My children are getting too smart. They’ve obviously realised that there’s no point asking me to buy them toys all the time (you’re just getting sucked in by people who want to sell you plastic crap .. said with a demonic look and eyes rolling – don’t worry, the markets will be on soon and you can swap things there). So now they’ve decided to bypass the small guy and go straight to the top! All week they’ve been writing letters to Santa. Fortunately today Santa wrote back to me in appreciation of my efforts and to let me know that he’s actually on my side. And I was shocked. For the first time ever Santa is angry – and I mean really really angry.

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This is what Maxie spent a whole afternoon doing … it is one of the divine things that children do when you least expect it. He did it because it was an enjoyable thing to do and because he thought it might make me happy … it was an act of love … love for me and a love for creating things.

People often say to me that you don’t have to be a mother to care about the planet. That is so true, but something does happen that changes you quite profoundly when you do become a parent. Your life ceases to become yours alone and the consequences of your actions become far greater than ever they were when you didn’t have children. You also “wake up” in a way that is, at first, quite unexpected. Continue reading →

My mother would die if she saw these … Continue reading →

Well it feels as though the unusually warm weather has finally gone – it is freezing today. Bye bye summer. And bye, bye Noddy. Yesterday I gave my friend this Noddy car for her 60th birthday and today I’m feeling an aching nostalgic pain for everything else I seem to be saying bye bye to. I think the beginning of winter often creates a psychological chill inside me. This year feels worse than usual. The joyful abundance of our summer garden is retreating. We’re entering a harsher time and there’s always the strange underlying fear that the good times might not come back. I feel sad tonight. Bye bye Noddy. Continue reading →

Well, as they say, you learn something new every day. I started this blog thinking how great the new screw top wine bottles were because they allowed you to easily reuse wine bottles. I’m desperate for more bottles because I’ve made so much tomato sauce that I’ve run out of them! For some reason I was also under the false impression that cork was somehow endangered and finding alternatives to corks would be good for the environment. WRONG! … apparently Continue reading →

We’ve all been hearing about how the Climate is a non-linear system and how things can change rapidly, suddenly and unexpectedly. Life is much like that too. One day you feel as though everything is moving very slowly and the next things can suddenly take on a new momentum. Continue reading →

Somehow I don’t think drying hair manually with a fan will take on in the hairdressing salons of the world! Ian’s response: “For godsake get a hairdrier!” I take your point Paula (comment on April 27) but I’m still inspired by The Compact and their desire to find ways to avoid buying anything new if they can. They’ve just celebrated their anniversary and apparently now have over 8000 people around the world who’ve joined them. There’s an Australian group too called “No More Stuff”.

I had to rummage in the bin for our milk cartons this morning. It seems to be taking Ian

a long time to “get” the idea of recycling but, then again, I only “got” the milk carton idea this week myself. Because it’s apparently better to reuse than to recycle (a huge amount of energy actually goes into recycling) I’m using all my milk cartons to plant seeds in and today I used my first two to start my indoor seedraising project over winter.

I’ve never attempted to grow anything over winter before – especially not in “Bleakheath”! This year however I’m giving it a shot. Continue reading →

For months now I’ve been thinking of the role the Blackheath Golf Club could play in relation to food security for Blackheath in the future. They have large and beautiful grounds and a plentiful water supply so would be an Canadian pharmacy ideal place to plant nut trees. Today Fred and I met with the manager Continue reading →