November: Paying attention to...
A hot tip for composting while on holiday. My 80s fashion. Enjoying the joy. A book I contributed to. A new art obsession.
Enjoying the joy.
When the news of the world is unbearable, paying attention is important, but isn’t remembering to enjoy the joy too?
This is what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.
We mustn’t let the despair paralyse us into inaction**, or let it turn our gaze away and find ignorance easier. That’s no good.
But… we shouldn’t feel guilty about experiencing joy in the face of all this.
Allowing ourselves to find joy recharges our batteries so we can get back into our good work out in the world.
**If you haven’t yet, you can sign Amnesty International’s call for an immediate ceasefire here. Or choose any number of excellent organisations who are doing the work, and give them a hand.
Image: to inject some joy into this newsletter, I spotted this photo at Mum’s last night of me, circa mid-eighties, looking rather fabulous in a green velvet lampshade hat and fancy black fringing scarf. A rare sighting of sun protection for that era!
The Good Book.
Last week was Hannah Moloney’s launch for her second book Good Life Growing: How to grow fruit and veg anywhere in Australia.
She’s got a superb knack for wrapping practical tips, fist-pumping inspiration, and big ethical ‘whys’ together into every sentence she puts into the world.
I’m so happy to have been swept along in it all, having taken most of the photos for the book at Hannah’s place and various awesome gardens around nipaluna/Hobart earlier this year.
Get your copy, and keep it close at hand while spring turns into summer, and the growing gets going!
Left image: Hannah’s iconic smile, whilst signing my copy of Good Life Growing.
Right image: Hannah and Joel Rheinberger on stage talking up all the good ways to grow your own food.
A new art obsession. Send help.
Lino printing. Oh dear. It’s all I want to do right now.
Stay tuned, I have some fun ideas coming to life. More on that soon.
Left image: A sunflower carved from lino.
Right image: some extremely cute strawberries printed onto paper.
Compost? Yes please!
I signed up for Share Waste, which is a network that hooks up people who don’t compost, with those who do.
The soil at our new place is pretty sad, so making more composting is a gardening mission of mine at the moment.
So you should sign up, especially if you’re in my area! I’ll happily take your food waste, or carbon matter.
🔥 Hot Tip 🔥
A gardening pal of mine just sent me some hot tips… she’s a Share Waster and finds that she gets food waste donations from all sorts of folk, but particularly FIFO workers and AirBnB-ers.
That’s a great idea - sign up to Share Waste while on you’re summer holiday to find someone in the area to donate your food waste too. Brilliant. Thanks Lisa C.
Image: Jared snapped this pic of me in our new garden, contemplating our permaculture design. My sun protection is a lot less fabulous these days.
Well, I think that’s what I’ve got to say about November.
I hope you’re finding ways to take action, and also recharge your batteries.
Another way to get grounded in these heady times is to share our gratitude. I started a thread called Crumbs of Gratitude, which you can add to too. There are a bunch of lovely comments there already. I’m so grateful that readers have gotten involved.
Thanks so much for reading.