Hitching: have you seen the big Green thumb?

Big Green Thumb is up and running in Stroud (See my blog on 7th April). Transition Stroud's Molly writes: "It is a semi-formal hitching club to encourage car sharing and cut carbon emissions. Also a way of raising awareness of the environmental benefits of hitching. The idea is to link hitching with saving the planet in people’s minds. Rosa’s idea (my daughter) was to have a big green thumb to stick out into the road. This would convey to people the link so they would be learning even when they didn’t stop."

Apparently the Mighty Boosh (a cool comedy show?) which includes a hitcher who has a genetically inherited Big Green Thumb may have helped inspire this idea - hopefully the Green Thumb will help people feel more confident about accepting lifts which will only be given on a ‘friends of friends’ basis. The cards are small plastic ones you can stick in your car or carry with you. There is also a list of hitching tips and safety information.

We have a long way to go before we can really restore hitching as a safe and convenient way to travel - but this is a start - it has certainly been a long while since I hitched - remember a competition to hitch the furthest in 36 hours - I ended up near Dover - one wrong lift and I was spending a large part of the night in a telephone box with a partner (or at least that is what I was hoping she would be) - I was more frozen than I think I have ever been - a fisherman rescued us at about 6 in the morning when we flagged his car down in desperation - he let us wait in his car for 2 hours and even shared his coffee - can even now remember how wonderful that sweet coffee tasted! It strangely didn't put me off hitching but it was the end of that relationship or rather it never begun.....where are you now Julie Parker?!

Anyhow if you are really ambitious you can make yourself a green thumb to stick out into the road when trying to get a lift. As Molly who is also in the Textile sub-group of Transition Stroud notes: "Stroud is famous for making that lovely bright green cloth they use to cover billiard tables, so offcuts of that should be being transformed into oversized thumbs as you read! So: happy hitching."