Hooking into Resources

The big theme at the moment is the power of the mind. Of being in charge from within - rather than looking for change from without. Deciding how I want to respond and being OK with that. There seem to be so many opportunities just opening up with such ease at the moment when they've previously seemed impossible or incredibly hard work. It really does seem to be all downing to timing - and that's timing on my own internal clock, rather than anyone elses.

Another theme is gratitude for the brilliance that I'm party to so much of the time. This week I went to my first belly dancing class in YEARS (I've only ever been to one before and that was about 10 years ago - but I enjoyed it then and have been looking for the chance to hook into a regular class since then) and loved it - plus had a great chat to the teacher. This dance studio is barely 60 seconds walk from where I get to work these days. Ace. I went along to drumming practice on Monday and got to play brilliant rhythms with brilliant people. Indulged in some cinema one evening and got lost in a huge pile of cheesey Americanisms - escapism all the way. And all following having hosted my parents for a couple of days giving them a bit of a mini-break and me the chance to catch up with them without having to spend hours travelling to visit them!

On the gratitude theme, it's difficult, if not impossible, to describe exactly how much I love my water butt right now. It's BRILLIANT. I've lived (some of the time at least) in this house for almost 5 years (wow!) and now, courtesy of my water butt, I'm harvesting rain water which I'm using to water my plants - and even flush my toilet with. My plants are enjoying it as the water isn't treated, and to me it makes them even more "low impact". Yes, I'm having to carry said toilet flushing water up 3 flights of stairs, but still - every "flush" which is courtesy of the water butt (there's something rather poetic about toilets and water butts) saves 10 - 15 L of water needing to be cleaned and piped to my house, just to be flushed away again. Plus it's making my house into even more of a living gym...

Admittedly, finally getting the drain pipe diverter installed has been the cherry on the cake with said water butt - knowing that it'll fill right up without me having to go down and play "empty to the bucket into the water butt because you haven't sorted the diverter yet" every time it's rained is awesome. In fact, it's almost magic. And has cemented in me the idea that cunning engineering of readily available resources is totally where it's at.

I've also been enjoying the fruits of (other people's) allotments this week - primarily potatoes and courgettes from two different friends. (And my own courgette plants seem, finally, to be bringing forth their own courgettes! Whoop!) Cooking meals with such soil-to-plate food is so inspiring - I'm still working on maximising yields from my internal space (there are some really interesting vertical growing systems I've seen but the engineering of those is somewhat beyond my current engineering desires! For now, at least) but even then I've got herbs growing, plenty of spinach, some tomato plants which are going bananas (although may not yield fruit as I'm not sure anything will have pollinated them) and some asparagus plants merrily growing from seed in preparation for about 4 years time for harvesting. Long termism, see?

And as I prepare for a week away, I'm trialling using the hoards of cardboard I have in my basement as a moisture retainer for my indoor plants - using it to protect the soil from direct sunlight (and hopefully reducing evaporation direct from the soil) and also to hold water which can keep the plants going rather than over-doing it on the watering.

So often it's a case simply of recognising the resources to realise they really are all around. And I'm currently loving going through the "recognition" phase :)