sustainablelivingproject.co.uk

‘We need to know how to build a shed,’ The Man from Salford informs me. 
‘How to build a shed?’ I echo.  This is random.  I didn’t think we needed a shed, a green house maybe, but a shed?   I certainly didn’t think we needed to know how to build a shed.  You see we have outbuildings.  [...]

It seems like a long time but yesterday I had my first proper day in the garden this year.  I decided to do battle with the enormous brambles in an overgrown thicket of shrubs at the back.
I want to get this out of the way before Spring arrives.  Obviously I don’t want to be clearing [...]

For the Fair Trade Fortnight I’ve chosen to write about fair trade textiles as it still seems to be the Cinderella of the fair trade movement.  I did a quick (if not comprehensive!) survey of my friends, they all conscientiously buy fair trade sugar, bananas and tea, but none of them buy fair trade clothes.   Fair trade [...]

I have been sorely neglecting my blogging – mostly because  the disruption to our water supply caused by the cold weather this winter paralyzed us.  We are back to normal now but it was a useful insight into how people manage without the world’s most precious resource on tap.  We had to resort to drinking and [...]

Hello, sorry for not posting – seemed to have got lost somewhere in between my birthday and the snow appearing – occasionally in a slightly alcoholic haze!  Happy New Year anyway and I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.  In an inspired bit of junk swapping The Man from Salford managed to get me a [...]

Last week I bought myself some leather driving gloves.  I didn’t buy them, as I’m sure you will have already worked out, because I intend to take up recreational motoring.  I wanted to have another go at willow weaving but without getting crop after crop, day after day, of very itchy weals.  (See Woeful Willow Tale.) Normal [...]

The moles have been laughing at The Man from Salford.  They kick dirt at his solar powered buzzy thing.  He is not amused.  Mowing this little bit of grass outside the front of our house is his only contribution to gardening.  It’s not even our grass, he is guerrilla mowing.  I’m not overly keen on lawns.  [...]

Just a quick one.  This weekend is national moth night.  Well actually it’s two nights, the 18th and 19th September.  This means you have even less excuse for not getting out at least once with your torch at dusk and looking for moths.  It can get a bit depressing typing out the same repetitive sentence, but [...]

(And the Chilli Children Trust and some Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness)
If you’ve read this blog from the beginning you’ll know that I have a somewhat strained relationship with the brambles in the garden.  It will come as no surprise to you that I’ve been plotting their sticky end all along.  Originally it was going to [...]

Social historians are fond of telling people that one of the most profound effects of industrialisation upon daily life was the separation of work from home, and the separation of work from leisure.  Not that all this happened overnight or even decades.  Large scale manufacture was taking place in homes long before what we would [...]