Dearie me

Oh dear, once again I have utterly failed to regularly update a blog. A litter of abandoned blogs trails in my cyber-wake, but I'm determined not to let this one follow, so let's try a different tack. The problem is that all the blogs that I admire are the 'expert' type - the grandmother blogging on herbal remedies, the thematic blogs, the blogs run by people who are handy enough with their hands to have shops on Etsy - and so I launch myself in with the wistful longing to be such an expert, when really all I am is an interested amateur. And too interested in far too many things to ever be an expert! 

This week for example, I want to be able to crochet. Not learn to crochet, mind - I want to be able to do it! Herbhubby and I are in Japan with the in-laws and, wandering round bookshops (now there's something that will probably never change) I came across the Japanese craft of amigurumi, little crocheted dolls. It's nothing like the crochet my grandma tried to teach me when I was young - especially the volume I found on crocheting little dogs! Wah! So for the past few hours I've been at the desk fumbling my way through a basic granny square with the hope that I will be able to progress on to a miniature spaniel mobile phone accessory within, oh, about half an hour. Did I mention that I have a broken finger?! Talk about unrealistic.  I can barely hold the wool!

So, a New Year's resolution, then - to write about things as they are, rather than as I wish them to be. I will almost certainly be the only one who ever reads this page...but that was always the case anyway. ;-) 

Lost April

I have just realised that it's been exactly a month since I wrote anything. Not great blogging form, but then I am an all-or-nothing type of gal. Hopefully this post will mark the start of a blogging glut!

We've been busy too - Herbpuppy has being trying her best to kill the herbs in pots outside the front door (she loves lemony flavours, so everytime she goes out for a wee she has a munch - lemon balm, citrus thyme and pineapple mint, yum yum!). Sustainability isn't really at the forefront of her puppy-ish mind, sadly, and one of the thymes at least has nearly had it... She's also officially become a teenager - moody and totally refusing to listen to anything her poor parents tell her. We went to Windsor last Saturday for a beautiful walk near the castle, and she utterly disgraced herself (and us) by dive-bombing a pair of snoozing sunbathers and launching a vicious attack on a (thankfully mostly finished!) picnic. She is now on the lead at all times until further notice!

Herbhubby has been gallavanting across the country playing that most noble of sports, Ultimate Frisbee (no laughing at the back there!), and is off again this weekend, sniff sniff.

On the herbal front, things have shifted a gear with the most welcome arrival of beautiful spring. Winter in the city saw me mostly indoors, experimenting with lotions, potions and vinegars created from dried, pre-bought ingredients. It was the realisation that I didn't have the foggiest what most plants looked like alive that sent me to the Chelsea Physic Garden to volunteer. Now that the whole of London has exploded into a mess of greens, every trip outside has become an exploration. I am still in a muddle about whether to use, say, chickweed from my local part. I'm worried about pollution (both human-made and the doggy variety), but at the same time, the idea of a bit of 'urban foraging' definitely appeals...

Ah, office work should be illegal in this kind of weather!

Ouch! Witch Hazel to the rescue

I've had some Witch Hazel in my cupboard for a couple of weeks now, ready to make up an eye-wash for the Herbpuppy (cockers are notoriously susceptible to eye complaints). Yesterday it had its first outing, and it was related to the dog, but not quite in the way I had imagined!

*Warning. The following story contains an act of extreme stupidity.*

So, Herbpuppy and I were on a walk in our local park yesterday morning. We met one of her friends, a lovely chocolate labrador pup called Molly, and of course Herbpuppy wanted to beat her up (she is not known as 'The Thug' at my parents' house for nothing...). I had to take her lead off when they got entangled, as entangled leads is about number 5 on the list of Cardinal Sins For Which You Will Be Shouted At in puppy class. (Just one of about 500 things we're not supposed to do!)

Lead off became scampering, scampering turned to excessive friskiness, and friskiness lead the Thug to take advantage of an open gate and make a dash for some small children in the play area. Herbpuppy just LOVES children, and she has no conception of a world in which they don't all love her too. Anyway, I managed to distract her by calling her name and sprinting in the opposite direction. You can probably tell where this is leading.

Sprinting in slightly slippy boots + adoring but spacially unaware puppy = me, flying through the air in front of amazed children.

I have never been so happy about how close this park is as I limped home - bloody hands, bloody knee and ripped tights, desperately not to catch anyone's eye.

Thank goodness for the Witch Hazel! It worked a treat as an infusion to clean all the cuts and grazes. Boiling it up was very calming - half the point of using it, I think. Like washing the dishes and walking to work, it allows me to tap into what is known in Buddhism as 'mindfulness'; being very calmly in the present moment. A lovely little routine to regain my composure after quite a shock - much more nourishing than squeezing antiseptic cream from a tube.

Plant Spirits blog party

This is my first blog party with the wonderful women and men of herbwifery.org. This month's blog, on plant Devas, myths and spirits, is hosted by ananda at plantjourneys.

Willow speaks to me.

Since the age of nine, I’ve suffered from horrible migraines – real shaky, heart-racey, pounding, sweaty, sicky nightmares. I must have tried every drug going during my teens and early twenties, and most of them seriously disagreed with me. They were all about running as far away from the pain as possible, trying to cancel it out, denying its message. Now, in my late twenties I’ve started to listen. As often as I can (still not often enough…) I spend time with my pain. We talk, and willow acts as a calming intermediary. If I let her.

In Japan, willow trees are associated with ghosts. My husband skirts round the lonely looking one near my parents’ house, although for me she’s more wistful than spooky. She must have been able to see the nearby river, once, before all the buildings got in the way. Now she’s fenced in, a tight triangle that people using the alley seem to have decided is a rubbish tip. Her graceful lines mean she’s still beautiful, though, even when she’s dancing in a dustbin.

Willow has a strong spirit – strong enough that I can easily imagine her manifesting in such a way that people saw ‘ghosts’. She did, after all, inspire the world’s first synthetic drug (acetylasylic acid, or Aspirin) – seriously potent energy! I get the feeling, though, that she’s sad about the way things have gone; her energy stripped bare from the chemicals and disregarded. It took her years to get through to me, but get through she did; she's persistant!

So now, willow sits in my cupboard – her bark ready to be made into an infusion for aches and pains. Her lessons haven’t been easy, but they’ve been interesting. Her love of water and the moon sing to my own – hers is a powerfully feminine energy: co-operative, flowing, gentle. She won’t work on her own (she respectfully reminds me that she is not a ‘magic bullet’ to be fired indiscriminately at pain!). Instead, she says, take me early, take me with a good dose of peace and quiet, take me in cool, shady room. What is the point of helping you if you don’t help yourself? If you just want a painkiller to numb you so you can throw yourself back into situation that made you sick in the first place?

She demands respect. When I can give that respect, she helps me converse with the pain. And then when we’re all ready, she floats me to sleep.

Making friends with nettle 2

So, nettle is an excellent general blood tonic, rich in vitamins and minerals, widely-used as a good spring-clean for the system. She seemed the perfect herb to get started with.

I'm in the process of recovering from an eating problem which left me undernourished - starved, to all intents and purposes - for almost two years. When I first began the recovery process, my GP had me on calcium and iron tablets, as well as an antidepressant. I basically rattled when I walked! The iron left me all yuckily constipated, so I didn't take it nearly as often as I should, with the result that my anaemia dragged on for months. Lord, I was so tired!

Anyway, enough of that. I've weaned myself off all the prescription medicine and turned my attention to diet and lifestyle. There's a long way to go, sure, but I'm already feeling the effects.

Taking my cue from Susun Weed, my first foray with nettles was a nourishing infusion - 25g of dried nettles steeped in water over night and then sieved into a jar in the morning and stored in my fridge. So straightforward! (Well, apart from the fact that I managed to smash a jar whilst preparing it) It really appeals to my longing for simplicity in my life - a single herb, prepared in a very basic way.

Yes, I did say dried. I can't get back to my parents in the (relative to central London) countryside for a few weeks yet, and although nettles certainly do grow in the parks near the flat, there's so much dog- and foot-traffic around here that I haven't wanted to muck about with it. The very excellent herbalist Baldwins is only a short bus ride away, so I decided to to go for dried.

So far, I've been drinking the infusion four times a day, adding nettles to our miso soup in the evening, and using her as a rinse for my hair in the shower. Yes, I'm weaning myself off the shampoo! I'm getting some really good energies from her - my hair is soft, I'm feeling peppy and the infusion tastes great. It's nice to drink it cold (I've only ever had hot nettle tea before). Tomorrow, I'm going to go and sit with her in the park.