Just had a great afternoon at the Chorlton Happy Swap Party on the Chrolton Plant Swap stall. Met John Leech, Lib Dem MP for Withington and had a really good chat with him about Statutory Regulation for herbalists.

Also made some good contacts for possible future events including a grow your own herbal medicine cabinet workshop hopefully in May and for a herb walk/demo/stall at the Chorlton Big Green Festival in March.

Will keep you all informed when these confirmed.

Here I am on Countryfile with Julia Bradbury! Please watch it here or on YouTube where you can leave your comments.

Happy New Year! As the winter takes its toll and there seems to be lots of nasties floating about I have written up my recipe for Thyme & Onion Cough Syrup, one of my beat flu remedies.

This is really easy to make, using simple ingredients that you may have in the kitchen cupboard. I developed this recipe from one given to me by my friend Kath which was passed to her through her family. It is therefore a real traditional family remedy which is used because it works!

In fact onions are one of the main plants that people tend to remember being used as medicine. Kew Gardens is currently collecting many of these recipes as part of their Ethnomedica Project. I am in the process of becoming a volunteer for this project so that I can help to record our oral traditions and hopefully revive some of these old remedies.