environment - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Blowing in the Wind

Posted on February 14, 2024February 16, 2024 by Debbie Young

What’s not to love about windmills? From children’s toys to towering turbines, I shared my views in this article for the February issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News.

Summitting a local hill on a clear morning in early January, I am surprised to spot in the distance a wind turbine that seems to have materialised from nowhere. Did a local farmer hang up an extra-large stocking on Christmas Eve, so Santa could leave him one as a present?

These days so many wind turbines seem to spring up overnight that it’s hard to keep track of the new arrivals, especially as they all look the same: soaring white towers topped by three long, narrow blades. Not that I mind, because I find them attractive and soothing to watch.

Only when I plant a child’s toy windmill in my garden do I realise how different its habits are from a wind turbine’s. Although positioned for maximum exposure, a wind turbine’s blades either turn at a steady pace in the same direction, or else they’re stock still. (Apparently too much wind can be dangerous, so in gales they’re turned off for safety reasons.)

Not so my toy windmill. In my relatively sheltered garden, its blue plastic sails whiz round so fast they form a blur. Changing direction every few seconds, they turn just as quickly either way, regardless of the prevailing wind.

As an instrument of meteorological observation, my toy windmill is about as reliable as the rain gauge I’ve sunk into the soil beside it. This calibrated plastic cone often shows negative rain. How can rainfall reduce as the day goes by? Evaporation alone can’t account for such a discrepancy.

Can rain really fall in reverse?

I solve the mystery when I spot our cat Bertie enjoying a long drink from it. He soon designates the rain gauge his favourite al fresco drinking station. It certainly looks more appetising than his previous preferred outdoor water source, our murky garden pond.

Wondering how wind turbines work leads me down a fascinating rabbit-hole online. I learn how gearing and other technical tricks evolved from early wind-powered machines installed by the Ancient Romans in Egypt. I then spin off at a tangent to investigate the use of traditional Dutch windmills for signalling.

KinderdijkWindmills — Photo of Kinderdijk Windmills, Netherlands (a UNESCO World Heritage site), by Willard84, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Historically in the Netherlands windmill sails were locked into particular positions to convey messages to the local community. + meant the mill was open for business, x that it was closed. The top sail at 1 o’clock denoted a healthy birth, whereas 11 o’clock indicated a death. During World War II, sail settings issued silent warnings to the local population, such as of the arrival of Nazi search parties seeking Jews.

The tradition continues: in July 2014, when 198 Dutch passengers were killed in the attack on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, windmills across the Netherlands set their sails in the mourning position to show respect for those who lost their lives.

The only problem with my new-found knowledge is that next time I see an immobile wind turbine, I’ll wonder what it’s trying to tell me.

When Windmills Can Mean Murder…

cover of Murder at the Mill set against olive leaves — Join Sophie Sayers for a trip to a sunny Greek island in spring

If you also love windmills, you might like to try my sixth Sophie Sayers cosy mystery, Murder at the Mill (originally published as Murder Your Darlings).

In this story, aspiring writer Sophie Sayers travels in the spring to a tiny Greek island to join a writers’ retreat. It’s to be led by bestselling romantic novelist Marina Milanese – but then she goes missing on a solitary stroll to a derelict clifftop windmill. First on the scene of Marina’s disappearance, Sophie soon finds herself accused of murder, and must work fast to solve the mystery before the local police can arrive from the mainland.

This lighthearted, feel-good mystery introduces a lively group of eccentric authors, plus colourful Greek characters from the holiday hotel. Not to mention the elusive monks in the local monastery…

It’ll also make you feel as if you’ve had a Greek island retreat of your own!

Murder at the Mill is available to order in ebook, paperback, audio and large print, from wherever you prefer to buy your books.

Or order Murder at the Mill online here.

Family, Personal life, Writing

The Other Man’s Grass

Posted on June 19, 2019June 18, 2019 by Debbie Young

My column for the June 2019 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

My husband spent a large part of last summer turning our lawn emerald green.

He rolled and mowed and fed the grass so much that our lawn started to resemble the top of a billiard table. Although he had yet to implement the stripes pictured on grass seed and feed packets, that gave him something to aim for this summer. The man in B&Q didn’t know whether he was being serious when he asked for a pack of the stuff that makes your grass grow in stripes.

But now I’ve thrown a spanner in his lawnmower’s works by informing him that, according to The Guardian, the single best thing he can do for our garden’s ecology is to mow only once a month to a height of no less than 10cm (4 inches).

“How can you tell it’s 10cm?” asked my daughter, never having operated a lawnmower in her life. She was ready to lend him her ruler.

Apparently if we resist the lure of the lawnmower, without any further action on our part, our grass will naturally transform itself into a wildflower meadow, benefiting birds, bees and other insects.

So while the other man’s grass may be greener, my husband can claim the moral high ground, environmentally speaking. He’ll also have more time to sit in a deckchair enjoying the sights, scents and sounds of flourishing flowers and wildlife.

And at least our deckchairs are green and stripey.

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Writing

The Power Behind the Blog: Battery Chargers

Posted on April 21, 2011March 9, 2013 by Debbie Young

Protection Is Better Than Cure . Hyderabad_Sind — Image by Northampton Museum via Flickr

As I plug in the second four-way electric extension lead on my desk, I wonder how I can need so much electricity to write my blog. Despite the blazing sunshine outside, it’s always a bit shady in my small-windowed Cotswold cottage, so three of the eight sockets are for lamps, feeding my passion for task-focused lighting, rather than a bright ceiling lamp. One desklamp spotlights my computer, the other two perch, uplighting, on the piano behind me. But what are the other five sockets for?

Well, there’s the handset for the landline – one of four dotted about the house. Who’s prepared to put up with a single, wall-mounted phone these days? They’re so last century. There’s a computer charging lead, because (I hope) my netbook’s one-hour battery life will expire before my ideas do. My mobile charger is in permanent residence on my desk. If I put my tiny phone anywhere else for it’s overnight recharge, I’ll have forgotten where I put it by the morning. Those 1980s brick cellphones did have one upside: you’d never be able to mislay them. Ditto my iPod and camera rechargers. Yes, I could zap them both via a USB port, but they’d get in the way when I’m typing.

So eight sockets it is, then. But in this energy-conscious age, isn’t this rather a dissolute way to operate? Having avoided battery-operated toys as far as possible for my small daughter, I appear not to practise what I preach. So yes, I do feel guilty.

But at last redemption is in sight, for we’ve ordered solar panels for our roof. Embracing 21st century technology with a vengeance, we’ll soon be generating as much energy as we can use. In fact, more – and the surplus will be fed into the National Grid. So I’ll be able to beaver away at my netbook with a completely clear conscience.

And it’s not just the desktop gadgets that will be getting extra use. Washing machine, dishwasher, cooker, food processor – all of these will be buzzing away whenever the fancy takes us. True, I’ll no longer have an environmentally-sound excuse for avoiding hoovering and ironing. I might even buy a tumble drier – though it will take years to erode my conscientious objection to this alternative to garden wind-power. And hot baths will no longer be a rare, guilty treat instead of power-saving showers.

So the only finite energy resource that I’ll be tapping in future will be my own. I don’t think I can get an electrical hook-up from the solar panels to my brain, recharging the electrical impulses that zap round between the neurons. So I’ll just have to look out for a suitably recharging hat. Now, where did I put that solar topi?

(Dim lights, segue into Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun“.)

Family, Personal life

A Winter Makeover

Posted on December 28, 2010July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Overnight my garden has had a makeover. When I opened the bedroom shutters this morning, I discovered my garden had turned green.

I should have anticipated this transformation last night, when I went out to collect some firewood from the shed and heard an unfamiliar noise on the conservatory roof: a soft, persistent drumming. I was given a clue as to its identity: wet slippers.

“My goodness, it’s rain!,” I cried aloud. “I remember rain! ”

It was a very welcome sound, not least because it meant it was no longer cold enough for snow. There followed the rush of relief that a cloudburst must bring to drought-ridden nations. I told myself briskly not to be melodramatic – in my case, the arrival of rain was hardly a life-saver.

Even so, the sight of a verdant garden this morning was a delight after weeks of the monochrome of snow. For a moment I was Dorothy, opening the door of her black-and-white house, air-lifted by the Kansas tornado, to find the glorious technicolour land of Oz. I’d forgotten how green my garden could be in the middle of winter. Yes, there are rusting remains of sweetcorn and sunflower stalks, but these are eclipsed by bright and copious ivy, glossy grass and the ever-optimistic leaves of spring bulbs.

The experience felt like a mini Winterval celebration, a welcome reminder in the darkest depths of December, at the time of the shortest nights, that the sun will return. It’s surely no coincidence that this Christmas, amid blanking piles of snow, more people than ever seem to have felt the need to put up colourful outdoor lights. I was no exception.

I began Advent with a string of soft white lights in the apple tree in front of my house. Nothing garish for me, I decided, sifting through B&Q’s festive offerings. But when I got home, I discovered that against an all-white backdrop, my subtle choice was insignificant. I swiftly added some magenta and royal blue Christmas tree baubles to the stark brown branches and was astonished by how many neighbours remarked favourably upon them. Then a few days before Christmas, I decamped from any attempt at good taste and strewed a string of brightly coloured fairy lights over the porch. Along with my candle arch in the living room window and the Christmas tree lights in the old shop window (my house used to be the village post office), these conspired to lift my spirits (and my core temperature) every time I went outside the front door.

When I was a child, we used to make a game of spotting lit-up Christmas trees on the walk home from tea at my grandparents’ houses. I’ve played that game every Christmas ever since, dismissing from my mind any prissy environmentally-friendly thoughts about wasting energy and causing light pollution. (Who wants to stargaze in sub-zero temperatures anyway?) Though caustic about the first one I spotted in mid-November this year, by the time the snow fell I was going out of my way to seek them out.

One night when leaving my sister’s house, I braved ice-packed sidestreets to investigate a glow of near-daylight intensity. I followed the light, magi-like, to the end of a cul-de-sac, where four houses were festooned with enough flashing Santas and prancing reindeer to necessitate 24-hour sunglasses for the residents. It was worth the dangerous detour.

And now, mid-morning, there’s a fine mist descending, the teasing ghost of the snow that’s melted away. As spring steps up to the starting line, all that will be left is a white memory, dwindling to homeopathic strength. By the New Year, we’ll all be sighing nostalgically about how beautiful it was while it lasted, all thoughts of school closures, delayed mail order and car crashes forgotten. But even so, I’ll be very surprised if we’re craving a white Christmas next year. Here’s to colourful New Year!

Family, Personal life

Let It Glow

Posted on December 1, 2010July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

A set of fluorescent Christmas lights — Image via Wikipedia

You don’t need me to tell you that the autumn colours have been fantastic this year. Each day late October, early November, I kept thinking “I really must bring my camera with me next time I’m out”. Everywhere I went, breathtaking treescapes of gold, amber and bronze, dramatic as fireworks, rose out of rich, dark, newly-ploughed hills. Then, overnight, they disappeared. Strong winds stripped the trees bare, leaving muddy heaps of compost at their feet. It was as if a herbicidal maniac had been on the rampage. Suddenly it was winter. The clocks had gone back. And it was dark.

My sense of loss at this overnight tragedy made me less dismissive than I might otherwise have been when a day or two later I spotted my first Christmas tree of the year in the front window of a house near my mum’s. Not only had the occupants put the tree up on the wrong side of Remembrance Day. They’d also sprayed lavish drifts of fake snow on the windowpanes, as if egging on the winter to do its worst. The shiny red stars and golden bells were a garish echo of the subtle russets and auburns of the departed autumn leaves, but boy, was it a cheery sight.

All at once I found myself looking forward to the rash of Christmas lights that would inevitably follow. Nothing cheers me in winter as much as bright lights. In a former life I must have been a Druid. For the rest of the year, my usual mantra is “Put that light out!” (So maybe I was once an ARP warden?) My husband and daughter treat our household like a Christmas tree all year round, in terms of lighting, and for the rest of the year, I go round turning unnecessary lights off, muttering disapproval. But when it comes to midwinter, I need a burst of light to stop me hibernating.

Certain local routes round here provide a real tonic at this season. Last year, the white-lit Christmas trees, hung proudly like flags above the shops through the centre of Tetbury, were as cheering to me as any Olympic opening ceremony. And who can resist the uplifting annual switching on of the Christmas lights? Passing by the Arboretum, I’ll slow down to savour the “shop window” for the Enchanted Wood, which revitalises bare trees with coloured floodlights. And just a little further down the Bath Road, there’s an ever-growing beacon that takes many by surprise. The first time I passed that way after dark, I was convinced that I was about to come across a major conflagration on the road ahead. I listened out for sirens, but there were none. Rounding the bend, I discovered it was actually just Willesley’s cattery and kennels in all their electric glory. Their furry residents must feel ever festive by Christmas Day.

In the past, I’ve shied away from too lavish a Christmas lighting scheme at my own home. Think Ikea candle arches, and you’ll get the picture. But this year, in the depths of this dark winter, I feel the need to throw caution to the winds. That’s appropriate enough, as my electricity comes from the wind-powered Ecotricity in Stroud. If their profits suddenly go up next quarter, you’ll know the reason why: I’m planning to splash out this year on the festive lighting front. Now, can anyone tell me the best place in Tetbury to buy an illuminated reindeer?

Wishing all Tetbury Advertiser readers a very merry Christmas, and a New Year filled with light. Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow…

(This post was originally published in the Tetbury Advertiser)