Maternal instincts

This Sunday, mothers up and down the country will sit back while someone else washes up the dishes - a popular way to give mum a rest on Mother's Day.

I'm counting on a card or two (plantable ecohip ones, if they've been listening to my hints).

If only because a few years ago, my husband 'forgot' and the fallout meant that he now has the date hardwired into his brain.

But I've also been thinking about what the concept can stand for.

In many ways, it's easy to dismiss Mothering Sunday as yet another marketing ploy, an opportunity for shops to set up big displays of presents, from chocolates to bubble bath.

I used to be pretty cynical about it, and even more about the American invention of Father's Day.

But is it really such a bad thing?

What is wrong with celebrating the role of nurturing and bringing up a family - in both women and men?

In Europe, Mothering Sunday dates back to Roman times, when the mother goddess Cybele was celebrated in mid-March. The day later became incorporated into the Christian calendar to honour the Virgin Mary and the 'mother church'.

In the 16th century it was a chance for people to return home to see family (it was called 'to go a-mothering') or attend their 'mother' church. In later times it was a rare day off for domestic servants.

Today, many people are more likely to head for a pub lunch than a church pew. But if we hold on to the original impulse rather than give in to rampant consumerism, it's still as valuable as ever.

The impulse to nurture and care is more important than ever, and ties up with being 'green' and aware of our environment.

Just as mothering/parenting isn't easy (and often a million miles away from the idealised image we start out with), caring about the planet gets more complicated the longer you do it and the more you know.

But when it comes to how we to bring up our children and choose to live our lives, thinking things through, sometimes making difficult choices, is what counts.

As any parent who has spent today with a toddler or a teenager knows, life isn't like the movies. And just as mothering can't be summed up by a box of chocolates, caring for the wider world extends beyond re-using the odd carrier bag.

But as long as we keep trying to do the right thing, and learning along the way, that's got to be a good thing - right?

Picture: freeimages.co.uk

Say it with flowers

On the wooded common a short walk from our place, the first shoots of snowbells are starting to come up, and the ground is dotted with patches of vivid rich green moss.
Come spring, a sheltered bank of the woodland will be covered in a vivid haze of bluebells.
Scenes like this represent British nature at its best: wild flowers growing where they have for generations, for all to admire (without picking them).
But walk for 15 minutes in the other direction and you come to a petrol station. On the concrete forecourt there is a line of buckets containing bunches of luminous pink, yellow and red flowers wrapped in cellophane, looking exotic and out of place.
The West has an insatiable desire for out-of-season cut flowers, and Britain leads the pack. A third of the flowers we import are flown in from Kenya, racking up C02 emissions. Local activists have also reported that large-scale flower growing has damaged the Kenyan environment and village communities.
Human rights groups reported that valuable river water has been diverted from local villages to feed the West’s desire for year-round blooms.
In 2006 and 2007, journalist John Vidal wrote in The Guardian about how flower companies were accused of diverting water from the Ngiro river and lakes. It was conservatively estimated that at least 20,000 cubic metres of water a day were taken for flower farming.
A survey by a Kenyan school found that the maximum depth of one lake was just 3.7 metres - more than three metres below what it was in 1982. Combined with climate change, this was having a serious impact on the lives of local farmers.
Another big flower producer is the Netherlands - but buying Dutch blooms isn't much better from an environmental point of view. A study at Cranfield University compared the energy used in hot-housing Dutch flowers and flying in Kenyan ones. It concluded that, including the altitude effect on CO2, Dutch CO2 emissions were about 5.8 times larger than Kenyan CO2 emissions.
If this hasn't already wilted your desire for a Valentine's Day bunch of roses next month, read more about the nasties of flower farming, like pesticides and slave wages, in The Ecologist(http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=230).

But if you'd prefer a bit of feel-good relief, the good news is that there is an ethical, eco-friendly way to say it with flowers this Valentine's Day.

Ecohip has a stylish range of cards made from recycled paper that are infused with wildflower seeds - including one especially for Valentine's Day. When your loved one has finished displaying their card, all they have to do is put it in a sunny spot, spread a thin layer of soil on top and water it well. In 6-8 weeks a mini-bed of wildflowers will grow, serving as a lasting reminder of the blossoming love between you.
Brilliant: a Valentine with the kind of message you want to send. And it goes without saying that no flowers were picked or force-grown in the making of this card.
And aside from the eco benefits, sending a plantable card is so much more original and stylish than grabbing a bunch of gaudy flowers from the supermarket or petrol station forecourt... Check them out at http://www.ecohip.org/

Bluebell picture: http://www.freeimages.co.uk/