Now, first of all, let’s not confuse this with Eco the very chic upcycling shop on Chiswick High Road in which Colin Firth has a vested interest. This Eco village is a ‘grow your own village’ – a showcase for settlement and statement living. The community has been trying to prevent the stretch of land, languishing between the Brentford side of Kew Bridge and a Fullers Pub, which has been earmarked for development as another expensive new build with flats to be sold at very high prices.

I’ve been very intrigued by their presence which has garnered a lot of media coverage. And yesterday, they finally left but not before we popped in to say hello.

We’ve had a lot of environmental campaigning round here of late and I’m excited by it because it just goes to show that politics exists outside of the rowdy House of Commons. Residents of West London breathed a sigh of relief when plans for the third runway were scrapped recently. It took a lot of campaigning to get local voices heard but it has obviously worked.

I’m all for green living and I think it’s important that our children are aware of what’s going on outside the classroom and in the community. We recycle our rubbish, don’t drive a car, use eco lightbults, give old clothes to charity shops, try and use as few harmful cleaning chemicals as possible and turn the tv and other electronics off at the mains at night. Nice little housekeeping measures but not exactly radical lifestyle choices, hence my afterschool trip with Miniminx to meet the lovely people at the controversial eco village in Kew.

This is a great example of how people are taking their own initiative to highlight environmental issues.

I was reminded of Tracy Emin’s My Bed installation when we saw this.

And this sculpture had some appeal for my daughter.

We cycled to the settlement which is behind hoardings. I had a funny feeling as we entered the place; it took me back to the Spiral Tribe parties I used to go to. Although this village was eerily quiet, a lot of people had already left.

We were entering a new world, would we be welcomed, would this be a mistake? Were we going to be safe? The thing about places like these is that you have to leave normal sensibilities at the gate and open your mind to a completely different way of life. So we did.

And we were welcomed. I did ask if it was okay for us to come and have a look around because I wanted to show my daughter what this was all about and she might learn something.

This is Rose who was very kind to my daughter and was happy for us to photograph her for my blog. I love the idea of washing up al fresco.

I’m not quite so sure about the bathroom. When I pointed out the bath tub to my daughter, she was aghast…

Since Miniminx has been on a residential earthkeeping course for a week this year, I thought she would be able to compare the two sites. She said she couldn’t because they were too different. She was worried for the people living there because she thought someone would come in and flatten the place to start building. So I explained to her what the eviction order meant and the eco villagers were not in mortal danger and that they had played a meaningful part in creating a discussion around land development. She’ll be pleased to know they left peacefully and with dignity.

Check out the blog here, it’s got some amazing photos and lots of words about philosophy.

The Victorian architecture is, even now, quite scary but there are so many places to explore and investigate inside this great building, it’s hard not to resist it’s pull. The creatures recorded within and on display still give me the shivers now – how could they have ever existed? Gigantic, prehistoric, weird and many of them now long extinct, it pushes the boundaries of imagination for us little city folk to imagine how things once were. This is really where the wild things are.

I must have been about eight years old when walking beneath such a great colossus crystallised in my mind and became the great memory that it is. Today, it maybe a little less magnificent, even dusty on the top, but this gargantuan structure still inspires me with awe. It’s the Blue Whale.

In my mind, I remember walking underneath it in a great big hall and wondering at it’s sheer size and might. It’s since been sidelined to a lesser space, but it’s still very enchanting.

And of course, generation after generation, we always wish to inspire our own offspring and let them experience the same things we did.

They never really do see it the way we did, but it’s a great thing to share all the same. This is London at it’s best.

This weekend’s trip, and it definitely wasn’t our first one, was a voyage of discovery for Miniminx. While we went to experience the Butterfly Jungle, it was she who was the real butterfly of the day. She fluttered and skipped around and had a great adventure in the jungle of centuries past.

We walked (she skipped) around and tried our best to believe that many of these things were once real. Woolly Mammoths in London? Wolves that returned to the sea and became whales? Soft shelled tortoises? It was pretty cool and very outlandish, but that’s nature for you, even if it is behind glass.

Check the Panda…complete with bouffant bikini line…(my observation not Miniminx’s I might add)

Oh, and this hybrid cross-continental tiger…how majestic and yes, how stuffed, but we learned something!

The Butterfly Jungle was actually quite a challenge. When we walked in, we were immediately faced with glass tanks full of snakes and cockroaches and strange looking jungle life. Not quite the pretty Sunday afternoon spectacle we were anticipating. Then Miniminx was freaked out when she turned round to see a man with a butterfly languishing on his nose. I’d been looking forward to this little adventure, but she was feeling quite skittish, so I guided her towards the pretty things to get her on an even keel.

‘Ooh Mummy look at those!’
Ahem. How do you explain this little butterfly dance?

But how can you not fall in love with this cheeky creature? Check his legs-akimbo-stance. Like a character from a fairy tale isn’t he?

And these lovely geckos – Miniminx took this one – she has a great sense of drama in composition – it’s like geckos do Prison Break.

And I don’t know why, but these look like some kind of insect-world restaurant in China Town – you know the ones where they have the glazed duck hanging in the window – do you see what I mean?

And of course, we couldn’t leave without a drama. I spotted a butterfly languishing on the back of Miniminx’s skirt just before we left. I should have kept my mouth shut and not excitedly said;
‘Look, there’s one on your bum!!!!!!!!!!!!’
‘Aargh’

Before you could say Cabbage White, she was off and running like a bat out of hell through the dividing doors and into the exhibition shop flapping as if she had bats in her hair. She managed to export the butterfly with her which meant I had to very carefully guide the poor thing through two lots of clear plastic dividers.

Needless to say, I smiled graciously at the shop assistants and shepherded Miniminx into the Great Hall.
She spotted this fish and was momentarily entranced.

Was it the gothic setting?
The overwhelming sense of the Victorian age?
The cold, the glass, the stillness of it?

‘Mum.’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘It’
‘Yes – a fish?’
‘It’s’
‘It’s a what darling?’
‘It’s, staring.’
‘Mmm, I suppose it is.’
‘Mummy! It’s staring! At me!’
‘Is it?’
‘YES’

To be honest, I found it hard to disagree, museums can be a bit gothic and creepy. It was time to get back to the real world. And of course, with Knightsbridge on the doorstep, we had a spot of lunch, a nice little wander up the road, and yes, the great Museum of Shopping to explore…a perfect Sunday.

the demonstration complete with riot police

Tough call taking the piccies, I thought I was going to get arrested.

another reminder that nothing ever stops in London

Must download that John Lennon track, ho hum.

another reminder I am going to miss my train....ooops

Waterloo at least 15 minutes away by Shanks’s pony.

another reminder I need a lie in...do they take block bookings?

Missed a train but grabbed a seat to skim the London Paper and switch on my iPod.
My soundtrack for the journey home…

Ooh la la, time for another holiday soon…

There’s more to life than Aldi and Lidl, which is why I am hosting the best and most luscious budget blogs here soon…so please join me and make it happen!

Email nixdminx@live.co.uk with Credit Crunchista Carnivale in the title and include the post you’d like to enter, with a link and a brief synopsis of you and your blog.

The deadline is March 16 2009, and I’ll send you more details to post and publicise on your own blogs. C’est tres simple!

TTFN – I’m off to the gym now for a workout and a pamper, with a bag of fabulous freebies….

There are two things I still need in my credit crunch arsenal; a good le Creuset set and a giant pasta saucepan (hopefully for cooking and not pan handling). Otherwise, I’m in the market for nothing; nada, nil, zero, diddly squat.

Do you know what that means to me? I’m not imagining cosy suppers and tipsy nights. My champagne quaffing days are done and dusted and there’s no more eating out – I’ll be at home making pot luck suppers for waifs and strays and why? Because cash is king no more, and I can’t fight off the harbingers of doom any longer. I’m fricking skint.

More Mother of our time than child, I’m the living, breathing embodiment of the credit crunch. Having to shelled out this month’s essential outgoings today, without a penny coming in, I’m shaken up no end.

But it’s not just at home, it’s everywhere you look – it’s sprung from the newspapers and into the real world. I’ve had two trips to town this week (meaning Soho and Covent Garden) and I’ve not ventured into any shops. Probably because most of them are shut! The sight of the massive Nine West on the Piazza was startling – with it’s Spring Collections posters in the windows, I expected a showcase of the latest hot-to-trot heels but instead the lights were off and nobody home. In fact, apart from a crocodile of exchange students all lined up with their backpacks and notebooks, WC2 was tumbleweed central.

And this ghost town is coming too soon. I have to admit to a touch of schadenfreude at seeing Estate Agent offices with a ‘Lease for Sale’ sign outside. And I had envisaged Woolworths would close because of a long history of problems, just like the other old world brand, Blockbuster, in the news today because of problems, but again, that’s another outmoded business model, and it will start closing on March 8 (Shepherds Bush store to shut).

What’s worrying me more is the rate of speed of these closures and the gaping holes that are left in the high street. My fishmonger has closed; my favourite bistro on the high road; Westfield has just announced losses running into billions…

I’m really starting to feel the pinch and while I can’t afford to shop at the warp speed I used to, I’ll be heartbroken if I can’t even window shop anymore…and so will those who lost their jobs even more.

Being out of work is any oxymoron – I’m am actually working very hard to get a job even though the KPIs below amount to failure. Maybe I should just do nothing…and wait

A year ago this would have been an adventure and I would have had  five or so face to face interviews by now and maybe two serious offers on the table but it’s no longer a job seekers’ market.

My efforts are not to be sniffed at, I haven’t succumbed to daytime TV and microwave lunches just quite yet but hey ho, it goes like this;

Hours spent trawling the web for jobs = 280

Registrations on job sites = 6

Paid subscriptions to job sites = 1

Recruiter meetings = 5

CV submissions = 15

CV re-edits = 6

CV rejections = 2

Non acknowledgment of CV submissions = 4

Jobs that have evaporated due to the credit crunch before I even put a foot through the door = 2

Job interviews = 0

Interviews that are still in the pipeline = 2

Oh, I know it looks really bad on paper. But it only takes one job to come up trumps doesn’t it?

There’s a massive flipside to unemployment (apart from lie ins, daytime drinking, no commutes etc.)  It is not have to spend time with people you just wouldn’t hang out with under any other circumstances.  Workmates are just heinous at times – all that gnashing of teeth, loose eyes in head and frothing of the mouth, and that’s just me.

I know they don’t mean it but there’s loads of plain old crap that you suffer daily in the corporate office environment that you just wouldn’t bloody tolerate don’t get at home (unless you’re in Downing Street or the Whitehouse)…and there’s a lot to be said for swapping the at-work-alpha for the out-of-work-omega status.

Zero is the new hero for me as I realise that my work angst is nil.

Here goes, all those jaw clenching petty things that I no longer have to put up with;

1. The silent farters – you know who you are! – 0
2. ‘Does my life amount to this moments’ = 0
3. ‘URGENT’ work calls during home/sick/holiday/weekend-time = 0
4. ‘Are you REALLY sick?’ phone calls from unconcerned revenue/deadline driven colleagues = 0
5. Snide, snitchy, backbiting comments from septic single work ‘mates’ = 0
6. The ‘I found your idea and made it mine so I get a promotion and you don’t’ = 0
7. Unwelcome advances from drunken executives at work functions = 0
8. The ‘Sorry mate but I dumped you in it on a Friday night at 5pm – I’m off for a stag weekend’ = 0
9. Infuriating, desk sharing nose-picking, nail-biting toetappers = 0
10. Smokers who come back to their desks humming with the smell of fags/frantic Nicorette guzzling
    addicts = 0
11. ‘Oops I just shared that drunken photo of you to 2,000 people’, can I recall the email? = 0
12. The ‘I’m going to make you look SOOOO bad’ triple cc emails chasing you for a deadline you ‘supposedly’ missed but the cow colleague has just not read your email from three days ago
13. Snickering gimps on instant message who NEVER turn off the high pitched alert
14. Four word emails on crackberrys
15. The ‘I know you’re on holiday but if you’re reading emails, can you just ….’

But the thing is, these are the things things that make the world go round in working life, so now I’ve had a break, let me at ‘em!

Gor blimey – The Pier was having a liquidation sale, 20% off at Heals, everywhere I looked SALE, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% – going, going, gone…but most of it’s all tat. No real bargains and all the joy of and magic of Christmas is disappearing down the drain – what about the Christmas lights and the window decorations? It’s all become a cut price parody of the traditional Peace and Love to All Men. So I bought very little but discovered that in Topshop it’s business as usual and there were queues at the tills, the same in H&M Kids – Zara and Mango had sales on but the clothes were dreary, Urban Outfitters just looks so cheap, I didn’t bother buying anything, but a Grace Jones T-shirt caught my eye and that’ll be great to wear on Christmas day so I’ll have to pop back. It’s a real nonfashion moment this year – no great boots about so my Belstaff’s have been refurbished to last another year. Most of my presents this year are from Space NK (even they have a sale on – which I’ve never known), Cowshed and Amazon. My final fright was Primark – people sitting on the window sills outside having lunch – it was as if the old Wembley Market was on – it’s dire. But it does seem that all the value shops are still full without having to go to the lengths of a pre Christmas sale.

So that’s enough of the West End until next week – every year I take Miniminx to Selfridges, usually on Christmas Eve, and we go to Gordon’s Bar, it’s a much loved tradition of ours, last year we were sat next to a very gorgeous looking Jordan with one of her young children – I have a glass of champagne and Miniminx has an icecream float, then we waft around the store and spend lots of money. It’s frivolous, festive and fun – I hope they have the coat and bag room again – you can leave your shopping and coats for £2 and hightail it round the store in style.

This is precisely why I need a job – I love London and it all it brings!