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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Sunday 6 April 2008

Excrete stragegy

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

Anyone got any ideas what to usefully do with dog poo (seen here in the pic before it's been trodden on)? I’ve just learnt that before Thomas Crapper’s wasteful water closet invention the night soil of Islington would be sent down to Hertford to dress and fertilise the market gardens and farmland there.

More than 100 years have been wasted not dumping our dumps on the fields. Half of me thinks this is why it’s great to be living now, the other half is anxious about why have we think it is OK to flush away so many tones of poo?

Verdict: The best book on the subject is by an American, and is called Humanure. It makes even the worst ablution appear like a perfume of the gods (so long as it didn't come from a dog).

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