Yearly Archives: 2014


Utterly Flup

What. A. Weekend. For those wondering what on earth “flup” is, it’s my affectionate abbreviation of full up. Especially as, when one is flup, any abbreviation is good. I think I hit my awesome threshold at about 2.30pm, possibly 2.45pm today and it’s taken some sitting, some bathing and some cooking to bring me back […]


The Puppet Boy of Warsaw by Eva Weaver

Just finished reading The Puppet Boy of Warsaw by Eva Weaver. Compelling reading. Both heart-breaking and heart-warming, it’s a history-based fiction which follows the stories (including through later family generations) of a teenage Jewish boy, Mika, in the Warsaw ghetto in the second world war and a young German soldier who made a connection with […]


Latest musings from my Adventures in Growing

Slow and steady definitely seems to be the name of the game when it comes to me and growing. I’ve gone through phases (in the past 18 months or so) of having grand plans for grand designs, but they’ve never quite come off. And I think now I’m really beginning to understand why. This spring […]


The power of Connection

As I was awakening this morning I was reminded of a meeting with a friend who I’d only ever previously been in touch with online. It was while I was in Australia (a good few moons ago) and we met up at the hostel I was staying at. The overwhelming sense was of unreality that […]


Gardening geekery

So, I’m just back from an utterly immense holiday (which I’m still getting my head around – including my final week in a veritable Cornish luscious paradise of wonderment) and have a list of delightful things to get stuck into but first on the list was: give my poor neglected plants some love!   My […]


Lessons from my composter

I didn’t anticipate just how much I would learn, and I mean really learn not just “know in an academic way”, when I lifted the black plastic tardis from my compost pile. But learn I did when the deed was done yesterday evening… This is a pile of vegetable matter that has been accumulating for […]


Go to Lundy Island. It’s ACE.

Today I learnt an important lesson that I’m going to share with you: A day trip to Lundy Island is, quite simply, Not Enough. I’ve had an amazing day only tainted by the brevity of my stay and the desire simply to stay on the island. A desire that was curtailed by the practicalities of […]


The water I’d anticipated. The fire I had not.

Before any alarm is caused, although there was fire, no-one was harmed and it didn’t spread. Thankfully! Saturday morning, May 31st. One of the great things about my “rescheduling” is that, more than any other holiday, the shape of each day at the moment is pretty much unforeseen. I have an idea of what might […]


The Art of Slowing Down

  Today I find myself practising (and hopefully practicing!) the Art of Slow. Slow is not my natural default setting (by a million miles) and yet I’m currently finding it one of the most rewarding and enlightening places to be. My sense is that the general expectation of society these days is that fast is […]


Luscious nature

Today I was astounded by the lusciousness of nature. I’d like to think I’m generally fairly in touch with how awesome nature is but on the basis of today I may have to throw that misconception out of the window. Because. Really. Nature is AWESOME. My astoundedness came about while in a 20 year old […]