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My fiancée and I took my mum out today for Mother’s Day. We visited a botanic gardens up in the hills which was beautiful, then grabbed some lunch at a bakery. It was a nice day.

We all had a good chuckle at the botanic gardens… People’s laziness never ceases to amaze me. They make all the effort to pack half of their house in their car, along with their kids and then spend the time driving for an hour or so to a nice botanic gardens.

Presumably people go to these places to “escape”, yet when they get there they seem to flock like sheep. Everyone tries to score a park as close to the gardens as possible, then after five or so laps finally concede defeat and park the extra fifty metres away. Being such a busy day at the park there was never going to be a chance that someone would get a close park, but they always try.

After parking they get everything out the car, and everyone in the family loads up with things to carry. It’s time to find a “spot” – they walk to the closest place that they possibly can to sit down and have their lunch. Because so many people think like that, they end up “escaping” to a park where they are surrounded by others that are also “escaping”. Yet they are surrounded by others that they were trying to escape from in the first place. Insanity!

My fiancée said to mum at one stage “I can’t get over these people, not walking five more minutes to get to the nice spots that we go to. Although I suppose it’s good so those areas are free for us!”. Too true.

I really love not being lazy. Today gave me the biggest boost just walking around the gardens. The air was freezing but it just smelt so clean and fresh. Walking around to the much quieter areas the three of us had a good chance for a catch up and could actually talk without others being around. Good times.

About two months ago I read “The China Study”, and came to the conclusion that I should be eating a lot more fruit and vegetables. While I try and eat as well as I can, I believe that one of the main reasons why I don’t eat as much fruit and veg as I’d like is because of the quality that we get at the shops here in Adelaide. What concerns me is that apparently we have it pretty good here! It must be very hard for some people to eat well in places like London.

I came to the conclusion that starting my own veggie patch was the go, so my family can eat that bit healthier and hopefully we can grow some better tasting food too.

I found a spot in the yard that has three retaining walls around it, and purchased some straw-bales to lay across the front to act as another retaining wall. After filling it with organic loam we now have a raised bed. For the past two months I have been composting all of our organic waste with some straw and soil and that is going quite well. Unfortunately the rain got into it over the past few days but I have since sorted that out to keep it a little drier and warmer during the heavy rain season. While a slow process, composting your scraps will produce a great organic fertilizer for your plants and is well worth the effort.

Last week I bought some seed trays and planted broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts in it. After just one week I have some very strong looking seedlings. After another couple of weeks I will transplant these into the vegetable garden. Direct into the ground I have now sown carrots, lettuce (mixed), silver-beet, spinach and snow peas. I will encourage the snow peas to climb up the fence using wire.

My tips for starting a veggie patch are:

• Unless you have great soil, starting with a raised bed is much easier. Buy some organic loam to get you started.
• Compost all of the organic waste you have. It’s free fertilizer and is made by nature. It’s the best for your crop!
• Do some research as to what to grow and when. Gardenate is a great website for this.
• Start small and enjoy the process rather than feel the burden of a massive veggie patch. Go bigger when you are ready.

Sort of following on from my post the other week, “The Great Outdoors”, spending the time outside in the garden has been really enjoyable. Maybe because as a kid I was always outside – my dad was a landscaper and loved working in the garden – I would always be outside helping my parents in the garden.

Working with the environment just charges me up and gives me so much energy. Watching the plants grow is an exciting process and very rewarding too. It’s little “wins” like this in life that makes me a happy person. Try it for yourself. It’s a bit of work getting setup but well worth the effort.

After doing a lot of riding this week, I decided to catch the bus in today. It’s a cool and overcast day in Adelaide, but beautiful nonetheless. Even just the short walk along the river to the bus interchange put a smile on my face to start the day.

Doing some research on the net this morning I have found that I’m not the only one that believes spending time outside makes you happy. It’s always been something that puts a smile on my face. Doesn’t matter if it’s the rain drops falling, looking at the clouds on a summers day, or bush walking and coming across interesting cliff faces or plants. There’s always something out there that makes me happy, as obscure as those things may be.

It’s well documented that in order to live a healthy life, you should try and get a good dose of sunlight and fresh air each day. Many believe that when you are outdoors, you get an endorphin high, which makes you instantly happier. When you spend a good deal of time outside, it is more likely that you will sleep better that night too, and better sleep means that the next day you will feel more refreshed.

In nature, most people realise their purpose. It’s hard to clear your mind in an urban environment surrounded by darkness, pollution, electronics, and all sorts of other stress. When you are closer to nature, you can clear your mind and feel connected to the world surrounding you. Like any other species, we are “just living our lives” too.

I don’t believe in any higher meaning, I believe that we are on this earth to eat, sleep and procreate. This is very hard to see sometimes, especially when you are planning for a 3 o’clock meeting, need to reply to a stack of emails, and then pick the kids up from school afterwards. Escape to nature and it becomes so much more obvious that the “something more to life” is actually less. Less stress, less frantic living, and so on. This is hard to escape at times, but the simplest escape is to spend a small amount of time outside.

Plants flourish outdoors, put them indoors where they can’t get any light and they will die. We eat these plants, and we are meant to live in the same environment as them. It’s no wonder we are so negative sometimes, we need our dose of outdoors too.

If you do one thing today, go outside and find something interesting. Look up at the clouds, look at the green grass, close your eyes and breathe in the fresh air or listen to the birds.

It’s amazing what it takes to make different people happy. The other day I was saying how some people like to buy things and that makes them happy. I’ve met people that just “need to be rich” to be happy. Then others just need simpler things to make them happy.

I had a really bad start to the week as far as my happiness is concerned. I’m usually a pretty cheerful person, but after a less than ideal weekend as far as my diet and excercise goes, I was down in the dumps. I don’t really get depressed as such and wouldn’t consider it an “issue”, I think I’m just quite hard on myself. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I had no energy and just wanted to sleep. Even this morning when I woke up I just wanted to keep on sleeping and chuck a sickie. I hadn’t gone for a ride for quite some time, taking the soft option to get to work, either by car or public transport, and I haven’t had a fruit smoothie since Saturday (I’m no good at eating fruit, so having a smoothie is my way of getting a decent intake of fruit every day).

After being disappointed at myself for slacking off, I forced myself to ride this morning. I got up, had a glass of water, made my smoothie, had some toast, and packed my bag ready to go. Up until walking out the door I felt drained, yet as soon as I started pedalling my energy levels picked up.

I’m convinced that excercise actually generates energy in our bodies. It certainly does for me. I find that if I just go to work by car or bus, sit at my desk all day, go home, eat and lie down on the sofa again, I just feel like life is just one big waste. I have no energy to get motivated and go and do something. Watching another episode of The Sopranos seems like a better option than going and riding my pump track.

It doesn’t take much to snap out of it though. Today I rode to work, I’m full of beans, and keen to ride home. When I get home, I’ll swap bikes, and go for a cross country loop up to my fiancee’s parents’ house for dinner.

I’ve come to the conclusion that three things make me happy in this world.

1. My fiancee, obviously. When we have the time to spend together she just makes me smile and smile and smile. I couldn’t have met a more like-minded person that is so much fun to chill out with.
2. Riding bikes. When I’m on a bike I’m just stoked to be living. The most random things make me happy while riding. You come across all sorts of stuff that you don’t see when you’re in a car confined to the roads. You come to appreciate all sorts of things too… Nice weather, council workers sweeping the glass off the track, quality puncture proof tyres!
3. Outdoors. Obviously ties in with riding, but even just walking outside and looking up at the sky is enough to put a smile on my face. I love the rain. I love the sunshine. As painful as it is riding in the cold during winter, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My favourite place in the world is The Great Otway National Park. Not that I’m well travelled, but it is beautiful there. My second favourite is Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens. No electronics, no advertising, nothing really. Just the outdoors, and it is beautiful.

I’m glad that I know this. Not many people know what makes them happy. I just need to keep the ball rolling now to stay motivated.

It’s very easy to make me happy, but I find it hard to stay motivated. Without that motivation, I end up unhappy.

I’m the most complex, simple person I know. I’m cool with that though.