12 August 2021

Steenbergs Small Woodland in Wales – Environmental Benefits

Steenbergs Small Woodland in Wales – Environmental Benefits

10 April 2016

Springtime Reaches Aldborough

Boroughbridge Road Near Marton-cum-Grafton

24 July 2015

Declining Cork Farms - The Price of Progress?

A copse of cork trees in Alentejo

30 July 2010

Biodegradable Tea Bags

It was brought to our attention recently that some tea bags are not really biodegradable as they use polypropylene glues to seal the edges of the tea bags.  This is only the case for tea bags that are heat sealed in the tea bagging process.  The tea...

04 July 2010

Walk Around Nosterfield Nature Reserve In Yorkshire

17 June 2010

How Do Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases And The Earth's Orbit All Link Together?

I've written a number of blogs now where I try to get to grips with some of the numbers underlying global warming.  So far, I agree that the historic figures do demonstrate global warming over the last 100+ years within a relatively wide band of poss...

01 June 2010

Steenbergs Has Improved Our Range Of Household Cleaning Products

Did you know that one of my first jobs was in the Pets & Cleaning Department in Fenwick's in Newcastle?  And ever since, I have had a strange and haunting obsession for Household Cleaning products.  Well, I am not really that fascinated in them,...

31 May 2010

Ripon Water Walks - Along The Ure

I mentioned in my first blog about walks in Ripon in North Yorkshire that I did not believe that Ripon had only been settled as a monastery in 650AD.  I believe this basic historical fact about Ripon's history even less now after walking along the Ri...

26 May 2010

Water Walks In Ripon - Alongside The Skell

As you walk through the centre of Ripon alongside the River Skell, you get an appreciation of how many bridges there are.  Sure, Ripon isn't Venice with its profusion of quaint, romantic curve bridges that play on the imagination nor the strong, engi...

27 April 2010

That's No McGuffin!

Is global warming the perfect McGuffin?  I have never really understood what Alfred Hitchcock meant by a McGuffin; for me it always seemed like the cinematic equivalent of the Zen concept of "the sound of one hand clapping", i.e. there is no sound an...

24 April 2010

Global Warming And Greenhouse Gases

We've looked at whether there is global warming and there does appear to be global warming albeit not at such a dramatic level as we read about in the press - perhaps more like 1oC rather than 4oC or 5oC. 

16 April 2010

Sanity Check On Global Warming Numbers

As I have explained in several of my last few blogs, I have been looking more closely at the detail of the case for global warming.  I have analysed global average temperatures as provided by NASA that uses information from the Hadley Centre in the U...

11 April 2010

Pale Blue Dot

Sometimes you read something that says things so much more clearly and beautifully than one could ever hope to do oneself.  And I have recently read one of those - it comes from Richard Dawkins' brilliant anthology of science writing called "The Oxfo...

05 November 2009

Autumn Poems

Perhaps Autumn is a time for poetry.  So here are a few poems that conjur up the period for me. 

04 November 2009

Autumnal Leaves Falling

Autumnal leaves are falling everywhere.  They have hung on in there for quite a while longer as we have had a short spell of decent warm weather and very little wind.  But even so, nature cannot be stopped and even the delicate finger-like leaves of...

03 November 2009

Recipe For Sweet Chestnuts Foraged At Fountains Abbey

We (that's me and my 2 kids) have been enjoying a few walks this half term break - in the deer park at Studley Royal which is at the lower end of Fountains Abbey and at Brimham Rocks. 

30 October 2009

Carving Your Pumpkin At Halloween

Carving a pumpkin is really quite simple and (dare I say it) quite satisfying to do.  Here is how we do it in the Steenbergs household.

14 September 2009

Summer's Over

Saturday was hot, a really glorious day.  However, the swallows have gone so the blue sky felt empty without their energetic dance swooping and soaring the catch insects.  They must have left while I was in London last weekend and into last week.  An...