My partner and I really want to live a simple life and live in harmony with what’s around us and concentrate on living, so my partner had a great idea to stay in a Yurt over Christmas to see what it’s like living in one in the Winter, although the weather was really mild so the experiment didn’t fully work.

I have tried to put the experience into words below but it was far more difficult than I could imagine as words can’t describe it, anyway I shall try….

We rented a Yurt in the beautiful site called Larkhill Tipis in Cwmduad West Wales. It was the perfect site, it was off grid and it had spectacular woodlands with different sculptures and buddha statues throughout. It reminded me of Buddhafield but felt even more special!!

When we arrived there they had lit the fire in the yurt so it was very toasty and far warmer than our house. It was so magical with the sounds of the trees, birds and the roaring fire it couldn’t have been more special.

After being there for a couple of hours darkness was upon us and the main pathways were lit up by little blue fairy lights guiding the way so you didn’t need to carry a torch around with you as the little fairies guided the way. Normally the dark scares me, particularly on a windy evening but I felt extra safe there like it was blessed and I was being kept safe so I had no fears when walking to the compost toilet in the middle of the night.

Every evening we cooked on the wood burner as it had two round sections on the top you could remove to cook on, a bit like a range. Food tasted amazing it was so flavoursome and the jacket potatoes cooked in the fire were fantastic. The whole experience is hard to describe as it was so magical, beautiful and relaxing.

Everyday was perfect, we would get up and light the fire put the kettle on and crawl back into bed until the kettle had boiled. Quite often after lunch we would fall asleep by the heat of the fire and wake up feeling alive and fresh. We spent a lot of time reading and I took my knitting along and rekindled my joy of, knit one, purl one, while Chris was playing the guitar. The yurt was so warm the one evening we ended up having to sit in our underwear (you’ll be pleased to know there’s no photograph to accompany this).

We celebrated Solstice with a walk through the woods with the gorgeous turkeys who live on site and weren’t destined for someones plates, they also lead us to swings in the woodlands and I made a mandala from the woods. We exchanged solstice gifts and listened to nature. We didn’t celebrate Christmas day, I don’t think we even said Merry christmas to each other, we got up had beans on toast for lunch and went to look at some woods.

Living without electricity in the yurt was no problem we generally had candlelight in the evening or put on the solar lamps if we wanted to read. The site also had a communal wood cabin for everyone to use and I was able to charge my phone there. I also used the cabin to do the dishes, there was no hot water but that was part of the joy of everything waiting for the water to boil and watch the world go by…

While we were there we visited friends and spoke to a couple of people living the life we talk about and it made us realise that we want to live off grid in a natural house 100% It was lovely to meet up with like minded people and realise your not the only one and you don’t feel like the odd one out and you don’t feel isolated in your mind and thought process.

West Wales has a beautiful energy and I could easily live there. The beaches are beautiful and the towns are very nostalgic they still have the butcher and baker although I didn’t see a candlestick maker. While we were there we went to look at two different woodlands for sale. Neither were suitable as one had only just been replanted and it felt like the fairies had been and gone and the second woodlands felt beautiful and was full of fairies but it felt like it needed to be left for nature and not be disturbed.

While talking to the people that run the yurt site they told me that they bought the site 20 years ago and planted the woodlands in three weeks with their friends and that really inspired me… so the hunt for the right land is now on. The also showed me around their off grid system and explained how they made their own yurts it was so inspirational!

When we came home we was on a yurt comedown everything felt wrong. Our house felt really dead and isolated with no noises of nature it felt like we were closing the door on everything alive. I also hated that everything was now available at the flick of a button with no thought needed and that is the problem, no thought is needed! Since coming home it has made us change a few things and try and add a bit of yurtmas into our home. We are now trying to use candlelight more in the evening and cook more simple and wholesome meals but it just doesn’t taste the same in a normal oven or using gas.

I would recommend that everyone tries a yurt holiday at some point and your natural instincts come out and you will feel your connection with the land and nature grow. I highly recommend the site we stayed on you couldn’t ask for a more special place run by a lovely couple in a beautiful part of the country. I will definitely remember this Christmas as I believe it will be life changing and I look forward to the days when I can spend more time in my own yurt in my own woodlands but in the meantime I will be watching Lord of the rings and dreaming of The Shire…Merry Yurtmas everyone xx

Last weekend I had an amazing time at an Off Grid Living conference organised by Rachel Shiamh in West Wales. Rachel was the perfect host and hosted the event in her beautiful straw bale house. I went there wanting to find out more about what the reality is living off the grid and came back feeling very inspired.

Everybody that give a presentation or talk at the event left me with a thought, inspiration or feeling that made me want to pack my bags and do it right there and then!!

Rachel told us the beautiful story of how she ended up living off grid in the location she is and it made me realise that when it is perfect you’ll know, people will come to help and even if the planners aren’t instantly with you someone will help you get them on side.

After Rachel a wonderful inspiring lady called ‘Judy of the Woods’ told us about her life and her adventure (not sure if adventure is the right term but it fits for me!) Her talk was amazing, what she had accomplished on her own was jaw dropping and it left me thinking ‘Learn as you go and get through the disasters as they appear’ Judy also started by saying ‘It all takes time but time is going to pass anyway’ so why not do something productive with it! I also loved one saying Judy mentioned that her mum used to say ‘ There’s no bad weather only bad clothes’.

Celtic Sustainables give a talk about rainwater harvesting and they talked about scary stuff such as Legionnaires’ disease….Never spray rainwater!!

In the afternoon there was a very manly discussion about batteries and even though most of it was over my head I understood that batteries are your lifeline. I can’t quite remember all the figures and do’s and don’t apart from hug it, love it and I think a good sprinkle of fairy dust and magic helps.

After the testosterone died down a bit there was a beautiful discussion about water and the life inside of it, Note to self: Look into schauberger water wizard.

On the Sunday Tony Wrench give a talk about his roundhouse and everything clicked into place. I love the design of the roundhouse, I love that it is the opposite of everything you think of. His house is magical and blends in with nature which is exactly how it should be. Tony also told us how he is working with authorities on planning advise and how he has managed to get the rule changed from 75% of your income needs to come from the land to 75% of your basic needs, three cheers for Tony!! It’s great to know that the government are now coming to people like Tony for advice and they are starting to change…well at least here in Wales http://wales.gov.uk/docs/desh/policy/100722tan6en.pdf

We then had an interesting talk about compost toilets from Gwenda which made me think about poo and pee far more that I ever perviously had, but everyone should! It doesn’t just go away when we flush it, it goes somewhere and not always where we would like to think. We should all take responsibility for our own waste.

Mike Godsell then give a talk about his watermill that was very moving, you could clearly see how his life and thought process had changed and how he now had a deep connection with his land and water and all of the wildfire within it. He also told us that the government had completed a survey to find out how much energy all of the disused mills in the UK could produce and it turns out that they could produce the same as a new nuclear power station!! Why aren’t they going ahead with in? Yes it would cost money but there would be no new builds and they would be using renewable energy. I wonder how many disused mills there are in Wales and if we could target WAG with this initiative?

Brian also give a talk about all kinds of gadgets and energy and apparently I need to dig out my physics books again and look up: watts=volts x amp

It was a magical weekend everybody that attended shared knowledge and passion for the land. I wanted to rush home downsize all of my belongings into a couple of boxes hand my notice in and do it there and then. But sadly I couldn’t I went back to work on the Monday morning like a good girl but knowing in the back of my mind I now know what I want to do and I definitely want to stay in Wales to do it. So I’m now busy researching and planning the next chapter of my life…

I will leave you with a beautiful quote that Judy mentioned:

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”
Johann Wolfgang

A big thank you to everybody who was involved in the magical weekend, love to you all x

Over the last couple of years I have slowly had to give up alcohol mainly down to it effecting my pernicious anaemia but as time has gone on I now realise that I don’t think I would choose to drink it again even if my body decided it could cope with the substance.

Alcohol is associated with socialising and being the only one without an alcoholic beverage in your hand can single you out and people feel the need to ask, why aren’t you drinking? I politely reply that it is because of a health condition and alcohol interferes with the treatment. I am now quite tempted to add to that sentence that since not drinking I have seen the true darkness of alcohol and it’s effect on humans and now choose not to be a user.

Over the last year I have stopped drinking alcohol all together and when I am in the company of people drinking I am genuinely with the same people, this has resulted in an accidental experiment occurring. As I know these people very well I have noticed in close detail how alcohol effects them. There is a certain time in the evening where alcohol kicks in and the energy of the night starts to go very dark and the levels of darkness depends on the level of alcohol being consumed or should I say the level the alcohol starts to consume my friends. I have noticed that peoples weaknesses become heightened; sarcasm turns into verbal abuse, depression turns to madness, confidence turns to loud and obnoxiousness, adventurous attitudes turn into irrational behaviour, daring turns into dangerous and the list goes on… Seeing this on a regular occasion has made me realise that I am glad I have made the choice not to be a user of alcohol and I see alcohol as a dangerous drug.

Alcohol is a socially accepted drug why is this? people behave far worse than smoking cannabis, it has a far worse effect on the body than smoking cannabis but still alcohol is the one that is accepted and more than that it is seen socially unacceptable not to consume it. Has society become so far away from what humans should naturally be doing that we all need to take alcohol to detach ourselves form our lives and fully relax. Is that the reason the government keeps the evil substance legal? Without it to escape people might burn out, go mad and fully question the way things are run and how their life is? The government earn a lot of money through taxing alcohol and allowing us to consume this evil substance helps us get through this unnatural life that the government has created for us all. (phew, glad to get that out in the open)

Most festivals I have been to have a very different energy in the night due to substance use but I recently went to a festival where there was a no alcohol policy and it was a beautiful experience to see people fully loose themselves and be totally natural and relaxed without the use of alcohol. It proved to me that you don’t need any substance you just need to be happy in the moment, happy with your life and happy with the people around you. You need to be mindful of your situation and you can be on a natural high. This unintended experiment has made me realise that if I feel like reaching for alcohol I need to access the situation I have put myself in and if I can’t truly relax without it I need to access everything that surrounds me.

Since my last post my life has been whizzing by with mainly work and stress of trying to buy the house of my dreams. In a nutshell the house sale fell through due to the bank initially offering a 90% mortgage and then going down to a 80% mortgage.

WARNING MINI RANT AHEAD, PLEASE SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID: No wonder the banks are in a mess, we failed loads of credit checks because we had no major history of debt apart from credit cards and the odd couple of grand loan (which to me is a lot of debt!!). They wanted to see evidence of dealing with debt around £20,000+and if we had been in debt we would have had more mortgage offers available to us; the fact that we have had to save up a 10% deposit means nothing and even the fact that we wanted a mortgage no where near the max we could have (many grrrr’s were said along the way)
The whole mortgage system is a complete joke. Some random surveyor that knows nothing about the area went to survey the house. The report came back with the wrong name and with loads of errors and this resulted the bank dropping their mortgage offer and even though we appealed the surveyors report and we won and the surveyor changed his report the bank didn’t change their minds so bye, bye dream home. END OF RANT

So as I was coming to the end of the working year I decided I really needed to let go and chill out and a friend recommended Buddhafield (It’s all thanks to you Brigit) I bought my ticket and waited in anticipation for the summer holidays to start and get on my way. I contemplated on whether to take the car but ended up on the train for two reasons, obviously first being that it’s a lot better environmentally and second being that it would force me to down size my packing as I would have to carry it all on my shoulders.

I was finally on my way and as I entered Buddhafield I felt my shoulders drop with relaxation and I knew I was in the right place. I quickly got my tent all sorted and we all went down to the opening ceremony that was all gold and based on abundance. It was so beautiful and magical, everyone was dancing and paying thanks for everything and everyone around them. After the ceremony everyone was invited to write on a piece of card what they felt they were grateful for in their life and place it on the tree of abundance.

Every morning you were faced with a noticeboard full of inspiring workshops and talks to choose from, the hardest thing was working out all of the clashes and also trying not to rush round doing absolutely everything as that defeats the point of going!!
I went to an amazing talk about wild bees, on a beautiful walk around the site while being shown how to read the landscape, a talk about natural bee keeping, yoga, a workshop showing you how to make raw chocolate along with lots of yummy ingredients and end results to taste, a talk by the Psychology department from Oxford on Mindfulness, a very interesting talk from the vegan tent on soya vs dairy, I made a talisman from my chosen piece of wood; heather and as well as all this I had Iridology, deep tissue massage, cupping and acupuncture.

I could write a dissertation on the whole event and all of the wonderful things I experienced but the main thing was a change in being. When my partner picked me up from the station after the festival he said he hasn’t seen me look so chilled out in ages!! It’s been very hard adapting to normal life since being back and this might sound cliche or just plain stupid but it’s true. While at the festival I met so many inspiring people that were doing so much good work and living life in such a natural way it made me crave for something more. It also highlighted everything that is wrong with daily life down to flushing the toilet. The whole time at the festival we all used compost toilets and it was the best festival toilet experience I have ever had not once did I need my tiger balm for under my nose. Then while waiting at the train station for my train home I popped to the toilet and it felt so wrong flushing all of that water.

The good thing is I now have 5 weeks off work so I can fully indulge in what I want to do and research further into areas that inspired me at the festival. The festival has left me feeling like I want to live a more natural life and be closer to the land and link with more people with a similar thought process. I want to have a bit of Buddhafield everyday.

Buddhafield fired my inner flames for subjects I am already passionate for but have lost time and energy due to the hassle of everyday life. I started working full time last August in a job I love and the job has been my goal in my current career but due to me having pernicious anaemia my job takes all of my energy so I have little time and mainly no energy to do anything I want or need to do and I spend most of the weekend recuperating ready for Monday. I don’t want to big house, big car and 2.4 children but I would like my own land to grow on with a roof over my head and hopefully work will help me get there.

Buddhafield has left me feeling excited and lost the same time. Is working crazy to save for a house the right thing, should I save, save, save and hope in about 6 years time I’ll be there and then my life can slowly become what I truly want. There was an interesting talk in Buddhafield from the Nomadic Freeman Tribe http://freeman-nomadic-tribe.co.uk/ they have chosen to leave the system and are now travelling around the country free and there was many people at the festival living life away from the system in their own way but I’m not ready for that and I don’t think I truly ever will be plus with my illness I will always have to be part of the system to get my medication.

I think the main thing I have taken from Buddhafield is thoughts:

• Why aren’t more people realising what they are doing to the earth and linking their actions with the problems around them.
• Why is society not changing and why is society not more like the festival; sharing skills and knowledge, could we live in a moneyless society.
• So many truly beautiful people in one place I need contact with more people like this to keep me sane, stop me from feeling abnormal in this crazy world and to just share a chai and slice of cake.

I can’t sum up the feeling of Buddhafield in words but I would truly recommend you try it, hopefully see you all there next year and hopefully meet some of you before then over a cup of chai and a nice slice of vegan cake.

More photographs of my experience at Buddhafield http://www.flickr.com/photos/salenawalker/sets/72157627238542076/with/5957036187/

I’ve been thinking about water a lot lately particularly as the house we want to buy has no mains connected, no sewer pipe, no mains water and no drains. when I first thought about this I was very naive, I didn’t even consider the fact about where the water goes.

I visioned a big pipe going from the toilet into this cess pit/septic tank (still haven’t figured out what is it!!) and didn’t even consider where all of the water goes….After switching on my brain and realising all pipes go into the big tank of grime I started to realise the less we can contribute to that tank the better.
It’s amazing really, up until now I’ve always been aware about water issues but until you are forced to think about it I think it is the one thing that people take for granted and do very little to conserve. We turn taps on, there’s water safe to drink and it goes away, as simple as.

I have been looking into all sorts of solutions and websites all of which I will list at the end of this post. The problem with many of the solutions is when you absorb and digest (no pun intended) all of the information you realise that the energy it uses to run a certain system makes it useless and no more beneficial for the environment. You can get fancy greywater processing plants that are very energy intensive along with dry toilets for indoor use that need to be hooked up to electricity for a fan to work, the list goes on. Be very aware of these so called environmental solutions.
The conclusion I have come to is to reuse as much as possible, keep filtered water for best (drinking) and go dry where ever possible.The plan for the future of the house is to have all downpipes linked to rainwater harvesting. Have a standard toilet in the house that will be flushed from rainwater or greywater. Collect greywater for garden use; possibly connected to a filter to stop plants getting too soapy. Have a compost toilet in the garden for regular use and for open minded visitors. Any visitors will be educated!!

It’s a minefield but once you start to walk through the field you realise most of the mines have been deactivated and it’s quite liberating to know where your water will be coming from, how it’s filtered and where it goes!

I read a very interesting book called ‘The Water Book’ written by Dr Judith Thornton, who has been a water, sewage and waste consultant since 2000, including at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth. This talks about all aspects of water on mains and off mains and gives you solutions to problems.

Research and Findings:Some good some not so good

http://kazuba.eu/index.php?lang=en&gclid=CI74__vx_acCFYoifAodkH_bpQ – A website that sells a free standing, public toilet system which functions without water, electricity or chemical products and which can be installed virtually anywhere.

http://www.bahsltd.com/index.htm – Baker Associates Hydro Solutions (BAHS) provide specialist design and consultancy services in the fields of boreholes and wells, water supplies, ground source heating and related areas.

http://www.water-works.org.uk/index.htm – A small consultancy service specialising in small scale environmentally friendly solutions for water, sewage and waste problems. Run by Dr Judith Thornton who wrote ‘The Water Book’.

http://www.epsaber.co.uk/ – EPS Aberystwyth is a small private Mid Wales company with 24 years experience of water treatment systems for mains water and private water supplies. We supply, install and service a wide range of water pump and water filtration equipment for commercial and domestic water systems.

http://www.a1waterservices.co.uk/services/ – They provide a wide range of services that are water related. They vary from actually dealing with water equipment for domestic water supplies, to digging trenches with our mini-digger.

http://www.chemsol.co.uk/index.php?mode=water_treatment – Springs, wells, mountain streams and more, all tested for dangerous elements and organisms prior to supply and installation of a practical, cost effective pure water solution.

http://www.aquaco.co.uk/ – Rain Water Harvesting, Grey Water Recycling Systems & Waste Water Treatment Systems.

http://www.biorock-uk.com/ – Sewerage treatment plant, septic tank conversion, the non electric filter system

http://www.ecodigester.com/index.numo- Specialise in the supply of Sewage Treatment for single houses in the country where no mains drainage is available.

http://www.kernowrat.co.uk/page45.html – waterless indoor toilets.

No water has been wasted while taking the photographs for this blog.

This full time working lark gets in the way of all the exciting stuff like blogging….It’s also really difficult to keep up to date with what’s going on in the world. The main thing is that I haven’t sacrificed my lifestyle because of my job. I still make all my own bread, most of my soya milk, tofu and meals. I’m also still only buying stuff that I feel happy about ethically.
Recently I have been thinking heavily about energy and water consumption as we are buying a house with it’s own water supply no mains sewerage and currently no heating, cooking or hot water facilities.

It’s amazing when you are suddenly faced with your water supply how you start thinking about every drop of water you will use and how it can be reused as you also have to think about where it goes if you are not connected to mains drains/sewerage.

There’s also no mains gas there which I am considering a good thing and we are not considering oil for heating and water so it looks like we will be going down the wood route with solar panels in the future. I want to document all of my research on here to hopefully help others in the future and maybe get some advice along the way.

This means hopefully I will be on here more often…

I have been away from the blog for a while for a number of reasons. First one being I have been busy doing rather than blogging. Second main reason is that I now have a full time job and I’m having to get used to a new routine but hopefully I will be back on subject soon. Over the last couple of months I have been watching a number of documentaries about the sea and I am amazed how little people know about the problems of over fishing and that the outcome won’t just be no fish for us but it will have a much bigger impact. Over the last couple of months I have grown angry and upset by what I have learnt and I keep coming back to the line

‘Nature will provide our need but not our greed’

I leave you with a couple of trailers for two documentaries that everybody should watch.

When the allotment committee decided to build a pond just as I came on board they also decided to keep the patch of land next to it wild to hopefully attract more wildlife. The only problem is over the last two and a half years it’s got a bit too wild and has been taken over by weeds. As far as I am concerned weeds are just plants in the wrong place as I have grown to love things such as dandelions and nettles as I have found out their many uses and tasted them in different recipes. But again in the wrong place they are still weeds.

Anyway back to the wild patch…I decided as this patch of land is right next to my plot I would take it over and try and tame the area. The plan is to cover it until the Autumn and then plant a number of different dwarf fruit trees and a variety of other plants that have to fit into my categories that I have used for the rest of the plot. All plants have to fit into one of the following areas:

• Be edible
• Good for wildlife
• Have a medicinal value

I will probably plant a few things this year especially around the pond as I will not be covering this area this will have to be tamed.

So today me and my partner went to tackle it and came to the conclusion it was pointless digging it so we have cut back the grass and plants, left it all on top of the land and I will then cover this over with weed suppressant material.

Before

After

I was feeling guilty about the possible wildlife homes I was cutting back but surprisingly there was not many creatures there and I will now be making a much better home for the wildlife visitors of the future.

This week I also harvested my first rhubarb of the season and have started off my first rhubarb wine of the year. Here’s the recipe that I used last year and it tasted very good, although be warned it is very strong!!

The Recipe:

1 kg rhubarb
1kg sugar
1 sachet of wine yeast

1. Chop the rhubarb into small pieces and place in a container (I used a plastic brewing container, don’t know their proper name!!)
2. Place the sugar in with the rhubarb and leave until you have a syrup, this took around 3 days
3. Strain of the syrup and rinse the rhubarb with water to get any remaining syrup off, don’t waste any!!
4. Then make up the water to 1 gallon, add a cup of tea and then add the wine yeast and transfer to a demi-john fitted with an airlock and leave to ferment

I didn’t follow the recipe as I then forgot about it and after about 5 months it looked pretty clear so I syphoned it off into another demi-john drinking quite a bit of it in the process as I’ve never done this before.
Quick tip do this outside!! I then left it until it went clear again and then syphoned it into bottles. I didn’t mess around with anything to try and tell the alcohol content I find drinking it usually tells you this.

This is all very exciting and hopefully this year thanks to the weed suppressant material I will not be beaten with weeds and my pernicious anaemia.

So I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t spend the whole day staring at my face in the mirror waiting for the wrinkles to arrive or spending all my savings on  face creams that won’t work. I spent the day doing what I wanted to do. To me it’s just another number, a day older than 29 and 364 days younger than 31. I certainly haven’t changed but people will insist on reminding you it should be a big deal, so I just let them get on with it.

The week before I had been ill and was still feeling a bit under the weather but the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I wanted to join in. So I brewed up a flask of green tea made myself some nice sarnies and went up the allotment. I spent most of the day up there listening and watching the wildlife, pottering round, putting some more of the weed suppressant material down and basically enjoying the land.  In the evening I went for a very civilized Chinese meal with friends to my favourite restaurant where they make their own organic fresh water tofu, it was the best tofu I have ever tasted!! Then everyone came back to my place and we all dug into the beautiful birthday cake my sister had sent to me, all vegan of course. I also made everyone sing happy birthday to me, twice, once in Welsh and once in English. It was the perfect day.

The only thing I pondered about was the earth and how times have changed in the short 3 decades I have been on it. I have always had a passion for the land , nature and animals but I have watched society around me loose this passion and now think that vegetables are grown in Tesco’s and come out of the ground with plastic bags already around them, convenient hey. I spend hours wondering how others can’t see what I am seeing and worst of all don’t care about it. I was hoping that the volcanic ash would have lasted for longer so the aeroplanes would have been grounded for even longer and hopefully as the supermarket shelves started emptying people would start to realise that as an island we need to produce more of our own produce and respect the people that do and be willing to pay for it.

I have recently been on a visit to London and I went to the Ministry of Food exhibition in the War museum it was mind blowing to see how conscious they were of everything and how we could use a lot of the knowledge today to help with waste problems and food miles.

So the only thing I want to do now I’m 30 is have a simple life, live the good life and appreciate the world around me. And hey watch this space, I’m told life begins at 30…or is that 40 so I might have to wait another 10 years!!

So Spring has finally sprung in North Wales and the land is starting to become alive again which means its time to go sowing crazy. My windowsills are covered in seeds and every surface is going chitting crazy with my potatoes.

I have a cheap small plastic greenhouse outside, I don’t grow in it as my patio gets next to no sunshine but it’s the halfway house for my seedlings between my windowsills and the allotment. I mainly use it to harden off the seedlings but this year I think I took the hardening off too literally!! The first time I put up the greenhouse and put seedlings in that evening the greenhouse blew over and the little seedling corpses were everywhere I was devastated so I moved it to a more secure corner re-potted some of the seedlings I managed to save and a week later the same thing happened. I have now placed a pot full of compost in the bottom and tied the greenhouse to an outside tap if it happens again it means I have a plant sabotaging ghost as there is no other explanation, I think I’ll have to call in Mulder and Scully!

I’ve been really busy since the last post in fact too busy but I’ve also done some lovely things during this busy period. I give a talk for The Big Green Idea on ethical textiles trying to get the message across that if you buy cheap clothing something or someone is paying the price for you. The day was amazing as I got to hear from all the other speakers on the Everyday Green Course While researching for the talk I came across these videos on youtube that basically sum up what I was trying to say.

I’ve also started to cover the paths up my allotment with weed suppressant material. I haven’t done much yet as my energy levels haven’t been great as I have been having on and off days with my pernicious anaemia but I love how the material tidies evrything up. I think I might use it in the house just to cover up my mess!

The good thing was while I was on my travels I managed to visit my mum for mothers day and it was great to make something for her and give it to her in person. As I am still new to knitting I thought I would experiment so I knitted some hearts and stuffed them with dried rose petals and chamomile for her cupboard and drawers to remind her of me each morning and I knitted a card to go with it. I love how the cocktail sticks turned out so friends and family expect lots of mini knitting on your cards in the future.