Who is he?

Location Dad's house in Oxfordshire | Mood Walking on air | Date 29 April 2006
Filed in:
Author (full name): 
Franny Armstrong
Location: 
Dad's house in Oxfordshire
Mood: 
Walking on air
Soundtrack: 
Madonna's Hung Up out of window, but more for the mood than the lyrics: "Every little thing that you say or do, I'm hung up, I'm hung up on you"
Ailments: 
Butterflies in stomach going crazy
Date: 
29 April 2006
Current crisis: 
Was it supposed to be two broad beans per hole?

"Who is he?" said my stepmum as I bowled into their kitchen like a puppy let off the leash, but before I'd said a word. Ha ha ha, she knows me very well.

My dad has been turning their house in the woods into something approaching sustainability. Their hot water & space heating all now comes from a groundsource heat pump (a load of pipes running nearly a mile round'n'about the woods, transferring the heat from the ground into their bathwater and radiators. clever). Only problem is that it's using loads of electricity pumping the water round the woods, so next is a windturbine to provide carbon-free electricity. Then they'll be carbon neutral - or maybe even carbon negative. They've also done lots of boring things like insulating, turning equipment off, low-energy lightbulbs etc - and, being my dad, the whole project is being documented on an online blog.

So I'm here for our second weekend of planting vegetables, which is great for the bonding but unlikely to provide too many dinners any time soon. While we were trying to work out whether the potatoes go head or arse first, he even said "If your mother was here she'd know what to do", which was curiously touching (apparently every child of divorced parents wants Mum & Dad to get back together, at some level.)