Monday 29 August 2011

These shoes are made for walking!

It’s time for some new walking shoes!  I have had these walking shoes since Summer 2005, just about 6 years, and I have worn them most days during that time.  They have been on the beach, and got wet and sandy, up on the downs, and got wet and muddy, and have very worn down soles. walk 004

For a bit of fun, we tried to estimate how many miles I have walked in them:

6 years

40 weeks per year(I don’t usually wear them in the summer)

7 days per week (dog walks)

1.5 hours per day @ 2mph

= approx 5,000 miles!!!

Au Revoir, old friends!  See you in the garden.

We visited Peglars, in my new favourite town, Arundel.  It’s a specialist ‘expedition’ shop (actually 3 shops) and is worth a visit just because the shop assistants really know their stuff and always have an anecdote about walking in the Lake District or Snowdonia!  These were the first pair I put on, and I was bowled over by the comfort and fit!  They feel like they are giving my feet a hug!  I’ve already road tested them, a walk up the downs yesterday morning, and into Worthing town centre last night.  Wonder if these will last 5,000 miles?

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Saturday 27 August 2011

Radcliffe and Maconie

As you know I am an avid Radio 2 fan.  I listen on and off all day, but my particular favourite time has been the mid evening slot, which was taken by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie for 4 years. 

 

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www.guardian.co.uk

I loved their intellectual blokish style.  I loved the music they played and their northern accents!  They are both incredibly knowledgeable about music, so I loved all their anecdotes.  I used to listen to them between 8 and 9pm while in my craft room, usually scrapbooking. Sadly they have relocated to an afternoon slot at BBC 6 Music, which is a digital station and not so easy for me to listen to as I only have a cheap old digital radio and I can’t seem to tune it in.  I tried to listen to their programme on the iplayer on my computer, but they have gone a little less mainstream and I don’t know any of the music they play now.

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Anyway, I heard an interview with Stuart Maconie recently about a book he had written called ‘Hope and Glory’.  It sounded really good so I ordered it straight away.  And I can confirm that it is a really good read.  Stuart takes each decade of the last century and picks a UK event to base that chapter on.  He then writes around the subject, the history behind the event, the culture of the time, and he visits the place where the event took place, and the book becomes a travelogue.  In his own words: “ it’s a travel book with a historical dimension, or maybe a history book with a travel element. Or maybe something different, a social and cultural wander through a century of British history and its town and cities. “ 

I loved his travel writing.  Often his thoughts and opinions would ring true!  At one point he visits a small village (one of the thankful villages – so called after WW1 because all their soldiers came home, not one was killed) and picks up the village newsletter.  That’s just what I like to do!

I found it a really interesting read, with some great insights into British culture and history.  His writing is brilliant, oh how I wish I could write like that!  I have one of his other books in my pile to read next.

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During the interview it was mentioned that his radio partner, Mark Radcliffe had written a  similar book called ‘Reelin’ in the years’.  Well of course I had to read this one too!  Mark chooses a song for each year of his life and writes a chapter – sometimes about the music, sometimes more about what he was doing in that year, sometimes what was happening generally.  So another book about culture, autobiography and music all rolled into one.  I recognised many of the early songs, but the more recent ones not so much.  I’m not really into all the different genres of popular music, like indie rock, garage etc.  I love the northern-ness of Mark Radcliffe.  I love his chatty style, and how much he knows about the music he writes about.

2 great reads that I highly recommend.

One thing I have realised – partly through reading these books, partly through listening to their radio shows is that the music I like is pretty mainstream!  I always liked to think that I preferred something with a bit more to it than mainstream.  OK so I’m not really into Kylie, Rhianna and boy bands particularly.  But I don’t know much about the different genres.  Maybe it’s time to experiment a bit more!

Sunday 21 August 2011

Week in the Life–The Album

This is the first time I have joined in with Ali Edwards project, Week in the Life.  I’m happy to say it’s all complete nowSmile

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I am not a digital scrapper!  I have far too much love of paper, scissors and glue!  So of course, my Week in the Life album is all paper scrapbooked.  I decided to go with a 12 x 12 American Craft 3 ring album.  This is my album of choice now, and I love to do a 12 x 12 page followed by a divided page protector.  I always print my photos at 4 x 6, so this makes it simple.  No cropping or printing out at different sizes.  Another way to keep it simple was to use just 1 pack of paper.  In my stash I found a complete pack of Echo Park ‘Life is Good’, which was perfect in it’s bright zingy colours, ‘life is good logo’ and house motifs (as my week was very home based).

So last week, I took every spare moment to scrap and got this project finished!  I simplified it even more by using sketches from Shimelle and Page maps.  I tried not to be too fussy about my pages and considered them ‘finished’ rather than mess about with too many embellishments.

Here’s some of my favourite pages:week in the life 25 july 396week in the life 25 july 398week in the life 25 july 402week in the life 25 july 404week in the life 25 july 405week in the life 25 july 408

For the journaling I used 4 x 6 Kraft cardstock.  I had completed Ali’s project sheet each day.  (Luckily the timing was great, as this coincided with the first week of ‘It’s about Time’, a time management class I was taking on Simplify101, so the logging of time could be used for 2 purposes!) I tried to record certain facts each day, such as weather, my weight, mileage of the car, tide times.  Also a few news headlines for each day.  So for each day in my album I wrote 2 journalling cards, one called ‘facts’ and one called ‘gossip’.

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I have started a list of top 3’s for the week, such as the pop charts, top selling cars etc.  I have also recorded prices of petrol, bread and milk.  I have 1 spare journaling card that I think I’ll put some facts about this town.  Finally as I am avid BBC Radio 2 listener I am including this week’s playlist. 

So the mudane facts of my everyday life have been captured for posterity! What a great project!  Thanks so much to Ali Edwards for the inspirationSmile

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Transported back…..

Listening to radio 2 this morning through headphones as I walked the dog, I was transported right back to 1976 with this song:

 

I met Maurice in 1976, it was a really hot summer and we really did ‘put our blue jeans on’ and ‘go motorbike riding’!

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Not much has changed, except the bike!:

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Tuesday 16 August 2011

Shimelle’s weekend online challenges

Here’s a couple of scrapbook pages I have done for my Week in the Life album (more on that later) inspired by Shimelle’s online challenges

Sketch of the week here

I’, afraid my photos on this one are a bit weird, but that’s Week in the Life for you!

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3 is a magic number challenge here

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I’ve included 3 light blue word stickers, magical, silly and unique, all great words to describe Merlin!

Monday 15 August 2011

Start here….

This is one of the challenges on www.shimelle.com weekend scrapbook fun!  I needed to make several birthday cards so decided to use the sketch from the start here…. challenge and see how different I could make them

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Which one do you like best?  My favourite is the 3rd one with the vintage lady in her swimwear with the parasol.  That’s a stamp from Oxford Impressions.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

10 on the 10th–10 photos from the British Superbikes at Brands Hatch

 

We woke up to a rainy morning, but still decided to set off on the bike to Brands hatch Motor Racing Circuit in Kent to watch the British Superbikes racing.  We parked next to just a few other bikes!  (In fact, there were far less bikes than there used to be 25 or 30 years ago)

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First stop was the motorbike BMX!  Team Bolddog do fantastic BMX style tricks on motorbikes!  Very exciting to watch!  But… unfortunately, one of them crashed, which was very unlucky for 2 members of the crowd who happened to be standing in the wrong place!  Hope they are OK

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Paddock Hill Bend is a great place to watch the bikes!  It’s the first bend after the start line.

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Which leads into Hailwood Hill after which is the hairpin Druid’s Bend.  This is a 125cc race, some of the competitors are only 14 or 15!

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Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne won the first BSB race, and here he is on the podium.  Sorry about the chain fence!

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The start of the British Supersport race.  Sadly this was restarted after a nasty crash, and then there was another serious crash in the restarted race.  (Secretly we all like to see them crash!  Best if they are not hurt badly though!)

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All around the track are stalls selling all sorts of motorbike accoutrements, all with very loud logos of course!

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And then it started raining!

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This is the final bend Clark Curve, right after Clearways.

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A great view looking back towards the start of the last BSB race.

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Monday 8 August 2011

Sunshine!

At my local crop the ‘page of the day’ was ‘SUN’.  Here’s my 2 pages:

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First a really simple page, just sticking the photos onto a piece of patterned paper, a title and a few buttons!  Photos of Lucy were taken just a couple of weeks ago.

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Second page, a holiday from way back in 2002.  We went to Finland to see a friend who lives in Helsinki, then drove up north and stayed in a ‘proper’ log cabin by this lake.  Although there were other cabins around, we were far enough away from them to not notice them.  It was so peaceful.  The boat came with the cabin and the kids loved it!  I stayed up one night to see the stars, but it never got truly dark!