Sheep insulation

Winter Sheep I

Loft Insulating Materials

Mineral fibre or fibreglass matting is usually available in rolls 400mm (16in) wide. Thicknesses range from 100mm (4 in) to 200mm (8 in). In the UK, the total thickness of insulation should be at least 200mm (8in), the thinner insulation material available allow for old, thinner loft insulation to be overlaid to achieve the 200mm. Roll insulation can usually be installed without professional help.


Loose-fill loft insulation materials which are blown into the loft are usually mineral wool or cellulose fibres, installation is a specialist job which should be left to a contractor. The materials generally have the same insulation value as rolls of loft insulation and should have a minimum finished thickness of 200mm (8in) - most roof joists are only 100 to 150mm (4 to 6 in) so some means of increasing the depth of joist may be necessary.

Loose-fill loft insulation materials, such as vermiculite and mineral fibre, are sold in bags and can be poured between the joists to the recommended depth. They are easier to install than the matting if there are awkward corners or obstructions in the loft space. They also make the job easier if the joist spacings are irregular or not suitable for a standard width of matting. Again, the depth of the joists may need to be increased so that the required depth of cover is achieved.

All of the above are man made and use toxic substances which means that handling them and breathing their fumes in can be harmful. Is there an alternative?

I am quite prolific at spinning and knitting the wonderful fleeces that sheep provide us with. Here in the West Country, Jacobs sheep can be found roaming on the hillside and I absolutely love their fleeces. To keep warm I have made socks, hats, mittens, scarves and blankets for next to nothing money wise as the fleeces can be obtained on freecycle.

Thanks to Christa's comment my memory got activated about a company called second nature that produces loft insulation from sheep's fleeces. The benefit is that it is not only safe to handle and breathe around this material, but it can be cut, torn and stuffed into small unusual places.

So maybe the loft hatches do not need to be changed.No grants for this material but I am going to be a lot happier having non toxic materials in my loft.

Sometimes the obvious is the simplest answer: How otherwise can sheep withstand very cold icy temperature?

Father Peter's helpful suggestion

Father Peter's environmental notes left such a useful comment that I wanted to share it with you. Father Peter has some excellent contributions to make so do visit his blog.

We live in a small cottage that is about 350 years old and luckily was not listed. When we bought it 20 years the property was almost ready to be condemned and I rebuilt it over a two year period as sympathetically as possible.

All the internal walls (with external faces) are false and insulated and the loft spaces are insulated between the rafters by 5’’ of fibreglass at 45 degrees, so equalling 7 ½ inches. The insulated hot water tank was given a jacket on top of the insulation; this is heated by the open wood burning fire in the winter and ½ an hour of off peak electricity in the summer. I am obsessive about draft proofing as this seemingly minor item can make a huge difference. We have just had double glazing fitted and I only wish we could have afforded this years ago. The oil fired central heating has insulated pipes between the boilers and radiators with thermostats on each radiator; these are turned low in rooms that are not in use. The house now has windows that face south, there were none when we bought it, and with the fire on and (when it shines) the winter sun, pouring in the heating rarely comes on.
We discovered a lot in the rebuild, that the kitchen area once held animals, that there were two families living in the house, and, when I removed the wall that covered the bricked up chimney in the living room, an inglenook fireplace with some parts of the old cooker remaining!

Insulation

The government announced this week that it will pump money into energy saving schemes such as insulation. If you have not had the opportunity to look into doing these improvements to your home, then it may be worth checking out any grants you can get towards these.

Personally we did apply and were successful in receiving a grant for draught proofing but as with everything, the doors became so tight that one of them fell of its hinges which caused us to need to do other repairs. The loft insulation was not completed on the grant because we have loft hatches that are too small for the rolls of material. Secondly, our ceilings are made of lathe and plaster ( a very old way of doing ceilings) and letting the workmen loose on it could have just given us another opening to the roof as lathe and plaster can crumble. So that work is on hold until we can get hold of a local craftsman who can carefully deal with the 16th century plasterwork.

Don't let that put you off,if you live in a more modern house, it will be a piece of cake.

Insulation can be considered in the following areas :

1. Loft insulation: Prevents 15% of heat lost through the roof.
2. Tank and pipe insulation: A hot water cylinder jacket of at least 75mm cuts heat loss by 75%.
3. Cavity/solid wall insulation: About 30% of heat lost through walls. Homes built after 1920 - with cavity walls - can be injected with insulating material. Older houses with solid walls can be fitted with an extra layer.
4. Double-glazing: Can cut heat loss by about 50%. The two panes of glass create an insulating barrier.
5. Draught-proofing: About 20% of heat lost through poor ventilation and draughts. Measures include fitting brushes to letterboxes. Source: Energy Saving Trust

If you have an older property like ours, you may need to make adjustments as the construction methods from yesteryear do not always lend themselves to modern measures and listed buildings would have restrictions placed on them with regards to improvements.

When we visited Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset some time ago, we were reminded that small cottages were inhabited by many people who heated one room and spent the majority of their time, wrapped up in front of the fire.

I will let you know how we cope with the cold as it creeps in over the next few months.

Magenta cucumber

Cucumber Seed Packet

If you go hunting down between the leaves of the cucumber plants, you can often find a gigantic, monstrous specimen that is going to be difficult to turn into pickle or anything else. In a throwaway society you might well chuck it on the compost heap but here we have found a way to give the cucumber a new lease of life whilst releasing its fantastic minerals and goodies into a magenta beverage. Don't be put off by the ingredients, its quite nice for a vegetable juice.

Get that juicer out and add :

2 apples
1 cucumber
1 beetroot

The colour is quite neon like and just think of the potent minerals and vitamins that will be coarsing through your body. The juice will give you an instant 2 of your 5 a day, is good for detox and brilliant skin. A straw to sip it helps.

Oh and wear gloves when you cut the beetroot, it bleeds.....

Charging an ipod with an onion

Scientifically speaking, funny but true.

Damsons

A winter tipple in the making and maybe your next weekend project?
Our village is full with octogenarians and beyond and even the gravestones mark 93 years, 94 years so there has to be something in the air. The secret I found out, is a regular tipple in the winter.

I have been writing a small article in our village magazine over the last few months and people have began to bring in produce as both gifts and challenges. Can I do anything with it? Will I share? I love these impromptu gifts of appreciation ( at least that is the spirit in which I receive them). They could just as well be a last resort for a glut of produce, but I am happy either way. The garden at the shop produces a small amount of food and I am only too pleased to take on surplus from our excellent local gardeners.

Today, a box of damsons arrived. Hmm, damson jam, damson jelly, damson cheese.....hold on, damson gin that sounds a bit more like it. As we recently cleared the large sweet jars from the top shelf they seemed the perfect jar to start with. Its easy really, you need gloves, a toothpick, a jar, sugar and gin. You prick the damsons, put them in the sterilised pot, add sugar ( as you go) and top up with gin. Stick in a dark cupboard for 3 months. Visit every few days to shake the jar and in 3 months time, when all the sugar has melted you will be left with a lovely liquid.Strain off the damsons, pour the alcohol through a funnel into a dry warm sterilised bottle and seal. Just an ideal home made present for Christmas. A more formal recipe follows :

Damson Gin

450g of damsons
710ml of vodka or gin
350g caster sugar

A poison tree

A Poison Tree, from Songs of Experience

Its been a while, and I have missed you all. Its been a time of reflection, busyness and wondering where we go from here.

Health wise there have been some challenges a bit here and bit there and the reason why I have not been participating in the blog is simply that it would have been too depressing. Surprisingly, the weather joined in in the doom and gloom by producing the wettest summer since records began and the economic climate seemed to take a nosedive too.

So here is the olive branch.....

I will be posting again regularly but probably not daily. The focus is going to be on eating local, growing local and continuing to simplify our lives.

The shop has grown from strength to strength and has been a roller coaster ride: 9 months so far, sleepless nights at times but we have at last mastered an acceptable rhythm.
The house is still under construction and repair as is the garden. At times we have felt overwhelmed with it all, but all in all, it is all taking shape.

I'll start sharing soon, that is if you are still reading.......

Grazing on salad

Rain makes for a lovely green lush salad leaf and probably a wonderful beetroot in a few weeks. Strawberries on the other hand are rotting on the plants as are the gooseberries. Apples are swelling on the tree.
The raised bed that looked empty a few weeks ago is bursting with fresh green leaves and I find myself grazing whenever I pass; a rocket leaf here, a salad leaf there, a spinach leaf that is fresh and crunchy.

Salads cannot readily be preserved and are a crop that needs to be picked and eaten very quickly. Problem is that the weather suits more pies and stews than salad leaves. It makes a wonderful addition to home made savoury pies or pizza.

What amazes me every year is that different plants get the spotlight....when their growing conditions are just right. This must be a a salad year! Hence the abundance in rabbits in the fields...their vegetation is in abundance and so they multiply.

I could be negative about the lack of sunshine but instead I am grateful that this year any lettuces planted are not turning bitter and going to seed as quickly as other years. having saved the rain butt in case of drought I can only laugh at the irony of it, its overflowing every day. I fill my watering cans with rainwater to water the tomatoes that are screaming for some warmth and water the houseplants with the abundant water. After all, it makes up 75% of the chemistry of people and vegetation so there is nothing to complain about, its obviously needed.

Sandals are parked and wellies are the new summer gear!

Summer memories

Old House Ardennes 67

The daily front page news may or may not have got you down over the last month as well as the lack of summer warmth. The news all around is rather gloomy…but only if we let it. Our antidote here is to rise above any recession prediction and continue to enjoy what we do.

The economic outlook may seem as dark as the summer weather; every week suppliers provide new price lists, stop stocking certain items or change their delivery days to cut fuel costs which overall is probably a sensible approach in the current volatile business climate.

Global warming, the credit crunch and economic recession can be a selffulfilling prophecy if we let it.

My childhood in Belgium took place in a small village in the Ardennes and every Sunday I cycled to the village ( about 3 miles away, uphill) to seek out the bakery. My efforts of cycling uphill were rewarded upon entering the village where my senses would be revived. The smell of fresh bread and pastries would waft out of the bakery and Annemie would wave me in with a lovely smile. I was about 12 at the time. My basket would fill up with fresh crusty rolls, the odd baguette, fruit waffle and Tarte au Riz for afternoon tea. My cargo had to be protected on the whiz down the hill back home. During summer months I would rest on a grass verge, read a few passages of my book and admire the view of the valley below. Come rain or shine, whether my week had been successful or pretty hard to deal with, I never failed my expeditions to the bakery. Annemie’s wave and smile would beckon me in and I would leave feeling a sense of belonging and warmth which has stayed with me ever since.

This is one of the reasons for baking fresh bread, croissants and pastries in Central Stores. There are still memories to be made today for young and old alike.

For the past few weeks we have been experimenting with baguettes, different types of rolls and pastries and feedback has been very encouraging indeed. The variety on offer will continue to change, not only to test our baking skills, but to offer a moving feast for the senses to accompany villagers during bright and rainy days. You may even glimpse a smile from behind the counter!

Bread, rolls and pastries are available every day but croissants and petit pains au chocolat are weekend delights to be savoured with a steaming cup of your favourite beverage and good read whatever the weather. Baking has given me a new satisfaction; every time a croissant leaves the oven, I hear Annemie’s voice telling me not to hurry, to enjoy every moment. Every croissant has the ability to create a memory.

Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress; working together is a success.
Henry Ford

Despite the weather....

Window dressing is not a skill that I have acquired over the years but it gives me an opportunity to create something of a talking point in the village. Apparently on a rainy day it gives a focus for a small walk to the shop, then maybe be drawn in by the smell of bread baking in the oven to buy a croissant, a danish pastry or a baguette. At the weekend we encourage a relaxing morning stroll to buy a newspaper, a croissant and petit pain au chocolat to enjoy at home with some coffee. Even if the summer weather leaves a lot to be desired, we can pretend that we enjoy a holiday lifestyle.

Each window has a riddle in it.....in between the baguette and the coffee we have a french hen, a duck and some garlic.......

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be
Marcel Pagnol quotes (French Writer, Producer and Film Director, 1895-1974)

No waist

Boulangerie
Over the last month we have been busy starting an on site bakery in the shop. The credit crunch is making people in the countryside aware that just to drive 3 miles for a loaf of bread might be a little eccentric. We support home breadmaking by offering a variety of flours from french bread to wholemeal but we felt what was missing was the smell of fresh bread, croissants and freshly baked goodies on site.

The transformation is as magical as we thought and although the workload increases, there is nothing that beats the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the shop and increasing the feel good factor. The supermarkets stagger their baking efforts throughout the day to appeal to the customer to by fresh bread, doughnuts etc. In the village shop we bake early in the morning a selection of pastries, organic loaves and baguettes but when the quantity has run out we do not bake again. This means that early in the morning people sit on the outside bench waiting until the bread is ready.

Summer may have bypassed us but the bakery in the shop has brought a summer holiday feeling to our customers and all who visit.

There is still a lot of repair work to be carried out on the premises and the kitchen to expand the range. The feedback has been great and we have more visitors who follow their noses.

Salad days

The rainy, cool days suit the salads in the raised beds very well although the humans in the household are crying out for some hot weather.

The raised salad bed is planted quite densely which eliminates weeding. Red and green lettuces interplanted with radishes provide a feast for the senses. Slug population need to climb at least the equivalent of a mountain to reach the greenery and success for the moment is abundant.

Simple salad

Salad leaves- mixed, washed and cut up with scissors
radishes
parsley
tomatoes
cucumber
sprinkling of cashew nuts
sprinkling of sultanas
1 avocado sliced
dressing of olive oil and lemon or lime juice

add either crusty bread or 2 rice cakes, a large glass of elderflower cordial and enjoy what is left of the summer.

small potager

In November, the area designated for vegetable growing looked overgrown.
The above shows the garden area when we had just started to create the space: we found it was a lot larger than anticipated at first.


A few weeks ago, the raised beds were put in and a ton of compost added. The compost was bought from the local authority and came at £ 17.00 a ton. This is composted at high speed from all the green waste people take to the recycling centre and from the recycling bins collected at the kerbside; a lot cheaper than when you buy it by the bag at the garden centre.

Due to the delay in finishing the hard landscaping I have bought an instant salad garden from WigglyWigglers to make instant use of the potager which included a variety of salad plants, spring onions, celery, celeriac, beetroot and tomatoe plants. I have also planted out butternut squash and french beans.

The remaining part of the garden is still in progress but its blueprint is a food forest garden with trees, shrubs and a mixture of edible and non edible plants. Currently we have strawberries that are ripening in tubs but have had to be covered with fleece, blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes with a few berries on and 2 gooseberry bushes that show promise. As this is the first year for these plants, the harvest will be limited. Amongst the greenery there are also alpine strawberries that make a wonderful addition to our breakfast each day.

There is more opportunity to go out and potter in the garden and I am feeling a bit trimmer too. So far on the vegetarian diet my weight has dropped by 20lbs; no caffeine, no wheat, no dairy, no meat, no yeast, no sugar, no salt. Probably sounds very boring but it enables me to move forward with the possibility of eating the majority of the fruit and vegetables that are grown in the garden supplemented by natural sugars from honey, and dry staples like rice, oats,dried beans, seeds, sprouted seeds and nuts. It suits me personally but my DH needs a certain amount of meat to stay healthy.

The turning point

The news articles in today's newspapers are telling us of a new phenomenon : despite rapid increasing prices for fuel, food and daily living expenses the average high street spending has increased to record levels last month, way beyond expectations. When the government expects people to tighten their belts and spending, many have gone out of their way to spend more and more. There are 2 possibilities : some people may feel that now is the time to buy as next month the item may be more expensive and others might use shopping as a way to make them feel better about the rising costs of mortgage, credit and life in general in defiance. Whatever the motives, the move is a different one than expected.

On a local level we are seeing a difference too. We are spending more time explaining to people what we can do locally so they do not need to travel to the nearest town and there is a change in buying patterns too as people reconsider travel journeys that can be avoided. A more worrying trend is that some suppliers are going into liquidation, i.e. voluntary bankruptcy as profit margins decrease and running costs and interest rates rise. This will wipe out some businesses that are influenced by these factors and will result in some smaller companies laying off staff, and an increase in local unemployment.

I personally believe that the trend will continue as with higher fuel costs, higher prices for food and commodities will continue too. What would then follow is a request for more money, i.e.salaries to increase to keep up with the cost of living and possible strike action. This is the turning point where a simpler life is no longer a voluntary option for many but one that is being forced upon people as a result of a changing global economy. I predict irrational behaviour as people begin to realise that they cannot have what they want instantly, they may have to wait as supplies and resources become scarce. The quest for fuel seems to be a primary focus based on the fact that fuel and oil availability will reduce in years to come. The laws of economy then mean that when a product becomes scarce, the price will go up. Thus if for instance rice is no longer exported by countries because they need it for their own use, the price of rice rises as its availability decreases.

A proactive approach is to look at alternatives and ways to maximise current opportunities :

• For shelter - check what you can do to minimise the costs of your accommodation.
• For food : plan what you eat, diversify ingredients, take lunch to work and buy some staples ahead of time.
• For warmth : the cost of fuel will rise the nearer we get to winter so now is a good time to invest in filling your oil tank, building a log store for a wood burning stove and saving as much as you can on energy costs. What you save now you can use when you really need it.

Most papers will be full of tips on how to save money and short term savings can be made by cutting down on what is bought new, long term savings can be made by being focused on what you will need in the future and finding the right time to purchase that item. If you made assumptions about a budget at the beginning of the year it may need to be reassessed to take into account price rises.


As a sustainable business, we want to keep our prices competitive which has been successful in particular in the fresh produce section of the shop. Ice cream consumption is low due to inclement weather and chocolate consumption is up. Soup is in demand although this is completely unseasonal.

Life as we knew it is about to change.

Where are the bees?

No bees, no fruits? No beans?
It is remarkable at the moment that the weather is off track, the plants are unsure what to do about it and a synchronicity of flowering, pollinating and fruit is far from easy to obtain presently.
We obtain our local honey from an enthusiast. He has been telling us for the last six months that he is unsure whether the bees will survive the climate change and when he came in this week, he glumly told us that 50% of his hives had not managed to survive the winter. 50% is a huge amount.
What seemed a possibility is now a certainty in our area : bee populations are severely damaged and this can only mean that British honey will die off and we will need to import our honey from the rest of the world at a premium cost. If we have no bees pollinating the orchards and fields, our crops will diminish and as such, farmers will have a harder time managing to create value crops. As a result of less insects too, birds will require us to supplement their diets with seeds and worms to keep them thriving.
If you love honey, go buy some as British honey may indeed become a rarity in the future.

Independent small retailer's week

Canary yellow is not the most suitable colour for our complexion but it certainly has been a talking point. To celebrate the status of small independent retailers, many have joined forces to open conversations with shoppers and wear the yellow jerseys. More details can be found on the myshopisyourshop site.

In a playful way we learnt what we do well and took the opportunity to find out what our local shoppers think about the way we do things, what could be improved etc. Most of all, we had a good laugh and were laughed at. The weather has been really miserable lately and word got around that something was up in the shop. It was a fun day and we have taken on board the comments made.

At the same time, our shopping bag competition has come to an end and we have some really good entries to choose from. Some made us laugh a lot and others were more serious. At least many people had a go to make the slogan about the shop their own. What we want to do is to recreate a sense of community and belonging and although vastly present in our village, we can still do our bit to enhance and strengthen the relationships we have with our customers. Details of the winning slogan will follow.

Its been quite a week :

• market research
• photographs taken of the ' canaries'
• the choosing of our own shopping bag logo
• launch of organic vegetable and fruit box.

There is more to explore but we work on the principles of the triple bottom line as suggested by Sally Lever: people, planet and profit.

Organic box scheme

Fruits & Vegetables Sign

For a few months now we have been searching for an organic vegetable and fruit box to offer to the customers of the shop. There are still issues around it but Monday this will be available. We have been offering an increased range of local produce. Local producers did not seem willing to provide a delivery service to the shop so we turned to our wholesaler and asked him to source a box for us.

It’s a bittersweet step; we will be offering an organic box but some of the produce , although organic, will be from far away. This is a bit sad that pears in the organic box are coming from Argentina but it’s a stepping stone at the moment until we can establish demand and see if we can win the local producers over to see that it is worth investing in.

We tried the contents out last week and in the box were the following :

potatoes
carrots
onions
1 small swede
1 broccoli
1 cauliflower
1 lettuce
2 courgettes
1 sweet potato
1 lettuce
4 bananas
4 pears
4 apples
2 oranges
4 plums
6 tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
1 beetroot

It was tasty but needed to be kept cool as it does not keep as well as the usual vegetables and fruit.

A few people who order from a national scheme have shown an interest and will be testing it out.

Blooming colour

When you move into an established garden, part of the fun is not knowing what is really going to appear from season to season. I love the colour combination of the leaves and the red paeony 's palette in the garden plot. There also has been a guessing game with regards to the fruit trees but I can now begin to tell that this is a pear tree. Not many pears as we pruned the tree back severely but nevertheless nice to have a pear tree in the garden.
The business and house improvements are taking a lot of time and working in the garden has been a little sporadic. I have tomatoes and peppers growing in the garden room together with seedlings of salads and beans awaiting the completion of the raised beds. In between the flowers broad beans and mangetout peas are growing up nicely and the courgette and squash plants are reaching double leaf stage.

Our village holds a variety of plant sales for charity in which it is possible to obtain extra plants at reasonable costs. I did receive a present of marjoram, lovage, chives, rosemary and thyme which will add to the herb collection already in the garden. This will serve to season our foods.

The brill lawnmower is going well , without the use of fuel, sheer muscle power from little boys creates a near cricket pitch lawn standard on the small lawn that creates a green focus in the garden.

What I am really looking forward to are the soft fruits that are beginning to form on the blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry bushes as well as the strawberry plants hidden around. The morello cherry looked pretty too and is now forming little fruits. I love the month of May, so full of promise and optimism. It May all be blossoming and a marvellous crop, it may not....we need to wait and see how the climate shapes up.

The meatrix

The meatrix is a cartoon series based on the Matrix about factory farming of meat and dairy.

Having given up on meat, dairy, wheat, yeast and sugar this week I can say that it is possible to do. I have known for some time that changing to a vegetarian diet would have an impact not only on my health but also on our carbon footprint.

Here are the steps we have taken to get this far :

• Change from normal milk to organic milk.
• Check out alternatives (almond, rice, oat and soya milk)
• Explore other grains than wheat : oats, millet, rice, barley, spelt
• become aware and ask where your food comes from.
• Shop local for meat and poultry from sustainable farms you can visit
• Change from 7 meat meals per week down to 6, then 5,4, 3 until you have 1 meat meal per week.
• Go to the library to read up on recipes based on vegetarian cooking.
• have soup for lunch or a rice salad.
• Trust that your tastebuds will change.
• Grow salads and vegetables in your garden
• Grow herbs in your garden to season your food.
• Eat fruit 3 times per day to enable your body to get used to natural sugars instead of artificial ones.
• Eat seasonally and locally produced food.

This is not about going hungry. Until recently I was unaware that the food we ate was nutritionally deficient making our bodies want more and instant fixes of sugar as this is quickly absorbed into the body.

After a week, I can eat strawberries without sugar and cream, icecream or yoghurt and they taste of strawberries.

Fresh food requires no refrigeration, can be eaten straight from the garden and waste is reduced or composted easily.

Sample menu today :

oat cereal with fresh strawberries and rice milk
mid morning snack - banana and herbal tea
lunch - rice salad : rice, grated carrot, grated courgette, raisins, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chopped herbs, olive oil and lemon juice, black pepper.
afternoon snack- apple and herbal tea
dinner: roasted vegetables on quinoa fussili
evening snack - herbal drink

A few months ago I would not have managed this but reducing consumption of meat and dairy is possible slowly. This is not an entirely local diet but in time further changes will be made.

Some good resources are :
Barbara Cousins - Cooking without made easy
Lizee McGraw - Energy on a plate

Winds of change

The cyclone in Burma has hit and killed thousands of people and yet in this quiet english village, life is going on as usual. Maybe we are getting immune to disaster messages and shrugging our shoulders because we cannot relate to such devastation. We can however notice that a temperature yesterday of 22 degrees C was out of the ordinary ( lovely but out of the ordinary).

To visually picture the devastation, the after cyclone picture gives an indication of the area covered.

Thousands of people in a hot country with no water and very few facilities. Add to that difficulties of aid getting through and the devastation cannot even be imagined.

I wonder when enough will be enough for people to realise that something is wrong here?

It feels sad, overwhelming and before we dismiss that feeling let us imagine what we can do today to alleviate the situation for the human beings caught up in this region and also which one of our actions is contributing to future events.

This is hard to look at , much easier to run away and ignore the news. Actioning aid is a good response.

Personally I am uncomfortable with the thought that if we continue living along the same lines, someone else on earth pays the price for that .........live simply so that others may simply live.

I stare at my bowl of brown rice with vegetables and I am thankful and saddened at the same time.

Are you your self?

Following the Crowd

I reflected on my son's school report and how he needed assurance that it was OK to be him. I am not sure why the school system seems to favour head people, pupils who work things out logically, but it does. It suits some children but those who are practical, arty and pay more importance to how a task feels than what it achieves stand to be considered a failure in the current education system. Just because the level is expected to be 4c and has to be attained gives me no clear indication as to whether the subject is interesting, enjoyable or entirely useful. It all is about balance I guess.

We cannot be a world full of intelligent ' head people' surely? The logical side works things out by analysing criteria rather than how things feel. In contrast our intuition whispers to us between our thoughts. When we use our intuition we are using the right side of the brain and we feel comfortable with what we are doing. If sensitive and intuitive people are forced to use their left side of the brain exclusively, it could be possible that they have difficulties with that and do not feel happy. Just because you are good at maths does not mean that you need to be an accountant or a teacher; the question is ....will it feed your soul and make you feel good as well.

Working in the garden feeds my soul; creating a meal from scratch, feeds my soul and yet these are not career paths I chose in my lifetime.

Living too much in our heads can lead to losing touch with our sense of self. Losing our sense of self means that we are doing, being and thinking what others have taught us. Detoxing the body is about stripping off those layers and uncovering the core of ourselves.

If you are a left brain person, great we need you in this world to figure out what is happening and how we can work with global warming. If you are right brain person we need you to remind us of how we have lost our connection with the earth, why we have an inbuilt sense of unhappiness and loss. The facts and figures of global warming do not have an effect; its pictures and movies about what is affecting people that speak to us at a deeper level.We could be feeling everything and be overwhelmed and we need logical people to find a way forward.

In fact we need to work this out together. Problem is that most children will be focused on targets and solutions; not having the practical know how of how to be putting it right. The farmers who have told us over the years that the landscape was changing have been ignored by a majority of logical human beings. It needs something to appeal to our core level of self and nothing focuses the mind better on that than ill health and disease.

Levels of toxicity around us are rising and having started a nutrition route without yeast, sugar,dairy focused on basic foods I am astounded as to how addicted I am to such substances.

The question asked by my son was : Who controls your life? Who indeed ( you can answer that for yourself). His answer was that either a higher power controlled his life, he could be in charge of his own life and be responsible and true to himself or his life could be influenced by his peers.

How would it be if your life was controlled by an addiction to oil, wheat and sugar? Reducing these is a possibility only if we can truly take charge of that path our self......if we had to give up oil, wheat and sugar....you can expect a reaction on a physical level ( withdrawal symptoms), emotional level ( behaviour issues), and a mental health level. How healthy do we feel as human beings on this earth?

Answers on a postcard...........

Detoxing breakfast

One of the side effects of detoxing is that in eliminating toxins from the body, the body reacts( in my case giving me headaches), as in general it craves the missing element.

Take for instance the morning cup of tea. It contains tea, sugar and milk. I am simplifying by drinking it black first without sugar, then when I have got used to that, I change from tea to redbush or herbal teas. Reducing milk and sugar in tea does not seem to have as many side effects as reducing the caffeine in my daily cup.

Many breakfast cereals contain sugar. Here are a few breakfast options to try to reduce temptations of instant, conveniently packaged breakfast cereals.

Porridge
Oats soaked overnight in water, with cinnamon, almonds and currants
Oats, yoghurt and fresh fruit
Smoothie ; 1 banana, cup of raspberries, cranberry juice and yoghurt

Good Morning

I have come to realise that when I feel hungry my body is infact thirsty. Ultimately our bodies are made up of a large proportion of water ( not tea, coffee or fruitjuice). Water therefore seems a good source of hydration.
I used to drink 6 cups of tea per day, now am down to one. I am not saying its for everyone but we do load our bodies with complex infusions, drinks with sugar and extra sugar and maybe we were not designed to deal with that amount of sugar on a daily basis.

Herbal teas have never been a favourite of mine but I am trying a variety of them, some I like and some I do not. Herbal teas are made from herbs and many can be grown in the garden. Lemon balm and mint are easy to grow and make a really refreshing cup of tea.

You can have cake

Cake takes on a whole new meaning.

6 months have passed since stepping into a supermarket for my foodshopping. In fact this week I reflected on the fact that I have lost touch with consumer mania of too many choices for supper, impulse food buying and being influenced by adverts.

The local shop has only 10 varieties of cereal ( heavens can we survive a choice of 10 against about 45 in the supermarket). We can have fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit delivered while we wait for the garden to take shape.

The ingredients have simplified and I am discovering that moving to a vegetarian diet may be a better possibility.I have talked about this in the past but had very little personal knowledge of where to start.

This week I visited a nutritionist and discovered the shocking truth that our diet here is based on a lot of wheat, corn, sugar and fats and that toxicity levels in the food available in shops is far too high to create a healthy environment for our bodies. Did you know that cucumbers carry a higher than normal aluminium level?

I am therefore cooking in unknown territory and the ingredients before me are not the usual ones I have been cooking with. The aim is to store some dry ingredients that hold more complex nutrients and minerals . These will not perish as fast as the usual foods, frozen or canned and will provide a good base food in the future. They will take longer to digest and longer to release their nutrients in the bloodstream. We should feel fuller, longer and less inclined to go for sugar fixes and bars of chocolate. ( I don't mind the latter one!)

Today, I made a cake with lots of seeds, no fats or eggs or sugar and surprisingly it worked and tasted quite good. Its consistency is that of bread pudding. I say quite good because my tastebuds were expecting something else. I felt like one of my sons who says' I do not like that' before trying it but even one of the boys had a bite from the cake and said it was quite good.

So what was in it :
Brown rice flour
whole wheat flour
rolled oats
linseeds
sunflower seeds
pumpkin seeds
sesame seeds
flaked almonds
ginger grated
raisins
cinnamon
ginger spice
rice milk

Not the usual cake ingredients of fat, sugar, flour and eggs, not dripping in sugar icing either. Best of all,we could have cake and eat it. Seeds are not just for birds.....

The elephant in the room

African elephant silhouetted at twilight

There is an expression in English which has always fascinated me ; the elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to overlook.

Some of us do not really see the elephants in the room until we suddenly realise that we are sharing our space with one and then we can be overwhelmed.

Having done Latin at school, my teacher told me that to break down the large and long sentences that made no sense to me at all, I had to visualise eating an elephant. It might seem an impossible task but if you took it one bite at a time, you would manage it in the end.

Living in the moment enables us to rally our resources. Instead of projecting some disastrous future, ask yourself what you can do about it today. Break down difficulties into areas. Divided they seem less threatening, Observe the details of what is going wrong in each area, write it down over a period of a week to give you a picture of what is happening. Which tasks do you feel are slipping away? Which ones are most important? Highlight the areas that need action and then decide how to deal with it.

Tackling a problem can seem like a huge task but if you break it down in smaller parts, it becomes less daunting.
Calmly make a list of manageable steps and take it little steps at a time.

Blossoms

The snowpeas are finally showing through. I covered the seeds with holly leaves to stop any mice from eating the seeds and it also stopped cats walking on them. I am not sure how many snowpeas it will yield but the seeds were left over from last year. My vegetable production will be minimal this year as I am still doing the hard landscaping of the vegetable area. I do miss the polytunnel and the large scale growing of vegetables but the whole point of this experiment is to show you that it can be done with an average size garden.
The apple blossom is heavenly and I also wonder why there are not more weddings in apple orchards? The blossom will rain down like confetti in a few weeks but I find the colour stunning and full of promise. Sitting in the garden there is a buzz of insects as well as chirping from the birds, its quite a busy time for everyone. In the background, the church clock rings every hour. A nice place to sit still, be present and take in what is happening around us.

This is the view from our sitting room, above the garden there are many fields with rape seed. It gets full of pollen and a bit overpowering but at the same time, I am hopeful that insects will venture into the walled garden.

Rhubarb - the first seasonal fruit

Preparing Rhubarb


Rhubarb is an understated native fruit. It is the first fruit of the season and can be eaten as early as March when forced. Its tender red stems, are not everyone's favourite but I continue to experiment with its flavours.

It can be bitter but when cooked with a little orange juice, the taste seems to become sweet and silky. It is a miraculous plant and I planted 2 crowns this year in the garden. They do not yield anything this year but I have been asking around and there is plenty to be had for free. I planted the rhubarb crowns under the apple tree and the morello cherry tree. When the tree is bare in winter, the sun brings on the rhubarb nicely and when the rhubarb season is over, its leaves provide a leaf compost to feed the apple and cherry tree.

Rhubarb gets creatively changed into

Poached rhubarb with stem ginger ice cream

• Rhubarb Tart
• Rhubarb Syllabub
• Rhubarb and Grapefruit Marmalade.
• Rhubarb cake

Rhubarb is said to be the ancient Sanskrit remedy Soma, for courage, wisdom and longevity. It has purifying properties and can lift our energies after hibernation.

This plant will give us fruit every year in abundance and will require minimum attention over the years. It forms part of

the road less travelled

Travellers at a Crossroads in a Wooded Landscape


Today is a new day with no mistakes in it

Anne of Greengables

Dear reader,

Yesterday's post had an impact not least on our family. Having written down my thoughts and feelings about the reality as I perceive it, today is a new fresh day which enables us either to engage with the process of change or to switch off from it entirely.

The first step is to acknowledge that in this moment in time, this very moment, we are OK, we have all we need and want to a certain extent. That is unlikely to drastically change in the UK overnight. I believe that the UK is well placed as a green and pleasant land, to weather an increase in temperature by 2 degrees and at the same time, I realise that places on the globe that are already hot will find an increase in temperature challenging.

In the face of fear of the unknown, we can pack a small backpack which contains knowledge, skills and presence of mind to deal with whatever happens to come our way. It would be easy to get depressed about the whole situation or to simply ask yourself why you should bother if your alter ego at the other end of the globe cannot wait to buy the first car, travel the world and enjoy everything just as we have done. We all have choices and I guess what I am doing is making a voluntary choice here to simplify my needs and wants to what is an acceptable level. What is acceptable is also personal but to me it means living locally, shopping locally, creating a handmade life, more in tune with the natural rhytm of life.

Do I know a lot about it? No, its a journey of discovery but I know that many of the skills necessary to live such a life have been eroded from our generation. With it the joy of living has also disappeared to a certain extent and I am travelling on a parallel road.

I think the poem by Robert Frost (1874–1963) gives a good indication of the way I am heading.

Mountain Interval. 1920.

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Basic food

China, Yunnan Rice fields

As a business we see the prices rise every week from a variety of suppliers from eggs, bread, cakes and basic staples. Tea has gone up, milk will be going up this week. With the government slashing the 10% tax rate for low income families and the costs of basic food, shelter and warmth increasing, we are going to find ourselves out of the comfort zone. The credit crunch may mean for many that paying debts and mortgages will become more difficult.

If we have reached peak oil and there is a rush to grow biofuels in countries that otherwise would have contributed to the basic food production for their countries and export, there is going to be a shift.

The priority here does not seem to be for food and its people but for fuel to continue an addictive process to both oil and fuels.

The big picture is beginning to look ugly and what we do next will establish the direction humans take towards a healthy planet or the alternative, strangulation of the planet's resources and our wellbeing.

I am optimistic that change can happen; yet it has to start with the individual. As a family we try to walk our talk and having made many changes I continue to introduce a more economic and basic local diet to my family. We do live in the land of plenty where everything can indeed be flown in or grown far away and transported. I am about to investigate how we as a family have grown dependent on wheat and fuel, two crops that form part of our daily diet and see if we can create some diversity with other crops.

The process of giving up oil, wheat, sugar, chocolate is no different from giving up drugs or smoking cigarettes.

I have no idea what hunger really feels like. I have no idea what it feels like to have no food in your house, to have to make mud pies. Our generation does not. I know my mother had to eat her books to keep hunger pains away during the war and the effect of lack in that generation created a need to have plenty and have it available. This then became the norm. The norm is about to change again.

Some countries will no longer export rice to enable their population to be fed. If that is the case, rice a staple diet in Asian food, will become a luxury soon. Restaurants and other businesses will begin to feel their profit margins reduce and as people give up eating out, some of these businesses will fold.

One of the skills we can show our children is how to feed themselves with local ingredients. In a generation that has food prepared as the norm, we can enable them to be reconnected with the food chain and find a way to value the process and the magic of it too.

Step 1 is to waste nothing. That in itself would reduce the amount going to landfill.

How many of us create meals from leftovers? Some mealtimes I create a buffet of leftovers as the basis. It requires creativity and it gives rise to questions.

Inginuity may have been out of fashion, but it is going to make a come back.

Living with perfectionism

We're All Different


When we ask ourselves the question :

How did I decide that this is the way it is to be?

If the answer is,

it has to be, I have got to...

then ask yourself

according to whom'

This should give you an indication as to which values and beliefs drive you forward.

As children we are often told to do this, or that without explanation and we accept this without question. It does take your personal power away. As adults it can be refreshing to question whose voice you hear in your head when you are driven to do something in particular and reclaim the initiative to make decisions that are in line with the values and beliefs that are true for you.

If you ask yourself why you do things, and what is important to you, you might begin to see that your priorities are confused. Is it worth giving up time with your family to spend a whole day cramming in details of a report, or going back to the office to catch up on work? Is it really necessary to have a mortgage on a large house, which means that you have to go to work 60 hours per week. Could it be different? Ask yourself what the costs are of this and what the benefits are and weigh up one with the other. Then decide.

We often think we could have done better and yet we can also learn to take stock and say, that was great, I really enjoyed that. We then can also acknowledge when what we do is not making us feel so great and why.

TV and advertising have the ability to sell you a product by appealing to certain emotional states; my children used to tell me when shopping what soap powder I should get and in reality that was the voice of the advert talking. Why do we buy things? Who is that voice in your head saying we need to do this, or that? It can refreshing to question our automatic behaviours and consciously decide what we need in that given moment.

We could decide to live simply to enable others to simply live. In a world where famine is a reality and where we live with abundance ;it needs every individual who can make choices to be true to themselves.

A cosy little home

As the weather is colder again, I am reminded of a cosy little home. The little home we dream of, a place you can call your own.

Cob is a way to use natural materials to sculpt a home that is curvy, sustainable and many cottages that are much loved in the West Country were made like this. Our shop is made of stone walls and cob and no wall is angular. A wooden structure with beams creates a supportive framework and the cob is then sculpted into shape.

A few examples

International Downshifting week - 19th April - 26th April 2008

International Downshifting week starts today.

"If you are looking for a little help to slow down your pace and enjoy life more, this is the place for you!

Tracey Smith's campaign was formerly known as 'National' Downshifting Week. This year, as a result of the strong support they have received from around the globe asking if other countries can officially 'join in', they have simply decided to rename it
'InterNational Downshifting Week'!

For more information and tips to start your downshifting week, check out the website.

Living with acceptance

Words to Live By: Truth

Acceptance is the first step in the process of change; you need to accept what is happening now, embrace the moment and stay open to possibilities.

Many of us fight acceptance and are practised at avoiding reality or denying that anything is wrong. If you were brought up with a message that everything was never good enough then it seems to follow that you would be striving for an ideal that is in some way unattainable.

On the issue of climate change we can have a variety of reactions : there are those who claim that it is not happening, there are others who accept on some level that it is happening but it is nothing to do with them ( it has an effect in other parts of the globe but I am all right thanks), and there are others who say that there is nothing personally they can do about it, that it is too late, too hard, not necessary............

Personally Chronic Fatigue Syndrome leaves me with tense muscles, so tense that they feel taut and at breaking point. In the beginning I ignored it and continued anyway on the principle that there were no other options but to continue. ( denial). Then I could accept it on some level but still did not want to rest....there is so much to do, I must, I have to. After mindful breathing, living in the moment with gratitude, came acceptance. It did not just arrive but fighting a condition that I did not want to have, that was controversial and apparently all in the mind, not being able to function, flat out on the bed I had to finally accept that something was wrong, that I had no idea what it was and that others too did not necessarily know what it was either. At that point I became grateful for every moment; I voiced every moment that I was OK, and started managing change in very small steps.

The same can be said about climate change. If we can accept at some level that it is happening then we can open ourselves to the possibilities for change that it offers. By working from home and as the family start a sustainable business, I am acknowledging that it is happening, I am responding to the fact that working without a commute and a car is a possibility and not commuting eventually results in change ( for the planet and for my pocket too).

Enquiring within a given moment is a necessary step to look at what we are afraid of and what is true for us. Not accepting climate change and denying that it is happening shows us that we are afraid of the unknown, a different future we will have less control over and then again if we do not take action now, it will spiral out of control and fulfill the exact fear we have.

A different reaction could be that we accept that there are signs all around us that climate change is a reality and without criticism or pointing the finger at others, we can enquire within as to what our true contributions to the problem are and what solutions and possibilities we feel able to action.

I do believe that as a single human being a small action however minimal may not show up instant results but if you in any way doubt the power of one action, remind yourself the impact of spending time with a mosquito in the room.

Loving what is is a brilliant book by Katie Byron, if we love what is, if we accept what truly is the reality instead of denying it is happening and facing our fears head on, it does open up possibilities for action and following that action is change and a pathway to freedom.

Then another moment offers itself in your life which you can view with mindfulness, gratitude and acceptance and live with truth.

Living in the moment continues with letting go of expectations.

Living with gratitude

Grateful Heart

It seems far easier to focus our minds on what has not gone well instead of focussing on what we already have. It is easy to slip into a mindset that we do not have enough. One important aspect of living in the moment is appreciating and enjoying what you have right now and to appreciate it and acknowledge it with gratitude.

If you consciously notice and express gratitude for kindnesses and moments in your life, you instantly create connection with others. It encourages us to look outward and to focus on our connections with another human beings, another aspect in nature. You notice the contributions made by others in your life and how you value them, you can therefore accept them and feel a joy within your being. By consciously noticing the beauty around you, you receive its energy, you connect with it and your mood will improve.

What you are grateful for will be personal, entirely different and may even to others seem completely bizarre.

My experience of gratitude became apparent while I was motionless in my bed; while my muscles ached and refused to move; while I could just about practice mindful breathing. I did receive smiles from my children who read to me ( because you enjoy that and you cannot do it Mum), who bought me an ipod ( because you like music and you cannot listen to it now while you are lying down), who showed me the birds and the seasons ( because it is still beautiful out there Mum and we will take you out and put you on the grass so you can sense it with your body, you can smell the freshness and you can see the fresh green).

That for me is a moment of extreme gratitude that is imprinted in my soul. How at a desperately miserable moment, I did gratefully receive and realised that life was good.

You can be grateful for a cup of chai tea, a homegrown lettuce, a rainy day, a song, a flower, a slice of bread, a lovely piece of chocolate.

Practicing gratitude before going to sleep each day enables me personally to acknowledge the good things in my life that day and create value for each day without assuming or presuming anything.

Living in the moment

Hands, Za-Zen Meditation, Elheiji (Eiheiji) Zen Monastery, Japan, Asia

The news of interest changes, credit crunch, crashing housing markets, looming recessions could spin us in a negative spiral, affecting our spirits, feelings and moods.

Living in the moment is a desirable and often confusing concept and does not mean that we simply forget the past or ignore the future. What it means is that we let go of the attachments and a loathing of past experiences and stop projecting those attachments and loathing into the future. It allows us every moment and every time to look at things with a fresh viewpoint and a renewed attitude instead of thinking that everything has gone wrong and nothing will ever be right again.

Living in the moment became crucial at a point in my life when illness eroded any hope for the future and the world seemed to crash in on me. Many people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome spiral negatively into depression which is one reaction yet with a positive attitude against the trend I realised that I could not change what was happening at that moment and would need to take each moment at face value.

Practising mindfulness is characterised by feelings of stillness and oneness and experienced at times during yoga and meditation but when you manage this technique it can be recalled when hoovering, doing the dishes or walking.

I personally switch to mindful breathing using my breath to guide me in the present. Each time a breath comes in and goes out I release thoughts about the past and the future. Breathing mindfully allows the experience to come into my awareness,whatever it might be and to allow it to rise without attachment. Children will savour each moment of discovery in the present, looking at the colours of the rainbow, the raindrops without attaching a thought to it about its wonder or whether the weather is going to stay rainy all day. We as adults can practice this skill again too to enable us to be present and see the gifts that surround us with pure wonder and enjoyment.

The world around us is spinning faster and faster and our experiences can inform us that what has happened in the past is likely to happen again in the future; at the same time, we can presume that the moment presented is identical to the one we experienced and thereby automatically move in the action we moved into the previous time ignoring the fact that the moment presented is different.

We can notice similarities in our experience but they can never be exactly identical. Past performance is no indicator to future performance.

I could assume that all my efforts to downshift, recycle and live sustainably do not produce an effect so why should I even bother. Writing a diary and chronicling my efforts is however showing me personally progress is being made. I can still be easily overwhelmed by panic when my legs do not want to move, or when I wake up without refreshing sleep, or when my brain does not seem to be wanting to make connections however I can switch in those moments to mindful breathing, realise that I am OK and take appropriate mindful actions.

This time of the year sees a deluge of brown envelopes heralding the beginning of a new tax year. A past experience of dread may come into being, switching to mindful breathing I can release those, notice that I am holding an envelope and can file it in the accountants file to deal with. What follows is a realisation that I have a very capable accountant, that I pay her to take this task away from me and that no action is required immediately.

When we feel rushed we often forget we are human and react like robots or machines in the way we react to any moment in time.

Step 2 for living in the moment is about gratitude and will be explored in the next post.

Garden flowers

What a difference a few months makes in the garden. The grass is thicker, the paths more defined and the view pleasant, awaiting the surprise of spring.

de brill lawnmower - part 2

We read the instructions again and tried to figure out where the handles clicked in on the inside of the mower ( which is the only hard part of this). Try and try again until you succeed.

This took a little while so Ben asked me to hold onto the mower with handles while we looked up what part came next.

The handlebar slotted in really easily and without the use of any equipment other than brain and hands we went on to construct the masterpiece.


Fully assembled we put the height of the blades at its highest as the grass was quite long and ever keen to put the mower to the test Ben set off at great whirring speed.
Here is a summary of our comments :

Positive

Assembly - indeed childsplay when attempted by small boy whilst adult reads instructions.
Time - it took us a good 30 mins including teabreak to complete the tasks.
First cut - perfectly executed by the mower with minimum ease and lovely whirring sound.
Weight - extremely lightweight and easy to drive and park in small space.

Growthpoints

The plastic orange covers are glued on and we needed to put some more glue on as they fell off whilst driving but eventually we found out that they clicked into place.
The collector box needs a little adjustment - it hangs on the mower by the strap and hook and if not carefully finetuned, falls off too easily.

Warning !
This mower may not appeal to grown men. It has no mechanical parts that need looking at, it needs very little preparation, no trips to the petrol station, no fumes, no vroom, vrrooooooom revving it up in the garden and therefore has the potential to provide nil points for operators who enjoy the task of going up and down at speed, pulling a starter motor.
It is however safe enough for others to push, no leads to fall over and makes a reassuring whirring purring sound that appeals to onlookers whilst watching operators push and mow. Perfect accompaniment to reading on the terrace, listening to bird song and raising a glass to life.

de brill lawnmower- part1

I have been waiting to let you know how we have got on with the lawnmower, bought via Wigglywigglers. I still have a large wish list to fulfill there but thought it best to get the useful thing I have had my eye on for some time. A lawnmower that uses people pushing power, no fuel other than that and that can manage a smallish lawn in a village garden.

The item was delivered at super speed and as it happened Ben had a day off school as there was no heating. This prompted us to go out and investigate whether in fact the putting together of the lawnmower was childsplay. Ben is fond of puzzles and has built a vast array of items with Lego, so we thought we might be able to manage while Dad was in the shop.Step 1 - what is in the box

One of our criteria for shopping ethically is whether or not the packaging can be recycled. The box was full of shredded paperwork ( well done there) which made a useful brown addition to the new compost heap). The cardboard box has been recycled via the usual route.

Step 2 - inspect the goodies and gasp!


At this stage I wondered whether we would manage but......all the parts were there and a useful instruction booklet with clear instruction in a variety of languages.

Step 3- the grass collecting box

In an effort to have a sense of achievement we started with this part. Well Ben did while I watched as he worked out which part went where. I continued to offer encouragement.
A lot of discussion on angles went on at this stage but the parts were light and easy to manage. The only difficult part was putting the thingy in that clips the box onto the mower so here is a clue should you wonder too.....




That completed the first part of the assignment. This was followed by a cup of tea like most workmen.....with a lot of looking at the finished object.

To be continued......

A gardeners wish

Pair of English Riders


Yesterday, the pub next door had a visit from a party on horseback. I am not sure how many horses and ponies I counted but everyone was having a great time drinking sherry and eating a buffet of goodies on horseback. The shop was very busy and everyone on foot seemed to want to stock up on biscuits, chocolate and drinks which was good for business.

When eventually the party left, clattering hooves down the hill, I went round to the garden, picked up my pink bucket and a shovel and......went out to pick up some horse muck. Coveted and generally hard to find if you are in a village or town situation. I have been known to ask for horse muck for the garden but had not got around to it lately.

Only a few days ago, I asked for some chicken manure ( as I no longer have chickens),as an activator for my bulging compost heap. That meant, walking around with the pink bucket, wellies on, nose peg in and helping myself to a small quantity of this potent stuff. ( Never put it direct on the garden as it burns everything until matured).

This week therefore has seen the addition of posh muck and local muck onto the heap in order to get it to warm up a bit.

The universe provides everything I need, even posh muck gets delivered free of charge at the front door.

A gardeners wish!