It's the small things that matter.

A bad start to the morning for me. Last night, I put a tarpaulin over the windscreen in case of another severe frost, but instead we had rain. The tarpaulin caused water to saturate the drivers seat, so by the time I got to work I looked like I'd wet my pants.

Things did get better. Last week a colleague asked for art supplies for her friend who was visiting a children's project in Ethiopia. I had a root through the drawers at home and filled a carrier with crayons, pencils, feathers, pipe cleaners, coloured lolly sticks and pencil sharpeners.

Her friend arrived at the centre on Monday, and has posted a couple of pictures on facebook of the children and their new artwork. It made my day (and others who sent equipment) to see our unwanted bits and pieces made into lovely collages!

The picture above is our recycling bag. We are part of a council pilot scheme to reduce landfill, so our small plastics bin has been swapped for our large black bin. Although we have always been keen recyclers, I think we are going to struggle to fit truely useless items in our small bin. We will just have to do our best - we may surprise ourselves!