Coming up for air

It's been a mad few weeks, hopefully things will return to a bit of normality and we can fly higher than the long list of tasks that still need to be done!

The spring migration of birds has been later this year, although we did spot our first swallow well over a month ago. The herring gulls have been pairing up and making nests, flying past us with beaks full of nesting materials. I only just discovered this week that the herring gulls find new partners every year.

The herring gulls on the bottom right have chosen a car as their nesting site, they haven't yet worked out that it is not the best idea especially as the car goes out on frequent trips!

The reason why I haven't been blogging is that I have been heavily involved in  helping run the second Green Fortnight in Bridport. We had a variety of events during the fortnight including talks, a film, comedy evening , quiz, beach clean, a green day, and visits to the local waste disposal site and sewage treatment plant. Over the fortnight we had 500 people join us at the various events, over 20 shops producing green window displays and we even had a Flash Mob encouraging us to stop using plastic!

 It was so encouraging to hear from local businesses how keen they are to do their bit when it comes to reducing plastic. We learnt that many of them are discontinuing plastic bags/items (although as they have to buy in such bulk it may take sometime to use up existing stock) but were very happy to wrap items in paper if we asked or allow us to use our own containers when purchasing loose fruit,vegetables or meat. I expect that would be similar where you live too. During the Fortnight the first zero waste shop in Dorset opened in Bridport, which will give us another great way to change our habits!

We were a bit concerned with the beach clean, we had around 70 turn up and it didn't look initially as if there was much rubbish on the beach.We did unfortunately find over 2,000 nurdles/biobeads. On the same day there was a fundraising  rally and over 300 motorbikes turned up on the esplanade too.  It was quite a contrast between the two events, both of which we achieving good ends.

 The trip to the sewage plant was smelly but interesting, it was amazing how many  wet wipes are thrown down the toilet causing a big problem as the wipes don't dissolve in water, as demonstrated in the third bottle below.

I was also amazed how many fat balls there were although they were more the size of tennis balls rather that the huge fatberg found in London, which was the size of a double decker bus!

One of the other big projects I am involved in is also taking up lots of our time. The plans for a centre to tell the stories and things to do in the Bay are taking shape. Time seems to be rushing by towards the opening date in late summer.

The weather continues to be very variable and when the sun shines it makes us more determined to make the most of it!

Thanks for continuing to visit me despite my short comings!

Sarah x