Dear Friends,

I obviously hit a nerve with many of you - and not always the same one ! - with my letter last month about bottled water, but has it made any difference to your habits ... ?

Certainly, as I write, we could all do with quite a bit of water - to water our gardens, to drink, to put out fires on the common - but importing it in plastic bottles and then land-filling them is hardly the answer.  Incidentally, some of you have now had boxes from the nice people at Waverley so that you can now recycle (some) plastic bottles; I'm still waiting for mine.

Some of you, like me, will remember the common fires in 1976.  I have a vivid memory of picnicking at Elstead Moat that summer, surrounded by charred trees, squaddies armed with beating sticks, and thousands of dragonflies; there were at least seventeen different varieties, and seemingly hundreds of each.  How nature has restored itself since then - and I am sure that it will do so again.

We really need to help, however.  The whole planet is undoubtedly heating up, and we have been feeling the effects for some years; those who doubt that man is responsible have a double mountain to climb, for if it is simply a natural cycle then we need to work doubly hard to counteract it ! 

The problem is knowing quite how to stop (or even slow down) the roundabout while we are still on it - we cannot simply stop doing everything.  But we can change our buying habits, our recycling habits, our driving and flying habits; and we can make our voices heard.  I understand that it takes just three customers to request an item for Sainsbury's to stock it (for example), so how about asking for more FairTrade goods ?  Take your own bags, and stop getting more and more.

On a rather different, local, note: have you seen the new signs at the entrance to the Moat car park ?  Probably not, as I write, for the Police won't let you down there, but when you do you will find that they say: