Wood for the Trees

Buy this product it saves the planet! My Facebook ad stream currently screams at me. The words may have changed to fit in with current popular feeling but the narrative hasn't. Buy! Buy! Buy! Sure if you happen to *need* a new t-shirt, your current clothes are worn beyond repair and you have already searched all the nearby charity shops with no luck then buying one made from organic cotton, not made in a sweatshop (though the ones on my Facebook ad make no such claim) and bearing a planet saving logo is likely your best bet. But i suspect this is not the advertiser's intent. The hungry resource intensive conveyabelt of capitalism still hurtles along but now it promises us 'organic' cotton and nice slogans that make us feel better. It eases the conscience without us having to make many actual concessions to our lifestyle. You see this in Fast Fashion outlets bringing us 'eco' ranges. Clothes made from recycled plastics (which will still shed microfibres in

I haven't blogged for a while. Apart from a few token Christmas posts I haven't blogged for about a year. Illness and family/work pressures have stolen any free time that I had. I also lost enthusiasm for blogging. Caught up in a stream of others' stream-lined, well researched, professional posts I tried to copy what they were doing. It didn't go so well. I lost focus on why I started my blog in the first place. It was supposed to be a record of my journey, as a parent, trying to live ethically and sharing the wins but also the fails. A realistic view of what that means and sharing what I'd learnt. But I got caught up in trying to be a perfectionist. In trying to be an expert on a pedalstool, when I'm not. So I lost enthusiasm. Since then, I've seen friends ask questions on social media about aspects of ethical living. I've also changed my job to one which is less demanding of my time, energy and health. So I think it is time to re-visit the bl