In the laddering of tights and their proper reuse

This weekend I did the extremely satisfying task of pruning my blackberries, I finished the job as I always do, by tying them in. The tie backs I deploy are the legs of my laddered tights. They are ideal because they're so elastic yet strong and stretch as the plant grows. Although, I have to say they have raised a few eyebrows at the allotment.

Talking of tights, or at least whilst on the subject of all things feminine I had an interesting chat with some of the women ceo's at the end of the SEL board meeting today. We started by congratulating SEL coChair and Divine Chocolate ceo, Sophie Tranchell for the award she is receiving tomorrow, The International Award for Responsible Capitalism. We all agreed that it was great for a social entrepreneur to be getting it rather than a corporate with strong CSR marketing, and how good it was to see a woman was at the front of the queue. This led to a very interesting discussion where we compared notes from the varying fields of food, childcare, education, government reform and social enterprise where we all agreed that we are seeing equality sliding off the agenda. It's as if a war is on and the hard fought for civilising effects of equal rights are a luxury that we as a society can no longer afford. As an example I have spoken at three major conferences in the last 10 days and at all of them I was a lone woman in my plenary often following all male plenaries and all male key note speakers. Its becoming a suitfest. This observation seemed to chime with others. We need to watch this. I have not been fighting the cause of equalities for nearly 30 years for some Johnnie come very lately's to wipe it off the agenda with a, 'We haven't got time for all that we have to focus on the REAL issues".

Congratulations to Sophie, previous winners of the award have been the heads of Siemens and Starbucks and last year GlaxoSmithKline so a great achievement and another first for social enterprise.