Unexpected places

Last weekend I spent in Norwich, East Anglia and I didn't realise how my interest in the oddities of my surroundings had crept up on me. Instead of the usual snapshots of the castle - which we went to and enjoyed in the shade too on this 30 degrees day...instead of the views of this lovely market town...what did I take pictures of?

tree art

These trees are wrapped in paper depicting different aspects of the Olympics. It sparked a long debate on "What is art?" as we walked along! I worried about the trees being damaged.

We went to the castle and museum. Want to see the lovely tapestries...? Ha..no here are the sinks in the ladies wash rooms:

poetic sink

The wording on the sink was "It is always pleasant to sail with a light breeze in these narrow waterways where you must handle your boat as if it were a thing of silk and threads". Peter Henry Emerson. Loved it but not quite sure it was appropriate ...still more so than these shoes.

shoe pictures in sink

graffiti wall

Later we went for a walkabout - listened to buskers, sat in the park but then I noticed this which brought a smile to my lips.

If I had had my camera with me in the evening there would have been Banksy style pictures too but I will have to go back for those.

What I like is the unexpectedness of things. Just when you think you know what to expect something comes along and pulls you up short. Great eh?!

101 Things To Do before I die

Staying at a cottage on holiday recently I picked up a paperback called 101 Things To Do Before You Die by Richard Horne. Clearly I am the wrong demographic. This book is for 17 year old lads. It has 99 totally self centred target activities and perhaps two altruistic ones. You know the kind of thing ...bungee jumping, get a tattoo, get arrested, master poker and win big in casino. Want to know about the exception? Save someone's life...
Not saying that a bit of adventure isn't called for...had always wanted to go up in a balloon and managed to do that this year...But how's this - the only entry under "nature" was to see a volcano erupting...

tamed rain forest

But what would be appropriate for a woman in the last ten years of working life? I started to think. I am not interested in the boys own things though I would keep saving someone's life of course. I haven't got even the tiniest adrenalin gene. My list would contain:

Take part in a river clean up
Donate blood 50 times...12 more to go...had so many interruptions
Stay in a yurt ...but there would have to be a mattress!
Stay in an ice hotel
Snorkel on a coral reef...
Explore a rain forest
Sign up 5 more people to give blood
Sign up 5 bone marrow donors ...it means chatting
up under 40 year old men who are really in short supply....
Get involved in a woodland preservation project
Help create a community garden
Train to be a recycling volunteer
Inspire people to get on the internet and change their lives
Sing a solo and feel good about it
Find a new craft and really explore it...how many things have
I picked up and discarded over the years
Acquire a regular drawing habit

Could I really come up with many more?? Go on tell me yours....

Five books that have made an impression

I’ve just had a blogging Booker Award presented to me by Rosalind from Rosalind Adam is writing in the rain . My task is to list out my top five favourite books of all time and then pass the award on to five more bloggers. Ho hum...so many to choose...and what comes to mind are the ones that have left a real imprint on my memory.

Let's start with Annie Proulx's Shipping News - fantastic gritty descriptions. Forget the film which was a very poor rendition. read the book!

Got to have Rose Tremain's - well would love to choose one of her really intricate and deep books but I loved "The Road Home" for its perspective of east european migrant workers.

Not all men - next is William Trevor's "Felicia's Journey" - a rare full length novel as opposed to short stories - also brilliant. The film version of this with Bob Hoskins is surprisingly good too. 

Oh another man - Jim Crace and "Being Dead" - gruesome in some ways and poignant in another - this traces the life of a couple back from their dead bodies on the beach as they putrify. Is better than it sounds..

Finally - and again not a laugh a minute but it has to be Manil Suri's "The Death of Vishnu" - what an insight into status and servitude. A must read book.

I'm going to pass this award on to the following bloggers:

[Apologies if you've already received one.]

Ron Easton Dads Unlimited

Susan Gorley

Debra Harris Johnson

D G Hudson

and Dee

A lunch break boost

It's funny how days can unexpectedly blossom even when it does not seen to be a day for anything out of the ordinary. Take the other day...I had a long, most of the day, meeting in the city of London...near Old Street to anyone who knows the capital. I arrived having had the singing "Why aren't you all smiling?" train attendant on the way down.

mural 

Zebra burger anyone?

painted street furniture

I like going to new parts of London and this is a business area by day and an upwardly mobile residential area - on the whole - by night. So cut to lunch break and I was excited to see we were in a food market, but not just any old market....such lunch time choice. Not just a cheese sandwich for me...what about zebra burgers? or wildebeest? Mine's a Turkish wrap to be eaten at our rendezvous - a shady park cum grave yard where the last remains of William Blake lie. On the way there I was excited to see street art on a gable end and then another of my favourites - a series of dull old grey electrical boxes enlivened with an amusing painted illustration telling a story. I had left my camera and iPad behind but colleagues had their faithful smartphones so these shots are thanks to them.

Once in the park I stopped again to look at an insect hotel thoughtfully placed there for our tiniest London residents and surrounded by ancient gravestones! Everything seemed designed to amuse me!

Finally I was making my way back to the station when I wish I could have snapped the concentration on the face of an orange clad, shaven monk choosing a mobile phone in a shop. I could go on... but this is a note to self - never go anywhere without some kind of camera!

insect heaven

iPad drawing heaven

I am not any sort of artist but I enjoy the idea of being able to sketch and every time I go on holiday I pack a sketch book and a selection of pencils believing that this time I will fit in a bit of drawing. It is a vain hope as  usually I manage very little in the end.

Having just been loaned an iPad as part of my digital inclusion work and I have to report that I am really excited! I have discovered Penultimate, a drawing app that means not only do you have your games, books to read, music, cameras, the news, shops, maps  and all the information you would like, you also have the chance to sketch without all the palava of the equipment. First off, this time round, whilst waiting for the Eurostar train I was able to sketch these two gentlemen - and the joy of it is that no one suspects you are sketching them...well you could be playing Sudoku couldn't you, like my partner was on his tablet?

Waiting for the Eurostar

This is certainly providing new exercise for my little finger since for me that is what works the best!

self portrait sketch

On the train I started drawing a Chinese man asleep across the aisle but then I decided to try importing a photo of myself [that I took using the reverse mirror on the iPad] and sketching that - a lightning sketch you understand and not really a likeness. Then I thought about the photos stored already on the iPad and decided to try sketching my Mum - having run out of inspiration on the train - backs of heads being the main view.

Quick sketch 

Back home now what am I up to? [ as my son would say!] - well exploring the delights of combining drawing and photos some more, and playing Draw Something - that great virtual pictionary game - with a couple of friends almost as addictively. I love it, and so does my little finger!!

on the iPad

I'll just get my cardy

The great thing about blogging is that sometimes it forces you to look at a subject in a bit more detail and in this case helps to clear up a niggling unexplained difference between men and women.

All my life I have had a sense of being patronised for being just that bit colder than my male partner. Mostly this manifests itself when on daily walks for which I might don three or four layers to a male equivalent of one. Or on coming down from a few hours at the computer and shivering in the kitchen as I eat a meal. The ever present riposte about “learned response” - one jibe - or the non verbal eye rolling at the sight of the cardy. The sense that it is wimpishness or a “weakness” [my word] or even for some the female equivalent of “man flu”. It is so irritating. So what is going on here??

male/female responses to temperature cartoon

Perhaps if I had read more magazines in my life I might have picked up that this is a classic relationship battleground. I would have read that science offers a simple physiological explanation and that there is a well researched set of differences between men and women that affect the way we regulate our body temperatures. More than one factor is involved here:

·         It seems that women conserve more heat around their core organs, which means less heat circulates throughout the rest of their body.

·         Women generally have a higher percentage of fatty tissue than men, and although fat tends to preserve heat well this is offset by the fact that women are also generally less muscular than men. Muscle creates body heat during exercise.

·        The blood vessels in women appear to constrict as a result of temperature sooner, and to a higher degree than men.

·         Women’s temperature regulation fluctuates enormously during the menstrual cycle.

·         Women are generally smaller than men. With a smaller size but a consequential larger surface area, women lose heat more quickly than men.

So I hope in my household I have put to bed the learned response theory and we can carry on with our individually regulated electric blankets and mismatched walking gear without further comment. Yes? Thought not!!

Digital inclusion - we all have a role

I started blogging exactly a year ago and my motivation at the time was to get a feel for what it was like to blog because of my job. I suppose it is time to come clean ... I work in what is grandly and sometimes confusingly called "digital inclusion" and for my job this is all about people in later life embracing computer based technology that we all take for granted  [I work for a national organisation called Age UK but this blog is entirely my own views]. There is a worrying statistic that tells us that in the UK there are more than 5 million people over 65 who have never used the internet.

New laptop and printer for my Mum

For people like us ...me writing this and you reading it ...it is inconceivable to think of life now without the internet and all it gives us. Life is swiftly moving to a world that is digital by default. Accessing even the most basic service is likely to be online. We all know that there are enormous cost savings to be made online. Friends to be made and family to keep up with. A world of interesting stories, opportunities to keep your brain awake. You name it and it is there for the taking.

Some people take a lot of convincing and we know what the stated reasons for non take up are but I suspect we will never unearth the real ones that run a little deeper and will never be revealed in surveys. People cannot always be honest with themselves so a survey doesn't stand much chance. Successful projects working on this with older people tend to create low stress, non competitive, sociable environments. People can need to repeat training several times and not feel uncomfortable about it. Some people enjoy being supported by their peers and some work well with young people. Skype is an enormous pull. Touch screen technology has added another dimension to training of course. I wanted a photo so here are some biscuits I made recently for an event - can you guess what they are?

biscuits

It is what has been termed the "hard to reach" that is the challenge. Isolated people whose only companion is the TV for instance. And here is where you come in ...we have all helped others with computers and mobile phones at some point so we are all experts in our way ...how would you reach out and involve these older people and enhance their lives like it has enhanced yours? And as two thirds of bloggers seem to be from the USA what are the experiences there? I'd love to know.