The easy ones first:-

• Turn your heating down a few degrees. Did you know that, if you are healthy and not too old, living at 19°C for around 4 hours a day is good for you. You grow more brown fat, which burns more calories, because it has more mitochondria, tiny power stations in cells that produce the energy for your body.

 

• Can we talk about astro-turf, artificial turf, plastic grass or whatever you call green coloured plastic strips pretending to be a lawn. This stuff wears away into massive amounts of microplastic. It displaces real plants, which sequestor CO2. Plastic is made from oil, need I say any more. It povides no food for wildlife, your garden birds will not thank you, well you won't have any.

 

• Have a compost bin. even small spaces are enough, lift a slab and stick a plastic bin on it, or build a big pallet one, but build one. A small wormery can be fun, once the worms have explored the room, yes they do that. But the output is fantastic, use dilluted as a feed. A few tips add brown things like dried leaves or shreeded cardboard to your compost. Actually add a lot, about two thirds, twice as much as organic stuff from your kitchen

 

• Showers are great aren't they, lovely and warm, and you stand under that running water to ease your aching muscles. Yes lovely. But, if you don't have a medical reason to linger, you could save a little money, and quite a bit of water, if you do it differently. By getting wet, and then turning the water off, you can soap yourself down, and scrub any dry bits with the pumice, after that turn it back on to rinse off. Known by some as a navy shower, it will save you money everyday of the year. After all water is not free. While we are on showers Dr MIcheal Mosley advises a cold shower is good for you. You only need thirty seconds, don't let the shock wear off, to get the benifit. Oh and, start in the summer.

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