Garden harvests of 2025

 I realise that I didn't ever total up everything I grew and picked in the garden at home in 2025 which was a shame as it's lovely to have a record of this.  Some things in the garden were very successful and others were not to successful! 

Alpine Strawberries:  47.  Not a great sum from my 2 plants compared to my mum who had hundreds or even thousands from her many plants but much loved despite their small number. They are incredibly sweet!

Strawberries:  190.

This isn't as many as some years but better than last year I think!

Blueberries: 445

I'm quite surprised as I didn't think they were doing as well as other years but not bad from 2 plants! Many went in the freezer so I have yet to enjoys some!

Rocket:  9 handfuls.

This was disappointing! I need to plant more rocket as it is is usually prolific!

Cherries:  44

The birds got some but these were juicy and wonderful! I did also get freebies from the tree in the carpark down the road!

Raspberries:  83.

This was pathetic!!!I remember the year of 2000 and I am most annoyed at the badger or whatever killed my Autumn Bliss plants. These new varieties are not as good!

Loganberries: 1

This plant is GOING if it doesn't do something soon! So, so, so much foliage and nothing else!

Cucumbers: 9

I'm not very good at clipping these in. I think they'd have done better if I had done!

Tomatoes:  176.

This was quite successful. They did not get blight this year!

Courgettes:  14

I was pleased with these from one plant!

Runner beans:   273.

I paid 50p a piece for 2 bean plants from the yellow bungalow and their honesty box down the road and I consider this an absolute bargain! I keep meaning to pop a note through the door to thank them for their amazing plants! Next year, I will buy more! They were really good ones too! These were one of the star crops for 2025!

Rhubarb:  20 stalks:

Most of this went in the freezer and into fruit amber! I would like to plant more!

Dwarf French beans: 30

A small amount from about 6 plants but appreciated!

Everlasting onion scapes: 23. 

Considering these were free from Mum, I'm happy with this.

Peppers: 8

From One plant!  I was very happy with this!

Aztec Broccoli: 4 takeaway tubs full.

I think I messed this one up! I let it grow too much and it was too tough to eat! It grew well but I didn't know how to harvest it.

Apples: 11

The most apples we've ever had from the tree!

Nasturtium seeds:  87

I picked most of these in Vinegar and saved a few for growing next year.  These were brilliant plants and came from seeds I liberated in Madeira from the many Nasturtiums growing like weeds!

Chard: 2 handfuls

This is usually prolific so this was disappointing!

Butternut squashes:  2

Again, these would have been a lot more successful if I had planted these in the ground instead of a pot and clipped them in better! I'm not very good with climbing plants! Still, I'm proud of these two tiny babies!

Sorrell: 8 leaves

This needs new compost!

Blackcurrants: 963

The absolute star of the crops this year!  Mum gave me a titchy plant which had come from hers 2 years ago.  It grew majestic this year and kept producing! Many are in the freezer!

So there were some pleasing successes and other disappointments!  I hope we will be able to grow some exciting things this year!

Garden update

Ah, the joy of home-grown produce really is huge!

The season is starting to kick off!

Today, I picked this beautiful little haul!

It's my 2nd cucumber of the year so far.  I bought one plant and my sister germinated the other one.

The first pickings of Rhubarb.  The strawberries have been coming fast and I'm well over a hundred already.  Today included the first raspberries.  Annoyingly, the blueberries aren't so good this year or are taking a while but theese are the first few!   The rocket has been munched to shreds by wee beasties but I'm still going to eat it!  It feels very early for tomatoes but I am not complaining! I think I picked the courgette too early- it is only tiny but I thought it was restricting the others around it!

Here was last week's haul.  The cherries are delicious!  Sweeter than the ones I have been scrumping from the carpark down the road.

One of my cucumbers is absolutely determined to resist growing up its canes!

Here was another haul.  I have to say that fresh chopped mint is the best accompaniment for strawberries!

My loganberries suddenly flopped all over the lawn and knocked a whole load of blackcurrants from the plant (it's bountiful this year...but not ripe yet!)

It amazes me how a tiny stem holds a large cucumber growing!

The birds some some of the cherries but not all!

The Lavender seems very early.  The bees are cherishing it!

My Myrtle bush was looking really sick about a month or so ago. I pruned off all the dead wood and now it is thriving!

The Rhubarb amazes me. It looks so dead in the Winter and then it comes back!

The honeysuckle on the shed is beautifully fragrant.

And provides a nice platform for the birds.

The Toadflax returns with vengeance.

We thought the Campanula had gone forever but it has come back!

My neighbour gave me a different type of strawberry plant to add to my soft fruit bed. I love the red flowers.

Our Clematis as usual, defies all attempts to train it up a trellis or obelisk and climbs up the cherry tree.

 I'm delighted with the garden produce so far!

Feed the birds- Tuppence a bag

 My Mum has always had a special affinity with animals.  The family always had pets when she was young and she used to be able to get them to do all sorts of things.  She became a vet nurse when we were children and indeed, a lot of my Saturday afternoons and school holidays as a child were spent at the Vet's surgery.  I always enjoyed watching operations.  However, this is not where I am going with this post.

Mum has taken to feeding the numerous wildlife which frequent her garden.  CBC is green with envy at the amount of Goldfinches which visit her feeders.

She's recently started to  grow very fond of a particular dove/pigeon hybrid who she calls Speckles who visits her garden and is incredibly pretty.  Speckles enjoys tightrope walking and swinging on Mum's washing line.  She sent me various videos and pictures of how she has got the birds to come and feed in shapes- hearts, circles and various other shapes- the birds seem to segregate themselves into different colours and breeds. I thought you'd enjoy the photos!

Autumn Garden colour

Last Saturday was such an unexpected treasure! After a week or so of unrelenting rain and miserable skies, Saturday was sunny and bright!

I was out in the garden for a while whilst hanging some washing out and had a look to see what was still growing and giving us colour in the garden.

Mum gave me a tiny cutting of her Myrtle plant a few years ago.  It has flowered once in that time but has mostly sulked, looking sickly!

I am very pleased to see it has been looking happier this year and it flowered this week!

We had two fuscia plants in pots. One of them seemed to give up last year and the other one has been a late developer.  We ended up buying another one in our local garden centre's end of summer perennial sale and has been looking lovely! Apparently the flowers and berries are edible. I tried eating a petal but it tasted of very little!  They are beautiful ballet dangers though! One stem got severed. I put it in water and it seems to be budding so I am hopeful for another plant!

We bought this Osteospermum during the Summer and it is looking very pretty! I hope it lasts the Winter!

We have two Seedum plants.  These are a sure bet for Autumn growth!

Here is the other one with some Verbena Bonariensis in front too! You can see the Nandina Domestica leaves behind.

Mum dug me up a Marigold from her bed a couple of years ago and they seem to have spread in my raised bed. Originally planted as companion plants, I may have to dig some up and relocate!

Mum gave me some Borlotti beans this year to grow and here they are, drying out. They are really tasty! You can dry these as well to save and use through the winter.

I regrew the ends of two sweet potatoes which have grown very nicely in pots. The heart-shaped leaves (which are edible too!) are very attractive,

This Star-begonia is another new addition and I LOVE it! It's so much prettier than my previous Begonia! I must bring this in for Winter as I really want it to last!

What is growing in YOUR garden?

xx
 

Homecoming Dinner

 CBC and I got home this afternoon, around 5.30pm after 6 days in Girona, Italy.

We had a lovely time. Couldn't believe we came home to glorious sun and some warmth!

We didn't have a huge amount of fresh food in the house but I went out into the garden and 

discovered the chard has boomed! I cut a veritable bouquet of it. It's quite expensive to buy in the supermarket (when you can get it) so I'm gleeful this is self-seeded from last year's also self-seeded.

The kale plants are really trying hard to flower and go to seed but I've discovered the small flower buds look and taste rather like tender stem broccoli. I also still managed to pick lots of kale.

In the right flower bed,the three-cornered leek (self-seeded) is surrounded by Forget-me-nots but is still growing so I picked lots of that.

The Lemon Balm has started growing again so I picked some of that too.

Wasn't sure what to make for dinner.  We struggle to get back into the swing of cooking after being on holiday.

I had a brainwave.

I got two blocks of noodles (from the Refill shop) and put them into a saucepan along with the kale-occoli plus lots of Chard stalks. I added hot water and set it to medium heat.

I then made up some Miso paste into a thick liquid with about 100ml of hot water which I added into the saucepan.  Once it had been going for a bit, I added in a bit of vegetable stock (from a sadly,now closed Refill store) and the chopped up Chard leaves. I also discovered a third of an old courgette lurking in the fridge from a week ago and chopped that into small pieces and added it in.

I then beat an egg in the old miso jug and threw it into a small saucepan along with lots of chopped up 3-cornered leek and pepper and left it to cook. 

I served up the noodles, broth and veg into a bowl and added some more chopped 3 cornered leek plus I poured some Sesame oil on top.

Finally, I cut up the leek omelette into pieces and added on top.

Very pleased that it ended up being delicious and was very little effort to make plus quite healthy with 4 types of green veg plus the veg.  Plus it was pretty cheap to make!

I served it with Lemon Balm tea!

Garden joy

 It seems a bit late sharing this now but I was enjoying some of the late flowers and colours in early October and I thought it would be nice to share them, particularly as it is now all yucky and rainy/dark!

I love the way Verbena Bonariensis defies gravity!  It leans at all sorts of awkward angles but is a delight to all the polinators.

I think this one is Nandina Domestica.  It looks so jolly and red in the Autumn and dons berries for jewellery

The cosmos hasn't been particularly successful this year but this self-seeded set has appeared out of the lawn!

The fuscias are still blooming- delicate ballerinas caught mid-jete.

The lemon tree has thrived this Summer after CBC kept treating it with anti-scale insect treatment, the advice he was given on GQT after a roasting!

Amusingly, a line of Nigella has grown at the edge of the lawn, in the drain grating!

The Blueberry plants always don their red robes at the end of the season.

I've still been picking these 5 edibles up to this week! I wonder what I will find outside tomorrow morning?

I relocated a Nasturtium to the soft fruit bed and it's finally growing!

Let's see the Cosmos again!

Here's another Autumn harvest.

A healthy-looking Lemon Balm plant has begun to grow in the lawn to which I have no objections- free tea!

Ah, there's another of the Nigella!

The warmer months always show their love by the bounty they share! I've enjoyed the feast.

xx

TARDIS Thursday- Clara from JTTCOTT- 90's adaptation

Hi there,

Oof, I am very tired!!! I think this holiday needs to get a shift on! I missed both TARDIS Tuesdays so I when I realised that for school today, I was wearing a Clara outfit, I figured I should share it!

I last wore this look in 2020 on the blog so I think it is due a revisit after a 3 year hiatus.

It comes from an episode called 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS'.  Clara's main outfit from that episode is hugely iconic and one of my favourites.  This outfit is only in the episode for a tiny moment but it's a real nostalgia trip for me as it's a real 90's look- I used to wear pretty much this outfit when I was a teenager.

Here's my version:

I have worn this outfit 3 times now for TT and it really hasn't changed. It's all built from charity shop items.  The dress has a ditsy flower print. I think my towel is the most screen accurate part of the outfit- ha!  I'm just wearing my Birkenstock sandals with the outfit- I had to get these resoled last Summer after annoyingly accidentally leaving them out in the sun on a very hot day the previous Summer so the glue all melted and the soles all curled up! Luckily, we have a good shoe mender in town.

Yesterday, I was daft enough to leave for school without a coat or a cardigan wearing thin white trousers and canvas shoes. When it came to 6pm and I was off to a rehearsal in Pimlico for Orchestra of the City, I despaired of it tipping down with rain.  I boldly knocked on the door to SLT who were having a meeting and asked if anyone (they all drive) would be able to lend me a raincoat.  Luckily, my Deputy Head offered me her one. I still got completely saturated on the way to and from orchestra.

I'm rather pleased with my reuse this week.

CBC was ruthlessly pruning our Jasmine at the weekend and he also pulled up all the Nigella 'Love in a Mist' flowers which had become seed pods.  

I had a little go at turning the Jasmine into a leaf-circlet for my head and I offered the lady who runs out Lunchtime staff provision the foliage suggesting she use it for an activity with the children.  She said yes, so I was I the ridiculous situation of  transporting a large amount of long lengths of Jasmine foliage in my cycling pannier.  I got vaguely heckled by some teenagers at my local station and I am afraid I went nuts at them!  Felt bad in retrospect but I HATE it when teenagers act like twonks in front of their friends to get a laugh. I hope and pray they don't give me grief in the future. I caught up with Liz later at school and she said the children ADORED the activity and loads of children wanted to wear and make circlets. I wish I had managed to transport more of it and wish I hadn't shoved the rest in the compost as there were some disappointed children who didn't get to make one! It was really touching and satisfying for me to see several children sitting wearing circlets in my afternoon lessons!

I also cut 90 Nigella flower heads - 1 for each of the year 1 children.  I had promised them some flower seeds for their Spring and growth topic in music if they completed all their tasks. They were SO delighted when I showed them the seed heads on Tuesday and ridiculously excited when I opened up one of the seed cases to show them all the tiny seeds hidden inside.

I cut another 60 Nigella heads for one of our learning mentors who makes dried flower arrangements.

It felt really satisfying to find uses for my children for my garden waste. I might not be able to bring my children to the countryside but I can bring the countryside to them!

Hope you are well!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara from Kill the Moon

Hope you are well.

Gah, can't believe that Sweden won Eurovision. I mean, it was good but not my favourite!

It's time for a TARDIS Tuesday!

I last featured this outfit in May 2021 so it's due a return visit!

Image borrowed from:
https://claraoswaldcosplay.dreamconnect.de/?p=639

Clara wore this in a Series 8 episode called Kill the Moon. I had the opportunity to buy this dress new from ASOS when the episode first aired. I decided not to but then regretted it but then I had a second chance at it years later!

She wears this ASOS smock with black tights, black Bertie block-heeled shoes and a belt

I wore this for church on Sunday but didn't wear the shoes as they are painful and I can't cycle in heels! I think I might need to sell these shoes, much as I like them, because they are NOT comfortable and I struggle to get my feet into them- I feel like I strained my back trying to get them on today! I could just keep them in my 'collection' but I am trying to cut back on things.  Hmmm...

I like this dress very much but WISH it were cotton! It would be fab in cotton, it looks cotton but it's not!

This weekend was great. 

On Saturday, CBC got up ridiculously early to get ready for Duke Of Edinburgh bronze expedition.  He proceeded to ratch SO much in the drawers in the room trying stuff. He kept asking me questions and then kept coming back in. I was rather annoyed to be woken so early. Finally, he drove off to pick up a colleague in the school mini bus.

Great! I could sleep.

About 40mins later as I was finally getting back to sleep, my phone blared out with its irritatingly chipper ringtone.

What was this madness?

Ahrgh, it was CBC.

"Kezzie, I've forgotten the tent!! It's in the garage.  Please can you get it and put it outside the front door so I can pick it up quickly."

Was he kidding me?

Apparently not!

I did the requested job and just as I was doing it, I heard a loud engine. I opened the front door and it was him. I shut the door and heard an alarming bleeping from what seemed like the garage! It was the school minibus reversing!

It was so loud I saw the neighbours peep out their window. Eeek!

I was awake by this point so I decided to get up and go and do the washing up downstairs and make tea.

Later, after about 5 cups of tea and Weetabix, I left the house, realising that I had forgotten my key!! Disaster! I ran to my neighbour's to borrow the spare key to let me back in to get mine (the spare key is stiff and I am useless with stiff keys!) and then had to run the mile to the station with 3 large bags!

I jumped on the train and then changed trains to meet my friend Lara to go for lunch in Maldon.

It was SO nice to see her.

We went to Mrs Salisbury's tea room for lunch. This is where I went for the afternoon tea in December.

I ordered the prawn sour dough baguette.  It was delicious- a mixture of Rose Marie sauce with sweet chilli and corinder plus a generous portion of salad, coleslaw and crisps. Lara had the jacket version. After sodas, we both had milkshakes for dessert.

Ah, this is the BEST milkshake I have had. They were HUGE and we both struggled to finish them- so nice!

Once we'd eaten, we headed for a look round the shops. We both bought 2 books in the Maldon Bookshop. In the first charity shop, we both bought craft punches- she got a beautiful Martha Stewart one and I got a 3 flower one where you can layer them into a 3d flower. In the next charity shop, Lara bought a floral top and I bought a vintage blockprint St Michael dress in a gorgeous light cotton.

Some ericaceous soil from the Emporium and a quick visit to Silo Refillery who sadly didn't have any regular Pasta but did have crisps, apple rings, Organic Hand and Body Lotion  and Bran Flakes and it was time to go as Lara had a gig to get ready for.

We both realised we had had a really wonderful day and we were so grateful for our giggles,serious chat, being bad influences on each other for buying things.

I'd passed on a whole load of boxes from a school instrument order for her crochet side business and her birthday present.

After a wait at the first station, where I read my book, Jummy at the River School, I changed trains and walked home.

When I got back, I quickly grabbed some carrier bags, scissors and a hat and headed out to the Londis to pick up 3 Vinted parcels (2 items for me and one for a Cosplay friend in Argentina) and then walked to the church yard where I cut a back full of nettles. After a walk to the COOP to get a few items (yummy reduced plums and Chicken Kievs), I headed home.

This is what I wore on Saturday (the hat when I got home as it was so sunny!)

The skirt was a 3Euro bargain from Think Twice Bruges, the Timberland shoes from the Kindness charity shop in Hebden Bridge, the vest and cardie from Charity shops, hat from Monsoon.

I ate left over Chinese takeaway and watched the first 10 acts of Eurovision.

On Sunday, I got up for church (really could have slept longer) and when I got home, I did some tidying and sorting and washing  as well as cooking vegan bacon and tomatoes plus fried bread for a late breakfast.

I cleaned the shower drain in the ensuite and then headed into the front garden to plant up the Growbar flower seedlings I'd been germinating in the front planter.

In the back garden, I planted out my kale plants and my Pea plants, added some compost (accidently touching a Leopard slug with my bare hands and planted some other seeds as well as getting bitten by insects.

Bizarre thing happened. There was cat food all over my raised bed.

Huh?

I was perplexed?  Where did it come from??

It was all around my plants and something had decapitated my leek

Was it a neighbour? Was it an animal?

Later, I discovered a sack of catfood hidden in the raised bed. CBC thinks it was a fox hiding it.

Stupid fox- what a mess!!! It was so weird though!! All around my seedling Chard and spinach plants.

CBC came home from DoE and we had tea in the garden with his colleague and his wife.

CBC went to have a nap (he'd had a broken night) and I made a huge batch of Nettle soup. This will be good for this busy week.

I put the Kyivs in the oven and then a pizza for CBC.

We ate some soup and then the Kyivs and pizza - it had the right amount of nettles!

Hope all is well with you!

x

Earth day

What is Earth Day?

I have borrowed 2 sections from the official Earth Day website.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, the junior senator from Wisconsin, had long been concerned about the deteriorating environment in the United States.  Then in January 1969, he and many others witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.  Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses to the national media, and persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair.  They recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize the campus teach-ins and they choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation. 

Recognizing its potential to inspire all Americans, Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others.  They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country.  Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment and there were massive coast-to-coast rallies in cities, towns, and communities.

Today,  Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.

Now, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day. 

As the awareness of our climate crisis grows, so does civil society mobilization, which is reaching a fever pitch across the globe today. Disillusioned by the low level of ambition following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and frustrated with international environmental lethargy, citizens of the world are rising up to demand far greater action for our planet and its people.

For me, it's so important to think about how I can make changes in my life to do better for our Earth.  There are a lot of things I do or have done in my life which I could improve on or work on. And I think that is important to acknowledge.  Some things are hard to change, particularly for people with a lower income but there are so many tiny actions which can make a difference.  I sometimes see cynical comments on Instagram or have conversations where people say things like, "Yeah, but the problem is big business," or "They don't actually recycle stuff anyway!" or "Big deal, it's just one straw" or "I don't have time to be washing up all those things." or "Composting is messy."  but there's ALWAYS something we can do.

I thought I'd share a few pictures and anecdotes from my day to do with consciously thinking about Earth Day and things to do with it.

This one picture was from my morning. Wearing my pajamas which Mum passed onto me as they didn't work for her and my £2 Tescos Crocs which I bought about 16 years ago for camping.

I woke up and made myself a pot of tea from loose leaf tea bought from an Eco-refill shop. Loose leaf may feel a bit messy but with my Ikea teapot (or an individual strainer), it's not that difficult. I reuse the same mug a few times before it finally gets washed up.

To the right is a reused chocolate box from the staff room- I have now collected the staff room teabags weekly for a year and a half. Every week, I rip and compost (or just throw straight onto the soil in my beds) between 50-120 teabags on behalf of the staff room users.  Everyone is used to the container now and most people pop them in the box.  My other colleague also pops in her banana skins. I always put these round my fruit trees for added Potassium.  Yes, it's a grim job but the thought that:

52 x50 =2600 MINIMUM teabags have been saved from landfill and have benefitted my garden is a happy thought that makes it worth it. Even better would using fully compostable teabags that don't have any plastic in them but I am not in charge of the buying and there is a budget.

Down the bottom left is compost caddy. Composting is one of the single best eco-actions you can take! My compost bin was acquired from a random person in the neighbourhood who left it outside the front.  I don't put new bags inside it to line it, I use any sort of scrap paper bag or compostable material- chipshop paper, bakery bags, compostable-junk mail.

You will see a lot of strawberries at the top.  As we were walking out, my work colleague lobbed a full massive box of mouldy strawberries at the bin he'd just collected from the fridge.

"SSSSTOPPPP!" I hollered! He said that he'd not got around to eating them for breakfast.

I told him I would take them home and compost them (as I couldn't bear to see them thrown like that, container and all. I examined them all and cut off the manky bits on those that could be eaten still (minimal and added the rest to the compost.  I put aside the container for later...

Bottom right is an old aluminum food tray full of baked egg shells. I just keep this tray in the oven permanently and add egg shells to it when I've had an egg (aforementioned work colleague often also puts egg shells in my teabag box for this purpose too) and they get baked when the oven is used. I don't need to wash the tray ever.  The egg shells then get crushed and put into an old M&S plastic treat tub in the shed and saved all year for when I have new seedlings that need slug repellent!

One area that I am still very much needing to work on is my habit of buying new clothes. I have way more clothes than I will ever need. But, there are choices one can make that count:

1. My top was bought second hand.

2. My Indian blockprint skirt was bought from a small ethical company. It's made from natural materials

3.  My schools were bought secondhand from a community charity shop in Hebdon

4. My cardigan (below) may come from Primark (a place I virtually never shop at any more) but I've owned it over 10 years, like about 5 other Primark cardigans I own and I have no reason to get rid of.

5.My earrings are from Lorelai LQ who made them out of bubble wrap envelopes saved from Landfill- her entire business model is based on saving Single-use plastics from Landfill.  I also chose to support a small business rather than big business and send materials to Lorelai including her packaging to reuse.

I spent a lot of time in the garden planting out some veg.  Spending time in nature is so important and really grounds you.

I was bought this Growbar as a present last year or so. It's all compostable and contains bird friendly seeds in Coir which you add water to to expand.  I used the strawberry tray to place the coir in and I will plant these into my planter

I changed the bed clothes (and plumped up the feather mattress topper)- the message was for CBC to avoid him sitting down on it and squashing it and his shower.  He ignored it! grrr!!!). I use an Eco-friendly washing powder bought from the Refill place (which I only visit when I have a reason to be there). No packaging.  The bed clothes and towels were washed and hung outside. I've never used a tumble dryer.

Appreciated the Spring foliage. 3-cornered leek has self-seeded in this bed. I ate some as I worked. Must remember to harvest this to eat and make pesto!  Find out if any of your weeds are edible.I also muched on Dandelion leaves.

I picked the newly grown mint leaves to make a lovely, soothing hot drink.  Threw the old tea leaves onto the garden.

I read a book borrowed from a friend when drinking my tea and appreciated the beautiful Spring weather.

I sit here and type on a third-hand laptop. I am watching Doctor Who on it as I do it (not eco-friendly in itself but it uses less power to watch on here than on the TV).

The majority of these actions are easy for people and I hope that sharing them gives ideas to anyone that reads them.  They aren't rocket science but I like a reminder so I hope that someone, somewhere thinks something is helpful.

I had a Whatsapp conversation with my old childhood friend earlier who said, "Btw, I've been taking a leaf out of your book and trying to buy mainly preloved clothes. For me and the kids. So thank you for that."  Like staff obediently putting their teabags in a box, you can inspire someone to do an action.

Hope all is well with you.

x