Have a Break, Eat a Biscuit and Water Flowers

The last weeks have been filled with end of the year exams, with studying and online examinations being on everyone’s minds and MS Teams calendars. However, it is important to take time off to relax, spend time with friends and family (online or offline) and do other things. This is not only good for our mental well-being and physical health, but also for our productivity and creativity – creating opportunity for our brains and bodies to regain strength and getting ready for the next exam. Luckily, this weekend offers us a couple of special days to help us along the way. 

Biscuit Day

On the 29 May we have the great pleasure of celebrating Biscuit Day. In America biscuits are small bread rolls that are often served at breakfast time or as a side dish. In Britain, however, it is a flat, sweet or savoury treat served as a snack.

Biscuits have a long history as they were born as a necessity in the ancient world. In Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilisations, seafarers would often spend a long time at sea while on their way to foreign lands. To meet the needs of their bodies they required sources of calories for their long journeys. Fresh food was not an option, as it would go bad before reaching the shores. To address this issue ships would stock up with dried foods. One way of drying food was through baking dough at a low temperature for a longer time, removing water and preventing microbes from developing, while at the same time maintaining nutrition. 

Biscuits have also played a significant role in early medicine. Physicians viewed many medical problems as arising from an imbalance in the gut. They saw biscuits as a health aid and prescribed them to patients for daily treatment. As biscuits began as whole grain products and without sugar, they were high on fibre and ideal for settling upset stomachs.

Dried bread remained popular throughout history, mainly as a travel food on longer journeys. The Persians, however, started experimenting with ingredients, and adding egg, butter and cream for the texture. They also introduced fruits and honey, and created sweet, more delicious and luxurious treats. The biscuit was born. When sugar and mass production eventually reached Europe, biscuit production became effective and low cost, and consumption skyrocketed.

Celebrating Biscuit Day is a lot of fun. Take the chance to get away from the computer and textbooks to go crackers about biscuits. You do not only have to eat them, but you can bake them as well. When kept at a moderate number, and when eaten with a cup of tea with family and friends, they are good for your health.

Water a Flower Day

Once Biscuit Day has been celebrated, it is time to re-connect with nature and to enjoy and honour Water a Flower Day, on 30 May. Caring for plants can often be a therapeutic act and it is a good way to de-stress and take some time away from studying. It allows us to focus on the natural beauty around us while nurturing our gardens so that they thrive.

Plants that produce flowers and fruit are called angiosperms, of which there are around 300,000 species. These species of plants make the world around us a mesmerising and beautiful place to be. However, flowers and fruits are not only made for us humans to enjoy their beauty and taste, but they are also the reproductive part of the plant that produces seeds. Throughout history flowers and fruits have been utilised to identify and categorise plant species, and have attracted scholars for several millennia, particularly for their medicinal use

One of the first books written about plants, entitled De Materia Medica, was written by the Greek physician Dioscorides in the first century. It contained drawn diagrams of more than 600 plants and over 1,000 recipes for their medical use. Since then, medicine and drug research has been grounded in plants from across the world. Today researchers make use of regional plants and their practical uses, while in search for active substances in nature. This way hundreds of useful compounds have been discovered, including aspirin. This is one reason for the importance to maintain nature and its biological diversity.

But plants are not always easy to maintain, and many species have different requirements. Some flowering and fruit bearing plants like to be kept in the shade, while others prefer full sunlight. There are some plants that grow well in a damp soil, while others prefer to be kept in drier soil. Plants also need to be sown at the right time of the year, planted in the right pots, with the right amount of space for the roots. Moreover, studies show that caressing potted plants gently can give them diaphanous zephyr that they would acquire in their natural habitat. The list goes on.

Learning about a plant’s particularly needs is essential for giving them the best life, while at the same time getting the most back from their beauty. So do your research before grabbing the watering can and heading out into the garden.

We hope you will have a good weekend, and that you will have the time to get away from the screen and all the textbooks, to have a biscuit and water those beautiful flowering plants.