BY THE SEASIDE

2011-10-11T19:37:00.002+01:00

Back among the living!

2010-11-14T17:42:00.001Z

I've been going through a bout for depression for a few weeks. The first signs for me are sleeping too much, losing interest in things I usually love doing and then cutting myself off from friends and family. I've lived with it for years, since I was a teenager and it's sort of manageable, if grim at times.

So I visited the doc, who told me off for going cold turkey on the Prozac and self-medicating with hippy SAD lamps! Feeling a lot better now and waking up so normal service about to resume..............

Dublin for the day

2010-09-25T13:35:00.007+01:00

We got cheap flights from Ryanair to fly to Dublin and back. Only £10 return and we were most indignant when they charged us airport fees! We paid a grand total of £20 each for the return flights......When you consider I pay £8.60 return to travel from Weston to Bristol by train,it was a bit of a bargain.

I've never flown Ryanair before and have heard the horror stories so I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, there was a bit of a scrabble to get on first and as the seats aren't numbered and allocated, you just have to sit where there's a free seat, there's no guarantee you'll sit with your friends. We were dotted all around the plane, but it was a short flight, so it didn't really matter. There wasn't much leg room but the seats were comfortable.

When we got to Dublin we got the shuttle bus right outside the airport to O'Connell St. We walked past The Spire, which is incredibly tall new monument, built to replace Nelson's Pillar, destroye by the IRA. Sorry, I couldn't fit it all in one shot!

Here's the bottom:

And here's the top!

Then we had breakfast in Bewley's in Grafton St, famous for being the hang-out of Irish writers, like James Joyce, Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett and it's mentioned in Joyces Dubliners. The original decor with stained glass windows is still there and they do a good full Irish breakfast.....Potato farl, bacon, sausage, tomato,black and white pudding, mushrooms, poached egg, toast, orange juice and tea. OK, I was a wimp and didn't eat my black and white puddings........

Then we walked around the shops, all to the sound of Irish music from the gift shops, and passed the statue of Molly Malone, also known to the locals as he Trollop with the Scallops............

Then we took a boat trip on the Liffey,


Ha'penny Bridge

Samuel Beckett Bridge.

They say they make Guiness with water straight out of the Liffey, going by the colour, I think they're right....

There was an art installation by Fergal McCarthy on the Liffey. It is Monopoly style houses and hotels, which light up at night, it's a comment on the homeless problem in ireland and the vast amounts of money speculated by the banks on housing projects which now stand empty.

And here's the culprits, the AIB, whose speculating in property led to the banking crisis and a bail out by the Irish taxpayers.

The we walked back along the Liffey by the very moving memorial to those who board ships to America to try to escape the potato famine.

So, by then, our legs were hurting and we were all sight-seeing'd out so we adjourned to a pub in Temple Bar. This bit is full of pubs, clubs and restaurants and is the centre of night life in Dublin. We had a pub meal, a few drinks, and we all had some Guinness, even those of us who don't drink it, all to the tune of a live Irish band. Yes, we did make it back on the plane..........

My favourite song to get you in the mood!

The Donkey Parade at Weston-super-Mare

2010-08-30T17:28:00.000+01:00

It was a great idea in theory. Local business's paid £500 each to decorate and sponsor resin donkeys which were to be turned into little works of art and placed in the streets around the town.

There have been similar projects with lions in Bath, dragons in Newport, rhinos
in Chester, elephants in Norwich and penguins in Liverpool.

They are all street art and suffered some vandalism but in Weston it's been so extreme that they had to remove the donkeys from the streets for their own safety. On the first week-end they were put out they were attacked. One was stolen and later dumped with it's legs ripped off, another was thrown in a skip and another had it's tail cut off.

The poor donkeys had to go into hiding, some went home to their sponsors, others are cowering in shop windows until they may a brief appearance on the pier to be auctioned off for charity.

hiding in Marks and Spencers

This one went to Specsavers.............

lurking in a department store

And taking refuge in the local newspaper office...................

National Garden Schemes Yellow Book

2010-07-19T02:12:00.000+01:00

It's the NGS, the National Gardens Scheme.

Volunteers offer to open their gardens for the public to visit for a small entrance fee which goes to charity. They produce the yellow book with all the gardens and dates they are open. It's a big honour to be chosen because they get lots of people wanting to do it but only select a few. They come and inspect your garden and are on the look-out for unusual plants, designs etc.

My friend Patsy from Weston has been chosen this year, She's got an amazing garden, like a topical jungle , full of plants form her native Jamaica. She had her first open day today, complete with scones and tea!

They featured her garden in the local paper.

Patsy's Garden

These open ideas are a good idea for a day out, if you love gardens, have a look in the Yellow Book for local ones.

Yellow Book

The grey vote....is it a good thing?

2010-04-05T13:09:00.001+01:00

Research from Age UK shows that four out of 10 potential voters will be older than 55. And in more than 300 constituencies, including 94 marginal seats in England, Scotland and Wales the older voters will be in the majority.

The over 55s tend to turn out more to actually vote than the younger generation and 319 out of the 632 potential seats could be affected, with the older generation having more influence in this election than ever before.

But is that a good thing? Research shows older voters will be concerned about care, age discrimination, the NHS and pensions, all valid points, but they aren't the only issues, are they?

Is it right that one age group should have so much control? What about things like education, job creation and housing? Is there a danger that older voters won't rate these as so important?

It could be we get more selfish as we get older and don't look to the future of the current and next generation, who, after all, are the one's still out there creating and earning the wealth and paying taxes.

And older people aren't going to be sent out to fight and die in wars but have an interest in maintaining the status quo and safety at home, so will they be happier to send young people away to fight?

As our population gets more top heavy you could get a situation where the young are working much harder, with little hope of owning a home or building a pension, while the older, retired folk who already have these things but are in the majority when it comes to voting, decide how the youngsters hard earned tax money is spent, i.e for the benefit of the elderly!

Chantel sings Ave Maria

2010-03-06T18:46:00.000Z

This is my friends daughter singing Ave Maria She sings at weddings, charity dinners etc and has just recorded a CD. She got rejected for 'Britains got Talent' and i could never understand why, i think she has a lovely, classical voice.

Chantel sings

Call me Dave

2010-02-23T18:13:00.000Z

Just a though, is "call me Dave" so critical of Gordon Browns reputation as a bully because they are used to a much higher standard of bullying in Eton?

Make Bird cake

2010-02-03T11:38:00.000Z

I've got a tribe of sparrows squabbling in my garden who would eat a dozen fat balls a day if I put them out. I've got one of those wire feeders but the commercial food blocks to put in them are expensive so to atone for muttering about air pistols when the dawn chorus starts, I make them some myself.

I keep a plastic container that is the right size, and melt some suet or lard in it in the microwave.

You shouldn't use vegetable fat because it doesn't contain enough energy

Then I stir them in a plate of goodies the RSPB say they are allowed, mostly wild bird seed, with a few oats, a little bit of grated cheese and a few soaked raisins

I let it cool, then put it in the fridge to get really hard

Then I take it out as a block

Hey Presto, Birdie cake, (takes about five minutes!)

Audio clip of Michael Jacksons ghost

2009-12-17T21:51:00.000Z

Millions of viewers are claiming to have seen and heard Michael Jacksons ghost on a documentary on Neverlands on the Larry King show.

If you listen carefully, you can definitely hear something on th clip. You need your speakers on.

Music from the grave?

Sprouts for Christmas

2009-12-15T19:32:00.000Z

A game to play sproutifarts

Murder at Christmas

2009-12-12T12:04:00.000Z

Well, that was the most surreal evening I have had in a long time!

It was a murder mystery evening with the Red Hat Ladies.

If I tell you that our hosts were female impersonators
Miss Janet Mapletree and her friend Lady Agatha and that the scene was set in Pokingham-softly -on- the- Wold, you'll get the general tone of the evening!

It was held in the old building of a private girls school, which has now closed. And that was creepy in itself because they haven't updated it at all, class-rooms, office, dining room, even the loos, are exactly as they were when the school closed.

It was a strange meal served on Spode plates, I had a long grey hair in my coffee......

It wasn't a fully acted out murder mystery. The two "ladies" told us the story of a crime they had solved and there were pictures of the suspects all around the room. Then they got some of us to re-enact the crimes, Crimewatch style. They took you aside and told you what to do. There were clues all through the conversation and all of the victims were found clutching a letter or note containing more clues.

I got to be the vicar, strangled with some garden twine off the bottom of the gardeners trousers.... My death groans were worthy of an Oscar. Here are some of the ladies getting into it. Anyone who says they can't tell which one is the drag Queen gets a slap.

After a bottle of red it was a good laugh, in a very camp and Franke Howerd sort of way!

ATCs

2009-12-05T15:54:00.000Z

These are little works of art that artists swap among themselves. but after that anything goes. The etiquette is that you never sell them. Some of them are really fine art and I've always been interested in art that gets shared around so I had a go for a swap on Swap-bot. They have to be a standard size with your name etc on the back but after that anything goes.

This is my first attempt.

Snowflakes

2009-10-31T18:08:00.000Z

I've been making these snowflakes out of beads for a swap on Swap-bot. It's fun to do and you can use up all your old bead oddments.....

Selling the car

2009-10-24T13:17:00.000+01:00

So, the old car went wrong and we wanted to sell it. We thought we'd try "Webuyanycar.com" because, well, they said they buy any car. What an odd experience that was.

You go to their website and put in your postcode and they tell you your nearest branch. Ours was in Bristol. then you phone and make an appointment. When we got there, it wasn't a garage, or place of business, but a rented room in a conference centre. The people outside looked pretty disgruntled and were driving away in their cars, so they obviously hadn't sold them

We'd looked up the price of our car on Auto Trader and they said £1,800. obviously, that wasn't taking off the cost of the work it needed doing to it.

So, we waited for our turn and a kid salesman type in a suit, who obviously knew nothing about cars, had a quick look, (didn't even lift the bonnet) and offered us £400 quid, minus £20 for their processing.

Now bear in mind, at this stage we hadn't told him about the work the car would need doing on it, he was basing that estimate just on a quick glance assuming it was in running order and trying to offer us less than a third of the actual street value. I suppose they must trade on people being desperate for the cash. In fact, that was probably all the car was worth but we were so indignant about the attempt to rip us off that we said no. At no time did they ask about the mechanics of the car, just not interested.

And now, exactly a week later, they have phoned us back and asked what is the minimum price we would take. I guess that's how they work? offer a ridiculously low price in the hope some may accept and then negotiate later with the others, in the hope the 7 days in between will make you more anxious to sell?

We said £750 and he said he would call back in 15 minutes, but he hasn't. Maybe the price is still too high for them but I think it's more likely they allow another 'delay' in order to make us more likely to get anxious and accept their next offer.

We are just going to take it t a local garage, tell them what's wrong with it and accept what they give us. Should have done that in the first place but we thought this lot might be quicker.

Upcycled crafts

2009-10-14T20:12:00.000+01:00

The buzz in the craft world at the moment is upcycling. That is making your crafts from stuff that would usually end up at the tip. Of course that's not new. Us crafters have always re-used, like our patchwork and rag rugs.

But the fashion now is for your crafts to proudly show their humble origins. Cereal boxes, drinks cans etc all proudly showing their labels in the finished product. And very good they can be too. This robot with re-cycled teeth is great tooth bot .

But you know I'm not as committed to going green and doing it myself as I should be, and I have been known to venture into Marks and Spencers.

So I have to say that some of the creations can look a bit post-apocalypse. They remind me of that settlement in Waterworld after the flooding...

You get: Capri-Sun handbags,
starburst wrapper bracelets,
crisp keyrings
and
purses made out of milk cartons

And if you think I'm being bitchy, meet the people on this site and their comments on the worst craft for sale on Etsy.But be warned, some of the content is very adult...... Regretsy

Hope they never find one of mine

One of my Bookcrossing releases has been found!

2009-10-06T19:21:00.000+01:00

I like the bookcrossing site. You register books on the site, get an individual number, then leave them in a public place and hope that whoever picks them up will go to the site and record their find and leave them somewhere else, for the next reader.

I haven't been on there for years, but I've been having a sort out and I've given loads of books to the charity shops and jumble sales so I thought I'd bookcross a few.

So I looked at my profile......and someone has found one of my books!
It was Mr Murder by Dean Koontz. I left it on the train at Bristol in May 2006, and a lady found it in a second-hand shop in Maesteg Mid Glamorgan in August 2008!

I wonder who read it in between? She said she will pass it on to her daugter, who will pass it on to a friend. It's the first find I've ever had recorded.

The Midnight Beach Walk

2009-09-13T14:11:00.000+01:00

Phew, I'm knackered... I did the Midnight Beach Walk to support the Weston Hospice last night. It's an annual 5 mile sponsored walk along the seafront and there were 1000 walkers, all women.

We were lucky with the weather and it was a great atmosphere. Our local Soul group, The Orphans played for free and there were fire jugglers and entertainers.

We all threw ourselves into some pre-walk bopping

A lot of people were walking in memory of someone and the route was lighted by lanterns with the names of loved ones on them. It was very poignant.

As we got going, it was very dark, we needed those torches and flashing bunny ears.

Did I make the five miles? Of course I did, don't be so damn cheeky! look they gave me a medal to proove it........

Wild and windy in Weston.

2009-08-30T19:30:00.000+01:00

The wind was blowing up a gale at high tide yesterday. Everyone abandoned the beach and headed for the shops, but the sea was amazing.

Well, this blog thing is a whole new world.

2009-08-27T15:28:00.000+01:00

How does this look. Am I doing it right?
I'm going to play with the toys now