Join me for my first housing coop webinar!

I have lived in Machynlleth Housing Coop for six years and its time to share what I know about coop living. Join me for a Wales Co-operative Centre Learning Together webinar on Friday May 29th between 10am and 11.30. I’ll talk about how we got started and grew, how we work together and some of the pros and cons of cooperative living, and how to manage them. I’m happy to answer any questions about housing coops as well as about our coop specifically. Book through Eventbrite.

The moths of Machynlleth

I turned 50 in April and my house mates in the housing coop I live in bought me a moth trap for my birthday. This was an incredibly special moment for me as fifteen years ago I wrote a book about moths called Curious Incidents in the Garden at Night-time. Yes, I was under the influence of Mark Haddon at the time. I got completely obsessed with the glorious detail of moths and the mystery of night-time gardens. The book was about climate change and extinction. It was also about coming to terms with loss. At the time we were only beginning to realise the full impact of climate change and I wanted to write about what that meant for our humanity. How the knowledge of such loss could cause us to experience trauma. I was going through an extended period of depression myself, which I sometimes compare to being in Lincolnshire. Everything was flat and I found it very hard to get out of. The moths allowed me to retreat into my imagination and give myself to words and worlds I didn’t really understand too well. A macroscopic destiny. Since then the world has moved ever closer to the brink of a mass extinction event, the consequences of which will be devastating. Most of the world’s human inhabitants barely notice. But those people who do look know what is coming. How do they bear this knowledge I ask myself? They can see that individual species on a mass scale are running out of life. The lockdown has given the natural world some relief from frenetic human activity but we are starting to climb back into our cars and resume our industrious behaviour. I do hope we don’t lose our opportunity to reassess and reflect on where we’re heading. Counting moths in a moth trap is one thing most of us with a a garden can do. Recording the data and letting scientists know helps them understand how the natural world is doing. Moths are an important species to many other species of fauna and flora. We need them, just as we need the bee. But they are often forgotten or despised. Most humans think that moths are just there for eating their clothes or damaging crops, but there are many hundreds of species of moth and only a few are troublesome. Most are pollinating our plants. The technology of a moth trap is simple. Moths are attracted to a light on the trap and make their way inside where they nestle on upturned cardboard egg boxes until they are released in the morning, safe and sound. It’s completely harmless to the moths. I’m not a scientist but this is a great bit of citizen science I can easily contribute to. It has also been a perfect lockdown present. Moths are usually calm in the morning and happy to sit in your hand. Looking at them makes me feel calmer, and helps me to slow down and put the busy garden chores to one side. It is a daily habit that we’re all starting to appreciate. Opening up the moth trap is an event, and each day we seem to find a new species. Here are a few of our favourites so far. I’ll post more pics with extracts from my book as the summer goes on.