This weekend I was supposed to be speaking at the Isle of Arran Vegan Day, a small island off the West Coast of Scotland. Although only measuring 9 miles wide with a population of just over 5,000 people, this small island has become something of a vegan haven. It has two vegan bed and breakfasts to choose from, one of which is Stonewater House, owned and run by our Vegan Business Tribe members Carol and and Jules Lee.
We’ve been wanting to visit Arran ever since Carol and Lee joined the tribe, and being invited to speak at the island’s vegan day was the perfect opportunity to combine a bit of business and pleasure. So I made the plan to spend the week on the island, with my wife Lisa and our baby daughter Awen, and then join the event at the weekend. However, storm Isha, followed quickly by storm Jocelyn, had different ideas. On the evening before we were due to set-off, we had a long exchange of messages with Carol. It was the worst storm they had seen for a long time, shops were running out of food because no ferry had been able to make the crossing and she feared that we could end up stranded in a Premier Inn with a baby for several days waiting for weather to clear. It was definitely not the best week to visit the island. I was still determined to try though – after all, the local newspaper had already run my photo in the run up to the event! But then I got a text message that the ferry had also developed an engine fault and would be taken out of service for the next few days. Our tickets had been cancelled, with no timeline of when we could next be guaranteed a crossing.
So, I admitted defeat. But with the car already packed and the diary cleared for a few days, we decided to head south instead of North. I’d been wanting to take Lisa to Warwick Castle for a while, one of the UK’s best preserved medieval castles (see photo above!) and it also gave us the opportunity to drop in on family on the way. Our baby daughter Awen loved it, crawling through the tapestried halls and waving at the suits of armour.
But storm Isha and Jocelyn were the ninth and tenth named storm of the winter, a new record for this point of the year. Climate change is already destabilising the ‘gulf stream’, the air system that usually protects the UK from the worst of extreme weather. And regardless of the reasons of why you turned vegan yourself, we know that one of the leading contributors to climate change is animal agriculture. Just another reason why it’s so important to make an impact with your vegan business for all our futures.
David 💚🌱
PS – Lisa and I photographed wearing our Little Green Pigeon hats sent to us by VBT member Susan Joyce of Little Green Pigeon Sanctuary, Wales. Get yours here.
David’s thoughts from the week, published every weekend for members only.
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