Is it just me or do you feel like there was a new dawn the morning after Liz Bonnin's breathtaking documentary Drowning in Plastic was aired on the BBC? 
If like me, your brain was arrested, your stomach sank deep, and your heart needed some resuscitation let me assure you that going by friends, family, hairdresser, baristas & cabbies and of course social media we are by no means alone in our despair.
It feels important that in order to improve, I make some genuine, big personal changes after being so shocked by the results of my personal ambivalence or lack of understanding which, when multiplied by a few billion, floors my usually enthusiastically optimism into fear that I have been a gravely poor steward of this planet to date.
​​The pain is palpable, I am certainly culpable, the mood seems to want to make big, fast, real changes, but working out what we are best to do for the long term is no mean feat.

Let me stake no claim to having any prior knowledge about sustainability. My planet footprint is heading towards 50 years old, so I, like you, have been through a few nods toward "doing my bit". I fervently collected can ring-pulls in the 1970's but I felt like that was more about litter, Anita Roddick introduced me to refilling my Strawberry Bodywash at The BodyShop in the 1980's (she was well ahead of her time wasn't she?), we crushed aluminium & steel cans at home in the 90's and I felt like that was about reducing landfill usage, we are recycling a growing array of items from paper to batteries, ink cartridges and Nespresso pods up to now, but with this sudden awakening to the planet but 

I wish to attempt to lighten my footprints, not to purely be better at hiding their tracks.

So, whilst we are individually all just tiny specs in this enormous, unfathomable issue, what does "doing my bit" mean in 2018? Please comment and let us know what you think, ideas, products, places which are doing this well, I've been polling most people I have met in the last 10 days and we all have huge intention but little real knowledge to work on.
Here are some ideas & thoughts that people have suggested to me (links are to our local Nottingham and West Bridgford sustainability places) please do add comments and links - I will update the blog or write a follow up:

• Use Shampoo bars bought locally to avoid plastic packaging and transportation. I read a blog by a guy with fabulous hair who said that it's actually better for you, happens to be Vegan too, and apparently we won't need a conditioner ( though you can get one if, like me, you're nervous of that)
• Give up on Pumped HandSoap unless it's refilled - available at the Pop-Up Sustainable Shop in Cobden Chambers, Nottingham once a month ( Oct 19-21) run by The Zero Waste Collective, travel by bus and take your own containers.
• Get rid of the second car, or the first car, cycle more, use public transport more, or walk more. Install an electric car charging point or commit to your next car being hybrid / electric?
• Listen to our young people who are so much better informed that we are on these subjects. 
• One of my well informed student sons, tell me that just giving up beef would be a single item which would make a huge difference to the planet in favour of reducing global warming. 
• Teach our little ones that we are committed to their planet and encourage them to think of creative ways to lighten our footprint.
• Be just a little bit difficult. I refused to buy a £300 electric toothbrush from my Boots store this week because they don't sell shampoo bars. I'm thinking of doing a blog in collaboration with some other local businesses, which will be a review of cocktail bars from the point of view of how many straws they foist into your glass/ jamjar / goldfish bag (plastic or paper - who didn't learn the useful skill of sipping from a cup at the age of 2?). Maybe we could so another for food shopping?
• Should we contemplate washing our clothes less (uses less water, fewer man-made particles going into the environment) and treating tumble drying as a rare conscious decision, not an automatic, or not at all?
• Share your the love, share your showers - that'll halve the amount of water we use.
• A few of my friends who are in the pack lunch brigade have bought beeswax paper to wrap up sandwiches in - it recycles and reduces cling film / silver foil usage, and can be used to wrap any food for the fridge too. I know you can get them from Amazon, but if I could get them locally I would - any help from locals?

West Bridgford and Nottingham People and other planet dwellers - please help, please point us to the good resources, sustainable sellers, efficient ideas, maybe together we can refuse, reduce, re-use, repair, recycle and overall rethink how we can reframe our part in the tail of this wondrous planet of ours. 

Last time we looked at a huge range of events happening in Nottingham this summer. But what about those more off-the-beaten-track attractions?

Well, Nottingham has those too. Here's a rundown of our favourite places you might not have heard of...

Lost Property
Lost Property is a new secret bar that opened earlier this year. It's the brainchild of the folks behind the Mercure Hotel and The Curious Tavern and if you fancy a late drink it's open 'til 2a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. But you'll have to find it first! Weirdly its address is 7.5 Carlton Street. Then look for a booth and the man in there will direct you to the rooms full of keys, suitcases and other lost property long since forgotten by its owners.

Boilermaker
Nottingham has not one but two secret bars and this one is right in the middle of Hockley. If you don't know what you're looking for it's easy to walk on past – unless, that is, you know your cocktails. A boilermaker is a beer + whiskey cocktail and the bar's entrance looks like a boiler shop. Because it's so popular there's often a queue (now you'll understand why boilers seem to be so popular in Nottingham!) and it's worth the wait. Go in through the 'Staff Only' door and be treated to a fantastic range of cocktails, with table service and late opening at weekends.

Nottingham's Caves
It's a not very well-known fact that Nottingham sits above a labyrinth of caves that were carved out to provide somewhere to live, prison cells and even bowling alleys, and you can visit many of them on guided tours. We had to bring it back to going out somehow so you won't be surprised to read that two of our best-loved pubs sit above caves: The Malt Cross and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. 

Recently renovated, you can go on a tour of the caves below the Malt Cross and learn the last 300 years' history about the pub's location. You can visit the caves beneath Ye Olde Trip too – thought to be the oldest inn in the UK, dating back to 1189AD. It's nestled against the rock face beneath the castle and the caves used to be part of the pub itself but now act as the inn's cellars, making sure that their beer stays nice and cold.

Escape Games
If small spaces don't bother you and you feel like doing something completely different the escape rooms could be right up your street. The basic premise is that you and the rest of your team are locked in to a creepy room – they have names like 13utcher, Con-traption and Crypt-ic – and you have an hour to escape by cracking codes, finding lost items, building machines, and pitting yourselves against all sorts of mental and physical puzzles. Or you get locked in. If that sounds like fun you can find this hidden gem on Castle Gate.

Five Leaves
Last but certainly not least is another secret place in Nottingham (that doesn't involve alcohol or frightening settings!) – an independent bookshop. It's tucked away down an alleyway opposite Nottingham Tourism Centre, so if you can't find it you can always pop in and ask where it is. It calls itself 'political' and 'radical' so depending which way you lean it may inspire your thinking or contradict it but as one of the only independent bookshops to open in the UK since 2000, and with regular events, readings, book signings (and a great range of reading material) it's well worth a visit.

If you do go along to any of these secret places please let us know what you think of them in the comments, and feel free to tell us about any hidden gems we haven't included.

For more information about our luxury serviced apartments in West Bridgford please get in touch and we'll be only too happy to tell you more about more all the wonderful places to visit in Nottingham. 

In our last blog, we looked at how much it costs to rent a short-term property versus renting one long-term. The surprising finding was that once you take all the moving costs, the expense of furnishing an apartment and the bills into account, it's cheaper to rent on a short-term contract than a long-term one (not to mention all the time you save not having to deal with energy suppliers, researching everything you need to buy, staying in for things to be delivered, waiting around for Virgin to set up your broadband...).

We compared two people sharing a two-bed serviced flat in West Bridgford for 6 months and our comparison showed that the short-term let worked out at £700 cheaper over that time. So we thought it would be interesting to do the same calculation but this time we'd compare staying with us in a short-term rental with staying in a hotel.

Who remembers Lost in Translation? It was a look at how impersonal and dehumanising staying in a hotel can be, something we talked about a while ago in this blog – Business Travel: From Dehumanising to Enriching – Are You Up For the Challenge? We don't mean to put a negative spin on hotels but having an apartment all to yourself or you and your partner is so much nicer, isn't it?

But is it more expensive?

A quick search on trivago to stay in a hotel in Nottingham tonight came back with options ranging from £29 to £153. PWC's forecast for hotel prices outside London in 2017 predicted an average of £70/night. Nottingham's prices are a bit above average, the average in Nottingham was £64/night in 2014, and £71/night in 2015 (according to this report by The Daily Mail). So, why don't we work with a rate of £75 per night for a double room.

OK. So, let's work out how much that is for a month:
£75 x 30 nights = £2250

And for six months:
£2250 x 6 months = £13,500

How does that compare with renting a short-term apartment? Our special rate for lets of 3 months or more is £2000, which is:
£2000 x 6 months = £12,000

That's already a saving of £1500. But... with a rental you get two bedrooms. If you wanted to rent two rooms in a hotel your costs immediately doubles to £27,000. Wow.

The other benefits of short-term serviced apartment

Not only do you get two bedrooms, you get a living room, a fully-equipped kitchen, and a parking space as well. So you can cook your own meals, the kettle is a sensible size, you've got a Nespresso machine (not Nescafe instant). You can eat what you want when you want it. You can have midnight feasts, early morning smoothies, late morning brunches. Plus preparing your own food is so much cheaper and healthier than eating out all the time. And when you do want to go out you've got the many many gorgeous restaurants West Bridgford has to offer on your doorstep.

You also have space for your family to visit or stay, friends can come round too and you have enough chairs for everyone to sit down! You don't have to work at a tiny counter next to the TV amongst your possessions because that's the only flat surface, you can spread out across an entire table!

You've got free parking right outside – most hotels charge for parking these days, so that can add £5/day (or 
£900 for six months) to your hotel bill. And you can come and go as you please. The cleaners come at a time to suit you, and you don't have to fit in with reception times or meal times.