abtw777

The front and the back of our house represented different worlds. To the front, a busy road, noise and bustle. To the back, a quiet garden leading out to a small lane. The lane in turn lead to a river. A bend in the river harboured a strange quirk in an otherwise fairly flat landscape. A little hill had been partly eaten as a quarry. The quarry had long ago been abandoned, was flooded by the river, and formed a deep pool of languid water. This was the world into which I was born in 1965 – an only child. Ours was a little house in a row of similar cottages. Our house though had the distinction of being flanked by the old prison building. Its cold stone walls enclosed part of the rear garden. They were damp even after weeks without rain. In winter, water would dribble down them and freeze before reaching the ground – even when the weather was relatively mild. I was still very young when I became aware of something else relating to the prison house. There were ghosts there. My ...

This is surely the longest part of the day – waiting for the first coffee. The kettle was filled the night before, of course, and the wood set out neatly for lighting the little stove. But even though the heat builds up quickly, the kettle still seems to take an age first thing in the morning. So whilst I wait, I’ll tell you a little about how I live and how I got here. The first inkling of my changed life was a strange fact about cars. Make a car more fuel-efficient and people will drive more – in fact, people will drive more than even the extra amount that is allowed by the improved fuel-efficiency. This strange fact of human nature is repeated in numerous other examples. Staying with cars, for instance, if the price of fuel is reduced then again mileage goes up, beyond the amount that compensates for the price saved in fuel. Across the board, wherever there is an energy ‘saving’, we humans will end up using and spending more on whatever form that energy or saving happens to ta...