On The Net

'On the Net' is a monthly column in the paper version of The Tablet. The articles are written by Lavinia Byrne.

Spring into action

Lavinia Byrne
10 April 2004

Easter and gardening are inextricably linked in the Catholic imagination. As a child I was made to garden every Good Friday, until we set out for church - in silence. So now I find myself turning to some appropriate sites. Armchair gardeners first: at www.rbgkew.org.uk more than 40,000 plants spread over 300 hundred acres are available for inspection. Spring provides the opportunity to explore 2.5 million bulbs and then to consider all the free outdoor activities that are on offer at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. There is a lot of highly informative text at this site, beautifully illustrated. I have already reviewed the Royal Horticultural Society site at www.rhs.org.uk and the BBC site at www.bbc.co.uk/gardening which are full of ideas and tips. Other sites which are well worth a visit include www.carryongardening.org.uk which is designed to help older or disabled gardeners. Plantaholics are catered for at www.expertgardeners.com and if you are planning to spend the Easter weekend at a garden centre, look no further than www.gardenworld.co.uk which lists more than 1,000 of them.

A secular equivalent - spring cleaning - is covered by a variety of websites which sparkle with hints and tips for cleaner, brighter windows and getting rid of winter debris. At www.hintsandthings.co.uk there are instant solutions geared towards the library, garage, kennel, kitchen and bathroom. My favourite was a model of simplicity: "A slice of damp bread can be used to pick up slivers of broken glass". Sadly Aggie MacKenzie and her colleague, frilly-gloved Kim Woodburn, who star in Channel Four's How Clean is your Home? do not have a website. I searched www.channel4.com in vain, only finding an appeal for more dirty people and their filthy homes to feature in the next series.

On another seasonal track altogether, I went looking for images from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai. More than two thousand URLs came up, but far too many of these were useless. They showed people shivering under blankets and then ecstatic images as the sun rose on their way down the mountain to the monastery, or my favourite, a seriously gloomy photo with the laconic comment: "Me on top of Mt Sinai. Started the climb from St Catherine's Monastery at 3a.m. and got to the top at 5:30a.m.…to see the sunrise of course - shame it was cloudy!"

Undefeated, I searched on using a new piece of software, available for a free download at www.copernic.com/en/index.html which claims to scan a host of other search engines. The results were spectacular. I received a far more manageable 61 hits and was able to access top-quality, scholarly information as well as to upload a beautiful screensaver to my screen. For those who prefer to seek inspiration with hard-copy icons, www.shadesoftime.net/main/lent easter_gifts_easter_cards.php has a seasonal selection on sale. There are Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost crosses available, as well as the St Catherine's sixth-century Pantocrator. All these high-quality - and reasonably-priced - icons are made in Czechoslovakia.

Lovers of old software will rejoice to know that www.OldVersion.com has classics such as WinZip (11 different versions) and RealPlayer available for free download. These versions - without all the extraneous bells and whistles which slow down more recent ones - will de-clog many a hard disk. One final "must-have" reference: www.iammoving.com will take all the hassle out of a house move by automatically re-directing mail. A neat way of avoiding junk mail and rescuing your serious alternatives.

For an end-of-Lent treat, visit www.cadbury.co.uk where the new-look website will let you look at the history of chocolate as well as discover some new recipes. "Chocolate is more than just a food: it's a state of mind" is a hard precept for those of us who prefer Marmite ( www.marmite.com which offers another historical joy-ride) but it is good to find John Cadbury, the young Quaker who opened his first shop in Bull Street, Birmingham in 1824, honoured online.

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