Foolscap & Quills

A trip to Iona

2008-07-09T14:18:00.005+01:00

Oh, I'm bored and missing that lovely Scottish island in the middle of nowhere.

A group of us from Richmond went up to Iona at the end of June for a week's programme led by community leader Kathy Galloway and artist Joyce Gunn Cairns, and to enjoy the Abbey. This has been my first visit since leaving at the end of 2006 and there is a world of difference in being a volunteer or being a guest. I quite enjoyed staying in one of the rooms I cleaned so many times, but generally it was really odd. Kind of knowing about the behind-of-scenes work but not being able to access it!

Iona is still gorgeous and amazing - even in the less than completely sunny weather that we had... I loved walking around so much familiar territory and seeing it all again. The special quality of that place really seeps into you and, again, it was a wrentch to leave. It was fun being up there with a group and there were plenty of interesting people to get to know over the course of the week.

We had a Deaf group with us and I think everybody learnt quite a few signs e.g. please/thank you, tea, coffee and milk, and the signs for Otter, Puffin, and Seal. Everyone gets assigned to one of these three groups for a meal and their task (I was an Otter) and these were repeated every meal so watching the signs via the interpreters made learning them almost inevitable. It was exciting having signers around and it definately rekindled my desire to carry on with learning more British Sign Language. One of the women from that group is an ordained minister and she and Kathy co-celebrated the last service in Iona Abbey, which is a communion service, and it was really beautiful. Hannah preached (with a voice over) and it is quite something to see a sermon!

On a trip to Staffa island we saw puffins! They are remarkable birds and always are so much smaller than I remember them to be, and a lot cuter too. The puffins like the humans around as we scare the gulls away and come out to pose for the cameras. I was also lucky enough to catch a quick glimpse of a corncrake on Iona. They are loud birds and keep up an fairly constant croaking but it is rare to see them. Even the RSPB website say they are "secretive"... When I was a volunteer on the island we had a weekly A4 publication called the Corncrake Crier so it was really fun to see one.

The programme we were on was called Dancing in Fire: exploring feminine images of God and people brought a lot to it and made it very interesting. It was so nice to meet interesting, opiniated people and do something completely out of the daily routine!

I miss being there.

Congratulations!

2008-06-18T11:48:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Wales on becoming the first Fairtrade country in the world!

Birds and frogs

2008-06-16T07:56:00.004+01:00

This is a very media friendly heron that was hanging out by the path at the Wetlands Centre. It took no notice of the massive lenses pointing at it (and my little dinky one from a camera I "borrow" from work whenever I forget to return it...) and kept a look out for frogs and other tasty morsels. There are a fair number of these grey birds around my neck of the Thames and at least it's easy to identify. I still struggle enormously to identify all/any of the wildfowl at the Centre despite having been there for over a year. I try to comfort myself with the fact that I rarely see them as we're always busy with the kids programme, but it is still a bit embarassing...

Here's a funny little fellow that lurks in the shed over the winter and gets (literally) wheeled out in the summer to entertain and edify. I helped wash it down the other day and it is quite remarkable. It has several boxes under the frog that store items like dead beetles and egg shells etc to bring out and show the public. It's quite heavy to get moving but once you do it's a lot of fun. As long as you aren't too distracted by a mammoth frog following you!

The joys of living by a river

2008-06-08T14:18:00.003+01:00

I like this picture! It's taken by a friend and is quite magical. Next to the cars - under the water between the wooden posts and the scrub poking up from the water - is a footpath and the cars are in the Ham House carpark. It also has a slight feel of a car tv advert where the cars are poised before surfing in the waves or other such foolish things.

The Thames is tidal and a remarkable number of people do get caught out by that, myself included on a memorable occasion where we got stranded on a bench for several hours as the waters lapped around our feet. Keeping an eye on the tides is always a wise move.

A day on a boat

2008-06-01T13:21:00.006+01:00

Throwing ropes like Shirley Bassey, the Lightman's Hitch also known as a Tugman's Hitch, Thames Hitch or Brentford Hitch, risk assessments in term of slot machine lemons, cups of tea, and a quick impromptu trip to empty the sewage tank at the neighbouring commercial boat launch...

These, and lots more, were part of the crew training day on the Richmond Venturer last Friday. It was such a fascinating day and I learnt loads. The two other new crew members I was training with had an amazing amount of experience of working on and with boats and could launch into all sorts of technical (ie. incomprehensible) talk at a drop of a hat which was rather intimidating at first. I have been on a few boats and even helped sail one, but that was years ago and I couldn't properly remember how to do any knots! But there was still a lot they learned too, and they were very friendly and kind to the boat novice (and didn't laugh at questions like "what is 'boat' for the back of the boat?" The answer is 'stern/aft'.).

I'm even more excited about going out on trips with the project now and hopefully I won't have to wait very long. The furthest upstream that the Venturer can go in Windsor Castle. After that the bridges get too low for her to go under. On day trips though she won't go that far up, usually up to Walton on Thames or there abouts. And our skipper is licensed to take the Richmond Venturer as far down the river as Putney. That is quite a range. And I'm ready to explore as much of it as I get the opportunity to do!

The training day didn't originally include any trips but we got a bonus little jaunt upstream under two bridges (from one side of Kingston to the next) and I got to throw a rope onto the jetty we came alongside. That was only a little thing but it felt such a responsibility! Thankfully I was able to execute my task with honour:)

Actually, the next time I'll be on a boat is next week Sunday when I'm going on a Batty Boat trip. We head out in the evening on a boat and look for bats - another of my current obsessions! I've been helping out on Bat Walks at the London Wetland Centre and learning loads there. I am looking forward to seeing and hearing what we will on the Thames.

Richmond Venturer

2008-05-27T22:01:00.005+01:00

My next grand adventure will commence on Friday the 30th as I undergo a day's training to become a volunteer crew member of the boat Richmond Venturer. She is the main ingredient of The River Thames Boat Project and I'm increadibly excited about the whole prospect. Here's a shocking fact: I have spent just over a year now living next to the Thames and I still haven't made it onto the river!

This hopes to address the imbalance and dreadful state of affairs and it really is volunteer work in a direction that I want to be exploring. A recent trip to the London Aquarium left me feeling like the lapsed marine biologist that I am and added to the growing conviction that I want to do something about it. The Richmond Ventura takes school groups and other groups on board for trips and river education and is fully accessible to people with disabilities, so on the whole it sounds tremendously appealing.

I am going to have to practice my starboard from my port and start calling the kitchen the 'galley' and the toilets the 'heads' and all things nautical with weird names.

I wonder if "Ahoy matey!" and "Aye, aye Captain" are acceptable phrases on board...

Visits abroad

2008-05-27T21:40:00.003+01:00

I'm licking the last remaining sugary goo off my fingers from a fragment of Brighton Rock that HM1 brought back with her yesterday from, well, Brighton. It's been ages since I had any, and it quite nicely rounds off a lovely weekend.

I trained it over to "Swampea" (as the predictive text on my phone calls the place) on Friday for a few days of catching up with friends and enjoying a joint 30th birthday party in a field. I went to the their joint 25th birthday party which makes me feel like I've been in the UK a really long time now... I had tasty Indonesian food on Friday and thoroughly enjoyed the warm sunny Saturday that I spent wandering around Mumbles and then onto Murton on the Gower.

I managed a visit to the Red Cafe to see them in action (ie overrun with toddlers!) and to fit in a years worth of news into an hour with one of the managers. A couple of weeks ago my flip flops came apart as I was cycling. This was a tragic event, if not entirely unexpected, as these were my favourite shoes and I had worn them almost exclusively for the past three summers. It can be very hard to replace items that command such respect but while in Mumbles I had a wave of genius: why not go to the same shop I bought the first pair from and get another... I am now the owner of another pair of flip flops and in the process of introducing my feet to them and I have high hopes of them lasting the next three years!

The party took place in glorious sunlight, with a lovely bbq, great massive tipii with a sound system and decks, a fire, lots of lovely people - and no bloomin' planes flying over my head! I felt completely relaxed and like I was on holiday plus I had a good dance. In fact I stayed up till the last song and saw the dawn come in. The music was a crazy mixture of childrens songs early in the evening, a live folk band, and whatever music the dj's fancied playing into the night. It was lovely to have so many families with children in the early afternoon/evening and see them all running around - about the same height as the grass - and pretending to be like the pigs on the land.

London really does have a sad lack of tipiis in fields and big open fires to gather around.

On Sunday I got the grand tour of two allotments of my University friends and I think I might have a grave case of "allotment envy". Although it did show up how very little I do know about gardening in general. I hope something will grow out the back in my titchy, tiny patch...

Roller coasters are definately not my thing

2008-05-17T20:03:00.004+01:00

HM1 organised a youth trip to Thorpe Park today and we had a minibus full of people. I was roped into going along to the theme park as a "responsible adult" (he hee), which I don't object to per se. It's all them roller coasters that I'm not so keen on! In fact I hate most of them. Which does tend to make things a little tricky. I volunteered to go with the group that doesn't want to do the scary rides - but they still chose a whole bunch of rides that terrify me. I think I must've missed the bit in the youth worker training that taught one how to do roller coasters (along with the skill of playing pool - another excrutiatingly important youth worker skill that I never quite mastered...)

Another co-worker today made a passing comment about willingly facing up to one's mortality in these extreme moments. Okay, I can see where he's coming from just about. But I'm still struggling with the "why"... Now teacups, on the other hand, those I do like, but I'd be hard-pressed to find much morality in them! Youth worker or no, I still don't like roller coasters.

Our new patch

2008-04-28T18:46:00.003+01:00

As part of my rather domestic day (including making some kiwi bread) I spent a couple of hours clearing ivy off a patch of the border in the garden. This grand patch of a garden is mostly grass and looked after by some gardeners, but as they don't do anything with the borders I'm reclaiming it for a vegetable patch!

Not that I know anything about growing vegetables but this should be a good time to start. It'll be small and close to the house and if it all goes horribly wrong then I can always let the ivy grow back:) I am extremely grateful for some offers to dig the patch and I also managed to borrow my neighbour's tools for the time being so that's good too. We don't know what we're doing but HM2 and I are particularly keen to give it a go and see what happens. Should be fun! And lots, and lots of digging.

The End of Suburbia

2008-04-23T10:26:00.004+01:00

I have just watched the documentary "The End of Suburbia". I thought I had seen this before as I was very aware of it when it came out in 2004, but I hadn't actually. It discusses the declining energy supplies in North America and what effect that might have. I believe this is doing the rounds and one of the oft-mentioned films when groups are looking at issues of declining oil and natural gas supplies and the concept of peak oil.

I can't say any of it was particularly new to me as I do have the advantage in moving in such circles where issues of these sorts are talked about and taken seriously. But I can see how it might be an effective wake-up call of sorts. Personally I was slightly less inspired.

I'm still committed to the concept of peak oil - but I think despite of this documentary rather than because of it. I, and others around me, are looking into the Transition Town model and reading Rob Hopkin's Transition Town Handbook. There are at least 30 copies spread out in the borough due to the work of the REN coordinator who is very enthusiastic about this idea. It looks at the twin problems of peak oil and climate change, and then proposes action in the form of encouraging local resilience and powering down our dependency on a substance about to get increasingly expensive. This is a massively inspiring take at community design done by a community and not forced on them. It is definately something I want to be a part of!

My main gripe with "The End of Suburbia" is that the only people interviewed are white men aged around 50. Fair enough, they've got something to say. But what about the rest of us who are going to be equally effected? Don't we get a chance to dream and vision a different future too?

This is the time for grassroots networking and getting the idea of Richmond becoming a Transition Town/Borough off the ground. The time to get groups grappling with the idea of what we would like to see happen - and then try to do it.

Squatters on the move...

2008-04-16T16:41:00.003+01:00

A different take on the daily London (tube) blight: 'The Metro'.

Egg Watch

2008-04-15T18:19:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday I was at the Wetlands Centre and we've got some Indian Runner Duck egg's in an incubation chamber. Some of them were starting to hatch while I was there which was a little distracting in the process of running the weekend activities for children. I had to keep popping upstairs to see how the four ducklings were doing and coo over them... I learnt so much about eggs and the hatching process on Saturday. I've never seen anything being hatched before (being a city-girl most my life) and I found it so remarkable standing there watching them. I can't believe they can fit a duckling into an egg!!

The weather was freaky - hail followed by bright sunshine followed by rain followed by sunshine stc - but we still managed to orchestrate an egg race that involved families building a chariot to pull their egg along in. It was technically a children's activity, but the parents got involved straight away and seemed to enjoy themselves too.

The ducklings should be outside in a little run by next Saturday (which is when I'm next in) and the Ed team has got joint responsibility over them so we'll get to feed them and clean the pen. Can't wait!

A Quiet Day

2008-04-11T20:45:00.004+01:00

Today, as a household, we went for a quiet day to Worth Abbey. This is the place "made famous" by BBC2's show 'The Monastery' in 2005. I haven't seen any of that show myself but it was an interesting place to visit regardless. The picture shows a view of the Abbey from the Quiet Garden. And it is in a beautiful area of West Sussex among the trees and the hills whichwere striking if only for their not-Londonesque quality (I may have been in London for too long...)

The day started off with Father Stevens ( a former abbot of the place and resident since 1961) leading a Lectio Divina for our group and then we spent the rest of the day in quiet - absolutely divine! Life has been particularly full-on at the moment with very little space so I really appreciated today. And I think that's true for all three of us, and it was generally quite a fun thing to do as a household. The Quiet Gardens are particularly lovely and I had a gorgeous walk following the stream down through the forest in a glorious peace and did not see another human until I emerged again. My soul was too happy to care about all the mud I was walking through...

Not really knowing what to bring along to a monastery for a quiet day my bag was rather full but actually I found that what I really wanted was to walk around doing nothing else. Suddenly a week long silent retreat makes a lot more sense to me now as a concept as i could have easily carried on and only felt like I had started at the end of the day... Maybe next time? :)

Sunflowers and snow

2008-04-09T09:22:00.004+01:00

The weather really has been all over the place. From flip flops on Friday to snowmen on Sunday and then back into a sunny spell! It was quite something seeing 'our' Narnia lamp post and the magnolia tree behind it covered in snow. There was lots of talk about seedlings and how they would cope with the snow and general pitying of the flowers... I'm pleased I know so many people who are growing their own food. It vicariously feel like I'm doing my bit too even if all I've got growing at the moment in a pepper plant, some kitchen herbs, and a sunflower!

Our friend down the road has declared a sunflower growing war with us... He planted his sunflower the same time HM1 and I did and the whole thing has degenerated into a competition. Actually, to be fair, it did start off in-house with HM1 placing a Buddha statue next to her plant and hers is doing better than mine...:) This must be a well known principle as when I went to a garden centre the other day there were several Buddha statues scattered around amongst the plants! However it has now gone wider and is Sandover House vs York House.

It kind of reminds me of my friends' wedding. They wanted lots of sunflowers at their wedding and asked several of their friends to grow some, so during the run up to the wedding where ever you went people had lots of sunflowers everywhere! It was lovely!

It's Marathon time of the year again

2008-04-03T10:46:00.003+01:00

HM2 is running the London Marathon this year. He did it last year too, which obviously wasn't enough to put him off doing it ever again. I've been admiring him and his running regime. He's gone out in windy and cold and rainy weather, run round Richmond Park TWICE etc. HM1 and I agree that it's challenging enough running to catch the bus so we are very impressed with him indeed.

The day of the Marathon is coming up soon, April 13th, and I just hope it's not going to snow or anything horrible like that! HM2 has managed to raise a lot of money for Christian Aid on both years and that is an excellent reason for doing the run - although it is still well beyond me. :)

Endless Airport Expansion

2008-03-27T15:02:00.004Z

This morning saw the first flights arrive and take-off from Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport - the latest addition to that particular monstrosity. I went over to have a look this morning and I might just happened to have put on my bright red "Stop Airport Expansion" t-shirt as I got dressed. And I might of felt like taking my coat off at 11 am when loads of other people around me did too (who had also happened to have put on an identical t-shirt to mine). The sea of red in the Arrivals Hall looked quite impressive. The assorted police, BAA staff, and media seemed to think so too!

Most everything is illegal according to Heathrow bylaws, including singing, but at least wearing a t-shirt is still allowed and thus a flashmob (NOT a demonstration) was formed. I bumped into a few local people I knew there and I just generally enjoyed the whole experience. It's been a while since I've been involved in such a direct action and they can be such fun and it is heartening to see other people taking action and believing in the good cause. Despite the massive police presence there was a calmness about the whole event which was lovely.

The arrivals area of T5 is rather boring and the departure area is far nicer and lighter. However there were problems with the baggage while we were there and the tube was 20 minutes late leaving from T5 towards central London. Once it did come, it was fun going back with all these people in the tube wearing red t-shirts. A nice sense of solidarity. Until the next time folks!

My Easter Weekend

2008-03-24T12:27:00.002Z

Since Friday morning it has been:

Food - Church - food - Church - food - sleep - food - walk - food - Church - food - (3 hours sleep) - Church - food - food - (walk) - food - Church - food - sleep.

No wonder next Sunday is called low Sunday and no one goes to Church! We're all knackered...

Almost the end of Lent

2008-03-20T10:04:00.005Z

It's almost the end of Lent and the end of our Lenten experiment. When we started it felt like we'd never get this far but there are only a few more days to go until a double dose of Easter Vigils to truly end in style. Very similarly to last year we'll be going to an Easter vigil on Saturday evening followed by wine and chocolate at the Rector's house and then the hardy among us will get up for the dawn service too:) HM2 has already adamently said he's not getting up for that one, but he is happy to organise our champagne breakfast for slightly later...

As a household we have agreed that it's slightly against the point of what we've been doing if we've all got a long shopping list written down for Tuesday, although I have a sneaking suspicion we've already got a small mental list going! I've heard talk of new sofas and fireplaces, and I've been meditating on bicycle helmets... On the whole I think we've all survived pretty well and, more than that, managed to use this time to change a few habits and spend time reflecting. It might even be difficult to go back to having to monitor all my own money use. Towards the end this has just become more naturalised and it has felt perfectly normal and reasonable to go to a common pot for some money. I think I'm also going to miss my pocket money! At first it did take me back to being a small child but I have valued the money just to look after myself in a small but fun way and have a bit of money earmarked for myself that doesn't get swallowed by worthy causes (as good and necessary as they are).

Tonight a friend of ours who sings in the London Concert Choir is performing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the Barbican so Botanist and I are heading over. It's been ages since I've been to London, and I have only ever been to the cinema at the Barbican so I'm looking forward to it. It has been ages since I've been to a classical concert and part of me is slightly nervous that it'll be "too difficult" or whatever classical music is supposed to be, but I do hope not! I guess I can always pretend that I'm bettering myself.

A chance to ask questions

2008-03-16T11:38:00.003Z

Today I found somebody who qualified as a drama teacher and he knows a dance teacher who is starting to do some work with the Special Educational Needs department at a local school that I could get in touch with. I am so happy!! Any ideas and thoughts and anything really is welcome at the moment as I try to make sense of the Something To Say project in my head. If everything goes alright I guess I'll have lots of opportunities to ask interesting people who do interesting things all about what they do - which is actually quite an exciting prospect!

The things I say "yes" to...

2008-03-13T19:44:00.004Z

...are numerous and sometimes rather odd.

Like, for instance, agreeing to lead a dance and drama group for people with learning disabilities.

Not entirely sure how that happened! But it did. And I've led my very first session of the drama group this afternoon. I know nothing about drama so the whole thing was rather stressful and I am rather euphoric now that it all seemed to go well (nobody's dead at any rate!). The group is called "Something to Say" and today was it's first meeting with me as the person facilitating the experience. The group as such has been going for over a year with a slightly different membership although it felt a bit like starting from scratch as there was only one volunteer who had actually been part of the group before. The rest of us were newbies. I decided playing a fair amount of games was a good idea - and thankfully that is something I can do after all this youth worker training I've done. And in all fairness I even enjoyed myself - although I'm still recovering from the shock of having done it. (And trying not to think about next week's dance group...)

We are concentrating on the theme of relationships so when I opened the floor up I got given the idea of East Enders. In some ways I guess that is a pretty good idea as what are soaps if nothing but full of relationship drama. I can already see the potential areas to explore. However, I'm also hoping there is a good Wikipedia entry on the said EE as I really haven't a clue of what goes on in it!:)

There's an elephant in the way...

2008-03-02T18:02:00.005Z

This is amazing!

Curry Night

2008-03-02T08:37:00.003Z

HM1 is taking a group of young people, about 15, to India this August and so we had a curry night last night as a fundraiser. A church hall was booked, tickets sold, lots of curry made, and 80 people showed up for good food and a chance to get to know each other. It was a really successful fundraiser too as the group managed to raise over £1,000! Not bad for some curry... I think it was a valuable event too as people got a chance to see the young people who are actually going and so they aren't a vague concept anymore but living breathing people off to India for a fortnight. They will be going to a charity in Puna called Deep Griha where HM1 spent six months teaching English so she does know the charity quite well.

We've had some other pretty innovative fundraising ideas including distributing (full) Pringles tubes to people and asking them to eat the Pringles and then bring back the tube with money in it! That worked too:) And in a couple of months time there is going to be a Grand Auction and I am wracking my brains to figure out something to offer for it. Somehow I don't think I can quite compete with the offer to stay in someone's holiday home in the south of France for a week, but I haven't quite given up on producing something.

We've got a random assortment of leftovers in our fridge now although there really isn't as much curry left over as I feared there might be. And I also have a lovely henna tattoo on my left hand which was a pleasant surprise this morning (I had fogotten about it completely when I went to sleep). I used to do a lot more playing around with henna at the Red Cafe youth club in Swansea so it was kind of fun to decorate my friend's hand. I had a very obliging guest stay this weekend (she's on her monthly course in London although she lives back in Swansea) who, bless her, kindly agreed to be dragged along to a fundraising dinner and pay for her food.

Anyway, it feels like the concentration on India has gone up a notch. I'm trying not to get too jealous!

A heavenly night

2008-02-27T13:56:00.004Z

Last night I cycled through Crane Park Nature Reserve and it was utterly beautiful. The still winter-bare trees were silhouetted against the fading dark blue sky, dusk was hovering down low, there was no one else around, and I was cycling along listening to strains of Miles Davies wafting in my ears courtesy of the iPod... Last time I cycled through it in the evening there was a bright full moon lighting my way and a fox darted across the path. I'm beginning to get very fond of the place.

I also felt like a proper grownup cyclist in my flourescent yellow jacket! Goodness knows what it'll feel like when I actually get a helmet...

D'oh!

2008-02-24T08:37:00.003Z

Yesterday as I was making paper with some children I managed to put my right foot in a bucket of water.

I was absorbed in the intricate details of explaining how to squidge water out of the paper pulp when I noticed a funny sensation in my foot and looked down to see my foot (and shoe!) soaking up loads of water. As a professional I merely shrugged inwardly, pulled my foot out and carried on making paper. Afterwards we all laughed, of course, as that really is a rather stupid thing to do! And to manage to get my foot wet without noticing I was doing it - that's quite something.

My shoe is still very wet.

Moore at Kew Gardens

2008-02-18T09:35:00.003Z

Yesterday afternoon after a house Sunday lunch we ambled over to Kew Gardens in the glorious sunshine and ambled right through the Lion Gate as Botanist waved us past the attendants with his staff card. It's an exhilirating feeling going into somewhere as expensive as Kew without having to pay a thing!

There is an exhibition of Henry Moore's sculptures dotted around the Gardens at the moment and you can go around taking in as many of them as you wish while still looking at the trees and plants everywhere. I really enjoy the interaction of walking up the the sculptures and walking around them and seeing them from all angles, and also how they did work in the settings they were placed in. Some worked brilliantly, but there was a particular sculpture that I disliked in "real life" as it felt all angles and slightly aggressive. But when I saw a picture of the same sculpture in a different location with far more space around it it looked as if it were dancing and I took to it immediately. Actually, I didn't even realise it was the same sculpture until HM1 pointed it out to me.

Several of Moore's sculptures explored the space and tension between related but not touching parts of a whole. Some of them were almost like a rubik's cube or other such puzzle in the way the separate parts joined together, and the gaps managed to frame the Gardens in a wholly different way too as you peered through the circles and curves of the scultpures. Several of the sculptures looked so climbable and inviting to climb I had to restrain myself! And having looked after a young person a few weeks ago at Kew who was sorely tempted to do exactly that, I know it can't be just me... Sadly, there were plenty of signs telling me I really ought not to climb them! But I do find that quite an interesting response in me. I imagine it extends from exploring the sculptures and following the lines and curves round the bends with my eyes, but them being so enticing that my tactile senses wanted to get involved too:)

The afternoon light was perfect for enjoying outdoor art, and it also worked brilliantly in the palm tree house. One of my favourite colours is the green light that you get as sunlight shines through plant leaves, and there was plenty of that going on yesterday. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon.

Food!

2008-02-18T09:00:00.004Z

My life seems to revolve a lot more around food at the moment. Eating it, making it, thinking about it...

It is probably due to our Lenten experiment, but I currently feel like I might be simultaneously going down the Maslow's Hierachy of Needs (towards the need to meet the physiological needs like food) and up towards the Self Actualisation by attempting to live what I believe. It is a very interesting balancing act.

So far we've had three dinner parties and I'm very pleased we're keeping up with offering hospitality. For one of them we only had to purchase an additional £2 worth of food to feed a two course meal for 8 people! (Our friend kindly brought a scrumptious pear and chocolate crumble to round the meal off.)

I've also started making lunches for myself again, a habit I had slipped out of. Now, I've not always been very impressed with what we've had in the fridge and the resulting lunch I've ended up with, but I have discovered a positive side to making lunches. It is a chance to reflect on the day ahead and it is an act of taking care of myself which is something I can be very bad at. Other things that I've restarted, like sprouting beans and baking, have a similar effect of taking longer but somehow helping a more holistic approach to my life. There is also a pleasing amount of creativity involved when faced with a red cabbage and some left over mayonaise from a school retreat HM1 led and creating a very nice red cabbage slaw...

I've been surprised by things, thoughts and ideas being tossed around my head since we started Lent. It has been a real vehicle for prompting memories and thoughts from the past as well as aiding a reflection on my daily life. It has also been a far more public matter than I had originally imagined and I am most definately placed out of my comfort zone in terms of people outside our Flat knowing what I am doing with my life!

Last Will and Testament...

2008-02-12T09:02:00.000Z

We are currently sat round the living room and talking about our funeral plans and testaments. HM1 has bought a make-your-own-will kit, asked us to witness her will and we've been talking about our funeral wishes. And we've shared where we keep information, ie passports and addresses of next in kin, just in case we should die. It is a rather surreal conversation to be having with your breakfast. I don't think I've ever had this conversation with other housemates before.

My lack of assests have meant that I've never really considered making a will (and would thus die intestate...I'm even learnt some legal jargon this morning), and I guess I want as green a funeral as possible. But I think that's about as far as my thinking on the matter has got to!

HM1 has just handed me a photocopy of her blank will just in case I want to fill one out too. Perhaps I should give this some thought...

Eating out

2008-02-09T23:43:00.000Z

Our friend celebrated her birthday today with a meal with lots of people in town (ie central London). Which is all very fine and good until you have to start explaining to everyone there that you can't actually contribute a 16th of the bill and will only pay for your own food... It sounds very antisocial, and it feels it too! But there is only so far we can stretch the £13 handed to us from our communal pot at the beginning of the evening. It is a bit embarrasing though, although I guess it did provide a conversation starter with other people on the table. However, once that bit was over with the meal and company were very nice.

Being awkward in a social situation is quite difficult to do.

Our Lent Experiment

2008-02-05T17:17:00.000Z

This Lent period my flat will be living at income support level. The three of us will contribute £59.15 each into the weekly budget and we will be paying for our food, transport, utilities, and other small random things out of it for the six week period. The money that we "save" (ie the difference of what we might normally spend) will be donated to our individually nominated charities.

We started talking about doing this ages ago, even if Lent starting tomorrow seems a bit too soon, and I think there are a whole variety of reasons for us taking this sort of action. We are trying our best to be an intentional community and I think this is part of the larger community experiment. What will happen when we are so dependent on each other's actions? Iona community members are accountable for their use of time and money and I think this will make us be more accountable to each other about our use of money, something that hasn't happened much so far. And it isn't just our little community, but the bigger one around us. We've been fairly public about our plans so I hope others will be interested in what and why we're doing - even if they aren't taking part in this crazy experiment themselves!

It's also about our ideas of justice and simplicity. They are very complicated ideas and sometimes feel difficult to live out but I'm hoping this will provide an opportunity for it. Lent is also a time of taking stock and focussing on where we are and where we might want to be. In a pre-Lent buying spree I finally got round to buying two bread tins. Not difficult to do, nor that expensive, but it's something I've been meaning to do pretty much all year but never quite got round to doing it. (There's nothing like an impending spending cut for a bit of focussed panic-buying...:) Somehow that exemplifies for me what Lent/life should be about: living life fully, intentionally, and not always putting stuff off until later.

I agree with what we're doing and as an experiment I think it'll be fascinating to do. However there is also a part of me letting out a little sigh. I've just spent the majority of last year on income support or unwaged and having finally got a decent paycheck I've suddenly agreed to voluntarily cut my spending. The most boring thing about being poor is having to think about money all the time. I'm also slightly worried that my previous simplicity was more to do with frugality and not having any resources rather from the high moral ground I thought I was on!!:)

Nonetheless, the challenge is exciting and I'm ready to be creative with what we've got and what we do. As was said in our house meeting: "We'll just have to drink more gin." Our wine consumption will probably have to become more moderate over the next few weeks, but as we have a fair amount of gin and in the spirit of using up what is in the house we might just have to make do with that...

So I think it will be frustrating at times having to make awkward choices. But I am looking forward to it all too, as a chance to reflect on my own priorities as well as the household ones, as a challenge, and as a chance to make a difference.

I'll keep you posted...

Australia Day

2008-01-29T07:47:00.000Z

Last night HM1 & 2, and myself went to an Australia Day barbeque. The only thing is: it wasn't Australia Day (that was on the 26th). It wasn't a bbq - more like grilling food in the kitchen. And our hosts had no real connection to Australia.

Brilliant excuse for a party! Hats off to that!

My very social weekend also included sitting outside (!) on Sunday for about three hours. Quite impressive in January even if I say so myself. The sunshine was lovely and the lunch and red wine and company were too. I was frozen by sundown, but it was worth it.

A weak vegetarian?

2008-01-24T22:07:00.000Z

After a morning/afternoon full of meetings I helped staff a trip with a group from a SEN school. We took off to Kingston to see Alvin and the Chipmunks (the music is very irritating!) and a meal in a chicken restaurant. Not so PC after all the ranting Jamie Oliver is doing on TV - and also not particularly vegetarian friendly. Most places manage at least a half-decent veggie option but it was truly awful here: processed junk that leaves a horrible after taste. It's such a shame we took our young people there even if we are constrained by a budget.

Pulling into the bus station near my flat at the end of our trip I was unable to open the mini van door prompting disparaging remarks from colleagues about my choice in diet! Not much to be said in my defence though, as I did feel pretty awful after that meal:)

Hooray for our fully organic veg and fruit box my flat gets every week. What a blessed relief it is to eat real food.

And the walls came tumbling down

2008-01-24T09:21:00.000Z

The images of the wall between Palestine and Egypt laying down on the ground with people, carts, and animals streaming across are a sight to behold.

And there are so many people crossing the border back and forth that there seems to be very little that could be done either practically or politically. Go people power!

Training, training, training...

2008-01-16T22:32:00.000Z

I love training courses and I've been lucky enough to go to loads of interesting ones over the past year. I am especially lucky in one of my volunteering placements where I tend to look for an interesting course and then my manager will just stick me on it. It's brilliant! (Currently I'm looking for a course on how to grow vegetables:)

This week has been almost over doing it though as I've spent the past three days in training. One was a child protection course (always heartbreaking) and the past two days have seen me in the first section of a course on sex and sexuality work with people with learning difficulties. It is absolutely fascinating. And very thought provoking. Being new to this area of work there are a lot of things I've never really given much thought to, and this is definately one of them. There can be a very unfortunate tendency to view people in the terms of the disability they have rather than as a human in their own right, a human fully alive. Ignorance can never be good with such a vulnerable group so anything we can do to increase knowledge and empower people we work with can only be a good thing. I guess increasing my knowledge and allowing space to reflect on these issues is very helpful too.

The scariest thing about this particular course is of course the implication that once I've finished it I'll have to deliver it others... At least I've been doing the course with a colleague so we can share this task, but I'm glad the next two days next month will deal with the more practical side of things of how to deliver such work to our clients.

In some way this is very typical of my work where I am, as the American's would say, flying by the seat of my pants. Not exactly blagging, but then again not that far off either. It keeps you on your toes - and is so exhilirating when you pull it off!

Ethical Questions Prompted by Free Newspapers

2008-01-10T11:02:00.000Z

Walking back from the Lyceum Theatre along the Strand our group, along with every other pedestrian, was bombarded by hoards of people thrusting the free newspapers into our hands. A number of the young people were happy to take the newpapers and we ended up at Waterloo clutching newpapers left, right and centre.

As we were standing waiting for the Responsible Person to tell everyone else which platform we were headed for one of the young boys wandered over to a stand selling paper and took one. Fortunately I saw the event and was able to have a discussion and we returned the paper to the lenient paper seller, but it was interesting trying to explain the differences between free papers and one that you have to pay for, and then also the reasons for the difference. "Would you steal anything from a shop?" I got asked, "Would you steal a chocolate bar if you had to?".

My mind conjured up all manner of situation where I might HAVE to steal a chocolate bar while I was busy saying "No, I would not steal a chocolate bar."

When I questioned further for a rational about why I might have to steal chocolate, a revealling: "Because your friends told you to" came out. What an opening for a discussion on ethics and our rules of engagement with each other! That's one thing I love about youth work: the creative opportunities and the thinking on one's feet that any engagement with young people offers.

"What would you do if you saw a fiver on the street? Would that be stealing?" was slightly more tricky. But I turned it round with the get-out-of-jail-free trick of just asking the same question back and carrying on the conversation from there!

The Lion King

2008-01-10T10:34:00.000Z

Another work trip, another musical. This time round we took 15 young people to a matinee performance of the Lion King. It involved a rather complex set of logistical maneuvering to get everyone to the same place at the same time, but things like this have a tendency to fall into place somehow. I only got to see the second half of the musical due to being paired up with a delightful young girl who was not interested in seeing the Lion King at all. But what I saw I did enjoy! The set design, costumes, and lighting were very clever and I thought the giraffes were particularly brilliant.

However, I cannot wait for our adult social club trip - that has got to be easier I reckon.

On Monday I got given a more definate area of responsibility, volunteers and volunteering, which is helpful. At least I've got something else to say that "I don't really know" when people ask me what I do at work... We also got told that working unauthorised overtime is going to become a disciplinary action which is a novel approach (in my experience) to the pervasive problem in the Third Sector of people working 50-70 hours a week while being paid for 20. Okay, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but probably not by much.

Taking myself out for lunch

2008-01-04T13:33:00.000Z

I'm celebrating the end of two+ months of unemployment and no benefits and feeling hugely excited about actually receiving a paycheck at the end of December! Because I got perilously close to the red line I feel euphoric to have money in the bank again. So on a whim I popped into a cafe and had a proper sitdown lunch today in between work. It's so nice to not be counting pennies every time I walk out the door. Although given the price of food around here I might be back to square one soon!

A change in language

2008-01-04T13:23:00.000Z

Britain drops 'War on Terror' label. I didn't see this widely reported, I was alerted to it by another website, but I do think this is really interesting. And not before time either.

Wretched birdfeeders

2008-01-02T13:59:00.000Z

Having returned safely back from Finland, today has been full of activities around the house before I disappear back into the world of work. Having ascertained which plants had been moved around and where to, I was ready to get to business (HM1 has a habit of periodically moving the plants around the flat). I tend to job share the filling up our two birdfeeders with HM2 but as he works the usual working week and only has time during the weekends it falls on me to fill the feeders during the week.

The feeder that holds the nuts is a personal enemy of mine. It was placed way up in the branches by HM2 (who is significantly taller than me), and while I do need the little stepladder to reach both feeders, the nut one is a particularly precarious endeavour. I balance on the top step and cling to the feeder while trying to undo the bottom to refill it and not let the branch whip back upwards and out of reach... It must be amusing to watch me for any of our neighbours. This morning there was a biting wind which chilled my hands and I had to keep stopping to put my hands in my pockets for them to carry out the task required. At one point the branch did swing upwards and out of reach and I had to resort to tying my housekeys to a bit of string and fling it over the branch and then haul it back down to my height. I'm surprised I got the feeder filled and back on the branch at all! Thankfully the seed feeder was - in comparison - far easier, although there was a moment when I thought I was going to unceremoniously fall off the ladder and onto the whirligig laundry drier.

The birds appreciate the feeders at anyrate. These are not shy country birds that take weeks to adjust to any new feeder, oh no! These are town birds who know exactly what a birdfeeder is and what to do with one. Satisfyingly, there are plenty of birds eating our offerings. Satisfying at least until the feeders are empty again. Fingers crossed that happens on the weekend!

You need to see this

2007-12-31T13:07:00.000Z

Here's something to delight, amuse and brighten up long winter days. Go over to Cheat Neutral - a site dedicated to helping you because you can't help yourself. I recommend watching the film. It's only 13 minutes long and well worth it.

Enjoy!

Hugo Awards 2007

2007-12-30T13:58:00.000Z

I'm hopelessly behind the times here and only just listened to the episode of StarShipSofa that revealed this year's Hugo Award winner (it aired in September...). StarShipSofa is one of my favourite podcasts. Two guys, Tony and Ciaran, talk about science fiction authors in a very amusing and informative manner. The passion really shines through and I have actually learned loads during my listening career. Anyhow, this year's winner for the novel prize is Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.

I'm excited about that because I've actually read the said book - even before I knew it was nominated, or indeed had won. Admittedly, I haven't read the other books that were nominated, but I think Rainbows End is a fantastic book. The described interaction of technology and humans seems to be a distinct possibility given the pervasiveness of our current web-culture. It is refreshing to have technology that merely is, there, as now, it's still the humans who drive things forward in a good or bad manner according to the needs of the story.

I've always found the Hugo Award winners list a good starting point if I'm ever wondering about some new reading material. Obviously the choice is also limited by what's available in the local library, but if the author has been nominated or has won it's usually a pretty safe bet that at least it'll be readable. I have to admit that I was surprised to see Rainbows End in my local library. I dream of one day living next to a library with a decently stocked sci-fi section, but that day has yet to come.

Fun with light

2007-12-27T17:44:00.000Z

For a satisfying session of creating pictures take one digital camera, one torch, and follow the instructions from WeLikePlay and have fun... It is possible to do this with a candle but the wax flying everywhere isn't really worth the trouble!

The Phantom of the Opera

2007-12-19T11:10:00.000Z

Last night I had a work trip to see the Phantom of the Opera. (I know, I know, sometimes work can be such a drag... ) There was a huge group of us that jumped on the train to Waterloo and then onwards to the theatre just in time for the show to start. We had one incident where a boy refused to get off the train at Waterloo and so got escorted back to his parents, but other than that it was merely a matter of trying not to lose anyone. It is so difficult to count a group of 27!

I was first introduced to the music of the Phantom of the Opera when I was about 8 years old and in Nepal. A woman who was living with us in our flat had the CDs and I was entranced. During my teens I did buy a copy of the music and listened to it but I never saw either the play or the film until yesterday. It was interesting to try to allign the version in my head with the one unfolding in front of my eyes. They were surprisingly different. Not so much in essence as in the nuances. Also, I think the rather more adult themes glibly flew over my head when I was about 8...

It was a bit scary for some of our group, but we also did get renditions of the Phantom all the way back along with a fairly philosophical discussion on whether or not the Phantom is evil. One definition put forward by one of the volunteers was that the Phantom knew the difference between right and wrong which meant that he could be evil. Interesting thought.

On the way back we ended up waiting outside on an open air platform close to midnight for about half an hour for our train to come, which hasn't made my cold any better. In fact I've only just emerged out of bed and I don't know if I'm going to venture outdoors at all today. (Sniffle.) I might just try to find cookie receipies instead, as my Flat is hoping to make several batches for people as gifts.

Decorating trees

2007-12-16T21:32:00.000Z

I got involved in hurling baubles at a 18 ft Christmas tree today hoping it would result in a beautiful tree. This is an unorthodox approach to decorating that I've never come across - but oh what fun! The tree stands rather majestically in St Matthias and fills the space well, and all things considered that's quite the feat. I spent an inordinate amount of time going up and down the massive ladder helping various little people go up as high as they felt comfortable going and hanging their decoration on a branch. Quite good excersise, and a good moment to teach the under 7s how to climb a ladder - and more importantly: how to get down again - safely. And, all in all, the tree looks good too!

It suddenly feels more Christmas-sy now, especially as we've limited the decorations at the Flat to an advent wreath (with purple candles and a pink candle, which again is new to me) and some fairy lights. Our Flat tree is about 25 cm tall and lacking in decoration as I haven't quite figured out decorations that are small enough for it. There's still a week though.

Spontaneous reaction

2007-12-15T18:35:00.000Z

Last night I trundled over to the Teddington Studios to watch the last episode of the sitcom "Teenage Kicks" being filmed. The first episode hasn't aired yet, nor will it until March 2008, so I don't think many of us in the audience had much of an idea of what was going on. But that didn't really matter and we all were able to provide the "spontaneous reaction" required of us!

What a fascinating experience it is to see a programme being filmed infront of you. It's slightly like a very weird play. The set is layed out - pub on the right, house on the left - the actors take their places and say their lines in character, a director is hovering somewhere. Yet plays don't usually pause after every scene with the cast and crew reverting into their everyday roles, nor is there often a standup comedian MC threading the various bits together with bad jokes and explaining to the uninitiated what is going on.

I remember reading once that the laughter track on most sitcoms was recorded so many years ago that the people we hear laughing on our tv are dead now. Odd thought.

Watching the "Making of" was as interesting, if not more so, than the actual action. Seated in the audience we had the choice of seeing the unfolding plot on screens suspended from the roof at various points over our heads or watch it directly and unmediated. We also got the joy of seeing the scene being acted out again a few times when the first take didn't come up to scrap. That, more than anything, gave me the sense of the effort and work such a production involves. The ability of an actor to go back to a line halfway through the scene and pick up the action/emotion/idea again was fascinating to watch.

Ade Edmondson is the co-author and lead actor in "Teenage Kicks". It's Vyvyan (of the Young Ones) minus the studs and orange hair and all grown up (ish) with two teenagers and living in a under-the-stairs-cupboard! There were still strains of the punk woven in even if very much tamer and mostly in poster or t-shirt references. Who cares! I saw Vyvyan live! Sort of.

It's a new me and a new blog...template

2007-12-14T13:33:00.000Z

I got tired of the old and rather sombre colour scheme and have gone for the lighter option. Lets see how confused I get with it all!

I am also very pleased that my addiction to the internet is now back in full swing after our connection was restored. It's been great catching up on all my favourite sites and finding some new ones as well.

That could never happen in Finland...

2007-11-08T12:43:00.000Z

Yesterday morning a man walked into a secondary school in Tuusula, Finland, opened fire, and killed eight people plus himself.

This is a horrific tragedy and my thoughts are very much with the victims' families, the school children, and the community. I'm feeling really shocked by this event and disbelief that it could have happened in Finland. A country where I never went to a school that was fenced in or behind bars, a country I wasn't even aware of having the third highest gun ownership in the world.

There are so many emotions going on in me that I feel like I don't know how to respond. To my knowledge I have never been to Tuusula, but I do feel like my home has been violated, some inexplicable trust broken. And sadness.

Doomed...

2007-11-01T10:22:00.000Z

I went to a lecture last Monday that was held in The Royal Society and was by Professor James Lovelock. He is somebody I studied while in Uni and I have to admit that it hadn't even occured to me that he might still be alive! So I was suitably excited about going to a (free) lecture by somebody so well known (think: Gaia theory).

He is a good speaker and had lots to say on Climate Change that was new to me or presented in a way I hadn't thought of (I think the speech should be available online). And my brain is so starved at the moment of any stimulation of this sort that I felt very invigorated by it all - even if it was a fairly dismal picture of times to come. Adaptation is the key, according to Lovelock, as we've passed the stage of being able to holt global climate warming.

At any rate I was also interested to see the buildings of The Royal Society, and seeing as my flat mate works there I was able to queue jump and avoid waiting outside in the cold!!

I'm off tonight to the Richmond Theatre which I've been meaning to visit ever since I moved here last February. I got a ticket as a birthday present so I'm finally going... I'll be seeing a modern adaptation of 'Faustus' (so another cheery event this week then!:) and really looking forward to it. The last thing I saw in a theatre was 'Richard III' - in German, so at least this'll be in a language I can understand.

Life without the internet at home

2007-10-19T15:55:00.000+01:00

It's hard!!! I now haunt the library, internet cafes, and anywhere else I can, scrounging pitifully for some access to the world wide web... And there is never enough time to do all the things I want/need to. I'm amased by how it affects my life. E.g. as I'm back to being unemployed I've found it extremely frustrating as most of my job searching happens online. Six weeks with no connection is terrible - and Orange are being just as vague and as unhelpful as when we first reported the problem. Aaargh!

"I just waste a lot of time online when at home" or "I don't think I'd miss it much" are NOT helpful remarks when I tell others about our problem. I work from home and it is my main method of connecting with people far away from me and I NEED it...

Okay, rant over.

Winter is creeping in with the mist in the mornings and I'm back to being unemployed but feeling very busy. The shining sun is going a long way to make everyone happy, which is lovely:)

A friend of mine runs welikeplay.org and he recently added a game onto the site that I taught his two little boys to play called 'Toilet Tag'. It is a great game - check out the website - and it's fun to think of it spreading around the world: there's a woman in Hawaii who has already written in to say she loves the game and is using it...

3:08 am

2007-09-06T10:31:00.000+01:00

Despite waking up at that time last night I'm less inclined to think that it was due to jetlag, and more because I had slept 14 hours the previous night. The weirdest thing was that as I awoke I realised that all the people in my dream had been speaking American...

I'm currently listening to "Love Among the Chickens" by P.G. Wodehouse, so I listened to a couple of chapters before going back to sleep again. It's a funny book and the chapters are a good length. My only gripe is with the person reading the story and his insistance of trying to put on an Irish accent for one of the characters and it is truly awful. Also his attempts at a female voice do a great disservice to the heroines in question. But other than that it's great fun.

Time zones suck

2007-09-04T20:19:00.000+01:00

I'm exhausted and I'm trying to count how many mosquito bites I have, but I had such a great time! Chicago has a rubbish airport: it's not signposted very well and there is a serious lack of diversions once you go through security (one trolley with some sweets and touristy items), so actually getting onto the plane was rather exciting. I'd been bumped up to World Traveller Plus (BA's next step up from what used to be called Economy Class) which did have slightly more space and funky footrests. Things have changed since I last did any intercontinental flights so these personal tv screens in the back of the chairs was a new experience.

The pre-sunrise sky from the plane was outstanding. The horizon was divided into coloured bands starting with a deep ochre next to the dark earth and going through orange, yellow, green, pale blue, and then back into the dark blue of a night sky. Far more inspiring than actually landing in Heathrow at 6am. I didn't really feel any flicker of excitment at being back until we crossed over Richmond Bridge and I saw the Thames.

Elizabeth and Matt's wedding was so beautiful! We had icecream and cookies at the reception instead of cake, and because I'd been helping out with the wedding preparations for the previous week and a half I actually knew far more people there than I thought would be likely, so that was nice too. Mary, Elizabeth's mother, had organised the making of a wedding quilt and various people had made squares that created a gorgeous quilt. It was such a nice gift!

By 6pm we were at the site of the Twinkle Glo - the after, after party! Held at a family friend's place it was fantastic. They have two ponds. A bigger one with two swans and snapping turtles for boating in, and a slightly smaller one with gigantic catfish (that are fed) for swimming in. I had visited there a few times already dropping stuff off and swimming whenever possible. One time we had just all got in the water when three minutes later there was lightning and so we all had to traipse out again.

Twinkle Glo was very relaxed and people changed into comfortable clothing and ate some more, played volleyball and other games, went boating or swimming, sat around and talked, and toasted marshmallows. We had some fireworks too, and a friend of Elizabeth's organised an impromptu sparkler race to see if a relay race could get a sparkler all the way around the pond before it went out. One team almost made it all the way around! It was fun to watch the race as it was dark enough that all you saw was a blurred glow going fast about shoulder height! All in all, a very special day and I'm so impressed how it managed to be so much fun too for everyone.

I'm trying to stay awake until it's late enough to go to bed! I've done laundry (oh, I've forgotten to take it out of the machine!!), made a pendant for a necklace, unpacked, found out when I'm back in work (not until Friday thankfully), and watered plants. It's still only 9pm...

Settlers of Catan

2007-08-28T17:46:00.000+01:00

Has anyone heard of this board game? It's so much fun, and I'm really pleased I've managed to play it twice in the past week! I learned how to play it in Oregon and am pleased I've managed to play it again. I really should find somebody to afflict it upon in London...

The days before the wedding

2007-08-27T19:51:00.000+01:00

Elizabeth is at work today and tomorrow, as are other people in this house, so I've had time to recover from a packed weekend. On Saturday we went to the farmers' market to pick flowers for the wedding. It's in Goshen and in a barn-like space and rather cool. It is rather different from the one I'm involved at in Twickenham and it was fun making comparisons. For one there are less Amish farmers selling their goods in Twickenham. We also took a trip to Shipshewana (a tourist trap for people interested about the Amish) to Yoder's Meat & Cheese to pick up food, and have visited lots of people and places. Organising a wedding, even a low-key one, is a lot of work! It is so special to be here and be included in everything. And this way I am meeting lots of people who I'll see again at the wedding and thus know more people on the day.

There is an urban trolley that runs between Elkhart and Goshen. It looks hilarious so I had to ride it... It's a cross between a tram cart and a bus! And again looking lost and speaking with an accent got me to where I wanted to go with remarkably little fuss:) It's nice to support the non-car options and it was cheap - $1 one way (about 50p). Today I went on a bike ride to return a film and to visit the Elkhart Environmental Education Centre again, which was still closed, and I think if I can cycle in America I should be alright in London...

On Saturday I helped move Elizabeth's sister into Goshen College so I got to be nosy and see what the dorms look like, and wander around campus. We even surreptitiously joined in the bbq for students and family members:) However, I didn't feel any immediate urge to go back to being a student and sharing rooms and showers.

Tonight I'm going for dinner with the family I lived with in Oregon so that's going to be really special. It's lovely to be able to reconnect with people from the past.

I'm here!

2007-08-24T01:50:00.000+01:00

I'm here. I may be languishing in the heat and humidity (that I had forgotten all about), but I'm here! I've been promptly assimilated into the family and have picked lots of tomatoes. And this morning Aunt B and I canned 7 quarts of tomatoes! I have never done that before in my life so I was rather more excited about it than she was...

The flight and entry into the USA was remarkably smooth. I watched a fabulous film onboard the aircraft called The Lives of Others. It's a German film and won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, although more importantly it was a story of choices and redemption. And really, really beautiful. In Chicago I had the chance to practice my best British accent/lost foreigner look as I asked for directions. It worked a treat!

Yesterday I helped fill in holes in the woodwork in a newly built house, and today I volunteered at a place that has a food pantry and runs womens' empowerment sessions, so I'm starting to fit right in... Tonight Elizabeth and I went to this very powerful event. It's a Victim Impact Panel where people who have had drunk driving sentances from the court have to go and listen to somebody who has been impacted by drunk driving. This is run by the Centre of Community Justice that Elizabeth works for, and it was difficult to listen to the speaker tell how her daughter was hit by a driver and their life as its changed. I hope the people who attended tonight listened.

The weirdest memories are flooding back as I see things and remember stuff I didn't know I had forgotten. Like the sandwich bags, or how the yogurt is different, or the porches that houses have, and how crazy it is to actually walk anywhere... It's always the little things.

Cooked breakfasts and Gap years

2007-08-18T13:22:00.000+01:00

This is the second consecutive Saturday that I've woken up for a cooked breakfast by my housemate and, after doing the dishes, settled down for a good few hours to read The Guardian. It started off as a joke: we weren't going to go along on a country walk organised by other friends because we were going to have a champaign breakfast. On reflection we decided that was too good an opportunity to miss so we duely had one. (I think it was also partly to cheer me up after my spectacular failure to make it out of the country.) A morning trip to Tesco's provided a reduced bottle of Cava to go with our fairly traded orange juice, organic eggs, croissants, and coffee...

----

Suitably attired in my "GROLLIES" garments - Guardian Readers Of Leftist Leanings In Ethnic Skirts, as defined by some soul on 'Have I Got News For You' - I sat down after breakfast to tackle the paper, and as I have the sole occupancy of the flat this morning the bits of the paper are strewn over the living room sofas and coffee table as I moved around between sections and cups of tea.

I'm slowly coming to recognise the seasons of the news paper. We've just come through the A-levels stories and have now moved onto Gap Year advice and suggestions, and its not only in the travel section either. I've come to the sad conclusion that I was woefully unprepared when I embarked out of school and into a 11-month stint as a volunteer over in the States. Not only was I ignorant that it was an excellent opportunity to Broaden My Mind, Spice Up My CV, Gain Valuable Experience, and Grow In Confidence but I think I've also failed to see this as a once-in-a-life-time opportunity before settling into steady employment. Nor did it cure me of volunteering or shake off the vague feeling that you can't get paid for something you like doing and thus treat any offers of paid work with faint suspicion... As it was, I did come away with some names of companies and charities that take volunteers for the next time the urge for a more radical volunteering post grabs my imagination!

I've nothing against Gap years and did benefit enormously from my life-informing experiences. I would hardly be the person I am today without it! (Obviously...:) It is just intereting to see the attempt to encouch the idea in the language of marketing, the need to sell the experience without allowing the experience to enough. Does the experience need to be judged by the arbitrary value of the future? Well, for me at least it was all part of the journey rather than The Journey, my Gap year wasn't an arbitrary blip in my existence:)

"No is ok"

2007-08-16T14:05:00.000+01:00

At 7:33 am I got a text message that said "No is ok". I do not know who it is from, or what they were trying to convey. It is intriguing though...

Is it meant to be encouraging? A gently disappointed friend? A statement of life? Divine intervention?

Oooh, there are so many questions!

Things I've learned...

2007-08-13T14:46:00.000+01:00

The "please hold" music of the British Airways is better than the blasting music of the Finnish consulate, the American embassy employs Irish people to answer their phones, getting a visa is a lot quicker than a passport, old (but still in date!!) British passports are non-machine readable and will get me into Canada but not the USA, and if you miss your outgoing flight the airline considers it a no-show and the return flight gets cancelled too...

Quite a lot for a few days really.

I went to Heathrow on the 9th of august - last Thursday - only to be told my current British passport would not get me into the US of A. That is an absolutely devastating thing to be told at the check-in desk. BA have been absolutely wonderful to me, first they booked me a flight for the next day free of charge, and even though I missed that too I've just been on the phone and they've managed to re-book my return flight for me which had been cancelled. Thursday afternoon was spent phoning around consulates, embassys, crying down the phone to my father... A new passport was not to be had for anything, but I did eventually manage to book myself a visa appointment at the US embassy for the following day.

This meant missing my Canadian leg of the journey, which I am still wretchedly disappointed about. I missed my old housemate's wedding open house, and I haven't seen him in six years. And while I thought long and hard about it I felt too uneasy to head out to Canada and hope that I could get a visa from there.

The visit to the visa section of the US embassy was educational. There's a lot of building work going on around the building, which actually worked in my favour as it meant there were large temporary signs up "Visas This Way" that helped me find my way around to the various security points. My bag went through one of those airport type scanning machines and I went through a metal detector. Once I had handed in my offensive alarm clock I made my way past the armed (and scary) policemen and into a huge waiting hall clutching my numbered ticket. The seats were, thankfully, a lot more comfortable than in many other waiting rooms I've been in, and there were huge screens announcing the next number. However, as these did not come in a consecutive order you really did have to pay attention.

Two interviews and three hours later I walked out with my visa request granted and the return of my passport promised in the next 3-5 working days. This afternoon I got a text that the passport will be delivered tomorrow between 8am and 6pm, so that's a relief! So I've sorted out my visa and my return flight, now I just need to figure out how to get to Chicago in the first place...

Hah!

2007-08-08T10:20:00.000+01:00

I packed last night and it came to 10kg!!!

I've got a few more things to add - like my toothbrush - but I don't think that'll make that much of a difference. What a difference it makes travelling in the summer as winter clothes are so much more bulkier and heavier. I can't quite believe it...10kg... :)

A busy few days

2007-08-07T08:12:00.000+01:00

M is moved in now and we've cleared away most of the boxes cluttering the hallway. The spare room looks like it always had someone living in it and we have six boxes of creamed coconut and several half-full packets of food in the cupboards... Life is mostly back to normal in that respect.

---

Yesterday after work finished at 3pm I headed off to the Tate Modern to see an exhibition called Global Cities. I had one of those "aah, this is why I live in London" moments travelling to the museum. When I got to the exhibition I forgot to think about anything and was completely immersed in the fascinating images and films. Two that particularly stand out for me was a piece about edible estates, which explored pulling up "useless" lawns in cities and creating vegetable beds instead, and a piece about Mumbai and the lack of women's public toilets due to cultural reasons and it explored gender and space.

50% of the world's population live in cities and I do find them absolutely fascinating. It's the interactions and possibilities of urban life that we are increasingly faced with which is just going to get more important as time goes on.

---

Last night I was going to do a dry run and pack my rucksack. I am aiming to travel as light as I possibly can as it will be me carrying my bag everywhere! So, I got my bag down from a high shelf and then instead decided to sew some colourful flowers onto it. Everytime I am faced with a luggage carousel my heart sinks and I imagine scenario after scenario of not recognising my own rucksack and having to wait until the very end because it won't come... I have been meaning to put some unique touches to what is a very average and typical black and green rucksack to make it more distinct, so I am glad I did that last night. Hopefully this will make my bag easy to spot from miles away:)

Less than a week to go

2007-08-03T18:23:00.000+01:00

Next Thursday I head off to Heathrow, queue up for ages, and at some point board a plane for Toronto, Ontario. I think this has finally sunk in so I spent this Friday in a flurry rushing around doing things. I started a 'to do' list which I seemed to add to every time I passed it, and added about three things to every one I crossed off! It's a serious undertaking heading off halfway across the world for 25 days. The sudden panic happened when I remembered that this was the only time I was free in the daytime before I leave (I've subsequently got an email that I won't be working on Monday, but that gives me time to tidy up odds and ends:).

Speaking of panicked starts I almost jumped out of bed this morning at 6:50am thinking I was really late for the Farmers' Market in Twickenham and it was only when my sleepy brain caught up that I remembered that it was Friday and I didn't have to be up at stupid o'clock until tomorrow... With my heart beating violently I lay back down and dozed for a bit longer before getting up to finish "Where late the sweet bird sang" by Kate Wilhelm - which I thought was great!

Added to my leaving activities I've been cleaning the flat as M moves in tomorrow and takes up residence in what was the spare room. It'll be nice to have a third flatmate, although between L's trips to Wales, Scotland, and Morocco and mine to Wales and this upcoming one to the North American continent we've barely seen each other all this summer.

Well, I'm off to the pub now for the third day in a row and I'm beginning to feel like I live there...

Bats!

2007-08-02T23:22:00.000+01:00

Tonight I got myself to the London Wetland Centre for a bat walk, and I'm very glad I did too. It was brilliant. First we had a presentation and then four groups set off to see and hear what we could find. I wangled my way in on the basis that I volunteer at the Centre anyway and I offered to volunteer tonight too. So I found myself shadowing a sheepdog. (This is the person who is not a team leader and rounds up any wayward stragglers...)

I've seen plenty of bats before but I've never been out with a bat detector. Bats are noisy creatures really. The funniest thing was hearing them eat an insect which happened at a good old rate. We saw/heard pipestrelles (common and soprano), noctules, and Dauberton's. Another group also heard some serotine bats. The clouds around us turned a fabulous dusky colour as the sun set but we did see some stars by the time we had turned round to go back. It was such good fun. I think I'm going to invite myself along to some more bat walks soon.

A tale of two interviews

2007-07-29T19:39:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week I did an interview for an internship post with a big organisation. The post was to work alongside the education officer two days a week for three months and it's based close enough to Richmond to seem attractive, even without the big name... I almost managed to miss the deadline for applying for it as I hummed and hawed. I didn't get the post so it's hard to analyse it without wondering how much of it is trying to justify to myself that I didn't actually want it in the first place! :)

I went to the interview not knowing what I was going to say, and came out of it knowing I hadn't got it.

I did prepare and had talked myself into wanting the job, but a few days down the line I can't quite make myself believe I thought I was going to get it. During the interview I felt inarticulate and unable to get across what I thought. I also thought that they didn't ask the proper questions. By that I mean questions which made me excited about answering or felt I could answer, which even then made me sure I wasn't going to get the post. There was no opportunity for me to be me. And they kept asking me questions about the Wetlands Centre. Now I really value volunteering there and enjoy it a lot, but out of all the places I've volunteered or worked its the one I've been the least involved in (I show up and do as I'm told, although last Saturday I did get put in front of several young pond-dippers and told to talk...:), either in the delivery or the whole organisation. It was really strange and I feel as if I only got the interview on the basis that I volunteer at the Wetland Centre, which does actually annoy me a lot.

Today after my shift at the pub I caught a bus and showed up at the Crane Park Island Nature Reserve to talk to the woman who runs the place. They've received money and she is looking to employ someone else to help out with the educational side of things and generally get involved. We had an informal chat as she was in the bottom of the shot tower (part of an old gunpowder factory) which is open to the public once a month and then as we walked around the fantastically beautiful island. The chat was interwoven with disruptions from old neighbours and friends, people from the Art Picnic showing off their willow sculptures to us, organising the next work days, talking to the council's ecological officer, and some others in a lovely chaos that was far more informative of what happens at the nature reserve than any talk. I got a chance to talk about what I'm really passionate/excited about without feeling fake and got to hear enough about the vision for this post to make me want it properly. The post will need to be advertised so I haven't even been offered it, but what an absolute difference to the previous interview! I feel enthusiastic even just thinking about it - irrespective if I get the job or not. If I don't I'll volunteer there!

Job-seeking is a funny business.

Offensive music

2007-07-29T19:28:00.000+01:00

Last Wednesday I did a day shift at the pub (which is fairly unusual) as there was a function going on upstairs over lunch and they wanted the bar open. What was going to be a fairly dull and predictable shift was made brighter when some of the employees brought along a busker from the high street to play some music on the balcony. The musician was a beautiful - and talented - young woman with a violin who played some really lovely classical music. It was absolutely delightful, not least because it was so unexpected. She played for about half an hour until the food was done and then went off again.

The Brit suffers from a neighbour who has inflicted severe restrictions on the pub's license by meticulously complaining to the pub and the council (the less charitable among us might point out that he is on the council himself) and did in fact complain to the licensing officer about the half an hour of beautiful music. I'm more sympathetic to his other complaints (even if it does mean sweltering in the function room with the door shut - although the fact that the air conditioning doesn't work isn't helpful) but this particular complaint is a bit hard to take. Now if he could've only complained about the awful karaoke I had to listen to that one time...

The book of the moment

2007-07-23T12:23:00.000+01:00

On Friday we went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then went to The Lion and the Unicorn (a local independent children's bookshop) to join the queue for a midnight opening of the shop and a copy of HP & The Deathly Hallows. It felt like a fitting way to mark the latest and last installment of this particular saga. There were adults and children in various costumes and the shop staff walked the length of the queue offering snacks and a chance to write a spell into a spell book. Once the countdown had rung down the tiny alley way there was a rush forwards and lots of eagerness and excitment in the air.

The next morning I saw various people reading the book at the bus stop or trying to walk and read at the same time. On Saturday I was volunteering at the Wetland centre all day and then I had twenty minutes before having to go to the pub so it was actually 1 am before I had a chance to open my copy of the book and start reading for an hour before falling asleep... Torture in other words!!

It is a real page-turner so I did get it read before heading off to the pub again Sunday afternoon, and the long wait to find out what actually happened in the end is over. Don't worry...I'm not about to spoil it for those who haven't read it yet!

I do mini-breaks too! (kind of...)

2007-07-22T09:48:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I had my first Sunday off in a million years so I ran off! I took the 8:03am train to Swansea and went to see what would happen. Due to the Sunday engineering works we went to Temple Mead in Bristol and then the train changed directions, so I entered Wales backwards and just as it was starting to rain...

I had a whirlwind tour interlaced with long stretches of solitude on beaches or the Gower (most my friends have daytime jobs so I entertained myself). Of the four and a half days I was there I managed to eat only one meal by myself, even if I hadn't really planned it like that. I went to so many of my old favourite places as well as some entirely new places like Pennard Castle and the laundrette in Brynmill. I basked in all the sun walking from Mt Pleasant to Bracelet Bay and on the Gower and have returned with first an impressive red patch across my shoulders, which has turned into a nice tan. Even as I was waiting for the train back to london I came across a fabulous exhibition outside the Waterfront Museum called "Earth From the Air" which had amazing pictures, well, of the Earth.

Last time I had been away and come back (Iona) it felt like a lifetime had passed whereas this time round I hardly felt like I had been away. There is so much in the town that I respond too, recognise, have little bits of my life connected with, know the short cuts, and bump into people I know in town even after a six months absence that made me wonder if I had made the right choice to come to London after all. Having moved so much such a strong sense of identity bound up in with a place and its people is a precious thing that I cherish a lot, and so I was very relieved to rediscover it during my brief visit (that could have been so much longer visiting more people and places had I not had the pub to come back to). It all felt like a proper holiday that was adventurous, relaxing, and filled with good food and talks with friends!

Ken Livingston wants us to smile more!

2007-07-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

This week in the Britannia I was behind the bar upstairs in the function room and had plenty of time to read the paper and do some sudoku (I'm ignoring Jaqui's dicdate of not reading "on duty" - at least when I don't work with her), and there was an article on how Ken wants London's bar and restaurant staff to start smiling more in preparation for the Olympics. He wants the legions who staff these venues to provide more smiles to the tourists who should be flocking in for 2012. Ken Livingston is proposing some accredited training so that employers know they can get employees who smile... I can't really imagine what the training would consist of.

When I shared this article with my co-workers the response invariably was: if they want us to smile more they'll need to pay us a decent amount. Apparently most countries do have accreditation programmes for bar workers, and consequently pay them more too.

Things in the pub are a little weird at the moment anyhow. We think that the pub has been bought by two men, but nobody seems to know anything for certain. If it is true, it means that our two current managers will lose their jobs, and the two of them and the chef who all live onsite will all lose their accomadation too. In theory I don't think my job is on the line at all, but with everything up in the air you can't really be certain.

On the whole though I do think Ken Livingston would approve of me as I do try to smile at all my customers - and at times I can't help it because life in the pub can be very bizarre and surreal.

A visit to Heathrow

2007-07-10T11:21:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I stretched my arms about 5cm as I helped my brother lug his stuff to Heathrow. He was carrying a huge box that had his bike in it so I was left with the 16.5 kg suitcase that dates before the time humans had invented wheels. We were originally headed for Paddington and the Heathrow Express as the tube has restrictions on taking bikes on certain stretches of the underground, until we realised that that particular stipulation probably didn't concern us as his bike was tucked away in a box. So instead we tried to take up as little room as is possible when you are lugging around a gigantic box and took the Picadilly Line. It was a beautiful sight when we finally got to Heathrow aiport and saw a trolley!

I caught glimpses of the newest security measures as I saw police cars lined up along the road right outside the doors to terminal where the taxis and cars dropping people off used to line the pavement. And there were some police standing around or walking around with their terrifying guns. Posters asking for information about Madeline abounded on anything that was head height. But the basics were still there: uninspiring building, long queues, bored and tired people, indifferent food...

Flying wouldn't be so tedious if it wasn't for the airports.

Ursula K. Le Guin has written a great little book called "Changing Planes' about a technique that someone discovered by accident on how to go and visit other dimensions or planes, and meet other tourists (human and alien) or explore planets. The technique only works with humans when they are extremely bored and uncomfortable: ie when in airports waiting for a thrice delayed flight or when stuck in transit at an airport and with 6 hours before the connection... I think after reading that book anyone who is stuck at an airport would wish they could pass the time in as pleasant a manner as escaping to explore another place, peoples, and customs:)

Working outdoors

2007-07-07T14:33:00.000+01:00

On the Monday and Tuesday of this week two of us from Richmond Environment Network, and two wonderful BTCV volunteers, headed off to a primary school to work with their 51 Year 6 (11-12yrs) pupils. We did all mannner of things including: creating a loggery, a path through a scrub land, created an outdoor class room, planted bits and bobs, did loads of weeding, a litter pick, and made 3 birdboxes. A fairly busy two days...

This is a project I had been working on for a few months now so it was really exciting to see it take fruition, if also slightly nerve wracking as we were, in fact, in charge. I did get referred to as an "environmental expert" which is, while inaccurate, rather nice:) REN hasn't led anything quite like this before so there was a lot of improvisation, especially on Monday as we were joined by some curious rainclouds.

I really did enjoy working with people who were (mostly) enthusiatic about what was going on and I learned that children this age seem to adore digging holes! At one point in despration, when my group of six had utterly lost interested in what I was trying to do with them, I sent them off to dig a hole. Once they had done that I told them to fill it up again... It worked and everyone was happy, except perhaps the earthworms which came under great scrutiny from the children who have not quite developed into the squeamish stage. Perhaps if we ever do a similar project we'll just dig and not bother with the rest of the activities?

The pupils had also been to visit the London Wetland Centre and gone to Crane Park Island which is a local nature reserve. One of the boys had complained that there was something in his wellies and on inspection it turned out he had managed to catch a fish in his welly! I hope the children managed to get something out of this project and at least vaguely understood why we were working on creating a wildlife area in their school... Plus I hope they had fun too. I did. Even if I was exhausted each night, I still had fun.

Is Prince Philip an island god?

2007-06-18T20:12:00.000+01:00

Legend had it that there was a clutch of villages on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu (South Pacific nation) which - as bizarre as it may seem - worshipped Prince Philip as a god...

Nick Squires of From Our Own Correspondent (BBC) heads out to see if this is true. And lo and behold it is. There is a story of the son of a mountain spirit (with pale skin) who goes across the water to marry a powerful woman... You can't make this stuff up!!

2007-06-18T00:34:00.000+01:00

That's a fuzzy me in our garden pretending I'm at a festival... Somehow I don't think I'm going to quite make it to any this year, which is a rather depressing thought as I love festivals of any description. What's there not to like: freedom to wander around and be guaranteed to see interesting things and meet fascinating people, stepping barefoot through the wet morning grass, eating festival food and drinking lots of chai, bracing yourself to visit the little smelly toilet cubicles, finding hippy clothing, listening to lots of good music that you've discovered by accident on your way to a different part of the festival... I bought those poi at Glastonbury in the vain hope I'd actually learn some cool tricks. At least they got a little bit of an airing that sunny day.

Now that I've been told off for reading behind the bar (it was only the cookery section of a magazine some customer had left behind because I was that bored - although I refuse to be bored enough to read the Sun), I have to find other ways of keeping myself occupied when it's slow. I even asked if I could do any cleaning, only to be told 'no' because I needed to stand behind the bar just incase anyone came in. However, I have managed to come up with a comon denominator between the two places that I've lived the longest in the UK. Both places I am/have been twenty minutes away from a Wetland Centre... That's a lot of boredom to come up with a fact like that!

A little gem...

2007-06-08T11:08:00.000+01:00

This is from The Onion ("America's finest news source"):

Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion

Aah...I agree. Although perhaps 38% is a little low? :)

[my button for creating a link has vanished so I'm afraid it's back to copy and paste for the article itself...sorry! http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/
study_38_percent_of_people]

Twickenham early in the morning

2007-06-05T20:38:00.000+01:00

I've started a job now as a part-time manager of the Twickenham Farmers' Market (and have a badge to prove it) and after doing a training on the job day last Saturday get the responsibility all to myself this coming Saturday. The farmers' market is located in a carpark just off the central street and had roughly 13 stalls of local producers (all within a hundred mile radius of Twickenham). This market is part of the network of London Farmers' Market and seemed extremely popular with the public.

Apart from a flurry of putting signs up and taking them down on either end of my 7am-2pm day my job consists of standing around talking to people and eating lots of good food. I had a fabulous time last week and even met the guy who invented the wind-up radio! One of the producers lives on Eel Pie Island which is on the Thames and does her chocolate cooking in a little shed named 'The Saffron Lounge'. She gave me some of her elderflower cordial she had made herself from elderflower on the island (2 min away from the market) and is thus easily the most local of the local producers present... I'm enjoying being part of this - even if it does mean leaving the house at 6:15am.

Eh?

2007-06-01T13:28:00.000+01:00

This is from the staff newletter/update from the London Wetland Centre:

"Australia is now finished and I have planted some red hot pokers in Africa and they are doing really well. Thanks Penny for the donation. I have also laid turf in South America and have taken away the giant lily pads as they where falling apart... We have placed 3 of our sheep in Iceland for mowing reasons. We have had a problem between the swans and sheep, so there is a divide between them."

[It took me awhile to realise what it was on about: There is a section of ponds that have plants and birds representative of various parts of the world!]

"My manager has gone off with your manager...

2007-05-29T17:28:00.001+01:00

...do you know where they are?"

The pub I work in is down a little alley way and opposite a cocktail bar (it's almost as difficult to find as The Park of Mumbles - although it isn't as nice). Last Friday I had to go over across the few cobble stones and enquire in the bar after our respective managers who had gone off for a quick drink. The emergency was that we needed someone to take two platters of food to the dress circle of the theatre around the corner. It all worked out in the end and was a bit of a laugh... Though not knowing the SO BAR's manager's name didn't make it any easier, so I've found that out should the situation arise again!

I met a huge boa constrictor called Lola on Saturday when I was volunteering at the London Wetland Centre. Lola is 7 yrs old and these snakes can live up to 60 years!! She was absolutely mesmerising and I almost forgot about the pond dip I was helping with while I was watching Lola curl around Emma's body. Once I realised what time it was I rushed off guiltily and didn't have time to stroke Lola. Impressive creature that snake.

The Restaurant

2007-05-21T12:28:00.000+01:00

After a short hiatus the restaurant in our flat was back in action as we tried to fit 10 people around a table in our living room. I was very impressed that we managed to fit everyone around an extended table, even if that meant taking the legs off two tables to get them to fit through the doorway! There was food and drink aplenty proving that you don't need matching cutlery and plates to entertain in Richmond... It's good to be back in action. And use up a slight backlog of vegetables from our organic box!

Community of St Mary the Virgin

2007-05-17T10:13:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning three of us headed off to Wantage to go and visit this convent (one of us to become an associate of CSMV). It is set in Oxfordshire in the beautiful countryside and the buildings themselves were surrounded by lovely greenery and flowers, which had an immediate effect of creating a peaceful atmosphere. Even the traffic on the otherside of the hedge seemed miles away, perhaps because it seemed to belong to an entirely different era than the one we were entering...

Sisters in full habits welcomed us and we also met the two other people becoming associates and their guests. I made a lot of Iona connections both among the guests and the Sisters, which is great because it is always lovely to reminisce about that fair isle. We joined in for sext and then ate a silent lunch with everyone. It is interesting to eat a meal without saying a word although systems have obviously developed for the practical side of things. Most Sisters brought along some reading material and us guests were provided with copies of the National Geographic magazine to read while you waited for everyone to finish. After lunch we all gathered for a cuppa and got a chance to chat with everyone, and before we left to head back to London we took a quick tour and went to see one of the Sister's studio (she is a fabulous sculptor) and admired pieces of her work. There were several gorgeous pieces of art work around the convent and several sculptures created by a previous Mother of the community, including 15 fabulous woodcarvings in a chapel about the stations of the cross. She took 30 years to make them all and by the last one she was almost completely blind (and I'm not sure if she quite managed to finish it before she died). The panels are full of amazing and intricate details and very, very beautiful.

I connected almost instantaneously with the silence of the place, it felt like a profound presence in all that was going on. Even such a brief visit managed to connect to something deeper and there is, for me, a great appeal to a life so meaningfully and consciously led. I'm not romanticizing the life, as I doubt I'm suitable for this sort of community living, but there is no denying there was something special at the convent.

Euroviisut

2007-05-14T13:43:00.000+01:00

And so the thing that is Eurovision has come and gone again. One of my co-workers in the pub is the biggest fan I've met yet, and so I've been through a huge build up of excitment and then yesterday hours of deconstruction of the event! I went to a Eurovision party - which is the only bearable way to watch it in my opinion. This year was less exciting in Finnish terms as I don't think Hanna Pakarinen was quite as riveting as Lordi last year. And what where all those little snippets about??? Supposedly about Finland I didn't recognise much! (Although I have been on the rollercoaster they showed in one of the snippets, much to the surprise of Lotte as I adamantly refused to get onto anything remotely like that on a recent trip to Alton Towers...)

Most of the people I've heard talking about the event are grumpy about the rise of the eastern European countries in the song contest. If I had a pound for every time there was a complaint about them voting for each other rather than on the merits of the song (what merit??) I'd be a rich woman. I tried to suggest that British people should emigrate more when folk were muttering about the British vote going to Poland due to all the Polish people living and working here, but I don't think I was taken very seriously. There were several unfortunate sentiments on display over this contest, and I can't help but think that a shift away from western-europe-centric viewpoint is actually beginning to reflect something of reality. Europe is more than Britain and I wish people could realise this.

Happy Star Wars Day!

2007-05-04T15:54:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera and it has some very interesting things to say about the sheer volume of writing that goes on. Written back in 1978 he seems to foreshadow blogging quite nicely... Kundera does distinguish in his book between the desire to write for oneself or close relations and the desire to write for the public of unknown readers, graphomania being a description of the latter. Writing about blogging seems rather fashionable at the moment and "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" definately brought some of that debate back into my mind.

"Graphomania (a mania for writing books) inevitably takes on epidemic proportions when a society develops to the point of creating three basic conditions:
(1) an elevated level of general well-being, which allows people to devote themselves to useless activities;
(2) a high degree of social atomization and, as a consequence, a general isolation of individuals;
(3) the absence of dramatic social changes in the nation's internal life.
...The invention of printing formerly enabled people to understand one another. In the era of universal graphomania, the writing of books has an opposite meaning: everyone surrounded by his own words as by a wall of mirrors, which allows no voice to filter through from the outside."

At any rate I'm really enjoying the book about memories, love, and laughter.

Oh yes, and May the 4th be with you!

iPod Yoga

2007-05-01T21:49:00.000+01:00

I’ve always been fascinated but slightly intimidated by yoga and have yet to work up the courage to go to a “proper” lesson. I know of no good reason for my irrational fear of the situation, unless it is the lithe people that populate festivals and get up at 6 am for an hour long session after going to bed at 4 am and can bend and twist into forms I never knew humans could do and generally look as fit and healthy and as cool as anything. I am not one of those people.

Facing up to ones fears is generally touted as good practice, at least in all the ordinary-person-overcomes-adversity-to-save-the-hampster/world/girlfriend films, so trying out some yoga moves by myself seemed like a good idea and I downloaded a yoga podcast and set to it. One problem that quickly became apparent was the complexity of trying to look at the little monitor to see what the instructor was doing, making sure the earpieces didn’t come out so I could listen to the instructions, and actually carrying out the movement all at the same time. I’m glad nobody saw me do this! Nevertheless it was quite fun, and who knows, maybe one day I will venture into a class. In the meantime I’ll have to figure out a way of doing iPod yoga with leads and all…

The End.

2007-05-01T21:45:00.000+01:00

Well that particular story ended with me not able to get through on the phone to anyone but deciding to turn up anyhow – and all was fine. Once I had got to the Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre that is.

I found myself in the small village of Sutton Courtney with no clue where to go next and a lot of village people who had no idea where the Centre was. In the end I just went into a local primary school to ask for directions as I figured they would have visited the place. I was right and got to the training on time too, which was a miracle in its own right. It is a great centre even if the view is dominated by the large chimney stacks of the nearby power station, and I enjoyed making a kite out of a plastic bag. This is owned by the same guys, The Wildlife Trust, that owns the Centre of the Earth in Birmingham I went to not that long ago and they are both cool places to visit.

This is ridiculous...

2007-04-29T22:43:00.000+01:00

...it's quarter to eleven (pm) and I'm figuring out how to get from Richmond to Didcot, of all places. There's a training day happening in Sutton Courtney tomorrow which I'd like to go to but I don't know if I'm actually booked to go on it as I only sent off my application form on Thursday. I tried calling on Friday but could get no answer.

So this is my solution: go to Didcot anyway and call while I'm on my way. If I'm on the course I'll carry on to Sutton Courtney. If I'm not I'll go walking on the Ridgeway. The weather forecast for tomorrow is sunny and 20C - so I'm not entirely sure which I'd actually prefer... What a situation to be in though!! At any rate, I'm hoping this will teach me never to leave booking until the last minute, and also to approach these situations without worrying too much about what I can't help or do anything about. In fact it is rather exciting to set off without know what will happen!

Well, apart from for pre-7 am start that is.

¿Que van a tomar?

2007-04-29T10:59:00.000+01:00

Thursday evening I did my first ever shift in a pub (called Britannia) and forayed into the world of pouring pints, selling crisps, and g&t's. Most of it was straight forward enough and I can only hope that it is a matter of practise in getting a "right head" on the beer rather than any ineptitude on my part. At one point of the evening I completely failed to open a bottle of wine and had to go to the manager to ask him to do it...but I have been asked to come back and do four shifts next week so I guess they don't think I'm utterly useless.

It is a relief to have some work to do. I am very glad to be able to sign off from the benefits and the horrible experience of having to go to a jobcentre every fortnight. I was looking for part-timework so that I can continue volunteering with Richmond Environment Network and I reckon I have more in common in selling beer than in selling dresses that cost £150, which seemed to be the other option! As it was, one of the first people I met runs a youth club and wanted my advice for running a playscheme in the summer and said there might be work in it for me too. I doubt I would've met her in a posh clothes shop.

I have no idea what to expect from this job in the long run, but for now I'm glad to be doing something. At any rate it can't be worse than working in that bakery so I think I'll survive!

"We tune because we care"

2007-04-25T18:17:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday my parents and I were invited to an impromtu concert in a garden in North London. We and some 13 others were entertained by Tim and Jared who took it in turnes to play the guitar and sing songs to us. The wine, nibbles, and - most importantly - the music kept us going for almost three hours and long past the sun had set. I am full of admiration for anyone who can help create that magical connection with music between everyone present. Though I do think somebody should come up with some more cheerful folk songs, you know, ones that aren't about death, loss, or piracy on the high seas. It was a brilliant evening and made me wish, once again, that I could play the guitar, feel confident about playing infront of others, and have the memory to have three hours worth of songs stored in my head.

I heard lots of new music that evening. I love the poignant lyrics and the poetry in them, which, afterall, is rather rare. Two of my favourites were Lies by Stan Roger and Tecumseh Valley by Towes Van Zandt. And of course, the last song which Tim introduced as a happy song (but with death and destruction in it)... I wouldn't describe it as a happy song myself, but it had hope in it. It was about an 11 year old Palestinian boy who was killed by the Israeli army and his father saying that the peace needs to start somewhere and it was going to start here with no one retaliating against the Israelis. Heart-breakingly sad. But with hope in it.

Beginning of summer

2007-04-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

What do butterflies, James Bond, goths, Wicked Witch of the West, and Cleopatra have in common? That's right: a fancy dress party! It's great fun having an excuse to dress up and invite people around. It reminds me of the fancy dress party we had on Iona where the resources are far more limited. Nonetheless people managed some surprising costumes (the Iona ferry and a scrabble board) showing great ingenuity.

This summery spell has seen a great influx of people to Richmond and therefore this household (plus guests) has resorted to sitting out in our huge garden on a colourful blanket and sipping wine. It's a quiet spot to retreat to when the crowds along the river or in Richmond Green get overwhelming, and last evening as dusk decended I realised we have several bats that frequent our garden and swoop around catching insects. This is not the first time I've lived in a place which has a distinct summer life that is different to it's winter existence, in fact many of my summers seem to have involved dodging tourists... However, as I have yet to find the little back alley local haunts I'll have to hold of the faint smugness for a while longer.

Bbq-season here we come...

Singing in St Paul's Cathedral

2007-04-10T10:16:00.000+01:00

For the culmination of Holy Week I went to four services - four eucharist services - in under 24 hours (which has got to be a personal best!)... The last one I went to was a Taize Eucharist service in St Paul's Cathedral. Lotte and I went there as a response to a plea of help from the coordinators of the Iona-style Wee Sing in London, as they had been asked to do the music. So roughly 25 of us turned up, had a quick practise of the Taize chants and songs (literally going through everything once and rather quickly), and then we got to sing infront of the hundreds of people who had come to the service! I also made it more complicated myself by choosing to sing alto. I enjoy that, but I'm not an expert at sight reading music and we did not practise the alto parts at all and some of the songs we sung I had never come across either! I wasn't the only one in the same situation...

A classic case of glibly agreeing to something without really thinking the matter through.

However, the concentrated effort I put into sing my parts helped me forget to be nervous infront of the biggest crowd I've ever sung before, and I ended up enjoying the whole experience. The Catherdral is really beautiful and the acoustic made our improtu choir sound pretty good too. I'm even considering going along to the next Wee Sing - thankfully it's not any sort of a performance! Afterwards the presiding vicar, Laura, invited us to her flat for wine and nibbles so we got to have a look inside the Amen Courts too. Singing in St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday has got to be one of the most improbable things I've done recently. Luckily I enjoyed it!

Of Dr Who and stuff

2007-04-05T15:36:00.000+01:00

Well, the Dr Who season has kicked off again. I was lucky enough to have fellow enthusiasts from Swansea visiting me so we all sat down to marvel at the Doctor's new assistant, Martha Jones, and the fact that a chunck of it was filmed in the library of Swansea University. Obviously they disguised the place a little, but if you have spent three years of your life in a building (or that's what it feels like) you are bound to recognise it! Anyhow it was very exciting spotting one's old haunts on telly...

For reasons unknown John Travolta is lurking downstairs by our bins. Okay, so it is a cardboard cut out of him and some fellow actors, but it is not the sort of thing I expect when taking the rubbish out. I often catch him in the corner of my eye when going indoors, and at night that can be a little alarming. At least he's not as noisy as the fox who have their den in our back garden.

Hilton Maldives will be opening the very first all-glass underwater restaurant in the world on the 15th of April (isn't it amazing what one learns from the internet?) and soon diners will be able to watch what they eat swim by... Doesn't that sound amasing? I can't wait for this to become available to us mere peasants. Although I don't know how much we'd actually see in the Thames. Perhaps Scotland would have the advantage over us seeing as they have some stunningly clear and gorgeous waters. Sounds like the drier option to diving, at any rate, with no risk of the bends.

Denis Darzacq

2007-03-28T18:59:00.000+01:00

These are some of the images that Denis Darzacq created inspired by/as a response to the riots in France in 2005. He describes wanting "to capture an entire generation in freefall with no one to catch them". So he went out to the suburbs of Paris for these shots. Amazing, aren't they? To me they speak about youth in many ways. Who does catch people when they are about to smash into the pavement?

In praise of blagging - how to Be Important

2007-03-26T16:54:00.000+01:00

I got a taste of what it feels like to be Important this weekend... My friend Helen (a film maker and part of Undercurrents) was up this weekend from Swansea as one of her latest films is showing this Tuesday at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. However seeing as she couldn't get away on Tuesday she came to a reception/networking opportunity for Short Film Makers (some of whom were quite tall...erhm...sorry Fisch) on Saturday to get a feel/buzz of the festival.

I got to go along to something that frankly I thought only existed in books: the professional networking party. The festival organisers provided the alcohol in the Green Room and everyone else talked. I met someone who does films for Channel 4, a woman whose pictures are regularly exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, first time film makers who shot their piece on a mother's holiday camera and edited the film on iMovie and got into the festival (there is hope for us all!), a very funny stand up comedien(ne?), one of the festival programmers, and loads more film makers... So I was horrendously out of place, but everything was fabulously interesting. An insight into such a different world. And to top it all off we managed to talk ourselves into having a car drive us all the way from South Bank to Richmond - I think I said "I can't believe this..." a few times.

Undercurrents are soon launching a peer-to-peer TV channel over the internet and so Helen and I took the opportunity to interview some of the women film makers for the women's channel Broad Horizons. Interviewing people is such interesting work as people have such interesting things to say. I love asking about something a person is passionate about and then listen. I found it really inspiring to listen to these women. It is nice to have something to do at a party...and there's nothing like casually holding a fluffy microphone and a camera to feel like you might be blending in.

The next day I somehow got signed up as a delegate. Now I own a bit of plastic with my picture on it and it says: FILM MAKER on it! It's completely undeserved as I did nothing in Helen's film, but it does get me into all the screenings at the festival for free plus some various other perks. So I shall go and be an Undercurrents presence on Tuesday for Helen and hope that no one will ask me any questions about being a film maker. The film world is not one inhabited by a majority of people, but it is an interesting one I was glad to dip into for a moment.

A little snow/rain never stopped BTCV before...

2007-03-23T09:12:00.000Z

My heart sank a little yesterday morning when I saw that there was white stuff falling from the sky because the previous day I had volunteered to go out with this conservation group for a day of work. I phoned in to check if they were still planning on going ('yes'), and then pulled on many, many layers and set of to the woods named Leg 'o Mutton...

I ended up having a great day! Despite the dubious sounding name of the place (I have no idea why it's called that!) it's a pretty little nature reserve with a lot of birds. We saw one white swan, gleaming in all the grey, sat on its nest in the water. It never quite cleared up but the it did stop snow/raining and we were busy enough working to keep warm. We spent the day dead fencing or creating a fence along the path to help keep dogs away from the sensitive nesting area. It was a lot of weaving of long branches along some stakes and eight of us working managed a good long stretch despite not quite finishing what we aimed for.

I valued spending a day outside (about five 1/2 hours) doing physical work as it is a change. Although I can tell it is rare thing as my body is slightly aching! I only got one blister which I think is good going... After years of volunteering in youth work projects I'm finally getting around to volunteering for environmental/conservation projects. It's such a catch-22 situation: you need the experience to get work but can't get the experience because you need to work! One woman I was working alongside has given up her fulltime work as a lawyer to do a 6 months/4 days a week volunteer position with the organisation.

Wicked!

2007-03-17T23:39:00.000Z

Elizabeth, my State-side friend who is visiting for the weekend, and I have just come back from experiencing the musical Wicked. It's about the "wicked" Witch of the West and tells the story from her point of view - it is amazing! The production, the fabulous costumes and remarkable shoes, the singing are all brilliant! What a memorable night! And it's rather appropriate to see a musical about a green person on St Patrick's Day, isn't it? The Apollo Theatre is very grand and thre was a very impressive mechanical dragon's head that moved and it's eyes lit up at moments although I'm not quite sure of it's overall contribution to furthering the story...

My feet are ready to go to bed after miles of streets and art galleries and charity shops and trying to find this place that I once went passed that looked like it had good food. Needless to say we didn't find that restaurant. The art that is around this town is amasing (in fact, a lot of the paintings look exactly like the postcards I've sent in my previous life) and I've been re-inspired to go exploring.

Most of all it has been a delight to meet a friend I haven't seen for four and a half years and pick up the conversation as if we only said goodbye last week. Wicked indeed.

Visiting a mosque

2007-03-10T11:32:00.000Z

Yesterday I went to visit a mosque in Kingston with a bunch of other people. We were given a tour of the mosque by Rashid, met Yusuf Islam's (ie Cat Stevens) father-in-law - the president of the mosque, had an impromptu lecture from the Imam (who first came to Kingston from Morocco as an acrobat for the circus!), were fed lunch, and then joined in with their Friday prayers.

It has been a few years since I have been to a mosque and last time I went I didn't have much opportunity to meet the people worshiping there. In Kingston everyone was very friendly and welcoming and I found it all interesting. There was a man in the group who posed a few cringe-worthy questions but otherwise we were also on our best behaviour! Obviously for the prayers I went upstairs with the other women. We listened to what was going on via some tinny loudspeakers (ideal for the sung parts, but not so much for the spoken sermon/teaching bit) while we sat facing Mecca.

The women's hall had Qur'ans but also prayer beads and some spare long kaftan like garments for women to borrow. There were also signs telling us we should not talk during one part of the 'service'... Some things seem to be ubiquitous regardless of place of worship: namely asking people to give money and the notices! I felt quite comfortable being in the women's hall as there is definately something very interesting in being in a women's only space, which is not something I have done very much of in the religious context so I was quite up for the experience.

My favourite part was upstairs watching a small girl (4-5 yrs) interact with her mother. Her mother was praying but while she was bowing and prostrating her daughter clambered all over her and while she stood up the little girl squirmed through her legs. It says a lot when your religious experience is large enough to include a small child using you as a climbing frame... The beautiful part was the complete acceptance of the situation by everyone there.

The latest FUN thing...

2007-03-02T14:45:00.000Z

Freecycle is amazing - and addictive! It's a brilliant group that pass things around for free. Anything really from beds and garden sheds to toys and a frying pan. The Richmond group is very active with items posted in the morning gone by the afternoon and this does add an extra edge to the proceedings. So far I was too slow on asking for some mosaics and grouting and Lotte vetoed my suggestion of giving the gardenshed a home here...but I live in hope that something exciting is waiting for me in the next message I open. Lotte and I are also planning on giving anybody who donates us stuff flapjacks, so I'm fully expecting once word of this gets around we will be the first people everyone thinks of when they wish to get rid of an item.

Jen, from Swampea, came to visit me last weekend which was brilliant. We saw an amazing photographic exhibition in the Natural Science Museum. We also found a couple of artists who deal with a mistaken case of SARS (turns out to be PMS), observe some veggie monsters and penguins loose in London, and generally have a lot of rabbits bounding everywhere. It's quirky and there are plenty of delightful details in the panoramic views. [Go to www.kozyndan.com for your viewing pleasure.]

Happy Welsh Day!

2007-03-01T11:42:00.000Z

Cheers to leeks and daffodils! Happy St David's Day everyone:)

Sky High

2007-02-21T16:44:00.000Z

My flatmate Lotte is going to do a skydive for charity - The Big Issue - on the 3rd of March (http://www.justgiving.com/lottewebb). Somehow jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet is not something I've ever contemplated doing, but I'm happy to cheer her on!

Having a job interview the day before the college breaks for half-term has meant that I need to wait until next week before hearing anything from them which is slightly frustrating. On the other hand I've started volunteering for the Richmond Environment Network. I volunteered expecting to help out in the office and do little things like that, but actually I've been given the opportunity to start (almost from scratch) working on the children and youth side, i.e. develop and support work going on in the ENTIRE borough. So, I'm going to have to pretend I know what I'm doing. Should be fun!

Our washing machine is refusing to open the door so there's a whole load stuck inside at least until tomorrow. Oh well, it's been a good excuse to borrow a towel off our neighbour (a new experience for sure).

UPDATE - Nobody can come to fix it until Monday 11am so the wet laundry will be in the machine all weekend!

The Science of Sleep

2007-02-17T17:02:00.000Z

Last night Lotte and I got our exercise London-style by rushing from the tube station and trying to find the Barbican Centre in the ten minutes we had before our film was due to start. As both of us had forgotten to bring along the London A-Z we had to do a fair amount of detective work too to find out which way to go. The Barbican Centre - once we had found it - was a maze of empty corridors and enclaves. It was a rather eerie place, especially when we emerged from the film (which is about Stephane mixing dream and reality).

'The Science of Sleep' is a beautiful film. I'm a big fan of Gael Garcia Bernal and enjoyed Michel Gondry's last film: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I did have high expectations and thankfully I was not let down. It is a beguiling fantasy in a merry fluid mixture of French, English, and Spanish and shot beautifully. Besides, how can you not like a film with a one second time-machine?!

We wandered around Soho for awhile later on. What a fascinating hive of bustle and activity with rickshaws attempting to pick up passengers, lots of people walking around (a relief after the quiet and sterile finance quarters), loads of restaurants (we had a lovely Thai curry), and the China Town all decorated up for Chinese New Year.

On our way back, just outside the station we wanted, the train stopped due "to a slight fire outside the signalman's cabin" which damaged the cables a bit. A surreal end to the journey, but thankfully somebody managed to override the system and we did not end up spending the night on the uncomfortable seats. On "alighting" the train we saw no sigh of fire anywhere although I did spot a rat rustling around the tracks.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Appletree

2007-02-12T20:30:00.000Z

Recently I've taken it upon myself to drastically reduce the amount of my physical possessions. In part this has corresponded with a HUGE increase in technology. I have now joined the classes with white wires hanging out of their ears and am an iPod owner, and my gorgeous friends moving back to Australia (= free place to stay when I get over there!) gave me a dinky little iBook. Somehow I don't think the value of my possessions in under £20 anymore. It is a strange transition, but it is oddly enough helping me cut back in my habit of stockpiling stuff so it surely can't be all bad.

The major problem I can forsee is not understanding what the computer is saying to me or a paralysing fear of breaking it... However our new neighbour works for Dell, and the vicar's husband describes himself as a "techno-hippy" so there's bound to be help around - for a suitable bribe.

Cold and wintry February - finally!

2007-02-07T12:29:00.000Z

It's pretty darn cold outside, at least by our English standards, but so completely gorgeous I'll forgive it! Just the right weather for slipping into little shops to warm up for a couple of minutes before braving the outdoors again. I love this weather! The Pearl Month of the year... [That's a transliteration of the Finnish for February.]

I registered with the doctors surgery this morning and ought to get back to fill a whole stack of forms littered around my bedroom floor - there are just so many of them! Benefit forms, College forms, CRB checks the lot. I haven't been very diligent though and so my form filling sessions are spread inbetween Dorris Lessing's 'The Golden Notebook' and 'The Time Traveller's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. Writing down details of myself over and over again are a certain way of filling this form of my existence here, defining it and drawing lines around me... (Not sure I like that particular outline of the form I'm filling out hence all these books.)

I've started a Spanish course too; and again it's one of my get out of jail free cards...

Richmond, London

2007-01-29T10:32:00.000Z

Where to start? I packed all my belongings into three bags and a suitcase and on Friday headed for London after a week or more of going round pubs, people's places, Red Cafe, and generally saying goodbye to all the wonderful and fabulous people I've met in Swansea. Bleary eyed (after a farewell party at the house) I stepped onto the 8:15am bus and headed towards Victoria bus station. Upon arrival I started to curse my inability to pack lighter and dragged my stuff across to Victoria station. But I took one look at the stairs leading down to the tube and bailed. I had to sens an SOS text to Lotte to come and rescue me - which she dutifully did. So not exactly the independent start to a life in London that I had imagined, but at least I'm here.

The weekend has been packed with meeting people, our mutual friends from Iona as well as some of Lotte's friends, trying to unpack and decorate my room, walk around Richmond and try to make some sense of this place and the fact that I'm here... We live a minute away from the river, ten seconds away from the bus station, a minute away from the food shop/High Street. Everything is right here!! The first thing I did on Saturday was to get a library card and I've already got an Oyster Card, so once I've bought myself a London A-Z I will feel a lot more at home.

Our flat is huge, white and magnolia (very much the non-offensive option isn't it) with a Lotte-influenced red-orange colour scheme, gorgeous, has a back garden that we share with the other two apartments in the house but it's huge, and we have a strong feeling of disbelief that now we are the adults in the house which seems unreal. The garden has seven bird feeders which are strung very high up in the trees. Prosaicly I did find a stepladder in the garden, which dashed my initial theory that there must be giants living in the upstairs flat, but we have regular visitors of green parakeets that amase and amuse me and liven up the garden.

I'm still trying to take everything in which means that everything is quite a mess in my head, experiences and sights floating around in no logical sense, but I'm hopeful it will settle down soon. I am so excited about this all!

This is a very euphoric, bouncy post. I'm sure in due course I'll come down to a sober judgement of the frivolty of the rich, how having been into five charity shops and seen their prices that I really am going to need a job soon or whatever, but for now I'm enjoying it.

Twirling, whirling...

2007-01-23T16:34:00.000Z

On Sunday we had a house-outing to see the whirling derishes of Damascus. They performed with the Al-Kindi Ensamble and the Sheikh Hamza Shakkur and performed Sufi liturgy of the Ummayad Mosque of Damascus. What an experience! I've never seen anything like that live before and they had the whole of the Taliesin art centre transfixed with the music and the whirling. The men in their dresses looked rather interesting until they started to twirl and then it all look increadibly natural - if you can say that about four men twirling around on a stage. (Actually, I kept expecting the one guy in particular to curtsey as he walked back to his chair.) The ensamble were playing classical Arab music from the 9th Century upwards and it was very intricate and fascinating to listen to and to watch.

I have no idea how the men managed to do so much whirling and not a) fall over or b) be sick. My head felt a bit giddy just watching them. And when we got home I felt inspired to do a few twirls but was dizzy within a few turns. It's great to see stuff like this in Swansea!

Lily's Friday Challenge

2007-01-19T17:22:00.000Z

Lily, my intrepid friend, has just eaten eight pickled eggs for a bet. I watched her munch through these eggs, that a collegue of hers had pickled (probably for her), for over an hour. It was entertaining, although a bit painful too. She has a habit of laying on bets for all imaginable crazy things. And has so far come through most of them honourably. Google later provided a slight dampner on her glory by telling us that the record for eating pickled eggs (and yes, there is such a thing) is 19 pickled eggs in five minutes; but we are still proud of her even while we shake our heads in disbelief.

A previous food related bet saw her eating half a kilo of pickled onions, and she has agreed to attempt to eat two kilos of bean sprouts next Friday as long as they are not pickled.

That woman has a stomach of steel.

2007-01-19T11:26:00.000Z

We have a new housemate, Jen, another waif rescued from a homeless fate, and a very welcomed addition to the house. And the dog is still with us as Ian's mother is stranded in Ireland - the ferries are not running in the force 10 gales it would seem... Dog and I have been exploring around the Tawe river and Kilvey Hill both which are new territory for me. I still find the view from top of the hill quite disconcerting as the Swansea that I can see from there is just so different and it is disorienting to not recognise the town I've lived in over the past four years.

I've found a big box and packed it and it's sitting ready to be sent to Finland. Unfortunately there still seems to be an awful lot of possession left in my room even after three trips to charity shops...

13th of July is when the next Harry Potter film comes out (HP and the Order of the Phoenix), and I've surprised myself by getting quite excited about that:) The room of Dolores Umbridge looks suitably revolting with the rows of kittens on plates hung on the wall! JK Rowling has announced the title of the next and last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so does that mean that we might get our hands on the book sometime this year? Is Severus Snape friend or foe...

Being on campus at Uni I've bought the paper for 25p. Bargain!