Article from The Guardian about Earth day


 Today is Earth Day, which should provide us with an opportunity to pause and confront the awful predicament humanity faces. We eat microplastics, breathe pollution and watch other life-forms decline to extinction. We face intersecting poverty, health, climate and biodiversity crises. Our global predicament is that consumption by the wealthy is driving us towards planetary disaster, yet billions live in poverty and need to consume more to live well. In this cycle, any version of “success” only hastens catastrophe.

Solving this conundrum requires much more than merely reducing the impact of high-consumption lifestyles. Similarly, if we focus on increasing efficiency this tends to increase resource use: make cars cheaper to run and people drive more. The core of any response that truly rises to this challenge will be interlocking policies that drive society on to an equitable and sustainable path.


Flowers blooming bulbs growing

 We have had loads of daffodils blooming for what seems an absolute age but as they start to recede other bulbs are appearing. First off it was the Snakes Head Frittilary and now it’s a question of what is going to be next? This is a voyage of discovery as a few weeks back we (Heather) planted 200 spring and summer bulbs. 






Anyone see Kate Bradbury and her pond on Gardeners World tonight?

 One of my guilty pleasures is Gardeners World, an hour of pure escapism on a Friday night. Being in a wheelchair 🦼 I can no longer garden as I would like but those of you who know me will remember my description of how Heather and I garden now : I supply the brains and Heather supplies the brawn. Heather is a reluctant gardener and I am a reluctant disabled man! Recently I bought a special offer from Sutton seeds of 200 summer bulbs 💡 as you can imagine Heather was delighted 😁  Well let’s get back to tonight’s edition of Gardeners World. Monty Don has taught me almost everything I know about gardening (not strictly true) and I try and watch Gardeners World whenever it is on.  

Tonight’s episode (yesterday’s episode now 🤣) had Kate Bradbury on talking about her Brighton garden in lockdown. Kate is passionate about wildlife gardening and I can recommend her books as great places to discover the joy of gardening for wildlife. The first of her books I read was https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-bumblebee-flies-anyway-9781472943125/

I loved her honesty and her helping ways to invite birds and insects into what began as a wildlife desert. She is a wonderful writer and has written some other books about ways to enable the birds and the bees 🐝 visit and establish homes in our gardens. One of the absolute best ways to encourage insects and birds into a space is a pond! I know that can sound kinda scary it I’m not talking about the Serpentine in Hyde park but any kind of container from an upturned dustbin lid or a semi submerged washing up bowl up to a full on deep hole dug with different tiers and a beach, or anything in between. The RSPB in their adverts say “if you build it they will come” 



I know it is true because the more wildlife stuff I build in my own garden some creatures move in. Kate has recently written a book about how you can build a pond or should I say dig a pond? Kate has been promoting ponds in gardens for years. I discovered some YouTube videos Kate did a few years back and when learning about the pond videos I discovered that she has just written a book RHS How to Create a Wildlife Pond 

As I said earlier providing a pond is possibly the best thing to do to bring wildlife into your garden so I recon reading Kates book will be the best thing you can do if you want a pond . Good luck 🤞 👍



Second jab done

 I lied in my last post and said our jabs were booked for the 14th! Wrong it was today, a whole day earlier 😇 so my apologies for my wrong information 🧐. Since our last jab a new hub has opened and the old Saga offices has been press ganged into the job. Talk about a slick operation 👍👍👍 they were on the ball and I would estimate about four hundred people being inoculated per hour in the one section that we were in. My congratulations and heart felt thanks to the army of people involved. 



April’s arrived and flowers are blooming

 Yep the year marches on, we have got our second Covid jab booed for the 14th. And Easter looks like a cold flop. The weather is set to cold with even colder weather to come. The great news is we have loads of flowers showing themselves. Daffodils 🌼 of course but Heather took some photos of what look like fritillary and maybe some irises so stay tuned over the next week or so because as soon as the bloom they will be photographed by Heather. I can’t get into the garden as we have steps down the back of the house into the garden 🪴 and as of yet my electric wheelchair has not learned the art of getting me up or down stairs. We have a through floor lift to get me upstairs and I have to be hoisted in and out of bed. My multiple Sclerosis has left me unable to stand or walk. Still it’s one way of not doing the washing up 😂😂😂 

I have been on eBay and also on https://www.suttons.co.uk/ for the last week or so looking at plants 🪴 Heather is th gardener, I think on a previous post about Geraniums I described her as the brawn and me as the brains of our gardening efforts! Click here to read http://reflectingandmusing.blogspot.com/2020/06/wheelchair-gardening.html 

My enthusiasm is peaking to early this year, I have decided to hang fire for a few weeks and buy some garden ready specimens when the chance of frost has past. Plus we are waiting on 200 bulbs Heather planted to put in an appearance before anything else goes in the ground. Research 🧐 is key to gardening 🧑‍🌾 had I just gone ahead and bought one thing I liked the look of I would have been waiting until next year for it to 🌺 flower 🌸 . Right I am in bed writing this and it’s 11:59 pm so good night and and good morning all at the same time, I am signing off for now , here are some pictures of the garden.











Litter litter everywhere can’t anyone use a bin

 I was in my wheelchair recently passing a paper shop and a man came out of the shop cigarette pack in hand, he peeled the cellophane off an...