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I was walking home from the local shops last night when I spied between the wood and wire panels of a fence, a load of beer cans stuffed inbetween. Then, a few minutes later, as I was walking through the woodland at the end of my road, I saw more beer cans littered around. As per usual, it's often Fosters cans that you see littering the place.

It looks like the concept of "grow your own" is really picking up again in Britain.

Whether it's due to the wave of austerity sweeping the nation, allowing people to supplement purchased food and reduce their costs, or the  sheer satisfaction of being able to plant, grow, harvest and taste your own fruit and veg, grow your own is a most welcome change in the national psyche.

Yesterday morning just one piece of mail came through the letterbox - Ecotricity's Progress Report 2010.

That's just one very good reason for choosing Ecotricity as our green energy supplier all those years ago - They're open, they're honest and they keep their customers informed which is something I've not seen from any other energy company.

In their own words Ecotricity kicked off the report by saying:

After many years of the occasional donation and trumpet blowing for the Woodland Trust we decided to join up. Our motivation? Well, just a few months ago when there was the furore of the Government intending to sell off Britain's last remaining public woodland to the highest bidders. Brits were outraged and the backlash caused the government to retract its despicable plans.

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It's that time of year again - Saturday March 26th at 8:30pm is Earth Hour.

For those of you who don't know about Earth Hour it's a worldwide movement where people switch of the power for one hour. You  might ask how much energy is saved by switching everything off for one hour, but it's more than that - it's a politic statement, a social, cultural and environmental statement...

Four days ago we were sent our latest water bill for the forthcoming year (April 2011-March 2012). Seeing that we had a water meter installed nearly a year ago we were pretty shocked to see that the bill was 10% more than the previous year. Last year the water bill was £320. This year it was £350. One person, a water meter, and the cost of water supply and removal went UP?

Immediately after receiving the bill we called South East Water to ask why they still had the house on the "RV" or Rateable Value tariff.

Do you remember when we had that water meter fitted in May last year?

As reported, we sat down for an hour on Saturday and took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch 2011. What did we see?

Well, with a mug of tea and a notebook  and a laptop to finish some work while we waited, we watched the garden for an hour on Saturday morning.

We were concerned about the two fat woodpigeons turning up and scoffing all the food, as they often do, but they didn't actually make an appearance until near the end of the hour. However, the hour started off very quietly...

Today's the day, folks, it's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

All you have to do is spend an hour today or tomorrow watching the birds - whether in your garden, a local park or in the woods. Just record the numbers of the species that you see and send the results in to the RSPB.

The RSPB is hoping that around 500,000 people will be able to record the abindance of birdllife in their gardens, parks and the countryside.

On the Indonesian island of Sumatra is the Harapan Rainforest. For years it suffered from illegal logging - ancient trees and habitat were lost for the sake of quick profit and the natural environment was destroyed.

If you want to help restore the Harapan Rainforest, you can. Collecting seeds from the remaining areas of rainforest, the RSPB and its partners, are growing new trees in their nursery and re-establishing the natural habitat.