The end of winter always seems to be the hardest part of it here - worse weather, more illnesses, soil heavy with all the rain - not much opportunity to be outside for a bit of garden therapy. But popping up amongst the lush green weeds there are clusters of bright faces - Narcissus tazetta? or jonquilla? - jonquils for short. Bold little clusters of golden flowers, buffeted by the gales, but here to announce that spring will be here. Don’t give up, they say!
Jonquils - slightly wind battered but resolutely cheerful.
And there are other cold fronts upon us - the damage to our planet from human activity is stark - pollution, extinctions, climate change. So what’s this?
Well, NZ Consumer published a report on shampoo bars - how people rate them compared to liquid shampoo. Quite well, it turns out. So I thought I’d try one.
Puckish - merry, impish. Puck - a rubber disk used in ice hockey. Like a little golden hockey puck - it just looks cheerful to me. It’s a shampoo bar (“Godiva” from Lush. ) And it takes us a wee step away from plastic - so easy, and it was nice to use.
When we face big problems it’s good to remember how every little thing can have an impact - scent and bright flowers to cheer us up, fewer plastic bottles so a little less of the burden of once-used plastic for us to deal with. Little golden things.