10 signs you're a green gardener

Last week I was chatting with a colleague about silly mistakes that are often made when using technology – the sort of things we do once and immediately learn from. “Ah, a bit like me raking the lawn of petals last weekend and finding a bed of freshly-sown weeds days later”, I chimed in. 

Exactly that sort of thing, except I did it for the third year running this spring and have just spent a day undoing my unintentional weed-spreading. The garden is now a lot less weedy, but my limbs aren’t exactly grateful. Maybe next year I’ll catch myself in time before I rake. 

A day in the garden is always welcome, but I’m definitely still learning some absolute gardening basics. On Saturday, I was fascinated by a plant stall holder in Greenwich giving her thirsty plants a bath of water. She held the leaves out the way while she dunked each lavender plant in turn into a bucket of water and soaked its soil and roots. That reminded me that my neighbour Ann, who has little trouble maintaining a colourful balcony display of tomatoes, herbs and flowers at most times of the year, had previously advised me to water some of my windowsill seedlings from the bottom. I took her advice and used saucers of water for my herbs, but hadn’t extended the idea to the garden. I’ve been watering away and doing it all wrong. 

I’m learning though. I’ve managed to master the art of sheltering plants from wind and other elements having had a potentially great tomato harvest ruined by the howling winds. Windowsills, tops of cupboards and cheap plastic-coated patio greenhouses are now my friends. 

My potato-chitting skills are now second to none. I’m just hoping that the second batch of chitted spuds that went into potato growbags today are able to draw enough sustenance from the mix of compost and John Innes potting soil I ended up planting them in. I definitely need to gen up on soil types and which ones nurture which plant types.

I shan’t make last year’s mistake of trying to get more use out of bags of nutrient-rich soil than they have to give. If a pot uses up a whole 30-litre bag of compost, I’ll just have to go and get another bag of compost rather than adding dried up old soil and diluting the mix. The addition of roots and plant spores (always weeds) makes it a false economy – and often means the new plant withers rather than thrives.

Previous attempts to improve the soil in a particularly dry area of the garden proved fruitless, but the conifer that was sucking up all the moisture was taken out this winter. When I came to plant the nectarine tree I got from the excellent J Parker’s website, I found a stone-, weed- and rubble-free spot that apparently appreciated my previous attention. I was able to dig down the requisite spade-height-and-a-half and plant the nectarine tree in a pretty well-prepared spot. Thanks to a day of tree planting with The Woodland Trust, I knew exactly what to do. 

Greeting pastures new

After a year of working for myself - and for lots of clients, from the teeny to the enormous, I'm heading back into the world of paid employment.

I've had a lot of fun writing business advice articles, messing about with too-arty-for-their-own-good art brochure designs and simplifying needlessly complex websites. Blogging about community issues under various Twitter and anonymous guises has been very satisfying. Plans are afoot to continue these efforts with new impetus in the coming months. Look out for some exciting news about the Brockley Max arts festival and at least one new web-based venture from yours truly.

But it's tech knowledge that I'm known for - and where I shall once again be earning a crust. I'm joining the team at Computeractive magazine - the UK's biggest-selling computer magazine - looking after the features desk and bringing a few new ideas to a venerable title. 

Talking the tech talk

If you know me personally, you’ll know I’m rather a chatterbox. I don’t always mean to be, but I do talk a lot. So when I had the chance to review Blue Microphones’ Spark Digital device, it soon dawned on me that I could just as well create audio blog posts as written ones. I may as well try and commit some words to digital file.

I’ve always been more confident writing than I have speaking (chattering is nothing like the same thing as speaking clearly and authoritatively, after all). But lately I’ve been pondering podcasts for a few reasons. One is that I enjoy showing people how to use technology and that’s often done better on video with an accompanying voiceover than it is with just a written description.

Another is that I’d like to turn one of my Twitter feeds about local events into a listings and events site. A weekly podcast digest of what’s happening could be great.

Reviewing the Spark Digital microphone has got me into podcasting

The third is that I’ve been asked to be a speaker at a special event being put on in conjunction with the publishers of my about-to-be published book, 'iPad For The Older And Wiser, 3rd Edition' (I'm the co-author).

Being unused to such public-facing duties, the latter event is rather scary. But it’s important to challenge yourself every so often, and I think it will be a good thing for me to do. As I say, I may be good at chatting, but getting up in front of people and having them look at me and pay attention to what I have to say is a whole other matter. My school drama teacher reported that I was the shyest pupil she’d ever met.

Many years ago, when I was a Modern Languages student, I worked as a teaching assistant in several schools in Germany. I was scared stiff of speaking German and really struggled to find my feet when I first arrived in Munich. I had no accommodation arranged. My so-called mentor cancelled my lodgings when he returned from holiday to discover that, rather than the Oxbridge undergraduate he’d requested, his high-profile school had been allocated a timid student from a lesser institution. I met him perhaps once, two months into my 10-month stint at the tertiary college, and then only because I wandered into the Smoking Staffroom. I bet they still have one.

Thankfully, his colleagues were rather more welcoming and certainly felt they could make use of my native speaker status to benefit their students. Language teaching assistants are generally used to encourage conversation skills, taking small groups at a time and asking them to offer their opinions on a set topic or text. In the school in which I mainly worked, we were expected to source materials, plan lessons, explain tasks to the class and then run the lesson while the regular teacher looked on. It wasn’t an untrammelled success as my political and economic knowledge was no match for the adult students I encountered. But I could at least talk authoritatively about my mother tongue and about everyday life back home. It was a start.

I’m hoping that a similar process gradual increase in confidence will occur when I address the 150-or-so attendees at the U3A conference and talk to them about technology and how smartphones and tablets can fit neatly into their lives. After all, I’ve lived and breathed writing about such gadgets for more than a decade.

In the meantime, I’ve the perfect excuse to exercise my vocal chords and practice my lines. If you hear nothing more of my audiocasting endeavours, you'll know I tried and found podcasting wasn't for me. 

Bee walks for beginners

If one of your aims this year is to enjoy the outdoors more frequently, then Beewalks could be just the sort of prompt you need to get out and about regularly. A Beewalk is an hour-long amble through a pretty glade or other flowery spot. Armed with a crib sheet showing common bee types, you glance around you and note the number of bees you see and whether they are solitary or seen in clusters – on a gorse bush, for instance.

Beewalks are undertaken once a month and it’s best if you aim for a similar time of day each time. That way you get a better idea of whether bee numbers at that location are up or down. You also give yourself the perfect reason to go and spend time at one of your favourite spots. The beauty of the scheme is that you choose your own study location and the emphasis is on it being somewhere you can get to conveniently and regularly. Local parks and riverbanks are a good option.

Beewalks were set up by researchers at the University of Stirling and are a direct response to the sharp fall in honey bees in the UK (as well as many other countries). We need bees to pollinate flowers and fruit. Numbers have seemingly dropped off alarmingly. The BBCT (Bumblebee Conservation Trust) acts as a public census to discover just how widespread the decimation of the bumblebee population may be, and whether all varieties of bumblebee are affected. Ideally, you’ll log details of your Beewalk findings over successive years, so a picture can be built up of how your local bee population is doing. Results are collated on a national map.

In the three years that the scheme has been running, BBCT volunteers have made some unexpected discoveries. Several types of bee that were prevoiously thought rare have been found in strong numbers. Bees have also been seen outside their traditional March to September active periods. Winter bees are also now being enthusiastically logged, though beewalkers aren’t expected to commit to braving the harsh winter weather to confirm such sightings.

The discovery of a broader than expected range of bumblebees prompted the Beewalk organisers to add another option to the public survey: photography. This less formal bee sighting scheme is an ideal way of letting the Bumblebee Conservation Trust know about your bee sightings. Confirmed sightings of bees via the BeeWatch help the BBCT build up distribution patterns, says Elaine O’Mahony, the organisation’s surveys officer. Of course you also learn to distinguish bee types as you go, and have a great excuse to practice your close-up photography.

To find out more about Beewatch see this PowerPoint slide. 

Valentine’s Day chocolate-mint roulade

Cooking with chocolate is never a chore. So when I got wind of some recipes based on lighter-than-air Aero chocolate, I needed little persuading to give it a go. Before Christmas, I went along to the Bar Of Aero pop-up chocolate palace [video link] at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane and marvelled at the bubbly creations a professional cocktail mixologist was able to conjure up. The hot chocolate fountain was pretty good too [see photo below]. 

Back at home, I wasn’t able to master the art of forcing enough air into whipped up Aero-based milkshakes to recreate those bubbly cocktails, but the idea of making fun recipes using the chocolate stuck with me. These recipes are a little simpler – and ideal for impressing your other half on Valentine’s Day.

Chocolate Aero Meringue Roulade - the professional version

Grating Aero is good fun. I recommend the larger cutter size on your grater (the one you’d use for cheese rather than lemon zest) as the chocolate can easily get stuck in smaller grater teeth. It’s surprising how much chocolate equals the 25g called for in the recipe I followed for a meringue roulade topped with Mint Aero.

I couldn’t resist adding some more grated chocolate to the meringue mixture itself to give it a lovely mint-choc flavour. 

You might need a couple of attempts at rolling up the meringue once you’ve smothered it with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, but the results are tasty. 

My first attempt at the Chocolate Aero Meringue Roulade

Here's the recipe

Chocolate Aero Meringue Roulade

25g coarsely grated Mint Chocolate Aero, plus some for the topping

3 egg whites

175g caster sugar

2 teaspoon of corn flour

1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar

1teaspoon of vanilla extract

284ml carton of double cream, whipped until stiff

300g strawberries

icing sugar 

- Preheat the oven to 140-degrees C or gas mark 2

- line a 33x23cm baking tray or flat tin with baking parchment

- whisk egg whites until really stiff peaks appear

- whisk in caster sugar a tablespoon at a time

- whisk in cornflour, white wine vinegar and vanilla extract

- whisk in the sneaky extra 25g of grated Mint Chocolate Aero [optional but recommended]

- spoon mixture into prepared baking tin and gently level out using a spatula

- bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes or until surface is just firm

- dust a sheet of baking parchment with icing sugar

- remove meringue from the oven and cover with a damp sheet of baking parchment for 10 minutes

- discard the damp parchment paper and turn out the meringue onto the icing-sugared parchment

- peel off the parchment the meringue was cooked on

- spread whipped double cream over the meringue

- hull and halve or quarter the strawberries, then scatter them over the meringue

- use the parchment underneath the meringue to help you gently roll it up

- carefully transfer your roulade on to a serving plate and sprinkle with more grated Mint Choc Aero

Trying the hot chocolate fountain
at the Bar Of Aero

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post, though I’d gladly have tried the recipes and written about them here anyway

Lewisham A&E emergency measures

Lewisham A and E is a huge asset - let's keep it that way

By now, you may well have heard of Lewisham and its residents' campaign to save the hospital at the heart of it. I jolly well hope so. Campaigners have made an awful lot of noise about it - and well they ought. Lewisham's Accident and Emergency department is pretty good (it recently had a multi-million-pound refurbishment). 

Even so, the A and E, the lifeblood of the hospital itself - one of the top 40 in the UK - is earmarked for closure. Why? Because its neighbouring healthcare trust is broke and the government needs to save face. The special administrator tasked with tackling crippling debts at hospitals in Greenwich and Bromley can come up with "no alternative" than to get rid of a flagship hospital in order to keep a failed one open.

Protestors on the march against proposals to close Lewisham A&E

Lewisham Hospital is not in debt. It is both solvent and well-managed, as independent reports attest. It's also well-located at the centre of the borough. If the A and E goes, the maternity unit will have to go too. Complications with births and in neonatal units demand ready access to emergency blood supplies and emergency care equipment and staff. Lewisham would therefore become an urgent care unit. At present, 70 percent of local pregnancies are handled here at Lewisham - 4000 a year. Lewisham already takes patients other hospitals can't; we need more resources in south and south-east London, not fewer. 

The hospital is also an important resource for the elderly - its location and the fact it's on multiple bus routes accessible from almost anywhere within the borough as well as further afield are critical. Lewisham isn't a rich borough and it's the vulnerable and the elderly who are most likely to need its emergency care services, in particular. For many, private cars and taxis aren't within their financial grasp.

Getting to the proposed alternative - Queen Elizabeth II Hospital on Woolwich Common - will involve two buses for most people. Allow at least 40 minutes on a good day; more if it's rush hour. Or if you live some way from a bus route heading that way. The 54 bus route from Lewisham is probably the most direct. Or you can take the 108 and change at Blackheath Standard and get another bus along the top of Charlton. 

There's a train from Lewisham station to Woolwich Arsenal. The half-hourly direct service deposits you in the centre of Woolwich. It's a long, steep hill or an £8 cab ride from there to QEH II, which sits resplendent in the middle of nowhere in particular. Not so practical if you're a new mum with a buggy and a sick child in need of urgent medical attention. Or a pensioner who uses a stick or a wheelchair.

London Ambulance Service has expressed grave concern at the longer journey times involved in getting emergency patients to Woolwich. Shooters Hill Road and the alternative, the South Circular, are both frequently snarled up. King's College Hospital in Denmark Hill is some way off too, as is the next nearest option, Guys & St Thomas' in central London. 

The savings to be made from the proposed Lewisham A and E closure aren't exactly compelling. £195m to implement them and £15.9m per year saved thereafter. That's even taking into account the money raised from selling off 60 percent of the current Lewisham Hospital site. It should make a fair amount - it overlooks a pretty public park which volunteers and council workers paid the minimum wage have spent the past three years landscaping and making into a lovely area in which locals can stroll, cycle and enjoy the wildlife.

Woolwich's hospital is also on a desirable patch for developers, of course, with enviable views across London. But it can't be sold. It's an asset tied up in a PFI contract for which Queen Elizabeth II's namesake is massively in hock.

Were Lewisham and Woolwich intrinsically linked - perhaps by dint of being part of the same healthcare trust - there might be some justice in sacrificing a highly performing, well-respected and solvent hospital in order to save one that was funded in the wrong way from the outset and is difficult to get to even for those who live close by. A few years ago I lived two miles away from QEH II in Plumstead. Getting there was a schlep even from there. If anywhere locally has to become a non-emergency site, then Woolwich would arguably be a better choice. 

But we shouldn't even be having the debate. Lewisham is not part of the same healthcare trust as the failed QEH II. And it's a demonstrably better hospital serving its residents admirably and showing how good the NHS can be. Yet this Friday the health secretary Jeremy Hunt will declare whether or not he intends to adopt the recommendations of special administrator Matthew Kershaw and consign one of the country's best-run hospitals to history. 

Should Hunt decide to forge ahead with the ill-conceived plan, it's likely there'll be a legal challenge over whether one NHS trust can be sacrificed to save another - imagine the outcry if Essex was robbed to bail out Norfolk. Ridiculous, isn't it? That's what the government's special administrator is trying to do to Lewisham A and E. 

20,000 people turned out to protest at the absurdity last weekend; I'm sure many of the drivers cruising past us as we marched past our hospital had come out just to slow down and sound their horns in support. 

Regardless of party allegiance, politicians and spokespeople have pledged their support for Lewisham. Every speaker on the recent Question Time debate expressed their horror at Kershaw's nonsensical plans. Newspaper article after newspaper article has queried the wisdom of the proposed closure. There's a succinct visual summary of what's happening here.

Our fight is being seen as a test case as similar A&E and departmental cuts to perfectly good hospitals are being proposed up and down the land. This despite the government underspending its allocated budget to the tune of £1.3bn last year. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a former local resident, called the proposal "scandalous". He's absolutely right. 

If you agree, please sign the petition against Kershaw's plans to close Lewisham A and E. 

Tangerine and ginger cake

Just after New Year I was in the mood for making a cake, but wasn’t sure I had a suitable combination of ingredients. I had a bowlful of bananas, grapefruit, oranges and tangerines. Of those, oranges sounded most promising. I was after a change from lemon drizzle and banana cake - my staples.

I soon found Dan Lepard's tempting orange cake recipe on The Guardian website, but didn't have enough oranges alone. Never mind, double cream aside I had all the other ingredients, including fresh ginger and cinnamon. And tangerines could easily make up the orange quotient. I'd make a store cupboard cake based on what I had left from Christmas. Much nicer than turkey risotto or Brussels sprouts fritters.

Aside from the six tangerines I used to compensate for the three missing oranges (from the total of five), I largely stuck to Dan's ingredient list. I omitted the walnuts, however. 

I discovered that getting the rind off six tiny tangerines takes a fair while. It’s not really worth measuring the amount of liquid the oranges and tangerines produces either. I had just the right amount (150ml) if I used three tangerines and two large oranges, but the additional juice from the other three tangerines would have made for a slightly moister, more tangy taste. I’d probably add a bit more ginger too.

Boiling the orange and caster sugar and then melting in small chunks of unsalted butter made a nice change from lots of whipping and whisking. The only time I had to whisk was when adding the eggs to the cooled down liquid. I then transferred the lot to a large mixing bowl to add the flour (Dan seems to have mixed everything together in the pan).

Since I was making a round cake rather than a deeper loaf, cooking took 40 minutes rather than the expected 50 mins. The aroma when it came out the oven was great, but the cake needs a good 30 minutes to cool. 

The first slice confirmed my thoughts about whether I should have added the extra juice. Next time I’ll include a little more in the cake mix and then drizzle over the remainder when the cake is on the cooling rack but still warm. (On this occasion I made the cake just before going out for the evening with my friend Vicky, so I wasn’t able to pour over the extra juice).

The texture and taste of this cake was pleasing though. It was light and rose well in the oven. I added a buttercream icing filling. Its sweetness complimented the slightly tart and zingy orange flavour very well. I'll make this tangerine and ginger cake again and probably tinker some more. 

Ingredients for my version (Dan's recipe is here)

5 oranges or 10 tangerines or clementines (feel free to mix and match your orange citrus fruit)

3cm fresh stem ginger, grated

225g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter

325g self-raising flour

3 eggs

75ml double cream

Buttercream icing

8oz icing sugar

4oz softened butter

50ml milk

Greenwich: farewell my favourite high street

Greenwich Park and the equestrian events were arguably the jewel of our Olympic summer. The beautiful parkland setting with the Palladian architecture as its background was magnificent.

Yet few visitors who came to Greenwich to watch those unforgettable Games were able to enjoy Greenwich's other 'pull' - the historic markets and boutique shops. The organisers set up the flow of Olympic visitors such that the Georgian-fronted shops were largely inaccessible, blocked by sturdy plastic barriers. Nor did it help that months before the Games arrived, Greenwich Council waved through the installation of four prominent chain restaurants adjacent to the ferry embarkation point. Nando's, Zizzi, Byron Burger and Ben & Jerry's now dominate the waterfront, spoiling the vista over to the Docklands from the newly restored Cutty Sark. Judging from the queues on New Year’s Day, they’re pulling in a lot of Greenwich trade too.

In my week as a London 2012 Ambassador, my volunteer partner and I stood by the gates to the Old Royal Naval College valiantly trying to tell visitors that the Greenwich they wanted to see - and where they could get an authentic local meal or coffee - was just beyond the Cutty Sark in the lovely old buildings and market back streets.

Unfortunately, the protestations of Greenwich shop keepers and locals did little to prevent what should have been a bumper summer for Greenwich becoming a damp squib. As Greenwich Phantom argues, the Olympics were more of a tipping point than anything, but poor Greenwich is being increasingly 'blandified'.

Bullfrogs clothes emporium closing 15th February due to building demolition

Economic pressures up and down the land are hurting every high street. The internet and out of town retail parks don't help. But New Year's Day brought a terrible surprise: the excellent Bullfrogs clothes and accessories emporium - a stalwart of Greenwich Church Street for 23 years - is being forced to close. (Its footwear shop is at least staying.)

In this case, it’s because the building owner is demolishing the block and rebuilding it as something else. A row of shops in the heart of Greenwich adjacent to the main covered market, including the swish Chelsea upholsterers, is being forced to close. Speaking to the understandably upset shop owner today, I learned that there’s nothing they can do, as there’s no preservation order to prevent the building’s demolition, and the fact there’s a branch of Bullfrogs in Clapham probably precludes the Greenwich outlet reopening elsewhere. Sales are in decline everywhere and this forced closure means relocation just won’t happen. 

High rents have always been a problem for Greenwich shopkeepers, but in this case, a much-loved shop is going to the wall seemingly needlessly.

Given the recent closure of also long-established Bar Du Musee and its neighbours on Nelson Road, with signs stating Jamie Oliver’s Italian chain is coming soon, I suspect a similar reinvention will befall Bullfrogs’ former home. Italian restaurant Sotteri’s threw in the towel in September (the cheeky food champ’s arrival on the same street can be no coincidence), while our favourite Thai restaurant, Kuang Luang on Creek Road is now boarded up.

Costa Coffee has opened up where the old newsagent used to be, and has further expanded upstairs in Waterstones – book sales are in decline too, of course. And I couldn’t bear to ask the three people in the process of removing the ice cream cabinet and other items from the now bare Beachcomber Fish Café whether the clear-out is in preparation for a refit. I think I know the answer and it’s just too sad to hear.

The final fittings were being removed from Beachcomber Seafood Cafe this lunchtime

The problem with passwords

Passwords are a modern-day menace. I'm sure they trip up the user far more often than they foil a would-be online Peeping Tom. Because passwords are easily hacked, website creators delight in forcing their visitors to type in all manner of complex character combinations. Visit 10 websites and you'll surely encounter eight different password creation and login rules.

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This morning I wanted to make use of the free pattern downloads at the Rowan website, for example. Registered users can view and download a free pattern each month and the yarn site maintains an archive you can browse. Having requested a password reminder, I had seven attempts to create an acceptable password that was long enough, had numerals, upper-case characters and 'formatting' - and I'd still have a shot at remembering next time I visited the site. I think I know why I can't remember the password I chose last time I visited the site - they've made it far too complex and put me off a return visit for several more months.

For years, I refused to allow websites to keep me logged in. I've accidentally posted a blog comment and '+1ed' a story on Google. No harm done. I take greater issue with 'liking' on Facebook since it's so often used by marketeers in a scurrilous fashion and 'click-jacking' has become a common threat.

The auto-login of my email account or Twitter feed are greater issues, so I try and keep both logged out. I could use a secure password tool such as 1Password, but I'm not comfortable logging in once and thereafter being logged in to every account I've associated it with.

After an apparent Twitter hack last year, I changed the passwords for both my social networks and my email address - with the result that I now have such a complex email password I'm in danger of locking myself out of it. And no, I don't want to register my mobile phone number so I can verify myself by text if needs be. I've already changed my phone number once after the mobile version of Facebook proffered my personal phone number to all and sundry, despite my web-based Facebook account expressly omitting such permission. The time I accidentally dialled the number of someone I knew only as a Foursquare acquaintance taught me a further lesson about accidental 'oversharing' - ironically, the label of one of the badges the location check-in site encourages you to earn.

It's tempting to use the same password at every site you can, but the danger here is that you'll use that same 'eight character, one of which is a number' combo at a site where security is important - and find yourself hacked or your bank login credentials stolen.

Proper verification here is a must, but why do other sites insist on treating their wares like Fort Knox? Logging in to get at free content you've signed up to say you'd like is a current bane. Yes, someone else could enter my email address and view those reviews or instructions on how to make something, but they'd first need to make an educated guess that I'd registered my information and email address at that site.

If they preferred, the site owners could email me the page contents I'd requested, knowing that it would definitely be me receiving it. (If I'd left my email account logged in and someone else was using my computer, this might not be the case, but that's one of the worries about auto-logins at sites and allowing Gmail and others to keep you logged in). And since I'd had a good experience at their site, finding information quickly and easily, I'd be far more likely to return and use their services again (and to recommend them to others, though probably not via the dreaded Facebook 'like').

If there were fewer sites that required passwords - or simply asked for your email address so they can cross-check for themselves that you've registered as a regular visitor - I might be more inclined to use a password manager for the rest. And I might just feel a little less fraught and more secure online.