Thanks so much to everyone for your feedback on my post a couple of weeks ago pondering on where to take this blog next. 

Based on that, and on my own interests and preoccupations at the moment, I am going to focus on my family’s efforts to live a greener life. I have entitled the blog post ‘girls going greener’ which does exclude my husband somewhat, but this is very much a project I am leading for our family, so I’m sure he won’t mind!

This is absolutely not going to be a smug ‘look how well I’m doing’, because I’m not! And it isn’t particularly going to be instructional either, because I am learning as I go. What I will do is reflect on what we have done, and whether it has worked or not. My children (Going Greener Girl 1, or GGG1 for short, and Going Greener Girl 2, GGG2) are both very concerned about climate change, and very keen to do their bit to help. And actually, as a parent, I feel one of the most important things I can do for the environment is to raise children who understand the problems and are committed to finding the solutions, so I will be writing about our joint efforts.

We are not going to be selling our house and living in an off-grid yurt any time soon. And I don’t even aspire to grow all our own vegetables (which is probably just as well, as I am not sure how long a family of four can survive on a pot of chives, which is my only growing success so far). What I want to do is find tweaks and adjustments and changes to our behaviour which have a positive impact on the world around us, but also allow us to carry on living our lives as well. My worry about some environmental blogs I have read is that they imply that unless you are going vegan, cycling everywhere, never travelling further than you can cycle, getting all your food from the organic farmer’s market and living totally plastic free then you are a) wasting your time doing anything and b) are a totally horrible person. I think that is off-putting, and far more likely to lead to a response of, well, if I can’t do all that and am made to feel guilty about it, then I won’t do anything at all. I am a firm believer in the aphorism that more is achieved by a lot of people doing a little than a handful of people doing a lot. Obviously it would be amazing if a lot of people did a lot, but I think starting small, slow and sustainable is the best way to make that happen.

So I will document our small slow changes. I will be honest about what doesn’t work, or when we fall off the wagon. And I would love to hear your ideas, successes and failures in trying to live a more environmentally friendly life!