If you like having flowers around the house to brighten the place up and make it smell lovely then head over to Fleurop as they’re currently running a competition to win a year’s worth of flowers – a bouquet every month for a year. There are 10 second prizes of a special soccer themed bouquet as well, which would be worth seeing!

You’ve only got until 6th August 2010 to enter though, so get your skates on. But if you miss the deadline, or you’re not lucky enough to win a prize this time then don’t forget that you can save 20% on all your Fleurop orders with our discount code EMMAPETE :D

Pete and I have a gas oven and hob that has served us fairly faithfully since we bought it in (must have been) 2001. We had a teensy weensy grill fire once, and since then the fan hasn’t worked particularly well – it comes on for a minute or so and then cuts out, rinse and repeat. No matter. Yesterday it decided that it was going to stay on permanently for some reason. Since we’re planning a new kitchen anyway, we took the easy solution – we turn the cooker off at the socket so the fan has no power.

We don’t use the oven that much, but we use the grill quite regularly. The grill has a black enamel tray, and we’ve always lined it with aluminium foil to reflect the heat better. We use recycled foil now (and not that much of it, since we don’t use it for anything else), but you can’t recycle it once it has been used in the grill because it’s far too greasy.

The grill pan gets very gungy. Everytime I get fed up with that grill smell I change the foil and wash out the pan. It’s a nasty job, and it’s always me that does it. Personally I would prefer not to line the tray with foil, but to treat it like a frying pan and wash it after every use. Pete won’t let me do that, because he reckons the lack of foil will mean everything takes longer to cook and we will be wasting energy.

Is he right? Is there a better solution that we haven’t thought of?

And as the Big Green Blog Gathering enters it’s final day, here at the Emma & Pete Show we are thrilled to be hosting the Renewable Energy Cinema once more. Today we’ve got a fascinating nature documentary about honeybees and their hives:

And if you’d rather see beautiful, furry bumblebees, then we have a short film about those as well :)

Saving the Bumblebee from Jamie-Lee Loughlin on Vimeo.

Ever since Pete and I became self-employed (3+ years ago now), we’ve faced the same question – “What do you do?”. At the beginning it came from ex-colleagues we bumped into. Some of them were just being polite; I think others were hoping to discover our escape tunnel for themselves.

We see less and less of them these days, but we see more of other people. And our answer to date has been a kind of off-hand phrase designed to kill people’s interest: “internet marketing, it’s quite hard to explain”. It never does put people off, though, and they insist on more long-winded answers that they usually don’t understand. But what they really want to know is whether we can help them with their computer problems or tell them how to make the internet work for them.

There are various other professions it’s best not to own up to in public. If you’re a doctor then it means people shoving their body parts in your face and expecting a consultation. Accounts are asked tricky tax questions. Lawyers are asked for free legal assistance. I’m sure there are plenty more.

Pete likes to invent fantasy jobs that are far more interesting – but less prone to exploitation – than his own; I hate lying to people. I reckon I’ve come up with a workable solution though – job titles which are aspects of what we do, that we’re happy to talk about and that aren’t the kind of thing that usually involves offering on-the-spot advice.

From now on, I am going to be The Emma Cooper (someone called me that recently, which was quite entertaining), author. My first book, The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z was published last summer. When asked the inevitable question “is it doing well?” I shall respond with a simple and resounding “Yes”, as it’s actually very difficult to quantify. I am currently working on my second book and my articles appear in various magazines and newspapers from time to time.

Pete is going to be a Trainer. Also true, it was the last role he had before he became self-employed. Although he hasn’t run any training courses since, it’s something he would like to get back into and we are currently planning a pair of courses although that’s in the early stages and we can’t give any more details at the moment. Or maybe we can – you’d have to ask Pete :)

We’re back at the Big Green Blog Gathering today, hosting the renewable energy cinema. Yesterday we had a great film about one of permaculture’s heros – Sepp Holtzer – and today we have another: Emilia Hazelip.

As part of the Big Green Blog Gathering, we’re hosting the Green Cinema today :) It may be solar powered later on if the sun comes out (but we’re hoping for rain), but at the meantime it’s powered by 100% renewable energy from Good Energy.

This film was chosen by my friend Mr. H as one of his favourite films on permaculture, which ties into all the themes that are being covered by the BGBG this week.

It’s hard to believe, but I have been a published author for a year now. This time last year, The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z was hot off the press and we were preparing to take a car load down to the Big Green Gathering for a week-long signing fest. Alas, it was not to be. The Gathering was cancelled at the last minute, and so I put together an online version instead.

Due to last year’s problems, the BGG isn’t running this year either – so it’s time again for the Big Green Blog Gathering. All next week, over on my lean green, blogging machine, I will be hosting days of fun and frolics in the virtual sunshine.

There’s plenty of room if you want come along, and if you want to join in and give a talk in the virtual yurt, or help with the weeding in the permaculture garden then give me a shout. It’s so hip, it even has a Twitter tag. But no Facebook group. Not yet.

It’s nearly a year now since I have (mostly) given up cow’s milk. I can cope with small amounts now and again, but any attempt to have cow’s milk products on a regular basis makes me uncomfortable and isn’t worth it. I am fine with goat’s milk on cereal and in tea; when I cook at home I use goat’s milk and butter, and Pete is fine with that. It’s hard to taste any difference in cooked foods, anyway.

One of the few things we have struggled with is finding a decent curry sauce that is free from cow’s milk. They’re either too fiery or completely insipid and leave a lot to be desired. But that has now changed, after a spontaneous visit to a local farm shop uncovered the range of curry sauces and chutneys (achars) from Ghurka Fine Foods.

For our first encounter I choose the mildest of the sauces on offer – the Masu cooking sauce has a heat rating of 1 (out of 5) and of itself is vegan although they recommend using it with red meat. We happened to have some lamb mince in the fridge, so today we cooked that up with the sauce, two onions and plenty of peas (Pete loves peas in curry!).

The result was delicious. Although there is not a hint of heat in the sauce, it still has plenty of flavour. We both loved it, without reservation, and would happily buy it again. Our local stockist had at least one other flavour on offer (and several chutneys), which was a heat rating of 3, and we’re confident enough of the quality of the range to give that one a go next time as well. And we’ll be keeping an eye out for the Ghurka Fine Foods range on supermarket shelves from now on.

As Pete and I were discussing on the last episode of the show, we have decided that the show is going to have a Mental Health June event, with the idea of supporting the Time To Change campaign here in the UK.

The idea behind the campaign is that we can end discrimination against people with mental health issues – and make it easier for them to get the treatment and support they need – if we all speak up and make it obvious that mental health issues are both common and an illness like any other.

Pete and I will be talking about our own mental health issues, and some of the ways we lessen their impact on our lives. We’re also hoping to do some interviews, and that listeners to the show will contact us to share their own mental health stories – whether they are affected themselves or know someone who is, or just want more information. If you would like to take part in Mental Health June you can email the show or leave a comment here on the website. If you would like to make a comment or ask a question anonymously then you can do so via our new formspring.me event, but in any case we won’t be giving out too many personal details about the people who write in!

Time To Change have given us a box of stuff to giveway, so listen in to the show if you want to find out how to get your hands on some of it. And do head over to the Time To Change website and make a pledge to help end the discrimination.

I know that a lot of people think of the internet as a wild and scary place, but it’s important to remember that it’s not really made up of a lot of computers and cables, but people. Behind every website there’s a real person. It always saddens me that the first response of people who have a problem with something that has been posted on the internet is often anger and/ or aggression. Perhaps they would take this tack if they were dealing with people face-to-face, but I suspect not. I suspect most people are decent people and, in the first instance, would attempt at least a polite first encounter.

Those of you who listen to the show will know that of late, Pete and I have had to deal with a couple of people who were less than polite. I occasionally have the same problem over on my other website, which is why this morning I have taken the time to write a post about Japanese Knotweed.

To sum up, Japanese Knotweed was introduced to the UK as an ornamental plant, but unfortunately has become an invasive weed. The problem is so bad the disposing of this plant incorrectly will land you in trouble. If you have Japanese Knotweed in your garden then it pays to be a good neighbour and to try and keep it under control.

Foragers (very trendy right now) understand that one of the ways to control this plant is to eat it. Apparently (and I can’t comment, because I’ve never tried it, we don’t have this weed in our garden) Japanese Knotweed can be used as a free rhubarb alternative. Those in the know says it is actually nicer than rhubarb, and can be made into crumble, pie and fool in exactly the same way. I have links to more recipes in my original post, all provided online by friendly people who are simply trying to share information with other people who might find it useful.

So, in a spirit of cooperation, if you have a blog or website and can write something relevant, it might be nice if you linked to this post, or my original post on Japanese Knotweed recipes, so the information can be shared far and wide :)

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If you find this post a little strange it may be because someone upset me this morning. And it’s possible I have heat stroke. Either way, expect normal service to resume soon :D