Green Mermaid Cottage

Once I had paid for the most urgent repairs to my House of Horrors and done as much DIY as I could to sort out the walls and flooring, I had nothing left to spend on making it look homely and comfortable.  I found being in the almost empty house incredibly depressing. Everything felt cold and dark. I really wanted it to reflect my personality and I dreamt of a boho, arty, eclectic and colourful haven.   DECORATING ON A BUDGET And so I turned to charity shops, markets, Facebook Marketplace and recycling apps like Freegle to try to furnish my home and improve the look of my garden on a small budget. I found that many charity shops sell furniture as well as clothing and objects. For example, I got a huge armchair and a beautiful recycled red cabinet from Emmaus Dover, a  social enterprise that supports local homeless people and help them develop new work skills.  I also found chairs and plant pots in skips that people were only too happy to give away. ...

As a vegetarian something I always wanted to do was to grow my own organic vegetables, fruits and cooking herbs. Now that I finally had my own garden I decided to do just that.  'No dig' gardening  I started looking at the easiest way that I could start my vegetable garden as a beginner gardener and I came across the ‘No dig’ method. This method simply means gardening without digging over the plot repeatedly each year, minimising disturbance to the soil.  The steps are:  choose the spot where you want to grow your vegetables remove/smother weeds get some cardboard (I used cardboard boxes from recent postal deliveries and made sure I removed any staples, plastic tape and labels) cover the area of soil where you are planting with layers of cardboard. Make sure you overlap your layers so that weeds have less opportunity to get through in the future Put organic compost on top of your layers of cardboard. That’s it! You are ready to start planting your...

( Trigger warning: this post discusses mental health issues, including suicidal ideation.)  Throughout my life I have had episodes of severe depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I   strongly suspect that I am neurodivergent as I struggle on a daily basic with noise, busy and crowded environments and using public transport. I regularly feel like I am the odd one out in social and work situations and struggle with relationships.  I am lucky to have a very supportive GP who helped me when I was at my lowest and who gave me access to counselling sessions and the appropriate medication. But I have also accepted that to stay well I needed to make several long term changes in my daily life and constantly work at maintaining my mental health.  Below are some of the activities that have helped me.  MY MENTAL HEALTH ROUTINE  Guided Meditation and  Mindfulness This is something that I started doing during the Covid lockdowns. I discovered YouTube guided medi...

THE 'GREEN TAX'  I decided to start making my own beauty and cleaning products because I simply could not afford to buy the type of products that I wanted in shops.  As an animal lover I only want to use plant-based products that are not tested on animals and preferably organic. I noticed that those type of products are always more expensive and therefore out of my reach.  DROWNING IN PLASTIC In addition I was increasingly bothered by the amount of packaging I was left to dispose of every time I used shop-bought products. I liked the idea of recycling these plastic bottles and glass jars as containers for my own products.  BAD HAIR AND SKIN DAY: ITCHY AND SCRATCHY... I hoped that making my own products would also help me calm my sensitive skin and scalp, made worse by the high levels of stress and anxiety I was experiencing. I even had to see my GP when I woke up covered with red, inflamed, incredibly itchy spots all over my belly, chest and parts of my back. After...