For the want of some rusty nails....

This summer I got Wild Dyer by Abigail Booth.

I have a cream over-shirt I would like to tie-dye.

I've been collecting onion skins in a paper carrier bag as I cook.

I am on the look out in charity shops for a large pan (to be used only for the dying)

I also need rusty nails. I found I already had one. Then on Friday, cycling to the Walthamstow Wetlands, I found one, very rusty, nail on the cycle path in Orient Way. Doubled my cache!

Rosemary theft

Someone has taken a lot of the rosemary from my front garden - not even neatly cutting it, just roughly twisting and pulling it off. Presumably somewhere there is a wreath with a lot of my rosemary in it.

A neighbour did knock on my door once as he wanted some rosemary for a meal he was making for a visiting friend. I was happy to give him permission to take some whenever he needed it for his cooking.

This is the third theft from my garden - a plant was dug up many years ago just before Mother's Day, and a load of leaf mould was taken a few years ago.

I would never grow vegetables in my front garden!

Plane tree bark = wonderful fire-lighters

Because of the dry summer the plane trees dropped most of their bark. I could have filled my sitting room with black bin bags full of the bark. However, I only collected two carrier bags full.

Despite the problems I would have had storing it, I wish I had collected more. It makes such marvellous fire-lighters, whether starting the fire or when I've left the fire too long and it's mainly red ash and needs firing up again.