Hoop meditation

This is an amazing meditation to try on a daily basis, or as often as you can manage. You’ll achieve a calm mind… and a slimmer waist! The key is to keep practising – it is worth it.

To start, you will need to buy a fitness hoop. This is not to be confused with a child’s hula hoop…

Shiny Sun visualization

Visualization is an incredibly useful tool, one of the fastest ways to go from a negative to a positive state of mind. And it’s free! All you need is a little imagination, and a few quiet minutes.

The Shiny Sun visualization is designed to help minimize pain and boost wellbeing…

Fire bowl party

This is an exercise that declutters the mind and gives you a fresh, clear outlook for the New Year.

We do it every winter – we choose the Winter Solstice, around 21 December, but you could do it at New Year’s Eve, or any time during the darker months. It’s a great activity to do in a group – a good excuse for a party – but works just as well if you’re on your own. It’s based on an ancient practice that no doubt goes back many hundreds of years.

Before you start, spend a few days decluttering…

Art at Clevancy

Had the best time last weekend at Caroline Keevil’s Art at Clevancy.

It was a spectacular mix of art and handmade goods, with lovely stall holders like Pinks Pyemont, who makes silver jewellery from English oak and ivy leaves; Erica Barton who makes delicious local goats cheese with rosemary, lavender and citrus fruits; and Mary Quarmby who creates vibrant, colourful glass panels and festive decorations which seem to capture the magic of Christmas.

And the customers who turned up were delightful, with a real awareness of the difference that handmade makes…

Recipe: Rosewater and Glycerin

This is another solution to the issue of preserving the skin’s moisture levels, and it comes to you with love and radiant skin from my mother, Shirley.

Shirley has a beautiful complexion: glowing and dewy. She looks far younger than her age. And for much of her grown up life she has used Rosewater and Glycerin. If she swore, she would swear by it.

As a young mother sailing from England to Russia in the 1960s, she carried with her a gallon of Rosewater and Glycerin…

Why we love jojoba

Jojoba came to Dream Botanicals slowly and steadily. At first, all I knew was its compelling name: ‘ho-ho-ba’! I put some into our Sensitive Skin Balm… revelation! It’s fantastic at helping skin with eczema or other sensitive conditions…

And then, last month, I was lucky enough to meet jojoba itself, at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona…

If you had a free month…

What would you do if you had a free month? My friend Tricia, a designer and maker of beautiful cards, told me yesterday that her husband and two children are all going on a school trip down the Amazon. So she is busy thinking about how she will spend her month without them…

Bats are fab

Another very busy morning on the hill. Six builders’ vehicles turn up and park; two giant lorries dump their loads, My son’s school bus arrives. My daughter and I get ready for the school run. Busy, busy.

And then ecologist Pernille Olsen arrives in a gleaming silver car, steps lightly out, and I can feel my mood change…My

Recipe: yummy skin food face mask

At Dream Botanicals we like to make stuff without preservatives. Sometimes, that means giving you the recipes for free so you can make your own ultra-fresh, effective beauty treatments…

Davina’s herb garden

We were standing, a small group of us, around a small plot of lavender bushes, freshly harvested, still subtly scenting the air with their unique, ‘feel good’ scent. We were at a ‘Herbs for Healing’ workshop near Cirencester, to learn how to distill essential oils…