MattySmith.net Reflections

Sunrise, Moonset

2012-01-14T18:35:00.003Z

There have been several mornings recently which have been blessed with the most amazing sunrises. One of the regular dog-walks is across fields that are high up and which have a clear sight to the eastern horizon - hence this photo.
But when I took this picture I was very aware that behind me, in the western sky, was a luminous setting moon. The overall effect was just magic and really makes getting out at 7:30 am worth while - believe me, you should try it!!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-08T18:21:00.002Z

Well done to you all for getting through the festivities - hopefully they were all peaceful, relaxing and manageable and if they weren't you have a year to work out why not.
The Penelope weave is finished, blocked and ready to hang once DH gets his act together and knocks a couple of nails into the wall for me. Photo to follow. I have now started on nephew Tom's image of 'Boy Lost in a Fog' - a very atmospheric piece which revolves around blending both in terms of weft colours and weaving techniques. More to follow.....
I have been concentrating on cataloguing the family photos - over 500 of them! I had already scanned most of them but had failed to find a really usable format for making them usable by different people. I finally decided to go with Flickr and uploaded them all and then spent several days describing and tagging then all. There are now about another 30 or so left to scan to complete the task. Big Brother and Big Sister have been given access in order to both check what I have done and also add additional information.knowledge they might have. Then I hope it will be opened to the world - watch this space!!....
This blog seems to be full of promises of things to come which I hope I can deliver on :-)

Absence

2011-11-06T18:19:00.002Z

Well I haven't been here for a while!
It is amazing how spaces and places disappear from my awareness level. I have just remembered that I have a Facebook page as well as a LinkedIn page, plus Google+ and Flickr. How can I manage them all - I need to be able to link them together somehow (hint to one of my cloud-savvy relations to come up with a solution).
Meanwhile I am winding down on gainful employment and cranking up on useful time filling. Just spent the afternoon repairing the collar on DH's cherished leather jacket. Two hours at the loom this morning and a passable meal of lamb steaks with own veg this evening means that the day has passed meaningfully in a quiet sort of way.
Roll on tomorrow!!

After The Freeze, the Flood (not a plug for Take That!)

2011-01-07T18:31:00.004Z

Well we can see green grass at last but it is rapidly disappearing under water as heavy rain combined with snow-melt raises the water table. The hens are laughing on raised ground but we are wading through the lawn...
Meanwhile we are approaching our second attempt to reach Malta. Last September our holiday was 'ashed off' but everything looks good for our departure on Sunday (just hope the plane can swim).
Last time we had booked Lily into a rather pricey kennels - this time she is being accommodated in rather more luxurious rooms, at a fraction of the cost, having been offered a roof by our friends Chris and Roger. They are seasoned dog sitters so we are just slightly on edge leaving our lovely Lily for the first time in strange hands - especially as she is just coming to the end of a course of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and pain killers having got a really nasty infection from an (unprovoked, honest Gov!) dog bite to her ear. Never a dull moment!

Foxes at dusk!

2010-12-13T16:13:00.004Z

Just been out for a walk with the dog - mid-afternoon on a December day, with the sun setting across the winter wheat fields. And there they were! Two foxes just toddling about on the edge of the field. Lily, the dog, was very interested and watched them intently but clearly decided that the chances of a good chase were minimal. I took this photo with my phone, with the sun shining on the screen so that I hadn't any idea what I was pointing at. These two beasts of the field were only half a mile from our hens!!

Weavers bazaar - weaving yarn in three million colours

2010-09-28T15:43:00.000Z

Weavers bazaar - weaving yarn in three million colours
Lin and I have just launched our website, providing access to yarns for weaving or knitting. This may not sound so special but we can match any colour from a one-inch sample - and we will sell down to just 25g if that is all that is needed. Visit the website where you can read all about it as well as seeing some of Lin and my tapestry weaves.

Long Drive South

2010-07-20T21:24:00.000Z

We are down in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, for a few days visiting Mat and Kat and their dog, Stanley. He and Lily got on really well together when they came to stay with us a couple of months ago.
We stopped off in Wells, for some tea and scones c/o Morag and Romaine, and then drove on down into the wilds lands of Bodmin Moor - very close cloud cover and driving rain.
Arrived to a gorgeous meal, thanks to our hosts. Dogs now being walked before we all turn in for the night.

Caught in the act!!

2010-06-25T11:45:00.002Z

There I was, just checking on my geocache this morning - 0715 hrs, so fairly early... I am up to my elbows in the undergrowth when a jogger passes by! What to say in circumstances such as these? ...comment on the weather, of course! What else. Very British, ignore what is happening under your nose and stick to the weather - which, in case you are wondering, is especially good at the moment with wall-to-wall blue skies.
Meanwhile I am working on four more geocache locations so keep your eyes out!

Hens, hens, hens

2010-06-17T10:54:00.003Z

I thought I would bring you up-to-speed on the hen pen. Sadly this has become somewhat depleted over the past few months - having reached a peak of 15 birds we are now down to just 8. All of them are rather elderly although that doesn't seem to stop them laying well during their short season. Trouble is that as they get old they get infirm and then they have to be separated from the rest who would peck them to death given a chance. Big Bird is currently in her own run as her arthritic hips mean that she just cannot move more than a few steps at a time. Still lays a nice brown egg though! Foreigner and Myrtle have both gone broody this year (so that is two less eggs a day!) and show no signs of cooling down. They have taken over the entire next box area so the rest of the hens have made a new nest just to avoid running the gauntlet of these two hot hens who pounce on each egg as it is laid. The Little Red Rooster continues to live above the flock, occasionally being drawn into the female fracas but in the main maintaining a gentlemanly aloofness and crowing when he feels there is a need to restate his position. So all good in the hen pen, in a quiet seething sort of way; question is, which is the next one to fall of her/his perch...?

Weaving day!

2010-06-13T19:52:00.002Z

I have spent the whole day weaving (when not walking the dog, cooking the lunch or rebuilding the Log Cabin). The linen weave is going really well now that I have moved the loom to give myself more elbow room, switched to a flat stick shuttle and diligently sized each section of warp before I weave it. This means that the warps don't fray and break, the shuttle goes through without catching the warps and I have got room to properly enter and extract the shuttle at the start and finish of each pass. I must have woven about 3 metres today. Can't be much more left to go...
Yesterday Michael Williams delivered the spool rack he has made for me out of maple wood - it is glorious. He had earlier made me a pair of tapestry frame supports which are just wonderful to use. Michael drove all the way down from Sheffield to get it to me and I didn't even offer him a cup of tea! How mean is that:-( ??? Michael will be at Woolfest so if you are there do look out for him!

Weaving when I can

2010-06-09T19:35:00.003Z

It is really frustrating how complicated life gets - but then it also gets interesting so perhaps I should not complain.
I am currently half way through a tapestry weaving course at Morley College - weekly trips into the Big Smoke via car, First Great Westerns and Underground are really broadening my mind! The course is really interesting with by far the majority of weavers using it as studio space with added input from the highly knowledgeable William Jefferies. Three of us are 'newbies'. I have finished one weave and am now starting to sample for 'Nightmare' - lots of texture and whipped warps!! Watch this space...
Meanwhile Lily has been in bandages for the past two weeks after she sliced open her foot whilst running around a cornfield. Fully recovered now but has gone back to ground zero on the dog training course we were doing. Lots to catch up.
The garden is growing - recent rain has brought it on a treat. The broad beans and sweetcorn look good. We had our last corn cobs from last year out of the freezer for supper tonight -yummy! SO sweet - they really are a great crop.
Myself and weaving friend, Lin, have established a business providing pre dyed, custom dyed or undyed fine yarns for weaving and lace knitting - the business is called weaversbazaar and it is a really exciting venture. So another space to watch.....

No Lily pictures

2010-04-16T09:00:00.005Z

OK - no Lily pictures this time! But she is doing really well, has settled down to a home environment and is now showing some of her 'characteristics' - a few of which we would like to modify somewhat.
Howard has survived a hernia operation and is now not only back driving the car but in the garden completing the vegetable planting and taking Lily for her afternoon walks.
I have been busy with the usual wide array of activities I seem to get sucked into, including the Henley in Transition Group - taking infra-red images was great fun and very illuminating!
I get back to the weaving when I can. Here is a recently finished tapestry weave entitled 'Neda'. I am now working on another called 'Nightmare'! I also have a large piece of linen weaving on the floor loom which, when completed, will be a sort of wall cover.
Meanwhile preparations are underway for our short holiday in Malta, volcanic dust permitting.

Lily, 13 days on.

2010-02-19T18:41:00.001Z

lily_2
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

I know you will become bored with Lily soon but whilst the novelty value still holds good I thought I would post another photo. Here she is settling down on the Indian carpet. Her bed is in the background and where she usually sleeps but every now and then she likes to spread out on the carpet. We rarely see her siting like this for more than few moments. Usually she lies back into a full recline and she does spend a lot of time just lying about!

Lily arrives!

2010-02-12T12:56:00.002Z

So we now have a dog! Lily's Return, to be exact: a 'retired' greyhound. Actually she is a 'failed' greyhound as apparently she would not chase, which is something of a fundemental failure for a racing greyhound. At two and half years old she is still quite young and is finding being in a house quite a strange experience. Other dogs also cause her some unhappiness but that is probably because she is always on a lead and muzzled when she meets them, putting her on a slighlt different footing. Howard and I are still getting used to her (as she is to us). At the moment she is fine if we are fairly quiet and still; she then lies down and sleeps. But if we are up and about or if one of us gets up then she has to get up too and follow. She has earned the nick name of 'Klingon'! This photo was taken the day she arrived. She is very 'licky'!

Happy New Year!!

2010-01-02T10:07:00.002Z

Well 2010 has finally arrive. I feel part of a sci-fi novel having survived until the second decade of the 21st century. Talking if sci-fi novels, we watched the BBC production of 'The Day of the Triffids' over the break - great stuff! Eddie Izzard makes such a good baddie!
Having sat about quite a lot over Christmas we were delighted to take the opportunity of being introduced to geocaching - and actually finding a couple during a lovely walk around Padstow on a clear, crisp day just before New Year. The additional reward was then eating a cheese and mushroom Cornish pasty on Padstow Harbour - yummy!!
At home the snow has almost gone but the nights are clear with hard frosts under a full moon - very werewolf-like. The hens have been reluctant to get out of bed and generally find coping with frozen earth just too much like hard work. Pheasie is definitely on the way out. At rising 11 years old she is the oldest in the flock now but I suspect she will have gone to the big hen pen in the sky before much of the New Year has past. We have relocated her to the greenhouse in order to give her a bit of peace and quiet.
Leeks, parsnips and Brussels sprouts are the vegetables still standing but the freezer remains ominously full of the Summer harvest so we need to get on and eat them up - on the other hand we really ought to loose a bit of weight....choices, choices!

Snow bound hens

2009-12-22T08:34:00.003Z

Well we now have over a foot of snow following two heavy falls over the past five days. In between temperatures have been well below freezing. Daily hen maintenance has taken on a rather extended air. Fresh water every day, replaced at least once in the day as it freezes within hours, is a must. Water and food in the hen house as well since several of the birds are refusing to come out. Our little adopted hen, Foreigner, continues to brave it out in the Yew Tree at night and we have Big Bird in her separate Care Home to deal with as well. She did come out of her little house yesterday to eat some snow, ignoring the fresh water I had provided. Bird brain!
But this morning, following the really heavy fall of snow over night, things are dire. Foreigner is almost on the ground with snow weighing down the branches of the Yew Tree. Big Birds netting, put in place to stop cats jumping into her run, has collapsed with the weight of snow, trapping her in her house. I have managed to get her out and put her in a box, in the house but will have to go out and undertake major repairs.

Wells Literary Fesitival

2009-10-24T11:06:00.002Z

Just back from this annual event (although I have only been once before) and once again was more than a little disappointed in both the quality of the speakers and the commercial focus. However, two very interesting sessions are worth expanding on. Pam Egan, a local poet, gave a stunning talk on C.S. Lewis. She 'went up to Oxford' just after the Second World War, to read English and joined other students in attending a series of lectures by Lewis on Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Through her recounting of Lewis's key themes we all were treated to a memorable insight into how the medieval cosmos worked and how it impacted on literature - both in medieval times and later in that Lewis is said to have based his Tales of Narnia on the same model. Pam spoke for a generous hour following a very good 'literary lunch' as was engaging, entertaining but above all informative.
The other highlight was Margaret MacMillan talking about the uses and abuses of history - exploring the ways in which we make use of historical fact or distort it to suit current ends. Not only was she lucid, well argued and very well informed but she did treat us to a full 40 minutes which was more than we got from most of the others!
Given the glorious weather in Somerset during this event, and the delights of these two presentations, the general lack of 'high art' can be forgiven.

Hatched Moon

2009-10-06T11:07:00.002Z

Hatched Moon
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

OK - so this is one of two weaves I finished at West Dean. There are only three colours used throughout the weave (you can see them left, right and centre at the bottom). all the other colours are derived from ways of blending and 'hatching' those three. Very powerful.
Meanwhile life has been hectic of late. The run into and then out of the ELIG AGM, held at the IMD campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, was very busy - but what a great place to be!
Online Educa Berlin is also heating up now with discussions taking place with prospective Chairs of the various sessions I am managing. I have booked my flight and hotel for Berlin and Howard will join me for a weekend after the conference.
He has been manically digging over what was the Mediterranean Garden but which is now two empty earth beds awaiting ground cover plants. In the end we have gone for ground hugging juniper in the bed under the tamarisk tree whilst the other one remains something of a challenge.
Hens are now into moulting mode apart from one of the two broody birds who has clearly been overwhelmed by remorse for failing to keep up the egg count earlier in the season so now endeavours to lay an egg a day - and sometimes a double-yolker - to make up for it. I should think so!

Off to West Dean.....

2009-08-07T17:29:00.002Z

Well I am off to West Dean for my second Tapestry Weaving Summer School. I am VERY EXCITED! The weather is usually lovely there, which is one thing to be looking forward to :-)
Othertwise the notion of a week speant just weaving and exploring weaving is such a treat. What will I bring home this time, in terms of new ideas and techniques....?
I'll let you know when I get back!

And another Summer is upon us....

2009-08-03T16:07:00.004Z

Well it is a full two months since the last post and quite a few things have been going on - we went away for a holiday in Montcuq, France which was really peaceful. We had good weather, some lovely walks, an intensely memorable visit to some cave paintings and regular games of Scrabble!

Back home we found the weather had also been very good and consequently the garden was drying out but 'blazing June' gave way to Summer and a damp July. Vegetables are coming in daily from the garden - usually straight into the freezer.

Otherwise life has been the usual round of this and that - an exhibition for the Berkshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers that I belong to; joining the Big Weave project and working with Thoma Ewen of Moon rain has been inspirational; getting hold of Shaped Tapestry by Kathe Todd-Hooker was exciting and resulted in these two little samples of twisted warps.

Today I went on the local chemist shop to ask if they had 1ml syringes. They askled my what I wanted them for and without thinking I said I needed them to help with my dyeing! They were a bit shocked until I explained that I meant 'dyeing' in the sense of adding colour to yarn!!

Spring Flowers

2009-05-23T09:08:00.001Z

Spring Flowers
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

This is the Log Cabin in which I do my weaving. The flower bank in front of it is a picture, at the moment - as you can see! I don't know the names of the plants apart from the 'Johnson Blue' geraniums in the right foreground (not quite in flower), the pink 'Londons Pride' centre right and the walnut tree on the right, half way up. Oh, and there are some 'Grannys Bonnets' between the big blue bush and the big bank of white flowers. Enjoy!

'Within the rules'

2009-05-08T17:26:00.002Z

So now our politicians have been caught 'bending the rules'. And this following months of indignation and anger against the bankers being paid what were considered outrageous bonuses but which were always claimed to have been 'within the rules'. The whole day has been punctuated with politicians saying that they agree that the rules on expenses for MPs should be change - but that meanwhile all the claims they have made are within the rules.
If something is wrong, it is wrong - even if there are 'rules' that say it is permissible! And it would be refreshing for a politician to not only stand up and say that but to demonstrate that they have lived by that dictate.

Indesit Washing Machine (Un)Service Facility

2009-05-02T19:05:00.003Z

Well the washing machine stopped working with a rather nasty noise so I went online to see how to book an engineer. There I found a very handy online engineer booking form - which I filled in and got a confirmation that a booking had been made. I also had to pay for this privilege but the confirmation note told me that if I hadn't been contacted for credit card details by time the engineer called then I should pay him cash or cheque. Well.... it got to the day before said engineer was due and I was a bit concerned that I hadn't heard anything so I rang up. They had not got my booking and had no record of me. Despite my insistence that, as I had a document confirming an engineer would call then an engineer must call, I was told that I would have to wait a few more days.
I sent of a letter of extreme complaint. Meanwhile said engineer duly arrived and, to my embarrassment, discovered the cause of the washing machine noise was the bra under wiring that had escaped from it's bra and worked it's way into the washing machine pump :-(
I have thrown all my under wired bras out now but await significant compensation from Indesit for the inconvenience of using a web site booking facility that doesn't actually go anywhere.

An update

2009-04-11T15:05:00.002Z

We it has been almost a month since I last posted in the blog and in that time I have been out and about again - this time we spent a week up in O rton, Cumbria - staying in a wing of Orton Hall. This is on the eastern edge of the Lake District and the weather is notoriously wet up there (Seathwaite, in Cumbria, has the highest UK rainfall at 3.5m per year!!). However, the weather was unseasonably kind for us with almost unbroken wall to wall sunshine. We walked everyday and slept well every night.
Returning from the break we have been thrown into gardening activity brought on by the warm spring weather. Onions, carrots, broad beans, parsnips, peas and mange tout have all been planted directly in to the vegetable plot whilst sweetcorn, leeks and potatoes are currently in the greenhouse before being planted out. We have also been having a go at the lawn which is getting more and more like a moss bank each year.
The hens are all laying well. Big Bird is now permanently in her own personal space and has the run of the garden throughout the day - much to the annoyance of the rest of the flock who spend quite a bit of daylight hours watching her wandering about and trying to figure out how she got there. Meanwhile we have been invaded by some very aggressive ducks. A pair of ducks has come to the garden pond every spring since we moved here a decade ago. Usually they swim about the main pond or sit on the flagstones for a snooze. Last year they started to wander around the garden and we had to protect some young plants that they took a fancy to. This year they are all over the place and especially in Big Bird's run helping themselves to layers pellets. Otherwise they are down in the bottom pond eating the frog spawn or parading around the garden just generally having a go at things. We now chase them off when ever they fly into the garden. What a pain!
On the creative side I have warped up my loom for a weaving workshop on gauze weaving but I am also working on a tapestry that I hope to get finished in time to put in for the Guild Competition. I had to dye yarns for this and that took a whole evening in a steamy kitchen.
Tomorrow we are going to treat ourselves and Daniel to an Easter Lunch at the Shillingford Bridge Hotel - yummy!!

Spring, weaving and barnacles

2009-03-16T10:06:00.003Z

Well, Spring seems to have sprung with days of soft breezes and gentle sunshine. The hens are all flourishing and even Big Bird, re-located to her splendid new personal residence, is now laying an egg most days.

I have been busy at the loom and the tapestry frame weaving a number of items; the study curtains are now finished and hanging and I have spent the last weekend at West Dean College on a short course covering Tapestry Design. Here is the output; a tapestry based on baby barnacles in a rock pool. The barnacles are woven using a particualr technique called soumack, which is actually a carpet knotting method. It gives a strong three-dimensional effect which was just what was needed to make the little barnacles stand out.

I saw loads of these baby barnacles during my recent trip 'down south', to Lostwithiel, where I stayed with Kat & Mat and their dog, Stanley (now somewhat bigger than in this photo!). I had a lovely time just chilling out and relaxing - despite doing a lot of web site work for BSWD, digging their garden and helping out at The Globe Quiz Night.

Now I am back at home again and getting stuck back into the day-to-day grind of semi-retirement; hey ho!

Streaky is no more

2009-02-13T19:35:00.002Z

Streaky was one of six hens we got when we moved into our Henley on Thames house, ten years ago. She quietly and peacefully passed away last night having been 'hospiced' in a large box for several days. I realised she was ailing when I found her always in the hen house and never coming out. I also saw that she was beginning to become the focus of some rather brutal attacks by the other hens. So I decided to remove her. She refused all food and water but did not seem to be in any pain or discomfort - just gradually fading away. Pheasie is now the oldest hen we have; the last survivor of those original six hens. She seems very perky still, and active but it is surprising how quickly they drift away. Meanwhile Big Bird is still living in the Toblerone Pen on her own. I put her in there because she is now so arthritic that she has great difficulty getting about and, again, was becoming the recipient of some unwelcome attacks from the other hens - they really are a brutal bunch! Anyway, she totters around the lawn during the day, much to the annoyance of the rest of flock who watch her from inside their hen pen. Big Bird is the second oldest hen we have - on the whole they are an aging group of birds so perhaps we should introduce some young blood this year...?

Winter Hills

2009-02-06T10:59:00.002Z

Winter Hills
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

This is one of a couple of tapestries I have just finished (the other can be seen in the Flickr Weaves Set) using small dye samples I had from doing some naturally dyeing. The weft is hand spun wool and for dyeing purposes I usually dye 5g at a time when sampling. A small amount of the resulting dyed yarn is kept as part of my reference library but I am then left with the rest so I have been weaving them into tapestries. The dye stuff used was Osage Orange, oak galls and onion skins and, with various mordants and modifiers I got 60 colours in total - so plenty to choose form!

Nostalgia Overload

2009-01-23T19:26:00.005Z

Last night we were at the Barbican, in London, for a 'Folk America: Greenwich Village Revisited'. I had never been to Greenwich Village but the musicians and their music that came out of that area of New York during the sixties were very much part of my 'coming of age'.
We listened to Billy Bragg (himself no mean musician) introducing Eric Andersen, Carolyn Hester and Roger McGuinn and with a star turn from Judy Collins (but I am not sure how to stop the music on her web site!).
It was a great evening with veteran performers doing what they do very, very well. They stuck to the old songs which we could sing along to ('Amazing Grace', 'Last night I had the strangest deam' and 'Don't think twice' to name three) and it is amazing (Grace) how the messages endure and the songs still strike the nerves in my spine.
Before the performance we enjoyed a meal at the Balcony Bistro - booked online and got a deal of two courses and a glass of house wine for £20. Excellent menu and very well prepared food - and no, we didn't eat outside :-)

Screaming in the night

2009-01-12T12:52:00.002Z

Two nights ago, whilst sitting watching something on TV, we became aware of some noise outside. Muting the TV volume and opening the back door the noise hit us very clearly - a high screaming noise coming in short bursts. What on earth was it? Well, it turned out to be a fox - in fact a vixen to be more specific.Select 'Territorial response' on this link and you will get a flavour of it. Very scary!
So out I went with torch in hand to try and locate where the noise was coming from and to check the hens. The source was the wood next to our garden, so I am hoping that this has not become the new residence for a fox family. The vixen is making these sounds at this time of year as she either reunites with her mate or mates for the first time, and they set up a den together. The hens were all safely shut in their house, apart from the two that insist on nesting in the yew tree. Big Bird, the old arthritic hen was in her separate and less secure house so I closed her door on her to make sure she was safe as well. I hope this is not the start of a Foxes v The Hens saga!

Dyeing

2009-01-11T14:05:00.002Z

dyes
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

Several days over the past two weeks have been spent doing dyeing of various sorts. The photo is of some woollen yarn dyed in exhaust dye baths (the second time of using it). There are three dye stuffs used; onion skins, osage orange and oak galls. The photo really doesn't capture the colours very well but they range from very deep purple through to pale tan and greens.
Other dyeing has been of the cotton I am going to use for the curtains I am weaving. The dyeing bit was a doddle but setting up the loom using translucent yarn is a nightmare! I'll say no more until I have either succeeded or abandioned the project.

Bright cold days of winter and war

2009-01-04T17:13:00.002Z

Just back from two days in Girton Village, near Cambridge, staying with family members. Yesterday was one of those very cold but very bright days - endless skies which are so much a feature of the Cambridgeshire landscapes but bright blue and cloudless. We managed a two hour walk through some amazingly sticky mud which enabled us to grow six inches in height as it clung to our boots.
In the evening we went along to the local Old Crown pub and enjoyed a wonderful meal - my choice was venison casserole with herby dumpling and vegetables - yummy!
Today was very cold but overcast so we spent most of the time playing Scrabble (I won) and Phase 10 (I lost) before heading for home - a very smooth journey that took under two hours (almost a record).
In a parallel universe, Israel has invaded the Gaza Strip. The brutality continues.

2008-12-31T20:31:00.005Z

Boxing Day and beyond
After a quiet Christmas Day (Five Bird Pie with all the usual trimmings), Boxing Day was a matter of driving down to Lostwithiel, Cornwall and then falling into a Crepe Stack - one of a number of outstanding meals courtesy of Chez Smith-Connolley. For three days the weather was just astounding - bright blue skies and sunshine despite a chill in the air. So a bracing clifftop walk between Menabilly and Polkerris and then a bracing stroll through Lanhydrock Park from Bodmin Parkway Station (having enjoyed the delight of seeing a steam engine on the Bodmin & Wenford Railway). All very appetite building. The final delight was a trip to The Globe to tale part in the Pub Quiz - and the scores were very respectable:-)
We socialised with the new puppy, Stanley, who is a delight - although we look forward to him shedding his baby needles in favour of adult teeth!
Back, via a visit to further family in Wells, in time to relight the wood burner and warm the house up again.
Happy New Year to one and all!!

2008-12-31T20:27:00.003Z

I have an iPhone!!

Yes, I have an iPhone! What more can I say? I am fully connected, wired for sound and broadband enabled.....the world is my oyster! Sometime soon I will get round to letting those on my phone list know what the new number is.....meanwhile I do have to add that setting it up was something of a challenge as it comes with no instructions. Clearly real iPhoners do it via intuition.

2008-12-14T10:52:00.004Z

A good scrubbing
I have just enjoyed a really 'stimulating' shower, bringing to it my recently purchased, bright orange Body Shop Scouring Mits (sorry, they don't have the orange ones but this gives you a sense of their 'presence').
My entire body (and I know you want to hear this) is now entirely covered with fresh new skin, the previous top three layers having been relegated to the shower drain. Even my feet, which normally escape attention in the shower by placing themselves nonchalantly in the soap suds, were scrubbed and scoured to an inch of their lives and spent the rest of the shower in a state of excited exposure.
So, now fully clothed (you will be relived to read) but glowing from the inside, I am ready to face a day in which there is no rain and almost some sunshine.
Thank you Body Shop!

2008-11-30T09:04:00.003Z

Times they are a-changing
I am now officially 'retired' having not only said good bye to all my colleagues at work but also received my Winter Fuel Payment from the government. Good-byes are always hard and I had very supportive friends at work. I had been at the College for just over 15 years and it is surprising how a place, as well as the people, can enter your psyche. I shall have to see what life without Greenlands will be like.
Meanwhile I am also becoming involved with the European Learning Industry Group; working from home and maintaining relationships through electronic means is rather new and so will take some getting used to.
This change in life style also means that I see more of Howard - I am sure this will be a good thing :-) But it also means that I am now really getting more time for the weaving and dyeing and, occasionally, spinning. I have now finished off two more tapestry samples, worked as part of my portfolio of evidence in support of the Certificate of Achievement I am hoping to gain through the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers. I have also been involved in a great deal of dyeing recently as I gradually progress on a weaving project aimed at providing me with interesting, but translucent study curtains - more on that later.
And finally, with a heading like that I cannot leave before sharing with you all the tremendous experience of listening to The Dylan Project, at Nettlebed Folk Club last week - a fantastic group and so Dylanesque, or at least the singer, Steve Gibbons, was. And I won first draw out of the raffle so got a free copy of their latest CD!! Joy. Disappointing that the supposed web site for the group defaults to Fairport Conventions site but one of the founders of The Dylan Project was Dave Pegg of FC, so perhaps that takes precedence...?
So, onward and upward towards the New Year with a sense of excitment given all the things that now seem to fit into my small life.

Music

2008-11-09T13:43:00.001Z

Music
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

This is a tapestry weave sample I have just finished. It started out as just an exploration of lines but seemed to get extended when the Guild Challenge was issued ('A song for christmas'). There is nothing Christmassy about it and the notes don't refer to any particular sone but it was just the notion of music lines that seemed be an additional aspect to build into the sampler.
Problems encountered are the continuing problem with 'furrows' - I seem to have a persistant tension thing as I finish off on the right hand side which creates a sort of ridge. Elsewhere I feel there is a general uneveness in the weave that I need to work on.
I have also pulled the left hand edge in a bit in the lower quarter - another thing to watch out for! Now I am working on another sampler that is developing diagonal blocks and also blending colours.

2008-10-26T21:22:00.004Z

Travel, travel
Well I have been to Limerick and to Sestri Levante over the past two weeks. Both were very interesting visits, with lots to learn even though I was very busy on both occasions. One area in particular that came over as something to be explored more is mobile learning - in the sense of the use of mobile devices to support both formal and informal learning. A survey undertaken in Limerick showed that whilst very few of those questioned had access to a computer 90% had a mobile device of some sort - seems like utilising mobiles is a no brainer. I was especially impressed with Judy Brown, who was one of the platform speakers at the DECOM day in Sestri Levante - she has a wealth of knowledge about how mobile devices are being used and about their potential.
In between these stimulating activities I have flown, hoteled, eaten and taxied - and always felt I was living in some sort of bubble. Such is life. I came back home to find the hens just as I left them and suddenly things fell into a perspective I could relate to.
Meanwhile Howard and Daniel have spent an exhausting six days down in Lostwithiel helping Kat and Mat prepare their new house for habitation - still needs a lot doing to it but hopefully they can move in with some degree of comfort.

2008-10-12T17:24:00.002Z

And where have YOU been?
Well at least six weeks on from the last post I at last check in to update this blog. Problem is I am now running two blogs, participating in three Yahoo! groups as well as maintaining a fairly steady level of communication with assorted individuals via email. Anyway, quick summary; 10 in in France (lovely, and much more detail in Mat n' Kat's blog at http://www.matnkat.com/blog/ 8th October); started an extended weaving workshop with a design weekend and now am dyeing yarns in order to warp up for the weaving weekend at the start of November, Howard and I launched our own company, I tidied my storeroom and have started the tapestry sample, entertained some Norwegians and started my three years as Chair of The Berkshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers, another academic year started as Chair of Governors of Badgemore Primary School, went through the excitement of getting a new laptop and the pain of realising that it was Vista and that lots of things I know and love will not work on it.
Meanwhile the hens are now in full moult and looking very sorry for themselves. One of them, Foreigner, has regrown her flight feathers and taken to roosting in the Yew Tree again, the garden has been stripped of it's onions, potatoes, sweetcorn, cabbages, peas, mange tout and runner beans. The next crop of Broad Beans has been sown.
Non stop on all fronts!!

2008-08-23T20:19:00.002Z

Dancing Queen
We have been to the local cinema this afternoon to see 'Mamma Mia - the Movie' - I am not a musical type of person, on the whole, but this was just GREAT!! I suspect anything with Abba songs in is a winner - they are so infectious, so well known and so, well .... sing-a-ling-a-long-able! The other film that springs to mind that drew heavily on the Swedish groups repertoire was 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' - a film that went to a stage show. Come to think if it, the two films were not so far apart - both fairly camp and not taking themselves too seriously but packed full with audience connection. Lovely stuff.

2008-08-22T08:16:00.002Z

Social networking gone mad
I seem to have suddenly plunged into a lake of social networking sites! How to keep up with them all is the challenge. I am a member of a number of blogs set up to enable those involved to share ideas and progress and to support each other toweards gaining particular objectives. I am also involved in three Yahoo! Groups, each at different stages of development and each needing careful attention and nurturing.
How to find time for ordinary activities such as weaving, spinning, family history research, eating, sleeping.....
But we did have time for a special visitor recently; our second au pair, Erika, came to visit us from Iceland. It was amazing how 25 years just fell away. Kat and Mat came to stay with us and Daniel also put in an apprearance and it was great to sit and chat about both old times and about her life now.
But now it is back to the hum-drum internetting........ will I get square eyes, I wonder?

2008-08-11T06:57:00.003Z

The rain it raineth....
I know the weather is not a feature unique to us in the Chilterns - but it does seem to have been really wet here over the past week. Somehow I just never seem to be prepared for it, though. A case in point was a trip I tool up to Liverpool on Saturday to see the Association of Guilds of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers National Exhibition - the sun was actually shining here when I left. By time I had boarded the train in Reading it was raining. I had no coat and no umbrella. Then there were power outages at Allerton so the train was stopped at Runcorn and we waited an hour until a group of us clubbed together and got a taxi into Liverpool itself. The lovely taxi driver gave me an umbrella - how nice was that!! I then waded around the city looking for the Cornerstone Gallery - not easy to find. The exhibition, when I got there, was a real disappointment - there was some fantastic work on display but it was very limited in quantity and there was virtually no information available about the display. What a shame - and then a very cold, wet journey back home again, where it was still raining.
Another aspect of wet weather we are grappling with is slugs - slugs in their millions (well, that might be a slight exaggeration but there are a lot of them), slugs of all shapes, sizes and colours. Howard goes out each morning and sweeps them up in a dustpan - sometimes fifty or more. He then takes the dustpan and empties it into the woods outside out garden. How long does it take a slug to travel 50 metres, climbing a six foot fence on the way...?

2008-08-02T16:00:00.002Z

Tapestry Sampler

Final Sampler
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

Here is the sampler that we started doing as the first piece of work on the West Dean Summer School. It starts with plain weave and then goes in to diagonal weave, stepped weave, hatching, weaving round a shape and then finally into blending and hatching used to blend. These were the basic techniques. We were weaving on warps spaced at four ends to the inch and with a weft thread made up of about five different strands of yarn.

2008-08-02T15:53:00.003Z

Watercolour Flowers
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

Water colour flowers

This was an entirely unexpected outcome of the Summer School at West Dean College. For one half of one morning we were encouraged to have a go at one of the other skills being covered and so I chose watercolour. The tutor, Francis House, showed us a fantastical technique that was really simply but had an amazing effect. I won't bore you with the technical detail apart form to say that the lovely 'mottled' effect on the flower heads is gained through using water-resistant ink with the watercolours. I could get hooked on this....

2008-07-30T06:42:00.003Z

Learning, learning, sharing and learning
I am in the middle of a one week summer school at West Dean College. The course I am on is 'Exploration of Tapestery' tutored by Caron Penney. It is fantastic! Caron is a very good tutor and there is so much learning going on but through the process of doing rather than being told. West Dean College itself is possible one of the most beutiful places in the UK - classic English country plie with sweeping estats to all sides, clusters of little cottages and wonderful gardens. In addition it is the home to some outstanding artists and one is surrounded by some exquisite piece of art work ranging from the tapesteries through fine art to ceramics, printing and metal work. It is really well worth coming and experimenting with your own creativity.
We paid a short visit to the Professional Tapestry Studios here at West Dean were they are working on a twelve year project to recreate the Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries currently held by the Metropolitan Museuem in New York. The replicas have been commisssioned by Historic Scotland and are to be hung in Stirling Castle.

2008-07-20T18:17:00.002Z

My first rug
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

My first rug!

Well here it is. I started this rug on a table loom. Originally it was going to be a warp-faced weave but then I found that the weave just wasn't tight enough for a rug. I then switched to a weft-faced weave structure using hemp for the warps and the original warp yarn for the wefts. Having wasted yarn on those original warps I then ran out of yarn for the wefts :-( So the rug is about half the length I wanted it to be - never mind, it is a substantial mat. I wove this on the Glimakra loom. That was a first as well. I have never used a countermarche loom before and I had to work out how to tie it up. Lots of learning and a large mat to boot!

2008-07-11T18:13:00.002Z

Talking about rants...
When it comes to rants there are few better examples I have I came across than this one I found in the Times Higher Education Supplement Online. Tara Brabazon, in her article 'They come not to teach' has a real problem with anything related to technology and learning. That in itself is somewhat short sighted. But her greater offence is to confuse 'e-learning consultants' with 'educational technologists'!! Any journalist worth their salt would have done enough research, when writing such a provocative article as this, as to ensure that they got their basic facts right - and this one didn't. Kind of leaves me with a sense of skepticism bordering on distrust when an article this badly put together is allowed to get into print.
However, this is clearly Dr. Brabazons' style as she lets rip again this week - and the focus of the latest rant? Helvetica font! I ask you.
Tara, by the way, is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Brighton.....

2008-07-05T17:16:00.003Z

Customer Service - part 2
If you are a regular reader of this blog you will have read my rant about poor customer service in relation to Clarks Shoes in Henley. I feel duty bound to tell you that a couple of weeks after that I went in to the Reading branch of Clarks Shoes and had an altogether different expereince. The shop floor was patrolled by an army of assistants all sporting headphones with microphones - like mobile switchboard operators. One approached me as I was browsing and asked if she could help so I showed her the shoes I was interested in. She conveyed the required size and style to some 'back room boys' and after a few moments the shoes appeared! How difficult is that? What is the difference between the Henley Clarks and the Reading Clarks apart from volume of turnover? Why should Henley customers be discriminated against in this way? Answers on a postcard.

2008-07-01T17:42:00.002Z

Baby Bird

Baby Bird_1
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

This young bird has arrived in our garden. We think it might be a young rook (it walks rather than hops) and it spnds most of it's time on the ground walking around and picking up things to eat. We have seen it fly for short distances. It has very large feet and it's eyes are a stange sort of pale blue colour. We observed an exchange between the baby bird and a wood pigeon - the former was a bit blase and the latter was somewhat concerned so they sort of circled each other for a while and then the pigeon decided to get on with whatever it is that pigeons do (eat our peas?).

2008-06-27T15:14:00.003Z

Honorary Graduate

Honorary Graduate
Originally uploaded by mattyshens

So here it is, folks. At last - a photo of me in my Honorary Graduation outfit. It was a great day and a very great honour. Just a pity about the hat-hair!!

2008-06-23T10:27:00.003Z

Chairs
I seem to have been voted on to two Chairs - of the Governors of a local school and of the Berkshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers. It does seem odd that I exert energies into creating space for myself but end up with more to do! However, both Chairs are close to my own interests and enthusiasms so I am sure they will be both stimulating and rewarding sitting experiences.
On the general 'keeping you up-to-date' side, the garden is flourishing, the brassicas are well protected and no sign of caterpillers yet - but then there are no signs of butterflies either. The parsnips,carrots, beetroot and spinach are so far a dead loss but we will have a second shot at them. Peas and mange tout as well as broad beans are looking bountiful. Potatoes look good from the top side but we have yet to see if they are as good underground. Sweetcorn is looking very fine and has stood up to the recent high winds well. Onions are 'poor and of a lower quality', as my daughter, Kathryn, would say.
Chickens are laying well. Foreigner, the incoming refugee from last year has been broody for the past six weeks or so and looks set for the Summer. Luckily she does not seem to bother the other laying hens so I am leaving well alone.
The flower garden is doing very well this year - probably because it is essentially down to one area. I did loads of seeds this year and have several tubs casually placed (!) around the house filled with the most inappropriate pot plants you can imagine but they are looking interesting.
Meanwhile work is very busy so all in all I am keeping myself very well occupied.
One final note - another blackbird was taken out by the resident sparrow hawk yesterday - somewhere there is a nest of young birds wondering where one of it's parents are....

2008-06-13T13:42:00.002Z

I am not only honoured but made-over as well!
As you will have noticed (I hope), my web site had had a make-over all courtesy of iteracy. I now need to transfer all my pictures to Flickr so I hope your patience will hold out whilst I do that. Meanwhile feel free to browse and check the spelling on the site...

2008-06-08T10:09:00.003Z

I am honoured!
A couple of weeks ago I was awarded the Honorary Degree of Master of the College from Henley Management College. I have waited before posting the news because there was a picture to go with it - of me in my finery on the day - which is on the College systems and which I keep forgetting to get a copy of.
So, in addition to MSc Networked Learning (Lancs) I now have MColl (Henley Management College) to add to my name.
I know you are wondering what I did to earn such an honour... well, according to the citation I seem to have done a lot in supporting the quality of teaching and learning at the College, in particular the implementation of e-learning. I had to give a short (2-3 minutes) speech to the assembled Degree Congregation and that was pretty nerve-racking, I can tell you. I now understand the phrase 'seeing words swim before your eyes' because that is exactly what happened when I looked down at my notes have been hand-shaken, kissed and handed the green folder with the certificate in. Still, I managed to compose myself and said my few words (1 minute max.)
Does this mean I have a choice of gowns when I process at the next Degree Congregation, in October? I'll keep you posted.

2008-05-23T15:10:00.002Z

Site Feeds
It seems that the two readers of this blog now have the opportunity to regular notifications of additions. Clearly something not to be missed so click on the on the 'Subscribe to..' link on the left hand navigator under my (out of date) Second Life persona.

2008-05-17T09:06:00.003Z

Customer Service? I don't think so!
Well, perhaps I am turning into a grumpy old woman but two instances recently left me gasping at just how badly we 'customers' are sometimes treated.
The first was a visit to Clark's shoe shop in Henley On Thames. I went in with 15 minutes still to run on my parking ticket. Three styles of shoe were very quickly spotted and because they always put out size 5 on display I had to ask for my own size in order to try them on. There was one lady on the shop floor, behind the till, dealing rather slowly with a sale for a lady customer. A gentleman was already waiting. I stood for a while but then realised that there were more assistants behind the curtain at the back. So I went over, opened the curtain to reveal one assistant drinking and another dealing with paperwork. I asked if they could help me and was told 'We'll be out in a moment'. So I went back to the shop floor to wait for a couple more minutes. The drinking assistant then emerged and giving a cursory glance at the three styles I had selected, asked me what size I wanted and disappeared behind the curtain. I sat down and waited...and waited... and waited. During this time I struck up a conversation with another customer two stages back from me - she had just selected the styles she was interested in and was still waiting for someone to recognise that she was there. We commiserated about the poor service and then, after 5 minutes I said I just had to go because the car park ticket was due up soon and left the shop. So no sale for Clark's, no shoes for me and good reason not to try them in the future.
The second experience of poor service was actually on the same day (which also happened to be Howard's birthday). We went out to a local pub, The White Hart in Shiplake, for a birthday lunch. There were a few cars in the car park and a board outside saying 'Good Food' and 'Children Welcome'. As we entered the pub three ladies were coming out muttering about a mix up on a booking date. We let them pass and went into the main bar area. There were a group of men of a 'certain age and type' - 70 year old's I would guess and probably Telegraph readers. The bar lady, who had been doing something behind the bar, popped her head up and with out a question or a welcome just said 'We're fully booked'. We stared in incredulity as this sank in... how could a pub be fully booked on a Monday lunch time...? Anyway, what if we just wanted a drink ...? As the brain started to work I eventually managed to ask why there was an inviting sign outside if they were 'fully booked' but all I got was a 'well I don't know but we are fully booked'. What did she mean? Was the pub closed for a private function? Or was just the dinning room fully booked and did that mean they couldn't serve drinks or pub snacks? Was the garden fully booked...? No explanation and no awareness that they were not only loosing two customers but the apocryphal nine others that we shall tell..... as well as you, dear reader.

2008-05-03T12:30:00.002Z

Confused? - you will be!
Reading this recent article in the Independent (Thursday 1st May) I was overwhelmed with despair. What is right? What is the 'best way forward'? Who do you believe? As with all things environmental (climate change, bio fuels, organic food production) there just is not a clear answer and the dilemma lies in the realisation that what seems a 'good thing' from one perspective turns out to be very damaging from another. So once again one falls back into indecision, accommodation - and despair. So I thought I would spread a little of it around.....

2008-04-29T06:55:00.003Z

A month on and Summer is almost here!
What difference a few weeks makes to the weather at least. It is all warm air, sunshine and rain now so things are growing at a great rate. Having pricked out nearly 200 flower seedlings I have now planted them on into tubs to harden off. Quite where I will put them all is a bit of a mystery at the moment. The flower beds have quite poor soil and need a bit of work to get them into good shape for taking young plants but the established plants like it fine and would prefer not to be disturbed. I think it needs a bit of thinking through still.
Vegetables are definitely surging ahead now. Peas, mange tout and broad beans are all coming through strongly. Onions are up as is the chard. Spinach is in along with beetroot, which is just starting to show. Carrots are also just germinating. In the greenhouse we have sweet corn and more broad beans coming up as well as green peppers, tomatoes, cabbages and calabrese. I have got some rosemary on the go as well.
The duck visitors have arrived and are much braver than in previous years, taking strolls around the garden and seeing off the cock pheasant with his harem when their paths cross. Hens are now in full production with 4 - 6 eggs a day and a regular double yoker amongst them.
So that is the update on the domestic front. All very fecund!

Recent learning
A couple of weeks ago I was on a course at Henley Management College entitled 'Leading for Sustainability'. It was excellent - a breath of fresh air as far as management development goes, with a focus on the triple bottom line reporting and the roles and responsibilities of business within the context of the economic, social and environmental challenges we now face. The course was also unusual for its wide ranging formats, including a poetry session as well as for the quality of the group work. Underpinning the course is the expectation that the issues under debate are not theoretical but require a response - direct action. Thus the outcome of the course was also different from the usual 'off you go and see how far you get' approach to management development because each participant identified a 'quest' or focus for action which is then supported through continued engagement with the group and one-to-one coaching after the face-to-face element of the course ended. My 'quest' is all about identifying supportive social networking tools and spaces that would enable a community to come into place offering individuals and groups input, support and information about how they can make a difference in their own situation. At the moment the quest is moving somewhat slower than I would like but I have great hopes.

2008-03-29T11:43:00.003Z

Garden update
I have toyed with the idea of starting a separate 'Garden Blog' but decided that keeping one blog going is challenge enough - two would be foolhardy. So I will have to continue to integrate the news types here.
I have started using GrowVeg to plan our vegetable plot. This is a great site (passed on to me by Kathryn). You can define your vegetable plot and then drag veg onto it and spread them out to fill the space. You then get a print off showing what you have chosen to plant, when you should plant it, when you can expect to harvest it and how many plants you will need. You can also print off your planting plan. What more would you want! Great fun. So, I can tell you that broad beans, beetroot, carrots, mangetout, onions, peas, potatoes and spinach are already in the ground. There are some natural challenges (mainly slugs and snails) but we are determined to protect our future dinners.
On the flower side of things I have cut back the lovely brown sedum heads that have provided us with 'architectural' interest throughout the winter. The new plants are well under way now. The greenhouse has a whole load of trays full of various flower seedlings. Lupins, Hollyhocks and something I cant remember are all planted out into fibre plots ready to go out when they are a bit bigger. I am not too sure what to do with the rest - the front garden could do with some attention so perhaps they could go out there...

2008-03-23T16:26:00.003Z

Life - like buses - arrives in groups
As usual I am dealing with the dilemma of having several things to comment on and should they each be separate items or just lumped in to a 'week in the life of..' format. That latter is easier for me so you will have to follow carefully.
So, last weekend was a trip up memory lane with a reunion at my teacher training college (now University College), Bishop Grosseteste, Lincoln. This was an informal and user-managed affair with six of us gathering for a couple of days in this fine Roman city. We stayed in The White Hart, on The Steep (where one of our party recalled seeing Samantha Egger exiting whilst filming The Wild And The Willing) , just round the corner from the Cathedral. My bedroom looked over The Castle. We ate out The Jews House, and The Old Bakery - both very nice experiences. We also visited Doddington Hall (except that most of it was closed) and were given a tour of our old College by one of our education lecturers - who is only six years older than me!! But the best part of the whole trip was the long and relaxed conversations over breakfast (I won't go there in terms of the service), dinners and cups of tea. Lovely to catch up with everyone. It is strange how there is always something that remains unchanged about people - their voice, their smile or laugh, the way they raise an eyebrow... Next reunion is in three years time - how many of us will make it?
OK - second reflection - the reading of a novel and subsequent book rage. The novel in question is Margaret Forster's 'A Diary of an Ordinary Woman'. This is a fantastic read. Margaret Forster writes both novels and biographies and for some reason I failed to spot that this was the former and not the latter - despite being a very convincing biography. Hence the book rage - as I happened, by chance to turn to the very last page (after the 'Afterword' and acknowledgements), to read that this whole book was a fantasy - albeit stimulated by the prospect, never realised, of having access to some actual diaries of an elderly woman. I was incensed! I felt I had been duped; made a fool of. It will take some recovering from. I might have to read another Margaret Foster in order to re-establish my equilibrium.
Now, on to domesticity. I have just made some hot cross buns. I realise that this is both foolhardy and doomed but I just could not take Tesco's pap any more. I shall go and try one and let you know what it is like... ermm... spicier, breadier and less uniform than Tescos offerings. Howard says 'not bad' - praise indeed.

2008-03-08T21:19:00.002Z

An achievement - and the consequences....
Yesterday we had eight cubic metres of logs delivered. Have you any idea how many logs that is? Well I have. I worked it out whilst carrying the logs in arm fulls of six at a time from the front lawn to the back garden. I estimate there were 1600 logs - except that one cubic metre was made up of small bits, barks and general debris so lets call it 1400 logs. Each arm full of six logs had to be carried through the house and then we had to go back through the house again to get another armful - so I think we must have walked several miles as well as carrying 4-5 tons of logs. In all it took about eight hours - from which I am sure you could make all sorts of further calculations.... I call that an achievement.
We are now both exhausted, stiff legged and our hands and fingers are rather sore. But we have had a sauna so hopefully that will ease things up a bit.

2008-02-20T08:34:00.006Z

Shame on me!
Well - no posting since early last month. That would suggest that nothing much is happening in my life - and at a macro level that would be entriely correct. But from the day-to-day angle loads of things are going one which, like life itself, are not necessarily related apart from the presence of myself - either in body or mind. And this is one of the challenges I find about blogs. I look at other peoples blogs and they tend to adopt an approach of either the entire blog being on one subject (in which case they are seen as 'experts') or each posting being mono-thematic. Sometimes things come to me in the latter mode and I am certainly not in the former group but this posting is going to represent the more typical patchwork existence I lead.
Lisbon
The past weekend was spent in Lisbon with relatives. We stayed in a lovely hotel and enjoyed weather ranging from 'great' to 'apalling'. The city was really interesting; lots of places to visit, good trams (once you worked out how to get a ticket) and metro (apart from the attack on Howard). Food was interesting, especially for the fish lover. Travel to and from Lisbon was a pain with the outgoing flight leaving Luton Airport at 06:45 in the morning and the incoming flight touching down at 22:40. In addition we used the facility of an off-airport car parking service which added another 50 minutes to the overall travel times - plus quite a lot of hassel. We think we may stick in the UK for our next outing.
Online Guild
Yes, I have now joined a second Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers - tbis time it is the online Guild. I am really enjoying it - lots of chat and discussion; very supportive input and comments; interesting and practical workshops and I can do it all in my own time. At the moment I am doing a Sketchbook Workshop and expereimneting with colour and texture as a prepararion to actually then dyeing/weaving/whatever. So hopefully developing some more disciplined approaches.
Hens
One of the two older Cuckoo Marans has died - peacefully in her sleep in the nest box. I suspect she will be joined by the other one fairly soon. Meanwhile the two oldest hens, Streaky and Pheasie, seem to go on forever. The rats problem seems once again to have been overcome.
Garden
I have planted out some seed trays of flowers this year to see if that is a way to add some new things to the garden. Potatoes are 'chitting' in the greenhouse and we have also started the broad beans off - but this year we are doing that in the greeenhouse rather then directly into the ground. I'll let you know how it works.
Northen Rock
What a debacle! If only the Government had taken that step 5 months ago. And now we learn that the new man in charge is a 'non dom'. Really, Gordon Brown is going from one low point to another.
The Puzzle of Evil
Howard found this book at the Oxfam Book Shop and once he had read it suggested that I might find it of interest as well. I have read about the first third but have decided to go no further. It has some very strong arguments around to the relationship of God and evil (i.e. if He is such a benevolent being why did he create evil) and some interesting if tortuous arguments around free will but at the end of the day I really dont see that it provides more then a mental workout which I find I have in plenty from other sources so I have abandoned it.
SecondLife
My brother is now in there so lots more reasons to fritter my time away in the virtual world. I have just read a fantastic book called I, Avatar; The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life' by Mark Stephen Meadows. It is a greeat read with lots of illustrations but some very provocative insights into what having an avatar in a virtual world is all about.
Well I could go on with this munitia but I suspect you are wondering what the piont of it all is. You see my point? Who am I writing this all for.....and why doesn't the spell checker work?

2008-01-09T07:49:00.000Z

Further culture....

Not only did we enjoy an excessive amount of lovely music during our six-day stay in Prague, but we also branched out into the visual and literary arts as well!

It was only by chance that we spotted the Kafka Museum and we were not disappointed. In addition to the rather quirky street art in the entrance square (the 'operative' parts of the anatomy of these two figures move in a very life-like manner!), this was a very well constructed museum in a rather strange building with many of the exhibits up in the roof area. Kafka is not an easy writer to engage with. Equally, he was clearly a very 'challenging' individual, isolated, sensitive, tormented. The Museum, however, has managed to put some real structure into it's displays that enabled the visitor to get a genuine sense of the influences and events that impacted on Kafka. There was a very good balance of media - visual, textual and auditory. I bought two books - 'Letter to Father' (which is not a 'book' as such but an actual letter he wrote) and 'The Castle'. I would have to say that Kafka is not good 'bedtime' reading - I find his work disturbing but compelling and really only digestible in daylight hours.

Moving away from the written word we were pleased to stumble across two art exhibitions - one of Salvador Dali's work and the other of Alfons Mucha. What was striking about both of these collections was their diversity in terms of the actual range of items produced by the artists and the commercialisation to which their very different styles led. The Dali work included plates, statues, painting,s, drawings and headscarves. Mucha's work seemed to encompass every possible form of illustration and graphic design from postage stamps to posters and wall paper to wall fresco. I would find it impossible to state a preference between these two, very different artists - I love Mucha's work; it has beauty and for,. the colours are wonderfully toned and complementary and the draughtsmanship is outstanding. But Dali's work leaves you excited, uncomfortable and curious.

So - yet more reasons to visit Prague!

2008-01-08T19:32:00.000Z

A Bohemian New Year
Well, happy New Year to you all! I hope your seasonal delights were enjoyed in good company and by a warm fire.
Ours were quiet, on the whole. The most strenuous part was the two hour in the Chiltern Hills walk followed by a two hour meal at The Crown, Pishill. Twelve family members gathered and I hope a good time was had by all.
The fun really began for us when we left on a trip to Prague on 2nd January 2008. This was an Independent Offer we had spotted and which looked too good to miss - a 4 star hotel with breakfast, flights to and from Prague, transfers from airport, a tour of the city and tickets for Don Giovanni, The Nutcracker preceded by a meal at the Mlynec Restaurant, Carmen followed by a high class feeding frenzy described in the blurb as a 'Grand Buffet Supper', the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra performing Smetana's 'My Country' in full, the Baroque Jazz Quartet and the Black Light Theatre. At the time we didn't realise it but this was a trip to the 36th Prague Winter Festival! It was fantastic!
The weather was VERY cold but dry throughout until the penultimate night when it snowed heavily and we woke to the most amazing sight of Prague covered in a blanket of white. Magical! Pictures to come once I sort out the Gallery.

2007-12-19T16:27:00.000Z

Global warming - the end of the planet or just the end of man?
We have caught a couple of the programmes in the series 'Earth: The Power of the Planet' presented by Iain Stewart. He is Scottish and just so enthusiastic about the subject of how the earth 'works'. He has also presented very clear and accessible explanations for many of the complex systems that underpin why our planet is the way it is.
Last night was the final programme with a theme of 'Rare Earth', in which Stewart put forward to proposal that far from it being probable that there are other planets in the universe supporting life, there is a string likelihood that ours is the only one on which complex life has developed - in other words a 'rare earth'. There were all sorts of reasons why this was the case but two key things stand out. Because of the extraordinary combination of these factors, our planet has demonstrated its the capability to survive catastrophic events resulting in dramatic, and in some cases very quick, climate change or environmental changes. The second is that during these catastrophic events up to 90% of creatures living at those times were eradicated - but that that enabled other species to come into being, including man himself.
So his final thought was that whilst 'global warming' is clearly happening, it is not something that we should talk about in terms of the end of the planet - the planet will survive as it has before. So the real threat of global worming is not the death of the earth but rather the eradication of man as a species - along with perhaps a large number of other life forms. It's all about a species struggling to survive.
I found this has given me a lot of food for thought and in many ways helped me to reconcile the fact that I know that global warning is not new but this time, we are being told, it's serious. Yes, it is, and not just for polar bears (although actually they may well survive) but perhaps more so for man.

2007-12-18T07:34:00.000Z

Time flies.....
I have been meaning to write for a couple of weeks now and some how time just flies away with itself leaving me stranded in an unproductive vacuum. So let me do some catching up.
Weekend before last was spent in Lostwithial with Kathryn whilst Mat headed of to the Gambia on a photo shoot - more details on their web site. The weekend we chose for the trip to the south west was when a gale was raging and so the weather was not exactly ideal. However, we managed a visit to the Eden Project and a wonderful, windblown walk initially to admire the two remaining pigs but then onwards along a river valley between the chalk railway line and the main line back to the town. We also took ourselves down to the Tate St Ives. I was very impressed with the architecture, built as it is on the 'footprint' of an old gasometer. The main collection on display (Mary and Kenneth Martin) was not so appealing - close up many of the pieces looked a bit 'tired' although the mobiles were lovely. There were some paintings by John Wells that touched me but the main impact of the trip was the weather across St Ives beach - the sea was wild and dangerous and the whole of the foreshore was white with foam from the crashing waves to the extent that it looked like deep snow. The wind made it almost impossible to stand up and whilst in the Tate there was a screeching and a howling wherever you went. Awsome! We also managed to get in on the famous pub quiz the highlight of which was to win the free drinks round - a nice drambuie for me, then!

2007-11-20T10:13:00.000Z

GB05F35491 is still here!
Dawn over the garden reveals GB05F35491 down on the grass catching mixed corn kernals as they float in the dish I left out last night. A jay flies accross the garden and two magpies come down to have a go at the free food. GB05F35491 flies back up on to the kitchen roof where she sits fluffed up and uncomfortable looking. I have put fresh food down and will see if she feeds again - or if she decides to continue her journey to wherever home is.

2007-11-20T07:48:00.001Z

Another bird tale (and a short hairy one)
Having still to deal with the challenge of the tree-dwelling hens, we were faced with another feathered issue this weekend. On Sunday I spotted a pigeon behaving rather oddly next to the vegetable plot. When I went to investigate I realised that it was a racing pigeon - it had a ring on its leg and was much lighter and sleeker than the fat wood pigeons we usually see. This visitor was clearly in a poor state so I caught it and noted its number; GB05F35491. The Royal Pigeon Racing Association web site made it quite clear that no 'grounded' racing pigeon should be reported until it had been 'contained' for two days and was still unable or unwilling to fly on. So I popped the bird in a large open box with food and water, into the garden shed and left it there until the following day. I half expected to find it out of the box and ready to fly on Monday morning but although looking better it was still in the box. I took it out and held it on the flat of my hand in case it wanted to get on the road again. But it started to look decidedly sorry for itself again. But in trying to put my hand over it again, with a view to putting it back in the box for another day, the bird took fright and flew onto the garden shed rook. Whilst trying to net it from there I spooked it again and it flew onto the house roof. Having to go to work I left food and water out and expected the bird to have gone by time I got home at lunch time.
Well the rain it rained, the thunder rolled, lightening flashed and more rain it rained before I got home again. Out I went and there was GB05F3549 still sitting on the roof! I made one more attempt to net it but only caused it to move up onto the roof ridge where it sat through another deluge. When I went out mid-afternoon it was gone. A mystery now surrounds where it went - home? into the stomach of one of our local sparrow hawks? into some other garden shed? We may never know.
Meanwhile, in trying to net said GB05F3549 on the last occasion, I spotted a furry tail and back lying very still and wet behind the dustbin - further investigation revealed a very dead squirrel, rather nastily chewed - probably by a cat. I have no sympathy for squirrels but I am getting a tad miffed at the liberties the local feline population is taking with our garden and it's contents. I have decided to reinstate the sonic bleeper but to set it at 'cat' rather than 'rat' this time.

2007-11-20T07:38:00.000Z

Chickens Ahoy! - Part 2
Well the next morning was greeted by silence - no crowing cockerel. The worst was anticipated until squawking broke the quiet dawn. There in a state of some anxiety was the Little Red Cockerel striding across the frosted grass, outside the hen run, being stalked by a cat (again!). Out I go and chase of offending feline before open the hen run gate through which the young master strolled as casually as he could manage before stopping beneath the yew tree to crow. Up above, in the branches, was the missing hen - clearly she had managed to avoid the fracas in the branches the previous evening that resulted in her three companions being 'ousted'.
Howard spent most of the afternoon cutting back more branches off the lower half of the yew tree and erecting an 8 foot high wire fence around it in the hope of stopping both hens and cats from climbing up. That night three of the four tree dwellers had found ways to get up again!
Since then we have endured some very cold nights followed by some 'organised' rain - very heavy rainstorms with thunder and lightening. However, it is clearly going to take more effort on our part to persuade these hens to go for the sensible, safe route of sleeping in the locked hen house at night.

2007-11-14T20:40:00.000Z

Chickens Ahoy!
We still have four chickens that roost up in the yew tree every night. These are the Little Red Cockerel, his two hatch-sisters and the adopted Chickadee. No amount of effort on my part seems to be able to deter them from going up there - and believe me, I have tried EVERYTHING!
About a month ago we heard a chicken rumpus at about 11 o clock at night and went out to find a cat in the hen run and one of the 'tree dwellers', the little Cuckoo Maran, down on the ground, obviously having been 'tipped' out of the tree and now trying to find cover from the cat in the darkness - hopeless task, as you can imagine. So we rescued her and put her safely into the hen house. Where did she go the next night - up in the yew tree again.
Well tonight there was more rumpus so we went out to investigate. We could see any of the tree dwellers at all - no sign of them anywhere. About half an hour after coming back indoors we hear another, closer rumpus. Out we go and there is Chickadee, strolling across the decking straight towards us to be picked up. Off we go to the hen yard again and quietly put her into the house with the other (more sensible) hens.
Back over to the Mediterranean garden I go, next to the decking, and there I spot a grey speckled hen - the Cuckoo Maran - with her head in the mint pretending she isn't there. As I pick her up she starts with the most outrageous screaming you can imagine! Back to the hen house with this writhing, squawking bundle and we just lob her in and close the door.
But where are the other two - the Little Red Cockerel and his hatch-sister - only the dawn will reveal if they are still in the tree or..... not.

2007-10-17T09:11:00.000Z

Wells Festival of Literature
Just back from a long weekend in Wells where I attended a number of the events. This is the first Literary Festival I have been to and I think I will probably go to others (Henley holds it's own now, as well). But I have to say that my overall impressions were of a very mixed bag of events, in terms of quality.
We were disappointed that the ill-health of Harold Pinter caused his wife, Antonia Fraser, to cancel her opening session as short notice. However, Rosie Boycott was next on my list with a promised expose of the realities of 21st century farming. Sadly this session took the form of an interview by a lady who lacked to skills necessary to enable Rosie to develop some of the themes of 'Our Farm' whilst at the same time remaining in the background. Pity - Rosie has a deeply engaging voice and speaking style and a level of charisma that would have carried her through a more traditional 'reading' approach.
Next came a totally non-literary (which is a bit quirky) but nevertheless really absorbing session by Mike Gunton, a long time creator of programmes with the BBC Natural History Unit at Bristol and Executive Producer on many of the most well known outputs such as 'Life on Earth' and 'Planet Earth'. Wonderfully visual, with both film and photos, this was a fascinating insight into the 'behind the scenes' aspects of how such major productions reach our screens.
From the heights back to the depths with a talk entitled 'How to write cook books' by Caroline Waldegrave. She must have been given the wrong venue information as she clearly thought we were a WI group (although I shouldn't downgrade the WI as I suspect they would have found this just as tedious a session as I did). Lade Waldegrave spent all of 10 minutes telling us that she couldn't tell us anything about writing cook books and then went on to spend the next 30 minutes giving us 'tricks and tips' for food presentation (always maintain a centre height, use an odd number of cream dollops, choose food with colours in a similar tonal range etc), suggestions for stress free Christmas Dinners and what kitchen gadgets to ask for as presents. Then finding herself finishing with 15 minutes to spare asked for questions - which we painfully slow in coming since I sensed we all felt the time would be better spent getting a cup of tea (in a white cup of course, to enhance the visual impact)
The, finally, another gem in the form of Christopher Somerville and his account of a walking trip across Crete. Probably the most intriguing aspects of this talk was why his wife had given him a 50th present of telling him to go away for two months in the first place - but that apart Christopher walked with us across the Greek island sharing observations and reading extracts and poems from his book, The Golden Step, as we went. It was delightful and just what I thought a Literary Festival would offer. It was a pity that the 'Literary Lunch' that accompanied Christopher's talk was not up to the same standard and had failed to capitalise on the opportunity to provide a nicely themed culinary accompaniment - perhaps they should have brought Lady Waldegrave in on the catering...

2007-09-30T12:51:00.000Z

Response to Eden

This is a 'must see' exhibition. Currently on at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell, this is a collection of textile works undertaken by the South West Textiles Group in response to the Eden Project.

The results are stunning - but for me, of special interest were the tapestries and those of Pat Johns in particular (one of her tapestries is shown here). These are amazing - the colours, the design and the quality of the production result in some absolutely wondeful pieces of art.

I have discovered that Pat is one of the tutores on tapestery course being run art West Dean College, Sussex and I have a plan emerging around attending some of the introductory sessions before possibly signing up for a full time course there next year.

Meanwhile, if you have a chance to catch the Response to Eden Exhinbition -Do Go!

2007-09-30T12:44:00.001Z

Virtual Tutoring
I have, for some time now, been the 'course manager' of an online course in virtual tutoring. With various changes at work I now find myself to be both manager and facilitator of the next delivery which starts, formally, tomorrow!
We have already encountered challenges in agreeing a date/time for the first virtual meeting - given that participants are located in Europe, South Africa and New Zealand.
On top of that there remain some technical issues around access and also the additional 'opportunity' of two new technologies having been implemented on this course as a trial basis: wikis and an integrated synchronous communication tool.
So in many ways I am finding it all quite difficult what with the technology and the extension of my role. And this at a time when I have successfully negotiated to reduce my working hours yet again, to 2.5 days per week.
I need to establish a 'game plan' on how to manage all this within the constraints of my limited working hours. Presumably I use my non-working time to reflect and plan how this might be achieved?

2007-09-18T07:10:00.000Z

Standing on the shores of 60
Yesterday was my 59th Birthday - I am now in countdown mode as each day takes me towards my state pension. What an extraordinary thought! But also a challenging one bringing, as it does, a raft of mixed (sometimes conflicting) feelings. On the one hand I am still 19 inside my head and the notion that I might be in any way comparable with either of the misty memories I have of my two Grandmothers seems unthinkable - but then they were probably 19 inside their heads. And I am also very aware that if I was 19 now, knowing what I now know, I would not be that person at all - so am I really 19 inside my head?
Equally, I am regularly reminded that physically I am not as 'robust' as I used to be. The constant stiffness in the joints, the need to wear glasses all the time, the falling asleep all to easily.. still, I persevere with pilates and hope that things will not get any worse. But then I am still riding my bike fairly regularly, I do still do quite a lot of walking - in many ways I feel I am probably fitter then I was 3 decades ago.
Well, enough of this retrospection - by way of celebration Howard and I went into London yesterday. We went to Hyde Park to see the Serpentine Gallery's Summer construction - stunning and wonderful use of 'thread' which I found myself reconstructing into a weaving projects. We then walked on through the Park, taking in the newly arrived herd of wicker elephants before stopping for tea and cake at the Restaurant overlooking the lake. Full refreshed we walked on into Piccadilly, through China Town and into Shafstbury Avenue where we had a (slightly disappointing) Steak & Chips before taking our seats in the Lyric Theatre for a performance of Cabaret.
I wonder how many of you have seen the film, with Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey? We saw it back in the early '70's (age again!) and were captivated. The combination of a musical against the backdrop of the rising threat of Nazism is done far better in this film that in 'The Sound of Music' - perhaps not unexpectedly. This stage production - the fourth time it has been on in the West End since it launched as a stage show in 1966 - had received some good reviews and we were curious to see it. The Theatre is very small and somewhat dowdy and we were surprised to be greeted with the news that we were being 'upgraded'! I thought that only happened on airlines! It also raised some questions about why they were doing this - lack of numbers and the need to fill the Orchestra Stalls? A large party of Americans suddenly descended and having to be seated all together so the need to free up 45 adjacent seats? We shall never know but in the middle of the Stalls we found ourselves.
The first half was a great disappointment. Clearly the play had been adapted and followed a slightly different path than the film so we were somewhat confused about who was who but overwhelmingly the feeling was of a fragmented production around a number of songs with little or no inter linkages and certainly no context in terms of the reality of Berlin in 1931(this reflection give an intersting perspective). However, the second half was a blast - the whole story came together, there were some powerful performances of songs that carried a real 'edge' to them in terms of the growth of Nazism and the emerging threat to the Jews. A really great ending.
And a fast train back to Reading - what more could you ask for on your Birthday?

2007-08-26T15:32:00.000Z

Summertime, and the going is easy
Late August Bank Holiday and the weather is surprisingly benign. I have been down to Wells for a couple of days and the drives in each direction were positively pleasant - a notion that I accept is an anathema to any dyed in the wool environmentalist (In case you have ever wondered what 'dyed in the wool' means follow the link and go to 'Words to the Wise'?)
The garden is continuing to provide all our vegetable requirements, albeit within a somewhat limited range - namely runner beans, courgettes, tomatoes, carrots and sweetcorn. The courgettes have been particularly plentiful causing me to acquire the excellent 'What will I do with all these courgettes' book which has proved a good investment.
I am becoming more proficient in Second Life. I have built a house (several times because I kept messing them up) and am now embarking on other building projects. What I would really like to do is to move towards clothes design and build but that looks a bit more complicated to me. There have been some interesting articles about SL in the papers recently - usually negative, such as this one in the Guardian on Saturday 25th August. But I think the view being taken is narrow and trite. Yes, of course Second Life can be viewed as a trivial waste of time but there are some really interesting opportunities there. For example, the use of socially orientated computer games as a means of more accurately modeling pandemic outbreaks was captured in some recent research. Whilst this was not through Second Life it certainly could be. Equally, there are a wide range of educational applications for a simulation like Second Life and one hears reports of various disadvantaged groups finding a new lease of life through the mobility and creativity of Second Life. It also strikes me that the early days of the World Wide Web, as a commercial environment, were populated with voices of doom and gloom and 'what is the point' sorts of comments so I feel inclined to persevere with SL and see where it takes me...

2007-07-25T20:05:00.000Z

Dilemmas and choices
Having brought back a couple of books from our visit to Kat and Mat, I have been enjoyably engaged with Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age'. I am about two thirds of the way through, given the slow pace of my reading which is combined with a bedtime (and therefore sleep orientated) routine.
However, my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has arrived today and I have sneakily started to read the first few pages......what should I do, dear reader? abandon Stephenson to the short lived but consuming delights of Harry Potter or resist the boy wizard on the basis that a pleasure deferred is a pleasure enhanced? Answers on a postcard.

2007-07-23T13:14:00.000Z

Climate change, change, change....
Last year we had the hottest year on record - 'climate change' we were told; expect a Mediterranean climate from now on. This year we are enduring the worst floods on record (and it is stall raining as I type). 'Climate change' again - expect a tropical climate from now on!
It seems to me that the 'climate change' story is being somewhat overused.....
Perched as we are on the hill above Henley on Thames we have so far escaped the rising waters. However, roads around us have been flooded and the town has had a mini flood. We are now holding our collective breath as the water that fell on Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and west Oxfordshire, begins to travel down the rivers and especially the Thames.
We are currently subject to a hysterical interviews and media reports about the inadequacies of our environmental protection agencies (of which there are a confusing array) and planning laws in terms of allowing houses to be built on flood plains and then not properly protected against floods. Equally, the government green paper on house building, is expected to highlight the use of flood plains as potential building land. But there are many areas of both the UK and the world where building takes place on flood plains (the city of York is built on one and so is Downing Street). Surely it is about building houses to suit the environment in which they are located? There are building techniques that can be applied to houses in flood plains. It would be perhaps a more positive approach to concentrate the collective outrage on insuring that buildings were constructed sustainably within their local context rather than blanket banns in fear of more 'climate change' events.

2007-07-14T08:13:00.000Z

Very poor practice from Airline Network
I have recently found myself caught up in some very poor practice by Airline Network. It started with my looking for flights to Dublin on October. That in itself is a nightmare given that you have to visit all the different web sites of both brokers and airlines, endlessly put in your travel requirements and invariably go through to the point of payment before getting the true cost of the trip (for example, Ryan Air added £8 for use of my credit card as a final addition having added £8 for having no bags at an earlier stage and of course all the taxes after you have opted for you £0.99 flights!).
However, in one of these searches Google threw up a listing 'Cheap Aer Lingus Flights' with a URL of http://www.aerlingus.airline-network.co.uk/ and claiming 'up to 70% on Aer Lingus Fares!'
So I go to the web site and enter my travel requirements (no, I didn't check the URL again - why should I?). Aer Lingus is not listed as an option when the flights are returned so I go for the cheapest option available - British Midland. I pay a total of £181.89 for two return fares to Dublin. Then I got suspicious about the Aer Lingus thing and searched for their actual web site, put in the same travel requirements and came up with a total flight cost of £149.02!!
So I rang Airline Network to find out why, if they advertised themselves on Google (with a false URL) as doing cheap Aer Lingus flights, I hadn't been offered any? Explanation was that either they had already sold their allocation (for October ?) or that they weren't offering any Aer Lingus flights on those particular travel dates.
So I then ask what the cancellation policy would be given that I felt I had been lured to their web site under false claims (I had already checked that the cancellation policy was 100.00%). Yes, I would get no money back at all, was the answer. It was all my fault for not paying attention.
Great customer service, Airline Network and a site to avoid doing business with in the future.
I do wonder what the legality is of websites throwing up these fictitious URLs - they are clearly there to mislead. Trade description act material? I think I might also contact Aer Lingus and Google to see what their views are.....

2007-07-10T18:01:00.000Z

Travels with my husband
Last week and weekend we were travelling around the British Isles. We first went down to Loswithiel in Cornwall to spend a couple of nights with Mat and Kat. Their house is very small and cosy. The double futon we slept on filled the entire spare bedroom apart from the first two feet as walked into the room. We had a fantastic barbecue on the first evening, went to the wonderful Lost Gardens of Heligan on the second day and out for a lovely meal in the Globe Inn that evening. Mat and Kat have now started up their own company, Iteracy - so if you want any web development that's the place to go to.
We left Cornwall and spent nine hours driving 'up North' to Cumbria to stay with my nephew, Mark and his wife, Amanda. They have three lovely children and live on a farm called Gill Head in Troutbeck, near Penrith. The farm is both a working sheep farm as well as a Bed and Breakfast, Camping and caravaning site. We stayed in the B&B and it was lovely.
On the Saturday we went to Woolfest, which was held in Cockermouth on the western edge of the Lake District. The weather was awful and the venue for the Woolfest was an vast animal holding warehouse and auction centre. It was very cold especially as the weather was absolutely awful. I was not greatly impressed with Woolfest - it had loads of really lovely yarns but not all of them were natural fibre yarns by any means. There were a few sheep and alpaca and there was also a fleece auction. Some of the stallholders were not willing to share details about how they made the things they had on display and although there were one or two really interesting techniques, on the whole I didn't feel inspired by the event. So having planned to spend at least half a day there we left after an hour.
We decided to go to Maryport - big mistake. OK, it was still raining (heavily) but the place seemed so bleak and barren. Very few people were about and the shops were empty. The marina was desterted.
So we spent the next few hours driving up the Cumbrian coast and then back to Troutbect for a great Indian take-away with Mark and Amanda before leaving the next day to drive south to 'sunny' Oxfordshire.
The weather has been awful everywhere, though.

2007-07-10T17:50:00.000Z

Surfeit of blogging items
There are a number of thoughts and experiences that I have been planning to put into the blog over the past couple of weeks and I keep forgetting to do them so I am going to start now...
First of all the hens...as I mentioned earlier, I have adopted a little bantam from a colleague at work. This little hen was one of a pair, traumatised by a fox visit in which her lifetime friend was killed and she was driven out of her home. She returned three days later but moped in her house on her own until her owner (my colleague) decided she needed company. So she has come to live with my hen tribe. She has held her own against the other ten - which must seem like a wild hoard after what she has been used to. Every night she sleeps in the yew tree - well that was until this morning. Today I found her under the hen house sitting in a dark little nest. As soon as the automatic door opened and all the hens came out she rushed into one of the nest boxes and has sat there all day since - clearly broody!
Meanwhile, the four day old chicks have now been released to fend for themselves with the main flock. You will recall that I suspected I had three hens and a cockerel - WRONG!! Three cocks and a hen more like. The white leghorn is a cockerel and has been crowing for some weeks now. He is three times the size of the other chicks so could grow into quite a big bird. He certainly stands his ground with Straeaky and Pheasie and the other 'old ladies'.

2007-06-19T18:37:00.000Z

Big Storm
As I write, the house is being bombarded by a major storm. The lightening is almost constant and the rain is so hard it looks like snow being driven across the road and over the roofs of the surrounding houses. The thunder is rumbling and crashing all the time. The new hen, donated by a work colleague, always spends her nights in the Yew Tree rather than going into the hen house. I hope she is OK......she will certainly be wet but I hope she isn't struck as well. Last time we had a storm our near neighbour's house was struck with the result that not only all his electrics and computers were blown out but also those of several of us in the vicinity. We just watched that neighbour driving out at the height of the storm - maybe he daren't stay in case of another strike. We have lost Sky TV - no signal is available. What shall we do this evening?

2007-06-08T09:10:00.000Z

Second Life

Over the past few weeks I have been exploring Web 2.0 and it's potential impact on teaching and learning. In the course of this I have discovered Second Life (SL) - and as if I didn't have enough time to get everything done in Real Life (RL) I now find I am squeezing in a couple hours a day 'in world' on SL.

This is what I look like (at the moment) on SL, line dancing at The Shelter. My name is Vandeleur Bailey. This is rather spooky because my name IS Vandeleur Bailey - in SL you choose your first name but your 'family' name has to be selected from a limited range - there was 'Beatty' as an option I could have gone for but since I was born a 'Bailey' I thought I would return to it.

SL is just one of the mushrooming number of social networking places on the internet. However it is different from the others in that usually you are putting yourself forward as you actually are on the basis that you are linking up with people who have similar expereinces, interests, careers etc. (although I accept that people may fake it on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn). In SL the whole thing is fictitous - there is no attempt to emulate RL and no sense of RL intruding on SL. It has a code of behaviour and designated areas for teens and adults. Essentially its a play space with artifacts that can be built. But it can also be used for simulations, role play and for expressing oneself in ways that may be impossible in RL.
Today I took a balloon ride around a whole load of SL Isalnds. Tomorrow - who knows...

2007-06-08T09:06:00.000Z

Kaleidoscope! The Exhibition
After a year of planning we finally got to the week of the BSWD exhibition at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell. It was a great event - lots of lovely textile items, including two of the final chair cushions I am working on (see picture left) and over 350 visitors. Must to it again sometime - later....

2007-05-09T12:35:00.000Z

Time passes....
Well it has been almost 12 weeks since the last posting. These have been troubled weeks but things are beginning to become stable - or rather, we are beginning to get used to the new order. On the more mundane and visible side of life there are a number of themes to report on including hens, family, garden and hobbies. So sit back and enjoy!
Hens
The hens have been in their slightly altered accommodation for a few weeks now and have thoroughly landscaped it now. The new patch contains a waterfall (currently not in use), a rockery, a number of bushes and some really good dust bathing areas. One of the cuckoo Marans went broody and having let her sit on crock eggs for a couple of weeks I got four day-old chicks for her, from the Domestic Fowl Trust, which had been hatched out on Wednesday 4th April. She took to them very well and they are now growing up fast. There appear to be four hens and one cockerel which is great. The breeds include a bantam Welsummer, a cuckoo Leghorn and a white Leghorn and a brown Maran. Lippy, another of the cuckoo Marans, has now gone broody so she is out in the sin-bin cooling off. Meanwhile we are facing a rash of egg eating and so I am investigating rollaway nest boxes as a possible solution.
Family
Family news includes Kathryn and Mat managing to find a house to rent down on Loswithiel, Cornwall. This means that all the furniture and pictures we have been looking after for them (and enjoying the use of) will now depart in a large van on Friday. We have bought ourselves new seating from Land of Leather which arrives on the same day in the same van so we shall not have to sit on the floor.
Howard's niece, Mary, and her husband, Don, are in the process of buying a flat in Caversham but due to a delay they are currently without anywhere to live so we are putting Don up at our house. Mary is still up in Cambridge as they are both coaches for GB Rowing - albeit in different parts of the country, which makes having a work-life balance a bit of a challenge.
Howard himself is now working part-time - just mornings - so we manage to get more things done around the house and garden (see below). We also enjoy more time together which is a great bonus.
Garden
Well, things have been all go on the garden front this year - we are at last beginning to get our act together. The vegetable plot is now fully planted or prepared and contains broad beans, onions, leeks, parsnips, brussels sprouts, beetroot, carrots, courgettes and runner beans. The flower bed adjoining the veg plot has now been 'incorporated' and contains potatoes, sweet corn and squashes. The greenhouse has lettuce and tomatoes plus replacements for many of the plants already out in the garden. The challenge now is to keep on top of the weeds and the keep the slugs and snails under control. Watch this space.
Hobbies
I am progressing with the weaving project having now produced three prototype double cloth, padded cushions. I have now warped the loom up for two more which should be the first of the 'real thing'. I have dyed the yarn using initially Russel Dyes but have now switched to acid dyes in order to get the depth and vibrancy of colour I am looking for. The log cabin has been a fantastic place to work in.
Meanwhile the planning for the BSWD Exhibition is now nearing it's climax. We have a 'hanging meeting' in place next week to arrange how we will display all the items that members have submitted - of which there is quite a lot (thank goodness).
So that kind of brings you up to speed with where things are at the moment.

2007-03-26T16:41:00.000Z

Difficult Trekking and Fossil Hunting
This past weekend Howard and I went down to Dorset with Ann and Ian. There was one main objective - other than just having a relaxing time - Ann and Ian are on a project which aims to have them photographed on every English county high spot. There are a couple of counties whose high spots are on private land but the rest are all accessible. So this trip took in a planned walk to Lewesdon Hill via the Iron Age Hill Fort at Pilsden Pen, and across streams on plank bridges and finally up the most difficult field I have ever walked. The wind had been described to us, by a local, as a 'lazy wind' - meaning that it blew straight through you rather than going around! The distance we walked was between 6 and 8 miles but felt more like 10 :-(
Still, a warm shower at the lovely Warren House, a delightful B&B in Chideock run by Kathy and Duncan Scott, soon put us back on our feet. Breakfasts with the Scotts were a delight. For evening meals we went down to the local pub, The George, which had a very welcoming atmosphere and a fantastic menu.
On the second day we decided to go down to Seatown, just a mile from Chideock, where not only the highest cliff on the English South Coast can be found (Golden Cap) but also a beach full of fossils.
So with a hat full of 'nice stones' and one or two ammonites, we returned home tired but refreshed.

2007-03-21T20:34:00.000Z

KatnMat return
Kathryn and Mat have returned from their travels. I haven't seen them yet because I was visiting family in Somerset but I have spoken to Kat and chatted with her online. Trouble is that is just the same as when we skyped and chatted when they were in New Zealand and Australia and South East Asia - so it doesn't really seem like they are back. So I am looking forward to seeing them so that I am reassured that they really are back in the UK.

2007-03-21T20:21:00.000Z

Hawk versus Kite
This is an unashamed nature tale. We get predatory sparrow hawks coming out of the woods on the edge of our garden to take our blackbirds but recently they have stepped up a gear and have been reducing the pigeon population. Two days ago a sparrow hawk brought down a pigeon in the garden but it fell into the lower pond. We became aware of this when we saw the splashing and feather flying as the hawk struggled to get its supper out of the pond. By next morning quite a sizable chunk of the pigeon had been consumed despite still being in the pond and so I carefully lifted it out and laid it beside the pond. Within a few minutes a passing red kite had taken an interest but the sparrow hawk had returned to have breakfast. The hawk then managed to drag to corpse up the bank and under some small bushes whilst the kite circled lower and lower until it eventually touched down. What a fantastic sight! These kites are big birds. A wingspan of five feet and very distinctive rusty red feathers. I rushed for the camera but of course the batteries were flat so you will have to take my word for it. By the afternoon only a few feathers remained. The corpse was gone but we don't know if it was lunch and dinner for the hawk or just breakfast for the kite. Oddly, whilst the early morning struggle for the body was going on a crow joined in and attacked the kite - but not the sparrow hawk...!

2007-03-11T19:22:00.000Z

March 10th - Spring is here!
Today has seen a number of key indicators of Spring:

Brimstone Butterfly seen at least four times in the garden
Temperature reached 15 c
Yesterday lawn cut for first time this year
Six rows of broad beans planted
All the fish out and feeding for the first time in 2007
Frogs very vocal and very active in both ponds and frog spawn growing in quantity daily
Yesterday seven eggs laid by the hens for a second consecutive day (today just one!)
Large Bumble Bees out in force - they are probably queen bees
The new vegetable plot extension is now dug over and covered in black plastic to get it warmed up ready for potatoes and other delights.
The hens are now confined back in their run but with the addition of the Pond Heights which they have almost completely moonscaped already.

Behind this seemingly simple list lies a great deal of activity and physical labour and, as a result, I am battered and bruised in a number of places and completely exhausted. I am planning to have a long relaxing sauna this evening.

Meanwhile I have also been busy at the Inkle Loom - is there no end to my talents!? I have woven two bands and about to start on a third. The plan is to in some way combine them to 'make something'... watch this space!

2007-02-25T18:18:00.000Z

Garden News
As we approach the end of February the garden is beginning to demand attention. Following from the new fence Howard and Dan built after the storms in January, there is quite a lot of debris around - mainly the old wooden fence posts that will be good stove fodder once they are cut up. There is also a collection of wire netting, metal cables and other bits and pieces we have dug up over the past few weeks which need to be taken to the dump.
I have spent most of today tidying up this debris into manageable and sightly piles. I also tackled one end of the big flower bed where I had, in previous years, rashly planted a number of grasses displaced from elsewhere in the garden. They have multiplied and today I lifted out about 35 of them! Some have been replanted between the apple trees. Others have gone to form a low screen in front of the third compost bin. All the rest are currently languishing in a heap on waste land at the edge of the garden whilst I decide what to do with them.
In the space left by the grasses I have planted two delphiniums and two other things that I can't remember. I still have the center section of that bed to tackle but the ground is just so heavy and wet it is almost impossible to work on.
Finally I cleared out the little area outside the bedroom window and also deadheaded the lavender- a bit late in the day!
So things are beginning to look under control. We have onions and potato sets ready to go in and seeds of a whole raft of other veg. Once the ground dries out it will be all hands to the forks.

2007-02-13T14:53:00.000Z

New Blog
I have been reminded by Kathryn that I have not put in a blog entry for over a month and surely something in my life is worth commenting on if only the second snowfall of the season. So suitably humbled by a girl and her mate who blog with cutting insight, humour and a good smack of political handbagging - regardless of where they are in the world (currently Cambodia but before that Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand...) I have resolved to share those small precious moments of my life that give it so much colour and vibrancy.
Well, now comes the rub - what to tell you about? It's just that hen commentary is very absorbing but probably only to the observer herself. It's a bit like a new Mum occupying the airwaves with a level of detail and trivia regarding her new born that she clearly feels is the sort of stuff rich conversation is made of - and it's not.
But anyway, hens you will get for a starter combined with weather (so that kills off two topics in one). Yes, winter came back for another 48 hour spree - we had had a flurry of snow lasting about five hours but this more recent one was what the Met Office reffered to as a 'weather event'! The country ground to a halt (as it does) and the office has been filled with stirling tales of 'getting out of the drive' that morning, ever since. The hens are currently enjoying complete freedom of the garden and were, as usual, totally unsettled by this alien white stuff that filled their world when they woke up on the Thursday morning - having no short or medium term memory they had already forgotten the last fall a few weeks ago. When I came back from work, (having got my ancient and very non-eco ten year old 4X4 into four wheel drive for probably the fifth time in its life - but hey, that's why I have a 4X4) I found evidence that hens had been out in the snow. No, oddly enough there were no snowmen or snowhens just large foot prints everywhere and an appalling mess on the deck under the house eves. This was clearly the place to make for -it was not covered in snow so resembled something they were familiar with. They could make safe, relatively snow-free dashes out to the flagstones under the bird feeder when ever the cheeky Bluetits appeared to lob the grain down to the. Otherwise they sat pressed against the patio doors, sunken deep into their feather coats and regularly crapping. I have put up a small hen/snow Gallery for you to get the sense of what I am describing here .
Meanwhile, on another localised note, my aforementioned 4x4 is in the garage having another fuel leak investigated so today I resorted to the MGBGT. Big mistake. It failed as I was driving through town, backfiring and stalling at any possible opportunity, and although I managed to nurse it out of the traffic I had to call out the AA. They took an hour and a quarter to get to me by which time the MGBGT had regained it's sense of normality and happily drove home without a second glance. Speculative diagnosis is 'condenser' which I am sure means a mountain to those of you in the mechanical know. To me it just means that I am housebound for the time being unless I am thinking about fitness in which case I will walk.
Talking of which, I have just bought these lovely shoes from Clarks (no, I couldn't understand why I could only find them on a French site, either). They are called Funky Doo, and I have lived in them for the past two days as Howard and I were over in Frankfurt for an Exhibition. They have walked me miles and are SO comfortable. I am now going to buy the delicately turquoise coloured version for the summer.
and that leads nicely into the Frankfurt trip for another blog....

2007-01-02T19:07:00.000Z

So this is 2007!

I am appalled already. The Christmas Season has passed with not so much as an ice patch let alone snow. True, the wind has been in evidence but what has happened to Winter?

The newspapers have filled their acres of of space, yet again, with mindlessly trivial 're-invent yourself in a week' articles. Surely journalists must get tired of writing it - I know I am absolutely bored stiff with reading it each year.

Thousands of Iraqis continue to die, nameless and unmarked, whilst we feed the flames of civil war and insurgency with public debate and voyeuristic tidbits from the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Whatever happened to the notion of human dignity?

Another child has died at the fangs of a family dog and we are still surprised that animals can be both so unpredictable and so ungrateful.

The passing of laws continues to be the preferred solution to all social ills and perceived injustices - whilst laws already in use demonstrably fail to deliver their intended solutions.

Still - there is hope. This blog has somehow transformed itself into owning a reassuring Google tag. What could possibly be wrong with the world!

2006-11-06T07:48:00.000Z

Slow blogging
Well, it is almost a month since the last entry. What does this signify - that nothing much worthy of comment has happened in my life? .....that my life has been so busy, dynamic and diverse as to make a choice of topic impossible? ...... the answer to both these questions has to be 'no'. Sometimes things happen and ideas occur that I just don't feel motivated to share.

However, the turn in the weather is certainly worth a mention. Hard frosts and clear sunny but very cold days have been the prevailing theme for the past week. The result ranges from scrapeing car windscreens in the mornings to turning the house upside down to find gloves to having a lovely log fire in our new stove everyday to a series of stunning sunsets and nights filled with the beauty of a full moon in clear skies. The last I have tried to capture in the Gallery.
Meanwhile I have finally managed to set the loom up with some shantung silk (a type of silk originating from Shantung/Shandong Province) and am now weaving a scarf. I have left the idea of the double cloth fabric for the time being whilst I wait for the new heddles I have ordered to arrive. The wool I am using for that project causes the old cotton ones I have to rub and break. The silk is much more benign so I am hoping to get that item completed without too much hassle.

On the hen scene we are again cock-less. Like his father before him, Mullet keeled over and died for no apparent reason a couple of weeks ago. The hens are once again having to adjust to a new pecking order - always an activity of high emotion and disruption. Streaky seems to have moved naturally into Chief Hen role but the lower ranks are proving less clear about where they fit in the greater scheme of things. Meanwhile Flippy (or Lippy, as she is now known) continues to be the sole egg layer producing about five a week - which suits us just fine! I don't think I will go in search of another cock - they add no value to the overall egg production process so I think I will leave them out of the frame for now.

2006-10-10T07:40:00.000Z

World Mental Health Day
Today the world is asked to reflect on mental health - but for many the focus will be rather more on mental ill health. Within our family we have lived with a sufferer of serious mental ill health for over a decade. The impact of mental ill health on the individual concerned has been devastating. But the wider impact on the family as a whole has been equally high. During the long journey that started with a sense that 'something is not right' through to the 'revolving door' of short and long stays in mental health units under Section, a number of key factors emerge.

There is no such thing as a mental ill health diagnosis; at best any 'label' is only useful in terms of getting recognition of the need for benefits and treatment within the system. Diagnosis seems to play no part in either drug treatment nor in the allocation of hospital facilities with all 'mentally ill' patients being confined in the same unit irrespective of their tneeds or impact on others. However, There is a growing move against the term 'schizophrenia', from within the medical profession represented by a group called CASL.
The drugs used to treat so-called mental ill health are more damaging than the mental ill health itself. The effects of these drugs, especially when prescribed, as they usually are, in a cocktail approach, are devastating; weight gain, joint stiffness, incontinence, 'zombiness', rashes, dry mouths ... The list goes on and have to be endured by already vulnerable people. As patents run out on long standing drugs, new variants are produced by the pharmacutical companies with promises of 'wonder' results but just more of the same old side effects.
The resources available to support those with mental ill health are grossly inadequate; the lack of staffing in the NHS Mental Health Trust Units, the lack of communication between staff due to limited time, the woefully under-resourced community-based service there to help not only the sufferers of mental ill health but, more importantly, those who care for them in the so called 'care in the community' approach that justified the closure of dedicated Mental Hospitals - all creating more pain and suffering through only being able to partially address issues.

BBC2 has just run two programmes with Stephen Fry, in which he explores his own mental ill health condition, usually described as bipolar disorder. What was striking about these was that for those 'blessed' with the condition, there was real ambivalence about the extent to which it enhanced or detracted from their quality of life. When at the deeply depressed end of the spectrum it was debilitating whilst at the other end of bipolar it drives all the energy and creativity and courage that allows extrodinary things to happen or to be created. RD Laing argued that mental ill health is not about a malfunctioning mind but a manifestation of an individual in a situation of extreme stress and with no means to resolve that situation. Traditional psychiatry would suggest that the signs of mental ill health are symptoms of a dis-ordered mind and are discounted in the overall diagnosis. Laing argued that these 'symptoms' are, in fact, the mechanisims where by the individual seeks to make sense of complex and conflicting pressures.

There is a great deal of information on the web about mental ill health. There are many local support groups (I am part of one). But at the end of the day the fragmented, inadequate and, in most cases, untimely response of the official support services has taken this country to a dire position in terms of the nations mental ill health. Up to three-quarters of men in prison suffer from two or more mental disorders; about one in ten have a functional psychosis. And the situation is similar or many women prisoners . The burden of care rest almost entirely on the families and friends of those who suffer mental ill health. It is sometimes a burden beyond endurance.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

2006-09-20T18:42:00.000Z

Work-life Blanace
This week marks the start of my working part-time (three days a week). I am 'at home' on Mondays and Tuesday from now on (with one or two exceptions). The past two days have left me feeling I was just on holiday and would be returning to work as normal but then I kept reminding myself that I was also going to be 'at home' next Monday and Tuesday - and the Monday and Tuesday after that - and the Monday and Tuesday after that.... It was a really good feeling.
So how did I spend this new time? Well, messing about with dyes and with weaving designs, that's how. I am planning the project of weaving eight chair seats for the rather hard dinning room chairs we have. The plan is to weave a double-weave fabric and to alternate the bottom and top set of warps so as to create sealed tubes - which I will stuff with padding before sealing them. In this way I can weave a ready padded and sealed cushion in one go. Well, that's the theory! I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

2006-09-17T18:20:00.000Z

Happy Birthday to me!!
Yes, today is another milestone on my life - another year older. A lovely bouquet of sunflowers arrived from combined family members, and Howard gave me 'The Book of 'Senior Moments'. I also received a lovely East top from Dick, Liz, Ellie and Tom. Not only that but they invited us over for a birthday lunch and Liz did us proud with a fantastic meal. A great day out made all the better by good company and lovely weather.

2006-09-10T10:49:00.000Z

Jess and John get married - an excuse for a trip to France plus a bit of news-catching up.
Jessica, the daughter of our friends, Chris and Chris (see 36th Wedding Anniversary below), and her partner, John, invited us to their wedding. It took place in the magical Priory St Michael de Grandmont, near Lodev in Languedoc, France. The stamps (left) on the wedding invitation gave an indication of both the special-ness of what was to come as well as of their love for each other. It was a beautiful day, lovely company, a moving humanist ceremony and lots of lovely food, drink and entertainment. A very memorable event for us all but especially for Jess and John.
Given that this event was taking place in France we decided to make a week of it and explore the area (Languedoc-Roussillion). The Travel Collection in the Gallery now has photographic highlights for those who enjoy that sort of thing. The weather throughout the week was fantastic. We saw some really lovely towns, there is a wealth of historic interest in the area and certainly there was enough that we didn't get to see, or only saw a little of, that would justify another trip.
Back home the garden has continued to dry out, although some rain recently has brought the lawn almost back to green. I pulled three rows of beetroot yesterday and bottled 10 jars whilst freezing the rest - 9 containers of diced, cooked beetroot and 13 whole roasted beetroots. We have also harvested and frozen 20 cobs from this years sweetcorn plants. The runner beans are a dead loss - we have had two meals off them on total! One notable absence this year has been bees - where have they all gone? Meanwhile the tomatoes are coming in thick and fast and several large bags of them have already been laid down in the freezer.
The shed is still going through it's final touches - namely the guttering. This is proving a nightmare. The system we have been sent is supposed to go with our log cabin, which originates in Finland. Perhaps someone from Finland might explain how they do guttering out there because it ain't easy!!
I know you will be agog to hear how the hens are doing. Well Evil 1 and 2 were cured of their inappropriate hormonal behaviour and returned to the hen run. Off we went to France. On our return, what do I find but ANOTHER broody hen!! What has got into them? Anyway, she was transferred to the sin-bin and yesterday, after six days cooling off, has now been reunited with her family. Hopefully she has been cured and that will be the end of that. The flock as a whole are in full moult. Cleaning out the hen house today was like sweeping up after a pillow fight. Even Mullet is not exempt and is trying to maintain the dignity that becomes the only male in the house - even when he has no tail feathers. It doesn't seem to have stopped him crowing, however.
Four days last week were spent up in Edinburgh, at the ALT-C Conference. It was a great event - lots of excellent presentations, interesting and engaging people to network with and some challenging ideas from the key note speakers - especially Stephen Heppell (of NotSchool and Be Very Afraid to name but two) and Diana Oblinger of Educause. The challenge for me will be in identifying what aspects to take forward and then how to do that. There was a lot of talk about Web 2.0 however there are some serious voices questioning the notion of an emerging new type of www, most notably Tim Berners-Lee - the www man himself.
From a technology point of view there is a very neat package called PebblePad that was much in evidence as something that many schools, College and Universities are making use of. This is because of the growing emphasis on enabling learners to be more reflective of the learning process and also to enable them to be more pro-active in owning the way in which they learn and the nature of the evidence they collect to support assessment of that learning. There might well be some opportunities for this to be the vehicle for enabling the personal development strand of our MBA to be better realised.

2006-08-13T19:54:00.000Z

Life as it is lived
This weekend has been a fairly typical one for us.
Evil 1 and 2 still occupy the sin-bin but have at least remained confined.
We have laid the floor tiles and wall tiles that will surround the wood burning stove when it is installed in late September by Country Stoves. We now have to grout them. There was great dilemma, of course, around choice of tiles. We decided to use some of the surplus from the hall as they are a nice warm orangey colour which is a good contrast to the blue floor in the living room. We dismantled the white storage unit (now relocated to the log cabin store room and holding all my fleece, yarn, knitting machine, dyeing stuff etc) and then went off to choose some tiles for the back of the stove. After some dilemmas and choices we settled on some nice blue tiles from Wickes (and at Â£9.99 for nine they were abargainn) and have already taken up the wood laminate flooring and laid the floor and stuck the wall tiles. No flies on us, matey!
Otherachievementss this week have included the purchase of essential underwear from M&S for both Howard and myself, plus two outstanding 'country shirts' for him from the 'horse shop' in Twyford.
We have also repotted the stunningly successful germination of three lovely Flame Trees, from seeds which we got from the Eden Project. These trees could grow to 30 or 40 feet in height!
So ,all in all a busy but productive weekend.

2006-08-10T19:12:00.000Z

Chickens!!
I am having trouble with the feathered flock at the moment. There seems to be a mass Broody Movement underway. This year I have had five of the hens go broody. So far I have managed to stay ahead of the game and the sin-bin has proved the greater force. However I now have two of the wickedest hens out both broody at the same time. Evil 1 was taken from the next box last night, screaming all the way, only to break out of the sin-bin today and force her re-entry to the peace and quiet in the chicken run (quite how she did this we don't know - clearly satanic forces are at work). I went to get her out again only to find ANOTHER one was sitting with an evil look in her eye. I have now reinforced the sin-bin and am fortifying myself with red wine before launching out into the dusk to get Evil 1 and Evil 2 out of the nest boxes and into the reinforced sin bin. Chickens - who'd have 'em !

2006-08-10T19:08:00.000Z

36th Wedding Anniversary
Yes, Howard and I have just celebrated our Wedding Anniversary AGAIN! The number is becoming irrelevant. Endurance is what counts - and a sense of humour. Our dear friends Chris and Chris came over for a meal to help us celebrate. Chris (Female) was one of my two Bridesmaids. Chris (Male) was the other half of a double date that ended up in two marriages. Nothing else to say, really.....

2006-07-30T07:19:00.000Z

Building the Log Cabin
After two weeks of weekend and evening hard labour, the log cabin is finally complete!
There were times when we were severely challenged but we got there in the end. A full pictorial record cab be found in the Gallery. The walls went up fairly quickly but the roof was a really painful experience. Right from the start it was clear that long ladders were needed. We have about three ladders but they are not long so there was a good deal precariously placed ladders desperately being held down by me at the bottom whilst Howard swung around them at the top.
The final outcome is a lovely little cabin with a very useful storage room and a good sized main room with lots of light where I shall be able to weave and spin to my hearts content.
However, before we move on into the future of this wonderful construction I will just share with you (and the makers, if they are reading this) some ideas on how to improve the overall quality of their customer's experiences in building a Peili....

label or mark every piece with a unique number so that they can be more easily identified - it is no good idemtifying them on the plan if you then have to set off into the maze of pieces, with a tape measure in hand, and try to find the one you are looking at
Where pieces are the same, but there is a 'left' and a 'right', please mark the inside face
consider replacing the vast roofing sheets with tongue and groove planks
for goodness sake, tell us how you imagine the roof-ridge shingles would be finished off - especially where four ridges come together!
review the graphics in the building guide and consider lightening some of them so that they can actually be seen
instigate an annual 'I Survived Building a Peili!' award of a two weeks, all expenses paid trip to Chiva-Som

We still have a lot of 'finishing off' to do but hopefully, by the Autumn, I shall be happily ensconced and weaving like a demon!

2006-07-17T17:45:00.000Z

Mid-summer Madness
In this, the hottest July since forever, Howard and I found ourselves building a log cabin. This particular log cabin is called Peli and it comes from Finnforest, in Finland. It is substantial. It is not pre-constructed in any way so we had to build it from scratch using lots of pre-cut pieces of wood - none of which were numbered in any way. The worst bit was struggling to get the large roof pieces in place and we still have to put the shingles on! Before we started building we had to carry all the pieces througth from the front lawn to the back. We started on Friday and we finsihed the shell on Sunday evening - we were (and still are) exhausted.
Ultimately this log cabin will become my craft studio in which, through my third age, I shall create wonderful pieces of fabric and marvels of yarn and colour - alternatively it will become a really useful storeroom.

2006-07-08T18:47:00.000Z

Bike Shopping
Since this title first jumped into my head I have actually bike-shopped twice so it is clearly becoming a habit. I am the proud owner of a John Lewis credit card. This enables me to take out a hand scanner whenever I shop in Waitrose (part of the John Lewis Partnership - as it says on the bags). I delight in trudging round the shop scanning in all my items and them, fighting with the self-pay machine (which never works unless you create static on the card by rubbing it vigorously on your tee shirt) and then walking out triumphantly knowing you have not had to in-load-/out-load/in-load the goods in the usual manner.
But bike shopping adds a whole new dimension - here I scan and drop the item directly into my bike pannier! What freedom!! What daring!!! Problem is that the entry area of the shop contains all the soft stuff (bananas, raspberries etc) and the latter stages contain all the heavy stuff (milk, cans, beer, wine) so the contents, once I have dropped them in the pannier and cycled them up the hill, get somewhat merged.
However - it is a demonstration that shopping can be done on a bike! Everyday, when necessary, (and by getting the really bulky stuff at the weekend by car - but don't talk about that!).