My first crop!

A few months ago, I was in a gorgeous private garden opened to the public for charity. It was absolutely stunning and, inspired, I went to buy a plant in the little tent they had set up. I ended up walking out having been given a small chilli plant by the lovely people inside - and last week I harvested my first crop! I used them in a soup - they are very gentle in flavour which I am relieved by!

Small but perfect!

It is a very small step towards home grown produce - but a step it is and an infinite improvement on last year's nil produce!

Things making me smile

Homemade pizza dough rising. We've got some friends coming over for dinner, and a homemade tiramisu in the fridge for afters. Yum. (And yet my brain is thinking: maybe one day we'll have made the booze as well. And grown the tomatoes. And made the mozzarella.)

I have finally got off my butt and planted up some of the seedlings. I've potted up those with two true leaves of decent size.

I'll be back at length tomorrow, but now we have guests at the door!

The everyday matters

I wanted to share a really cool project which Cheryl over at Time to Craft is doing.

Inspired by a 1922 competition which invited farmer's wives to write letters to their imaginary daughters, each accompanied by a square for a patchwork quilt, Cheryl is composing a series of letters to her daughter as she builds a quilt patch by patch. I've really enjoyed her first two letters (here and here) and the thoughts they have prompted.

The discussions around wearing make up and doing homework seem to me to be about much bigger questions - being yourself, deciding who that is, laying the groundwork for your future. These are subjects as worthy of consideration at 21 or 101 as at 11. And what I particularly like about Cheryl's approach is how she uses these everyday examples.

We all choose to be who we are every day, and every day that changes slightly. On the one hand, that's fantastic. We grow and evolve and learn and change - how boring if we were all the exact same people at 50 that we were at 15 - and the decisions we make each day can inform the next day, and so on.

On the other hand, it means that it is very easy to find yourself someone you never meant to be because of little things that seem not to matter at the time. Whether that's reaching for the cookie jar (yes folks I broke my no-chocolate-cookies-streak) or allowing work to slowly erode your free time (ahem), or how you handle stress or conflict or frustration, the little decisions matter.

The little repetitive actions that we make the time to do - washing up or doing exercise or spending time with loved ones or blogging - not only reveal our priorities but reinforce them, and choosing to repeat something or avoid it changes the role it plays in our lives. I think many of us are evaluating this - if I say my family comes first, but they only get a few hours a week of my time, is that really accurate? Am I, in fact, kidding myself?

I've been thinking a lot recently at work around ethics - while we have to comply with various rules and guidelines about how we represent our clients or approach certain stakeholders (basically if we're paid by company x, we have to be open and transparent about it), I'm increasingly aware that actually my actions and my reputation are my own concern and responsibility, and while being compliant with the set requirements, even in my everyday phone calls I am considering how my own standards compare, and beginning to ensure that I satisfy my own as well as my clients' standards.

That should seem like an obvious thing to do, but it's very easy to follow the standard in place without thinking about whether it's the right one for me. And not with big gestures - I'm not speaking to the press or the President or anything - but I am realising that my every day emails and every day phone calls add up to a sum greater than the parts and I want to be damn sure I feel comfortable with what that sum looks like.

The same applies to other areas of my life. I think of myself as a simple/slow living advocate, but as my recent work habits show, that's not really accurate. I think of myself as someone healthy who takes care of herself, but I rarely excercise and eat more biscuits than I should. That doesn't mean I should beat myself up about it, but be honest with myself and try to make time for the small daily tasks that reflect and reinforce who I want to be.

So who do I want to be tomorrow? I'm not totally sure, but I think that asking the question is far more important than finding a conclusive answer.

Little things

Thank you for your kind comments on my posts!

As my working days have continued to be long and tiring, I've had little energy for new projects at home, but have savoured all the more the elements of a simple life which are already built into my surroundings.

The flower seeds I sowed last week have germinated with a much higher success rate than the herbs earlier this month - the sunflowers in particular are racing upwards and will very soon need planting up. The herbs are just about showing their first pair of true leaves - although several oregano seedlings feel afoul of a pest I identified thanks to t'internet as fungus gnat larvae, which I suspect are due to overwatering. (When I noticed the dead seedlings and the transparent wormy-thinks, and then found out what they were, I became a bit paranoid and spent longer than is healthy stooped over my seedlings with a tissue in one hand and a wooden toothpick in the other, removing and squishing all the larvae I could see.)

Though the days are warming up, the evenings are still cool. Most of the blankets are now in the linen cupboard but this one is draped over the back of the sofa. It makes me smile everytime I see it. This is the first blanket I ever made. There is a bit of a story - when my mother was little, she started making a crochet blanket to give to her grandmother. She never finished it - she gave her grannie a bag of squares, the rest of the yarn and the pattern - so making up a whole blanket with the pattern felt like finishing something inherited. It's mostly made from scraps from never-finished projects which I carried up to uni with me, all different weights of wool and totally different colours, but I love it.

My knitting and cross-stich tablecloth embroidery sit by the sofa in their new basket, which means they are tidily collected together but easily to hand if I feel up to a bit of crafting in the evenings. Somehow, I've still been able to put aside a few bits and bobs (spare coffee mugs we never use etc) for decluttering, and every day I am grateful for Project 333, as staying on top of the laundry and ironing, as well as getting dressed every morning, is kept manageable.

Finally, the daily tasks of doing the washing up and making the bed keep me grounded, reminding me that the stress at work is (hopefully) transient while the rhythms of home and family go on. (Don't ask that me about the rest of the housework.) 

How about you? What is making you smile today?

Project 333: Week Two

Another update, and I am still enjoying the stillness that comes from opening the wardrobe every morning to reveal - space. It's so calming. I don't think: oh shit what can I wear? My outfit for the day is laid out if it is a workday, otherwise I can easily pull something together based on my mood and planned activities. It's quick and stress-free.

I am still taking better care of my clothes - hanging them up, folding them neatly, ironing them after washing - and my shoes - wiping off dirt, polishing and waterproofing the uppers. This is also easier than normal because I am needing to do fewer loads of laundry. This does surprise me, I was expecting that I would run out of clothes quicker and need to do more loads, but in fact I always seem to have plenty of options to wear and we're down to one load of laundry a week, rather than 2-3. Less clothes washed each week means the prospect of ironing is much less daunting.

I am increasingly aware that almost none of my clothes actually fit me well, in the same places - clearly I have broader shoulders and longer arms than the average, and longer legs. Tops and shirts generally also are not a brilliant fit across the back and bust, or around the waist area. And my trousers and skirts are not the most flattering style across my hips.

This might sound as if my clothes look awful and misshapen on me - not at all! They look fine - but fine is not okay any longer. If I only have a few clothes, I want to invest the time in making sure they all look and feel fantastic. I'm making gentle progress with my current clothing project(s) - knitting a cardigan and converting a pair of my boyfriend's trousers into a skirt.

Finally, I am again struck that small changes have unexpected knock-on effects. Doing fewer loads of laundry for clothes means I can wash bedsheets more frequently and with less stress. I have rarely changed the sheets more than twice a month, and sometimes less, simply because it takes me so long to get the sheets laundered around my other jobs. Only one load of laundry a week means I can easily fit a bedsheets load in as well, which in turn has meant clean sheets every Friday evening since I started this project. Still at the beginning, of course, but it's such a pleasure to sink into the freshly made bed!

Organic routines

I have recently been mulling over the commonalities across the individual and unique simple lives - mine and those I see in my geographic and virtual community. I think routines is probably one of them. Whether it's a routine for milking your goat, a routine for baking bread, a routine for getting yourselves out of the house in the morning, we all have routines.

I've made several attempts in recent years to develop my routines to encompass more of the activities I want to undertake. Ideally - in the fantasy life in my head - my routines cover all aspects of housework, cleaning and maintenance, as well as my own health and wellbeing. I go running, I mop the floors, and it all happens easily and almost invisibly because it's routine.

As anyone struggling with self-discipline will know, anything that is already routine is SO MUCH EASIER than pushing yourself to do something out of the ordinary. I want to bring more activities into this.

However, I've made several attempts to 'construct' routines. Last spring, I sat down, listed all the jobs that need to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis and divided them up, breaking them into one thing a day throughout the year. It was beautiful and balanced and it lasted about three weeks before it just fizzled out. It was too much too quickly.

Last autumn, I tried again with something smaller. I tried adding one small task - wiping down the bathroom sink - to my morning routine. That also lasted about three weeks before it just fizzled out.

This month, something rather unexpected has happened. Rather than setting out intentionally to add something to my routine, something has just, well, fallen into it. I've started washing up the breakfast dishes before I leave the house. Haphazardly. I wasn't setting out to do it, I wasn't planning a New Year's routine change. It was something I just happened to do on my first day back at work this year - no particular reason, it just occurred to me to do it, as I was running a little early for once and looking for something little to do in that time - and somehow I've kept on doing it.

It's teeny tiny but is having a rather welcome impact on my life. It means I go to work feeling already ahead with the day, feeling in control, feeling good about having achieved something, even something so pathetically small. It means the washing up after dinner in the evenings is less work, which in turn means I procrastinate about it less, do it earlier and have more enjoyable evenings. I suspect it makes for a cleaner, more pleasant kitchen for my boyfriend to cook in because he's even done a bit of evening baking (normally reserved for the weekends.)

It also means I get to do something domestic in the morning. To be honest, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I am starting to find washing up rather relaxing. It's slow. It's meditative. As I wipe the bowls and put them back in the cupboard, I can look out on the balcony at the early morning sunshine and think where I am going to put the herb pot, I look around the tidy kitchen and feel good about the newly oiled chopping board all warm and golden. It gives me a moment of slow and simple living before my mental space and energies are drawn into my job.

I'm not stressing about this. I hope it stays but I'm not going to push myself. I'm now at just about the three week mark, so this might also fizzle out, but I hope it doesn't. I wonder if there are any more habits which might just naturally fall into place? I rather like the idea of organic routine-building, each new leaf gradually unfurling one by one, and no clear idea where the next will be.

Do you have any preferred methods for adapting and building routines?

Little things make a difference

I'd like to share the last hour of my life with you, because it illustrates some of the little and yet not so little changes that are taking place in my life.

Say six or even three months ago, I would have come in from work, utterly shattered, and spent an hour, or maybe two, slowly recuperating my sanity through distractedly browsing the net, reading blogs, or rereading some of my favourite old books either physically or as ebooks on my laptop. I would have accomplised precisely nothing, felt bad about it, procrastinated about doing the washing up and finally gone to bed late, and not really very refreshed.

The first difference: I put my work clothes away. I never normally do this, because my wardrobe is such chaos that it's a hassle. I wear my work clothes until I go to bed, and then I shove the clothes in a crumpled pile to the back of the wardrobe. Now, there is space for every garment in the wardrobe so I hang them up as soon as I get home, and put on my jeans.

The second difference: I folded and put away the clothes from my last laundry batch. Normally I wait until the space is needed, which often means trying to remove clothes while my boyfriend simultaneously hangs his gym kit to dry. There's not really enough space. Today I didn't mind doing this because there aren't many clothes to put away, and I no longer need an MSc in Jenga to fit them into the wardrobe.

The third difference: Looking at how crumpled my shirt was, I decided to iron it. And a few other items. Once I'd done one, it looked so much better than the others that I even ironed one of the shirts already hanging in the wardrobe. I haven't ironed a thing in months, but when you only have four or five items to do, it's surprising how little time it takes.

The fourth difference: When I made my tea, I realised that the bin was full. So I emptied it. I know it sounds pathetic, but this is kind of amazing for me. Normally I agonise, procrastinate, feel guilty etc for some time before I get around to doing something like this, but today I saw it was full and just emptied it while I was waiting for the kettle to boil.

The fifth difference: I decided that while I was up and doing things, I may as well put on a load of laundry.

Wow. As I write this now - feeling alert, not too tired, and with a cup of green tea next to me - I feel really quite good about the first hour of my evening. I think I can chill for the rest of the day. So much progress, but I really find that if something allows me to get started, it's much more straightforward to just keep on going. Just having space in my wardrobe started a chain of events that has made my evening both productive and relaxing.

Four minutes is four minutes too long

I was very lazy and took the bus home today. My work is not a long walk from home, but after a long day it's tempting to just hop on a bus, particularly if it's leaving fairly soon. Today, it was due to leave after four minutes.

I sat down and reached for my phone - there are useless games on my phone which are frankly rubbish but they help pass the time - and I thought: how silly to do something pointless for the sake of killing four minutes. Is a four minute wait really too long? I should value this down-time, when the rest of my day is so rushed.

It's not just me - the lady sitting next to me was trying to find a wifi hotspot, and all around me people were checking phones and emails, reading work-y-looking documents. We're all crazy and we all need to think of a four-minute wait as a pleasure, a chance to stop and do nothing for a few precious minutes - stare out of the window, people-watch, reflect. Mentally compose a blogpost. Unplug, switch off and recharge.

Does anyone have synonyms for those which don't make us sound like laptops or mobile phones? Perhaps even the language we use to describe this busy buzzy life needs to slow down and become more organic.

Even when it has slowed down, Brussels doesn't switch off -

The European Parliament just before dawn

Winter is most definitely here

You might have noticed that winter is most definitely arrived. The bed has been turned into a shrine to the God of duvets, blankets and hot water bottles, and we are extremely grateful for the semi-finished-but-still-functioning curtains, which are very noticeably and substantially aiding the insulation of the house.

Work has become super-super busy. 8.30am to 7.30pm or later. Add to that the client drinks and other networking events I am expected to attend, and my free time shrinks to almost zero. Hence why I'm so behind-hand on blogging - and on my emails, messages etc. Balance? The scales are totally to one side. I can be there for my work but not my boyfriend, for my family but not my friends... Does anyone have any magic beans that give you the ability to balance all the things you want to do with and for the people you love, the things that make you who you are and the things that can take you to who you want to become?

No? Well, at least I've got a pair of socks that are comfy and warm. Baby steps, yes? I might not feel in control of my life but at least I'm in control of what I wear under my shoes. (Erm. Yes. Very profound.)

A slow weekend

We've had a very slow weekend, savouring every activity as it comes: enjoying the sunshine in the park, reading under the shade of the sycamores, trying out artisanal beers in a beer-and-cheese pub, baking bread, sewing curtains, some light housework and plenty of long cups of tea on the terrace with some knitting.

How was your weekend?

God showing off

Does anyone else find themselves strangely hypnotised by the colours of fruit and vegetables? No synthetic colour can match it. It reminds me of Dylan Moran's views on this food group:

"It's just God showing off. Look at all the colours I know!"

Therapy

Roll up! Roll up! For a limited time only! Stress-saving technique! Improve your work and home life! Impress your colleagues!

What if I told you that you almost certainly already have all the ingredients necessary for my stress-busting therapy tip, which will also help impress your colleagues with an air of professionalism and competence?

Oh yes.

Sweet gesture

My lovely lovely boyfriend gave me this. Not for any particular reason but just as a nice gesture. I'm always so touched by these simple gifts - probably disproportionately so! He always gets me a potted plant rather than cut flowers because they last longer and are (presumably) less damaging to the environment, and as I'm the opposite of green-fingered and usually end up killing the plants through over- or under-watering, he gets plants in a pot I can reuse after the plant has gone the way of all things. This awareness and consideration of my preferences on even the most minor detail is what moves me and makes me so appreciative of my special man.

Making me smile today

A perfect Saturday morning. Homemade biscuits and fresh tea enjoyed next to a bouquet of cut flowers. This unusual extravagance is thanks to my boss, who said that as we had no vases at work, I should bring these flowers home with me. I wasn't about to complain!

Aaaaand... breathe!

Phew! It's been a long old slog. I've worked right through the last weekend, often ten or more hours day, and today is my first day off in twelve days so I am totally knackered. So this picture completely expresses the big sigh of happiness first thing this morning, as I sit down with a freshly brewed pot of loose leaf tea and some nice writing paper to catch up on my correspondence. I've been experimenting with different photo effects on Picasa, and this one, called "Holga-ish", adds a nice soft-focus, calm feeling.

Of course, during the busy period, I've fallen off a lot of wagons. Buying sandwiches instead of baking bread, letting the laundry fall behind, not laying out my clothes each morning. I'm going to try to use this three-day weekend to get back on track with most of these things, finish up some craftiness and get a wriggle on with the Christmas presents - but there will also be time for hot chocolate, Downton Abbey and snuggling up under a blanket with a good book.

Making me smile today

::Homemade almond and oat cleanser::

::Hot homemade fish soup with toasted homemade bread for lunch::

::My new jeans, fitting like a glove::

Making me smile today

::Chamomile tea with meringue and raisin biscuit::

::The Good Life Christmas Special::

::Watching Christmas stockings come alive::

::Warm, fluffy socks::

And to whoever was playing the bagpigpes in Place Luxembourg this morning, thank you! You made my day.

Bitten by the baking bug

So what is it about Great British Bake Off that has me dusting off my apron and tutting at the poor array of baking equipment in my cupboard? (Seriously. Can't even do a Victoria sponge.) 

I seem to have been bitten by the baking bug. In the last week, I have made: one loaf of white bread with linseeds (and who'd have thought that the humble linseed could so totally transform bread?); one batch of rotis, ginger and oat cookies, chocolate chip and walnut biscuits, and now I have a teeny tiny batch of meringues in the oven. I've never made meringues before, but I've been meaning to try for a while, and with an egg white left over from the biscuits, I thought - why not? The world's smallest batch of meringue ever made. Fingers crossed they come out well.

It's working!

I have been experimenting with no-poo methods again. The summer is a good time to do this - with fewer conferences and everyone on holidays, I can go to work with greasy hair and not worry. And I have finally, FINALLY reached a stable, clean-looking no poo solution.

Water.

How to: make your own moisteuriser

Well, how I make my own moisteuriser, anyway. I have been experimenting with homemade options and natural things like aloe vera gel, sweet almond oil, but everything has left my skin feeling tight and dry after a few days to a week. I have been using only this to nourish my face for almost a month and I love love LOVE it!