Looking at the Dewlay website the turbine is called ‘castle of the clouds’ as named by a local schoolgirl and announced at the opening by the government Minister for Climate Change - Charles Hendry on the 9th November 2010.   Although the turbine has been installed since September.

As a single turbine it has a strong visible, contrasting and iconic impact like the Angel of the North, although not unique, and can be seen for several miles.  It could be said that adding more turbines would spoil this and create a more industrial feature undesirable in such a location.

The flower show was a lot better than expected. Spread over Victoria Park fairly close to the centre of Southport. Lots to see including; mmmm …..flowers, stalls selling mainly garden stuff but quite a lot of fashion and food producers; had an excellent steak pie in great pastry from the food tent.  There is an arena and a bird handler had a very large eagle and vulture which were one of the high spots, incredible, as well as dog handlers and some stunt men.

The Amateur Gardening Tent was good with some excellent veg; leeks bigger than your arm. Very tasty looking fruit presentations and flowers.  All kind of horticultural displays including Robinsons Mammoth Onion, interesting modern floral displays, show gardens with an impressive winner. 

Enjoyed the Bee and honey tent, photo below of the display winner in one category. That’s a lovely old hive and the display had 4 types of hive. 

A long day arriving at 10 and leaving at 4 which is unusual for us and it seemed there was more catering at Southport than at Tatton so the queues were shorter.  Good day out, on until Sunday, not cheap, save money by booking tickets in advance.  Maybe you book ahead and pick them up at the show, check.

Southport Flower Show 2010 - Bee and Honey displays - nice hive

The bulls are creatures of awe bellowing at the cows, not sure what it was about but imagined. Horses, sheep, miniature goats, bantams, rabbits, dogs, budgerigars and some alpaca they’re all there.  The miniature goats had quite a following and made quite a nice squeaking sound.

Enjoyed the country tent with the vegetables, flowers, cakes and childrens work. Cheese tent as well. The children in Garstang did a great job with those displays. Especially the poems, miniature gardens and drawings.  There was a nice crocodile made from a cucumber and several excellent drawings of grandad and grandma and other good ideas.

The food tent was good as well. Nice looking pies, jams and other  good stuff. Quite fancied a hot pot in the Eden Valley tent but my wifes a vegetarian and so we went to separate stands.

The Womens Institute tent had a lot going on and learnt the Roman name for Garstang but forgot it. Had a coffee in the Methodist tent.

Overall a lot going on and stayed a lot longer than intended.

Garstang Agricultural Show 2010, childrens section

It is surprising that in a county as big as Lancashire, including its larger Palatine boundary, a location, cash and support can’t be found for such a show.  You would think that Lancashire County Council would feel strongly about it but it seems to be only local councils who are involved and they aren’t being helpful either.

On the other hand why does it have these problems. Is it the date, the location or bad planning.  As they say one mistake is unfortunate, two mistakes look like carelessness but three mistakes look like ………..

The reputable Food Standards Agency with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have conducted a study with 162 analyses and made the conclusion that organic food contains no additional nutritional value.

Whether there are exceptions I don’t know. Whether organic food produced by someone who cares gives more satisfaction than mass produced, chemically stimulated, processed and perfectly shaped food probably wasn’t in the equation.

I always thought organic farming was about having less in the food. Less chemicals that is.  Less effect on our fellow creatures and less effect on our water supply etc. Less effect on the environment in general. I don’t think the study touched this.

I havn’t read the full report and it sounds lengthy but as a supporter in general of the theme of organic farming I think it’s limited scope misses the target. I’ve never bought organic food thinking it tasted better although I might think it does if it was bread baked in a bakery that cares and maybe makes the bread nice and full, not rubbery and light. I like my food to digest with a natural amount of roughage, why take out the roughage and then have to eat a pile of bran or take tablets to make your body work.  Do I need the dye contained in some foods that a study last week shows is one of the few things that penetrates certain internal membranes so helping a new drug to cure nerve damage.

So please file the report under ‘blinkered studies’ and send the cheque from the taxpayer to the School of Tropical Medicine with a note of thanks. It’s not their fault they did what they were asked to do.