Another long lay off from blogging, caused by two huge upheavals: a change of address, and a change of work style. We have moved to the top of a Mendip valley, at the edge of a National Trust wood that skirts an Iron Age hill fort. Been here 11 days, and I have not yet been up the top. Too busy unpacking cardboard boxes. The most exciting bit for me is that I have a large number of trees to look after. They seem pleased to see me, and I have started to disentangle them from each other. It was originally a hazel coppice, and I had a lesson in making hazel hurdles (fence panels) at the last Green Gathering.

We have a steep hill, and Laurie and I are doing our best to make all possible journeys by bike. Between sweating up the hill, and sawing wood, I am getting more fit again - on my way to the fitness I had when doing roller hockey.

In a way, feeling that I am following in the footsteps of Rudy Lewis the shed building poet (see below).

Between that and becoming candidate for Green Party International Co-ordinator jobshare, and trying to help the Centre for Peace and Democracy in Somalia, and running the Campaign for an Index of Human Rights in the UN (somewhat stalled since UNA UK and Amnesty International failed to endorse it) – it looks like a busy retirement from general practice. Actually, I am doing 4 sessions – 2 days a week – but it feels hugely better. I am gradually slowing down. The shopping experience in Churchill Post Office and General Stores and Café was truly rural.

So. That’s why I have not been blogging.

But I did send this to the PM programme, on Darfur:

It is useless to put pressure on Sudan: the pressure has to go on China. The UN has a clear mandate to intervene under the policy of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) which it adopted in 2005, but China will use its veto in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to block any R2P action because it wants to buy Sudan's oil. We must
calls upon our Government to use all its powers to persuade the EU and its allies to bring political and economic pressure on China until it asks Sudan to end the genocidal action.