For several months now I have tried to arrange a visit to the Earthship in Fife. But the opening times were incredibly restricted, with the whole of August closed and in June and July it was only openend the weekends, and also not every weekend either. Yesterday we finally made it to see the ecological building, and again it was closed, but we had come nevertheless and were able to walk around in the park. A notice on the front door of the closed Earthship explained that it was due to a lack of volunteers. It was quite disappointing to realise that actually, nobody lived in the house like the ones in the US – in Fife it was basically just a pretty unused showcase it seemed, absolutely not representing the amazing enthusiasm and philosophy of its founder, which got me so fascinated with it in the first place when watching the documentary “Garbage Warrior” about the history of the Earthships and the realization of the sustainable living idea.

We went and visited Scotland’s Secret Bunker the other day. I was really fascinated by the nuclear bunker in Fife, that I totally forgot to look at the exhibits in a critical way. At the moment I am still wondering how much of the exhibition in the bunker was actually authentic or not, and if it is, from which time period. As the bunker was decommissioned in 1992 or so, but built in the early fifties, there are for example a wide range of red telephones from different decades on show. However, it was very exciting actually seeing the bunker, which is based in the middle of nowhere near Crail, about two hours drive away from Edinburgh and South- East of St.

Me and my hubby had a fantastic day out last weekend. We borrowed a book “The most amazing coastal places in Britain” from the library and were off exploring the close-by recommended sites south of Edinburgh. With the Marathon though running through Musselburgh and beyond we missed out on the close-by places and ended up in Dirleton, visiting Dirleton Castle, which is famous for its gardens which mainly consist of one huge flower border. Dirleton Castle Afterwards, we went into the local pub, the Dirleton Inn, which was recommended by the staff in the Castle, as it had just had a change of owner and got refurbished.

I am so pissed, that I can’t even tell you how. After Indymedia’s server in Britain, in Manchester was seized in January, Kent police arrested some server hosting guy in Sheffield on Monday. Now I am wondering first of all, of what the bloody Kent police is doing in Sheffield and in Manchester – shouldn’t they care about what’s happening in their area rather than tinkering around all over the country? Second of all, they are claiming to hunt for the IP of an anonymous poster of a comment on the forum like alternative news outlet Indymedia. Now how can it be that some person posts a comment on an open-publishing website which is actually removed pretty quickly is at all relevant to anything?

If this year is continuing to be like the last months it will certainly be very busy – especially on holidays! In order to get to Germany, we visited Cambridge on the way and tried to visit Burghley House, Park and Gardens – it was still closed though and is only opening from about Easter onwards for summer. Even the toilets were closed – so we headed to Stamford to find some, the beautiful little village beside Burghley House, which because of the conservative attitude of the major landowner has no petrol station and no out-of-town shopping centre. So the town is kept very historic and traditional; it looks very beautiful with its little streets and everything.