It’s been a wee while since I updated you all on Frank’s progress (hold on, isn’t that how I started my last Frank post?) – being winter and all, he was staying boringly the same size. This last few weeks, though, it’s like he’s grown every day. I measure him in ’spikes’ and he’s up to 12 rows! I’m still not sure why he’s so much huger than his brother and sister cacti; the biggest behind Frank is languishing away at three rows of spikes. All my little cacti have taken a big Spring leap this month, though, so I think the ones that we have left are going to make it to proper grown-up cactihood, which is great after losing so many in the beginning. Simon wants to plant some more this Spring (though we’re edging towards Summer – woo!), so expect plenty more cacti updates…

Photo: Frank at 10 months, by ink & keys

2 and 3 Tahini and Marmite In joint position, as they work best jointly. Spread them on toast together, add some tomato slices, and grill to perfection – it rivals all other On Toast dishes. Or add both to fried mushrooms for a saucy breakfast.

4 Nutritional Yeast Flakes Pukey name, looks like fish food, but sprinkle on top of a lasagne and you get a yummy browned, cheesy crust. Or sprinkle on salad. Or eat straight from the tub. The brand name is Engevita. I can only apologise for the non-appealing-ness of this product. It’s like the ugly loner girl at school who is secretly scintillating.

5 Faith in Nature Shower Gel Reasonably priced and cleans you good and proper. Sticky deodorant scum be gone.

6 Alpro Soya Chocolate Desserts Oh dear, the second chocolate mousse related item on my list. It’s yum. The vanilla one’s not bad either.

7 Coconut Milk / Creamed Coconut Since going vegan I’ve discovered the wonderful world of curry-making. Add coconut for a creamy taste, or cook your rice in coconut milk – luxurious.

8 Bourbons and HobNobs Hooray! Biscuits that are secretly vegan!

9 Seitan My favourite meat used to be duck. Lucky, then, that seitan, aka fake duck, exists. I’ve not cooked at home with it yet, but I’ve had it in vege restaurants and it makes an authentic crispy duck pancake.

10 Proper plain chocolate Green and Blacks recently added milk to their plain chocolate. Why? Proper plain choc, with no dairy, is so so so much nicer. Don’t stand for any milky nonsense in your plain chocolate.

And one to avoid…

Vegan Cream Cheese Just wrong. Do not treat this as if it is somehow related to Philadelphia. It is not. It is deeply untasty. (Though to be fair, mixed with enough marg and icing sugar it makes a decent fairycake frosting. So it is partly forgiven.)

The first time I did this was in a Costa Coffee in Paddington Station – “please could you just fill this with tap water for me?” – and a lovely man did so and said something like “every little thing helps save the planet”. And he smiled.

I just used one bottle for a whole week in Amsterdam, getting it refilled at the bar on the ferry, at the sweetie counter in the cinema, in a cafe and lots of other places.

Nobody has ever refused to refill a bottle for me. Only once has someone done it grumpily (woman in Sheffield train station – shame on you!).

I haven’t yet crafted my own sandals from used bottles – maybe next summer… In the meantime I’ll carry on getting my bottle refilled wherever I go, for free, no extra packaging involved.

There’s also a mystery seedling that we’re sure must be a cactus, but it looks so different to the rest of them that we’re intrigued – when will it start looking like a cactus? If anyone has crazy cacti knowledge and can shed any light on this wee mystery, please let me know!

This year I am saving up my carbon karma and holidaying without any flying, and it has turned out so far to be no sacrifice. We took the Eurostar to Bruges and Provence, and loved it. Somehow the old fashioned glamour of train travel, generally now all but lost, is revived when you can whizz along in comfort and end up in Avignon by lunchtime. Keeping local, we’ve got a weekend planned in Dorset, and one picking apples and making cider on a farm in Herefordshire. In my head I have planned and imagined countless more, if only I had the time and money!

Here’s a selection of my favourite ethical travel picks:

Taste the Wild – foraging, wild food and bushcraft courses, in probably my favourite part of the country, the North Yorkshire coast.

Cider making – this is an article about a cheap (and boozy) weekend, camping for free at a cider farm in exchange for helping with the harvest and cider making. This is Broome Farm in Herefordshire, but I’m sure many farms do a similar thing.

National Trust working holidays – learning to build dry stone walls, planting trees, maintaining footpaths in some of the UKs most lovely spots for the good old National Trust.

Green Traveller – great site full of ideas for green and ethical holidays

Intrepid Travel – excellent, responsible adventure travel company.

Under the Thatch – the most amazing, charming self catering accommodation, from Romany caravans to retro Scandinavian forest cabins. A great ethical company, with all profits used to preserve historic buildings.

The Man in Seat 61 – amazingly helpful site all about how to travel the world by train and boat.

Fforest – possibly the best campsite in the country?

Nothing to see here – I love this blog some of the world’s lesser-signposted places to go. It has lots of my favourites: Shipley Glen Tramway, the Keswick Pencil Museum, Saltburn-on-Sea. Not ethical travel in the usual sense, but it’s important to value and preserve these odd little places.

Recently at a village fete style event run by the lovely live art people Home, I met a lady called Izzy Lane, who rescues sheep which would otherwise be killed due to such crimes as being male, missing a pregnancy, being too lame, small, old or otherwise ‘flawed’ (it’s not only us humans under pressure to be perfect, you know). Once Izzy has rescued these shat-upon sheep, she uses their wool to produce gorgeous clothes. Izzy says she has a passion for “great clothes, animals and Britain”. That pretty much sums up my own interests, too.

I’m having fashion palpitations over her cashmere waistcoat above. It’s £148, which puts a slight dampener on things, although I do think that’s an excellent price. Everything is right about this piece – the goats are happy, the design is perfect, the construction looks beautiful, it’s probably softer than snow. I did just spend around this amount of money on a bowl from the new Rob Ryan shop, Ryantown, but I’m already paranoid about it breaking, and let’s face it, I’m not going to wear a bowl out or have to get it dry-cleaned, so my damage paranoia can be contained (just like my apples). If I had this waistcoat, I’d only be able to wear it in sterile situations.

So for now I’ll just stare longingly at this picture.

Sigh.

P.S. I do not advise the mending of trousers while the owner is wearing them, as shown above. That could lead to a nasty accident…

Luckily it’s getting easier as more and more labels with watertight ethical credentials are appearing, and getting more publicity. Gradually I hope, it will become normal and we won’t have to do so much detective work before we can shop worry free.

So, it’s time to share a few of my favourite ethical shopping picks with you – nice timing at the moment as there are quite a few summer sales going on. Each month or so I’ll be posting more picks.

Fashion Conscience – the picture above is from this UK based online boutique, a great one stop shop.
Howies – most days I am wearing something from Howies! They do great organic jeans, t shirts and laid back clothing and they are awfully nice.
Annie Greenabelle – Very cute retro themed clothing in organic, fairtrade and reused fabrics. Stocked at Equa and the Topshop Oxford Circus concession.
Toms – I bought the loveliest pair of simple summer shoes from Toms. They work with communities in Argentina and South Africa and for every pair sold, they give a pair to a child in need
Enamore – very glamorous label with fancy underwear and vintage styled dresses in organic and sustainable fabrics.

The brown suede ribbons on my boots finally gave up the ghost. So I put some cute blue ribbons in instead. I got this blue ribbon with flocked red hearts a few years ago from an online ribbon seller. Unfortunately I’ve lost their details.

I do actually wish I’d swapped the ribbons around a lot more during the life of the boots, so that the brown suede ones were still an option. I suppose you don’t need to wait for something to break or wear out before sprucing it up!