Everything, by year
Every essay and note, newest first, with the year it was planted.
- seedling 1 min
- 1 min
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evergreen 4 min
The case for doing one thing a day
Not one task, one thing, done first. Two years of an idea that sounded too simple to work.
- 1 min
- seedling 1 min
- budding 1 min
- 1 min
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evergreen 4 min
A year of walking the same five miles
Same route, every morning, whatever the weather. I have never paid so much attention to anything.
- 1 min
- evergreen 1 min
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budding 4 min
What fermenting taught me about patience
The first jar went grey, the second exploded, the third was the best thing I ate all year.
- 1 min
- budding 1 min
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budding 3 min
Learning a language at forty, badly and happily
Fifteen minutes a day, a café on Tuesdays and a lot of mistakes. Three years in, I read novels.
- 1 min
- 1 min
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evergreen Paid 4 min
My commonplace book system, in full
Eleven years, one notebook a year and an index box. Everything you need to start one this week.
- 1 min
- evergreen 1 min
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seedling 4 min
Drawing maps of places from memory
Draw a place from memory and you learn how little you looked at it. Then walk it again.
- 1 min
- budding 1 min
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evergreen 3 min
The Sunday soup
Nine years of Sundays, one pot, no recipe. The method that feeds our family every week.
- 1 min
- seedling 1 min
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budding Members 3 min
Reading slowly, on purpose
From sixty books a year to fifteen, and why I remember all fifteen.
- 1 min
- 1 min
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seedling 4 min
Notes on attention
Observations, not conclusions. Attention as a budget, the phone in another room, and questions I am still asking.
- 1 min
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budding Members 4 min
A winter of bread
Sixteen Saturdays, sixteen loaves. From a flat disc the birds refused to the best bread I have made.
- 1 min
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evergreen 3 min
Walking in the rain is underrated
Empty paths, loud smells, puddles like mirrors, and the best part: coming home.
- 1 min
- evergreen 1 min
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evergreen 3 min
Why we write in public
Four friends, eleven years of long emails, and a garden instead of a stream.
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budding 2 min
Teaching something you only just learned
Three months into Spanish, a friend asked me to help her start. I learned more in six weeks of teaching than in three months of study.
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budding 3 min
Cooking by the market, one season at a time
One bag, one stall, every Saturday. Cooking from what is there taught me the year better than any calendar.
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budding Members 3 min
Looking after a pair of boots for nine years
A brush, a tin of wax and ten minutes a week. Everything I do to keep old boots walking.
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evergreen 3 min
Reading aloud at the kitchen table
Twenty minutes after dinner, every evening, for nine years. The habit that started as a bedtime story.
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seedling 3 min
Learning to sketch birds, badly
A pencil, a pocket notebook and a lot of potatoes with tails. Sketching birds taught me to see them.
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evergreen 3 min
Fixing things with strangers on Saturday mornings
A church hall, long tables, cups of tea and broken things. The best three hours of my month.
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evergreen 3 min
Learning to darn a sock
A needle, some wool and my grandmother's darning mushroom. Simple, calming and slightly addictive.
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budding Members 3 min
Mending old books with thread and glue
Loose pages, torn pages and broken spines. How I mend the books I cannot replace.
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seedling 3 min
The seventy-two small seasons
My grandmother's old calendar of five-day seasons, and a local version for an English valley.
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evergreen Members 3 min
Bringing an old cast-iron pan back to life
Three euros at a flea market, red with rust. Six hours later, the best pan in my kitchen.
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budding Members 3 min
Living by the daylight
A year of letting the light shape the day: slow winter mornings, candles after dinner, long June evenings.
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evergreen 3 min
Keeping a nature calendar
One page for each week, and the first time I see something. Three years of saying hello to the year.