Sustainable living for idiots is completely doable. Today, I repaired a heater, planted some tulips and had some fun with kindy!

We all know by now that changing what you put in your mouth can drastically reduce your carbon footprint, but for the sake of brevity (because I intend on talking about those other things), I am going to assume you're on board with the concensus that global warming needs addressing. And so too, we ought to reduce the burden on our rubbish dumps because rubbish is gross and "ewwwy".

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse. Repair!

About two or three days ago, our little convector heater (which I'm convinced uses more electricity than our electric car) chucked a tantrum. I asked her very nicely to warm me up and she turned her back on me. So I did what any self-respecting heater-parent would do.

I unplugged her and refused to let her talk to the modem or my Galaxy S8.

Tonight, the urge to be able to walk around the house scantily clad got to me. If anything, I have the right to be able to not wear clothes and still be comfortable in my own home. I heaved the heater up on the bench, grabbed my handy magnetic screwdriver and got to looking inside to peek to find out what the hell was wrong.

I'm not going to lie. I used a YouTube tutorial to help me. Why not? They're there and it doesn't make me less of a man.

So I stripped her down, I got quite dirty, so did she and now we have a problem. Most of that actually happened. On the kitchen bench.

I checked the thermal switch (overheating causes expansion and disconnects), but that resets itself. I fiddled with it, even though it was intact and making contact to form a complete circuit. I tested it and it worked. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm claiming that as a win.

I might be a bit of a gumnut at times, but whenever I'm messing around with anything this dangerous, I am very aware of the dangers. When I tested the unit, the cover was off as it drew mains power through the heating element. Keep well clear of it if you value your life.

I've been meaning to plant the bulbs since Saturday.

I absolutely adore flowers. A couple of years ago, Hayley and I were in Newtown in Sydney and I spotted the most gorgeous poppies outside a cafe. I immediately asked Hayley if I could buy them (always ask permission first). I didn't buy them for her. They were for us (me). I was so chuffed carrying the flowers around town and on the train ride home.

I've had some experience growing tulips and they keep me coming back for more.

The selection of tulip types and colours is overwhelming, but over time I've come to develop my taste. I do like to try the odd new kind, but I think I know what I enjoy now;

• Long stems (usually single late variety)
• Red, white and deep purple
• Not parrot tulips (they're too small!)

I finally got my butt outside, worked out which pots I wanted to use and tucked the bulbs in. The bulbs have their tips pointing upwards. These bulbs were prechilled so I didn't need them refrigerated for the usual six weeks before planting on Mother's day. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I'm keen on posting update photos of their progress.

Note the manky parsley in the adjacent pot. How sad!

Thelma the Unicorn makes an appearance today!

Teaching kindy is a lot of fun when they're in the right mood (comes from me being in the right mood!). I grabbed a book I love to share with the young ones - Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey.

In a nutshell, Thelma doesn't like herself, is cosmetically transformed into a gorgeous, glittery unicorn then hates her new life. You just can't please some people. After abandoning her friend, she returns to him after realising her old life wasn't so bad.

Thelma's a toss-bag.

I hastily chose to model "Thelma is a good friend" to reinforce the importance of friendship, but really she was an absolute jerk. If I was Otis, her friend, I would have given her a serve and told her how selfish and superficial she was acting. If he wanted shallow, glitzed up fake friends, he could have just moved to Hollywood himself.

I promised today I'd talk about Dry County.

I'm not. Get over it. I will eventually. The bottom line is, you've got to sample Rich Tommaso's work. He's created quite a few pieces including another little gem called Spy Seal. Just Google them for now. "Wow. What a shit review", you're thinking. Like I said, get over it. I'll get around to it eventually because it's something I really wanted to talk about. Broke heaters took priority today, however.

I'm so glad you appreciate everything I do for you. Don't be sour or ungrateful.

All the best,

Nick.

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