Eurostar launch from St Pancras

Eurostar launch
Originally uploaded by ecoescape

I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of the new High Speed Eurostar trains out of the newly revamped St Pancras station. It was a bit of a dream come true as I've watched the development of St Pancras take place over the last 7 years since living in Nottingham and travelling through countless times. It was a stunning event organised as a joint venture between Eurostar and Friends of the Earth who invited us on board the 'Tread Lightly' train to Paris last Wednesday. Eurostar has always been my favourite option to get to Europe and of course, I'm really happy now that all the journeys will be carbon neutral. You can read all about my day on the new High Speed Eurostar on the ecoescape website.

The randy birds and the bees

The funny people at Virgin Trains have put together a series of 'animal ads'. The flora and fauna are having their say to encourage travellers to go green and reduce their carbon emissions. The bee and the flower ad is our favourite.

You can view the complete series here www.virgintrains.co.uk




Or view the 'naughty' video below called 'sexy party'. This is the funniest, but comes with parental guidance...

Saving my local post office

Post Office Ltd recently announced the planned closure of Melton Road Post Office, my local branch in Nottingham. On a personal level, the loss of the post office around the corner would be a big blow to me as I've come to rely on it for my business. And Vjay and Tripta, the lovely postmaster and mistress, always brighten the day and ask every single customer how they are doing. The post office is a pillar of the community and its presence helps the row of shops (including a fishmonger, 2 delis, grocer, newsagent, etc) keep going. The elderly customers will also suffer as the alternative is too far to walk.

The greatest argument in its favour is the fact the this post office is one of the top performing branches in the county proving that PO Ltd has selected branches at random to close. All of these arguments led me to thinking that something could be done to prevent the closure. Vjay couldn't start a petition himself so I took matters into my own hands and printed off a petition sheet for people to sign against the planned closure. The petition quickly took off, and with only a couple weeks to go before the public consultation deadline, we have already more than 4,000 signatures. In fact, the closure was such a surprise that Ken Clarke, our local MP has decided to get involved. The picture above is the moment when he met a handful of the post office's customers this weekend to collect the signatures to take to PO Ltd himself.

I'm not one to get involved with party politics but on this occasion, I might allow myself to say "go Ken!" and let's hope he can work some magic with the Post Office.

The online petition is here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/meltonroad/ - feel free to sign!