Go With The Green Light

On Saturday we went to the Greenlight Festival of Sustainable Living

It was enormous fun. I was particularly excited on our arrival at DMU [that’s De Montfort University] to spot some of the bunting which I made the other week fluttering outside! How cool was that!

As you can see, most people arrived on a bike, or on foot. I am afraid we travelled the seven miles in our car! [that’s not very green]

Everybody who was anybody in the Green World seemed to be there, political groups like Amnesty and CND, gardening and growing gurus, craftspersons, musicians, recyclers, energy experts, lots of food people…

I bumped into my great friend Elisabeth, who pointed out they were mostly ‘ethnic, vegetarian or vegan’ caterers. That made sense – but I was surprised therefore that they allowed sales of diet Coca Cola in plastic bottles [does that contribute to a sustainable lifestyle?] For lunch Bob and I shared an Indian takeaway [noodles, aloo saag, rice and samosas] followed by extremely healthy date and oat flapjacks.

I made a cute coin purse from a tetrapak

I admired artwork made from recycled materials [here’s a creature from bike parts, bags from vintage fabrics and a magazine collage]

I didn’t have time to make a windmill [I believe in the US these are called pinwheels] but the stallholder gave me a template to bring home. This is based on our City Council logo and makes a pretty five- petalled spinner. I shall see how I get on with this idea.

Free Morsbags were being given away [full details here]

Apparently guerilla in an ‘environmental context’ means doing something unexpected which benefits others.

I should like to consider myself an environmental guerilla, then.

My bag needs ironing – but I think it has a certain CK look about it! The one thing I regret is not taking a photo of Katrin, the delightful young German girl I met at the EcoHouse in February – she was the person who introduced me to the festival, and asked me about bunting. Today she is returning to Germany, having finished her course at DMU. However her friends on the organising committee seemed to know all about the crazy little woman from Kirby who sews, and so I suspect we’ll keep in touch!

Bob had fun too – his current mission is to seek out “stronger gazebos for outdoor events” so he was happy to go outside and rattle poles and chat to exhibitors about their stands rather than their displays!

Thank you to all the people who generously gave up so much of their time to put on this free festival. I hope attendance continues to rise, year on year. We are all called to be good stewards of the earth, and events like this are brilliant for informing – and for encouraging children and young people too to get involved.