Weeds?

 

What are weeds? Some say they just another plant in the wrong place. I tend to agree with the notion as we have weeds in our garden, which produce the most exquisitely delicate flowers, that seem to be there today and gone tomorrow. The plant knows we will shortly be weeding and it will be gone, so the flowers are the next generation.

Take bramble, that horrible, thorny weed that grows out of control in a short space of time. What is bramble you may ask, well bramble has long, thorny and arching stems and can grow up to two metres or more high? But even the bramble has a gift to offer. Bramble is a flowering plant in the rose family, I did not know that, but if you think about it, it should be obvious. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common types of bramble and have for centuries given us hours of enjoyment picking berries and then making jam, and it is all free.

Our lawn is long and full of wildflowers, why? We have followed the horticulturists' guidelines and not mowed our lawn or weeded for the month of May. It is to allow the wildflowers to grow and flower, great for the bees and butterflies. Needless to say, when we do decide to cut the lawn it will be a mammoth task and we can only hope our ageing lawnmower will be brave and strong. I have attached a few stray plants that are in the wrong place, from our garden. The wild strawberries are very appealing, they are growing on the garden steps.

Moving on to another topic of conversation, in 1967 it was made legal to be gay in England and Wales, Northern Ireland followed many years later, they have always been a problem. Now they can get married, can adopt children and get divorced. All such grown-up things but they still manage to find something to complain about. We also have bi-sexual and trans people, then a new group was started, they were not too sure what they were so they come under the name of non-binary. That is about all I know and all I can say is good luck to them, hope they live a long and happy life but I somehow feel this struggle they have, will go on and on.

Now for our 2nd Article on ‘Behavioural informed lessons on change.’ by Robert Smith. Fascinating reading, really a good page-turner.

Take the good with the bad - an assault on boredom

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” M. Poppins (1984) 

Mary Poppins, childhood hero, umbrella-wielding icon and, behavioural genius. Her advice links to the brilliant research done into, what behavioural scientists call, ‘bundling’. Simply put, you do the stuff you normally avoid, but you add a pleasurable treat to it. This method to improve behaviour came from early studies into boosting physical activity, students were given the chance to join the university gym, half the students were left to their own devices and the other half were offered an iPod with a selection of a few audiobooks (this is vintage, before iPhone and audibles free trials). The iPods were locked away at the gym and could only be accessed when the student was working out. 

Naturally, any rational person would say this is barely an incentive, if the student wanted to read the book they could always download it themselves (having your own iPod was a prerequisite for the study) and really how much better is a treadmill with an audiobook? It turns out, a lot! On average the students with the iPod locked at the gym attended 30% more than their counterparts. 

This reminds me of a friend of mine, we have a similar taste in music and will often talk about new albums and what’s just been released. I am always a few hours ahead of him as he waits to listen until he is driving to the gym. As we all know, half the journey is taking the first step, and here we have a fantastic example of bundling to help him keep on going to the gym. As a way to encourage that first step, he incentivises himself with new music and a (very loud) car ride! But that’s silly, why would you abstain from doing something you enjoy (listening to new music)? Why not just listen when you want to and drive to the gym as normal? Well having that carrot dangling can often be just the ticket to get you out that door, and it's often easier to say postpone something fun now than to drag yourself to something difficult.