There was a Danish philosopher called Soren Kierkegaard, who said that life could only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards. There has been a few recurring themes over the last three months of our little changes, and of being more planetwise, that reminded me of this advice. These are small principles that seem obvious now, but sometimes the obvious is hard to live by and learn or re-learn as habits, when life is moving fast. The first one refers to acquiring

It has been one of those weeks. Work has been busy. Leo has had an inexplicable bug, that is neither one thing nor the other. When it is like this, like all of us it is hard to think of much else than work, sleep, and looking after each other. We have been making changes for three months, and it has flown by, but instead of making a new little change this week, it felt like a good week to reflect, and re-read some of the little changes we have made in the past 12 weeks. A

A very old, very dear friend of mine once gave a piece of advice, that has stayed with me now for several decades. We used to meet a lot, we don't now, nothing happened particularly, aside from the passage of time and the passage of life. He is still a dear friend, and as with many that pass through our lives, I have a deep appreciation and love for the times we spent together. He told me that you should always choose mattresses and shoes carefully. Because in life, if you

Growing up, I loved watching birds in our garden. They were the rock stars of the species. Colourful, strutting, able to sing like angels and fly like superheroes. Sometimes, the sky would darken with a flock of starlings, sometimes you would have to stop your conversation for the honking of geese or the shrieking of seagulls. We would trace and colour pictures of eagles and hawks from books, and my grandma would talk of the mystical kingfisher that lived nearby but was r

In this country where we live, you turn on the tap, and guaranteed, clean, drinkable water comes out. Our son recently asked why and how this happened, and it was a moment of realisation that such an occurrence is a privileged situation. Having a small child in the house, means this happens a lot – an appreciation things that we have taken for granted before, and an instant regret that sometime ago, we forgot to keep noticing. To look at the World through a child’s eyes, is t

The letterbox can be a magical thing. If I think about a birthday or special occasion, the memory of receiving a card makes me smile. The nostalgia of receiving a letter from a friend, a postcard from a travelling relative, or a comic book on a wet Saturday morning, reminds me of how our letterboxes used to be. As the world has become digital, this happens less, and the letterbox is becoming a quieter place for cards and positivity. As bills and other regular life chores move

If there is one thing that we have a bit more than usual of during Christmas holidays, it is time. And if there is one thing that habitually takes up some of this time, it is scrolling through social media. Whether that is having a quick look at everyone else's Christmas Day pictures whilst there is a slow passage of play during the Boxing Day football, or spending time in the pub picking the best filter to emphasise the colours in the sky after a New Year's Eve countryside

A big part of making little changes, is to to take inspiration from others. I have already found so much inspiration from our friends and family when talking about this challenge we have set ourselves. Christmas especially, seems to be a moment in the calendar where there is so much inspiration and creativity around being more planetwise. Just by talking to friends, we have lots of changes we can make for Christmas now, and every Christmas. From reusing old Christmas cards

There are around 620,000 kilometres of coastline on this planet, according to latest NASA figures. 70% of the planet is covered with seas and oceans, and around a quarter of all humans on the planet live within 100 kilometres of a coast. Our coasts are where one world meets another. Everything in the sea or even close to the sea, seems to look different, smell different, taste different. Take a walk along a beach, and it feels different under your feet. In bare feet, the feel

Plastic waste is a problem. We are not scientists in our family, nor are we industrialists, or politicians, or ardent environmentalists. Yet we can say this with high confidence that none of these professions would disagree with this statement. It is also not new news. Fast-food corporations are discontinuing plastic straws, supermarkets are discontinuing plastic bags, multinationals are reducing micro-plastics in beauty products and clothing. There are likely many more thing

In the beginning, there was the bin. Our bins have been the focal point of what we throw away for so long, that they have become an aesthetic item as well as a functional necessity. There they sit, a picture of perfect discretion, complicit by their convenience. This sounds a little dramatic, but considering that most days we wake up to hear that a metropolitan area or region is underwater, another is on fire, another is under the grip of an epidemic, or a famine, it is not h

The World is divisive right now. You are either for or against. You are blessed or outraged. Everything you knew, or thought you knew, is wrong. We are hyperconnected, yet we use that privilege to simplify and marginalise. We are at once boastful and seek to put our life above those we call our friends, yet we are also quick to absorb ourselves in momentary mob benevolence to someone whom we’ve never met. These behaviours make us quick to stereotype, but at the same time,