Thursday 25th September

Well... doing a night shift last night, and come the very wee small hours, I had the pleasure of catching President Bush doing his "We are on the verge of total destruction" speech. Now Bush isn't my favourite among world leaders, but right now he's doing a lot better than the German Finance Minister, who made it to the small box by blaming the US and guess who, of course, the Brits, for the current state of his own country's economy. It seems to me (and I ain't no expert) that whatever, we're in for a long recession.
Now my experience of previous recessions indicates we should all get ourselves ready. This means a sudden and unexpected return of Walton chic - layered clothing including pinafores, in cheesecloth, perfect for digging up the front garden to plant a crop of - well whatever you'd like to plant in your front garden. Anything we planted in ours is only likely to give us toxic poisoning of some variety given the traffic past the front door - in the course of last night I also learnt that when Beluga Whales die in the St Lawrence Waterway, the Canadian Government has to dispose of the carcass as being toxic waste, such is the level of pollution in the said waters. Poor little things, they're not doing anything different from what they did before, it's simply that we've adopted their home as the worlds busiest shipping lane.
Anyhow, recession also means you'll need to paint everything brown. Or a shade of brown. This is what we did in the 70's - you'll be out there working so hard to maintain any grip on your overdraft you won't have time to clean. Brown, grey or some shade thereof, will prevent embarrassment when the neighbours drop round for that essential glass of homebrew. Yes, the lurking menace of a home based brewery experiment will also return, threatening life and limb every time you open the cupboard under the stairs. I'd warn you about the smell as well, but - well some people like the tang of mashed hops.
Recession also strikes me as renowned for men wearing velvet jackets. Now the navy blue one's weren't that bad, but brown? No, no, no. Recession is also a time where what was a casual act of financial stupidity - such as the one I've just made, pitches you into financial disaster. What have I done you ask? Well there was this jacket on Ebay that I rather liked the look of, and when I last looked at it, looked as if it was going to fit and be lovely - but the listing had expired, and when it was relisted of course I hurled a bid on frantically without reading the item specifics. Now I learn it's at least four to five inches too small around the bust. Ah well, hopefully I will be outbid... if not I may be going in to the second hand clothing business. Another aspect of recession you may need to become overly familiar with. Knitting for example, will move from the charming hobby that you can carry with you, to the essential task for next school term, and where the hell has it got to? Yes kids, the home knitted school sweater is bound to make a come back, let's just hope things don't sink to the point where your mum needs to unpick last years and match the yarn in to this's. You'll love that feeling of tautness around the armpits. However bad it makes you feel it will be as nothing to the embarrassment of your smaller siblings having to grace the beaches in a home knitted swimming costume. And remind me one of these days to explain the arts of home-shoe repair. You wondered why we wore platforms and wedges? Why we tottered? It had everything to do with the fact you couldn't actually wear a platform sole through.
Anyhow I have to go. John Boy is tap tap tapping on the window ledge and the foreclosure men are at the door. Recession is here for the foreseeable future, and I wonder what joys it's going to bring with it this time.

Sunday 14th September

Well here we are, another week has gone by, and you'll just have to excuse the feeling of mild panic that's gripping me firmly by the throat. Yesterday, you see, I spent some time looking at all the stock I've put up for Christmas to sell in my Ebay shop, and parcelling it up into what's to be loaded in which week, and counting up the weeks to a safe date to post for Xmas and reach it's destination - and my only feeling since doing this is HELP!!!!
Still all in all, I feel I've made a positive start. I've got the bag with the next two weeks worth of bookmarks sitting right by the computer, I've photographed a good half of them, and I've even got about 15 scheduled listings. All to go live over the next two weeks. Fancy having an advance look? Here we go:
















These are just three of the collection I've made over the last nine months! The pink pendant bookmark is part of a group that feature wonderful glass pendant pieces made by Shoozles, who makes the most wonderful glass art. Check out her photo's on Flickr;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoozlesfusesglass/
She does some wonderful work.
Anyway apart from all this, normal work continues - I still have to do my normal schedule, including night shifts!

I recently wandered on to a great website. http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ is a brilliant site, where you can find tips on how to save food, and recipes to use up leftovers. I'm going to eat well tonight, and use up the left over hunk of a loaf of granary bread, half of an onion I used yesterday, and the end of piece of cheese. Sounds ghastly doesn't it? But in fact these are the primary ingredients of a Garlic Soup - go check it out on the website. I've adjusted mine a little from the recipe, but essentially when I got in this morning I cut the bread up into cubes and popped it into the oven to dry at 75degrees for a couple of hours whilst I slept. This afternoon, I sauted (or fried if you prefer) the finely sliced onion, and three cloves of finely sliced garlic in a little butter, and added about a litre of chicken stock - no reason why you can't use a vegetable stock! Then you crumble in the bread cubes, reserving a few to serve, and simmer the broth for 15 to 20 minutes. I'll float the cubes on the hot soup, and sprinkle over the grated cheese before I sit down to eat, and I have to say the aroma of this soup is just fantastic. And I feel really pleased with myself, because frankly the bread was heading for the bin, and probably the cheese too in a couple of days. You know what it's like when you have one of those tiny little cubes of cheese in the fridge - it inevitably ends up being thrown out when it's green and mouldy because you can't think what to do with such a small piece of cheese. And it's such a waste! So I'm pretty chuffed with this new site, you can look up recipes by clicking on an ingredient, so if you had - for example - part of a cauliflower left over, you could click on the cauli icon, and hey presto up comes a nice recipe for left over cauli! Cool or what?!

Saturday 6th of September

I'm still mid-nightshifts, although not tonight thank god. I was watching Shrek and just dropped off to sleep - terrible, and it was only what, half past five? Shocking. I do hate it when it happens to be honest, because you don't sleep properly later on. But then my sleep pattern's shot to hell anyway!
I had rather a nice message waiting for me when I logged on to Flickr today - one of the photo's that I'd loaded up after coming back from holiday had been seen by a group admin, who attached an invite to add it to their group. Nothing so very unusual in that you might think, and indeed not, but this particular group is the "Along the Piddle Valley" group! This will really not mean a great deal to you unless you happen to be living or visiting Dorset regularly - or unless you're my age, and spent a part of your youth watching Carry On films. The very idea that there should be an actual River Piddle is just too - well it's a slight snort of amusement at least. Not exactly fall over and roll around type laugh, but a well, whatever next type squeak. And then to find out that Flickr have an entire group of people who photograph this lovely area - and if you ever make it to Dorset, seek it out is my advice, you really can find anything on Flickr. And check out the group page, it's well worth a look. Find it at http://www.flickr.com/groups/772586@N21/

My but there's been a lot on BBC 4 about this Cerne Accelerator business. It seems we've a deep mine where they're doing more or less the same thing at half the risk - they're due to fire it up in a short while, and apparently there's a reasonable chance that they might actually create a black hole on the Earth itself, which will proceed to eat us all up. And I have no doubt my tax pound will have paid for this privilege. Now look, I've spellchecked that, but it still doesn't look right to me - priviledge? privelidge? Whatever, the spellchecker insists. I've probably used the American spelling.

Yes, mm. Talking of things American, I was on a night shift when the Republicans held their convention, and I saw more of it than I cared for. I have very mixed feelings about all this - firstly, it's not my place to comment on American politics. But I'm a rational European, and I can't help but say it - how can these people, who would like to suggest to us that they're intelligent, rational people, possibly even consider voting for such an appalling woman? What woman presents herself as being fit for public office by carrying onto a stage a five month old baby with a disabling condition, to be howled at by an assembled mob - that poor child was clearly rigid in her arms, and probably terrified. Let alone what's happening to her elder daughter. It's almost as if she's exhibiting the girl as some sort of specimen that suggests - well God knows what she thinks parading this child around at what must be one of the girl's most difficult times will achieve I really can't say, because frankly it escapes me. But don't let her fool you that she's some kind of caring individual, because she clearly doesn't have the nouse to put herself into her childrens' shoes that's for sure. I'm afraid I've always been one of those people who judge by people's actions rather than what they say, or at least I try to be, but clearly this is someone who is far more me, me, me than I want to keep my children protected from the public gaze. She's entitled to her views on whatever her views are - I don't agree with them but she's entitled to them. But the way she behaves where her family are concerned puts her beyond the pale as far I would be concerned.
The other thing I'd like to know is exactly what it is that the Americans have got against being Liberal? Clearly it must have an entirely different meaning from that the word has here, but every time they speak the word, all I can think is how offensive they're being. There are entire political and philosophical traditions built on the concept of liberal and liberalism, and every time they speak the word with their clear intention to insult those who aspire to it, they proclaim their inability to be tolerant of other people's views. These politicians like to proclaim their allegiance to the American tradition, the causes of the founding of America and all that goes with it, but in more or less the same breath, they want to decry the aspirations and beliefs of a large part of the rest of the world. It almost makes me wish that the Liberals would win the next General Election (oh how I wish they could pull that off, it'd be such a slap in the face for Cameron and his ilk) and they'd have to deal with it. Head on. A Liberal Prime Minister. Ok, a LibDem Prime Minister, but what the hell.

Anyhow, on a happier note, here are this weeks' 365 days of the next year photo's. For those of you who don't know, this is a set of photo's I'm compiling which will provide a record of my 50th year - I started on the day of my birthday - so far I haven't missed a day!

As you can see it's been quite a dull week, weather wise - in fact pretty torrential rain over the last day or so. Horrible! If you want to check out the rest of the set, find it at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunspark58/sets/72157606563939959/

Thursday 28th August

I started out writing a whole screed of stuff about something that irritated me earlier today - piles of it there was, but you'll be pleased to know that I've deleted it. Now you won't have to be bored by my going on about something that doesn't bother anyone but me I expect - but it kind of leaves me at a loose end as to what to blog about!
But then I do have something to talk about. Firstly, I met up with some old friends this week - Sonia, Georgie and Vanessa. We all worked at the Box Office of the Theatre Royal, must be going on twenty years ago now. It was a nice night out, great to see them all again. It's great to catch up, find out what's going on in each other's lives.
I spent today making bookmarks for the Xmas box - I have a small box of things I've put away for the Xmas market. It's a fair part of my investment in my little micro business, and I was thinking, what am I going to do if no one buys anything this Christmas! All this credit crunch stuff, it's frightening when you think about it. Fingers crossed though.
Anyway it's going to be a busy weekend, working right the way through and a good part of next week. There's fun for you. So I thought I'd blog early for the weekend!!!!

My week in pictures!

Sunday 17th August - went over to Winsley for lunch. Mum was having a good day, and posed for a few photo's - took these on my camera phone, so the lighting's not very good!










Monday 18th August - got back from the shops to find that this parcel had arrived from Amazon!









Tuesday 19th August - A good dinner puts you in the right frame of mind for the night shifts to come - this is a lean chicken breast on a bed of rocket and baby beet leaves, with a lemon & chive dressing.







Wednesday 20th August, a little bit of sunset over Arnos Manor Park.













Thursday 21st August - a lovely day, full of bright sunshine, makes a walk to the post office much more enjoyable. This is Sandy Park Road, in Sandy Park Brislington, where my local post office is.









Friday 22nd August - woke up late following my last night shift of the week, and wasn't up to much beyond sitting and watching the Olympics whilst I made a few bagcharms!









Saturday 23rd August - I went into town as I needed to do a little shopping, and I met a friend for coffee. This is Colston Circus in the middle of Bristol and this apalling round thing with sails on it is apparently the city council's idea of a modern sculpture. I have to say I love sculpture but I think this thing is a huge disappointment.

Sunday 24th August - One of the books from my Amazon parcel! So far I've read, what three of them? I got into Henning Mankell's very good Swedish detective books whilst we were on holiday, where someone had been wonderful enough to leave Before The Frost behind for other's in need of a good book!

Saturday 16th August!

Now that exclamation mark above makes me feel I'm presenting myself here as being bright and alert, all that sort of thing, when frankly the exact opposite is true - yep, another night shift takes it's evil toll of me!

Still, that's the last of them until next week - tomorrow I'm off over for a little Sunday lunch with the family, which will get me out of bed pretty well bright and early, so that might get me back onto a normal sleeping track. That'll be just about in time for my next night shift I reckon!

Still one positive thing about doing night shifts at the moment is the grand opportunity it's given me for watching the Olympics streaming on the Beebs website. Flicks off at the touch of a button if a call comes in, yet it keeps you bright and awake when they don't. I think I've seen just about every swimming heat that you could possibly want to see - enough to suggest that swimming is having difficulties attracting people from the ethnic minorities anyhow. And dear God, at about what, 4.30, 5 am this morning I was watching what I think was a 100m heat for women, which had a British entrant in it, and the poor girl was wearing one of those bikini style running get ups. She's running in the full harsh sunlight of the Birds Nest Stadium, and for an appallingly long period of time the camera seemed to focus on this poor kids stomach muscles. Nothing wrong there, she had the requisite musculature and all that, but the white pastiness of her skin..! You'd think she'd have 10 minutes to slather on some of this self tanning moisturiser or something. It was not unlike seeing the unroasted flesh of a ready to cook chicken out there on the track rippling in protest at being prepared for the oven. I couldn't tell you who this unfortunate woman was, because not 2 minutes later she was replaced by another British athlete, similarly affected. So it could well have been some unfortunate camera aspect, but if it was, frankly I'd sue. If not, the British Olympic Association should be rushing an emergency flight of self tan spray out there, because a more unhealthy look you've never seen in your whole life. It looked like the BOA had been locking its athletes away in a cupboard for the last 12 months and not letting them out in to daylight. And given the results, I regret to say that a pact with the devil is clearly not the cause. Not in the athletics anyhow. And somehow I don't see Bradley Wiggins or any of that ilk cosying up to the parchment and blood inked quill either!

Anyhow, on a totally different subject, I've started this new set of photo's on Flickr - 365 days of the next year. The point of this is to take a photo every day of the next year, and to have a visual record from one birthday to the next - so I have a weeks worth of photo's to produce a little diary of the last week! I won't bore you by reproducing them here, but zip on over to Flickr and check them out. But I do want everyone who reads this to have a bit of a look at this:

This thing lives on the table we have out in the car park at work. It was dug up by our building manager when he was making the little garden that we have there, and it's clearly some kind of root or tuber. It's incredibly light, but tough as hardened steel - you can't force your finger nail into it, although clearly some sort of root has been broken off one end of it. It's dead, we think, because it's not shown any signs of growth. Have you ever seen anything like this before? It's got the most incredible whorling on it, almost like the whorls on fingerprints. I don't think my camera's very good at picking them up, but you can sort of see the indications of them on the photos.

If you know what this thing is, I'd love it if you could email me. There's a whole building full of workers who want to know what it is!

7th August 2008

Well, I'm taking it easy this morning because I've got a night shift tonight! Got to shoot off to work a bit earlier than that for a team meeting as well, so it's going to be a moderately busy day.
The birthday went very well - we ended up not visiting the nursing homes that we'd planned on, but no doubt that'll get itself sorted out in due course. Things usually do.
I just feel a bit cross with myself because I've had to turn down an offer of work. This is jewellery work, to make wedding favours, but the quantity is just way to much. 250 pieces - I've been working for what 8 months or so now, making stuff for Christmas and I only have 170 odd bookmarks. No way could I fit in 250 without it affecting the time that I use to make all the other stuff for the shop, and I don't want to loose that. But I hate having to turn something like that down! It's very frustrating. Mind you, making pieces in that quantity does tend to turn in to a bit of a production line, because there's not much variation in what you do. I like making the things that I do because they're varied, they depend on what beads I can buy, and how I choose to put them together. And not to mention that I've got a job to do as well!!
And talking about fitting things in, I've got to go to the supermarket as well today - I spent most of yesterday waiting for the plumber, and then working on making some bagcharms. I made six, which is good going. Mind you, I'm waiting for some new bookmarks to arrive from the supplier, I'm running out of the blanks.
I also thought, this being my 5oth year, that I would run a little project on Flickr. I thought I'd try to take a daily photo - my mother always said that I was born in time for tea, so I thought I'd try to take this photo as close to 3pm as I could. It'd make a pictorial record of the year, which'll be fun for me even if not necessarily interesting to anyone else! Click on the link over there on the left, it's called 365 days of the year, see what's there!