Any Colour You Like

I have just finished my third day and all is good. I still don’t really know what I will be up to in terms of project but there is so much going on that there will be no time for boring menial tasks. Vestas seem to really focus on looking after new starters and there is a very elaborate five week training scheme that I am currently working through. It consists of a lot of very well designed flash animation based training (big budget clearly), followed by initial short term projects (which start tomorrow), hands on composite laminating course in Denmark (1 week long I think), visits to production abroad somewhere followed by ansys and ProE training. After all that I finally get to find out what my real long term project will be!

They really care about their employees too. There is fantastic free local organic food for lunch, free tickets for the ferry and water taxi, a terrible HTC phone for business and personal use at home or abroad, table football, free sailing lessons on Tuesdays, football on Wednesdays, a great mentoring scheme, laptop, credit card and a hefty relocation bonus. Anyone else want a job btw? They desperately want people that know what a wind turbine is

Everyone is really friendly and most people seem pretty new to the company. I will be working long and hard and it is going to be very challenging but very rewarding!

It’s a really great concept. A group of enthusiastic people take over an abandoned building, bring along a random missmatch of furniture, candles and cutlery and set up shop. Or should I say kitchen. They then distribute invitations to partake of fine cuisine via blogs and texts. Just before they open you get a message telling you when the restaurant will be and for how long. You then go along and enjoy a three course meal and leave a donation afterwards.

The food was good if somewhat weird, but definately ambitious. Pigs head stew and ‘wet’ paella…

I had one of those mixed organic fruit and vegetable boxes delivered today as part of some general research for my food sustainability uni project. The idea is the company source high quality local british organic seasonal food and deliver to a different area each day of the week. One van covers the whole Bristol area every Wednesday and they claim that the distance the vans travel is a quarter of the distance an equivalent Sainsbury’s delivery van would cover per kilogram of food in order to supply the store network. This coupled with the local sourcing cuts food miles dramatically.

They also shun all of the plastic packaging that is so epidemic in supermarkets these days in favour of a single cardboard box that they collect the next week for reuse, and some paper bags for some items that they will take away and recycle for you. If you order things that require some sort of plastic packaging then they will also take that back for recycling.

The box cost £10.95 for a good variety of fruit and vegetables that will last one person a fair proportion of the week until the next delivery. I weighed everything and then went to Sainsbury’s to compare with the non organic regular range. It turns out you can get the same things loose by weight for a little over £7 from the supermarket so they are charging a 35% premium for the privilege of earthy, non-chemically mutilated food. A fairer test would be a comparison with the taste-the-difference line because dinner tonight was absolutely fantastic. Everything was much crisper than usual and the vegetables smelled really good when cutting them from raw.

So I guess the important thing is to decide how much the knowledge that you are reducing your environmental impact, whilst eating healthily and tastily is worth. I am still undecided but I will get back to you soon with an opinion…

On a related but unrelated note, click here to find out about the Forests Now Declaration so you know what to look out for in the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

Despite starving myself for a day in order to be able to manage a second three course dinner in as many days I could still barely cope by the time it got to dessert. But the ballroom dancing society chirstmas dinner and winter ball was wonderful all the same; and clearly shows that young people can have alcohol-fueled fun whilst remaining civil (if not always sensible). Why do people not organise these things anymore?

But now I am sad because I have just written my to-do list for the christmas holidays and I actually have to scroll down in my calendar application to see all of the entries =(

Had sushi today in a chain restaurant in Bristol’s shiny new shopping district. It was one of those places where all the food goes round on conveyor belts and you grab what you want and get distracted when eating as something else nice goes by. It was pretty tasty, especially the slivers of sweet ginger and the aubergine thingy we had, but I can’t help thinking it would be absolutely amazing in Japan where the fish would be super fresh.

I really hope flights stay somewhat reasonably priced until I finally get to go traveling and see a bit more of the world. I can’t wait and am getting pretty impatient for graduation to come along. Should probably start saving, especially as I am going to need a massive food budget for the asia part of the trip!