The single most important device that one cannot do without today is the mobile phone. Correction! I would rather name them the I-Phones, the I-Pads, the Tablets, the Smart phones. All these can be used to read books, write letters/stories/blogs, draw pictures, surf the internet, purchase products, book train, flight, movie and theatre tickets, play games, do official work, do monetary transactions, etc. etc. etc. And, by the way, they are also used as phones. About 7-8 years ago, I had once heard a line about a mobile phone: “It’s a phone, you call, and you hang up”. But I suppose, it’s not that simple anymore. This gadget offers multitude of services or apps which help you with almost every possible need in life today.   However, it’...

Green Ghost Towers is enjoying the sea views – not caused by a fateful giant wave but rather a move to the coast. This has meant a smaller garden for both flowers and vegetables. So we all hatched a cunning plan whilst in the lookout tower we spied allotments.  So that was the plan – we would apply for an allotment. Some 14 months later we have half an allotment of five rods. So as ghosts and spooks we like to visit at night and would you believe it? We have the cemetery next door so we can talk gardening over with fellow ghosts before they leave for the light – not sure if the lamp post is the light but if it fits!    Back to the allotment. We asked for a quick plough and wow – great machines move in and we have what looked like a gre...

Yesterday I finished a 7 day fast. I had done a 10 day fast last year so knew what I was in store for – at least I though I did. My memories had become very different from the true experience over time! Detoxing is something that I do occasionally to give my system a flush and raise my energy levels. The outcomes are increased energy, motivation and drive. Not to mention extra time, where I would have been eating. The experience also comes with challenges. Not eating is not natural to most human beings. Changing the habits of a lifetime are never going to be an easy task. I have seen my will power stretched and undergone numerous trials and tribulations in the past week. I have also listened to numerous opinions on...

I took the puppy out this morning, across the fields, and down by the river because she's a lab and labs have an affinity for water. It was raining too, she didn't mind that either and if you don't go out because it's raining right now in England, when do you go out? So we went. On the way home along the road I found a bucket of apples on a low wall tucked beneath a hedge. There was a rain-soaked, hand-written sign beside it saying, COOKING APPLES, HELP YOURSELF. Please, do not take bucket! They were all shapes , sizes, and shades of green. Knobbly, flecked, some with spots and some with marks where they'd touch against a twig or another fruit while growing, but all firm and perfectly fit for consumption. I f...

There is a good piece on the River Cottage website under the topic, ''Why Grow Vegetables''. I wish I had read this before heading off to a party in my old stomping ground in North West London. Cornered in the kitchen (it was a party after all), two guys, an old friend and a new acquaintance, were asking me how I filled my time now ''out in the sticks''. Without hesitation, I began to regale them with accounts of our new allotment venture, yet half way through it began to dawn on me that they didn't quite get it. Damning me with unintended feint praise, my good friend concluded it must occupy a good bit of my time – and money. Money? No way!, I protested. A packet of seeds is a pound-fifty, onions sets and potato chits a f...