Fashion, flowers and friends in your Heyday Friday newsletter

Invaluable tips for up-cycling your unwanted clothes, a heart-felt TV recommendation, a revealing sporting insight, and a special garden delight in this week's newsletter

Hello!

Nurse Kenwood here. Thanks so much to those of you who messaged me here and by email wishing my lovely fella well over his op. I’m relieved to report that it all went according to plan and that he’s been recovering steadily since, and being a generally admirably patient patient. We’re back for his post-op check up on Friday, so keeping our fingers very firmly crossed it’s done what it needs to.

Spending time ministering to him - and making an awful lot more meals than I usually do - has meant I’ve spent a lot more time reading and watching TV than getting out and about, and this week’s blog was prompted by a shocking article I saw in last week’s Guardian newspaper.

It’s about the impact of fashion waste - the clothes we get rid of, one way and another - and the terrible impact they’re having on the environment, our economies and people whose lives are being endangered in ways that are quite horrifying. There are several links to the article in the blog, along with a truly astonishing fact I discovered when reading it.

The blog itself isn’t a rant about the horrors of fashion waste, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know. Rather it’s a, hopefully useful, round up of some of the best, and most environmentally friendly, ways to give the clothes you no longer want a new lease of life and not in a landfill site.

Find out what those are by CLICKING HERE

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WORDS OF WISDOM

I loved this quote even more when I found out who said it

(it’s rapper, singer-songwriter, front man of Black Eyed Peas and one of the coaches on The Voice, Will.i.am, in case you didn’t know)

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THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN……WATCHING

Anything that involves Tina Fey is bound to be classy, and this eight-part comedy drama features her as a writer, producer and cast member, so it’s triply likely to be eminently watchable and enjoyable. Which it is.

Tina plays one half of a group of three middle-aged couples, long time friends who meet up for weekend breaks four times a year and follows the repercussions when one of them announces he’s divorcing his devoted wife and then subsequently gets together with a much younger woman.

Funny, tender, heart-breaking and shrewd The Four Seasons exposes the relationship dynamics of each of the couples - uptight, practical Kate (Fey) and her peace keeper husband Nick, flamboyant designer Danny (a wonderfully watchable Coleman Domingo) and his over-excitable Italian husband, Claude, unexpectedly steely Anne, and her soon to be ex-husband Nick (played by Steve Carrell, another of my acting faves on equally great form), who exuberantly brings his new young girlfriend along on the trips with inevitable consequences. “God,” says Danny to Kate as she makes her opinion wordlessly plain, “your face is so loud sometimes”.

Based on a film by Alan Alder, The Four Seasons recognises that life is messy and unpredictable, marriage involves constant work and communication, and that love, between couples and amongst friends, is always worth the effort. Amen to that.

You can watch The Four Seasons on Netflix

And see the trailer HERE

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GOOD TO KNOW

By all means feel free to file this under ‘Something I really didn’t need to know, thanks’, but during one of my scrolling sessions whilst waiting to accompany my lovely fella to a medical appointment, I came across this and I found it fascinating.

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WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK

Last time I showed you the first of my delicate white wisteria which is trailed around and over the pergola in my little garden. Well now it’s in full flower and honestly, it’s making me happier than I can say (in spite of the quantity of petals that its constantly shedding all over the table)

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The Picture This app I told you about in the last newsletter has come into its own this week with the appearance of horrible black insects all over one of the plants in my garden. Not only has it identified them as aphids, it has told me exactly what to do to get rid of them, both using natural, home-made remedies and chemical insecticides (which it suggests are only employed as a last resort). I’m on the case.

It will, I very much hope, render this

FRIDAY FUNNY

obsolete, but it did make me laugh anyway.

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That’s all for this week. I’ll be continuing my nurturing duties - both human and plant - in the coming days. If you’d be so kind as to nurture me with a little like heart, that would be as appreciated as always. It also helps makes Heydays more visible to other Substack users. Thank you.

See you next time.