Life Balance

I visited my friend Rachael over the weekend and was stunned at the life style she'd created. She works in the corporate sector three or four days per week and when she's not working, well this should give you an idea ... At Rachael's house we dined on home grown salad and a free-range egg omelet with home grown zucchini and hand made feta. There was home-made beetroot relish on offer. We drank the juice of apples and berries from friends. After lunch she gave me the tour of her raised bed garden. It sat on a north facing bank and had once been a blackberry patch, before she cleared it away and built terraced gardens. She sourced old wood and other materials to create the terraces from the tip and her previous home. She designed the garden so that her sprinkler could reach everything with its sweep of water. She grew watermelon, zucchinis, pumpkins, herbs, salad greens, tomatoes, everything and more she might need. She eats out of her garden. Before I left she loaded me up with more feta (she got the milk from her friend's Jersey Cow), preserves and enough salad greens to feed a family of twenty-five. I went home with fresh ideas for our wee plot of land in suburbia, contemplating chickens ...