This Pandemic is making it very difficult to be sustainable

 Lockdown and the pandemic 2021

We have now been in this pandemic since March 2020 and throughout our lockdowns our family like most took on homeschooling, getting whatever shopping was available, helping our local heroes and like many loss of household income. My morning inspiration today is Fathers day and without my incredible husbands support this pandemic would have been a lot harder. 

Our family has experienced lots of challenges from the children having no social engagements with their friends, homeschooling and generally trying to understand at the ages of 10, 12 & 14 a pandemic. My children at first enjoyed not going to school and whilst I was enjoying less clothing to be washed chore after a few weeks I could see their frustrations starting to show. I will say that I am incredibly proud of them and their ability to adjust has been something I will always remember.

When March 2020 lockdown hit our NHS resources to keep our doctors and nurses safe was at it's rock bottom and seamstresses were called on to make PPE. The community was calling on anyone with  a sewing machine to get on board. So out came my machines and off I went sewing for the NHS heroes. This is where my children seen me working hours on end to help and they took on the household chores and cooked meals daily. The kitchen became the hub of the home once more and food was freshly cooked or baked with the resources we had on a daily basic as supermarket ques were not for me.

The homeschooling work became routine and we even added on a project to weed the pond area and create a bee friendly flower patch. Our local garden centre was delivering so we set about in the great outdoor building and creating a garden lockdown haven. Nearly two years on and the bee friendly area is blooming and bee activity has returned.

Two months before the first lockdown I set up a natural soap company with a dear friend and whilst the garden was blooming I started to dry the bee friendly flowers and roses from around the garden so that our soap making workshops had some dried flowers that our clients could use to decorate their
soaps. So many flowers were dried out during this time that I could now sell these as wedding confetti which once again helps our wonderful environment. The soaps were another keep busy in lockdown project as we started to branch out into local farm shops. Being environmentally friendly the soaps are naturally made with products you would find around your kitchen such as Olive oil & coconut oil. We worked on our 7soaps packaging to ensure 100% sustainability and have beautiful compostable packaging that also has a duel purpose of becoming the soap dish too for the duration of the soap bar. check out www.7soaps.co.uk to read more about our 7soaps lockdown journey.

 

7soap has many stockists around the wonderful communities in Worcestershire

So lets fast forward and confess

Lockdown shopping

Lockdown seen many families shop where it was convenient and safe to do so and unfortunately my household seen single use plastic return.  I like to call single use plastic pointless plastic as this grab a snack lifestyle is just so easy to do. My bins were filling up with shop packaging waste and I hated returning to convenience shopping. Two weeks ago I emptied the kitchen cupboards to try and bring my plastic free lifestyle back in to my daily life. I was absolutely devastated at the results however I'm more determined to stop supporting these pointless plastic unsustainable companies making millions and my money will be spent supporting local eco friendly companies.

Retuning to planet friendly living has to be a priority for every household and as a community litter picker I see first hand just how wasteful this generation is. I for one will be teaching my kids living this way is going to be a must for their generations future.

My Plastic free family is back