!

The two items I got were a beautiful new dress (long story but it belonged to a colleague of mine and I have been covetting it for a year now, I thought someone else had swished it out from under my nose but my Mum did a proper 'mum search' of the rails and found it hiding!) and some ace new summer jeans...See pic - sorry it's a bit rubbish I took it on my phone.

Some thanks...to Sue Donnelly of Accentuate (fab style consultant) for being our compare for the evening, to ESP magazine for getting on board, to Cargo for lending us the mirrors, to swap-a-frock for buying the wine, to Sue Ryder vintage and retro shop for lending us the rails, to Peterborough museum and art gallery for the venue, to Riverford Organic Vegetables for the delicious snacks, to Lush for the freebies, to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph for covering the event and brining along some great clothes to swap, to Waitrose for lending us the wine glasses, to H&M for lending us the hangers, to Futerra for coming up with the concept of swishing, and finally, to everyone who attended the event!

I hope this has inspired you to hold your own swish - find out more here...

The Evening Telegraph...

The ET is doing a green themed feature for every day of the Green Festival 2009!

There is some really interesting stuff, and it's all been put together by our favourite features writer, Hannah Gray - we love you Hannah!

Check out the first two below and check www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk for the latest ones.

Cooking your greens...

Green Godesses!

Green Festival booklet available…

The booklet, which includes full listings of all the family friendly events and activities taking place during the fortnight long Festival, can be picked up from a variety of locations including: Libraries, Tourist Information, Peterborough Museum and Queensgate.

Organised by Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT), the Festival has a food theme this year – ‘Grow It, Cook It, Eat It. There will be events held from Saturday 23rd May – Sunday 7th June across the City including a Chop ‘n’ Chat hosted by Riverford Organic Vegetables, Green Backyard growing days, fun nature trails, a cycle the Green Wheel event, an eco-supermarket sweep at Tesco in Hampton, an Gorgeous and Green fashion show at Queensgate, and a frock swap, as well as lots more.

The food theme is an important one for the City, with recent figures showing high levels of childhood obesity and younger mortality rates due to poor diets.
Janine Starling from PECT explains, “This year the Festival is all about being a little healthier, saving money and caring for the environment. Growing and eating your own food is not only good exercise and good fun, but it also means you spend less in the supermarkets and it’s really satisfying sitting down for a meal you have grown yourself.
“The Festival launch on Saturday 23rd May in the City Centre will see the streets transformed into hubs to get people learning about growing, cooking and eating food. There will be garden experts form Garden Answers magazine on hand to provide advice, chefs from Riverford Organic Vegetables doing cooking demonstrations and the chance to plant your own seeds and take them home with you.”
Peterborough Primary Care Trust are supporting the Green Festival 2009, Nazia Hasan from the organisation said, “We are delighted to be supporting the Green Festival this year because healthy eating and living are such important issues for Peterborough in order to maintain a healthy weight and healthy lifestyle”

The Festival kicks off with the launch event on Saturday 23rd May in the City Centre, followed by a fortnight of events around Peterborough. All launch day activities run from 10am-4pm, and are free and ideal for families.

Full details of the event can also be found by visiting: www.pect.org.uk/greenfestival The website also features hints and tips on growing your own food, greening your wardrobe and gardening in small spaces.

Same great veg, slightly different name…

Local seasonal, organic vegbox scheme River Nene Organic Veg has changed its name to Riverford.

The local food experts, who are supporting this year’s Peterborough Green Festival, will be demonstrating how to cook healthy, easy meals, using locally grown food, at the Festival launch on Saturday 23rd May (you will find them in the ‘eat it’ hub in Queensgate Shopping Centre from 10am).

They have suggestions on how to make your five a day effortless. From soups, smoothies, salads and preserves, to quiche, risotto, and pasta, the possibilities are endless!

Riverford grow most of their produce at Sacrawell Farm and they supply their customers in Cambridgeshire with a box packed full of fresh, organic fruit and veg every week. They also offer organic and local ale, fruit juices, dairy and meat products. Getting healthy ingredients delivered in one box alongside a recipe suggestion makes life easy for Riverford’s customers.

One such recipe is their asparagus with lemon crumbs (takes just fifteen minutes to make and serves four)

Ingredients

2 slices of wholemeal bread,

crusts removed1 garlic clove,

1 tsp salt, 1 tsp thyme leaves

1/2 tsp rosemary leaves, chopped,

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed

50g butter, cut into cubes

50g parmesan, grated

Instructions

1. To prepare the asparagus, wash and exert gentle pressure at the bottom of each spear until it snaps/breaks where it is tender.

2. Preheat the oven to 275°C. Put the bread, garlic, salt, herbs, lemon zest and olive oil in a food processor and whizz until breadcrumbs form. Scatter the crumbs on a shallow tray and bake in the oven until golden brown.

3. Blanch the asparagus for 4-6 minutes. Then put the lemon juice in a small pan and whisk in the butter over a medium heat. Remove from the heat when the butter has melted.

4. Place the asparagus spears on plates, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and parmesan. Drizzle with the lemon butter and serve.

You can find more quick, easy, local food recipes from Riverford by visiting http://www.riverfordsacrewell.co.uk/

Big Lunch...

The Eden Project team are running their Big Lunch campaign for the first time this year. Peterborough is getting on board, and even better the idea behind the Big Lunch ties in perfectly with the Green Festival 2009 theme - grow it, cook it, eat it!

The idea of the Big Lunch is that neighbours hold street parties and enjoy a bring and share lunch made up from home grown things...

Taking place on 19 July, The Big Lunch aims to bring together as many of the 61 million people in the UK, to simultaneously eat lunch with their neighbours. There are lots of ways for people to get involved, from growing their own food and flowers to forming a band or creating a piece of pavement art.

Paul Twivy, CEO of The Big Lunch, commented: “Let’s all express our talents, get over our embarrassment, shake hands and work with our neighbours and realise that the neighbourhood where we live is the biggest untapped source of happiness we possess. The way to tackle this recession and global warming is through Human Warming.”

Eden Project Chief Executive, Tim Smit, commented: “Imagine a summer's day on which millions of us, throughout the UK, sit down to have lunch together with our neighbours: in the middle of our streets, around our tower blocks and on every patch of common ground. The food, entertainment, music and decorations we will have grown, cooked, or created ourselves. This will be a day to break bread with our neighbours, to put a smile on Britain's face.”

The Green Festival is the perfect opportunity for you to find out about growing your own food, pick up free vegetable seeds, and learn from gardening experts. The two week Festival launches on 23rd May for a day of activities and events around the grow it, cook it, eat it theme. Head down to Bridge Street, Queensgate and the Cathedral Grounds for the launch on Saturday 23rd May. Look out for events over the next fortnight accross the city.

The event is being supported by Riverford Organic Vegetables, Opportunity Peterborough, and the Peterborough Primary Care Trust.

Zero Waste Places Peterborough...update

Read all about the sucess of the Zero Waste Places project here...

The project (or this phase of it) is coming to an end now after achieving masses of sucess in the shape of thousands of tonnes of waste prevented from ending up in landfill. What's more the project hasn't just stopped the stuff from being landfilled through recycling, it's stopped it being created in the first place!

Peterbrough was selected as one of six areas in the UK to become a Zero Waste Place and trial innovative methods of reduce, reuse and recycle. The initiatve has been funded by Defra and the project in Peterborough has been managed by Peterborough Environment City Trust, the environmental charity working to create the UK's Environment Capital in the city.

Defra has been so impressed by Peterborough's progress that the Minister for Waste will be in the city to see first-hand what we've done on 28th April.

Read more...

Eco Easter...review of chocolate vs packaging...

The Peterbrough Evening Telegraph has been reviewing which Easter eggs to buy and which to avoid based on their packaging...

Find out more here...

And tips on having a green Easter here...

WE20

Hold your own G20 meeting...meet with up to 20 others and come up with your own plan, then share it with the community.

The organisres thought it was a better response for us to make than protest or culture jamming or petitioning. Do check it out at we20.org

Polar bears in Peterborough...?

A new project will create artificial habitats for Polar Bears...
Melting polar ice-caps and displaced polar bears have become the iconic images of climate change. Human activity has created harmful CO2 emissions, that in turn has caused global warming, increasingly erratic weather patterns and melting ice caps. All this has put the natural habitats of polar bears at risk.

A new project in Peterborough, the city that is aiming to become the UK’s Environment Capital, will see the creation of an artificial habitat for displaced polar bears.

A section of the River Nene Washes will be frozen to re-create the natural habitat of polar bears. A trial will then be held with four zoo reared bears to ensure the project works successfully. Once the trial has been completed, and as long as no major complications arise, a number of wild polar bears will be released into the area.

The Nene Washes is one of the finest areas of floodplain meadows in the UK spanning over 20 kilometres. A section of the site, which has been carefully selected by scientists, has been set aside for the project.

Carbon dioxide will be captured from the city’s factories and processed to create dry ice with a temperature of -80 oC. The dry-ice will then be used to create an artificial Arctic climate in the specified section of the Washes...

More...