global politics, detox diets and metaphorical sunshine

How was your Easter weekend? Good, I hope.

I spent my weekend back at my parents' house, enjoying getting out of London and being warmed by the sun. Staying with my parents invariably involves large amounts of wine and cheese being ingested and Easter weekend was no exception.

I decided before I went that it would be hopeless trying not to partake in the traditional dairy and fermented grape binge, so I vowed instead to return to a sparse diet of just vegetables, fruits, pulses, nuts, seeds and a few wholegrains*. The plan is to go from today until Friday - so far I'm doing pretty well although I've had a low grade headache all day - caffeine withdrawal? I'll update you on how that goes later...

Meanwhile, a few interesting web finds to share with you...

First off, I've been ploughing through the Make Wealth History site, which is a real mine of information and food for thought on matters environmental and economic. It fills a political/global gap in my blog reading and ties together a lot of topics I am interested in but feel quite ill-informed about. So I am feeling quite educated and inspired.

On a lighter note, I saw a link to The Bright Side Project over at Heart of Light . Their mission statement is to: "...bring you a little metaphorical sunshine every day, to help you stop for a second and remember life is (still) beautiful and there is goodness in the world." Which they do by giving away lovely handmade goodies to commenters - you just go along and answer the question posed and see if you win something. Lovely! metaphorical sunshine indeed...

Anyway, I also enlisted my Mum as a sewing instructor at the weekend, so as soon as I get my photos on the computer I'll post the results of that. Otherwise, I'll leave this little miscellaneous ramble here...

* nb - i called it a detox diet in the title because it sounded better, but I shy away from that word because i think all that detox stuff sounds like pseudo-science, and all i'm trying to do is give my poor gut a rest - i can tell it struggles with the massive amounts of sugar and wheat and whatnot i throw at it! also interesting for me to be experimenting with a kind of vegan diet, because I do think there's a lot to be said for that - not least in the environmental impact of it.