One of the most impress natural reserve areas in our locality is not up on the beautiful Mendip Hills but out on the Somerset Levels just past the Isle of Wedmore. The Avalon Marshes comprise a rich set of important and accessible wildlife reserves run by, variously, Somerset Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, Natural England and others. Shapwick Heath, Meare Heath, Ham Wall all join up together in to a wonderful area, all knitted together around the Avalon Marshes Centre with local art shop, a great eco cafe, and some recreated Neolithic (New Stone Age) constructions. Lots to do and see so find out more here.

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And now all this has been recognised by the Avalon Marshes winning the National Lottery Award for Best Environmental Project. Beating off over 1,300 other entries is quite something, and the many volunteers who over many years have made it what it is rightly deserve it. The award itself was presented by comedian Bill Bailey who comes from Somerset and is a keen walker himself. The Visit Somerset article tells you more.

We've featured the area before in this blog for the local art centre, and the Starling murmurations for which it is famous. Anyone visiting the Mendip and Cheddar and who has a love for natural landscape and wildlife should try and get there. Sadly not that easy without a car (its about 9 miles away), but you can get to Glastonbury on buses and then it is a lovely traffic-free walk or cycle out along the disused Glastonbury to Burnham-on-Sea railway branch line. 

We are delighted to announce that the cottage is now fully enabled for electric vehicles. We have just today had a new electric charging point fitted that can deliver 32A AC charging on a Type 2 connector. Most electric vehicles (EVs), and indeed newer "plug-in hybrid" vehicles, can use a Type 2 connector. The 32A charge rate will mean most EVs can charge from empty to full in 3-4 hours. Of course in practise most vehicle journeys are around 20-40 mile in range and so would only use around 12% to 25% of a battery's capacity, and a top-up charge would take less than an hour.
Our system is smarter still and will use the power coming from the solar panels on the cottage roof whenever they are exporting power. This means charging will be partly or wholly locally solar powered. The panels are not enough even on the sunniest of days to support the full fast 32A charging, but as our electricity supply has been 100% Green tariff since that was available years ago, a recharge will always be 100% from renewable energy. And if you do not want your car in a hurry then it can charge slowly and purely from the solar power available on the roof.
We will be offering EV charging for free to cottage guests and that means local travel will be completely free and green. All very exciting especially as the uptake of EVs and plug-in hybrids is accelerating, and now we hear news that the UK Government will ban sales of pure internal combustion (petrol/diesel) cars from 2040, and manufacturers like Volvo, and now BMW, are working to move their entire offering to electric, or electric assist, in a much shorter time span.