Mindbomb Monday

In the 1970's the founders of Greenpeace came up with the idea of using electronic media to communicate revolutionary ideas, they came up with the tactic "mindbomb" whereby they would use simple images, delivered by the media, that would "explode in people's minds" and create a new understanding of the world.
On some Mondays I hope to share an image that might be considered a "mindbomb" that could get people thinking throughout the week ahead.  I won't include any words with the image as I hope the image alone will speak for itself.  Sometimes I will use images found online, other times it will be my own photographs and they will reflect something that has spoken to me from the past week.  It might be shocking, inspiring, confrontational or uplifting.
If you would like to join in please share your "mindbomb" in a comment.

Still trying to save the world

Last weekend I went to stay with my mum and dad is South Wales for a few days to get a bit of a break and a rest with my boys.
We visited one of my favourite beaches in South Wales; Port Eynon.  It's a beautiful beach in the Gower made more interesting by the fact that a lot of the sand is washing away (no one really knows why) which is revealing the stumps of trees and other flora that has been preserved on the sea floor for thousands of years!  Amazing!
But also quite sad because the beach is totally different to how it looked as I was growing up.  It used to be a very sandy beach but is now very stony and muddy.  Another major feature that this beach has adopted since I was a child is masses and masses of little pieces of plastic, all different colours, shapes and sized, all different types of plastic, stringy, spongy, hard, soft and all of it floats.  I never remember there being so much plastic on the beach when I was a child and it breaks my heart that in just 25 years or so the coast of the UK has been littered with these little pieces of plastic which cause so much damage to sea life.  These pieces of plastic will be on these beaches FOREVER.  They will eventually degrade into smaller and smaller pieces so we won't be able to see them but the will choke micro organisms which try to eat them.  I feel so ashamed for what humankind has done to this beautiful planet.

Some of the flotsam can my quite visually attractive.  

Boris found a starfish or "Star crab" as he prefers to call them, which he duly rescued and placed gently into a tock pool.

 Here you can see the remains of preserved flora which is thousands of years old amazing to think we are seeing this again since such a long time.  Also equally amazing to think that this land used to be forest! 

 Picking his way through the pieces of plastic.

In this small section of sand I found over 13 pieces of plastic.

Every time I visit the beach I make a point of collecting 3 pieces of littler and putting them in the bin.  It's not much but if all of us picked up 3 pieces of plastic every time we visited the beach we might make at least a small dent in the massive problem.  Find out some more information here: http://www.take3.org.au/main/page_blog.html

Allotment Update

Or - What went down at the allotment in 2013:

I originally took on my allotment from the local council about 5 years ago, shortly after we moved into the area, things have changed so much there over the years, but I am still not on top of it.  I wonder if you can ever be "on top" of mother nature?  This year I knew that I didn't want to over do it by planting loads of different, exotic vegetables, so stuck with what I know works and what I could manage.  With it being such a dry hot summer things didn't flourish as much as they could have if I had watered on those dry days but I still
harvested a modest amount of food considering how little work I put in.  It is so difficult to get down there with a toddler in tow, he is so curious and loves to explore so I have to either go there and hope he falls asleep in the car on the way or wait until I can go there with someone else who can watch him while I get on.  I am still so thankful to have it though it will be wonderful when Boris is a bit older and I won't have to worry about him eating something he shouldn't or wandering into other peoples' plots.

So now I am just starting to shut everything down at the allotment in preparation for both winter and my impending childbirth, covering the ground in plastic and picking the last of the harvest, a few small beetroots and, some runner beans and a couple of courgettes.  My mum helped me a couple of weeks ago, tidying the edges, tucking everything under the plastic and laying more plastic to keep the weeds at bay.

So I thought it was a pretty good time to do a little review with some photos of the allotment I took a few weeks ago.  I can't believe how much the weather has changed in such a short amount of time!  We were in the heart of summer what seemed like yesterday and now it seems like everything is closing down.
So here is what went down:

The last of the courgettes

The last of the rather straggly looking runner beans,

Small harvest

View of the whole allotment, my mum helped me put down the black plastic. 

What are you currently doing at the allotment?  Are you putting anything in?  Or just taking things out and covering things up? 

Welcome

Hi there and welcome to my blog.  Here I will share my thoughts, opinions and feelings on trying to live an eco-friendly, natural life with my little family in middle England.  I know "eco-friendly" is such an overused phrase these days but I really do feel passionately about trying to leave as little damage on this gift of planet earth as possible. I try to parent in a natural way, following my instincts and  parenting simply but no one is perfect, hence the title to my blog "imperfectly natural".  I don't claim to be some kind of eco living, hippy guru, I just try my best in the circumstances in which I find myself.  I share what I do not to say "look how great I am" but in the hope that others will see that it is possible to live a different way of life which often flows against the current of modern day living, and still be contented.
I am really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my posts and getting to know other bloggers who share my passions.
In the mean time, here is a bit about me:
I am 30 years old and live in Berkshire with my husband of 4 years and our little 17 month old boy (let's call home Boris). I am a stay-at-home mum and ex (recovering) secondary school art and design teacher!  I spend my days entertaining my little boy, cooking, keeping the house in order and working on our allotment, I know, don't I sound like an amazing domestic goddess?  I am not!  My little boy  is covered in mud, my house is usually in some state of disarray and we have takeaways on a regular basis (I did say "imperfectly" natural!). We live in a small house on a tight budget.  I don't do any paid work but I am currently training to be a breastfeeding helper with the Breastfeeding Network.  I also love to make things, at the moment that is mainly babies and breast milk, but I am hoping to eventually get back into art and crafts. I am a hopeful Christian, I say hopeful because I am not great at going to church every week, I sometimes swear and often forget to thank God for my many blessings, but I have hope that through faith I am saved in spite of my shortfalls.  I hope that this blog Glorifies Him.
Enjoy looking around and reading my posts.  I used to blog over at Serendipity Child and will be sharing some topical posts from there over here just to get the blog going.