Last year I had wanted to go to the Climate Camp (www.climatecamp.org.uk) at Heathrow, but wasn‘t confident enough in my watering system to leave my 200 tomato plants in pots alone for more thana day. This year with only two plants I thought I‘d go down for the weekend, and I wasn‘t disappointed.

According to the camp‘s website, "The Camp is a place for anyone who wants to take action on climate change; for anyone who’s fed up with empty government rhetoric and corporate spin; for anyone who’s worried that the small steps they’re taking aren’t enough to match the scale of the problem; and for anyone who’s worried about our future and wants to do something about it."

A short train and bus trip with a little walking got me to the area on Friday. The police were searching people on the way in - rather disturbingly wearing rubber gloves - but the search wasn‘t as intimate as I feared and I was soon on the site. A friendly welcome greeted me and with a nice warm meal inside me - cooked by one of the sites many kitchens - I was directed to the Oxford and Thames Valley neighbourhood to pitch my tent.

There were workshops and talks on in the afternoon - and they had been all week - for the 2000 or so visitors to the site and campers. They covered the issues surrounding climate change from vegan cake baking and climate science through to the role of banks in the fossil fuel economy and how to plan successful direct action. I went to a catch up meeting about the mass action on Saturday for people who had just arrived. We heard about how different groups were going to attempt to close down Kingsnorth power station for the afternoon to protest over plans to replacement it with the first new coal power station in the UK in over 30 years - a step backwards in tackling climate change. The groups ranged from the ‘fluffy‘ Orange Block which was a kids carnival to Kingsnorth, to the ambitious Blue Block, Rebel Raft Regatta who planned to get there by water. Having decided to go on the carnival I went to bed as we had an early start.

I never sleep particularly well when camping, and this definitely wasn‘t helped by the over enthusiastic police helicopter flying over in the night on a number of occasions! But soon enough the morning came. After a quick breakfast and ‘eco-wash‘ – which turned out to be a bowl of water – I was ready. The carnival was lively with music, a dragon and lots of people from the camp and local villages. It ended with a rally outside the gate. Other groups succeeded in getting into the power station, disrupting its operation, and raising awareness of the issues. In my opinion the day was a success. But as the saying goes, we may have won the battle but not yet the war. The government and power company E.ON are still pushing for a new Kingsnorth coal power station and others across the UK. It will be a hard campaign to stop them and press for a focus on renewables but I feel it is well and truly off to a good start. I‘ll definitely be going to the next climate camp and I‘d recommend that other people interested in taking action on climate change do so too.