Compost

I took today off from blasting away at the keyboard (and yet... here I am, blasting away) composing short stories or anything else to do with writing.

Instead, I took myself off to a Home Composting Course.

(Insert crickets creaking.)

Yep. Composting.

Now it just so happens that I'm a climate sceptic - one of the growing number of people who don't believe climate change is man-made, but a natural cycle of the Earth's weather systems. It's not an argument I'm getting into here, though.

But my attitude does not mean I'm reckless about my local environment. Far from it. I recycle what I can, walk instead of using the car, turn off environment-friendly lights when not in a room and generally try to limit my carbon footprint.

I've done some composting, but it's not been as successful as I'd like.

Any member of my family will tell you I'm botanically challenged - I can't tell a weed from a, well, plant and I rarely remember the names of the blessed things anyway.

Shoalhaven City Council, however, is the first local council in Australia to offer this course in composting. And for a variety of reasons: it limits the amount of garbage heading for landfill, reduces the impact on the environment and saves ratepayers money in garbage collection.

Off I went. I learned lots, too, about what can and cannot go into the compost. Meat is a no-no, but I already knew that. What I didn't know was the amount of newspaper and cardboard, onions and citrus skins can go in.

Now that I have a new kitchen tidy for scraps and a large compost bin - both free with the course - I'm looking forward to putting the theories I've learned into practice. Maybe I'll even make a veggie patch - save some extra money there too.

Alas, tomorrow it's back to the writing gig, or more precisely, some editing I promised to do.