We left the woods in convoy and remarkably all ended up at the right place: our first stop Edge Noko, a new cafe restaurant in Ringsfield. ‘We’ve arrived in Vietnam’ observed Virginia. With a rich background in design and style, the Elders had some sharp scrutiny to observe on the menus and crockery.
‘Never white text on black – so difficult to read
‘Is this a plate or a dogs bowl?
‘Look at those fish sorting out their social hierarchy’
It was an adventure, the coffee strong, the cake light and tasty, the style unusual and surprising.
On to Lil’s land (where we heard a bit of the background of the original planning permission for Edge Noko). Lil took some of us around her new woodland while some of us entered the remarkable cool of her passive house.
Lil spoke of how the land was an empty field how she made decisions of how and where to plant. Today she reminded us that we all came from savanna, that most of us related to layered land and trees like the acacia, calling on our ancestor innate feelings. She liked open spaces and complexity, navigation and naturalness where the criterion she used to plan the land. Just a few of us ventured into it, for the sun was fierce. We saw the vines, the beans, the air bnb, the flowers, the diversity and we marvelled at the industry, the beauty and the number of huts.
But I think safe to say, it was the inside the captivated us. This was indeed a passive house. It needed not heating, to keep warm or cool – although as Lil said, we each bought in 1 KW of heat with us. It was a kit house, straw bale, from Estonia. It took 2 days to unload it from the lorry and two days to screw it all together. Natural straw, all compressed. The walls natural clay colour, also from Estonia.
We ate our shared lunch and listened to Lil’s story, and that of her equally remarkable husband (a pioneering engineer who for 30 years worked on the energetic systems of UEA)
Kinda Elders in the woods 