This is not the only site that understands people will pay a premium for a clever service. With the SmartStamp facility at www.royalmail.com, you can print postage stamps from your computer straight onto envelopes — £5 per month plus postage. The DVD rental site www.screenselect.co.uk offers the service of a local library without your having to go there, or be subjected to its knuckle-wrapping culture of fines. DVDs are sent first class and can be kept as long as you like. From £10 per month.
Recycleworks.co.uk is not so much about a service as an ideal. Aiming to make your home into recycling central, it is the UK’s only company exclusively dedicated to selling and developing composting materials. You can make your own leaf mould in bin bags, but its wire-bin version is much more elegant — £18. Alan Titchmarsh, at www.crocus.co.uk, says that leaf mould is such treasured stuff, there is now a black market in material nicked from mature woodland.
Hard days in the garden should be followed by long soaks in the bath and, inspired by a Bel Air hotel, Orange Blossom Bath Oil, £38 for 250ml from www.jomalone.co.uk, sounds not only deliciously pampering, but might suggest what to grow in the compost.
Sally Kinnes