I'm in love: what's that song?*

Last weekend heralded the Vernal Equinox, when the days begin to get longer and lighter. The Wheel of the Year is on the turn, and Spring is starting to show its face. There are daffodils emerging outside St Peter's, and some beautiful crocuses in the city's lawns and squares (the pic to the left was taken outside Kings House last week - good work, CityParks!).

Anyway, I'd hoped that I'd be feeling more energetic and perky this week after one of the most epic bouts of SAD in living memory, but typically I've been laid low for the past few days with a malaise which (wit being in slightly short supply this evening, following a very disappointing tea) I can only refer to as Grandaditis.

Symptoms: after working all morning and having lunch, I am overcome by the most unusual urge to "just close my eyes while I listen to the Archers". Fast forward to 3.15pm and I awake, spluttering and jonesing for a nice cup of tea, to the sound of the You & Yours Budget Special (or something similar), having kipped all the way through the Afternoon Play [*hmm face*]. Good grief. I sincerely hope this is temporary as it's severely hampering my ability to, erm, do stuff in the afternoons. And it's making me feel ooooold.

Anyway, mindful of my recent vow to be a more regular correspondent, I just wanted to check in (before I pass out to the sound of the Shipping Forecast) for a quick round-up of musings and happenings since my last post:

1. Full Council last Thursday
This was a pretty depressing meeting, all in all, although we managed to pass our Notices of Motion on Maternity Services, and Letting Agents. Cllr Jason Kitcat has neatly summed things up here if you want the painful details.

Suffice to say that the unholy alliance between the Tories and Labour in voting together to: a) defer the debate on councillors' allowances until after the General Election, and b) to force through changes to the Council constitution which will curtail debate in the chamber, put me in mind of nothing so much as the end of Orwell's Animal Farm when "the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." More evidence (as if any were needed) that Greens are the only real opposition in Brighton & Hove.

13 Greens Good: page 2 photo in the Argus - one for Glum Councillors, surely? ;)
13 Greens Bad: Tweeting from Full Council is now apparently under review (bah - and I've only just started doing the wretched Twitter thing)


2. Alex Chilton: December 28, 1950 – March 17, 2010
RIP Alex. I've had a hard time conveying who you were and just why the Box Tops and Big Star were so ace when I've commented on your untimely passing to other people, but your music will always remind me of being thirteen.*



3. Phoenix
After a period of thorough and well-executed consultation, Phoenix will be submitting planning applications for the redevelopment of their building by the end of March. Last week I had the pleasure of accompanying both Caroline Lucas and our new council Chief Exec to view the plans and meet some of the artists who work in the building.

Both my guests were extremely enthusiastic about the plans, and I felt very proud to be able to show Phoenix off to them. There are so many wonderful artists and makers working from the building, and I've got everything crossed that the applications will be successful, as the redevelopment is essential if Phoenix is to continue to provide affordable workspace, and to consolidate its work within the wider community. Not to mention making the building energy efficient. Or continuing to contribute to the city's economy [*administration priorities face*]. Watch this space...

4. Caroline was ace on Question Time
As Thursday night was Full Council and I was in the Chamber till gone 10pm, I couldn't indulge my habitual TV politics fix, so I did what any self-respecting geek would do and watched it again on iPlayer on Friday night. Believe me when I say that this was a pure treat. Well done that woman.

5. Social Media Tory Bashing
Ah, this and this is probably very old but both sites have been making me laugh a lot [*waves bye-bye to Phil Collins. Again.*]

6. Neil Harding is back! Back! BACK!
So the least I can do is to make more effort with this blog. Nice to have you back Mr Harding. You have been missed.

7. So is Ben Duncan
Cllr Duncan's official Kemptown PPC blog is finally launched :D Hurrah!

8. Ward stuff
Good meetings tonight with residents. The first concerned planning enforcement issues over a scaffolding site which is owned by the same developer to whom we lost an appeal to build on former railway allotments last year, and was kindly attended by the council's new Enforcement Manager, who comes with a formidable track record in securing the UK's highest ever enforcement fine (£150k, suckas). We'll know more in a month's time about whether we need to up the game in terms of the council considering taking legal action on this.

The second meeting was convened to discuss ongoing issues surrounding the introduction of a new residents' parking scheme in the streets immediately south of the railway tracks at London Road station. I'll be speaking to this at tomorrow's Environment Cabinet Member Meeting. And I'll say no more at this point, because there's been some deeply regrettable political fail occurring over this in the ward of late, and actually it's all just a little bit sad and unedifying. Suffice to say, it's a cowardly and cynical politician, local or otherwise, who refuses to engage with controversial or difficult matters merely for the fear of losing votes. And - as someone once said - I'm not like that.

A bientot.

*An unexpected side-effect of Alex Chilton's passing has been having the Replacements' eponymous paean to the great man permanently stuck on my internal jukebox for the past week. What a tune. A boyfriend put it on a mix tape for me when I was 15, and it still sounds as exuberant and fresh as it did when I first heard it 22 years ago. My eyes and throat have been aching with nostalgia and a yearning for times and things long past.

Playing Farm Town In Real Life

Those of you who may have had occasion to check out my Crackbook profile will know that "I only joined so I could play Farm Town". This is true. While Crackbook may be the vehicle of choice for cyber-stalking by jealous ex-lovers, and competitive sadding by the hysterical masses, I genuinely only joined so, erm, I could play Farm Town. Why? Well, I've been on the Allotments Waiting List in Brighton & Hove for nearly six years now, and (as Diana Ross once said) I'm still waiting.

I first got the allotment bug a decade ago when my sister kept a plot just around the corner from her home in the South Manchester Muesli Belt. Her set up was ideal - a utopian exemplar of benevolent Victorian town planning, with a series of terraced cul-de-sacs abutting a field of allotments literally a minute or two's walk away. We spent lots of happy times there together, digging, mulching, planting things, and eventually pulling up tasty veg (not to mention enjoying a glass of wine in the evening sun after our labours). I was hooked*.

Anyway, when I moved back to Brighton in 2004, I immediately put my name down on the waiting list for a plot on a site about five minutes' walk away from home. There are only ten plots on this site, and the list subsequently closed in 2006.

Even though the Council has now taken the sensible decision to halve plots as they become available (thus doubling capacity and making plots more manageable), such is the shortage of allotments in my immediate vicinity (ie walkable within twenty minutes) and the demand for allotments city-wide, I suspect I will have moved house before I get anywhere near the top of the waiting list.

And although I probably could join a shorter waiting list for a site which is not within reasonable walking distance, I'm not interested if it means having to drive to get there - to me, this pretty much defeats the object, and would definitely diminish the pleasure of having my own plot in terms of hassle.

So I'm really not kidding when I say I only signed up to Crackbook** so I could play Farm Town - I know it's a bit donkey eyes***, but I had resigned myself to the fact that being a cyber-food-grower was the closest I was going to get to having my own patch of land for a long time.

With this in mind, you can imagine how ridiculously chuffed and excited I was when I heard late last year that a pilot food-growing garden was going to be set up in my ward, in Preston Park itself. The pilot is one of a number of initiatives set up by Harvest Brighton & Hove, as a joint project being delivered by the B&H Food Partnership and Food Matters, along with several other groups across the city.

Local food growing is a cornerstone Green Party policy, and since 2007 Greens on the Council have been pushing this. Cllr Paul Steedman in particular has done some excellent work via the City Sustainability Partnership, and with reference to Harvest, I was delighted to sponsor BHFP's original (successful!) £0.5m Lottery Food Fund bid, which is now providing funding for the Harvest portfolio of projects that focus on growing, cooking and eating more local food.

The official ground-breaking for the Preston Park demo garden took place yesterday afternoon >>>>>

It was excellent to meet the Harvest team in the flesh (after lots of emails), and I'm really looking forward to checking the work rota tomorrow to see when I can next go along to help out. The plot's been marked out, and now the hard work starts - building raised beds and sorting the fencing out first (sadly security measures will need to be in place to deter vandalism), then the fun bit of prepping the soil and planting the seeds and bulbs.

The beauty and the whole point of the demo garden is that (hopefully) it will show people how easy it is to grow your own food in a very small space - Mr K had speculated that it would be like an allotment in a park, but it's much smaller than that (4msq?), which reflects the fact that many people in B&H have titchy patios or balconies, and it's all about making the best use of the space you've got.

What's also particularly sweet is the evident whole-hearted support of the Tory administration (two of whom were in evidence at the demo garden launch yesterday - wonder where the Preston Park Labour councillors were?): we've come a long way since Greens submitted our response to the Core Strategy in August 2008, when Paul and I were told point blank that local food-growing wasn't a priority for the administration.

Maybe it's a cynical vote-grabbing exercise, maybe it's the zeitgeist - I don't really care as long as we keep making progress on this.

A massive well done to the Harvest team - can't wait to get my hands dirty ;)

* Despite the surfeit of Rainbow Chard one year [*blech*]

** Speaking of Crackbook - this is quality and pure lulz

*** Family expression for something which makes one feel ineffably sad

This whole Experiment of Green*

Spring is nearly here. It can't come soon enough for me. This has been the longest, coldest, grottiest winter for thirty years, and I will be *so* glad to see the back of it.

But the days are getting that little bit longer, and the sun was shining this week. In a fortnight's time it will be the Vernal Equinox, and then a week later we'll be Springing Forward, and something approaching normal service will resume...

Mea culpa dear reader(s) - I've been pretty bad at keeping this blog up to date of late. Mainly because I've had zero energy and a severe shortage of time. But following a rather poignant plea from the Brighton Politics Blogger (shucks BPB, I never knew you cared), I'm going to try and correspond more regularly over coming weeks.

Time is an issue, as I'm (still) looking for some other gainful employment to sit alongside my Council duties, so job applications have to take priority if I find myself staring aimlessly at the laptop screen with a relatively empty Council inbox (ha ha ha - you can imagine how often this is the case). But I'll do my best.

Anyway, suffice to say things are mad busy here and hotting up to molten levels as we enter the final furlong before the general election. There are less than nine weeks to go now.

Plenty of other people have been blogging about our prospects of returning Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion as Westminster's first ever Green MP - there's still an epic amount of work to do, but the lighter evenings herald a major stepping up of a pace which has been fairly relentless even through the black nights of winter (massive props must go to Cllr Alex Phillips for her legendary efforts on the doorsteps in Withdean throughout the 'Snow Chaos' in January, and the general gloominess and chill of February).

So not wanting to repeat that which has been more than ably expressed elsewhere over the last few weeks, here are some other things which have been on my radar:

1. Very busy with Council work
Will post separately about this next week in order to do it full justice. Highlights: Phoenix will be putting in their planning application by the end of the month, and next Tuesday sees the launch of a new demonstration food growing garden in Preston Park. Lowlights: the recent Budget.

2. The Green Party slot on Channel Four was excellent


My inestimable mother phoned me to say how good she thought it was, so there you go. In fact she even offered to come down and help with the campaign (this is the woman who delivered around a thousand leaflets during my bid for election in 2007), but after some deliberation she has decided to assist instead in the Trafford marginals. Thanks anyway Mum!

3. Blogs I have been liking

• The Plural Progressive - I like your skillz and styles Luke - keep up the good work.
• Odd Cog - anyone who titles a post 'Political Apathy: Epic Fail' has got to be OK.
• Glum Councillors - this is just ace. Spot the B&H Green in the archives... ;) Speaking of which...
  

4. Jason Kitcat's Graphs
Every politics geek will enjoy this.

5. Blogging - I am still doing it wrong (probably)
Here's a handy Guide to Blogging & Facebook for Councillors - in fairness it's pretty sensible stuff. Good pointers for any elected bloggers out there.

6. Twitter
May the goddess forgive me, but I have finally bitten the bullet and joined Twitter. You can 'follow' me here [*messianic face* + lol]. I'm not promising I'll be any better at "tweeting" than I am at blogging as it is clearly extra cyber-mither, but at least I'll get to check out the #hash tags# now [eyes #mobmonday curiously...]

Happy Spring readers! Will check in again shortly - it's nice to be back :)

*After Emily Dickinson - A little madness in the Spring