It's one of, if not THE, world's most valuable resources. We use it to make and create everything we use or do or consume – we’re made of it for goodness sake! But how often, as individuals, do we consider how much water we use each day.

10 gallons or 38 litres is what I used in 8 days in the desert. Most of this was for drinking, dishes, dinner and teeth brushing. I quiver to think of how much I wasted on long showers and washing dishes under a running tap back in London. Consider for a second the amount of water it takes for your local café to make you a hot mocha and sandwich – water you say? Think preparation (water used to make the bread, wash the lettuce and filter through the coffee machine) and cleaning.

Basically we use a lot of it – too much in fact. The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, recently stated “that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis.” Whether we see it directly (through turning on the tap) or indirectly (via the products and services we use daily) it’s time to lower our individual usage.

Here are a few tips to help you water down.

In the home:
•    Turn the tap off  to save 7 litres per minute
•    Install low-flow shower head (according to Water for Tomorrow showering accounts for 17% of a household’s indoor water use)
•    Replace your toilet with a dual-flush, low flow model to half your toilet water waste
•    Wash fruit and veg over a bowl in the sink and reuse to water plants in the garden
•    Clean dishes in a sink of soapy water and rinse afterwards rather than keeping the tap running
•    Fix leaking taps (60 drops per minute is equal to approximately 730 litres lost per month)

In the garden:
•    Spread organic mulch around plants and trees to help the soil retain moisture so that you don’t need to water so often
•    Install a computer based irrigation system which gets data from the web and combines it with information collected by ground sensors to provide precision watering for your garden.
•    Choose native plants that are the most drought-resistant – even in parts of the UK that get plenty of water you can eradicate the need to water the garden at all.

Every now and then we get the chance to experience living in the context of another's life… that is, a way or viewpoint that is unique from our own lives. Tasting the pearls and perils of another’s lifestyle help us either to be more grateful for what we have or give us ideas of how to better our lives.

Travelling to places far from what we know – culturally, geographically or otherwise is one of the best ways to do this (splashing out for a weekend at the Ritz or setting up bed beside a homeless man for the night is the closest we’d get to out-of-the-ordinary living in the city). Tonight, by divine luck or a set of linked ‘coincidences’ I find myself in a cushy little yurt in the middle of a Californian forest (near Boulder Creek, one hour south of San Francisco). I’m yurt-sitting, as the owner visits a friend afar this weekend. Just twenty four hours in this thing and I’m ready to unpack my bags for good.

This yurt has its own fresh water well which is used to supply the solar heated shower/hot tub, compost toilet, a closed in wood fire, a large couch, a double bed, a sectioned off bedroom, a dining table with four long backed rocking-chair-style (without the rock) wooden chairs, an oven, a sink, a fridge, tall bookcase, coffee grinder, and wood paneled floors.

It is as fully equipped in every sense as the conventional home with all its comforts, except for the T.V and flush toilet. There is only one circular room here with a fireplace and clear, adjustable sunroof. You have all the time in the world to collect firewood, listen to the crickets at night and blue birds at first light; all the time to read and bake or walk the surrounding ‘less beaten’ forest trails of the hilly landscape surrounding the yurt.

Living this way you can’t help but feel there’s nothing else you could possibly want or need – living in a yurt, a sense of abundance prevails. Nature has a way of helping you realize it. Who knows how long it may take until the temptations of the modern world and the call of far-away loved ones will compel me to leave the latticed walls of this place. Once the domain of the hippies and mountain hermits; yurt living need not be an uncomfortable lonely affair today. With many eco converts searching for a more sustainable way of living, the yurt is a perfect contender to create a home.

I woke this fine Saturday morn with more than I'd bargained. What I'd bargained for was a few tight muscles - a little in the legs, a little in the butt, a little in the arms. U u - allll over muscle ache. Calves, hips, tiny muscles in places I didn't know I had muscles - I can feel them all... and I blame it on my gorgeously fit but supremely strict taskmaster of a sister.

She's a personal trainer, you see, and after having done Pilates for a decade or so she's taken a job as an instructor at the Heartcore Pilates studio in West Hampstead. Now I've done basic floor based pilates classes before and found them challenging. But this class was intense. And so it should be given my ‘quite average' core strength. I'll be working on it now, that's for sure because even though I'm bit tight and weary this morn I feel surprisingly upright, somewhat more steady when I move and of course ultra-aware of my body's every movement.

Pilates is a physical fitness system based on yoga and aerobic exercises that was created by the German Joseph Pilates during the first world war as a means to rehabilitate returning veterans. Joseph believed that both mental and physical health are crucial to one another and so created the Pilates system to work the entire body - strengthening, stretching, and stabilizing key muscles through proper alignment, centering, concentration, control, precision, breathing, and flowing movement.

I've never had back problems but most of my family has, my dad and sister in particular. Both rate it very highly. When I practiced the easier floor exercises all those years back I hadn't realised how weak my core muscles were and how tight my back was. When I missed a few sessions I noticed the difference in so much as my frame slumped a little, my spine felt less flexible and I'd get lazy lifting things by not bending and moving in the most body friendly was.

Time to get back to it I think! Not so sure about sister Brooke's ‘work to fatigue' philosophy - that one's going to get some getting use to.

The first thing you see when you visit this movie's website is the award wins it has been accredited this year at the film festivals across the word. It won the audience award at this year's Sundance Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival and best feature documentary at the Galway, Ireland Film Festival amongst others.

The reviews aren't half bad either: The New York Times "an exceptionally well-made documentary that unfolds like a spy thriller... one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation movement."

So what's this ‘must see' movie about? Dolphins.

Flipper's trainer (yes I'm serious - he trained the 5 dolphins who played Flipper in the 1960's!) Ric O'Barry sets out to uncover the dark realities dolphins face in Taiji Cove in Japan. O'Barry is all too familiar with the fascination us humans have with these deeply sensitive and highly intelligent mammals but has come to realise that any animal in captivity is subject to its captive's hands.

What the film attempts to uncover is the atrocities the fisherman of Taiji Cove are undertaking for the sake of a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and mercury-tainted dolphin meat industry. The filmmakers employ a team of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and world-class free-divers to uncover, in the face of immense opposition, a severe example of animal cruelty.

The film reads more like a thriller than a documentary, which is perhaps why it's won so many illustrious awards - people are engaged in the story as well as moved by the truth this touching film tells. Go see it then visit www.takepart.com/thecove to find out what you can do to change what's happening to one of our earth's most divine sea creatures.

Imagine if, as a newborn taking your first breath into the world, you had to ability to choose where you arrived - in a hospital bedroom or a spa? I dare say most of us would like to awake in the more tranquil space of the spa. The idea behind the Egg project is to create such a harmonious place.

The Egg project is basically a network of birthing places, each within a half hour of an Egg medical facility. There is a spa with pool for relaxation, exercise and treatments including yoga; birthing rooms with birthing pools, colour adaptable lighting, music and soundproof walls; social area with group discussion with midwives and a food bar that uses fresh produce from the Egg gardens; and the Egg Cradle, an eco effective designed play area where all materials used are non toxic.

Surrounded by the nature the Eggs will use environmental forces, like wind energy, to power facilities. It will also collect, purify and recycle water where possible. All bed sheets, nappies, blankets etc will be made from natural fibres.

Officially Formed in May 2008, The Egg may be very new but the directors who founded the company have been formulating the innovative concept behind the project. Based in Palma de Mallorca the Egg Project promises to lead the way in natural childbirth in Europe. The book, Life Begins Here, has been written (due out next year) which highlight the enormous amount of research that was undertaken to create the perfect environment for the last changes of pregnancy. The founders, as do more in the child related professions, believe birth time can have a significant influence on how children go on to lead their lives. It could be the difference between a healthy and constructive child vs a child with any one of the social diseases (diabetes, obesity, anxieties) afflicting more of us than ever today.

Why the Eggy name? In their words: ‘the egg form is life-oriented: it is strong... it has the highest advantage in construction static. Nature has given us the perfect shape to contain, protect and maintain life.'

For more information on the Egg visit http://www.the-egg.eu/