Go-ahead idea - perhaps this could be emulated here in Devon

I've just read the Telegraph colour supplement for 
16 July 2011 - well only six weeks late - and saw an  interesting idea: http://www.southwarkcircle.org.uk/.

This pic is nothing to do with the Southwark Project but it echoes the idea of many hands working together:

Southwark Circle is a membership organisation 
that provides on-demand help with life’s practical 
tasks through local, reliable Neighbourhood 
Helpers, and a social network for teaching, 
learning and sharing.

To quote:
Southwark Circle members get together to enjoy 
a variety of interests and activities, and to learn 
new things through the Member Calendar. They 
can also buy tokens to get help from local, reliable Neighbourhood Helpers. Some members also help 
out fellow members and can earn tokens for doing so.

Membership includes:

• 
  A unique membership pack, including everything
  you’ll need to get started, including a membership card.
• 
  Subscription to the monthly Member Calendar and
  newsletter to see what’s on and what members are up to.
• 
  Access to our free phone number to get recommendations
  for anything from a trustworthy, local builder to the best
  mobile phone plan.
• 
  Opportunities to meet fellow members at get-togethers
  in the Member Calendar.
• 
  Option to purchase tokens at any time and get help from Neighbourhood Helpers.

Ways to Change Your Life

1. Get a promotion
2. Listen to your partner
3. Write your first novel
4. Wear sun screen all year round
5. Edit your wardrobe
6. Eat properly
7. Buy a dermaroller
8. Find out how happy couples stay happy
9. Have a baby before you're 33
10. Review your investments
11. Be a good parent
12. Get the right healthcare
13. Get a new best friend
14. Slow down
15. Don't join a gym
16. Have an open mind about sex
17. Think yourself happy
18. Find a man with a low disgust factor
19. Release your inner Judy Garland
20. Take time to stare at the night sky
21. Get some sun
22. Start saving for next Christmas
23. Improve your networking skills
24. If you're not enjoying your job, quit
25. Do some voluntary work
26. Learn something every day
27. Be a good friend
28. Eat less
29. Enjoy being near water
30. Go to bed early
31. Regularly enjoy the outdoors
32. And .... eat less chocolate?

Brazil

Urban Design from the British perspective:
http://urbandesignbrazil.blogspot.com/

Lots of information from a Brit living in Brazil:
http://livinginbrazil.blogspot.com/






And finally: Learning Portuguese with the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/talk/greetings/

Social Icons

http://derby-graphic-design.co.uk/graphic-design-derby-blog/index.php?id=57

http://www.derby-graphic-design.co.uk/

LIFE

Something to read regularly, learn and inwardly digest:

I love this, but don't always remember to do it, of course.

Idea from Fi - looks good

http://pinterest.com/thebloggess/stuff-i-should-do-with-my-kid-before-she-s-old/

(I must be old fashioned because 'kids' are small goats, whereas I had 'children', 'girls' or 'young people'.)

Soap Dish

We needed a new soap dish for our cloakroom basin. 

I found this old tatty one which once had been rather beautiful, so decided to have a go at painting it - after all there was nothing to lose.

I gave it a good clean to remove old soap and mank

 Then gave it two coats of red acrylic paint all over:

Then a coat of gold acrylic paint on the top, followed immediately by a spray or two of crackle glaze:

Then gave it two coats of varnish (at the same time revarnished the handles and knobs on our saucepans).
Now it's esconced in the cloakroom, matching the roses and the gilt mirror:

The little things we do today .....

http://www.futurefriendly.co.uk/vote.aspx?id=1580

Tips to help you save: http://www.futurefriendly.co.uk/tips.aspx#2

Great Idea for us Bookworms

http://www.betterlivingthroughdesign.com/accessories/you-are-here-bookmark-pad.html


If you're a big reader and like to take notes, this pad of bookmarks will come in handy.

Then it can be kept when the book's been returned to the library and you can retain the info.  


Fab idea, I wish I'd done this for the past ... years

Rules for a Creative Culture

Taken from 5 Rules for a Creative Culture

From: http://www.swiss-miss.com/

• Avoid rules. 
• Avoid order. 
• Don’t just embrace chaos, but create a little bit of it. Constant change, from the top-down, keeps people nimble and flexible (and shows that you want constant change).
• Give yourself permission to be creative. 
• Permission to try something new 
• permission to fail 
• permission to embarrass yourself 
• permission to have crazy ideas.

Well, I do avoid order - but not on purpose - am always changing (esp my mind!), find it difficult to give myself permission to be creative and to fail.  Embarrassing myself is fairly easy, especially at 60.

Roll on the crazy ideas .....

How do you score on these?


Quote: Never change your originality for the sake of others, because no-one can play your role better than you. So be yourself because, whatever you are, YOU are the best.

Solar Electricity for newbys

My mother in law has just had solar panels fitted to her roof - at the age of 91. 

This set us thinking that perhaps, having a large house with commensurate high bills (electricity bill is about £1,200 a year) and a good-sized WSW facing roof we are likely to benefit considerably from having some installed, so we are investigating.

A friend recommended the Energy Saving Trust as a good starting point: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

On this site it says that for specific questions contact the Renewable Energy Association: http://www.r-e-a.net/

16/8/11

We've found this site to enable us to compare the various panels on offer, which we've consulted and found very useful:

http://www.solardesigntool.com/compare-solar-panels-modules.html

September: We've now ordered a 16 panel system, paid the deposit and had the survey done -  will let you know how it pans out.  It's due to be fitted in about two weeks time.


22.9.11: The panels have arrived, they're pretty big and are scheduled to be installed next week, fingers crossed.

Fabric Swatches

I have just obtained from Freecycle a large box of tiny fabric swatches and, having removed them from their card bases, now want to think what to do with them.  Well, here are some sites with some suggestions which I'm going to investigate.  I reproduce them here in case you're interested too.

http://tipnut.com/scrap-happy-fabric-scr…

http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Uses-for-Fab…

http://craftstew.com/sewing/20-crafty-wa…

http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/

http://inaminuteago.com/cq-projects/cqprojectgallery.html

Some Creepy Crawlies - Up Close - and some Origami

Some creepy crawlies
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/picture-galleries/7924099/Creepy-crawlies-Amazing-Scanning-Electron-Microscope-pictures-of-insects-and-spiders.html?image=11

Some of the bacteria in our bodies:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthpicturegalleries/8523602/Meet-some-of-the-bacteria-that-make-up-90-per-cent-of-the-living-cells-in-your-body.html

Lion

Origami insects and fish:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/6247080/Origami-insects-and-fish-by-Sipho-Mabona.html?image=1

August Musings

31 August 2011

While polka dots are ancient, they first became common on clothing in the late nineteenth century in Britain. At the same time polka music was extremely popular and the name was also applied to the pattern, despite no real connection between them.

28 August 2011
If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing 
the drains, many of us will die of cholera 
(John Rich)


26 August 2011
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence
(Laurence J Peter)

25 August 2011
By the time the youngest children have learned to keep the house tidy, the oldest grandchildren are on hand to tear it to pieces
(Christopher Morley)


23 August 2011
People who say they sleep like a baby don't usually have one.
(Leo J Burke)

20 August 2011
The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them 
worry about losing it
(Comte de Rivarol (1753 - 1801)



18 August 2011
(Vicky's birthday)
I am never bored anywhere: being bored is 
an insult to oneself
(Jules Renard)



17 August 2011
If we abide by the principles taught by the Bible, 
our country will go on prospering
(Daniel Webster (1783 - 1852)



15 August 2011
The reason that most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals—not for the person we’re going to be when we reach them—we set our goals for the person we are when we set them.
(Dan Gilbert)


13 August 2011
Art must take reality by surprise
(Francoise Sagan)

6 August 2011
Whatever is good to know is difficult to learn
(Greek proverb)


4 August 2011

He who is full of himself is likely to be quite empty

3 August 2011

Success seems largely a matter of hanging on until others have let go (William Feather)

1 August 2011

When opportunity knocks at the door most people are in the back garden looking for four-leaved clovers

60 things to do now I'm 60

I've just been looking at a list of '100 things to do before you die' and have done (or nearly done) most of them, so here's my 60 a@ 60 list (not 'to do before I die'!):

1. Go up in the balloon at Torre Abbey (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1949325)
2. Visit Torre Abbey http://www.torre-abbey.org.uk/
3. Visit the St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel
4. Get two new teeth where I have gaps
5. Go to Brazil?
6. Do more painting
7. Grow some basil and coriander and eat them before they go to seed
8. Try and go to bed earlier
9. Have a go on the swan pedalboats at Young's Park
10. Learn how to put on eyeliner
11. Visit Penlee House (http://www.penleehouse.org.uk/) see painting above.
12. Eat less chocolate
13. Go to Ireland again http://www.discoverireland.ie/ 
14. Tidy away old magazine and newspaper cuttings
15. Stop having toothache
16. Visit Barbara in North Carolina  www.blackmountain.org/
17. Grow lots of carrots
18. Burn candles as they often have interesting aromas
19. More exercise
20. Get solar panels
21. Visit Tate Modern in St Ives
22. Eat sensibly
23. Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise
24. Grow some swede turnips and parsnips.
25. Make a watch strap
26. Finish some embroidery projects started at Westcountry Embroiderers www.westcountryembroiderers.co.uk/
27. Improve singing
28. Grow and pick peas - to perfection
29. Go on Eggheads - or similar
30. Play the keyboard
31. Finish the patchwork cover
32. Get the photographs in some sort of sensible order
33. Swim in the sea here
34. Go back to the toning tables
35. Find out about the genealogy questions which got me started in the first place - Why Hodgson etc.
36. Explore north Scotland  www.northhighlandsscotland.com
37. Make a shell necklace or hanging
38. Visit Chester again  www.visitchester.com
39. Have a short story published
40. Go to Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey
41. Go over to France
42. Ride a horse again
43. Ride a bike
44. Go to a beer festival
45. See how far I can travel with my Bus Pass (when eligible)
46. Improve my drawing
47. Give blood
48. Be silent for a day(!)
49. Make some ravioli
50. Meditate
51. Write the story of my life
52. Keep Bees?
53. Get a dog?
54. not much further to go now! ...

St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel

When I worked in London, way way back, I used to get the overground to Kings Cross Station and then walk to Tavistock Square, passing St Pancras Station, with its enormous Gothic building and wonder what it was - offices, hotel, now redundant?  

Now, according to  to the website: "A Victorian masterpiece restored...Sir John Betjeman called this Gothic treasure "too beautiful and too romantic to survive" in a world of tower blocks and concrete. After years of devoted restoration, the St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel is being hailed as the city's most romantic building. This London 5-star hotel features glorious Gothic Revival metalwork, gold leaf ceilings, hand-stencilled wall designs - and the grand staircase is as dazzling as the day the hotel opened in 1873. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott to receive travellers through St Pancras Station, the former Midland Grand Hotel offered its guests a world of grandeur, luxury and fantasy behind its fairytale red facade. Innovations such as ascending rooms (elevators) and revolving doors heightened the sense of awe. In 2011, the doors of his luxury hotel in London are spinning again, sweeping guests into a world where modern amenities mingle with the extravagance of rail's golden age."

Now we can see what this place looks like inside - and what an amazing place!

For more pics see:

http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/photo-tours.mi?marshaCode=lonpr&pageID=HWHOM&imageID=0