I read a book a while back. Not what you’d particularly call a “great novel” but something heart-warming and on the level that it was unlikely to send me into a spiral of gloom…..in other words, not too challenging. Looking back, I can see a lesson in the book, which had the central character of a woman who had a few, shall we call them urges, to save the world in one way or another. Towards the end of the book, it transpires that she’s suffering from depression brought on by stress. She looks to all the other characters as though she’s completely capable and trustworthy in the sense that she got on with her job and could be trusted to deliver.

Part of the book’s climax, if you can call it that was the diagnosis of depression and this link to trying to “save the world”. Apparently it’s a common coping mechanism in depressed people, to find causes to champion, which seem just about the most important thing in their life.

Now I see an analogy here, which I didn’t get at the time. I too am a person who has “causes”. Since having a chance meeting with a homeless man in London’s Underground system, I’ve donated money every month to Shelter to try to help. I’ve also got my long-term causes around the quality of the food we eat and the environmental/ecological ones that I’ve aired here on pbase often enough to sound like a broken record.

Tonight I’ve been lounging on the sofa, watching Gardener’s World and feeling these anxieties and urges welling up inside me again. They had features on fruit, orchards and the value of local produce, not to mention nectar gardening. I went all goose-pimply because these are drums I’ve been banging and we’ve, as you know, been planting trees and fruit here.

Our latest venture into a more eco-friendly world is bees. We’re nearly done with our bee learning, only one more week to go of the theory then it’s a matter of putting it all into practice by acquiring hives and bees. Bees are so important to us and without them, there is an estimate that the world’s whole population could be starving within a very short time.

Pompous perhaps, but I am driven to trying to leave a legacy that’s not about money, wealth or possessions but one that’s about leaving something of greater importance. We should consider ourselves responsible for the future of our planet and do what we can to help, in whatever way we can.

I keep being told to be “more selfish” – think about getting myself better, think about saying “no” and not taking on too much but I really want and need to see our little orchard full of bees buzzing around gathering nectar to make honey…….that’s what I’ve been reading up on, what we can do with all the honey we make.

There was no "this day" a year ago, so here's the last leap year day's pic that I did.