Hope you all had a great Christmas and that you saw the new year in in style! Here at The Barn we had family and friends over for a New Year party with veggie (mostly vegan) food. Although most guests were omnivores there was very little food left by the end of the night and we got loads of comments about how tasty everything was despite the lack of meat. I took the opportunity to gently educate them as to the horrors of intensive livestock farming and, on the spot, at least one person decided to make a new year's resolution to eat less meat....

Why am I telling you this? Well, I've had the feeling for some time now that 2008 is going to be a pivotal year. The awareness about environmental issues that has been building seems set to continue and increasingly when I talk to people they express the view that we really have got to start doing something positive.

I must admit that the news this morning (3rd Jan) was not a good start. Medway Council have voted to build a new coal fired power station and the NFU say the government is rumoured to be considering abandoning British agriculture in favour of imported food. However, despite this my personal resolution is to make change happen wherever I can.

A little while ago I wrote a piece about doing away with plastic bags. Well, locally the idea has really caught on and the New Forest National Park Authority and the Parish Council are very excited. Looks like we could be mounting a big campaign together and lots of people in the village have already said they have begun to change their habits because of what I have told them. I'll keep you posted.....

We've also decided to make The Barn fully vegan to reflect the environmental benefits (amongst other things) of a plant based diet.

So that's it - let's make this year the year we all actually spread change by setting the example. And let's tell people clearly about things they'd rather not hear; about meat production and the impact on the environment, about the rapidly diminishing time we've got to change things around etc etc

Do let me know your thoughts and what your revolutionary resolutions are. 2008 is going to be great!