This week I’ve had another forrage around in my brain to catalogue some of the things I’ve been mulling, and this time I actually doodled the words on paper!

So here we go, this is why these seven words/phrases are the words of this past week:

Journal Keeping diaries and journals is a brilliant idea.  Sometime I’m strapped for time to fit this in, but when I can I like to record what I’ve been up to, what stage I’m at in life and follow how my activities and thoughts change and develop over the years.  I tend to find a pretty covered hardback notebook helps me to write in it more often.  At present I’m in the midst of a stylish plain black hardback reporters notepad, but when I’m finished I may opt to upgrade to something prettier.  If I were you, I’d seriously consider a Large Elephant Dung notebook, or an Embroidered Journal, or the slightly more masculine choice of a Recycled Vinyl Notepad if you were thinking of starting one.  I really recommend it.

Double Portions It’s just me and Phil at home, and sharing the cooking between two of you takes more time than we would like.  That’s why cooking double portions is simply the greatest idea known to man (provided you own a freezer…)  Cooking a double portion of chilli, or a curry or a shepherd pie is easy peasy.  It means you have to buy in larger quantities too, not diddly “couple portions” so 500g bags like Suma Prepacks Kidney Beans, or buying cases of tins of Kidney Beans are ideal, as are big bags of dried lentils, perfect for curries - and no need for soaking. (Yes!)

Tea? Need I say more?  It keeps our nation going!  There are never-ending mugs of Cafedirect Everyday Tea on the go on the office and we had a lovely chat with our followers about this on twitter this week.

Egg Hunt If you haven’t heard, then you could miss out!  We have an Easter Egg Hunt on around the site where you could win some scrumptious Divine Chocolate!  Entries have been flying in and the competition closes on 31st March.  For more information on how to enter the competition, take a look at the Big Easter Egg Hunt blog.

Frogs! This week, I saved the lives of two frogs!  On Wednesday night, I nearly drove over 3 frogs in different places, but narrowly missed due to my sharp eyesight…  Why there were so many frogs out at that time of the night far away from a frog-like home, I have no idea.  All three were rather hefty sized species, all sitting perfectly still in the middle of surburbian roads.  When I had a chance a bit later, I went out with a disused washing up bowl filled with a little water and coaxed the croakers into my bowl, which I then sneakily positioned close to the next door neighbours pond.  The following morning, they had left my bowl and were hopefully enjoying stretching their legs next door.  Ahh, it feels good to be responsible for the animals.

Seedlings Inspired by Ruth’s blog on Allotments and by the general warmer weather, I’ve been stocking up on seeds and mini greenhouses and attempting to grow my own veg this year.  So far, the cress that was planted is now approximately 2mm tall… result!

Catalogue Some of the of the team have been busy working on our Spring/Summer Catalogue for 2010 and this week the final copy has been sent to the printing press, which is very exciting.  (Take a peek at them on Flickr…) You can order your copy here!

Video thanks to Cafédirect TV.

In this first film, Raul del Aguila, coffee grower from Cocla in Peru, speaks about the environment and Cafédirect’s Machu Picchu coffee.

If you have questions of your own do let us know, we’ll do our best to find you some answers!

Video thanks to Cafédirect.

It may not be all that much to look at straight away, but with some careful planning and a certain amount of hard digging (cue my husband!), this little patch of land is going to burst into life. It’s time for a confession though - Although I’ve been an avid gardener for quite a while now, I’m an entirely amateur allotment-eer…

It may be my first foray into ’serious’ growing, but the idea of ‘growing your own’ has always appealed. The number of food miles that the average supermarket vegetable racks up is quite alarming - even if your carrots and potatoes have been grown in the UK, the chances are they’ve spent a fair number of hours on the road before they even think about getting anywhere near your shopping basket. It may be a bit of a cliché, but I want to become a little bit more like ‘The Good Life’… I may even have to invest in a pair of denim dungarees!

FSC certified spade

Before getting ahead of myself, I need to get myself kitted out with the tools of the trade. With a good set of gardening tools I hoping I can’t fail. With my spade in hand, organic compost at my side, and a whole wealth of good intentions, sprouts, carrots, brocoli, peas and lettuce will surely follow!

Still… I’m feeling a little nervous… I’d love some helpful advice. If you’re an experienced allotment fan, please pass on your tips! What should I plant first? What needs the sunshine and what flourishes in the shade?

Organic Potato Planter

If you don’t have an allotment or you’re one of the unfortunate souls still on a waiting list, never fear. You can still get growing your own grub - the organic patio potato planter is unmissable if you don’t want to get your hands too dirty. If you fancy a whole array of locally grown fresh fruit and veg there is yet another option.  Organic fruit and vegetable boxes are unbeatable if you’re a fan of seasonal, local fayre.

Allotment Image thanks to Google Maps.

Here are the reasons these are my top words of the week:

Campervan My husband and I and our good friends Mark and Heather bought an 1978 VW Type 2 Bay Window Camper Van last weekend.  It was a bit of a spontaneous decision, but a very exciting decision!  (Take a look at us on Flickr)  The thought of practically having free holidays to explore unbeaten tracks all around Britain fills me with happiness and anticipation.  It’s great that such old cars have been loved and preserved for many years, not thrown into the scrappage scheme or left to be neglected.  I’m proud to own a vehicle that’s older than me.  It’s inspired me, I vow that I will to find ways of retaining outdated items and preserving things more often.  (Perhaps I’ll reconsider purchasing something from our vintage recycled record collection from Vinylux…)

Spring This week it feels like Spring has arrived.  I’ve been watching the snowdrops and daffodils shoot up and bloom whilst enjoying the sun winking and grinning at us.  I’ve spent hours trawling through the gardening pages looking for bulbs and seeds, considering buying watering cans and entertaining thoughts of various activities I can do now the days are longer and (marginally) warmer.

Wallpaper I regularly update the Ethical Superstore 365 Flickr Project, and this week we took a shot that we thought would make a lovely Fair Trade desktop wallpaper.  It would make an interesting move, making ethical desktop wallpapers available at Ethical Superstore, helping us to think ethical thoughts even while we use our computers!  Don’t you think?

Poorly I was a bit unwell this week, it knocks you out a bit when that’s the case.  Sometimes all you have energy to do is to consider all the possible remedies and ointments you could use to make you feel right again.  (I also chose this word because I discovered North-Easterners tend to say it in an amusing way.  The closest I can get to writing it is “puhrley”…)

Mummys It’s the season to be thinking about our mummys and the mother figures in our lives and ensure they are rewarded and loved. I bought my Mummy a Paper Potter and some seeds to go with it.

Stripes They’re in this season I hear, which I’m pleased about for two reasons.  Firstly, because a high proportion of my clothes collection is striped and secondly, because our  gorgeous brand new People Tree range for Spring and Summer has a definite striped theme!  It’s worth a look…

Communication I’ve learnt this week that communication is really important to our relationships, be it long standing friendships, family relationships or work relationships, we need to communicate with one another.  It seems obvious, but sometimes we need a little reminder to keep us going.

What are your words for the week?

Image thanks to www.wordle.net

First Prize!

It’s not long until Easter, and here in the EthicalSuperstore.com offices we’re getting excited. Whatever your beliefs, it’s a time to be thinking about Spring, new growth and new life. The sun might even start to come out soon (although we can’t promise anything)!

In celebration of Easter being just around the corner, we’ve joined up with Divine Chocolate to celebrate Easter with a whole delicious range of Fairtrade Easter eggs, and together we’ve decided that it’s time to kick off the Big EthicalSuperstore Easter Egg Hunt - so get your thinking caps on, and follow the clues around the site.

The clues will lead you around 5 different EthicalSuperstore products. You’ll know you’ve found the right place when you see a little golden egg on the product page, then just look to the bottom of the product description to find the next clue…

When you’ve found the five products, just enter your name, email address and the five product ID codes into the form below (you’ll find them beneath the product name), and a winner will be picked at random. The competition closes at Midnight on the 31st March.

The First Prize is the egg selection as seen above. Five runners up will receive a Divine Milk Chocolate Egg. Delicious!

The First Clue:

Monitor your energy consumption with this gadget that sounds like an bird…

Editior’s decision is final. No cash alternative.

Name:
Email Address:
Answer 1:
Answer 2:
Answer 3:
Answer 4:
Answer 5:
SPAM Protection	Please enter the letters in the preceeding image in the box below.
Occasionally we like to send out emails with news and offers. If you don’t want to hear from us please tick here:

This Fairtrade towel certainly got a thumbs up  - “it was a like a cosy hug after my cold shower” - we’re glad you liked it Sally!

Top of the morning to all, and welcome to the #216th Carnival of the green. First of all, a big thanks to Marie at Project Earth Blog for their fantastic green round-up at last week’s Carnival. Secondly…let’s jump right in…

The selection of blogs that came my way this week was fantastic - as a first time Carnival author it’s been a lot of fun reading through and putting the Carnival selection together. Cue lights, cue cameras, and ACTION!

Check out the fabulous ocean inspired plastic-waste gowns showcased at New York’s fashion week, but make sure you don’t miss the irony - Beth Terry writing on Fake Plastic Fish questions the logic of the American Chemistry Council awarding their first prize to an environmental project when in her words, plastic makes ocean pollution possible.

The Olympics have been in the limelight over the last couple of weeks with skiers, snowboarders, bobsledders and ice-skaters wowing us with their icy skills. But how many people around the world consider the environmental implications of the games? Guffly’s blog tells us all about how Vancouver has been upping the game with a green Olympics, with everything from housing, transportation, and greener, reusable facilities, to medals made from recycled materials.

Recycling popped up at least twice in this week’s selection - Recycle Cindy from MyRecycledBags.com (a website dedicated to recycling & crafting) brings us essential tips on how to , recycle your old mobile phones and Mrs Green posting on My Zero Waste encourages us to recycle our old shredded paper.

Spring is on it’s way (despite it still being cold and frosty up North!), so as thoughts turn to Spring cleaning make sure you use natural products. Mrs Green writing on the Little Green Blog introduces us to Chemercial, Andrew Nisker’s docu-film showing one family’s 3 month challenge to reduce their dependency on conventional household cleaning and personal care products, and de-toxify their home.

Learn about the science of climate change and with Justin Allison on Otecology.com.

Brenda Pike presents her search for green make-up with Brenda Pike posted at Pragmatic Environmentalism.

Miranda’s Top 10 relatively painless things you can do to get started on your mission to a greener lifestyle is a great round up for the week. From little things such as using your own carrier bags to slightly more time consuming projects such as growing your own produce, it’s these small steps that add up which really make a difference. Check out her blog at Naturigy.com for the full round-up of tips.

Don’t forget to check out next week’s Carnival collection at Fake Plastic Fish, and in the meantime, keep an eye on Twitter’s #BestGreenTweets for regular green updates from across the twittersphere.

Our friends at Shared Interest have been trying a new Fairtrade product every day of the fortnight, and by the looks of things have been enjoying it very much indeed!

On Friday they sampled Ethical Superstore’s very own Thandi Sauvignon Blanc Semillion - check out their video review to find out their thoughts…

“Who doesn’t enjoy a nice glass of wine after a long day? I would be lying if I said my wine “cellar” wasn’t constantly stocked, so I think it is about time I added a Fairtrade variety or two.”

Sally Reith, Shared Interest

Fancy adding a Fairtrade bottle or two to your own wine cupboard? Check out our Fairtrade Labelled Wine and Beer selection.

Tropical Wholefoods

It’s Fairtrade Fortnight, hurrah!  It’s the season when we all have a chance to consider what we buy and where it’s come from.  As we’re munching on some yummy food or dressing ourselves in new clothes in the morning, this is the time for us to have a good think about who is involved in producing some of the things we buy.  Are the workers who pick my bananas being paid properly?  Are the weavers of my new top given a fair wage?

You may already know that this Fairtrade Fortnight we’re selling a hamper packed full of breakfast goodies (Helen wrote a lovely blog about it) to promote some of the brands already established in the fair trade field and to raise awareness of Fairtrade.  It’s important to know how our food and drink have been produced, so it seems like a fine opportunity to reveal the journey of each of the products in this hamper, and how they have achieved their status of being certified by the Fairtrade Foundation.

To start us off, we’re taking a peek at the story behind the energy snack bars from Tropical Wholefoods, a company that have been around since the 1990s, importing all sorts of dried fruits and nuts into the country.  Choosing to work with ethical businesses, paying fair prices well in advance to workers all over the world, they’re achieving some great work.

At a glance, here’s the journey of how their Apricot & Kernel Bar has made it’s way to our hamper:

In the northern area of Pakistan, apricots grow.  The highland environment of the Karakorum and Himalayan Mountains where the apricot fruit trees thrive are irrigated by pure glacial melt water so the apricots are wonderfully bright and tangy.  In the surrounding area, the communities are poor and live in harsh conditions, but Mountain Fruits, a Pakistani Fairtrade dried fruit and nut company, train the Northern Farmers in Pakistan to farm effectively.  They dry the tasty apricots in the sun and sell them to a number of companies, including Tropical Wholefoods, who pay them a fair wage.  (Over the years, the income that Mountain Fruits generate has helped support the local community, providing materials for schools, playgrounds, water tanks, sewing machines and generators.)
The tasty apricots are then flown to the UK, to Sunderland in fact, where friendly people blend generous helpings of them with a plethora of other ingredients.  The fruity mix is then rolled out and baked in a big oven at a low temperature.  The friendly people at Tropical Wholefoods then allow it to cool, slice up the mix into bars and package them into perfect snackable sizes.

And that’s how one company are striving to make an impact in the lives of poor communities elsewhere in the world.  Keep an eye out for more blogs, an insight into some of the other Fairtrade produce we sell.