Podcasts about transcript you

Buckland Wood is no ordinary wood. This is magical temperate rainforest, a rare habitat not just in the UK but in the world. Cloaked in lush lichens and mosses, dotted with stone walls and bridges and with a beautiful river rambling through, it already looks and feels like a special place. But the Trust has big plans for its future. Join us to explore with rainforest guru Sam, who tells us about the bid to restore this globally important site and its huge potential to connect people with nature, store carbon and boost biodiversity. Hear why temperate rainforests are so special, along with pine marten reintroductions, backpacks on beetles and much more! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: For today's woodland walk, we are heading into the rainforest, but I am not going very far. Well, I'm going quite far, but not to the Amazon, or South America. I'm going to to the temperate rainforest, which isn't as well known, but is actually even rarer than the tropical rainforest. It's also known as Atlantic or Celtic rainforest. And as I said, exceptionally rare. You do find it on the West Coast of Scotland, North and West Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, parts of Northern Ireland, which sounds like a long list, but it really isn't. And what's wonderful actually is that Britain is really the place in the world to find these things. We have a very high proportion of the global area of temperate rainforest. I'm heading to Devon to see some temperate rainforests. Anyway, enough from me. Let's go talk to an expert about Devon's temperate and exciting rainforest.  Sam: So I'm Sam Manning. I'm the project officer for the Woodland Trust Rainforest Recovery Project. We are here in Buckland Wood, which is a new Woodland Trust acquisition on Dartmoor in the Dart Valley.  Adam: Fantastic. And it's it's super new because the place we came down didn't seem to have a sign on it or anything. So when did the Trust acquire this?  Sam: So we've literally just acquired this this month and it's an extension really of two other sites that we own in the Dart Valley, Ausewell Wood, which we bought about five years ago and Grey Park Wood, which we've owned for a couple of decades.  Adam: Right. And and what are we gonna do? Where are you taking me today?  Sam: So we're going to have a walk around the wood and I'm going to show you some of the aspects of the restoration work that we have planned here, we're going to go down to the Dart River, which is a really special river. It's 26 miles long. Very, very ecologically biodiverse, very important for, in terms of temperate rainforest, and look at how we can restore that through various different natural flood management methods.  Adam: Right. Lead on, Sir. So you already mentioned the keyword temperate rainforest. Is that what this is?  Sam: Yeah. So this is sort of prime what we call hyper-oceanic temperate rainforest.  Adam: You just have to say that slowly. Hypo what?  Sam: Hyper-oceanic.   Adam: Hyper-oceanic, OK.  Sam: Yes. So there's there's two different kinds of temperate rainforest broadly. There's southern oceanic, which is any rainforest woodland that receives over 1.5 metres of rainfall a year.  Adam: Right.  Sam: Or hyper-oceanic and that is 1.8 metres of rainfall and above, so slightly techy and scientific. But what it means is is that you get two distinctly different communities of lichens or lower plants, which is what makes these woodlands particularly special.  Adam: Sorry, I've already forgotten. Are we in the rain type of temperate rainforest that gets more rain or less rain?  Sam: More rain.  Adam: More rain.   Sam: Yeah it rains a lot here.   Adam: So that's the the non-oceanic one gets more rain.  Sam: The hyper-oceanic gets a lot of rain, yeah.  Adam: Hyper-oceanic. OK, so you can see I'm a poor student. OK. So, but luckily extraordinary, I mean, it's a bit there's a chill, but it's it has been lovely weather and it's definitely dry today.  Sam: Hmm yeah, this is this is quite strange for Dartmoor really, I think this is sort of the driest March in 60 years or something. So we are we are beginning to experience much, much drier springs and summers, but one of the functions of these rainforests is they are very, very good at producing their own rain and and in 2020, during the COVID lockdown, there was a real blue sky dry sort of drought level day in that March-April period. And I remember walking through this valley in the middle of the day and there was a thunderstorm and that was occurring nowhere else even in Devon or the wider country. And that's because they're effectively these sponges that accumulate a lot of rain in winter, store them, and then produce them more in summer.  Adam: Wow. And and I mean also we we think of rainforests as basically Brazil I suppose. But but we have temperate rainforests in the UK and my understanding is, I mean, they're extraordinarily rare on a, not just the UK, a global level. Just give us a sense of how special and unusual these environments are.  Sam: Yeah, that's right. So they're they're found only on 1% of the earth's land surface. So they are rarer by area than tropical rainforest.  Adam: Right. Do you happen to know? Sorry, are we going down there?   Sam: Down there yeah.   Adam: OK, so 1% temperate rainforests. Do you know what tropical rainforests are to give us a sense of proportion?  Sam: I actually don't know that, but I suspect it's probably around somewhere between 10-15%.  Adam: OK, well, I'm not gonna hold you to that *both laugh* but but that gives us a sort of sense of just how rare these are and tropical rainforests are fairly rare anyway, but OK. So these are very, very unusual environments. And what are you trying to do here then?  Sam: Well, a lot of these temperate rainforests are ancient woodlands, but they are plantations on ancient woodlands, so they are woodlands that have existed in perpetuity for as long as records go back. But a lot of them, as you can see here, have been coniferised, so they would have been cleared of their native tree species like oak, to be replaced by non-native timber crops from places like the Pacific Northwest, which which that's also ironically a temperate rainforest landscape, but those species are not co-adapted to the species we have here. So you you get these plantations that are very, very unbiodiverse, very dark, very shading and really don't work in tandem with a lot of the light-demanding rainforest species that we have, like rowans, hawthorns, oaks, that kind of thing. Of those sites I've talked about, almost half of it is conifer.  Adam: So your your first job, ironically, is to take trees out?  Sam: Well there'll be a sort of two-pronged approach really of using natural processes to diversify the forest, make it more structured, diverse. But we will need to intervene at certain times, particularly if we have really, really rare species. So in Ausewell for example, there's a species of lichen called bacidia subturgidula, so it's got a mad Latin name,   Adam: Wow, OK I'm definitely not saying that *laughs*  Sam: *laughs* But that species, for example, we have a quarter of the entire world's population of that species of lichen in Ausewell.  Adam: Right in Ausewell, which is quite a small place.  Sam: Yeah, exactly. That's about 100 hectares, so...  Adam: And that's a quarter of the global population of this lichen is in that...  Sam: Of that species, yeah. So when it comes to that, it's really about almost surgically intervening.  Adam: That's interesting. Let's let's carry on, you you better lead on, I've no idea where I'm going. So but that's interesting because I I can see planting trees, I've never heard of people actually planting like them, I didn't think that was even possible.  Sam: Yeah. So we call it translocation and and that's really only a last a last sort of nuclear option really when it comes to lichen conservation, if we have a tree where they have a really, really rare form of, a rare population of a species, then moving that to another tree may be the difference between that going extinct or not. But here now we've had this happen, what we're going to be doing is seeding it with those rainforest tree species to start to get that regeneration and there's loads over here.  Adam: What I'm still not clear about is why is the rainforest so special? It might be, oh it gets a lot of rain, who cares? A place gets a lot of rain, so does Wales, so does a lot of bits of London. It's clearly something special, it's not the trees, so what, why is having a temperate rainforest actually a good thing, what makes it special?  Sam: Well, there's there's there's a few different things. One of them is, and this is the real key one we focus on, is the biodiversity value. So the real bad, Britain in general is quite a wildlife poor place. We have quite a low species diversity, but these rainforests are absolute wells of biodiversity globally. The key ones are these epiphytes, so we're talking about lichens, bryophytes, so those are the mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Britain has over 2,000 species of lichen, it's one of the most biodiverse places on Earth in terms of lichen species, so we're really punching above our weight in terms of biodiversity in that sense, and they're only really found in these temperate rainforest habitats.  Adam: And lichen, I love lichen, and it's a real sign of air purity and everything, they're beautiful. How much do they support, like wildlife? I'm not aware of animals feeding off lichen very much, I don't think it has much nutrients in it?  Sam: Not too much at a macro level, but if you were to delve into that microscopic world, they are absolute keystone species in terms of forming the bedrock for so many invertebrates for so much sort of microbes. But they're also functionally, and this is something I'm I'm really passionate about, is looking at these forests in terms of what they can give to us functionally and the environment functionally, they are really good at fixing nitrogen. They're very, very good at fixing carbon, but but so in terms, that's what that's what makes temperate rainforest really good in terms of climate change mitigation is they hold that water, but they also are incredible carbon stores far more carbon is stored in these forests than traditional forests in the UK.  Adam: And that's lichens playing a big role in this?  Sam: A huge part, yeah, because of the pure, like the biomass of those lichens and mosses.  Adam: Ohh interesting. OK, so where are we going?  Sam: So I would quite like to go down to that river.  Adam: I'd love to go down to the river! Can I just ask, we're not going that way, are we??  Sam: No, I think we're gonna, that's one we may drive down, I think.  Adam: Drive down there?? No no we're not going to drive down there, that's not possible! *both laugh*  Sam: Yeah, we might have to go to a scenic detour around.   Adam: OK, well, there let's go down to the river. You have to lead. You look like...  Sam: So I think if we head up back to the car, shoot down, yeah.  Adam: OK. Ohh I see. OK, OK. But we're not driving down this this hill.  Sam: No, no, I think let's go down to the main Dart actually and then you can...  Adam: OK. And then get and get back, OK. Brilliant. We have come down to the river, remind me what the river is called?   Sam: This is the Webburn.   Adam: The Webburn, which leads into the Dart. We are on proper Hobbit territory now. A moss-covered stone bridge over the Webburn. We passed a little a beautiful little cottage, actually there's a number of beautiful cottages here. So explain a bit about where we are.  Sam: So we're stood on the Webburn, the Webburn watercourse and just behind us is the confluence of where it enters the Dart River and this kind of where it feeds into our aspirations for the restoration of the site. It's what many people would consider to be quite a natural looking river or natural looking watercourse. But this really as you can see it's very straight, it's very cut down into into the ground. So we call that incision and that's a product of centuries of draining and of artificial domestication of this watercourse to allow the land around it to be drier, which makes it more kind of productive for forestry.  Adam: So that's not natural?   Sam: No.  Adam: Are you gonna do anything about that? I feel like a teacher, ‘are you going to do anything about that?'!  Sam: *laughs* That that is the plan.  Adam: How how do you change, I mean, the river has cut, therefore quite a a deep edge into the land. What would you be able to do to to change that then?  Sam: Yeah. So a couple of years ago I went out to the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Vancouver Island to see their temperate rainforest and have a look at how old growth sort of ancient temperate rainforests function, but also how they restore them. And they, I asked them to take me to a river that was their best example of a really healthy rainforest river with really good salmon populations with great biodiversity that would have been unaffected by humans. And they took me to a place called Lost Shoe Creek. And and from the bottom of the watercourse where it entered the sea to the head waters, it was, you couldn't see the water. It was absolutely covered in wood, so huge trees that had fallen in, trees bank to bank, pinned against the bank. And what that does is it creates a much more dynamic river system that doesn't go in a straight line, but also holds back a lot of the gravel with the sediment and the silt that in this kind of river is making its way to the ocean. And causing a lot of damage.  Adam: So it's allowing or maybe placing actual dead trees into into the water and we can see one tree's already there, presumably that just naturally fell in.  Sam: That's right. Yeah. So if we left this for 1,000 years, it would fill, it would be effectively be a giant log jam, and we'd start to get a lot of that naturalised process happening. And then you get much more biodiversity because there's more invertebrates in the river, there's more shelter for fish and birds, there's more habitat. But what we're effectively planning on doing is is doing something what people call stage zero restoration, so taking,  accelerating that that thousand-year process and taking it back to a more naturalised river.  Adam: It's such a a spot. I think it's time for a bit of social media video, so I'll film that and you can see that on the Woodland Trust and my sites, and then we'll crack on. Sorry, I know this is really important, but this is an amazing fallen tree over a drystone wall covered in moss, I mean, I just had to stop for a moment. Look, you talked about lichen. I know, I ask you a question then stop you answering it *both laugh*. I love this lichen, it's all on this tree. It is really, really beautiful.  Sam: So this is called seastorm lichen which is one of the few lichens that has actually a romantic sort of English name that isn't Latin.  Adam: Wow. Well, very cool. Whilst you're talking, I'm gonna take a photo. OK. Yeah, go on, seastorm lichen.   Sam: Yeah, and and so a lot of the lichens will, as you can see, grow on the branches where the light is greater. So there's almost a canopy world of biodiversity up there, and what we're doing by increasing the light levels is, is drawing these lichens down to the forest floor by increasing the light levels. But this is a really, really good example of the kind of levels of deadwood we actually want to aspire to. So in, as you can see, in most of the forest, it's completely denuded of deadwood. So we'd be lucky if we get sort of 5 cubic metres of wood per hectare. In the forest of, the temperate rainforests of Canada, they have sort of 600 cubic metres a hectare of deadwood. So you you could barely even move through their forest.  Adam: And that's super, because often people want the deadwood cleared cause you go, ‘oh well it's untidy', but that's a sort of oasis of of biodiversity.  Sam: That's right. It's a whole layer of ecology that we're missing from our forests. And we recently did a study on something called the blue ground beetle, which is a an endemic rare species to temperate rainforests. We didn't know where they went in the day, so we didn't really know anything about them, they're very elusive. They come out at night, walk up the trees, and they reflect the moon off of their blue, kind of shiny carapace. They're our biggest beetle. So we did a study with Exeter University where we put GPS tracking backpacks on them.  Adam: On a beetle?  Sam: On a beetle, to find out where they went. And lo and behold, we found that they were going into these deadwood habitats and so it just it just shone a light on how important increasing deadwood in these forests is for all of those species.  Adam: Amazing. All right. I I do encourage you to follow the Woodland Trust's social media, Insta and all the rest of them and my Bluesky and Twitter or X or whatever it is you wanna do. And I'm now gonna take a photo which hopefully you'll see on any of that social media. So do follow them all. And we're going to take a pause as I pose *laughs*. Right, I'm back from my photographic expedition. Right. So you can answer the question again now about this public debate about access and and what have you. Go on, you lead on whilst we're talking.  Sam: So yeah, Dartmoor is really kind of the centre of gravity for a wider story around public, an increasing demand from the public to access land for wellbeing, recreation, connection to nature, that has been kind of growing here, particularly in this area.  Adam: Right.  Sam: There are, I think we actually sorry, we do need to go that way, I think they've blocked the path.  Adam: OK fair enough.  Sam: We're not having to scramble.  Adam: And I think we're going back to where we came from. Alright. Although that path there looks blocked.   Sam: This one looks good. Yeah.  Adam: Oh OK.  Sam: Go through this end.   Adam: Through the little stone wall. OK. Ruby's following doing social media. Ohh OK. Yeah, sorry, carry on.  Sam: So, I suppose the concern of some people might be that increasing footfall, public access to these really important fragments of temperate rainforest, it could have a damaging effect on the biodiversity here. But the reality is that in order for people to connect with, understand and care about nature, they need to have access to it. And so we need to bring people into these habitats in a sensitive and considered way to educate people about them, but the other key thing is we need to expand these habitats. So we're part of something called the South West Rainforest Alliance. And our goal collectively is to increase the amount of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall, to triple it by 2050.  Adam: OK. I mean that's worth pausing on that for a moment. That's an extraordinary task. I mean it sounds a bit, I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about that, it sounds like you plucked that out the air. How on earth would you get to tripling the cover you've got?  Sam: Well, we think we can do that mostly through buffering existing temporate rainforest, so planting around them which can then make those bigger, better, more connected, but also just by introducing trees into farmed landscapes but not in a way that damages the farming. So agroforestry. But also the inclusion of hedgerows that connect up those fragments and there's been a lot of work that's being done currently in partnership with Plymouth University to model how we would do that effectively.  Adam: And the other thing that strikes me when we talk about ancient woodland, we're talking about, well, we can't create ancient woodlands, the clue's in the name, it's got to be ancient. It is different for temperate rainforests, isn't it? These things which I've heard about are achievable in a relatively short period of time. Is that right?  Sam: That's right. So we think we can create new temperate rainforest within our lifetime. So within a kind of 40-50 year woodland establishment phase and as part of the Rainforest Recovery Project, we have a strand of work that we're calling the temperate rainforest creation trials and that includes long term scientific research to tell us how best we can create rainforest the quickest. So is it doing closed canopy woodlands like this or is it individual trees in farmland? Or is it open space woodlands or maybe even natural regeneration?  Adam: Amazing. We're by the river. Let's move on with our tales from the riverbank. One thing I I wanted to ask you, I arrived here last night. And I met well, an old friend of mine called Chris Salisbury, who runs a local sort of adventure, an ecological company, taking people for adventures in the woods and telling stories and all sorts of really interesting things, and he was telling me two things that he's noted. One is the reintroduction of pine martens which I think is talked about, but also he's seen wild boar in these woods and I've never heard of that. Are those, have have you come across those stories?  Sam: Yes, so we were actually involved in the reintroduction of pine martens last year and that was a partnership between us and Devon Wildlife Trust and various other charities. And and that was a sort of very controlled planned, strategic reintroduction of a species that's been really successful. We've brought the public along with us, and they're now part of that increasingly biodiverse and resilient temperate rainforest landscape.  Adam: Right before we move on to wild boar, just educate me, what is a pine marten? Not sure, not entirely sure I know what one is.  Sam: A pine marten is a mustelid, so it's in the same family as sort of the badger, the stoat, the weasel.   Adam: Right, what's it look like?  Sam: It's it's sort of the size of a small cat, it's brown with a white bib and it looks quite a lot like a weasel, but it's larger, but they're very much arboreal mammals, so they spend most of their time in the trees.  Adam: And were they native to this land?   Sam: Yes they were.  Adam: Hunted out were they?  Sam: Hunted to extinction for their pelts and and things like that. Yeah.  Adam: So you're reintroducing them. How successful has that been?  Sam: That's been really successful. So we've reintroduced 15 animals to Dartmoor last year and we think that that will be enough of a seed population for them to start spreading naturally now.  Adam: OK. And I've heard about what, the reintroduction in other parts of the country of pine martens. Wild boar. A a harder issue I would have thought ‘cause these are quite big beasts?   Sam: Yes.  Adam: Did, did any, presumably the Trust didn't introduce them? No.  Sam: No. So they haven't been, in the same way as pine martens were, formally introduced. There's been more of a sort of natural creep, or in some cases, so there's a term that people use now called ‘beaver bombing', which which people use completely straight faced in a lot of circles now. And that is effectively guerilla reintroduction of species.  Adam: Right. OK. So these are just people who feel that they should be rewilded and just did it without any any authority or talking to the local community they just brought them in?  Sam: Exactly without going through that sort of more defined process.  Adam: And and look, clearly this is not a Woodland Trust policy, so I'm not asking you to defend it, but but the effect of that, I mean, have you noticed anything?  Sam: I think, I mean, it's a huge subject, but I think in general, if you don't bring communities along with you by educating them, by mitigating the effect of a species, it it can damage the movement in in the longer term. The other thing I'd say about boar and those larger sort of herbivores, which would have been a really important part of our ecosystem for diversifying them and keeping that process going, they will really struggle unless we have bigger, better, more connected woodlands that are more natural anyway.  Adam: Right. I understand. So we're just going through talking about this being the rainforest, but it has been amazingly dry in the spring and now you can hear that in the crunchy undergrowth of very dry leaves. You're gonna, I'm I'm an idiot anyway, but I'm concentrating on too many things so I've forgotten the name of the river for the third time *laughs*.  Sam: It's the Webburn.  Adam: The Webburn, why can't I remember the Webburn? All right. We've come down to the Webburn, to the riverbank side. It's beautifully clear this water, isn't it? There I mean it, it's it's wonderful clear. I so want to stand in that and then I'll have wet feet for the rest of the day and the journey back to London. So I'm not going to do that. How much of a threat is this sort of environment under?  Sam: So temperate rainforest once covered about 20% of the UK and they would have clothed our western seaboard which receives that amazing sort of oceanic rainfall and temperature we've been talking about. That's been reduced now to about 2% in the UK.   Adam: OK, from 20 to 2%?  Sam: From 20 to 2, so 90% loss.   Adam: Over what sort of period?  Sam: So we're talking about millennia really. So this is they would have been at their zenith about 5,000, 6,000 years ago during the Bronze Age and that progressive multi-generation story of increasing farming, of draining, of forestry, has led to the fragmentation that we see today. In Devon and Cornwall, we think it would have covered about 75%. That's now been reduced to about 8%. So a similar 90% loss both regionally and nationally.  Adam: And are you optimistic that that's about to change? Are we now seeing a different story?  Sam: I feel really optimistic, but mostly that's because I think we're facing a lot of these holistic problems at the moment around the biodiversity crisis, around climate change, and I think rainforests are an actually incredibly cheap, scalable way of restoring nature, which will help us with the biodiversity crisis, but also protect communities from climate change. By doing some of this rewetting work, by increasing increasing tree cover, we can massively reduce flooding and massively mitigate the effect of drought on our farming and on our communities as it gets worse. We are hoping to raise £2.8 million to help us achieve the goals we have here and and the site will be open once we've achieved that goal towards the end of the year. And people can go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest to find more about that appeal.  Adam: So just repeat that website again so if people want, if they, if you've got your pen or your computer keyboard ready, here is the website to go to.  Sam: Thats woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest  Adam: And they can learn learn more about it, but also contribute there can they?  Sam: That's right. Yeah. And if they want to learn more about the Rainforest Recovery Project, we are launching a website this week called rainforestrecovery.org.uk.  Adam: So by the time you hear this podcast, all of that will be available to you at the moment I can edit it all together. It is an amazing, amazing site. I am really privileged to be here. What a wonderful place. Sam, thank you very much indeed.  Sam: You're welcome.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

Spring is in the air! Join us at Londonthorpe Wood, Lincolnshire to enjoy the wellbeing benefits of woods while using all our senses to check for signs of spring. We seek out frogspawn, song thrushes and blackthorn blossom for Nature's Calendar, a citizen science phenology project which tracks the effects of weather and climate change on nature across the UK. Keeping your eyes and ears peeled to record for Nature's Calendar doesn't just support science. Discover new research that shows how engaging all our senses on a woodland walk is good for our wellbeing, and how different levels of biodiversity in each wood can impact the positive effects of being in nature. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, this month I'm off to Grantham in Lincolnshire, which is a bit to the right of Nottingham and quite a bit below Sheffield, if you're not clear on your geography. Anyway, I'm here to investigate a Woodland Trust project called Nature's Calendar, which tracks how the seasons are changing over time and if, for instance, the timing of spring is starting earlier. Now, if that is happening, that's not a minor thing, because all of nature depends on, well, the rest of all of nature. So if one thing changes, it can cause big changes everywhere. Now, this is all part of citizen science, and if you don't know that phrase or haven't heard it before, it means the data is collected from people of all ages, backgrounds, abilities, not necessarily by scientists, in fact, probably not by scientists. Anyone can volunteer and the volunteering work is incredibly important. Volunteers have been recording the changing seasons with Nature's Calendar for 20 years, and the database they have built contains 2.9 million records. It's believed to be the longest written biological record of its kind in the UK, and it's used by researchers from across the world to explore the effects of weather and climate on timings in wildlife. And a brief word for those who like new words, here's one for you: phenology. That's what this project is all about. The study of seasonal changes in plants and animals from year to year. Phenology. Now, that word was invented by a botanist called Charles Morren in around 1849. But even before they had a name for it, people were busy recording what was happening in nature and Britain was really at the forefront of much of this work. Robert Marsham was Britain's first phenologist, doing his work before the name was invented for his field of study, and he recorded his quote ‘indications of spring' from around the year 1736. Anyway, all of that is a huge historical meander so let's get to the events of today with a real meander around Londonthorpe Woods with one of the Woodland Trust's experts. Here we are. Whenever you're ready! Sally: Okay, I'm Sally Bavin. I'm a monitoring and evaluation adviser for the Woodland Trust and we are currently at Londonthorpe Woods, near Grantham. Adam: Right, well, thank you very much for joining me here. It's a chilly day, but we're good on the, we're good on the rain for the moment. So what is the purpose of what we're doing here? Where are you taking me today and why? Sally: We've we've come out to the woods today to enjoy some of the wellbeing benefits of visiting woodlands and particularly looking out for signs of spring using all of our senses. So, yeah, it should be quite a quite an enjoyable one. Adam: Fantastic. And this fits in with part of a campaign the Woodland Trust is running. Is that right? Sally: Absolutely, yes, so we have at the moment we're asking people to look out for the vital signs of spring, as we're calling it. So we've picked out three things of interest that are frogspawn, the song of the song thrush returning for the spring, and the first blackthorn flower. Adam: Right. And that's what we're going to try and spot today. Sally: We will have a go. Yeah, we might be a bit early for some, but this is the the interesting thing to see what's out and about at the moment. Adam: And on a previous podcast we were here together looking to sort of identify trees. I'm going to be super impressed if you can identify birdsong as well. Are you good at that? Sally: Well, I know the song thrush. That's the one we're listening out for *laughs* so I'm not too bad. You'll have to test me as we go along. Adam: Okay, so we're at Londonthorpe Woods, which is, happens to be near Grantham, which is where the Woodland Trust is actually based. So all very lovely. Which way? Sally: I assume we're editing lots of… Adam: No, no, no, all this confusion is, is in *both laugh*. That way. Sally: Okay. Adam: Right. If you're hearing noises off, it's because Alex from the Trust is joining us. She's part of the brains of the operation and also doing social media videos. So I'm gonna look particularly daft with my, headset on, talking into a little box. Anyway, so, okay well, we're already leaving the woodlands. That was a quick visit. We're crossing the road. Is it because there's a pond over here? Sally: Yes. So the first thing we're going to look for, is frogspawn. And as we are walking towards the pond, I could tell you about some research that the Woodland Trust has funded, but let's wait till we get away from the road. Adam: I was gonna say we just crossed not a very busy road that got very busy as we were crossing it. Okay, let's go through here, away from the road and into another bit of woodland. Sally: So I think to get to the pond, I think it's that way. And then that way. Adam: Okay, you're not filling me with confidence. You've only taken two directions, and you're not sure of either of them at the moment, but okay *both laugh* Sally: Yeah. So as we're walking along, the idea is to be using all of your senses to engage with the landscape that we're in. So I've just seen a robin fly past there, but, yeah so… Adam: But robins aren't a sign of spring? Sally: They sing all year round, they're a good constant through the winter. Thank goodness for the robin otherwise we wouldn't really have much birdsong in the winter at all. Adam: And they look lovely, robins, but actually they're they're quite territorial, they've, a lot of them come to my bird feeder in my garden and they're, they're proper brave! I mean, I'll go out and the robin looks at me like, come on, get the nuts out, get the seed, they're not scared. They're quite territorial, looks like quite territorial birds, I think. But go on, you you were wanting to tell me? Sally: So one of the birds that we're listening for is the song thrush. That is because, it's a bird, which generally, it starts singing early spring, and it's a species that's been recorded for Nature's Calendar for many years now. So it's one that we're asking people to look out, to listen out for even, engaging all your senses, because it's quite a distinctive song, so if we do hear one, then that would be great. Adam: And then where do they go then, in the winter, then, migratory, migratory, oh, gosh, I can't even say that word properly. But anyway, they're not always here, perhaps is a better way to describe them. Sally: We do have resident song thrush, but it's the singing behavior that starts in the spring. Adam: Oh does it? And is that all about attracting, you know, mates? Sally: Yeah, yeah, it's the the springtime rush for romance, yeah. Adam: Right okay and is it the boys or the girls doing the singing? Or is it both? Sally: I believe it's the males, but, yeah, I'll have to check that one. Adam: Okay. I'll check. Sally: It's usually the males. Adam: Is it? Okay. Sally: But the robins are the exception where females and males both sing. Adam: Actually, do you know what? I've got such a bad memory, but I, we came here, and I remember stopping at this tree because I think you were explaining to me, was it, a little, I've forgotten the name, but the things that you crush up and make ink with that Shakespeare used to write in. Sally: Ah, oak galls. Adam: Oak galls! Oak galls. And I think they were around here. No, this is not an oak? Sally: No… Adam: Okay. But this is, that's right, I think oak galls, which was a great little episode all about, and I've got one on my desk still from this woodland. Sally: Oh, you've not used it for writing yet? Adam: I haven't ground it up to try and make ink, no. Anyway, sorry, I was interrupting. So yes so so the birds don't leave us, but they do start singing, right? A very muddy bit. Sally: Very muddy. Adam: Okay, you might hear some squelching. Oh, blimey. Sally: So that's some good sensory experience there as well all the squelchy mud. Adam: Okay, so tell me a bit about, this woodland that we're in whilst we're going up to find the pond. Sally: So this is Londonthorpe Wood. It's the closest woodland to our Grantham head office, which is lovely. It was it's a woodland creation site, but it's getting, on I think it's roughly about 30 years, probably since it was planted now. So, it's really, you know, well established now, we can start to see lots of different types of habitats. We've got some glades, which is open areas within the woodland, with some nice grassland habitat. There's some dense areas, like these sort of thickets of blackthorn, which we could be checking for blossom. I can't actually see any at the moment yet. I think we're perhaps a bit too too early. Adam: Well, we're going just off the beaten track a bit here into a lovely pond area where, oh, it's it's actually, this is an outdoor classroom it says, so we'll go through this gate and walking up here, there's a good sized pond and a platform, I've lost the word, a wooden platform so you can sort of stand out a bit and it's here that we're hoping to see frogspawn, one of the early signs of spring, even though it's a bit chilly today. So we'll have a, yeah, I'm already getting a shake of the head so okay. Which is a shame, because it looks like there are no frogspawn here at the moment. So one of the early signs of spring is not here. But I suppose just the absence of that spring, is itself interesting, I mean, and in itself, one observation, of course, isn't scientifically significant, but actually, I think what is perhaps really important is that, global warming, changing seasons aren't linear. So we're also getting we may be getting an early spring, but also we're getting more volatile periods perhaps. So it's just up and down. And perhaps that's what we're seeing anyway. No, no frogspawn today. Let's move on. Sally: It's an unusually hilly wood for Lincolnshire. Adam: Yeah. Oh, right. Is Lincolnshire, meant to be fairly flat? Sally: A lot of it's flat, yeah, but Grantham is on this, sort of geological feature called the Lincoln Edge, and it's sort of one big long hill that runs through the county, sort of south to north. And we just happened to be, have found it to climb. Adam: Right. So what is the purpose of this then? Presumably it's partly scientific because you're getting data from a from a lot of people around the country. Is it something else apart from that? Sally: Nature's Calendar as a project? Yeah, so, like you say, it's it's primarily it was set up to be a phenology project. So studying how the changing climate is affecting the changing seasonal events and affecting what time of year they occur. But it's also a really good opportunity for, because obviously it's volunteers that, you know, look out for these things and we need eyes and ears all over the country looking out for these things, and something that you get back from it as a volunteer, is that opportunity to have that bit of extra motivation to keep your eyes and ears out, looking at nature regularly, and with a sense of purpose to do that, which I think is a really good opportunity for people to, to help their own wellbeing. So it just kind of really fits well with what we know from research is, the way to get the most out of time in nature, which is using your senses to engage with it, finding meaning in it, and connecting with other people around it as well. So you become part of this, you know, community of people contributing and giving back as well. So you're providing your data that's, you know, an opportunity for you to, to contribute to something bigger than yourself and to, to have that sense of purpose, with what you're doing. So it just brings it more, yeah, it brings it alive for people, I think, because a walk in the woods, if you're not necessarily engaging with your surroundings, you could miss a lot of the beneficial species that that research showed when people engage with them, they really benefit from. Adam: Brilliant. Sally: I, I, one thing, oh, shall we sit on this log, that'd be a nice little, I mean, it looks a bit prickly around it, but nice to just sit and chat because we've had a lot of hills! Adam: It does have a lot of, yeah, we have had a lot of hills. Sally: So the research that the Woodland Trust funded, I just wanted to talk about what we're hoping to actually do with these findings and sort of why it's all important. So, the mapping that the researchers at the University of Kent have done, to identify those hotspots of, where woodlands are really rich in biodiversity and the biodiversity that people relate to for wellbeing experiences, it really it fits in with the Woodland Trust's focus on being really interested and driven to improve the quality of woodlands rather than just the quantity. So while we do need to increase woodland cover, as you know, just pure hectarage, we need more woodlands, it's really about the quality of those woodlands that we're creating and protecting and restoring woodlands that we already have. So this research really shows how it's important for people that the quality of woodlands is there. Just it just shows how important things like our new woodland creation guide are, which, set out guidelines for how to create a new woodland in a way that's most likely to help it develop into a woodland that's going to be thriving with wildlife in the future. Adam: And what sort of person gets that guide, is that just for professional sort of people who are setting up massive woodlands across the country, or is it something you you might be able to do as a community project or if you've got a large bit of land yourself? Sally: Yeah so it's available on our website so anybody can download it and it's aimed at anybody who's creating a woodland so the principles can be taken on board and scaled up or down to whatever's necessary. So, yeah, that's available on our website. Adam: And, and in the time that, that this Nature's Calendar has been running, have you noticed any differences? Sally: I've been with the Woodland Trust for five years, and so I've been recording frogspawn as my main… Adam: That's your, that's your go to. Sally: Yeah and I like it because it's very, well it's literally black and white *laughs*. You can, it's there or it's not there, one day it's there. So… Adam: And what, have you noticed anything in that time? Sally: Yeah, in my, I mean, a five year span, I suppose there's, there's quite variation and this is obviously just my one record, so it's anecdotal but but there are analysis provided on the website of all the woodlands, the, the Nature's Calendar data and yeah, so I think the first time I recorded it was about 10 March, something like that. And in some years I've recorded it as early as Valentine's Day so that's already past now so this year is obviously a later one. So you know, it, it shows that there is that, the the data from Nature's Calendar is part of it contributes to the State of UK Climate report and the JNCC Spring Index, which is the kind of, the measure that they use to look at the effect of climate change on biodiversity. Adam: Sorry what's the JNCC? Sally: JNCC is the… Joint Nature Conservation Council. That's probably, that might be wrong! Adam: Maybe, something like that. We don't guarantee that by the way, if you're listening, it's just what we think. Anyway, okay, the JNCC…*both laugh* Sally: It's a sort of government organisation. Adam: Doesn't matter, I'm sure they're very important. Anyway, the JNCC, I interrupted your your train of thought. The JNCC says what? Sally: The spring index has moved forwards by more than eight days over I think it's the last 30 years, I think is the data that they use. Adam: And is that a lot? Is that significant? I'm not sure? Sally: It's it's significant when you think that birds will time their nesting, to within a peak kind of abundance of caterpillars, which are all also dependent on the phenology of leaves emerging. Adam: And an eight day difference makes a difference? Sally: So yes, yes, studies of birds like blue tits, which we've said are, you know, so important for people's wellbeing to be able to see birds like that around, yeah studies have shown that they do suffer in years where, the, the leaves burst too early. That means the caterpillars come out too early, and then they are not in sync with that, pattern for when they're, raising their chicks in the nest because they need a huge amount of food to be able to raise to, to raise a clutch of, of chicks. And they do it over a spell of just, you know, 2 or 3 weeks. So a week is a big difference when you think that that's... Adam: Right so that makes it, okay, that's it in context. So they're they're really peak feeding for these young chicks is 2 or 3 weeks. So if, if spring is moving eight days that's over half your feeding time to get a sort of young chick away and stable, is actually there's no food. That's the difference between living and not living, presumably that's a big deal? Sally: Yep, yeah, exactly. And you know, the sort of potential knock on consequences of food chains being disrupted could go much beyond there but I think there's a lot more that we don't know yet. And that's probably just as concerning as what we do know. Adam: Okay, yeah, I didn't, I have to say when you say eight days over 30 years, I went, well, I don't know, how significant is that. But when you say they've only got two weeks to feed these chicks at their peak, that suddenly makes it much more worrying. Sally: Yeah, absolutely. Adam: Okay. All right we've had our little rest. Sally: I think we're getting rained on now aren't we. Adam: Oh are we? Oh no. Sally: I don't know I thought I felt a few spots. Adam: Right. Where to now? Now why am I asking you, you've no idea! Sally: I think this takes us to, this takes us back. Adam: You've no idea. I've got to stop asking you. Sally: We, I can remember on the… Adam: We're just going to go forward. And if you, if you find this at some future period, send our love to our families and loved ones. Sally: Yeah we're still wandering. Adam: Yeah we're wandering and we just left this under a tree. Sally: Oh, yeah, I definitely felt rain. Adam: Okay. A little bit more mud. Whoops. Yeah. My first slide. Oooh. Sally: Oh look at these. Look at the snowdrops. Adam: Oh yeah. Snowdrops. Sally: Now that's a Nature's Calendar event that you can record. But because they're already out we've missed it. Adam: Alright. Oh gosh I saw that little, there's loads of snowdrops! They're all over there. So that's an early sign of spring. Sally: Yeah so next year you have to keep an eye out before, you know, in like January. Adam: Oh so it's not a sign, it comes before spring really. The snowdrops end of winter really. Sally: Yeah. Well, it all depends where you sort of draw the line, doesn't it? It's all a continuum, really. Adam: Aren't they beautiful? Gosh. Sally: And for Nature's Calendar what you, the the key point at which you know, okay, they're officially open is when the flower is actually open like that and you can see in the middle, not, just when they poke through and they're still closed like that one. Adam: Right. Sally: Yeah. That's a lovely display of them. Adam: Yeah. All over. Look, they're on the other side of the path and all these brambles as well. Very nice. It's emerging now. Sally: Top of the hill, can see, we've got a vantage point now, see where we are, out of the woods. Okay. I think that must be about their peak. You know, we're seeing them on their best, best few days. Adam: So downhill now? He says hopefully. Sally:  Yeah. Downward stretch. Adam: Okay. All right. We're going downhill. And whoa ho ho ho ho ho ho! That's like the Vicar of Dibley when she just disappears down a hole, which is much, well it's not quite as dramatic as that, just my foot went into it, not my whole body, but, you know, I don't know if you can hear this, but there we are. It's going through my shoes. I've got wet feet. Whoa ho ho! *both laughing* Sally: This is a wet bit. We should have brought some tarpaulin just to slide down this hill shouldn't we. Adam: Sorry? Whoa! Okay, we're all going over. Oh ho ho ho ho! Sally: You're doing the splits. Adam: Give me a hand, I've got my legs going different directions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Whoa, oh whoa! *both laughing* Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry sorry about that. Sally: Oh, dear. Perhaps this was a mistake. Adam: It's not just me. Sally: I wonder if there's such a thing as mud skis. Adam: Yes. There we are. Go on then, so yeah, so what's the… Sally: What, why, why does it all matter? Adam: Why does it matter, all of this then? Sally: Well, for the Woodland Trust, it's really important to our vision and our mission, we want to create a world where woods and trees thrive for people and for nature. And so there's been quite a lot of work looking at the ecosystem services that are provided by woodlands in terms of carbon and flooding and all of those sorts of things. And a lot of mapping work has been done already to help us prioritise, you know, where is it best to create, protect and restore woods to deliver those particular priorities of different ecosystem services? But this is the first time that human wellbeing has been kind of mapped in that way, to be able to provide insight into, you know, these are the areas that need to be targeted and prioritised to increase biodiversity, particularly in areas where people have not got such high quality woodlands to visit necessarily. Adam: So an important piece of work scientifically, but a great thing for people to be involved in as well. Sally: Exactly. And and another thing that was really an interesting finding, so the researchers analysed their map of woodland wellbeing quality against the indices of multiple deprivation, which is some socio-economic data that's in a sort of mapped, format. And they looked to see whether there was a relationship between the quality of woodlands in an area and the socio-economic status. And they found that there is a relationship. So unfortunately, areas which are have a lower socio-economic status also tend to have the lower quality woodlands, which is, you know, it's not fair. And it's, something that, you know, it's opened our eyes to that to now allow us to think about, you know, how is it best to to sort of consider that when we're targeting where to create woodlands and enhance biodiversity in general. So, so yeah, it's really important for people I think, this is this is a really important piece of work, to help us deliver for, for people and nature. Adam: And if people want to get involved in spotting the early signs of spring, how should they do that? Sally: You can go to the Woodland Trust website and go to Nature's Calendar, you'll find the link on there, and there'll be all the information there about how to sign up and what different events you can record and how to do it. Lots of information on the website. *dog barks* Adam: Wonderful. We've got a keen dog who wants to get involved clearly as well. And so go to the Woodland Trust website and you can follow them on social media, Insta and the rest, no doubt as well. Thank you very much. Sally: Thank you for coming on a walk with us. Adam: Thank you. I returned to the car park muddier, a little wetter, but we have missed most of the rain so that is really good. Sally: It's just starting now. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us. And do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite Woodland Walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about food and tastes. Learn to talk about the different flavours people like and don't like. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250314 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Beth and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about relationships.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250214 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Beth and Georgie have a conversation in easy English about the countryside and things you can do there TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250207SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newslettersFIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

You've built a successful business, but now the big question is, how do you turn that into a retirement plan? If you're like many entrepreneurs, you've spent years reinvesting in your business, but what happens when it's time to step away? Can you sell it? Can you create passive income from it? Or should you start saving in other ways right now? In this episode, we're breaking down strategies for business owners who need to turn years of hard work into long-term financial security.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:    You've built a successful business, but now, the big question is, how do you turn that into a retirement plan? If you're like many entrepreneurs, you've spent years reinvesting in your own business, but not in yourself. This week on Plan With The Tax Man, let's talk about that. Let's get started. Hey, everybody, welcome into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with Tony and myself as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. Of course, Tony Mauro is the man to turn to here in the Iowa area at Tax Doctor, Inc. He's a CPA, CFP, and an EA of 30 plus years experience, and a great resource for you to tap into if you've got questions about this week's topic, for example, which is what to do now, if you've sunk all of your efforts and your money into your business. And Tony is a business owner. I know you can probably relate, as many of us can. So it's a great question was we actually got a question in from a listener who's also a business owner kind of posing this, and you and I thought it'd be a good idea to have that conversation. How you doing? I've been good. Well, there's been good here, and just getting ready for tax season as we tape this. Yeah, yeah. It's coming fast and furious, so of course, as you're aware, but I'll share it with the listeners so they can kind of set the table for them, if you will, Dan, a longtime listener and a business owner sent a question that might sound familiar to others who are in the same situation, Tony. He says, "I haven't saved much for retirement, because I'm self-employed and I've always pumped most of my money back into the business. But now, I'm not sure how to turn that into retirement income, as it's creeping up on me fast. Have you worked with folks in a similar situation?" And obviously, Tony, I'm sure that you have. So let's talk about some of the key aspects to that. First of all, what'd you think about the question? I think it's a good question, and almost every one of our business owners are in the same predicament or if we're doing, whether it's just their tax return or their monthly accounting for them, they all face this. And so, it is something on business owners' minds. And what happens to us all as owners is, as we get into our... It's our baby, right? We pump everything into it. They pump everything into it, but I kind of rebut that. Because what they say is, "All my money is in my business." And then, I start asking questions to them when we're trying to do some planning and say, "Well, what's your business worth?" "I don't know," they say. And I said, "Well, even if it's worth, let's say, X, you may not get all of that money up front for it and you may not get what you think." Everybody, since it is our babies, thinks it's worth well more than it actually is. Our kids better looking than anybody else's kid, right? So it is difficult, and we also try to put some numbers to it and tell them, "Well, if your business is worth," I'm just going to use an example, "a million dollars, could you live on that?" And number one. Number two is is, "What if it took 10 years to get that million? Maybe you better start doing some other things in lieu of. Because I think the business itself is icing on the cake, but I wouldn't just count on it for your retirement." Again, everybody's different. No, for sure. And we've got several things kind of in that line and some other stuff. So I'll dive into some of these thoughts here. So what are some smart strategies for turning a business into an asset? So to that point that you just made, Tony, should Dan and people like Dan, should they look at selling? Should they transition to passive ownership? Or is there another approach? I think this is the biggest reason to be talking to your advisor on something like this, because I think all three of them could have merit. Sometimes business owners get burned out and then they want to sell, but basically, it kind of depends. Without knowing more about his financials, it's hard to say. But let's take, for example, if he's fairly successful, earning a good income and still wants to stay in the business, probably, he might want to make sure, and again, this is a more business owner talk than financial talk, but make sure his business is running on systems, so that it is going to be very sellable when he sells it, not just reliant on him. Because they're generally not worth as much if you're doing all the work. And most of these business owners are, they get to be self-employed, and really, they become an employee in their own business and they're slaves to it. That's a great point. And sometimes, even if you're thinking about selling it, maybe you are the business. What happens when you leave? Would it do as well? Yeah. Would it do as well? And if the clients are only used to dealing with you and you leave, well then, that, again, that doesn't bode well for money coming in for you. But I think the way to turn it into a retirement asset is to get it systemized, get it into something, where maybe you can go into passive ownership. Because then it's worth a lot more. Good points. What about just going ahead and maybe, okay, if you're aware of it, you get to this situation, Dan sent this message in, other people are getting there, he doesn't say how far away his retirement is, just that it's nearing, is it maybe time to stop pumping everything into it and look at some 401k options or something for yourself? Maybe if selling it's not on the horizon, is it time to start feeding what, like a SEP, things of that nature? I would definitely say that. That's one of our biggest key planning points with business owners is that whole retirement area, because a couple things can happen. One, they can cut their taxes while they're doing it, and then, the other thing is they can track better employees. And then, of course, the whole, we've been over it time and time again, about saving for the future allows them to pile up massive amounts of money that the ordinary guy sometimes can't do. And I think they need to do both. We try to get them to definitely do one of those things once we talk about how much money they want to try to put aside. Okay, because there's what? SEP IRAs out there? Solo 401ks? Yep. Simple IRAs. You've got the old fashioned type of pension plans, which are expensive, but very good if you've got a ton of cash flow. So there's like 5, 6, 7 options out there, depending on how much flexibility and how much you want to try to sock away, which you can find something that fits you. Yeah, yeah. Well, so obviously, he prioritized reinvesting in his company over traditional savings, which many people do. So to my question a second ago about, hey, it's time to maybe make a change and start paying yourself and your future self, how do you guys help people kind of prioritize that, right? Because I know that that's probably the concern, if left to his own devices, Dan may just keep pumping into the business, does it require maybe that third party person like yourself to say, "Okay, you need somebody to kind of help you stay accountable?" Or what's your thoughts? I think it definitely does, and I think this kind of bodes to some of the facts of monthly accounting and making sure that you understand, each and every month, exactly what happened in the business and then, year over year, of course. And that generally comes somebody else doing your accounting, because most business owners either don't do it at all or don't do it correctly. And then, of course, it's hard to make good decisions. But once that's done, then yes, it's extremely important for your advisor or your accountant, like in our case, to be trying to tax plan with you and retirement plan at the same time. So it all kind of blends into one for us business owners. So that you're seeing that you're not hurting the business, but you're also seeing, "Hey, I'm actually doing something for me too." Exactly. Yeah. And having, I think, a third party or a second set of eyeballs, whatever you want to call it, kind of helps a little bit, because we do get blind... With all the other conversations we have, Tony, typically, we're our own worst enemies, right? That's right. When it comes to just about anything. So, all right, so if Dan wants to eventually sell the business as part of his retirement plan, what's some things for people who are looking to kind of step out of it? Because like succession plan is important. We don't know what kind of business it is, Tony, but I imagine, for your own business, you probably have a succession plan or you're working on one for sure. Exactly. Yeah. In my own business, my succession plan now is my son, who is in the business and learning. So that's my succession plan, and then, I have a plan B from there. If he decides to change his mind, what's going to happen? But business owners need to have a succession plan of some kind. And if you're in business with a partner or a brother, sister type thing, you better have a buy sell in place, so in case somebody wants out would be another one. The other one would be, like I said before, is trying to make sure that your business is running on as many systems as possible, and it's just not reliant on you. Because I think that's going to basically maximize its value. And then, of course, on top of that, if you could show that you're steadily growing the business, you've got good accounting records and processes in place, that's going to bode very well for a particular buyer to come in and buy themselves an income that they can replicate what you're doing and make money, all while possibly paying you off. That makes sense, Tony. And is there a value in, obviously, getting your company evaluated, evaluated for what it's worth, what they call that evaluation, right? Evaluation, yeah. What's a window for that? Should you do that just anytime, just so you know where you stand? Or if you're thinking about selling it, should you do that a year ahead of time or six months? Or what's your thoughts? My thoughts when people ask me that are a year to two ahead of time, so that you can basically start out the easy way and just try to use some free resources for that. And then, as you get a little closer, you've got to go from basically just looking around at what's selling in your industry, basically from the internet or brokers, to really maybe going out and get a professional evaluation done of the business. And there are companies that do that and they charge a fee and then they go out and do that, kind of like an appraiser would for real estate. And you can find mid range and upper range, just kind of depending on what you're looking for, they can get a little bit pricey, depending on the situation. But then again, maybe not, you may not feel it's pricey at all, so it could be worthwhile. So yeah, I think you got to start getting your ducks in a row, just like anything in retirement, whether you're self-employed or working for somebody else, right? It's all about having a plan and a strategy. So reach out to somebody like Tony and have a conversation, who is a CPA, right? And a CFP. So kind of thinking about both sides of the aisle there, taxation as well as financial planning for the future. And if you've got those questions, need some help, reach out to Tony at yourplanningpros.com, that's yourplanningpros.com, to get started today, get some time on the calendar. Or call him at 844-707-7381 if you're not already working with us. And if you're listening to the podcast and you work with Tony, that's great. If you're not and you're just catching this, feel free to consider subscribing to the podcast, so you can catch future episodes when they come out, on Apple or Spotify or whatever platform you like using. We'd certainly appreciate the support as well. Tony, anything else that I didn't catch on this? Any thoughts you might have? Other than just, like you said, if you need anything, to the listeners, reach out, because this is something for business owners. We love to work with them and make sure that they can get to where they want to be in their financial lives. For sure. So yeah, don't hesitate. Yeah, it gets a little more complicated, I suppose, sometimes than just the normal straight approach. But still, you got to have a plan, no matter what side that you're working with, whether you work for somebody else, like I said, or for yourself. So get on the calendar, and we'll see you next time here with Tony Mauro. Plan With The Tax Man, that's the name of the podcast. We'll catch you a little bit later on.   Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services SM, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency. Investment strategies discussed in this episode may not be suitable for all investors. Please consult with a financial professional.

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about the future and wishes. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250131SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newslettersFIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about different ways to talk.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250124 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about food shopping.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/250110SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Grab your hot chocolate (or mulled wine!) and get into the festive spirit with our Christmas special as we meet some reindeer, talk Christmas trees and explore a small but mighty wood with huge value for nature in the snowy Cairngorms National Park. We discover fascinating reindeer facts with Tilly and friends at The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre, and step into a winter wonderland at nearby Glencharnoch Wood with site manager Ross. We learn what makes a good Christmas tree, how the wood is helping to recover the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, why the site is so important to the community and which wildlife thrive here. You can also find out which tree can effectively clone itself, and is so tasty to insects that it developed the ability to shake them off! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: Well, today I'm in the Cairngorms in Scotland. In Scottish Gaelic, the area is called – I'm going to give this a go - Am Monadh Ruadh. Apologies for my pronunciation there, but we are in the midst of a mountain range in the Highlands, of Scotland obviously. Generally we're about 1,000 metres high here but the higher peaks I'm told get to about 1,300 metres odd, which is going on for, I don't know, 4,500 foot or so. So this is a very dramatic landscape. We have rocky outcrops, boulders, steep cliffs. It's home to bird species such as the dotterel, snow bunting, the curlew and red grouse, as well as mammals such as mountain hare. But the reason of course we are here this Christmas is because it is also home to Britain's only herd, I think, of reindeer. Now, the reindeer herder is Tilly. She is the expert here and I've been braving, I am braving the snow and icy winds to be introduced to her and the herd. And from there after that, we're going to take a drive to what I'm told is an amazing wooded landscape of Caledonian pine to talk all things pine, and of course, all things Christmas trees. But first of all, let's meet Tilly, who looks after the reindeer.  Adam: OK, we are recording.  Tilly: That's good. OK. I'd better not say anything naughty then.  Adam: I'll cut out any naughtiness, that's fine.  Tilly: This is a bit of a rustly bag. It's more rustly than normal but never mind.  Adam: What do the reindeer actually eat?  Tilly: Well, so. We're now up in their natural habitat and we're looking across a nice heathery hillside with sedges as well. You can just see them poking through the snow and they'll pick away at the old heather of the year and the sedges.  Adam: Right.  Tilly: But we manage the herd and we like to feed them. So what I've got in my bag is some food for them, which they love.  Adam: Right. And what's in your Santa sack of food now?   Tilly: Oh, that's a secret.   Adam: Oh, you can't tell me. Oh, God.  Tilly: No, no. I can tell you. So it's a cereal mix and there is something similar to what you would feed sheep. Bit of barley, bit of sheep mix.  Adam: That's awesome. So not mince pies and carrots? That's only reserved for Christmas Eve. That's probably not very good for them, I would have thought.  Tilly: Yeah, no, I hate to say this, but reindeer don't actually eat carrots.  Adam: Oh right okay, well, that's good to know.  Tilly: But if ever children bring carrots for them, I never turn them away because we're very good at making carrot soup and carrot cake.  Adam: Santa's helpers get the carrots.  Tilly: And I'm absolutely certain that Santa eats all the mince pies, so all good. So anyway, come on through here. We're going now into a 1000-acre enclosure. It just hooks on there, that's perfect, it goes right across. We could actually once we get close to these visitors are coming off from a hill visit this morning. So you'll be pleased to hear that I am the boss. I'm Mrs. boss man and I've been with the reindeer for 43 years. Now, their lifespan is sort of 12 to 15 years, so I've gone through many generations. I've known many lovely reindeer and there's always a favourite and you would have seen some real characters there today. And you couldn't see them in better conditions. Anyway, do get yourself down and warm yourselves up. Oh, you've done very well to bring a little one like that today.  Walker: He did pretty well until now!  Tilly: You've done extremely well. Of course they have. He's got very red, a bit like Rudolph. The thing is there's just that wind, and it's the wind that drops the temperature, that chill factor.  Adam: Yeah. So where are we going, Tilly?  Tilly: So we're heading out towards what we call Silver Mount. They're not in here all year. Different times of year, sometimes they're all free range, some of them are free ranging, some are in here.  Adam: When you speak about free range, literally they can go anywhere?  Tilly: Yes they can.  Adam: And they come back because they know where the food is?  Tilly: Yes they do. They know where the food is, they sort of know where the home is, but they do wander out onto the high ground as well, more in the summertime.   Adam: Right. And is that, I mean Scotland has different rules. There's a right to roam sort of rule here. Does that apply to reindeer? Is that the issue?  Tilly: That is a moot point.  Adam: Oh, really? We've hardly started and I've got into trouble.   Tilly: No. Well, we lease 6000 acres, right? So we lease everything out to the skyline.  Adam: So that's an extraordinary range for them.  Tilly: It is an extraordinary range, but they know no bounds. I have to say reindeer sometimes do just pop over the boundary.  Adam: And that causes problems with the neighbours?  Tilly: Well, some like it, some aren't so keen. And we herd them as well, so we can herd them home. And we herd them by calling them.  Adam: I was going to say, do you have a skidoo, or?  Tilly: No, no. Absolutely no vehicular access on the hill. It's all by Shanks's pony, everywhere.  Adam: Really. So you walk, and then you just ring a bell to herd them, or what do you do?  Tilly: And you ‘loooooow, come on now!' and they come to us.  Adam: Right. And so what was the call again?  Tilly: ‘Looow, come on now!'  Adam: Come on now, is that it? OK, very good. OK, I now move.  Tilly: Yes. But hopefully they won't all come rushing from over there.  Adam: I was going to say, yes, we've now called out the reindeer.  Tilly: We've just joined a cow and calf here, who have just come down to the gate, and you can see just for yourself, they're completely benign. They're so docile and quiet. There's no sort of kicking or pushing or anything. They're very, very gentle creatures.  Adam: And is that because they've been acclimatised because tourists come, or would that be their natural behaviour?  Tilly: It is their natural behaviour, bearing in mind that reindeer have been domesticated for thousands of years. We're not looking at a wild animal here that's got tame. We're looking at a domesticated animal.  Adam: Right.  Tilly: It's probably more used to people than some of the reindeer up in the Arctic. So we have domestication embedded in their genetics.  Adam: So what we're saying is, genetically, they're actually more docile. It's not because this particular reindeer is used to us. But originally then, if one goes back far enough, they were wilder?  Tilly: Yes so, it's a really interesting process of domestication of reindeer, which happened in the Old World, so Russia, Scandinavia, inner Mongolia, outer Mongolia. And that is reindeer and many, many reindeer in these Arctic areas, are domesticated. They're not wild.  Adam: And that started happening, do we have an idea when?  Tilly: Probably about 10,000 years ago. But if you go to the New World, to Alaska and North Canada, exactly the same animal is called a caribou. Caribou are never domesticated. The indigenous people of these areas never embraced the herding and enclosing of reindeer, which was caribou, whereas in the Old World it became very, very important to the men, the people's survival.  Adam: And then the caribou, do they have a different character?   Tilly: Yes, they're wilder. And it's a little bit difficult to show today – you see quite strong colour variation in reindeer, which you don't see in caribou, and colour variation is man's influence on selecting for colour. So you'd get very light coloured ones, you'd get white ones in reindeer, you'd get very dark ones, but in caribou they're all the same, brownie-grey colour. Yeah, they felt that the white reindeer were important in the herd for whatever reasons, Germanic reasons or whatever. Interestingly, the Sámi - and I'm not sure if there could be a white one up in the herd here at the moment - describe them as lazy reindeer, the white ones.  Adam: Why?  Tilly: Well, I didn't know why until I worked out why white reindeer are often deaf. So they sleep, they don't get up when everybody else gets up and moves, and this white reindeer doesn't realise that the herd has left them. So they're not all deaf, but certain white ones are.  Adam: Very important question, obvious but I didn't ask it to begin with because I'm a fool. Why are reindeer connected to Christmas?  Tilly: Well, that's a really good question, because actually they think it stems from a poet called Clement C Moore, who wrote a poem in America, he had Scandinavian Germanic connections, called The Night Before Christmas, where Donder, Blitzen, Cupid, Comet, fly through the air with Saint Nick in the sleigh, the little Santa.  Adam: Yeah.  Tilly: But, so that really set the scene of eight reindeer and the sleigh, and that was based on the Norwegian God Odin, who had eight legs and strode through the sky with these eight legs and eight reindeer. Then we have Rudolph, who turns up, but he doesn't turn up until the time of prohibition in America.  Adam: So Rudolph isn't in the original poem?  Tilly: Absolutely not. Rudolph is an impostor.  Adam: I didn't know that!  Tilly: He, so he, it was a marketing exercise for a department store during alcohol prohibition. And it was Rudolph with his red nose, and his red nose is because of alcohol.  Adam: Because he drank too much? So was it in favour of alcohol or was it going ‘what terrible thing happens to you when you drink'?  Tilly: I'm not terribly sure. But anyway, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was the song, so that adds to it. And then along comes Coca-Cola who used a red and white Santa to promote Coca-Cola at Christmas time. So the red and white Santa is Coca-Cola.  Adam: Right. And the red-nose reindeer is from alcohol and reindeer comes from an actual American poem, of which Rudolph wasn't part of anyway. That's all simple to understand then!  Tilly: Exactly. Perfect.  Adam: Well, we're moving up to some of the more exposed slopes. Tilly has gone ahead. I'm just going to catch up back with her, and ask how she started as one of UK's first reindeer herders. Well, certainly, one of our few reindeer experts.  Tilly: I came up to volunteer and I met the keeper who was looking after the reindeer for Dr Lindgren, who was the lady who brought them in with her husband, Mr Utsi, and he was quite good looking.   Adam: Is this a revelation you wish to make to them?  Tilly: And the reindeer were endearing, and the mountains were superb, and so I married the keeper.  Adam: Right, you did marry him! I thought you were telling me about another man other than your husband.  Tilly: So I married Alan. We married in 1983 and I've been here ever since.  Adam: And so the purpose of having reindeer here originally was what?  Tilly: Ah, good question. Mr Utsi came here and was very taken by the landscape and the environment, the habitat, because it was so similar to his own home country of north Sweden. And he begged the question where are the reindeer? Why are there not reindeer here? And it was on that notion that he and his wife, Dr Lindgren, devoted the latter half of their lives to bringing reindeer back to Scotland.  Adam: So that's interesting. So, it raises the difference of ecological or sort of natural question, of whether these are indigenous animals.  Tilly: Yes. So it's an interesting idea. Certainly, the habitat's available for them and they live in their natural environment. But when they became extinct, or not extinct, but when they weren't in Scotland, some people say as recently as 600 years ago and some people say as long as 2,000 years ago. If it's 2,000 years ago, they're described as a past native.  Adam: So OK, I didn't realise that, but is there any debate around whether they were originally - whatever originally is –  Tilly: They were definitely here.  Adam: So they are native? They're not sort of imported, they have died out and been brought back here.  Tilly: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, they were reintroduced, but how, what that time span is, some people say sooner than later, and Mr Utsi certainly identified this as a very suitable spot for them.  Adam: Any idea why they might have died out? Do we know?  Tilly: Probably a bit of climate change and also probably hunting. Very easy animal to hunt. Are you OK with this chitter chatter going on?  Adam: Yes, it's all good, and a bit of, do you call it mooing?   Tilly: Oh no, the reindeer aren't making any noise, they're clicking.  Adam: Someone was mooing!  Tilly : I think it was the people.  Adam: I thought it was the reindeer making that noise.   Tilly: Not at all. They're very silent.   Adam: They'd have left this podcast thinking reindeer moo.  Tilly: They would have. Exactly. No, they are really, really silent animals.  Adam: There's a very large reindeer there coming down the road.  Tilly: Oh, that's OK, that's Akubra, he'll do nothing to you at all. He's an absolute genuine reindeer. He's lovely. But he listened to the clicking as they walk. You can't hear it because of your headphones.  Adam: OK, so I guess later on I'll put a microphone on a reindeer. That will be a first. One other thing I always imagined when you saw a set of antlers on a sort of grand Scottish mansion, I thought, oh well, they've killed that the reindeer. And actually, that's not true, is it? They fall off.  Tilly: They do. You're absolutely right. Having it depends how you see the antlers. If the antlers are still on a skull, that animal has been killed and there's nothing wrong with that. There is a, you know, the animals need to be controlled. But you're also right. Antlers are lost every year and regrown again, so they cast their antlers and they regrow their antlers. So in a reindeer's life, if a reindeer is 10 years old, he will have just grown his 11th set of antlers.  Adam: And the purpose of antlers is fighting? I'm a big girl, I'm a big boy, whatever.   Tilly: Yeah, mainly for fighting, a weapon. So for the big breeding males, it's for claiming harem for females, so in the breeding season. And those big breeding bulls will actually lose their antlers around about now, their antlers will fall off and then they won't regrow their antlers until next spring, right? The females, little females like this, keep those boney antlers all winter and they use them for competing for food, so they can jab another reindeer and push it off and they can get into the food as a result.   Adam: The other thing I can notice about some of them, but not the reindeer in front of us, but I think the one walking away, although this looks very bony, the other one has sort of felt on it, and what looks like blood. So what's going on there?  Tilly: Yes. So they are the velvet antlers on the Christmas reindeer that have finished growing, but they don't lose the velvet properly and there is still potentially blood in the bone, as it were.  Adam: So there's this sort of capillary underneath the felt.  Tilly: Yes, exactly, because the antler's a really interesting appendage because it grows from the tip. It doesn't grow from the base, so the blood supply has to go all the way to the tip to grow. And the velvet skin carries that blood supply.  Adam: Right. I see. So now the reindeer in front of us has no velvet so that can't grow.  Tilly: And no blood supply. Exactly. And the only way she can grow, get more antlers or bigger antlers, is to lose the whole thing and grow it again next year. Yes.  Adam: So any other serious facts we should note, to inform ourselves about reindeer?  Tilly: Oh, lots of serious facts. So they're the only deer species where the males and the females grow antlers. Every other deer species, it's only the males that grow the antlers. They are the only deer species that's been domesticated by man. All the other species of deer, we're talking about 40 different species, are all truly wild animals. They can survive in the coldest parts of the world, so in the middle of Siberia, the temperature can go down to -72 and reindeer are still living there quite happily.  Adam: It's cold today, but it's probably -2 or something.  Tilly: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Man cannot live in the Arctic without an animal to live by, and it's reindeer that he lives by. Man would never have gone into these areas. Obviously now they're all digging up, you know, getting the oil and the gas and everything. But indigenous man can only survive in these areas if he has reindeer as his farm animal of the north, so they're really important to the indigenous people of the north.  Adam: And in that sort of role, then, you can clearly eat reindeer. Then what else does it provide us?  Tilly: Absolutely. So it provides with meat. There are indigenous people that milk them in season. They have these tremendous coats that are used for covering tents and for people's, you know, clothing. And the antlers? Not now, but the antlers would have been used as tools in the past.  Adam: And have you ever had reindeer milk?  Tilly: I have tried, yes, we have milked the odd reindeer for one reason or another. It's very rich, very rich.  Adam: You have! Rich, is that good or quite fatty? Is it drinkable?  Tilly: That's good. Yeah, it's totally drinkable. Totally nice.  Adam: Yeah, I think yaks or a drink made from yaks, which was disgusting, I found in Mongolia, but I really found it difficult. It wasn't my thing.  Tilly: But it wasn't the fermented one, was it? Because in Mongolia they're into fermented mare's milk.   Adam: That might be what I had.  Tilly: And that is revolting.   Adam: Yes, OK, that's maybe what I had. How unusual is reindeer milk then?  Tilly: Yeah. It's got a very high fat content. They produce very little milk, because if you had a great big swinging under in in freezing conditions, you'd have ice cream, you wouldn't have milk.  Adam: The other thing I noticed that we haven't talked about is their hooves which look quite large and they look, I mean just from a distance, quite mobile.  Tilly: Yes. They are very, very, very flexible animals and their feet, their hooves are very big. Of course, for snow. Walking on the snow, spreading the weight, but also great shovels for digging. So they dig. You know, if you're in two feet, three feet of snow in north Sweden, you've got to get to the food underneath and to get to it, they need to dig. So they're great diggers.  Adam: And your life now here. It's quite a change from where you grew up, I appreciate.  Tilly: Certain years, a very rural life I had then. I have an equally country-wise life now. I will go to my grave with reindeer. They are my complete nutter passion. They are the most wonderful animals to be amongst, they put a smile on your face. They live in a beautiful area. They're just, they're just lovely animals and they give me a lot of pleasure. Yeah, yeah.  Adam: Fantastic. And if people are in the Cairngorms and want to have their own trip to see the reindeer, they call the what?  Tilly: They call the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre. You could do it on the website, you can ring us up and they need to dress up. I'm sure you appreciate you, are your feet cold yet?  Adam: No, look, I stopped off and bought extra thermals on my way.  Tilly: Very good.  Adam: Well, thank you very much. It's been a real treat, thank you very much.  Tilly: Brilliant. Oh, well, thank you for coming.  Adam: Well, I'm afraid I'm having to leave the reindeer behind because we're now heading to a little lower ground to see what I'm told is an amazing forest of Caledonian pine. And to learn a bit more about the trees and their relative, the other pine, which we all know as the Christmas tree. And we're off to meet a guy who looks after the Glencharnoch Wood in Carrbridge, near the River Spey and Dulnain. And now, despite it, it's a quite a small forest, I think. But despite that, it's quite well known for being really important, really big on biodiversity. And it's home to a number of species including, but not just them, but including the red squirrel and the crested tit.  Ross: My name's Ross Watson. I'm the site manager for North Scotland for the Woodland Trust.  Adam: Brilliant. Ross, we have come on an extraordinary day. It has snowed. It looks picturesque, chocolate box, shortbread box maybe, type stuff, so fantastic. So just tell me where we are.  Ross: Well, we're in Glencharnoch wood. It's a wood that the Woodland Trust owns and it's part of a series of little woodlands on the back of Carrbridge between Carrbridge and the railway. And the Woodland Trust has had it for a number of years. It's a little site, only 36 acres, but it's a pine wood site and a really important pine wood site at that, in that it's a small part of much bigger Caledonian forests.  Adam: OK. Well, I want to talk to you about pine wood, because I think it just sort of gets dismissed – ‘oh this pine wood, not important, not interesting'. Apart from Christmas, perhaps, when suddenly it becomes really important, but I want to unpack all of that with you, but just explain to you we're going to go on a little walk. Hopefully you know where you're going. Good. All right, so just explain a bit about where we're going, give me a sense of the pattern of where we're going.  Ross: Absolutely. We're going to take a circular walk around the woodlands. The woodlands here, it's all about community. Everything we do here is around that tree. We're going to walk through a piece of land that's owned by the local authority and then go through our own land and onto privately owned land and then come back to our own land. And it really shows the connectivity of all these different habitats, all the different landowners. But really the path network is there for the community that's here and they are involved in practice as well.  Adam: So. Pine wood. Yeah, it sort of gets bunched all together, and especially the Scots pine I hear a lot about. But there are there are big, big differences and varieties are there? Tell me a bit about them.  Ross: The Scots pine we are walking through are really special species. That's the only native conifer in the UK, right? And that's why they're so special here. Really these Scots pine provide their own habitat all of their own. They're incredibly threatened. As a habitat in Scotland, we've got just a number of Caledonian pine inventory sites. We've got ancient woodlands, designated sites.  Adam: Sorry, just to stop you - Caledonian pine, Scots pine, interchangeable words?  Ross: Yeah, good point. The Great Wood of Caledon was the reference of the name of the forest that was here, the old, the original boreal forest that gradually reduced in size. Partly through climate change as the country became cooler and wetter, but also through human intervention through felling, fires, grazing, all that kind of thing. So now we tend to talk about Scots pine and Cally pine which can be fairly interchangeable, but the Cally pine tends to be the bigger, grander kind of granny pines, these really lovely old things you see in some of the landscapes.  Adam: But that's sort of just the way people use the word. Technically, they're the same thing, but we refer to the Caledonian pine as the big grand ones, and it comes from… so I just want to make sure I understood what you said. The word Caledonian pine then comes from a Caledonian, a forest called Caledonia?   Ross: Yeah, the Great Wood of Caledon.   Adam: Isn't that a brilliant name? So mystical and it sort of talks of Tolkien and other worlds. Wow, wow. OK. So we have the great Scots pine, the Caledonian pine. If people have a general thing in their mind about pine trees, what is special about Caledonian pine? How that distinguishes from pines in other parts of the world.  Ross: Well, Scots pine, as we're walking through this woodland, just now as you look up the trunks of the trees, as you look up the bark tends to go from a kind of grey-brown to a real kind of russety red, like a red squirrel colour. And that's a lot of the red squirrel camouflage comes from that, that rusty colour. So they're skittering around these treetops and they can be jumping around and they're nice and camouflaged because of that colour. So is that redness that you really see? But what we can see in here, a lot of these trees are very even age, it has been quite heavily thinned in the past, but then you come across a tree like this that's got a very deep crown. So you see there's live branches more than halfway down that tree, whereas there's a lot of these other trees -  Adam: Yes, I was going to say it's weird that they've got no foliage until very high.  Ross: Yeah, so this tree here, and foresters may call this a wolf tree, a tree that has occupied a space and it's just sat there and doesn't allow anything around it.   Adam: It's called a wolf tree?  Ross: Some people would refer to it as a wolf tree. What we would refer to that is it's a deep crown tree, not very imaginatively named, but a deep crown tree is really important here because of capercaillie. Now, capercaillie, you imagine a capercaillie's a big bird, a turkey-sized bird, almost waist height, a male capercaillie. And in the winter it will walk out across these branches and it will nibble away at some of the needles, and it will sit there and it will rely on that during deep snow for shelter, security, food. So without these deep crown trees, there isn't anywhere for them to go. So if you imagine a plantation, a very dense pine that are much denser than this and they don't have the chance for any deep crown trees. Then the opportunity for capercaillie here is much reduced.  Adam: Right. So there's sort of, I mean, look the elephant in the room. Well, it's Christmas around the corner. People have Christmas trees. Sort of most people know anything about pine, it's because they have it in their house at Christmas. That's not a Scots pine.  Ross: No, your traditional Christmas tree is a Nordmann fir. A fir tree tends to hold onto needles a little longer than a pine tree. And if you look after the pine, it will retain its needles, but quite often the pine trees will grow slightly too quickly, so it'll be a bit bare as a Christmas tree, whereas a fir tree is kind of hairy enough to be a good Christmas tree.  Adam: Right. And do we have, do we have them planted in the UK as well? I mean just for commercial cropping?  Ross: Yes, as a Christmas tree.  Adam: Right. So the other thing, look, we're in a really lovely forest at the moment. We're the only ones here. But Scotland, the iconic pictures of Scotland, are bare, bare mountains, aren't they? They're not wooded, and yet I've always read that that's not how it used to be. It used to be a wooded part of the country. Why did it lose so much of its woodland?  Ross: Well, it's looking back to, what, centuries ago as the climate became cooler and wetter, the tree line reduced in height. But more recently in the 1800s the Cultural Revolution created huge periods of felling where they needed this timber for industrialization. Trees from the woodlands near here were cut down, they were floated down to the river Spey and then out to Spey Bay and the Moray coast. They were used for underground water piping for ship's masts. Because these trees are, as you can feel today it's a cold place to be, they've grown very slowly. So because they're nice and straight as we can see, they are, the rings are very close together, so they're very sturdy. They're an ideal timber source. But then we start to look at deer numbers increasing and sheep numbers increasing. The more mouths on the hill meant that once you cut these trees down, it was much harder for the trees to come away again. And really, that's the landscape we're in now really. And when we're talking about those very large, deep crowned trees on open hillsides, these kind of granny pines are so picturesque, and really a lot of these trees, there was no timber value in them because they were already so crooked and they were left, and this is almost a remnant that's showcasing the old forest that once was standing there.  Adam: A lot of times, site managers, they're trying to keep things steady in a way, I suppose. Just trying to maintain what's going, keep that going, that's hard enough. Is that the job here or do you have bigger plans? Are there, you know, times are changing?  Ross: Well, this is one of eight woodlands I look after across the north of Scotland. Whenever we're doing anything, no matter what the scale of it, it's not just how do we keep the site going and kind of steady. It's about when we are doing work, how do we add value to that to make it better for the people that are living here? And how do we use that to continue to showcase these sites as the shop window for the Woodland Trust?  Adam: And is the idea here to try and remove the non-Scots pine, so you'd have a pure Scots pine forest?  Ross: Well, the Woodland Trust works on a on a threat basis really. So any tree is better than no tree, right? But if you have got a lot of spruce regeneration that's threatening this ancient wood then we need to begin to remove that. And that's been the case here.  Adam: Sorry I'm pausing because there's a lovely spaniel who I can see wants me to throw a stick, but I won't throw the stick. Very cool dog. There we are. Sorry, we were saying yes, so any tree is better than no tree. But are the other trees a threat then or not?  Ross: Well, the Norway spruce here has been seeding regeneration into the woodland areas and over the last few years we've cleared a lot of that and in some of these nice young spruce, we've been able to provide to the community for Christmas trees, which has been really handy. But all of that is gone now and we're left with this core of, of mature Norway spruce, that a number of them have started to snap so are becoming a safety issue for members of the public using footpaths next to it. But also there's an opportunity there where before that timber dies, we can extract it and it can be useful for the community.  Adam: And you'd replace it with Scots pines.  Ross: No, we're going to replace it predominantly with hazel and aspen. Because one of the slight concerns in having a single species stand, like we have here, where it's all Scots pine, is that there's only one species for the likes of red squirrels or the crossbills. And on a day like today we might hear crossbows coming over. There's only one species here for them, whereas if we're planting hazel, which is under-represented species here, that provides a different food for red squirrels in a different part of the woodland. And aspen is one of the most biodiverse species that we would have in this part of the world. And there are very, very few aspen.  Adam: When you say it's the most biodiverse species, you mean it attracts biodiversity?  Ross: Absolutely yes. In terms of the lower plant assemblage that's on there specifically and insects. And aspen, their Latin name is Populus tremula and the tremula comes from the oval shape on the leaf. Just in the slightest breeze, it's adapted that to try and shake off the insect burden because the leaves are so palatable for insects.  Adam: So the shape of the leaf in wind -  Ross: The shape of this stock of the leaf is oval.  Adam: And that helps shift any insects.   Ross: Yeah, yeah.   Adam: It's interesting because aspen, in my ignorance, I associate with aspen in America, but it's a native UK tree.  Ross: It is, yeah. And it will be one of the first colonisers after the Ice Age. That's, an aspen will have, the seed will have blown down as the ice is receding. But some of the aspen that are here now will be some of the oldest trees that exist in the UK and aspen generally now grows rhizomatously, so you'll see the roots through the forest and all of the suckers will pop out. And the aspen that we can see in the woodland today, they could have been here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and they've just, as the clone has marched through the landscape, it's just it's moved and colonised these different areas. They're fascinating trees. So when you look at some of the images in North America, you might see entire hillsides of aspen and that could all be the same tree essentially, they're amazing organisms.  Adam: That's amazing. So it's sort of cloning really.   Ross: Yeah, absolutely.  Adam: That's amazing. And also I can see right on the Scots pine behind you, beautiful lichen, which is just a real sign of the air quality here, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't grow and it's just often further south. We do see lichen, obviously, but often I see a bit. This is everywhere. It's a real sign this is good land.  Ross: Absolutely, yeah.  Adam: Good land, good air. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to take another shot of our colleague down below. Hello. Wearing a lovely red hat, almost looks like Santa. And then we'll move on. So we're going uphill a bit, you might just hear the snow crunching under my boots. So this is amazing. A wolf peeking out from the woods, which adds to the fairy tale quality of all of this forest walk. This is not a real wolf. This is carved in wood. It looks really beautiful and it's covered in snow at the moment, which maybe is why I didn't spot it at first. So what's the story here?  Ross: Well, the story here is that Carrbridge hosts the Scottish chainsaw carving competition every year at the end of August, and there are chainsaw artists coming from all over the world to compete here to do some incredibly elaborate carvings. They do benches and three-to-four-metre statues and it's absolutely incredible.   Adam: This is very delicate that I'm surprised this would be done with a chainsaw.  Ross: Yeah, it's a very specialist skill as you can see, and people have to be very artistic. You have to be very good with the saw, but also the bar of the saw is a specialist carving tool. But then they also can use all sorts of other implements to try and refine the artwork itself. And this is just one part of that much larger chainsaw carving trail that's in Carrbridge that really commemorates this annual event.  Adam: Amazing. Well, we'll leave the wolf. It's got even a little dark nose. Amazing. A little dog, a real dog this time. Well, yes, just to prove it. We've just seen some reindeer. Obviously they're a type of deer. Are they as much of a problem as the normal red deer that we know about? So what's your view on them?  Ross: Well, red deer, the numbers are extremely high in some places and in the Cairngorms, they're generally much better managed. But in other places where there just isn't that, that integration or the objectives are yet to be aligned with protected areas, the numbers in those places need to come down, but recognising that there are different objectives, there are different landowners who want to do different things with land. So in recognising and respecting those objectives, but generally, ideal numbers need to come down and they need to come down a lot in order for trees and woodland to recover.  Adam: But that's deer in general, just because it's Christmas, I just have reindeer on the mind. You don't see many reindeer here. Or any reindeer here?  Ross: No, you see them up in the Cairngorms, right?   Adam: Right. Another pitstop. I see some lichen with some snow on it. I should turn them into Christmas cards. I won't, but that's what I should do. So if there was a sort of a final thought you wanted people to take away about this forest or about Caledonian pines you're trying to protect and grow here, what might that be?  Ross: Well, for this woodland, and as I say, it's only 36 acres in size, it's a fairly small wood. But it's not to discount that, and we talk about the hundreds of ants nests, the crossbills, the crested tits, it's woodlands like this can punch way above their weight. But also woodlands like this connected together provide a much larger, integrated robust habitat. And it's just thinking along these lines that this, this woodland, although it has the A9 on one side, it's got roads on two other sides, it's got a forest adventure park there and to the other side, it feels like a woodland that could be squeezed, but it can also feel like a woodland that is a part of this much larger landscape and contributing to that. And I suppose in part it depends on how you view that, yeah. But the woodland is connected to its woodlands round about, so it's definitely playing its part and part of that recovery of the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, as small as it is.  Adam: It's been a real treat for you to guide us through it on such a special snowy Christmas-y day. So thank you very much indeed.   Ross: No problem.   Adam: Well, it's been a fantastic day. Which leaves me just say from the land of reindeer and Caledonian pine, can I wish you a very happy, peaceful and joyous Christmas and New Year? And I do hope that wherever you are, you are able to share the joy of this season and that you'll join us in the New Year for lots more podcasts and tree adventures. Until then, from all of us in the Woodland Trust podcast team, to all of you, can we wish you a happy Christmas and a great New Year and of course, happy wanderings.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about watching TV. Learn to talk about what you watch on TV and why you enjoy it. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241213SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about what they do to stay healthy. Learn to talk about your healthy and unhealthy habits.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241129 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Join us for a woodland wander with adventurer, author and tree lover, Al Humphreys. The 2012 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year has cycled round the world, rowed the Atlantic and walked across India, but now focuses on pursuits closer to home. Pioneering the concept of microadventures, Al explains how exploring small pockets of nature in our neighbourhoods helps us to better connect with and care for the environment. He speaks of enabling young people to embrace wild places, and encourages us to take time to be curious and astonished as we discover new places on our doorstep. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Today I am off to meet an author and adventurer, and there's a title you don't get to say, or indeed hear very much. He's the author of a whole ton of books, including Microadventures, which I want to talk to him specifically about, but also books called the Doorstep Mile, Local, There Are Other Rivers, Grand Adventures, Moods of Future Joys, Midsummer Mornings, Thunder and Sunshine, and I could go on and on. And I'm meeting him at a Woodland Trust site called Ashenbank Wood. It's a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is teeming with extraordinary wildlife. So we'll be talking a bit about the woods and a bit about the sort of adventures he's been on and the sort of adventures we might all be able to go on. Anyway, I'll let him introduce himself. Al: My name's Alastair Humphreys. I'm an adventurer and a writer and tree lover. Adam: Which sounds very exciting. So when you say you're an adventurer, what does that sort of mean? Al: Well, I was slightly hesitant to say that because I confess I feel more like an ex-adventurer, but I have spent pretty much all my career going off doing big adventures and then coming home and writing and speaking and making films about them. So they've gone ever smaller. I began by spending four years cycling around the world, I've rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, walked across the Empty Quarter desert, played my violin incredibly badly through Spain, and then gradually smaller onto what I call microadventures. So, encouraging people to find short, simple, affordable adventures close to home and squeezing around their busy daily lives. Adam: So that's interesting. You talk about the mini adventures. On a previous podcast we talked to the natural navigator, I don't know. Al: Ohh yes, Tristan. Well, he could tell you a lot more intelligent things than I can. He's great. Adam: No, but I think he took very much the similar view of yours. He went, I've done all these big adventures. But actually when you're doing these big adventures, it's all about tech, you know, and I needed satellite link ups and all sorts of stuff. And actually I wasn't, I was really looking at screens all the time. And he was going, the smaller adventures are actually much more revolutionary, because if you go low tech, that's a proper adventure. Just trying to find your way through a wood is a real adventure in a curious sort of way, even more challenging than doing something which sounds really flash. Al: Yes. And what Tristan's done fantastically is taking those skills from bigger journeys down to his literal daily life, hasn't he? If you, I get an e-mail from him, I think it's weekly or so and it just essentially says, where am I now and which way am I facing? And from his little clues in the local park, he can tell whether it's north, south, east, and west. Adam: Yes. No, you're right. I tried. I was very bad at that. And what I've learned, I've already forgotten. So tell me a little bit about why your connection to nature, then, how important that is to you, if at all. Al: So I had a nice, happy childhood growing up in the countryside, so as a kid I spent a lot of time running around the fields and woods and streams and things, so I suppose that hammers something deep into your subconscious, although you don't really notice it necessarily as a kid. Adam: Where whereabouts was that? Al: In the Yorkshire Dales. Adam: Ohh, God's own country. Amazing place. Al: Yes. Lovely part of the world. Yeah, so I really enjoyed that, and then my big expeditions, I've spent a lot of time in some of the world's really wild places and that's a fantastic backdrop to your adventures. But actually my – oh, and I also did a zoology degree. Although I found it incredibly boring, and now looking back I find it amazing that you can find something like that boring. But it's taken me stopping the big adventures, slowing down, paying attention to my local area to build a deeper connection with nature. And I don't know if that's partly just me getting old as well, I suspect there is an aspect of that. But whereas in my youth I was sort of cycling moderately quickly across continents and now pottering around small little parks and I have time to be astonished in a way that you don't necessarily when you're on a big A to B kind of journey. Adam: Yes, yes, there's the mechanics of getting you somewhere so challenging. Al: Yes, and you're on a mission. The mission is to go from A to B and not die, and to succeed. And that's all quite, and the backdrop of it all is this wonderful nature. But the things I've been doing more recently, then nature has come to the forefront. I'm not really doing any big, exciting mission. And therefore the paying attention to the small bits of nature and the changing seasons comes to the forefront. Adam: Yes, I did, I was just going to stop here. We're by one of the Woodland Trust sign posts about fungi and deadwood and the importance of that. We can talk a bit about that. But I was just thinking about what you said. I did an expedition across the Gobi in Outer Mongolia. I was working in Outer Mongolia, and it was, you're right, it was more interesting in retrospect. Because when I was there, we were just very concerned about the mechanics of the day. Getting through the day, making sure we weren't lost, getting food, all of that, rather than go ‘this is quite an interesting place'. Al: Yes. Adam: Whereas, because we didn't meander, you go, I think the importance of meandering and almost lost time, and in a way, I think, boredom. I mean, it was interesting to talk about kids, you know, I don't know if you've got kids, but I think there's a lot of pressure on people to keep the kids busy, get them to this class, to do this, do this, do this. Actually the importance of just going, you know, ‘they're bored now, they'll just go do something', is quite interesting. Al: Yeah. And I think that's a fantastic aspect of it, a bit of woodland like this, isn't it? Is to bring some kids here and essentially say there is nothing to do here, but equally you can do whatever you want. So go on, clear off. Off you go, go climb some of these trees, pick up some sticks, rummage around, see what you find. And that's the great thing of a woodland like this. Adam: Yeah. Do you have kids? Al: I do, yes. Adam: Well, how old are they? Al: Well, they are entering the dreaded teenage phase. So the um, it's really interesting, actually, because they're completely addicted to their screens and that would be their preferred choice would be to live in a damp, dark, smelly cave and never emerge. But when I drag them by their hair kicking and screaming into a wood like this, they're grumpy for a couple of minutes and then I just say clear off, go away and then they love it. And there's a real physical and mental transformation that's clear, when you can, once they get out here. Adam: Yeah. So I think that's interesting. And as a parent and everything, I just wonder what your take is on trying to engage a younger generation with nature and whether that's difficult, how you do it and whether we should be doing that, is that a concern of us or just, you know, let people do what they want? Al: I think it's a massive, massive concern and I also think it's extremely difficult. These screens are deliciously alluring. That's how they're designed. You know, if I was a kid today, I'd love to be just scrolling mindlessly through a thousand videos of people falling off their bikes. If it's endlessly addictive. So I think it's very, very hard and being a parent is exhausting. It's quite easy to not bother with the kicking and screaming, going to the woods, but I think it's really, really vital to do and the reward of when you get them out is of seeing how transformative that is for them, but also for yourself is really good. So yeah, I think screens are a massive problem. I think the nature disconnection of our society is a huge problem, both in terms of our physical health, our mental health, but also with our ignorance to the decline of species and the loss of wild places. So I think it's an enormous problem. Adam: And I mean you know, you're a broadcaster, you create a huge amount of content yourself. So I think there's an interesting question about how to frame that, because I fear then talking about all the trees are disappearing and wildlife is dying and that it turns, well, everybody, but perhaps especially younger generations off. They go, well if it's that blooming terrible, well, I'd just rather be on my screen. So how do you get that tone right, do you think? Al: That's a question that I've been thinking a lot about, particularly over the last year or so. I've just finished writing a book, which is all about exploring your local area, and when I wrote the book, in the early months of it, it was very much a moaning, ranting disaster book that everything's doomed and that it's all ruined. But as I was reading through my drafts, I was thinking, geez, this is this is, well, no one's going to read it for a start. But also, it's not going to encourage anyone. But as the project went on, I realised that I didn't need to frame it like that, because I could look at it another way, which was how much I personally was loving getting out into these small pockets of nature, what benefits I was getting and how much I was enjoying it. And then the more that I personally enjoyed it, the more I start to become connected and the more I start to care and the more hopefully I start to take action. So I think you're exactly right to try and frame it as a positive thing of saying hey, get out into X, Y and Z for these fantastic reasons and then hopefully the fixing the planet part will take care of itself, once there's enough people enthused. Adam: Yeah, interesting. Well, look, we'll carry on, but I said we stopped at this post. So the many dead and decaying trees you find here play a vital role in Ashenbank Wood's ecosystem. And that's a theme you'll see in lots of Woodland Trust places where deadwood is actually allowed to stay. In fact, it's not just allowed to stay, it's positively encouraged because of the fungi and the invertebrates, and then all the way up to the different sorts of animals that can live off that. So what looks like sort of untidiness is sometimes a real sort of oasis of life. Al: And this woodland here was completely smashed by the huge hurricane in 1987. So I think more than most woodlands, there's a lot of fallen down trees in this wood, which I suppose previously would have been carted off and chopped up for firewood or something. Adam: So let's, I mean, we're walking down this idyllic sort of dappled light, coming through the canopy of the still full roof of this of this woodland. So this is really idyllic, but take me somewhere else. So tell me about those adventures that you've had in these distant lands. Were there any particular that stand out for any particular reason? Al: Well, given that we're talking about trees, I spent 10 weeks, I think it was, on the frozen Arctic Ocean, up near the North Pole, which was a fantastic expedition itself, but the small detail that sticks with me now is that to get up there, you fly to Canada, then you fly to some smaller place in Canada and the planes gradually get smaller and smaller and the safety regulations get more and more lax till you're on the plane with people with rifles and harpoons and stuff. But up to this tiny little community right up in the north of Canada and the people - I went to visit the primary school there in the morning just to chat to the kids about my adventures and stuff. And they were chatting about my adventures and they were, the little kids there were amazed that I'd never seen a polar bear. And my riposte to them was along the lines of but you've never seen a tree! Where they where they lived, there were no trees, literally none above the tree line, and that really struck me, what it would be like to grow up in a place with zero trees. I mean, you get polar bears, which is pretty cool, but I'd be sad to have no trees. Adam: Yes, yeah, yes. And what was their view of that? Do they go well, I've never seen that, don't miss. Or were they interested in that? Al: Yeah, well, I guess everyone's normal is normal, isn't it? You know, they're going to school on skidoos and things like that. And so, yeah, it's just fascinating to see the different people's views of normal in the world. And before I started my big adventures, one of the motivating factors for me wanting to go off around the world was that I found where I lived incredibly boring, as a lot of young people do. Oh my goodness, where I live is the most boring place in the universe. I need to go far, far away. And it took me going far, far away to realise that actually the stuff I'd left behind is pretty fascinating in its own way. If only you're willing to pay attention to it. Adam: Yes, gosh, it sounds almost like a line from one of Tolkien's books. There you do a long adventure to find true interest is nearer to home. So I know you've written lots of things, but you've got a book just come out. So yeah, tell me, what's that book about then? Al: So I've written a book that's called Local, and it's about spending a whole year exploring only the single Ordnance Survey map that I happen to live on. So, the whole of Britain's divided up into about just over 400 Ordnance Survey maps. So wherever you live, you could go to your local bookshop and buy your local map. And what I'm trying to do is encourage people to do that and to realise how much new, undiscovered stuff is on their doorstep. Woodlands, footpaths, hills, fields but also towns, villages. What's behind the industrial yards? Like a proper exploring curiosity to your own backyard. Adam: And how much area does one of those maps cover then? Al: It's the orange Ordnance Survey maps. They're more detailed. So it's roughly 20 kilometres by 20 kilometres. Adam: Right. So a fair amount. Al: It's a fair amount, but I've also in previous time spent a year crossing an entire continent, so in that sense it felt incredibly tiny to me. And when I began the project, I thought ‘this map is so small, it's going to be so claustrophobic and so boring'. But actually, by the end of the year, I realise, wow, actually it's enormous. I haven't even begun to cover everything on the map. Adam: So what sort of things did you find there that was a surprise to you, then? Al: So what I did every week, I would go out once a week for the whole year and my rule was to explore one grid square a week. So a kilometre square chosen at random and the random was really important because if it wasn't random, all I would do is just choose all the nice bits of woodland around my map. But by making it random, it sent me off to towns and suburbs and motorway junctions and all sorts of random stuff. And I discovered a few things. The first thing I discovered was how little I knew this area that I thought I knew very well indeed. The second thing that I realised was that, yeah, of course it's nice to go out to woods and hills and streams and stuff, but also I was surprised how much I loved the forgotten grid squares, the abandoned bits, the broken down, fallen down, behind the warehouse kind of landscapes. Like what's behind the supermarket car park? And I found in these forgotten edgelands a real sense of wildness and solitude that I didn't get in somewhere lovely. And this wood we're in now is lovely, but you're not going to get much solitude. There's a lot of dog walkers wandering around. And whereas if you're sort of behind some factory and some regenerating thicket, you think, wow, no one comes here. This feels adventurous. This feels wild. No one on the planet knows where I am. I'm only 20 minutes from a massive city, so I really was surprised how much I liked the forgotten corners of my map. Adam: Well, it sounds romantic the way you describe it, but behind a dumpster or a big factory? I don't really want to go there. Al: Why not? Adam: Because it's not pretty. It's probably got some unsavoury characters hanging around there. It might be more dangerous than crossing, you know, at some wild tundra, so it doesn't attract. I mean, but it does attract you, genuinely? Al: I think I'd have agreed with you entirely beforehand. It seems much nicer to come to a pretty woodland and stroll around there. What surprised me was how rarely I saw people when I was out and about, and we live in a very crowded country. I live in a crowded corner of the country, and yet once I was off meandering, once you're slightly off the beaten track, it felt like I often had the place to myself. In terms of being scared, I never had any problems at all. But I was very conscious that I'm a six-foot-tall white man who's quite good at running and that the countryside in general is not equally accessible to everyone. That really struck home to me in the year, how the sort of privilege I have of being able to essentially wander wherever I want. And the worst thing that's happened, someone will say go away and I go, oh, I'm terribly sorry and be all sort of posh and cheerful and it'll be fine and that's not fair, and it's not right that there's that inequality. Adam: I wonder what you feel because we're talking now, a little after there was a big fuss in newspapers about Kirsty Allsop as children or a child who went off travelling and I think he was 16 or something like that. And it raised the debate whether that's right or wrong and people have their own views, it raised the debate about adventure, what it is, how much freedom we should give younger people. And there were lots of comments, you know, look back a generation, my parents' generation, you know, people of 17, 18 were fighting in wars. You know, the idea of going on Eurorail doesn't sound that adventurous by comparison. But it does engage with the natural world, doesn't it? You've done very adventurous things. What do you think about our position on safety now? The sort of vibe about that? Al: I think a relevant aspect of that discussion what we're talking about today is if you look at the roaming distances that kids have from home and you can see statistical maps of this online of how far our grandparents are allowed to go from home, you know, they'd get on their bicycle with a pickled egg and off they'd go for a month and then come home for their tea. All that sort of stuff. When I was a kid, I was basically in the Yorkshire Dales. I was basically allowed to go wherever I wanted, and then I'd just come home when I was hungry. And of course, I had no cell phone. And then kids today would not be generally allowed that sort of thing, and they're kept very much closer to home. And I think that trusting young people in wild places is an important thing to do. Adam: Well, on that note of wild places and adventure, we talked a lot about maps and if you want to visit Ashenbank Wood and are looking for a map, it is grid reference TQ 675692, map reference explorer 163, and OS land ranger 177. Good luck with finding this particular wood. I hope you enjoy it. And until next time, of course, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about their home towns. Learn to talk about the place where you live. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241108 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about music and how they listen.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241101SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newslettersFIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Step into the heart of an ancient woodland as we explore Ashenbank Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest rich in history and teeming with wildlife. Woodland has stood here for centuries, but this haven is under threat. A proposed tunnel project, the Lower Thames Crossing, could harm the irreplaceable ecosystem and ancient trees here. Jack, leader of our woods under threat team, explains what's at stake and the challenges and strategies involved in trying to maintain a delicate balance between development and nature. A decision on whether the project goes ahead is due from Government in May 2025. We also meet estate manager Clive, who delves into Ashenbank Wood's history, tells us more about why ancient woodland is so important and shows us the unusual approach of strapping deadwood to trees. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: Today I am at a site of Special Scientific Interest in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is teeming with extraordinary wildlife, and I'm told you can stand in the shadows of gnarled veteran trees and even spot some shy dormice, rare bats, and woodland wildflowers if you're there at the right time of year. But it is also a site under threat. National Highways propose to build a new tunnel linking Essex and Kent under the River Thames, and many feel that that will create a threat to the trees and wildlife here. So I've come not just for a walk, but to chat to experts and the first is the man responsible for coordinating the Woodland Trust response to big infrastructure projects and to chat to him about how infrastructure and nature can live hand in hand.  Jack: So I'm Jack Taylor, I'm the programme lead for the woods under threat team at the Woodland Trust.  Adam: Brilliant. And we're at Ashenbank Woods?  Jack: We are indeed.  Adam: Good, OK, sorry, yeah *laughs* I know I should sound more sure, we are at Ashenbank Woods.  Jack: I think its full title might be Ashenbank Woods SSSI, site of special scientific interest.  Adam: Oh right yes, yes. And we're going to see a bit later a colleague of yours, Clive, who will tell us more about the details of this woodland. But the reason why I wanted to talk to you first as we walk through, what is a lovely, actually dappled, dappled bit of woodland here is about your role in protecting places like this from development because, so what, what is your job?  Jack: Yeah, it's beautiful. That's a good question *laughs* what is my job? I I suppose the the base of it, the basis of it, the foundation really is about trying to protect ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees from forms of development, but also from other threats outside of that as well. So non-development threats like air pollution, pests and diseases, deer overbrowsing. Most of my work does focus on working within the development sector and trying to protect against those development threats.  Adam: Right, and you're the project lead.   Jack: Yeah.  Adam: When I first saw that, I thought you meant you're the project lead for this woodland, but you are not. You are the project lead for all development threatening woodlands throughout the UK. This is an extraordinary, I mean that's quite a job.  Jack: Yeah, it's it's a lot. There are a lot of threats to have to deal with across the UK because we're always building always sort of growing as a nation. We always need sort of new forms of infrastructure and new sort of housing. We recognise that. But all of that does come with the added impact of having threats on our ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees, so we have a team of myself and my my wonderful team of four as well.  Adam: Alright. Yeah, it's not big.  Jack: No, it's not big, but they they are enthusiastic and they're great at what they do.  Adam: So this is quite a political area because we've got a new government which has promised to improve lots of things, get the country working, build lots of homes. I think, I think the Prime Minister only recently talked about, you know, we're going to get spades in the ground, we're going to be doing stuff. Well, is it your job to stop all of that, I mean, or how do you balance what needs to be done for the country and what needs to be done to protect woodlands?  Jack: Yeah. So it's so none of this is really about stopping development from from happening and we we have to be sort of quite clear that that's not what we're set out to do as an organisation. It's about trying to ensure that where development is happening. It's not going to impact on our most important and our most valuable woods and trees and that's why we do have a focus specifically on ancient woodland, but and then also on ancient and veteran trees as well, because we know that for the most part, there are lots of really valuable woods and wooded and wooded habitats and trees that are plenty sort of valuable and important. But we know that ancient words and ancient and veteran trees are likely to be our most important sites. We have to focus on protecting those. So we do have to object to some developments where we think the harm is gonna be too great, but we're never really looking to stop them from happening, unless the harm is too great.  Adam: OK. Which way?  Jack: Umm, I think right.   Adam: OK. So one of the things I've noticed before, I mean, when I was following the HS2 debate, was politicians were going ‘it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. We'll cut this down, we're going to replace them. I tell you what, we'll do you a deal, we'll plant two for every one we cut down.' On the face of it that sounds reasonable?  Jack: OK. Yeah, not to us.   Adam: Why not?   Jack: Well, I think if you're, if you're looking at ancient woodlands and ancient and veteran trees, you're looking at something that is an irreplaceable habitat. There is no sort of recreating that habitat in in one space again, once it's been lost and the reason for that is these things take centuries to evolve and develop to create those sort of vital links between animals, plants, fungi, the soils as well. So ancient woodlands are especially important for their soils. So you can't really just take those soils and put them elsewhere because once that happens you completely disturb the relationships that have built up over centuries within them. And ancient and veteran trees, so you're talking about trees that for the most part are going to be centuries years old. How do you how do you replace centuries of development creating these wonderful sort of niche habitats for different parts of our ecosystems?   Adam: And is it, you said quite clearly that it's not your job or the Trust's job just to stop development, just to sort of blanket go, ‘hey, stop building' so is it about going, ‘don't build here' or is it about saying, ‘if you're gonna build here, this is how to do it with the least amount of impact'? What's the sort of your approach?  Jack: Yeah. In some cases it is about saying not, not building here. It depends what we're dealing with, I suppose so it's different if you're dealing with, say, housing developments or leisure facilities as opposed to something like rail infrastructure or road infrastructure, which is quite linear in nature, so they can only really go in one place to deliver its purpose, whereas housing is not as locationally dependent.  Adam: I see. So you feel you've got a better argument if it's a housing project, cause you can go, ‘put it somewhere else', but the train journey from A to B has to sort of go through this area. You're you're on a loser there are you?  Jack: Well, sometimes, but there are there are ways of of getting around sort of kind of impact. I mean it doesn't have to go absolutely sort of A to B in one way. You can think very carefully about the design to try and minimise impact on ancient woods. You can also look at alternative solutions, engineering solutions like tunnelling for example, so HS2 is a good example of that. The Phase One section which is going ahead between London and Birmingham, they actually put in a tunnel under the Chilterns, which saved about 14 hectares of woodland saved these three really good prime areas of ancient wood. And of course the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty came into that in a way, and they were trying to protect that also. But that was one solution to stop wildlife and nature being harmed.  Adam: Right. So that's, was this, were you involved with that?   Jack: Yeah, yeah.   Adam: Amazing. So how difficult was that to get that that project through and try to avoid the destruction of all that woodland?  Jack: Well, a lot a lot of destruction still is happening from High Speed 2. So about 20 hectares of ancient woodland has been destroyed at this stage now. A lot of the sort of preparation works for the Phase One section, that London to Birmingham bit, are now complete. So it it was difficult, but it it the way in which we were involved is we really brought ancient woodland to the table and put it at the forefront of considerations and and gave it a voice I suppose. It's not that it wasn't being looked at at all, but not nearly to the degree that we thought it needed to be looked at. And so we sort of kind of introduced that idea of well look, there's ancient woodland here, you need to be thinking carefully about the design and, you know, you think you're talking about halving the impacts on ancient woodlands from from our sort of kind of involvement and involvement of other conservation organisations in there as well.  Adam: So a lot of it is trying to say, to make the argument, but also to raise the profile of that argument,   Jack: Sure.  Adam: To bring, population and say this is actually a loss. You know, cutting it down is is a loss. So how much harder or easier has it got for you to make that argument?   Jack: Well, do you know, interestingly, I I would probably say that projects like High Speed 2, where there is such a big argument around the ancient woodland has raised the profile of ancient woodland itself. That's one of the sort of silver linings of that project for us, it's put sort of ancient woodland on the map in terms of habitat that needs to and is worthy of protection. So I think a lot of people now understand ancient woodland a bit better and what it is. There's still lots of awareness to do, you know, people just think of ancient woodlands as bluebells, big large oaks and it's not quite there. I mean, they're all so kind of varied in their nature and geographically across the country, but it's got people thinking about them.  Adam: So that was something of a success, although I know more complicated than just ‘yes, we won that'.   Jack: Sure, yeah.   Adam: Any areas you feel you really lost that, you know, keep you up at night, you go, that was that was a failure and you know, we've lost that woodland?  Jack: Yeah. I mean, there've been, there've been some over the years. Back in 2012 a a large quarry was built on an area of woodland called Oaken Wood in Kent, probably taking about out about 30 to 35 hectares of ancient woodland which is massive, massive amounts, I mean, you're talking about in the region it's like 40 to 50 football fields and and and we're actually dealing with another threat to that woodland from an expansion of that same quarry. So yeah, you know that that one is one that gnaws gnaws at us, is that, you know, we don't want to see that happening anymore.  Adam: Are you getting more optimistic that you know the public are more on your side that this is at least something that plays in policymakers' decisions now?  Jack: I I actually think the public have always really been on our side. I think if you ask the the general public, they would probably say to you, we do not want to see ancient woodlands subject to any loss or deterioration, whatever the cause.  Adam: Yeah, I think you're right. But they also say, yeah, but we like cheaper housing and want better transport links so.  Jack: Yeah. Well, I mean the Lower Thames Crossing, which is going to be affecting this site that we're in now, Ashenbank Wood is sort of a prime example of that the the intention of that project is to relieve traffic congestion on the existing Dartford Crossing.  Adam: Which I think actually I can hear in my headphones this, although we are, I mean it looks beautiful, there's quite a lot of background traffic noise. So we can't be that far away actually from from transport, from big roads. So explain to me you say this this particular site, Ashenbank Woods which is a site of Special Scientific Interest, so it's not just any old woods, this is a really special place, is under threat. What is the threat here?   Jack: So the threat here is partially there will be some loss to the wider SSSI ancient woodland in the area when you're losing sort of kind of, Ashenbank Wood itself is not going to be subject to much loss, although there is a cycle route diversion going through the woods that might impact on some of its special features.  Adam: Oh one second just, we've we've just turned off the path, we're just, oops crawling under some trees. I don't quite know why we've come, we we seem to have chosen the most difficult route. Well, it is beautiful because we've come off the path right into a magic dell.   Jack: There we go.  Adam: Oh, look, there's obviously some, I think, probably some kids have built a sort of camp, tent out of fallen branches. OK, so sorry so I understand that this is under threat from development, the the development plan though is what? What are they trying to do here?  Jack: So so what they're doing is they're building a new crossing further to the east of Dartford Crossing, but that's going to involve connecting...  Adam: A river crossing, a tunnel?  Jack: Yes a river crossing.   Adam: But it's a tunnel.   Jack: Yeah, it's a tunnel.  Adam: Why would that? That's that's great, surely?  Jack: Well, the tunnel goes under the Thames. But in order to connect the A2/M2 to the to the sort of tunnel portal, they're going to be going through a lot of ancient woodlands as a result. So just down the way Clay Lane Wood is one that's going to be heavily impacted by by the proposals, you know several hectares of ancient woodland loss there, but in terms of our wood itself, you're you're gonna have impacts on some of the veteran trees from some of the works that are required in here. But you're also sort of increasing the traffic around the area on A2/M2. And as you can hear, there's already quite loud background noise from the traffic. If that becomes louder, it further reduces the suitability of this habitat for a lot of species.  Adam: Right. So what are your, what are you doing?  Jack: Well we're campaigning against it for one thing. So we've been campaigning against it since 2016, trying to bring those bring those sort of impacts down as far as possible. At this point in time, I would probably say that it's unfeasible, that it could go ahead without causing loss or damage to ancient woodland and veteran trees, and that's something that we have to oppose as an organisation. So we're working with other environmental NGOs, conservation orgs like RSPB, Buglife, Wildlife Trust, CPRE to to oppose this scheme.  Adam: So, and if people want to keep an eye on the sort of campaigns you're running, and the sort of live issues around the country, where can they get that information?  Jack: They can go along to woodlandtrust.org.uk/campaigns and they'll be able to find out about what we're doing in terms of campaigning for protection of ancient woods and veteran trees. We've got a really great campaign at the moment, all about protecting ancient and veteran trees and we're stood in in front of one of these at the moment, we call them Living Legends.   Adam: Right OK, what a lovely link, because I I was gonna say you've brought me to a stand. It looks like a sculpture this, so what, so let me just briefly describe this. I mean, it's a hollowed out tree. There's, it almost looks like there's 3 or 4 bits of different trees supporting each other, and you can go hide in the middle. I mean, there's, I'd, I couldn't spread my arms in the middle, but I mean almost, you know, there's probably, I don't know, 4 or 5 foot wide in the middle. It's most extraordinary. What is this? What's going on here?  Jack: So I would probably say this is an ancient ash tree. As trees sort of grow older, they they have to sort of kind of allow their heartwood to to rot away because that's what keeps them sort of stable and secure and in doing so that creates really important habitat for wildlife. And so this is what has happened to this ash tree effectively, its heartwood has sort of rotted away, it's still got this kind of all important surrounding ripewood to be able to support the rest of the tree.  Adam: That's extraordinary. So the the, the, the wood at the centre of the tree, the heartwood has gone?  Jack: Yes, yeah, yeah, cause it it's not it's not really useful for for trees at that sort of point. It's it's no longer the part of the wood that's carrying the sort of the water and nutrients up the tree. That's what the sort of outer ripewood does. So the heartwood decays away as they as they grow older.  Adam: And that's just ash trees is it?  Jack: No, that's that's pretty much all. Yeah.  Adam: How ignorant am I? OK, fine. OK. I didn't realise that that happens to all trees. And it looks like that would cause an instability problem, but this looks actually fairly fairly stable, it's fine.  Jack: It it's it's actually it's actually the other way they do it because it allows them to remain as stable as possible. And I I mean this one it doesn't, it doesn't look in the best sort of structural condition does it, but they need to do that for their sort of physiological condition because if they have if they're trying to support too much sort of heartwood then it affects the trees energy balances. And I mean that there's actual sort of scientific things here between the kinetic and the potential energy in a tree and why why they do this but all old trees do it and in turn it creates this amazing habitat, so you can see all these little holes in the in the sort of kind of inside wood and the decaying wood as well, where insects have sort of burrowed into it, where birds would be, woodpeckers, you know would be would be accessing that as well.   Adam: Yeah. Amazing   Jack: Amazing structures, aren't they?  Adam: And so I'm going to meet now, one of the people responsible for actually managing woods such as Ashenbank, and he's waiting for me a bit further into the woods.  Clive: OK, I'm Clive, Clive Steward, I'm one of the estate managers for the Woodland Trust working in the South East.  Adam: So what is important about this site? What makes this wood special?  Clive: What makes this site special is that it's ancient woodland or partly ancient woodland, but it's also managed as a wood pasture or has been managed as a wood pasture in the past, and because of that habitat it has lots and lots of old trees and old trees is very important in terms of what they support in terms of dead and decaying habitats.  Adam: Right, so well we're standing by this extraordinary ash tree, I mean, it's extraordinary that there's an ash tree at all, given ash dieback, but it's extraordinary for all sorts of other reasons. But is ash a big part of this woodland?  Clive: In terms of its name, Ashenbank, you you think it should be but but it's it is a component of the site but it's not, the majority species is not ash.   Adam: What is this site then?  Clive: So mostly sycamore and we're in the northern part of Ashenbank where we've got a lot of sycamore and we've got some really big old sweet chestnuts, but there are lovely old oak trees and hornbeam trees.  Adam: Right. And so when we talk about ancient woodland, it's always worth, I suppose, explaining a bit about what we mean because clearly will go, well, that's old. But old for trees can be a whole different sort of thing. So how, what, what, what do you mean when you're talking about ancient woodlands?  Clive: Well, when we say ancient woodland ancient woodland is defined as areas which have been permanently wooded since 1600AD. That's the sort of the the the date.  Adam: Oh right, I didn't realise it was that precise.  Clive: Well, it well, yes, it's roughly when big old estates used to produce maps, so they discovered paper and started drawing maps of what they owned but prior so before this this, the assumption is that if it's wooded then it would have been wooded ever since the Ice Age retreated but managed by mankind for for thousands of years.  Adam: So we're, we're assuming actually that ancient woodland is all it's probably been here since the Ice Age?  Clive: Yes. Yeah.  Adam: So that's why I mean that's it's worth I think pausing on that because it's why when we're talking about ‘oh, we'll have to destroy a bit of woodland for a tree, for a road' sorry, we're talking about taking away a bit of the landscape, which has been there since the Ice Age probably. So that's quite a big deal to have done that.  Clive: Yeah, yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. The the other part of Ashenbank, which is the bit we're in is a more recently wooded area, probably about 200 years old. I have a a map here which is not good for a podcast, but I can show you a map.  Adam: Go on go on, we can describe this. Hold on. I'll hold the microphone and you can describe what we're seeing. So go on, yes.  Clive: So we have a a map here of Ashenbank Wood dating from 1797, which shows the woodland it used to be. I have another map showing the wood as it is today. So here's a map from a couple of years ago, but we're we're actually up here, which in the 1797 map shows fields. And now, now, now it's woods. So so basically, what's happened this Ashenbank used to be owned by Cobham Hall, which is a big estate to the east of Halfpence Lane, so this used to be partly of Cobham Hall Estate and in 1790, as many of these big old estates houses used to do, they used used they they employed a landscape architect to make their their grounds nicer as it were. So it wasn't Capability Brown, but it was a chap called Humphrey Repton who worked on this site from 1790 to about 1880, when he died 1818 when he died. And he landscaped the estate and the view from the house over to here looking west to what is now Ashenbank Wood was obviously important to him. So they actually planted a lot of these big old chestnuts which we walked past, which date from 200 years ago.  Adam: Which is very nice and we often hear about cutting trees down and looking at old maps going ‘oh, we've lost all that wood', here's an example of the reverse to actually that's a good nature story.  Clive: Yeah, yeah, definitely it is. Yes. As you get older, as they get older, these trees there are microhabitats which develop rot pockets, branches fall off, they they rot, big holes develop and that that's these microhabitats which are home to what's called saproxylic species.   Adam: OK, that's a new word, saproxylic?  Clive: Saproxylic. So saproxylics are are basically insects and beetles and flies which only exist in dead and decaying wood. So if these big old trees weren't around, they've got nowhere to live.  Adam: Right, which is why it's useful to have deadwood on the ground. It's not so, it looks untidy, but actually that's often the richest place.  Clive: Indeed. Yeah, yes, but often, but often these insects and beetles are actually in the living tree, not in the in the horizontal, dead and dying stuff. And it's the living trees, which are are why this habitat is so important.  Adam: But I thought you said you said they're living in the living trees, but but saproxylic means they're living in the dead trees?  Clive: But within these big old trees, there are these rot holes and pockets and little microhabitats within the tree...  Adam: Yes, which are dead and that's where they live?   Clive: Where they live yeah that's right.  Adam: Right OK. Yeah, very interesting. OK, very interesting. Now, there's also, I knew I was told, but I'm completely confused by, an idea that I'm told that goes on here of strapping deadwood to live trees. Did I did I misunderstand that?  Clive: No, no, you you didn't misunderstand it. No.   Adam: OK and you're going to show me where this is ?  Clive: Yep. Shall we shall we go, we'll we'll walk there, have a look.  Adam: Alright. Brilliant. So you've taken me to this tree, a very substantial tree, but next to it, this is the a bit of, what, you better explain, because this is really odd and I don't really understand what I'm looking at.  Clive: Right. Well, going back to 1999 when High Speed One was being built, they took out three hectares of Ashenbank Wood along with lots of other woodland in the area. And fortunately, somebody had the idea of of suggesting that we could save some of those big trees they felled and reerecting them against living trees to help them degrade and and become part of the habitat.  Adam: So I mean to describe this, we've got a very big tree. What sort of tree is this?  Clive: So you've got a big, big oak tree.  Adam: That's a big oak, and next to it is 6, 12, I don't know, 30 foot, 40 foot high dead tree, bit of bark. But it's it's not like a small, it's a 40 foot bit of bark which you have propped onto the living tree. Why is it better to have done that than just to leave it on the ground?  Clive: Well, it's about these microhabitats. So I mean, it's not just propped up it's actually strapped to it, so it's actually quite secure.  Adam: It is secure, that's y your health and safety hat on.  Clive: We had to make sure it was strapped up, but vertical dead or decaying wood is equally as important as horizontal, dead and decaying wood.  Adam: OK. Is it different? What, does it do different things?  Clive: The wood doesn't but it attracts different insects and species so that that that's why so. But in most in most woodlands you'll see deadwood as being felled trees which are lying or windblown. You don't often see dead vertical trees.  Adam: I've never seen that.  Clive: Well, they're often well, they're often felled and taken out for firewood or something but they are important as as a sort of microhabitat for these saproxylics. That that's purely why.  Adam: So the saproxylics which are insects which live on deadwood prefer, some prefer the high rise living of the vertical tree rather than the low level bungalow type living. But what what sort of, do you do, don't worry if you don't know, but do you know which insects prefer living vertically?   Clive: I I don't know that.  Adam: You don't. Somebody will, somebody will.  Clive: Yeah somebody will. But if you look at that tree, you'll see that it's a there's a there's a U-shaped crook 2/3 way up and in that there's there's a there's a hole which has probably got water in it. So water gathers from rain and that's that that little microhabitat will be, something will live in it. And if that was horizontal, it wouldn't be there.  Adam: Right, yes, yes. Well that I think this must be, I mean, we've been doing this for a few years. I've never seen that. So that is amazing. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. So I know that the history of this site goes back quite a long way, not just the natural history, but the human history as well, and am I right in saying there's quite quite a lot of sort of Bronze Age heritage here?  Clive: Well, we've got a Scheduled Ancient Monument which has been dated to between 2000 and 1500 BC, which is a big burial mount and it is scheduled and it's, you know, English Heritage monitor it and we have to make sure it's free of trees and it's there to see.  Adam: Right. Wow. And it's interesting you talk about it's there to see because we came and parked in the Woodland Trust car park. Free parking, as is normal in Woodland Trust places, first time though a full car park. We are here midweek during the day. I was surprised to see it's full so talking about visitors, this is clearly a, I mean have I just come at a weird time, have they all come to see the Woodland Trust podcast being made, it's right, it's a popular site. That always feels like contention to me because I know you want to encourage people to come, on the other hand, coming in a sort of, destroys a bit of what we see. How much of a problem are the level of visitors?  Clive: Well, we basically have a path network through Ashenbank Wood which we maintain, we mow, we make sure it's open and safe. So most people walk on those those paths which steers people around the the wood, as it were, so and we we don't stop people from walking off the path but most people don't cause it's, you know, nettles or brambles or whatever. It's difficult to do.  Adam: Right, yes. And keeping dogs on the lead and everything. You've been with the Trust for a long time, haven't you, really. What sort of change have you seen in the the the debate around the natural world in your time here?  Clive: That's a big question.  Adam: Have you, I mean, sort of, it assumes you have seen a change, you might not have seen a change. I mean I the reason I ask it is because it feels to me it's gone up the political agenda, that it's not just, you know, people dismissively talking about crazy tree huggers and let them onto their own thing. It's become more mainstream. Do you think that that's it's become more optimistic, do you think it's become more pessimistic, do you think, you you know, it's become more informed, I suppose?  Clive: Well, I think there's a growing recognition that ancient woodland is a special habitat, but it hasn't quite gone far enough to get total protection. But I think there's a growing realisation that ancient woodland is special and we need to look after it. And I think the politicians probably do understand it, but maybe can't quite make that move to legislate against total protection.  Adam: Yeah. And I think that's part of the Living Legend campaign that the Woodland Trust is organising, isn't it?  Clive: Definitely is. Yeah. Yeah, very much so.  Adam: Well, there were two websites we talked about today. So if you want to get involved in a local campaign, search for ‘Woodland Trust campaigns' and you can find out more about the attempts to get better legal protection for ancient and veteran trees by searching for the Living Legends campaign and of course I hope you get a chance to visit Ashenbank Woods yourself. So until next time, happy wandering.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about fashion and clothes. Learn to talk about the clothes you wear.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241025SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newslettersFIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Georgie and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about restaurants. Learn to talk about the food you like and how to order in a restaurant.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241018 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Georgie and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about shopping. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/241011FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Did you know oak supports over 2,300 species of wildlife? Discover this and more fascinating facts in our episode dedicated to the nation's favourite tree. We join Trust experts, Jules and Kate, at Londonthorpe Woods, near Grantham, to find some fascinating growths on oak trees, known as galls, and learn why hunks of deadwood are so important.  We then visit the star of the show and 'Lincolnshire's best kept secret' - the astonishing 1,000-year-old Bowthorpe Oak. It's one of 12 amazing oaks in the running for 2024 Tree of the Year. Which one will you vote for? Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam: Well, in this podcast, we're looking at the Woodland Trust's Tree of the Year competition, which is all about oaks and is on a quest to find the nation's favourite one. And there are lots to choose from. There is the Elephant Oak in the New Forest, the Queen Elizabeth Oak in West Sussex, the Darwin Oak in Shropshire, the Capon Oak on the Scottish Borders and plenty of others to choose from across Wales, Somerset, County Fermanagh, Cheshire and well, lots of other places as well. And you can vote for your favourite oak by going to the shortlist of them at the voting site woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote, so that is woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote and we'll repeat that again at the end of this podcast.   Well, today I'm going to see one of the oaks in contention for the Tree of the Year, the Bowthorpe Oak in Bourne, in Lincolnshire, a tree which has a hollow interior and had previously, that interior had been fitted with seats and had been used as a dining room for 20 people in the past, 20 people! It must have been an enormous oak and that's not a practice I think that's recommended these days. Well, certainly not. But nonetheless it's a great oak which has played a great big part in the local landscape and is much loved, not just in the UK but attracts plenty of visitors from abroad as well. Now, oaks have an amazingly important part in our culture and in days gone by were, I think, central in Druid folklore, for instance, in fact one amazing fact I have learnt making this podcast is that the name Druid comes from druer, the Celtic for oak for the word oak and wid means to know, so Druid means oak-knower, so there's a good fact for you. Anyway, enough of me. I'm off to meet some people who know all about oaks and unusually I am not starting by a tree. So, unusually, we're starting in a car and I'm joined by two women from the Woodland Trust. So first of all, introduce yourselves.  Kate: I'm Kate Lewthwaite. I am citizen science manager at the Woodland Trust.  Adam: Wonderful. And our driver for the day is...  Jules: Hi, I'm Jules Acton. I'm a fundraiser with the Woodland Trust.  Adam: So we're going to look at a few oaks today, one of which is actually in the running to be the Tree of the Year, and you can vote on that still and I'll give you details a little later on on how to do that. But first of all, you were telling me that you have a little present for me. I always like to start the day with a little present.  Jules: It's always good to start the day with a little present, I think and here's a little one for you.   Adam: Oh, and it's wrapped up in tissue paper. It's an early Christmas present. How very good. So what is that? OK so do you want to describe it?   Jules: OK so it's a little, it looks like a little woody marble really, doesn't it? And it's got a little tiny hole you can see just there and some extra other little tiny holes. That is an oak marble gall.  Adam: An oak marble...ghoul?  Jules: Gall.  Adam: And how do you spell that?  Jules: G A double L.  Adam: G A double L and what what is it?  Jules: So this is this is incredibly special, so this has in many ways changed human culture, this little tiny thing. Certainly amplified human culture. So this is a gall, which is made by, and it's made by a little tiny wasp. And the wasp lays a an egg in the in the bud of the tree of the oak tree. And it makes the oak change and it sort of changes chemically. It's really strange. And it makes the the oak form this little marble shaped thing on the end of a twig. And that becomes home for the gall wasps' larvae, and so that the little larva grows up inside it and it has this its own special home, but it's also full of lovely food. So that's interesting itself and that it's it's it's it's got this sort of little little home but it what's particularly interesting human, from the human perspective is that these kind of galls were used to make ink for about 1,000 years and the the kind of ink that they made, it was used, I think, until the middle of the 20th century. So kind of until quite recently. So Shakespeare's plays were written on oak gall ink, Newton's theories, the American Declaration of Independence, huge amounts of historic documents.  Adam: So just trying to understand that, Shakespeare's plays were written on ink created by this thing?  Jules: By a gall like, yeah, this kind of thing by by a gall. Yeah. But you can you can still now you can make gall gall ink from these little little things here. So it in many ways it it amplified, this little tiny thing we've got here, amplified the whole course of human history, culture, etcetera in our part of the world.  Adam: Quite an extraordinary place to start our journey today. Wonderful. So, OK, so we're, yes, we'll put that away nice and safe and we'll start our journey. Kate, do you just want to start by telling me what we're going to do when we get out of the car?  Kate: We're going to have a walk round Londonthorpe Wood, which is one of the Woodland Trust sites, one of our thousand woods that we own and we're going to see an oak tree that Jules has found for us to go and talk about.  Adam: Fantastic. All right, well, let's go.  Jules: Well, well so we've just seen some amazing galls on what looks like quite a young tree, it's probably about 30-years-old, would you say, Kate, this one?   Kate: Maybe, yes.  Jules: And, yeah, they're they're bright red and they're on the underside of the oak leaves and they look a bit like cherries and   Adam: I was going to say, the one you showed me was all grey, you gave me an old rubbish one, didn't you? This is what they look like when they're on the tree. It's red, it does look like a cherry.  Jules: Yeah, this is a particularly stunning one, isn't it? And they they are literally called cherry galls. And they again  Adam: They're called cherry balls?  Jules: Cherry galls.   Adam: Galls, cherry galls.  Jules: And they're about the same size as the marble gall that we saw earlier. And I believe they are also caused by a gall wasp. And but what is good about these kind of galls is that they're relatively easy to spot. So once you get your eye in, you start seeing them everywhere, so it's a really lovely thing to start doing, you know, with children or just looking yourself when you're out on a on a walk, you know.  Adam: Wow. So that shows that a wasp has formed that?  Jules: Yeah  Adam: And these are non-stinging wasps, aren't they?  Jules: These are non-stinging wasps. They're teeny, teeny, tiny wasps. They don't look like your your black, you know the big black and and and yellow stripey things that come at your ice cream, not that there's anything wrong with those wasps, they're lovely too.  Adam: Inside that gall is baby wasps? Is that?  Jules: There will be a little larvae inside there.  Adam: And that's what they're using as as food, or is it?  Jules: Yes, that's their home but it's also their food source. And I'm not at some point in the year the the the little tiny wasp, once it's developed, will will kind of drill its way out and then be set free to the to the wider world. But I think we'll find some other kinds of galls, actually. So it might be worth us moving on a little bit and just see if we can.  Adam: OK. Moving on, yeah, that's politely telling me to be quiet and start walking.  Jules: Oh sorry *laughs*  Adam: Sorry, there's a, oh it's a tractor going up and down the field next to us. So that's what the noise is in the background. But the fact that we we sort of just held a branch here and and Kate was already, you know, lots of wildlife, jumped onto her jumper, does raise the issue about how many, how much wildlife an oak supports. And I was hear some fantastic number. Just tell me a little bit about that.  Jules: We know that the oak supports more than 2,300 species and that they could be species that that feed off the oak, that live inside it, that live on, on, on or or around it, that you know they perch in it. So species using the the oak tree in all different ways and they are, they they they're birds and mammals, they're lichen, fungi, invertebrates. All sorts of different kinds of species, but what's important, I think, is that they're only the species we've countered, and I think there are a huge number more that we just haven't got around to counting would, would you agree, Kate? You probably know more about this than me.  Kate: Yes, definitely. And some of those species can live on other types of tree, and some are only found on oak trees, so they're particularly important. And of course, we haven't started talking about the value of deadwood and all those wonderful rare beetles whose larvae live in the wood. So there's lots to be said about that as well.  Adam: I'll tell you what, let's just walk all further away from this tractor, which sounds closer than it is, and you can tell me about the importance of the deadwood.  Jules: Well we might see some spectacular deadwood.  Adam: Oh well, we might see some, OK. OK, so we have stopped by some deadwood and you're going to explain why, is that right? Right. OK. Kate is going to explain. Well, why have we stopped here, Kate?  Kate: Because deadwood is absolutely fantastic and we have a history of a nation of being a little bit too tidy and taking it away and using it for firewood and other things, when actually it's an amazing habitat in its own right. I'm just looking at the variety of rot holes, of larval galleries where the insect larvae have fed, and then the adults emerged. And it is like a whole habitat in its own right. And actually deadwood is really rare. Much of the woodland in the UK is not felt to be in good ecological condition and one of the reasons for that is a lack of deadwood. So it's incredibly important habitat and we don't have enough of it.  Jules: One of the things I didn't understand until recently and Kate, you might know more about this than me, but there's there's different kinds of deadwood. So if you have, it's important to have deadwood in different formats, so standing deadwood so when the old tree is still standing upright, and and deadwood that's lying down on the ground.  Adam: Right. What what why, so it matters if it's vertical or horizontal?  Jules: It it it matters that you have both kinds.  Adam: And why?  Jules: Because, I feel like I'm at the edge of my knowledge, so it's because about it's about different habitats, isn't it Kate, is that right?  Kate: Yeah, I think so. And the the wood will rot at a different rate. It's quite ironic because the one we're standing at now is actually at a 45° angle. So it's neither vertical nor nor horizontal. And of course, oak trees are absolutely full of of tannins, which I think are the same compound you find in the oak galls that enable the writing. But they also mean, you know this huge, great piece of deadwood here could be around for hundreds of years because it won't, it will rot very, very slowly.  Jules: And and one of the great things is when you have deadwood right next to living wood as well, because that creates all these different conditions which will suit different kinds of invertebrates and fungi as well, so that that's really important to have this collection of of different kinds of wood in in you know in a similar area.   Adam: Excellent. OK, we've, we've stopped. We've stopped Kate, and you've got very excited.  Kate: It happens quite easily when I'm out in nature. And there's a whole pile of knopper galls on the floor here, and they're black. You know, they've dropped off the tree. They've done their job. The the wasp has flown off. But I wondered if we could, I've no idea if this is gonna work, I wondered if we could actually try writing with them because they are oozing black.  Adam: Oh my, right, this is so exciting. OK, so this is like this is a modern day Shakespeare. Have you got? OK. The line is to be or not to be. I see. Hold on a second. So you've picked it up, right, I I think you might do something to it.   Kate: Well, I might have to. Shall we see, shall we see if it just?  Adam: Right, but you're not, you're just gonna?  Jules: Ohh there we go.  Kate: There is a brown ooze and it's I think it's not just from the path.  Adam: I was going to say, it's not just mud.  Kate: It's not. It's this kind of coffee colour.  Adam: Wow, OK. And you are writing to be or not to not be.  Kate: I am writing to be or not to be, I I don't know if I break it open a bit more if you might get. Ohh. This is gonna stain my nails, isn't it?  Adam: OK. Ohh dear, don't worry I'll I'll pay for the the visit to to the nail parlour.  Kate: *laughs* I shouldn't worry. Yes, we are actually getting some.  Adam: To be or not to be. Well, I'm sure that would have actually been mixed with water or something.  Kate: Most likely  Adam: Or some alcohol and put into a quill, but that does what hold on, let me just rub it, see. Well, I can confirm that is not just what we have now created ink. Proper exciting.  Kate: Absolutely.  Adam: Thank you very much. Well, we're heading away from our ink gall-bearing oaks to see the main attraction of the day, which is a short drive from here. It is the Bowthorpe Oak, one of the contenders for Tree of the Year. It is rooted in a grass paddock behind the 17th century farmhouse nearby. In 2002, the Tree Council, in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, designated the Bowthorpe Oak one of 50 great British trees. One of the 50 greatest British trees in recognition of its place in our national heritage. And I'm meeting the current custodian of the oak who runs the farm in which it lives.  George: My name is George Blanchard and I am one of the family members here that farm at Bowthorpe Park Farm.  Adam: Right. And you have, we're standing by this famous tree. People come here to see this tree?  George: They do, yeah, we get them from all over the world. A lot of lot of UK, obviously, Europe and America, we get a lot of interest from America.  Adam: Well, tell me a bit about this tree.  George: So this tree, the Bowthorpe Oak, is the UK's largest girthed oak tree. It's absolutely stunning as you can, as you can see, fully in leaf at the moment it looks amazing and yeah, that's it's claim to fame.  Adam: Right it's wide the widest I think it was the second widest tree in the UK. Is that right?  George: We know it's the largest largest oak tree in in terms of it's it's the most complete, you know. So I think there could be wider ones, but not quite as complete.  Adam: Not quite as good as your tree!  George: Yeah, exactly. This is yeah *laughs*  Adam: No, I agree. And and is is this a family farm? Is this?  George: It is yeah.  Adam: Right so you've grown up, you've you played under the boughs of this tree.  George: I have. Yeah, yeah and and inside it as well. Remember it is hollow so.  Adam: Right. Yeah. So tell me a bit about the sort of the folklore and the stories around the tree.  George: Yeah so oak trees naturally start to hollow at around 500 years old, but this one was hollowed even further, back in the 1700s by a chap called George Pauncefort and  Adam: It was, it was, it wasn't naturally hollow, he hollowed it out?  George: They they do, they do naturally hollow, but he hollowed it even further. And you can tell this when you're looking inside it, because the the sides are quite flat. It's very unnatural. You can see so the hollowing has been done by by tools. And so he also put benches around the inside of it and a and a doorway on on the west side and even even sort of paved the flooring but and and put a pigeon loft in the crown, which I think, I think back in the day in the 1700s, if you had a pigeon loft in your tree, you were somebody *laughs*.  Adam: Ohh really that's like Lamborghini time, right? OK, forget your Lamborghinis, I've got a pigeon loft in my tree.   George: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he would have parties in there as as you would, wouldn't you?  Adam: Well, yeah, of course. I mean, you've gone to all that trouble. Was he a member of the family? Was this being passed down?   George: No, no, there's no there's no relation, no relation. We've we've only been farming here since the sort of late 40s.  Adam: Right. OK, amazing. Amazing stuff. And I mean, and it looks in fairly, I mean as you say, it's in good leaf, it's in also just it looks to the untutored eye in good nick as well, generally healthy.  George: It is yeah. Really good really good condition currently. We lost a a limb off the back and that was that was quite concerning because it's it's quite dramatic when they shed a shed a limb, but it is what they they naturally do. We have an inspection done on the tree annually, but at the time of losing the limb, we were, we were quite concerned. So we upped the type of inspection we had done. And they were quite, quite invasive, I say invasive it was, you know, using really small drills, to see if there's any adverse rotting in any places. But no, they were really happy with the condition of the tree and and how healthy it is so other than any sort of man-made issue, I don't see why it shouldn't carry on growing as it is.  Adam: And it's amazing because, I mean, you know, it's taken us quite a while to get here and people come here all this way just to see this tree.  George: They do, yes, yes, seek it out, we call it Lincolnshire's best kept secret.  Adam: Right. Amazing. From all over the world?  George: They do yeah yeah. From all over the world. Like I say, a lot of a lot of Europe people come from Europe and a lot of people come from America. We find that the two two types of people from America, those that really appreciate it and those that just can't get their head around it because it's nowhere near as big as their redwoods *laughs*  Adam: Right? Call this big. Call this big, you should see...  George: Exactly. Yeah, call this big, we've got bigger.  Adam: Yeah OK. Brilliant well thank you very much, I will take a tour round it.  George: Thank you.  Adam: So one of the other, now I have to say, first of all, let me have a look at the front front, we've taken a book with us because Jules has published a book called Oaklore and you've brought it out here because there is a poem about this oak in your book.  Jules: There is and it was written well over 100 years ago by a poet called John Clare and but the interesting thing is when he wrote this poem this would have already been an ancient tree, so it's it's quite an interesting record that he was standing in awe, looking at this tree, just like we are now really.  Adam: Right, right. So when did he write this?  Jules: I don't have the exact date in front of me, but I know it's over well over 100 years ago.  Adam: OK, well over 100 years and you're going to put on your best poetry reading voice.  Jules: *laughs* I'll have a go.  Adam: Go on, give us, I always love, I mean, we did this in the Sherwood Forest podcast where we took a book about Sherwood Forest and a book about a tree to the tree it's about. So we're now going to read a poem about the tree we're standing by. So this poem by John Clare.  Jules: And it's called Burthorp Oak. So here we go. Burthorp Oak.   Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood  Of vague indifference; and yet with me  Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood  For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea  Of grass that waves around thee! Solitude  Paints not a lonelier picture to the view,  Burthorp! than thy one melancholy tree  Age-rent, and shattered to a stump. Yet new  Leaves come upon each rift and broken limb  With every spring; and Poesy's visions swim  Around it, of old days and chivalry;  And desolate fancies bid the eyes grow dim  With feelings, that earth's grandeur should decay,  And all its olden memories pass away.  Adam: Brilliant. That's that's a lovely poem to read by by the tree.  Jules: I think it's quite interesting that he says age rent and shattered to a stump so it it sort of suggests that the tree is in a worse condition than now, wouldn't you say so Kate? And it looks like it might be happier now than when Clare saw it.  Kate: I was just looking at it and I mean it looks like some of those shoots have put on a good foot of growth this year. So that's the amazing thing about ancient oaks is they they so-called retrench. So all the limbs, the limbs drop off, they become shorter and and and wider and then they might all just start to sort of grow again and it sort of goes through these amazing cycles. Certainly there's a lot more vegetation on it than when I last saw it 15 years ago. It looks fabulous.  Adam: And also a lot of oaks grow very tall. This isn't so tall it it is wider, isn't it? It's a squatter tree. Is that because it's actually not had to compete, because it's actually in a field by itself isn't it? It's not competing for light with lots of other trees.  Kate: Yes, maybe. And also trees like this do, the really ancient trees they do tend to become short and squat and it's part, and hollow, and that's part of their survival strategy is that they'll shed some of these top branches and they'll, they'll shorten and and widen.  Adam: Right. I mean, oaks are really important, aren't they in the UK especially, they're part of the national identity, really, aren't they? And and a lot of that's got to do with folklore, which I know, Jules, you've written about as well.  Jules: Yeah, I mean the the oak has been part of our culture well, as far as as, as as far as we know as far as written records go back and even we we believe that the the Druids themselves were very also very interested in oak trees and they worshipped in oak groves and they particularly worshipped mistletoe, the rare mistletoe that came off off oaks. Of course, we don't have written records on the the Druids, so we don't, we know very little about them, but that's certainly what we believe. And then it's been threaded throughout our our history and our culture that the oaks right up to the present day, you know people are still writing about it and painting painting oak trees and you've got wonderful ambassadors like Luke Adam Hawker who is very inspired by oak trees and goes out drawing them.  Adam: Why do you, I mean I don't suppose there's an answer, but do you have a take on why we've landed on the oak as such a a central part of our mythology and identity?  Jules: Well, I I think I think all of our native trees will play a role in that in our folklore and our mythology and and our culture, I think the oak is is is a particularly impressive tree isn't it, especially when you're standing next to a tree like this that that is so majestic and and you know the words like majestic, kingly, queenly, grand, they they just sort of pop into your head. There is just something incredibly awe-inspiring about the oak tree. And then, as we've we've seen before it, it just has such a huge impact on our ecology as well. So I think I think it's just something it it does a lot of heavy lifting culturally and also naturally the oak tree.  Adam: And almost every pub is called the Royal Oak.  Jules: Yes, yes, I think there's at the last count there's well over 400 pubs called the Royal Oak.  Adam: And you know that personally by visiting them?   Jules: Well, I've yes, I've I've tried to count them all. I've still got some way to go *both laugh*  Adam: Yeah. OK, OK, alright. Well, it's it's a good project to be having.  Jules: So there's an interesting story behind the that name the Royal Oak. And the reason the pubs are called that relates back to a very special oak tree, the Boscobel Oak. Now we have to go back in history a few hundred years. And it takes us back to the Battle of Worcester and the son of Charles I was in in battle with the with, with, with the parliamentarians, and he took a drubbing at the Battle of Worcester, and he needed to escape. And he reached this place called Boscobel House, and he was going to hide out in, in that house and try and escape the the soldiers, the the enemy. But it was very insecure and one of his advisers suggested he, instead of hiding in the house, he hid in the oak tree. So they spent the whole night in the oak tree, which subsequently called called the Boscobel Oak, and this and and and they escaped capture and the king spent the whole night with this chap called William Careless as he as he was called   Adam: William Careless?  Jules: William Careless who turned out not to be careless at all because he actually saved the king. And apparently the king sort of curled up with his head on Careless' knee and and he, they they got away. They got away with it and because of that you know that then obviously led into a whole series of events which ultimately led to the restoration of the monarchy and said King became Charles II and and because of that there was an enormous celebration of oak trees. So they they they were raised in status even further. So we've got all the Royal Oak pubs which are effectively commemorating that occasion. But there's also a great day of celebration was declared. It was the 29 May. I think that was the King's birthday, and it was 29 May. And it became oak apple day. And that was when we would all when people across the land would would gather and and celebrate the restoration of the monarchy. And one of the things they used to do was they people would bring branches with oak apples, which is another of those amazing galls. And the more oak apples you had on your branches, the better the better you were, you know, the, the, the cooler you were at the party. And if you didn't bring oak branches with you, apparently people would be mean to you and they'd whip you with nettles.   Adam: Blimey, this story took a turn!  Jules: Yeah, these parties got these these parties got quite out of hand. I actually think we should bring these days back. Not, no nettles. But I think actually wouldn't it be great if we spent every 29 May celebrating our amazing oak trees and and and also the wider nature around us.  Adam: Yeah, we've missed it this year, but I'm putting a date in for us to meet at a Royal Oak somewhere between us on 29 May.  Jules: Yeah, let's do it. Let's party. Yeah. And maybe drink a glass of oak flavoured wine or whisky.  Adam: OK, never had that, but I'm I'm up for it. I'm up for it. Kate, this is also important because this is in the running for Tree of the Year.  Kate: Absolutely. So the Woodland Trust hosts the UK Tree of the Year competition, and this year we've focused on oak trees.   Adam: So so they're all oaks.  Kate: All of them are oak trees this year, so we've got 12 candidates from across the UK and the wonderful Bowthorpe Oak here is one of them. It's my local tree so I'm a little bit biased, but these trees all tell amazing stories. We've got one that's shaped like an elephant in the New Forest. We've got one that has survived being in the middle of pine plantation in the Highlands of Scotland and we've got one that's sadly under threat from a bypass in Shrewsbury. So we've got some amazing stories from these trees and the public can vote. So voting closes on the 21 October 2024 and you can go to the Woodland Trust website so it's woodlandtrust.org.uk/vote.  Adam: There were some cow noises just as you said that in the background! Just to prove that we're in a farm *all laugh*.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you. 

Georgie and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about jobs their families do.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240920FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglishFollow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Dr. Emily Caffrey, a certified health physicist with the Health Physics Society, joins host Christ Stallman, CGC to talk about different types of radiation and their potential effects on a pregnancy. Links Mentioned in This Episode: Health Physics Society's Ask The Experts https://HPS.org   Ep. 76 Transcript  You're listening to the MotherToBaby podcast, medications and more during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Ask the experts with your host, genetic counselor and mom of four, Chris Stallman.   This episode contains evidence based information that's current as of the day recorded and may change as more data becomes available. To get the very latest information about this topic or other topics in pregnancy and breastfeeding, please contact a mother to baby specialist at 866 626 6847 by text at 855 999 3525 or through our website at mothertobaby.org.   Welcome to another episode of the mother to baby podcast. My name is Chris Stallman, and I'm a genetic counselor, a mom of four, and a teratogen information specialist. So what that means is that I talk to people, so patients, family members, healthcare providers, the general public, about exposures that can happen before pregnancy, during pregnancy, while breastfeeding, and in cases of adoption.   Thank you And an exposure can be anything. So it could be a medication you take. It could be a vaccine. It could be a hair treatment. And in some cases it could be in the place where you work. Today we're going to talk about a very specific exposure, radiation. And we have a very special guest to talk with us today.   Dr. Emily Caffrey is the program director and an assistant professor for the master's in health physics program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is also a certified health physicist that specializes in calculating radiation doses from environmental sources of radiation. Dr. Caffrey, welcome to the show.   Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Great. So let's get started today. We're going to talk about radiation. Can you tell us a little bit about what radiation is and how people are exposed to it? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, radiation is just a form of energy. So there's two types of radiation. There's non ionizing radiation and ionizing radiation.   So non ionizing radiation are lights, microwaves, your cell phone emits non ionizing radiation, things like that. There's also ionizing radiation, and that type of radiation is a little bit higher energy, um, that makes charged particles. Um, and that's the kind of radiation you get when you're talking about a CT scan or an x ray, something like that.   Um, that's ionizing radiation. Uh, and I, and I just want to point out that radiation is all around us. It was present when life first evolved on Earth. It was present when dinosaurs lived. It's still present today. Uh, we live in a radioactive world, and I think a lot of people don't know that. So I'd like to start with, radiation's all around you, and it has been your whole life.   Um, natural radiation comes from space, and it comes from living things that are in the Earth. The Earth's crust is radioactive. You may, if you live in a place that has high radon, um, you may have heard of radon coming from Earth up into your basement. That's a really common source of exposure. Um, and our human bodies and cells have adapted over time to respond to and repair the small amounts of damage you might get from these low levels of ionizing radiation.   So some of the more common forms of radiation, like you described, light, microwaves, CTs, would that also include mammograms and would that increase risks to a pregnancy? Yeah, that doesn't include mammograms. The mammogram is again a low energy type of x ray that's used to image the breast tissue to look for cancer usually.   Um, and You know, just like all other types of, of diagnostic imaging procedures, and I think we'll talk a little bit more about this as we get into it, um, you really aren't at risk when you have a low, a low, a diagnostic imaging procedure, those are very low doses, your, your pregnancy is not at risk, the unborn child, not at risk from those types of exposures.   And I'm really glad that we can talk about that and hear about that again, because it is the kind of thing, you know, if. certainly if you need it in pregnancy, it's a good idea to get your cancer screenings. Absolutely. Dr. Caffrey, can you tell us a little bit about the Health Physics Society? Yeah. And I like to tell people like health physics is a profession you've never heard of, but the health physics society is the professional society for health, which are radiation protection professionals.   So we are the profession that is devoted to the safe use of radiation. Um, so anywhere radiation is used, whether that's a hospital, a nuclear power plant, um, the government and military installations, um, there's gonna be a health physicist, a radiation safety officer, someone there making sure that the people and the environment are safe from that ionizing radiation.   So you may not see us, but we are there making sure that we're following regulations and keeping people safe. When you mentioned earlier that radiation comes from space, I got to say, I love hearing that. I think that that's such a cool and exciting thing. So let's talk about cosmic ionizing radiation. So what is that specifically?   And does that increase risks to a pregnancy? Yeah, it's space is always fun, right? And we're talking about sending astronauts to Mars and things, right? Radiation. So, you know, one component of your natural radiation dose that you get just by living here on Earth is from outer space, and that's called cosmic radiation.   Um, so particles and electromagnetic magnetic waves from outer space, um, come and hit and impact Earth. So you may have heard of solar flares and things like that. And the sun flings off all these charged particles. So those come and hit Earth. Now, Earth is actually pretty well protected. We have this magnetic field that's around Earth that deflects a lot of those particles.   Think of it as like a shield around Earth. And then our atmosphere, like a literal atmosphere above us, also protects us from a lot of that radiation, but not all of it. So some of that radiation is going to come in and actually get into Earth, like where you and I are sitting here right now. Um, and, and, and, There's more at the north and south poles and as you go higher in elevation because at the north and south pole the magnetic field that protects us is weaker and at higher altitudes you're just physically closer to the radiation coming from space.   So if you're, um, your background radiation dose, if you're at the North Pole or if you're standing on top of a 14 year in Colorado is going to be higher than me sitting here in my office in Huntsville, Alabama, which is basically at sea level, right? So it's just a small difference, but it does change a little bit.   Um, but you know, cosmic radiation contributes Um, about 5 percent of our average total background dose. So that's a very low, low number. You and I just living on Earth, which is radioactive, get about 3 millisieverts per year. And a millisievert is just a unit of radiation, uh, dose that we, that we use to count, you know, when we're talking about radiation doses, that's just a number we, a unit that we use.   Um, so you and I get about 3 millisieverts per year, and about 5 percent of that 3 millisieverts is from cosmic space radiation. Um, and I, and I want to add to that background radiation doses are too low to increase your risk of pregnancy or cause any harm to your unborn child. We are not worried about background radiation doses or doses that are lower, um, in, in than, especially not background, but lower than three is definitely not a concern.   And we'll talk a little bit more about what levels you might want to start thinking about, about, you know, where, at what levels you might want to be concerned, but definitely not at background levels. Great. Okay. So thinking about space occupation, what's out there? What about radiation exposure for someone who's working as a flight attendant?   I got to tell you, I got this question for the very first time, maybe six or seven years ago. And until then, it never even occurred to me. I was like, yeah, of course, there's radiation in the atmosphere. So I'm going to stop talking and let you give us this answer. Yeah, and I'm really glad you asked that question because we hear this concern a lot, both from flight attendants, pregnant women that travel for work a lot, uh, pilots, right?   We hear this question a lot. And I think people, uh, I certainly didn't before I got into this field, didn't think about flight attendants being, uh, people that are exposed to COVID. More than average, right? Um, but when you fly up high, especially people that fly transcontinental flights that go over those poles where you have a higher radiation dose, they get a higher radiation dose in the background.   They actually, in some cases, get higher radiation doses than workers at nuclear power plants, but higher does not mean there's a problem. So let's back up for just a second. Um, so the amount of exposure that you get from flying is significantly lower than, um, The exposure needed to cause any harmful effects to your, to your unborn child or to you, the pregnant, pregnant person, rightly, that we're not concerned.   Um, and just to give you some context, right, we talked about 3 millisieverts as our background radiation dose. Um, the radiation dose needed to cause harmful effects is roughly, and again, there's a lot of research on this that's ongoing all the time as we improve our models, but we're talking roughly 100 millisieverts.   Um, and again, millisieverts just being a unit of radiation dose, so 3. Is your background radiation dose, and 100 is what we're talking about for harmful effects. Um, and then to talk a little bit more specifically about flight, so how much radiation do you get in a flight? Well, your radiation exposure during a commercial flight is about 0.   01 millisieverts per hour of flying time. So to get to 100 then right? That means you need if you do some quick division. That means you need about 10, 000 hours during your pregnancy to reach the amount of radiation that might be harmful. I don't think anyone is even flight attendants, right? You're not flying in 10, 000 hours.   You really aren't quite safe from as a as a flight attendant or a pilot or even just someone that travels a lot while you're pregnant. That's it's not of concern. Excellent. And I'm so glad that you mentioned, you know, it could be higher than 100. wherever we start out. But that alone doesn't necessarily mean that there is a problem.   We have to have more information. We have to have all the pieces and that's so important for all exposures. But again, certainly for one like this, where you may not have known or you may not have remembered, it's like, oh, there's radiation all around us. Oh, wait, it also depends on how much we're being exposed to.   Now, for my favorite thing to ask all of the guests on the show, when I get the opportunity, what is the most interesting question about radiation and pregnancy that you or the Health Physics Society has received? Yeah. And I'm, and again, this is a great question. We get hundreds of questions from pregnant women and thousands of questions from the general public.   Yeah. Um, and you know, it's kind of, I didn't pick something like when I was thinking about this, I didn't pick something light hearted because this, this particular question that I'm going to throw is one that has stuck with me and it's the one I that just reminds me of why talking to people and using my knowledge to explain why things are okay or not okay or what you need to be concerned about and what you shouldn't be concerned about is so important.   Um, and so about, about a year ago, we had a woman right in, um, an Italian woman and she had had a diagnostic x ray of her pelvis before she knew she was pregnant. And her, her gynecologist told her the pregnancy was probably more risky because of the x ray. And she specifically asked us if she should terminate her pregnancy.   And under Italian law, you know, that was very time sensitive because she only had a week to make such a like, insanely impactful life decision. Um, and so I was so glad that she found us because I just want to be really clear here. The answer to that question is absolutely not. A diagnostic x ray, even to the pelvis, um, is not going to cause any harm to your unborn child.   And just the relief that we were able to provide, um, that, that soon to be first time mom was just like overwhelming. She wrote back to us, um, several times over the course of, you over the course of her pregnancy just to check in and she told us she sent us an email saying that her son was born happy and healthy and she was just so grateful and so relieved because she didn't know right and and so being able to offer that service and being able to help people understand and make massive decisions is just really amazing.   Uh, it gives me the warmth, like, that is amazing. I am not only so glad that the society exists and that folks like yourself are out there giving this information. I'm so glad they found you. I'm so glad that, you know, it seemed like a good outcome for them. That's wonderful and so important. And it is one of those things where, you know, you don't know what you don't know.   The good news is in a lot of cases, there are people, um, again, like you and the health physics society that are out there assisting with some of this information that isn't as commonly available. So thank you so much. What a great story. So Emily, if someone has a question specific for the health physics society, so radiation.   Or even, you know, concerns in the pre pregnancy or after pregnancy planning stage. How did they get to your organization to find this information? Yeah, thanks for asking that. Um, so you can find us at hps. org, hps. org. That's the website of the Health Physics Society. And you'll see a little Ask the Experts button.   And you just click that button and you'll see our webpage. Um, there's a webpage specifically for pregnancy and radiation. And on that web page are a couple of videos that the Health Society has produced. There are fact sheets about radiation and pregnancy. There are Q& A's from, uh, not only some, some basic Q& A's that we have written, but also, um, some stories that other people have, other questions that people have written in with.   We, we anonymize them, of course, and we post some of those to our website. And we cover everything from, um, background radiation, to pregnancy and flying, to what if I need a medical procedure, to I'm a lactating mom that's breastfeeding, you know, and I have to have this nuclear medicine procedure, you know, if, am I okay, what should I do?   Um, I think the medical industry does a good job of providing information, but I think people sometimes still want, you're still overwhelmed, right? When you, you have a child and you are doing something in the medical realm, like those are two very overwhelming things. In and of themselves. And so when you have another question that didn't get answered, please reach out to us and we're always happy to help.   That's awesome. And we are going to put information for the Health Physics Society in the show notes. Something else, um, that I was just thinking of, I, you know, talk to people all day. That's my job. But if I forget to ask my doctor or healthcare provider something, or if I'm traveling or busy, I might not always have the opportunity to connect with them, and I will say that sometimes I turn to Google.   So it's great to know where they can find this information. Providers are wonderful. They give good information. Sometimes I do not have it in me to wait 30 minutes on the phone. You know, life is busy. So it's great to know that we can find this information online as well. Dr. Caffrey, before I let you go for this episode, um, cause I would love to have you come back and talk more about radiation.   Is there a final thought that you would like to leave our audience with? Yeah, I think, you know, I think the thing I want to emphasize is that radiation can be scary. You can't see it. You can't feel it. You don't know it's there. Like anything you can't see and you don't know is there. Can be scary, but I just I want to emphasize that our bodies evolved in this radioactive world.   They have repair mechanisms for low doses. And we know from population studies from epidemiological studies. That the amount of radiation used in these diagnostic procedures, so x ray scans, mammograms. Um, even to the pelvis area are just not are way too small to cause harm to your unborn child. So you don't need to worry about those types of procedures.   You know, and if you are concerned or you had a specific procedure or you had a nuclear medicine procedure, you know, those are things that experts can talk to you about and counsel you through, um, to make sure that you're getting up to date information. And it's so important to remember to ask those questions because diagnostic procedures can prevent a lot of issues that are harmful to your baby, right?   And, or could be harmful to your, to your unborn child and, or yourself, right? As the pregnant woman, like, um, There are actual harms that can be done by not having a CT scan when it's clinically indicated, and the radiation dose should, should be something that you think about, um, and, and be aware of and educated about, but it should not stop you from getting a diagnostic procedure that could potentially save your life or your unborn child's life.   So radiation's scary, but we, um, myself, the Health Physics Society, and all of my topic editors and experts are here to help. Hps. org or through the mother's baby website, there are links, um, and you can find us online and we are, please reach out. We are happy to help. Absolutely. And thank you. Thank you for the reminder that, you know, these procedures, MRIs, CTs, and so forth are not done lightly.   They are done because someone needs it, especially during pregnancy and you, you probably do need it. So please feel free to contact. The health physics society or mother to baby with any questions that you have. Dr. Caffrey, it was my pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you so much for being on the show, giving us all this great information, and we hope to have you back in the future.   Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. And that's going to do it for this episode of the mother to baby podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe button. So that way you never miss a new episode and you can go back and listen or relisten to some of those older episodes as well. You can find us on iTunes, Spotify, Audible, or however you like to listen to podcasts.   And if you want to be on the podcast, or if you have an idea for the show, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to email us at contactusatmothertobaby. org. And Mother 2 Baby is here to answer your questions about exposures before and during pregnancy while breastfeeding, or if you have questions about exposures and adoption, you can reach us by phone at 866 626 6847.   Buy text at 855 999 3525. You can visit us on our website, mothertobaby. org. And there you can chat with an information specialist. You can look at our many blogs, information pages, our hundreds of fact sheets that are available free in English and in Spanish. And you can also listen to our podcast. Or, find out how you can participate in our pregnancy studies.   If you would like to support the MotherToBaby podcast, as well as all of the ways we get critical pregnancy and breastfeeding health information to you at home, we have a new way to do just that. Encircle is our new monthly giving society that helps ensure we can continue to provide our services at no cost.   Join the community today and encircle parents and babies in health. Members will be recognized on the podcast and website. Visit mothertobaby.org/donate today. Until next time, remember, MotherToBaby is here for you. Take care. MotherToBaby is a service of the nonprofit organization of Teratology Information Specialists and supported by the Health Resources and Service Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It's made possible through generous donations from listeners like you. To learn more about MotherToBaby, please visit mothertobaby. org.

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about their favourite recipes.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240913 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about the weather.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240906 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Accompanied by experts Adam and Louise and a 100-year-old-book, our latest episode takes us to Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest to visit two astonishing trees. The Parliament Oak and Major Oak have each stood through several centuries and have fascinating stories attached to them. Equally astonishing is the fact that magnificent oaks like these don't have legal protection like our built heritage. Join us as we learn the magical lifesaving strategy of ancient oaks that could make them immortal, how penny coins can tell us about the health of a tree, whether Robin Hood really lived in Sherwood Forest and what you can do to help earn living legends like these the protection they deserve. Transcript  You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.  Adam Shaw: Today I'm off to Sherwood Forest, home, famously, of course, of Robin Hood. The name Sherwood Forest actually comes from its status as a shire and the word shire was turned into sher...wood of Nottinghamshire, therefore Sherwood. Anyway, I've come to visit two trees, in particular: the Parliament Oak and the Major Oak. But before we get to that a lot more details on why those trees are so important later on, but first of all, of course I have to meet my two guides for the day.  Louise Hackett: I'm Louise Hackett. I'm the treescape lead for Sherwood. I manage essentially a partnership project across the landscape of what was the historic Sherwood Forest. So that extends from Nottingham up to Worksop and Retford.  Adam Shaw: Fantastic. So huge portfolio and I'm also joined by another Adam. So you are?  Adam Cormack: Adam Cormack and I head up the campaigning team at the Woodland Trust.  Adam Shaw: Fantastic. And we are standing in a beautiful field. I've forgotten to bring my suntan lotion so I could have a red bald head by the end of today, which is very naughty, but we are standing by, well, I'm going to start with, it's called a palace, it may not be what you quite imagine this to be. I'll try and put this on my social media and the Woodland Trust social media so you know what this looks like, but who just wants to explain to me a bit about where we are? Adam's being thrust towards the microphone.  Adam Cormack: So we're in a field in the middle of Nottinghamshire in a place called Clipstone and we're by King John's Palace, which is a few remaining walls from an old royal hunting lodge that's about 900 years old. So this dates back to that time when Sherwood was a royal hunting forest. So it's called King John's Palace. But you have to kind of remove that idea of a palace from your mind as you're saying, Adam, it's basically a few remaining walls.  Adam Shaw: Yeah.  Adam Cormack: Which I you know, I can still still find it interesting. Kind of imagine what life was like here years ago.  Adam Shaw: Yeah. No, it is. I mean, yes, I mean look, it is a few remaining walls, but it is beautiful. It's you know it's it's it's not like a a breeze block or anything like that. OK. So we've we've talked about history already a couple of times and the only thing I know about Sherwood Forest and I think I'll be joined by lots of people here is Robin Hood. So Robin Hood was here. Apart from Robin Hood, what else is the historical context of this place?  Louise Hackett: So yes, as as Adam was just saying with the area subject to forest law, which is what made this area a royal hunting forest, the vert and the venison was protected for virtue of the king and that resulted in an incredible landscape that was a a rich mosaic of oak birch woodland, lowland heathland, acid grassland and it covered a huge swathe and it was incredibly dynamic landscape with a long history as as a hunting forest that would have looked very different through the years.  Adam Shaw: So this, it was protected because the king wanted to ride around and catch wild boar and all of that sort of stuff.   Louise Hackett: Absolutely.  Adam Shaw: And what sort of period are we talking about?  Louise Hackett:  So we're talking from roughly the 1100s onwards or or earlier than that even, it has a long history.  Adam Shaw: Now also on the car journey here from, you were very kind you picked me up from the station we're quite a way from the station, but you were, I was surprised you also said oh look we've been we've been in the forest all this time. So I often think of oh, we get to a forest and there's a bit of woodland, but we've been driving half an hour, I don't know, 40 minutes or so, and throughout that time we've been in Sherwood Forest.  Louise Hackett:  Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things that I think when people say the word forest, people think of wall to wall trees. But as we were just saying that actually what a forest refers to is an area subject to forest law. And these would have been complex mosaics of lots of different habitats, primarily open habitat. That's what would have made it such an enjoyable environment for the king to ride through.  Adam Shaw: Yeah, cause you can't ride through the actual trees too much.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely, no.  Adam Shaw: OK. And a couple of times, you've already mentioned a new phrase to me. Woodland law?   Louise Hackett: Forest law.   Adam Shaw: Forest law. Never heard of that. What is forest law?  Louise Hackett: So so this was essentially the the a separate law system that applied to hunting forests, and there were numerous hunting forests across England. So this was a separate law system, as I say, that protected the vert and the venison. So anything green and growing and the the animals, primarily those that you'd hunt.  Adam Shaw: Right. Protected it for the king.   Louise Hackett: For the king. And his friends.   Adam Shaw: OK, but it has so, right. OK, fair enough. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because you know, that's really part of the aristocracy and all, you know, quite problematic in lots of social ways. But actually it has an environmental benefit - because it was saved for the king, it happens to be safe for everyone else and nature itself.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So so there will have been small communities that lived in these areas, but they would have had very strict rules as to what access they had to certain areas of the land and and what they had access to and and but but all of that defined really what this looked like as a natural landscape and it it really protected quite a special wood pasture habitat.  Adam Shaw: Wonderful. Now also Adam, you are clutching a very exciting looking book, proper old big bound book called Sherwood Forest by Joseph Rodgers. So how old is this book for a start?  Adam Cormack: So this book is just over a century old.  Adam Shaw: Wow. OK, proper old book. And this is all about Sherwood Forest. So how how's it split out this book? I mean, it's a it's a huge tome. So was it by tree or by person or what?  Adam Cormack: Yeah, it's it's a hefty tome, isn't it? It's it's so it's a kind of miscellany of Sherwood Forest really, so it covers the important old trees of Sherwood Forest. There's a little chapter on the Major Oak, which is a tree that we'll see today, a chapter on the Parliament Oak. And there's a chapter on where we're standing now, King John's Palace. So I thought I might just actually read out the first sentence because I think it's a good kind of encapsulation. So remember, this is written sort of 100 years ago, so ‘Such a feeling of quiet dwells in this little sleepy village consisting of a few labourers' cottages and farmhouses with straight canals along the meadows in place of the pleasant river, with the golden ragwort flourishing on its banks. That, from its appearance, a stranger would gather no idea of its ancient importance, for there is nothing to indicate the rude state which must have at one time here been maintained.'  Adam Shaw: Well, look, it's a nice day we're standing by this palace. That's not why we've come here though. So just give me an idea of the trip we're going to take today.  Adam Cormack: So we're going to go and look at two really important trees of Sherwood Forest now. We're gonna go and look at the Parliament Oak, which is just five minutes up the road from here and there is links to King John's Palace. So we'll talk about that when we're at the tree. And then we're going to go to the Major Oak and let Lou just talk about the Major Oak.  Adam Shaw: OK, that's all to come. Bit of walking involved first though. So as we walk towards our first big tree of the day, the so-called Parliament Oak, I'm going to read from the other Adam's 100-year-old book about this oak. I'm going to be very careful so I don't trip over and ruin this book which has been looked after for over a century. ‘It has been stated with some probability of truth that King John, while hunting in the forest, was informed by a messenger of a revolt of the Welsh and of an insurrection in the north of England that he hastily summoned a parliament to meet under this tree, and that it owes its name to that incident. On another account, it connects it with Edward I, who, when on his way to Scotland in 1290, summoned a parliament to meet at Clipton, at Clipstone, sorry, so it has no idea why it's called the Parliament Oak, so it could be to do with King John or it could be to do with Edward I. But it is called the Parliament Oak. And here it is in this beautiful book with a drawing or engraving of it, it looks like a sort of split oak. I'm just trying to see how accurate it is. Ohh, there it is. I'm being, I'm looking at the wrong blooming thing. There we are. So we can see it in the book and I can see it in real life. And what a wonderful, what a wonderful book. And what a wonderful place to read out that paragraph. Alright, we're resting, I just feel this is so apt, we're resting our book about the Parliament Oak on the Parliament Oak and and Lou it's I've lost the place.  Louise Hackett: Which page?  Adam Cormack: 197.  Adam Shaw: If you're following along at home on the few versions of this 100-year-old book that might be out there, it's page 197 *laughs*. I feel like I'm leading a congregation. If you turn now, that's in your prayer books, past the Shambles Oak. There we are, the Parliament Oak. So Lou. Did I miss out something important you wanted to read about this?  Louise Hackett: I just wanted to point out on the illustration, because I think on on some of the old illustrations you can see that there's two, what we call functional units, so one of the incredible things ancient oak trees do is they can separate themselves into functional units, which is a fantastic lifesaving strategy, which I I'll happily talk about more later. But on a lot of the old illustrations you you see what essentially are two functional units remaining of the tree.  Adam Shaw: So just to be explained, a functional unit is what looks like two trees, but you're actually saying this is one tree which looks like two trees, but you're calling them functional units.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So as it's aged, the tree has essentially segmented itself. And these these segments are what was once one tree starts to split out into multiple segments, which generally is associated with a large limb, but it means that if you have, if you lose one of your limbs and it's quite a catastrophic loss, you could lose that functional unit at no risk to your other sections, so it's quite a good lifesaving strategy. So we so in a lot of the old images you see these two sections and because we've got two trees still standing here today, people think that they are those two fragments. But but in fact it's only one remaining and the way we can identify that is you can see on the left-hand side of this illustration, you can see a small burr forming. That's what I'm resting th b book on, so it has grown quite considerably this burr since since the illustration.  Adam Shaw: Right. Wow. It's a little bump 100 years ago, it's now a proper table.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Yeah. So this is what's still standing and the piece of deadwood on the ground next to us...  Adam Shaw: OK, let's have a look. Oh, OK. Yes, that was that whole tree.  Louise Hackett:  It was the section that joined those two functional units, so it was...  Adam Shaw: Right. And what's happened to that other functional unit then, that's gone?  Louise Hackett: So that's been lost. Yes, absolutely. So so what, what you can't see in this image is essentially it was, it was a huge tree at at its kind of height at its kind when it was at its kind of fullest, 9.5 metres in circumference, so it was a large tree and it would have been completely hollow at that at that point. And and that's when basically the the as the deadwood decayed and just those two functional units remained and and now just one. But what's magical with this tree is that you'd never know that to look at it. Today without these kind of past illustrations and photographs because what's actually happened is it's precluded fully around this this remaining fragment, so it looks like a 100-year-old oak. But actually it's potentially 900 years old.  Adam Shaw: Wow. That's extraordinary, isn't it? So, yeah, well, that is extraordinary. I was going to say, how old is it, so we're looking at a 900-year-old oak here.  Louise Hackett: But it's it's done this magical thing of having gone back to a younger stage of its life, we we quite often think of trees of of being young, mature, old and then dying. But actually what they have the capability of, which is what makes ancient trees so special is, they can go back to an earlier life stage. So this is now a mature tree and there is nothing preventing this tree going through that full lifespan all over again and becoming a huge hollow ancient of the future. It was already in ancient but...  Adam Shaw: Yeah, well that's extraordinary. So really, it might never die because it just rejuvenates, really.   Louise Hackett: Absolutely.  Adam Shaw: An amazing thing. Well, that is brilliant. And Adam is also standing here and we're talking about history, Adam. And we're talking about the history of this tree, but that feeds into quite an important bit of work you're doing about history in general.  Adam Cormack: Yes, so the Woodland Trust has been running a campaign called Living Legends for the past couple of years, which is about improving protection for trees like Parliament Oak, but other very old and very special trees. So we're calling them heritage trees. So people have been campaigning for protection of these trees for a very long time,  for decades. But the last couple of years is where we've pulled that all together into a campaign called Living Legends. We've got a petition that's been supported by over 85,000 people calling for legal protection for very old and special trees.  Adam Shaw: So don't they have, I mean I always thought trees were protected anyway and you're not allowed to cut down a tree even in your own garden, because the local council object?  Adam Cormack: Well, I think it's just I think there's a sort of I think what you're talking about there is the sort of day-to-day protection that trees have from our feelings and attitudes towards them, which is the sort of social contract that we have that you don't just cut down trees. And that's the thing that protects trees sort of day in day out. There are policies and a few legal instruments, felling licences, tree preservation orders, that sort of together, provide trees with a basic level of protection, but there's nothing to recognise the value of this tree, the Parliament Oak, so 900 years or maybe even a bit older than that, in the way that we were just at King John's Palace, so we were there we were looking at a kind of heritage asset that was sort of similar sort of age, really, grade listed has legal protection. It's recognised for its value and for what it can tell us about the past and tell us about ourselves and what we think should happen is that trees should just have the same level of protection. Not all of them, just the oldest and most special.  Adam Shaw: So this 900-year-old tree doesn't have any historical protection compared to the 900-year-old odd palace, which does have historical protection. Is that fair?  Adam Cormack: You just said it Adam, no it doesn't. But that's the case for all of our really old and special trees. Sorry we've just got a tractor going past. So you can, we're here, I mean, the tree is just, you can probably hear the cars going past, it's on the corner of a road, the corner of a farm track. And I think that just shows you that these trees aren't all in really safe, secluded places, they're they're there in day-to-day life, on road verges, parks, gardens, sometimes in woodlands and farms.  Adam Shaw: Yeah. It's odd, isn't it? Because it is a part of the British history, not just natural history. But, you know, history of parliament, of democracy, of kings and queens. And yet it it doesn't have any legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. But because it's actually not made of bricks, it doesn't have.  Adam Cormack: That that's it really. So I think we, you know, we protect the things that we've made as human beings. So we protect the buildings, the artworks, the things that we've created but so these old trees should just have a similar level of protection. It's great that we protect all those other important things scheduled ancient monuments, battlefields, works of art. Trees just fit into the same category.  Adam Shaw: And if listeners to our podcast believe in what you're saying and want to support that, how do they do that?  Adam Cormack: So listeners can go to the Woodland Trust website or just go to Google and type Living Legends campaign and they'll go straight to our petition and they could be the 85,001 person to sign our petition although hopefully it will have gone up a bit by the time people listen to this.  Adam Shaw: So, Living Legends, that's what you're looking for. The Woodland Trust's Living Legends campaign, and you can add your name to that.  Adam Cormack: That's right. And and I think there's one other thing to add to that, which is that over the last six months, we've been successful in securing a private members' bill for heritage trees. So we're actually on that journey now towards legislative protection for some of these trees. Baroness Young has introduced a private members' bill, so this is a heritage trees bill and it introduces this designation of heritage trees, so it's not law yet. It's got quite a long way to go before it does become law, but you can go online you can Google that too, and you can read it for yourself. It's only five pages long it's quite short, it just talks about bringing in legal protection for very old and special trees.  Adam Shaw: Of course, and and that needs government support, we've got a new government, so who knows what will happen to that. But I I know you'll be hoping that actually gets pushed forward.   Adam Cormack: We will yeah.  Adam Shaw: OK, well, while everyone is going to that petition to sign their names, we can walk on to another tree you wanted to show me. Where's that?  Adam Cormack: So we're gonna go to the Major Oak now, which is probably the tree that most people know or think about when they think about Sherwood Forest. You know, it's legendarily the place where Robin Hood lived. You know, you can make that decision for yourself when you get there and you see the tree.  Adam Shaw: OK, brilliant. Alright. Well, we're gonna walk on, you go sign a petition if if you fancy or just sip your cup of tea. Now one thing, I was keen not to do too much about Robin Hood cause I thought there would be loads much there'd be loads more to talk about. But in fact, I've hardly mentioned Robin Hood. I feel that's a bit of a miss. So Sherwood Forest, most famous, the home of Robin Hood. He's a real character, isn't he for a start?  Louise Hackett: Absolutely.  Adam Shaw: OK good. Right. Robbed from the rich and gave to the poor? I know you're a tree expert not really a Robin Hood expert and this is a bit unfair, but from your understanding is that a good reflection of what happened? Or is it more complex than that?  Louise Hackett: Well, I think I think you can easily understand how Sherwood Forest would be a landscape someone like Robin Hood would be able to hide and and for for hundreds of years you would have had to have hired a guide to take you through this landscape. It was considered so dangerous.   Adam Shaw: Really, you get mugged?  Louise Hackett: Absolutely.   Adam Shaw: And it was the king's hunting ground. So this was a good place for someone who wants to, you know, pick on the rich, this is would be a place to do it.  Louise Hackett: It had an entirely different law system, so it prevented us, the commoners from from taking the vert or the venison from this landscape. So you can understand how local people would be slightly annoyed at the fact that the king was holding all of all of that for himself.  Adam Shaw: Yes, slightly annoyed. I think that'd be a great description of Robin Hood. He was slightly annoyed as he set up his band of merry men to take back the venison *both laugh*. Anyway, and it's still today, I mean, that's what draws a lot of the tourists in we're standing up by this huge oak, but of course around us, lots of signage about Robin Hood and lots of young people dressed in green running around with lovely hats on. So yeah, still still a draw.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely and internationally as well, which I think is really exciting for the Major Oak specifically. It hosted many guests from from across the world, and not many trees can say that.  Adam Shaw: We've arrived at the Major Oak, which is a major tree. It is not called the Major Oak because it is big is it?   Louise Hackett: No.  Adam Shaw: OK so let's first of all explain why it's called the Major Oak.  Louise Hackett: So it's named after Major Hayman Rooke, who famously illustrated a lot of named trees across this landscape and and in Derbyshire also. But a lot of trees that were incredibly significant in this landscape but have since been lost. The irony is he didn't actually illustrate this tree *both laugh*.  Adam Shaw: So, so so it's called after him, but it's nothing to do with him at all.  Louise Hackett: Well, well, he, he, he, he he was certainly in this area and will have will have absolutely seen this tree but and there is an illustration that quite often gets labelled as the Queen Oak or which was its name before it was known as the Major Oak but actually when you study that illustration, it bears no resemblance to this tree.  Adam Shaw: OK. So it's like in honour of a man who chronicled the trees of this region.  Louise Hackett: Absolutely.  Adam Shaw: Fair enough. Now let's describe it because it is an oak. To me, those familiar with the Harry Potter Potter novels might think of it more as the Whomping Willow. It's it's very sprawling, not particularly high. It doesn't really have an obvious crown. It's spreading out, and it's supported by lots of metal supports, which probably because the limbs are so old, they might fall off or fall down, and it's got a fence around it to stop you going up to it now. Is that a fair description?  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So, so those props, kind of the the the the history of this tree is quite complex, so actually measures were taken since the Victorian era to hold this tree together essentially. There were some fantastic pictures of the blacksmith posing in front of this tree with all the metalwork that we can actually still see in the crown, you can see all of that metalwork holding the branches together.   Adam Shaw: Ohh right I thought yeah now because it's all brown I missed it. I thought it was ropes. That's metalwork.  Louise Hackett: Yeah. No, that's all metalwork and and that's been there for a very long time.  Adam Shaw: This is really pulled together. This tree is being held together. But it still limps on.  Louise Hackett: It does, it does. It is struggling.  Adam Shaw: Right. How old is it?   Louise Hackett: So that's a fantastic question. *both laugh*  Adam Shaw: OK, I can I can tell from the moment I asked that you didn't want to be asked that question. OK, well, is it not clear how old this tree is?  Louise Hackett: There is no way to definitively say how old this tree is.   Adam Shaw: But you're an expert, give us your best guess.  Louise Hackett: There, there are are are lots of guesses, some say 800, some say 1,300.  Adam Shaw: Which would make it very old for an oak, isn't it, 1,000 years is...  Louise Hackett: No matter what it is a very old tree.  Adam Shaw: Right. And I mean, I rather unkindly described it as limping on. It's it's clearly having help here. It's nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just old, is it?  Louise Hackett: No. So it's not its age that is causing it issues. So as I was saying the the Victorians did a lot of work in in terms of trying to keep the tree together. It was an incredibly popular tourist attraction through the for the Victorians.   Adam Shaw: Still is, there's a picnic area right by here.  Louise Hackett: And it it still is, it has 200 years of people visiting this tree and unfortunately that has compromised the tree as a result.  Adam Shaw: Why, what, why would that, people coming along and standing by the tree, why, what harm does that do?  Louise Hackett: So the first thing you want to do when you're visiting an ancient tree is you want to walk right up to it, don't you? And put your hands on it and and and and kind of make that connection. And for a long time you could do that. At the moment it's fenced off, and it's been fenced off for for 30-odd years and that's because the compaction around this tree is considerable.  Adam Shaw: And that makes it hard for its roots to actually function.  Louise Hackett: It means that they can't access, the roots can't access the water and nutrients needed. And and it's now struggling unfortunately as a as a result of that.  Adam Shaw: Now also we passed just we're sort of one side of the of the tree, as we passed it, I could see sort of round I don't know metal thing attached to it, looked like a scientific instrument. What's that?  Louise Hackett: Yes. So a lot of work is happening on this site at the moment to hopefully remedy some of the issues that the Major Oak is happening. So RSPB have employed a whole range of experts from from many different fields. And I've been working with them and Myerscough College to fit dendrometers to the tree.  Adam Shaw: Say that word again?   Louise Hackett: Dendrometers.  Adam Shaw: Dendrometers. What's that?  Louise Hackett: So these measure the the growth and shrinkage of the of the sapwood, so they're fitted...  Adam Shaw: And the sapwood is that the internal bit?  Louise Hackett: Yes, so so this is the, the, the the part that transports all of those water and nutrients.  Adam Shaw: Right. So it's got a sort of it it's got something buried inside the tree, which is measuring internal movement.  Louise Hackett: So so it's it's fixed to the tree, but it actually sits on the bark. So we've used one penny coins, which because they're magnetic.   Adam Shaw: Literally one penny coins?  Louise Hackett: Yeah, there are there are multiple penny coins glued to the Major Oak right now. And the dendrometer just sits on on that magnet. It has a magnet and it just sits on there. And it measures to the micrometre any growth or shrinkage every half hour.  Adam Shaw: Right. Right. Whether, it's like it's breathing, whether it's breathing out or whether it's breathing in and why, that's extraordinary. That's a normal process is it?   Louise Hackett: Yes.   Adam Shaw: And that's as the water's coming up it sort of expands a bit and because that's how it pushes the water up anyway, isn't it sort of like a like a snake sort of pushing it up and down?  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And it will be responding to its environment. So what we're seeing is after a really dry spell, it shrinks. And after a wet spell it it it expands so the cells are always dividing but the the kind of quantity of water in those cells depends on on the environment and and what's happening.  Adam Shaw: Right. And what you'd want to see in a healthy tree is a lot of movement or not a lot of movement?  Louise Hackett: It's not so much about the the movement, it's more about the trajectory. So over time we want to see the, the, the average going up, that it's constantly growing. Obviously the tree's struggling at the moment and it's so it's a fascinating time to be observing what different sections of the tree are doing and because as we were talking before about functional units, the Major Oak will have separate functional units.  Adam Shaw: Right, so this is what I was going to come on to that, we talked about how actually trees could be immortal in a way, because it's not that an acorn comes off and grows another tree, but they split so the same tree, sort of starts its life again, genetically the same tree that, you're going to correct me here, but that hasn't happened here, has it?  Louise Hackett: So so so. In what way do you mean sorry?  Adam Shaw: Well, yeah, that's alright I because I'm an idiot, aren't I? What I mean is that it, wouldn't it be lovely if, like we saw with the Parliament Oak, that if a bit of it sort of split off you went OK, maybe the first bit might die back but genetically, the same tree that that continuous sort of lineage just starts afresh next to it, not as an acorn but as a part of its own tree. But we don't seem to be seeing that.   Louise Hackett: It has done that.   Adam Shaw: In the past or, I just can't see it now?  Louise Hackett: So it is you just can't see it. So yeah.   Adam Shaw: OK, I told you I'm an idiot! Show, show me what's going on. Show me.  Louise Hackett: No, no, no, no, no. So so so we were just, so the the the Parliament Oak just makes it incredibly obvious because we have images of two very obvious separate functional units because the the area in between has has died away over time, but we can't see that so obviously with the Major Oak until you really know what you're looking for. So if you think...  Adam Shaw: Right. That's why I've brought you along! Go on. Show me what I should be looking for.  Louise Hackett: So the large if you see that large limb to to the right, you can you can almost see a line going down the bark.  Adam Shaw: Yes. I definitely can see a line. It looks like someones lain something over that.  Louise Hackett: Yeah. So basically what it's done is it's formed this this separate functional unit associated with that large limb. And what you generally see when you when you've got strong functional units in, in my eyes, you you often see this almost like a wound wood response to the separate unit. They're starting to understand that they're separate and behave so they're healing against each other.  Adam Shaw: Right. So that tree that, that part of the tree really reaching out into the picnic area if you like, is part of a sort of a new a new development.   Louise Hackett: Not new.  Adam Shaw: I was going to say it's all, new is relative because this thing is maybe 1,000 years old.  Louise Hackett: It's. Yeah, I think it's hard. It's hard for us to understand, but it's essentially, you know, my arm, my right arm connected to my right leg is functioning completely separately and if I if that was to be completely removed, would continue happily.  Adam Shaw: Yes. Yeah, fine. So even if the main bit of the tree died back or something terrible happened to it, we might have that maintaining itself. It's a separate entity.  Louise Hackett: Potentially. We've we've definitely got some functional units doing better than others. And what that means is perhaps may, you know worst case scenario one of those functional units are going to die. Worst case scenario, hopefully that's not going to happen. But if it did, that doesn't compromise the other units, so they could carry on and and...  Adam Shaw: Yeah. So you're saying even though it actually it hasn't got a huge amount of leaves on it, it's rather bald actually that baldness is a sign of hope, which is a good... I'm just taking it, trying to take a good message for bald men like me, the world over there is hope in your baldness. Men and trees unite. *both laugh* You're not so sure, I get that.  Louise Hackett: It's kind of the opposite but...  Adam Shaw: Oh, it's the opposite of that! Oh, you were saying there was hope though?  Louise Hackett: It's the, it's there's hope where where you've got more leaves. Yeah, sorry.  Adam Shaw: Ohh, there's hope they're, so I'm trying to find a good message in being bald. No, there's never a good... right scrub that. It's always bad.  Louise Hackett: It's not, it's I so so I quite often describe ancient trees the the process of retrenchment is they're quite like people is they they they come become a bit more rotund, they shrink and and they lose their hair. And this is what trees do. And that is a really positive process.  Adam Shaw: She's not describing me, just so you know. This sort of I mean it's an amazing it's an amazing, bit of nature of this, it's also a bit of history, which neatly ties in to this Living Legend's campaign, isn't it? It's an it's an important part of British history.  Louise Hackett: It is when you think about this tree alone. Let's say it's 1,300 years old, which is the upper estimate. The the the history that this tree has witnessed in its lifetime is immense, in a way that we would certainly look to protect a a building that has that, that, that history connection to it.  Adam Shaw: Yeah. I mean, during, so 1,000 years ago, what are we talking about? What were we saying before? It's like is it 1066. So it's, yeah, I don't know Edward the Confessor. It's I don't know if this was a man built thing we'd all be buying tickets to see it and there'd be an ice cream van outside and, you know, it'd be on a tourist trail. This is free. A part of British history. A witness to British history. And yet, trees like this don't have the same sort of legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. So do you, do you think this is a good ambassador or how good an ambassador is this for the sort of campaign you're trying to to rally around?  Louise Hackett: Absolutely. I think this is why people love to visit ancient trees. I I don't think you can help but be in awe for its age and and what it's witnessed in a way that I think it's quite hard for us to comprehend and and you know, comparing to our own lifespans.  Adam Shaw: Yeah.  Louise Hackett: It's inspiring.  Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about their personalities. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240830FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Georgie and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about their weekends.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240816 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglishFollow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about school. Learn to talk about your sleep habits and dreams. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240809 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app.

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about pets.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240802FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followusLIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammarThey're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about their favourite films and TV shows. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240726 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about sleep. Learn to talk about your sleep habits and dreams. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240719 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English conversations ✔️ Learning English vocabulary ✔️ Learning English grammar They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Learn how to talk about how much you read the news. TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240705 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ English in a Minute ✔️ 6 Minute Vocabulary ✔️ The English We Speak They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Amy Bruni joins us to talk about her future in TV, how her views on the paranormal have evolved and her upcoming book, FOOD TO DIE FOR You can pre-order the book right now at Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3L0Ke56 Thanks Amy! JIM'S NEW CAMPFIRE BOOK! Get your paperback or eBook of Jim's latest Campfire book, TRUE GHOST STORIES: Jim Harold's Campfire 6. Get all the links here: https://jimharold.com/campfirebooks/ PARABOX ParaBox Monthly is your source for amazing one of a kind paranormal t-shirts that will lead you into an online paranormal mystery. Head on over to https://paraboxmonthly.com and use promo code Jim20 to start your paranormal journey today. TRANSCRIPT You can find a full transcript here: https://jimharold.com/amy-bruni-the-paranormal-podcast-838/  -- For more information on our podcast data policy CLICK HERE

Learn to talk about your career and how long you have worked somewhere. In each episode of Real Easy English, we have a real conversation in easy English to help you learn.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240531 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ English in a Minute ✔️ 6 Minute Vocabulary ✔️ The English We Speak They're all available by searching in your podcast app.(Image: Getty)

Learn to talk about the places you want to travel to. In each episode of Real Easy English, we have a real conversation in easy English to help you learn.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240524 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ Learning English Stories ✔️ Learning English Vocabulary ✔️ Learning English Conversations They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Learn to talk about your favourite foods and how often you eat them. In each episode of Real Easy English, we have a real conversation in easy English to help you learn.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240510 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ English in a Minute ✔️ 6 Minute Vocabulary ✔️ The English We Speak They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

Learn to talk about your family and how to compare things. In each episode of Real Easy English, we have a real conversation in easy English to help you learn.TRANSCRIPT You can read along with this podcast and find important vocabulary here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/real-easy-english/240503 FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ English in a Minute ✔️ 6 Minute Vocabulary ✔️ The English We Speak They're all available by searching in your podcast app. (Image: Getty)

A musician is haunted by a toy and much more on this edition of Jim Harold's Campfire! --- NOTE: Furby is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. This podcast is NOT affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Hasbro. --- FREE CAMPFIRE E-BOOK Get your FREE Campfire E-book here: https://jimharold.com/free-newsletter/ when you signup to my email newsletter list. YOUTUBE CHANNEL Be sure to subscribe to Jim's YouTube channel for paranormal videos and more: https://youtube.com/jimharold MERCH/CANDLES Go to https://www.etsy.com/shop/jimharoldsmausoleum/ to get your Jim Harold Merch including our NEW STAY SPOOKY CANDLES! Please support our great sponsors as they make our free podcasts possible! CALM We're so happy to partner with Calm. Calm is the app designed to help you ease stress and get the best sleep of your life. Calm is offering Campfire listeners a special limited time promotion of 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at https://calm.com/campfire ROCKETMONEY Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions – and manage your money the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/campfire HERO BREAD Don't give up being a bread head. Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code CAMPFIRE at checkout. TRANSCRIPT You can access a generated transcript in the Apple Podcasts app or a human reviewed transcript at https://jimharold.com/haunted-by-furby-jim-harolds-campfire-649/ -- For more information on our podcast data policy CLICK HERE

A demon driver, a haunted inn and apartment, a life saving voice and much more on this edition of Jim Harold's Campfire! STORYWORTH With StoryWorth I am giving those I love most a thoughtful, personal gift from the heart and preserving their memories and stories for years to come. Go to https://storyworth.com/campfire and save $10 on your first purchase! RITUAL Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. There's no more shame in your gut game. That's why Ritual is offering my listeners 30% off during your first month. Visit https://ritual.com/CAMPFIRE to start Ritual or add Synbiotic+ to your subscription today. CALM We're so happy to partner with Calm. Calm is the app designed to help you ease stress and get the best sleep of your life. Calm is offering Campfire listeners a special limited time promotion of 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at https://calm.com/campfire — HOLIDAY CARD CONTEST Enter our holiday card contest for 2023! Get all of the info here: https://jimharold.com/holiday2023/ FREE CAMPFIRE E-BOOK Get your FREE Campfire E-book here: https://jimharold.com/free-newsletter/ when you signup to my email newsletter list. YOUTUBE CHANNEL Be sure to subscribe to Jim's YouTube channel for paranormal videos and more: https://youtube.com/jimharold TRANSCRIPT You can find the full transcript at https://jimharold.com/demon-driver-jim-harolds-campfire-635/ More information on our podcast data policy can be found here: https://jimharold.com/podcast-data-privacy-policy/  

Episode Notes Philipp Tischendorf is a former competitive figure skater for Germany, a member of the Contemporary Skating Alliance, and an osteopath and physical therapist. He has turned his experience with injury, pain, and rehabilitation during his athletic career into a practice supporting both skaters and the general public. This episode challenges our misconceptions about injury and invites us to ask, how can we approach injury and pain with curiosity and even appreciation? Transcript You can follow Phil on Instagram @phil_care. You can reach me with comments or suggestions for topics and people I should talk to, by email at fsfuturepodcast@gmail.com or on Instagram and Twitter @futurefspodcast  If you appreciate the podcast, you can also support my work with the Tip Jar at https://futureoffigureskating.pinecast.co Remember to subscribe and review The Future of Figure Skating podcast on whatever platform you use, and share it with your friends! Resources: Philipp Tischendorf - European Championships Short Program 2007 Social Determinants of Health and Pain Management Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIS) The Cortical Homunculus Phantom Limb Pain Support The Future of Figure Skating by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/futureoffigureskating Find out more at https://futureoffigureskating.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS News topic du jour:   Dr Peter Hotez on vaccines The Free Press: The Rise of Deepfake Porn Bankless Podcast episode 154 on Sign in with Ethereum   Podcast Questions:   Carnivore Identity Crisis Carter says: Hi Guys, Thank you for all you do to advance honest and introspective health discussions. I am grateful for you. I am a 41-year-old male with a history of severe mental health and skin issues dating back to early in life. I was discharged from my dream career in the military due to mental health issues. Candida diets, fasts, paleo, and other approaches helped me with my skin but never with mental health. After a mental breakdown the day of a planned wedding in 2021, I left my home in Georgia and spent a month in a cabin in Idaho to focus on a carnivore diet and tai chi to see if I could make progress mentally. I did. I made advances that I never thought possible. Since then I married the woman I fled and have come close to conquering life-long OCD and anxiety. Nonetheless, depression persists at times, especially when I try to eliminate coffee. After trying the lion diet while following one carnivore advocate, I developed a new severe cystic acne response that remains months later. To my family's delight, I have become more open to the idea that carnivore is not the end-all-be-all. I find myself wrestling with an identity crisis related to this matter as I thought carnivore saved me. I also now find myself disappointed with carnivore fanatics, one in particular who would shame me for eating a single blueberry. Today, as I add things like fruit, nuts, and veggies back into my diet, I feel fine. Did I convince myself carnivore was doing the work or was it just what my body needed for some period of time? Is it a matter of time before mental health issues come raging back due to increased exposure to plant material? I feel more lost than ever with regards to my health despite feeling better than ever. All of the dogma is hard to understand. This is where I so appreciate you both for your willingness to approach everyone individually on the n=1 basis. Thanks! Carter   IF and blood glucose levels, Pre diabetes Alan says: I'm so glad you're doing this show! Background: 68yrs 5'7” 157lbs. Eat very few processed carbs, have 5-7ish spirits a week Life long athlete. I've been doing daily IF for about 3 years, previously with a 12hr feeding widow. Now I've shortened that window to 10hrs often less than 8hrs. However my blood glucose levels seem to always hover over 100. Am I “pre-diabetic”. What other tests might I try and are there any other Lifestyle factors I can play with?   My wife's digestion needs urgent help Kyle says: Hi Robb and Nicki, Long time listener of the podcast! I'm reaching out today in desperation for my wife. About a year ago, my wife started having SEVERE constipation and bloating. Last March we went to the E.R. for the first time because the pain from her stomach/intestinal region was a 9/10. They did some scans and said she was severely backed up, and told her to just eat a bunch of fiber and take Mira lax and sent her on her way. Super helpful, thank you sick care system. Over the past year it's gotten progressively worse, and we've tried multiple diets to try and get this under control, from low-FODMAP to strict carnivore, and nothing seems to help. Prior to all this starting, she was very fit, worked out 5 days a week and movement was her life. She ate a pretty healthy diet for the most part - fruits, veggies and meats made up most of her diet, with some protein bars and powders mixed in too. This last year, she's lost 15 pounds on an already slim, athletic frame that didn't have much room to lose. No matter how she eats, she gets incredibly bloated with sharp pains in her stomach/intestines and has to give herself multiple enemas each day to try and get things moving, sometimes with no luck. Within the last week, we've finally had an endoscopy and colonoscopy. The endoscopy found a small hiatal hernia, and some white spots in her esophagus that they are testing for candida. Her doctor says GHD hiatal hernia is too small to be causing her symptoms and doesn't require surgery. In the colonoscopy, they found a small polyp, an ulcer they're doing a biopsy on, hemorrhoids, and said she has a tortuous (redundant) colon. They ruled out cancer, which was actually was bad news to her, because she wanted something that could be treated at least. They prescribed Linzess and she just started the first day to help get the constipation under control. She doesn't have much hope it's going to work though and I can't say I blame her after all she's been through the past year. Besides the physical pain, which is more than anyone should have to bear, it's taking its toll on her mental health as well. She doesn't want to be alive anymore. She can't do the things she enjoyed previously, she can barely eat without becoming nauseated or throwing up, and she just doesn't see the point in living anymore. We're doing what we can on the mental health front with professionals, but I fear it won't get any better until her body is normal again. We really have no idea where to turn anymore. Her massage therapist thinks it could be related to a tight muscle in her low back that needs myofascial unwinding. We have an appointment this Friday to get that worked on. My wife says when she presses on that muscle in her low back, she can feel pain through her pelvic region. Is there any way a muscle could be constricting her bowels? I'm not sure what else to say, I'm sure there's plenty more info you need from me, so let me know what would help. We'd really appreciate any ideas you might have - if you knew a loved one in this situation, what would you tell them? We both appreciate you and all the work you do for the Rebellion. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript to this episode here: https://robbwolf.com/2023/02/10/carnivore-identity-crisis-if-and-blood-glucose-severe-constipation-thrr141/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: What happens when you compare Long COVID to Long ANY OTHER VIRUS? NEW PAPER in JAMA NETWORK OPEN   Link to robb's video about roam free ranch https://vimeo.com/743544604 Podcast Questions: 1. Post workout blood sugar crash [21:11] Tyler says: Hey guys. Thanks for sanity. I am a grass based organic dairy farmer in Vermont and despite my job primarily being to wake up in a beautiful place and wander around a working landscape trying to figure out how myself and my cows can work within to make it better, I unfortunately spend an hour or more a day in the confines of a skid steer. Fortunately that's where you come in. Podcasts have been a great way to be productive while remaining sane and learning all sorts of good stuff. I am a first generation dairy farmer which is no small feat. At 47 years old I have built something pretty great but it came with a cost. Many many short nights sleep, an abundance of alcohol and the standard American diet for 20 years led to adrenal fatigue, the awakening and diagnosis of celiac disease and some terrible blood work. Anyway over the last several years I've made changes. I'm exceptionally good at being gluten free. I grow all my own food and eat a carnivore/ paleo type diet. Mostly animal based with some fruit, nuts, and kimchi. For the past three years I've been lifting weights three days a week. This is where my question comes in. It crushes me. I'm not even working that hard. Maybe ten minutes of walking warm up followed by 45-60 minutes of free and or machine weights. Generally 6-9 different exercises with three sets of 15 reps. I feel a bit dizzy during my session and afterwards I eat protein and maybe a date or little bit of mango because I felt like the dizziness or lightheaded feeling was blood sugar. Not long after that I feel weak and more fatigued than I should for sometimes the remainder of the day. I generally work out after morning chores around 8:30-10:00. My blood work has been good. I am a muscular build 47 year old man. I am 5'9” 200 pounds. I farm, ski, play soccer, hunt and am generally active. I'm Eating Around 2,000 calories A day with 130g protein 50-60g NC and 70-80g fat. Additionally this past couple years of lifting weights I've suffered from chesty sensations. Sometimes pain but often just pressure. I caved and let gastro take my gallbladder looking for relief after a diagnosis of biliary dyskinesia. I kind of regret that but don't notice much difference in my diet other than I haven't tried to do keto. I am generally in mild ketosis though. Cardiologist says I'm good to go with no heart problems. Primary says it's anxiety possibly although I wouldn't characterize myself as an anxious person. Anyway it's mildly driving me crazy. My life is way less stressful these days. I don't drink. I get eight hours of good sleep. I sauna. I take cold showers. I eat well. My blood work is good now. It's just this anxious deal and weight lifting fatigue that is bothering me. I take three LMNTs a day to stay hydrated. Ok that was a lot of information. Hoping you have some thoughts because I'm getting nothing from anyone here. Thanks a million. Check out our farm at www.stonypondfarm.com Best Tyler   2. Salt and obesity (Rick Johnson MD) [28:18] Laura says: So I'm in a bit of a conundrum… I have four boxes of LMNT in the pantry and I've been drinking it for over a year now. Love it. Crave it. I mountain bike and sometimes I ride just to have an excuse to have some. But… I just heard a podcast with Rick Johnson MD talking about the dangers of salt and it's relationship to uric acid, the polyol pathway and obesity. I myself have published scientific articles in peer reviewed journals and I know that you can find data to support totally opposing viewpoints… Which is why I'm curious to hear your side on this argument because gosh darn it I don't want to give up my LMNT. I've included a link to a podcast in which he talks about it. https://cynthiathurlow.com/ep-205-fructose-the-driver-behind-metabolic-disease-with-dr-rick-johnson/   3. Wellness to QAnon pipeline [32:35] Delainey says: Hey Robb and Nicki, Your podcast is a wealth of information for health and world views. There's been a lot of talk on social media lately about the "wellness to QAnon pipeline" and I was wondering if you had a take on it? It seems to me we are continuing to view lifestyle, diet, religion and political views all as one single entity. If you ascribe to one, you ascribe to all. Where is the nuance? Am I the only one being frustrated by this? Keep doing what you're doing! This community keeps me afloat. Delainey Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at the blog page https://robbwolf.com/2023/01/13/post-workout-crash-salt-and-obesity-wellness-to-qanon-pipeline-thrr138/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: The corporate capture of the nutrition profession in the USA: the case of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Podcast Questions: 1. Fermentation [12:51] Ken says: I bought your book back in 2010, it was my first dive into evolutionary medicine, etc. I've been listening to your podcast since. I'm 44, 203 as of this morning, and still competing in the Scottish highland games and playing Rugby. In 2011 I was tested for auto-nuclear antibodies and was on the cutoff. The thought then was celiac disease but there was never a colonoscopy follow-up, as the doctor never called me from the referral, and eating paleo made me feel better so I just ran with it. A couple of years later my TSH was low and instead of taking Synthroid, I did a bout of AIP and didn't notice anything then, but my TSH went up. A few years later we found a Baker's cyst in my knee, did AIP again, and found that alcohol was a trigger. Doing different things to address my gut health, which was always an issue, and was always an issue for my dad who had Crohn's disease, I found that not only was alcohol a trigger. so was anything fermented, including kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, and soft cheeses, everything after about 3 days of daily consumption would make me sick. So I guess my first question is, have you ever heard of anything like that before? In January I am scheduled to have a hemorrhoidectomy and was told by the doctor as usual to increase fiber. Since I still have issues with a loose stool I figured I'd give it a shot. I also bought Dr. Cait Shanahan's book, "Deep Nutrition" and started to implement the four pillars and a psyllium husk fiber. To my surprise, I started getting sick again, the way I would to prolonged exposure to fermentation. With that I ask, is the fermentation of fiber in my digestive tract making me sick? Another, have you ever heard of that? Right now I only see carnivore as an option. Is there a possible door I can check for a way to fix my digestive tract enough that any type of fiber doesn't affect me? And how far does this go? Am I destined to only drink water, is there any fiber in coffee? Do I need to switch my LMNT order to only raw, unflavored? Willing to turn over stones and look, just don't see anymore. A high-fiber diet synergizes with Prevotella copri and exacerbates rheumatoid arthritis 2. Muscle Loss [32:40] John says: Hi Gang, What are the major contributors for muscle loss as we age? I am a diabetic, 61 years old and have lost significant muscle and continue to do so. Doctor's don't have any answers other than I am older and diabetic. So how do you stop or slow down and even better, reverse this process? Love all your stuff and don't want to leave out the wife here. We know she is great too. Longtime listener, John 3. Whey Isolate [38:49] Jody says: Hi Robb and Nikki! Thanks for continuing to do the podcast, great information and very entertaining! I love your humour and your no nonsense approach. My question is about whey protein. I have autoimmune disease and I avoid gluten and dairy, other than ghee which I tolerate well. I'm an avid lifter and I do some running and yoga as well. Sometimes I find it hard to hit my protein targets but I don't want to over do the legumes or grains by using a plant based protein powder. From what I can find, it seems that casein is more immunoreactive than whey. I'm wondering if I should try a very clean whey isolate or if dairy is just a bad idea in general. Thoughts? Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript for this episode on the blog page at https://robbwolf.com/2023/01/06/fermentation-preventing-muscle-loss-whey-isolate-thrr137/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: are covid vaccines causing persistent covid? Podcast Questions: 1. Sodium Nitrite [18:20] Dana says: Good morning! I just listened to your episode from 12/23. I have had a long-standing, perplexing question about sodium nitrite/nitrate, and it relates to the recent episode. Since I was 14, I've had a sensitivity to processed meats that contain sodium nitrite/nitrate (ham, lunch meat, salami, hot dogs, etc). It creates a vascular migraine headache with a aura of visual disturbances and sometimes hemiparesis. I can stop the progression with aspirin, so I'm confident it's vascular. The perplexing part, is that it never happens if I eat vegetable high in nitrite/ nitrates, or meats that are cured with celery powder that is high in nitrite/nitrates. Any thoughts on how these are different?   2. High fasted blood glucose/high cholesterol [20:56] Jackie says: Hey there! Long term listener, first time e-mail-er. I've been low carb for the better part of the last 5 years and had some success in maintaining a 40lb weightloss with those eating habits. However, after 2 surrogate pregnancies accompanied with IVF and exogenous hormones over the last 3 years, I'm struggling to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Looking for answers I had some labs done, expecting a thyroid issue, to find high fasted glucose levels (99-101) and elevated bilirubin. I'm fine after eating, my glucose sits at about 74-84 2 hours after eating pretty consistently. I'm just not sure why all of a sudden I'm showing poor insulin management in the mornings on an empty stomach? My BMI is 34- which I know isn't ideal and I'm working on it- but after hormones the weight doesn't seem to want to come off. I'm 30 years old. My doctor said “make some lifestyle changes and we'll keep an eye on it.” So much help there! Wondering if that might be attributable to my dis-regulated blood glucose levels. Would appreciate your insight on the matter! Any thoughts as to what I can try to get my blood sugar back to normal before it spirals out of control? I'm debating on a CGM but not sure if it would be of help? Also, my cholesterol came back high at 212. LDL/HDL ratio of 3. Triglycerides are 66. In the low carb world what does this mean, as in the standard medicine world it's not great- not sure if it's the same. Thank you for your time and all the knowledge you bring to optimizing health! You're truly changing the world.   3. Keto Breastfeeding [26:55] Juliana says: Hi Robb and Nikki, I've been listening to your show for about a year now and I love the breadth of topics you cover. I know sometimes you joke that people my age are not interested in what you have to say, but I want to let you know we are very interested. I share your podcast all the time and people my age love it. With my second baby I was diagnosed with GDM and was on my way toward type 2 diabetes post partum. My blood sugar levels were out of control and I kept adding on weight. I found keto and completely changed my life. I lost 40 pounds before getting pregnant with our 3rd baby. With our 3rd baby I was very strict and ate less than 50 carbs/day and had an extremely healthy pregnancy with no GDM this time. I am now 10 weeks post partum of my 3rd baby. After having the 3rd baby I gave myself a ton of freedom (ie any/all carbs). It was a celebration of all my hard work for 2 years. Now at 10 weeks post partum I tried to go back to my very low carb way of eating and within 48 hours I got soo soo soo sick, it very much felt like keto flu. I would like to note that I had an LMNT each day and salt my food generously with redmonds. I got scared because breastfeeding is the most important thing for me. I went back to having carbs to undo the sickness, but I would prefer a low carb way of eating if I could get there. I take magnesium and dessicated liver and vitamin D and LMNT. I also did not restrict calories, I am very familiar with the keto diet and I made sure I had plenty of fat and calories. I'm curious as to what ketosis does to our overall hydration levels and possibly breast milk supply? I know you recommend LMNT for breastfeeding moms, so I was hoping you might have some insight on low carb diets and breastfeeding. I'm willing to suffer through the keto flu but I'm terrified of it hurting my milk supply. I also read that breastfeeding lowers glucose levels and am curious if that may have had an interaction and intensified the keto flu. I forgot to take my morning fasting numbers. I'm a 33 year old female and my weight is totally irrelevant because I just had a baby Thank you for any insight you might have! Thank you, Juliana Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at https://robbwolf.com/2022/12/30/nitrite-sensitivity-trouble-after-hormones-keto-breastfeeding-thrr136/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: #331 – Balaji Srinivasan: How to Fix Government, Twitter, Science, and the FDA Podcast Questions: 1. Rucking More Demanding Than My Watch Thinks? [16:10] Adrian says: Hi Robb and Nikki Been a paleo, primal, natural movement  (insert newest label)  follower for over ten years. Recently started rucking after reading Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis. My question is “could rucking be more metabolically demanding than my watch says?” I stay consistent around 195-200 pounds at 6 feet tall. I train for Spartan races mostly. High amounts of zone 2 cardio as well as weight training before the season then mostly maintenance and Spartan specific movements as it gets closer to race time. But after just a few months of rucking my weight has been on a downward trend. Morning weigh in was 191 today and that's with the thanksgiving holiday only a couple weeks ago and I really eat as much as I want . I prioritize high protein and moderate fat but don't limit myself self to a set number of calories . As an example my watch says I burn 500 calories carrying 35 pounds on my back for 3.5 miles with elevation change around 1400 feet over that course. At a 16:00 min mile pace. Heart rate at a zone 2 pace the whole time for my age. My hypothesis is that it's more demanding than that. Thanks for all you have done for me and my family Adrian   2. Zone 2… yet again. [20:16] Liz says: Hey there, Robb and Nikki- I've always loved your data-driven approach to offering advice, as you can often explain why the same facts are interpreted so differently by professionals in the health and wellness space. I apologize, but since so many have asked about Zone 2 cardio, I'm wondering if you can explain why it has carried such a stigma in recent years? I'm a 44 year old perimenopausal woman, 150 pounds and 5'4” carrying a lot of muscle, and have been told by no fewer than 10 coaches to avoid Z2 at all costs due to its stress impact on aging female hormones. I'm one of those mesomorphs who puts on both fat and muscle very easily, and have always loved long, slow bouts of jogging (ever since being a teenager, I've run slow half and whole marathons). However, I've been told that if I do long cardio now it will rev up my cortisol, make me ravenous, burn muscle instead of fat, prevent me from sleeping, suppress thyroid, etc— in other words, all of the stuff that all health conscious middle-aged women women seem battle with. I'm honestly not sure if my body does better with strength training or cardio… I tend to remain about the same size no matter what. Right now, I do 4 strength sessions a week, eat 150-200 grams of protein a day (yes, I log it), walk loads for work (usually 15,000-25,000 steps daily), and seem to maintain my weight at where my Fitbit says I'm eating a 500 calorie deficit daily. I would love to get to a place where staying lean becomes easier, though! I'm wondering if you can explain why Zone 2 went from being maligned to trendy seemingly overnight, and if there are any caveats for ladies who are very sensitive to dwindling progesterone, etc. Thanks so much!   3. Healthy Meat Snack Ideas [34:34] Ryan B. says: Hi Robb & Nicki, I am looking for some tips to help with healthy meat snacks. My girlfriend and I eat fairly clean and do not have any "snacks" on hand that can satiate me. All of our meals are cooked at the time of consumption and I myself am not the greatest chef, so I have found it difficult to curb my hunger because most meals in our house take minimum 25 mins to prepare. I find myself looking for meat and we do not keep deli meat or store-bought sliced meat on hand and generally stay away because of the salt content (aside from my LMNT drinks!!) and highly processed forms of meat. I've thought of salami sticks but again, generally want to stay away from those types of quick snacks that get a bad rap. We've thought of just cooking up some steak and slicing it up but would like things to last a bit longer. Hope you can give some good tips! Love the podcast and book! Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at https://robbwolf.com/2022/12/23/rucking-demands-meat-snack-ideas-more-zone-2-thrr135/ when it becomes available.

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: Specific gut microbiota alterations in essential tremor and its difference from Parkinson's disease Podcast Questions: 1. Zone 2 cardio [16:27] Tracey says: Thank you for all of the hard work you do spreading the good word! I have been a fan for many years and i just can't get enough of your content. You are both so smart and down to earth at the same time. While I have burnt out and cycled through many other podcasts and nutrition/fitness trends, you are tried and true. I am writing because I am interested in zone 2 cardio. I heard Peter Attia discussing it and then Robb brought it up recently as well. I would love to learn more and any guidance on where to start, as the internet is generally overwhelming, would be much appreciated. I am hoping to take up this cardio fitness endeavor by swimming laps in an indoor pool. I have a small amount of experience with freestyle swimming. Some probably irrelevant background: I am 33 and in good health. I did CrossFit for about 5 years, then gravitated to competitive weightlifting for 4 years and the last 3 have been a combination of barbell strength and hypertrophy. Cardio has been nearly non existent and I am feeling it! I'm 20 weeks pregnant with my first so longevity is weighing on my mind, and I am a little more out of breath at the gym than usual. I have been feeling great and very strong though! It is generally not in my nature to “take it easy” at the gym but I know I need to start thinking about backing off at this point in pregnancy. Starting a new endeavor may seem counter to that, but I am very cautious and know when and when not to push myself physically. Changing gears with my fitness will help me to both stay motivated and remain cautious. I am in it for the long haul and take a lot of joy in seeing long journeys (like this one would be) through. Slow and steady as they say. And advice or words of wisdom you may have as far as zone 2, swimming, or even where I can look for pregnancy/baby resources would be so incredibly appreciated. I admire you both so much and look forward to you podcast every week. Wishing you all the best, Tracey https://philmaffetone.com/180-formula/ https://trainwithmorpheus.com/ 2. Health Advice for Physician Moms [28:25] Kahroba (pronounced “care-uh-buh”) says: Dear Robb and Nicki, I absolutely love your show and appreciate all you do. I am a 40yo mother to two boys: 3yo and 5months. I am a cardiologist in private practice. I wish I could say I had a question on the most recent studies on lipid management or some other atherosclerotic risk factor guideline, but what I need is basic advice on how you think I should prioritize my day to day routine to benefit my health the most and give me the most energy. I've been getting less than four hours of fragmented sleep per night for several months, not to mention the sleep deprivation, which was profound with my first son. I have a full-time 60-80 hour per week job as a noninvasive cardiologist at a busy hospital. I try my best to eat a Whole Foods/clean/primal diet. I have not exercised in months and find it really hard to fit it into my schedule. My stress levels are through the roof. I feel my cortisol and other counter regulatory hormones surge in the morning as I rush to get myself ready and get the boys out of the house so I can get to my clinic patients on time. My husband also has a busy full-time job, but he works from home. Do you think I should just simply focus on eating as healthy as I can? Perhaps a few supplements that you could recommend or is there simply nothing I can do as this is just a phase with having an infant and a toddler and as they all say eventually, “this too shall pass“. Thank you much. 3. Restless Leg Syndrome and Raynauds [45:11] Alicia says: I was wondering if Caffeine is connected or correlated to Restless Leg Syndrome? It only happens once in a while and Im trying to figure out why. I mostly get it when I am on an airplane!! Do you think Caffeine should be eliminated from my diet? Also, I have Raynauds in my hands. I can get rid of it fast with hot water but sometimes that is not an option. Recently I heard on a podcast (maybe Revero with Sean Baker) that people with Raynauds usually suffer lower cardio fitness. I do notice that my cardio stamina sucks. I can lift all day long but when it come to sprints, running or cycle classes, I feel so out of breath. Do you have more information on that connection? Or even any remedies to Raynauds? For more info in case needed: 53 years old, very active, 18% body fat, Carnivore diet, Drink LMNT https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12710841/ Sildenafil Effectively Treats Raynaud's Phenomenon Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at this episode's blog page https://robbwolf.com/2022/12/09/restless-leg-syndrome-raynauds-stressful-schedules-zone-2-cardio-thrr134/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: Mediterranean diet and inflammaging within the hormesis paradigm Nutritional Ketosis and Mitohormesis: Potential Implications for Mitochondrial Function and Human Health Podcast Questions: 1. Post surgery recovery [18:41] Marianna D. says: Hey Robb and Nikki, I am headed into week two of a total of four weeks of post surgery restrictions. I had a bladder sling procedure for incontinence. The doctor ordered walking only for exercise. I specifically asked about upper body workouts and was told no go, which makes sense because upper body almost always involves core muscles. I'm a 71 yo female who normally spends over an hour every other day lifting heavy things in the gym. Tips please on how to avoid muscle loss, particularly advice on protein consumption. Advice on collagen intake desired as well. Thanks.   2. Thyroid & Iodine [22:41] Marilee says: Hi Robb & Nicki, I recently listened to a podcast with Dr. Alan Christianson and read his book The Thyroid Reset Diet. His premise as I understand it is that most auto-immune and hypo-thyroid conditions are due to an excess of iodine in the body and can resolve once that iodine is depleted/used up by going on a low iodine diet. This includes primarily removing salt (unless clearly non-iodized or kosher), egg yolks and dairy although there are many other sources listed including certain skin care products. My labs have indicated the need for treatment for hypo for many years as well as having autoimmune thyroid disease. However any prescription thyroid medicine as well as thyroid support supplements leave me feeling much worse so I have been untreated for several years. While I don't feel nearly as bad as my labs would indicate I also don't feel great. I would like to know what you think of this idea and whether you think his eating plan would help. Thanks for all you do. Guermo Ruiz https://www.3030strong.com/ Isabella Wentz https://thyroidpharmacist.com/   3. Do ketones make you wired? [27:30] Alex says: I am sensitive to stimulants in the afternoon. Especially caffeine, even carnitine. I am looking for something to take in the afternoon for a pick me up at work and eventually for an evening workout (after work). I am tempted to try ketones to boost my brain and energy. I am also on the Shoemaker protocol to recover from mold illness. I am not opposed to making my own stack. I have an anti-fatigue stack that helps me through the morning crash. But I need a 3pm stack, because I start to crash hard around then. I have yet to rule out taking electrolytes, cordyceps and Lions Mane. https://drinkkenetik.com/ Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript on this episode's blog page at https://robbwolf.com/2022/12/02/ketones-for-energy-boost-thyroid-and-iodine-surgery-recovery-thrr133/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom “United Kingdom-based vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians have similar all-cause mortality. Differences found for specific causes of death merit further investigation.” Podcast Questions: 1. Reducing and preventing tendon pain? [12:03] Joe says: Hi Robb and Nicki, Loving the podcast and all your great content! I have tennis elbow, which the physio said was tendinopathy (after asking me some questions and getting me to do some movements.) I got it from weight training, and after taking a break for a month or so and then training with my other arm only, it's still there. As the rest didn't help, I've gone back to weightlifting. I avoid exercises that hurt it, but just moving weights around the gym, from the rack to the station, and general life tasks, seem to aggravate it. It seems to have spread into my wrist area and upper arm now. And I'm feeling a similar pain deep in my collar bone area (but not the bone itself but the soft tissue (muscle?) part (high upper chest/front trap?). Even if I was to stop lifting, I think I would still aggravate it, from just general things, like lifting a cup of tea, getting things out of my bag, etc. So I'm not sure I can just avoid triggering it and wait for it to go. I have some exercises from the physio that I'm doing. But is there anything else I can try, like supplements, or maybe red light or cryotherapy? Anything really that might help fix it and prevent it from coming back. I'm male, early 40s, and train with weights 3 or 4 times a week and have done for years. Thanks, Joe   2. Body Comp and Longevity [18:55] Lindsey says: Hey guys! Love ya lots. I have been following Robb since before my 15 year old twins were born. One of the many things I love about you both is that you are not afraid to change your views on health and nutrition. I love learning about both though I find it SO hard to decipher what is "true". I feel like so much information is contrary. I am a 41 year old mother of 5. (Ranging from 18-2 years old) I am super committed to my nutrition, sleep, activity, etc. Having kids in my 20's was very different than my last one at almost 40. I have found it much harder to "bounce back" to my pre-pregnancy body. I understand that as I age I won't have the same muscle tone, skin elasticity, etc though I want to give it my all. This is my question: I have heard 2 conflicting ideas: 1) fuel the metabolism 2) caloric restriction Which is the way to obtain and maintain optimal body composition and best for longevity. Maybe the answer is that one is best to obtain and the other to maintain? Does this question make sense? Thank you guys!! https://chriskresser.com/what-mid-victorians-can-teach-us-about-nutrition-and-health/   3. Nutrient Density of Chicken Sucks!@#$ [28:25] Derek says: So what now? I'm 140 pounds and want to get 1g of protein per pound. Is there still a point to getting protein from chicken if it is low in nutrient density; how does all that work? Love my LMNT and the holiday stuff rocks! Derek Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at https://robbwolf.com/2022/11/25/tendon-pain-fueling-metabolism-vs-calorie-restriction-chicken-nutrient-density-thrr132/

Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ekNCWZ3Lw Podcast Questions: 1. Diet for Cystic Fibrosis [16:45] Leah says: Hi Rob and Nikkie, I am a listener of three years now. I am a current college student who just got married to my high school sweetheart of 6 years. I love listening to your podcast and I have learned so much, that it has enabled me to make my health an act of rebellion. Once I am not a broke college student, I will become a member of the Healthy Rebellion. Now on to the question. My husband, who is 23 years old, has cystic fibrosis and is interested in changing his diet. However, I think what is a healthy diet for me may not be a healthy diet for him. His entire life he has been encouraged to drink sodas and eat absolute junk food just to meet his daily caloric intake. CF patients on average have been told they need almost double the amount of calories a normal person needs a day (between 2,900-4,500). Because of this many CF patients develop diabetes in their later lives, which we are trying to avoid. (It runs in both our families) Two years ago he stopped drinking soda/coffee or anything with lots of sugar or caffeine, he also does not drink alcohol. He drinks about a gallon of water a day, and since getting married in July he has tried to significantly cut down on his processed carb intake. We have been eating mostly proteins and vegetables with rice, seasonal squash and potatoes. We live in North Carolina and we have some really great farmer's markets that I try to source most of our food from. He lifts weights 3-5 days a week, and we are both service industry workers, so we are on our feet for 6-10 hours a day. Since cutting most of the processed carbs out of his diet, he has lost about 10 pounds that he did not really need to lose. He is 5ft 6inch and weighs about 135lbs. He has since found it difficult to put on muscle, wake up in the morning, and maintain energy through out the day. I am wondering if all of this is because he is not taking in as many calories as he needs? Or maybe it's a lack of protein? With our current diet, he eats about 2,000 calories a day and averaging about 40-60grams of protein a day. He has two high fat snacks of either yogurt or cheese a day in order to take specific medicine he needs. This is in addition to his three meals per day and has often found he will get too full and feels sick if he eats more. How could he increase his caloric or protein intake with out feeling full too fast or eating absolute junk food? Any thoughts are appreciated, since most diet advice we have been given for people with cystic fibrosis, is to just eat high fat, high carb, and processed foods, and that is a very s.a.d. diet. ;) Thank you for all that you do to encourage a healthy diet and lifestyle. You do reach a younger audience! :)   2. Gaining Lean Mass And Inflammation [26:48] Alan says: Hello Robb, I have been resistance training consistently since I was 13 years old and I am 29 now. I do not struggle gaining weight when I dedicate myself to it, but I have noticed that when I bulk up, I also increase my symptoms of inflammation, mainly, eczema, skin redness, bloating, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping. I am 6'2", currently weigh 185 lbs, and weight train 3-5 days per week. I haven't measured my body fat in awhile, but I am assuming it is very low judging by what I see in the mirror. The last 2 and a half years I have been following the auto-immune protocol and have tinkered with carnivore as well. I feel the best I have felt in my life, but I have also lost weight, including both fat and lean mass. For the majority of my adult life I hovered around 200 lbs. which is 15 pounds heavier than now. I have tried to increase my calories to gain lean mass while still sticking to the auto-immune protocol, which works in increasing my lean mass, but even though the foods are the same, just the fact of eating more calories in general will almost always increase my symptoms. I tried bulking up while on a carnivore-ish diet, with similar inflammatory results although maybe not quite as bad as when I ate more plants while on AIP. I seem to have a limit of how much food I can eat before symptoms come up, which is at the maintenance level for my 185 lb body. I have also tried different styles of hypertrophy training with high volume and lower intensity, or lower volume and high intensity, both of which don't seem to make a difference in gaining muscle mass as much as dietary or caloric changes. My question is - is there any way for me to increase my calories or gain lean mass without having to suffer the consequences of increased inflammation in the process? Thank you so much for all your help. I love your podcast. Alan   3. Slow Metabolism [33:23] Beth says: Hi Robb and Nicki, Everywhere I look, there's talk about how to increase your metabolism, how to burn more fat etc. but no one that I can find is asking if this actually makes sense. We wouldn't want a car that's an inefficent gas guzzler, why would we want to put more fuel in our bodies than we have to? Even from an evolutionary perspective, I would think having a slow metabolism, a lower basal metabolic rate, would be advantageous. I get that the majority of the population is overweight and looking to lose it, but even in health and fitness communities I can't find any information on this. I personally would absolutely love to be able to cook and eat less without losing weight! So my questions are, might it be healthy to have a slower metabolism, and if so, are there any strategies to facilitate that? Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript for this episode when available at https://robbwolf.com/2022/10/28/slow-metabolism-diet-for-cystic-fibrosis-gainz-and-inflammation-thrr128/

Make your health an act of rebellion. Join The Healthy Rebellion Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News topic du jour: https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-technology/farming-for-tomorrow/using-livestock-for-healthier-soil/? Podcast Questions: 1. Addressing Weight Loss Stall [13:06] Becky says: Hi! Longtime listener, third time emailer. I have been doing low carb/IF (clean 18:6 or 20:4) for about a year and lost 70 bs (hooorayyyy!!). I still make Rob's electrolytes :) Anyway, I have been stalling on my progress for a couple of months. My long-term goal is about 100 lbs (which would put me in the 100 lb loss range) with a healthy approach to maintenance. I reserve the right to want to go beyond that as well depending on how my thighs look at that weight. Does the healthy rebellion address plateaus and how to bust through them? Does Robb have a product or guide for that? I've fallen off the rails a couple of times this year bc I wasn't seeing the results to sustain me through the discomfort of fasting & low carb. Can you guys HALP? I didn't do a ton of exercise, maybe long walks a couple of times a week but very inconsistently bc I thought you can't gain muscle and lose weight at the same time. Was I wrong? IDK. Send help or a Costco bag of Reeses cups. Please and thank you :) 2. Zone 2 Advice [19:22] Christin says: Hi Robb and Nicki, I heard you mention doing your zone 2 on the show last week or the week before maybe. I wondered what dose frequency you use for your zone 2 work? Lately I've been strength training 4x/week and try to get in at least 2 days of zone 2 dedicated for at least 30 minutes and then will typically go for a hike with my dog and husband on a third day but am wondering if this is enough.  I also listen to Peter Attia's show and he talks about doing like 4 days/week of zone 2 work! That just sounded overwhelming and depending on the strength training plan I'm using at the time, between a full time job and 40 minute commute I don't always have time to fit that much in. I've started trying to add maybe 10-15 minutes of zone 2-3 conditioning type work at the end of one of my shorter lifting days (think Tabata sets of jump rope and KB swings or jump rope and farmers carries or something to that effect). Is this enough? Basically my goals are optimal general health. I typically will do a couple 5ks and possibly a half marathon once a year and know how to adjust my training to get my endurance beefed up to handle this volume, but on the average daily am just wondering what is optimal dose. Cheers, Christin 3. Gadolinium Toxicity [25:46] Lori says: Hi from Three Forks MT I grew up in Bozeman. And have lived here most of my life minus college. Hope you are enjoying Fall. My question is about Gadolinium Toxicity.  My daughter in law had a scan after having gall stones removed. Ever since she has been having symptoms in line with Gadolinium Toxicity. Do you have any suggestions for her to help with this condition? Not sure if any diet or exercise program will help. Thank you Love your podcast and books. Lori Sponsor: The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our electrolyte company, LMNT. Proper hydration is more than just drinking water. You need electrolytes too! Check out The Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsor LMNT for grab-and-go electrolyte packets to keep you at your peak! They give you all the electrolytes want, none of the stuff you don't. Click here to get your LMNT electrolytes Transcript: You can find the transcript at this episode's blog post: https://robbwolf.com/2022/10/07/weight-loss-stall-zone-2-cardio-galoinium-toxicity-thrr126/