We are back in the beautiful Lake District this week with Philip and Sheila and following Wordsworth. It is such a wonderful area and we all do enjoy these walks and the careful production of these videos. It is always good to see Sheila, but we also like the snatches of Philip too!
"Today's Lake District 'short walk' video takes us to the village of Grasmere where the poet William Wordsworth and his family lived for some time, first of all at Dove Cottage, then the larger Allan Bank, and finally the old Rectory, before moving further down the valley to Rydal Mount.
We stroll around Grasmere, listening to Wordsworth's words in his Guide to the Lakes and also from Arthur Mee's The Lake District - The Classic Guide, written in the 1930s. We visit St Oswald's Church to see the memorial to Wordsworth and he and his family's grave, before taking the short walk to Allan Bank, for a time the home of Wordsworth, and later of Canon Rawnsley, co-founder of the National Trust, which now owns it."
This is quite a different walk - very relaxed and interesting. I had forgotten how lovely Grasmere village is. What do you think about the use of whitewash on the houses? Strong feelings or do you especially like it? It must have look quite dour in the dark wet winter months and at least white breaks it up and true lime wash wouldn't be bright white so maybe a good thing.
Anyway many thanks for this interesting and relaxed visit in the sunshine. Next week we have the last of the visits to the Lakes and Wordsworth. Thank you so much Sheila and Philip.
FEEL GOOD FRIDAY
Continuing with our 'Feel Good Friday' celebrations, here are this week's two brilliant things that the world has witnessed since the first lockdown started in March 2020.
A Kenyan woman, Nzambi Matee, the founder of Gjenge Makers based in Nairobi, has found a way to recycle plastic waste that is five times stronger than concrete.
Matee said: “Our product is almost five to seven times stronger than concrete. There is that waste they cannot process anymore, they cannot recycle. That is what we get.”
Her company produces up to 1500 bricks a day and uses a mix of different plastics from shampoo bottles to sandwich bags to sell on for construction purposes. They have recycled up to 20 tons of plastic waste to date by accepting plastic that other factories cannot process or recycle. The bricks are so strong that they can be thrown against a wall and do not crack!
On the Asian island of Borneo, six baby orangutans were born in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve during 2020. Orangutans are an endangered species with around 100,000 Bornean orangutans left in total, an estimated 55,000 in Borneo.
Chester Zoo also had a surprise birth this year when a baby orangutan was born in June, months after the mother's pregnancy test came back negative!