This view just made me smile. Seen in London on a warm sunny day. Have a great weekend everyone.
Arilx
The life and adventures of a mildly dotty old bird.
Arilx
An obsession with cheap clothes which are only worn for a nanosecond before being discarded without thought has led to the modern phenomenon of "fast fashion" and it literally is costing the earth. Thankfully not everyone is willing to let this non sustainable situation continue and some are already taking positive steps forward to show that there are other ways to make garments which don't come at such a price.
One such fashion designer is Bethany Williams who graduated in 2017. She has set out to prove that things can be done differently and works in collaboration with different marginalised sectors of society to design and create clothes that use recycled materials. This works on so many levels as it brings about change via environmental and social development. Her work is bright, sassy and uses a fabulous range of techniques including weaving, knitting, patchwork, embroidery and patchwork. Everything is handmade right down to the buttons. During the pandemic she turned her hand to making scrubs for those working on the frontline.
I was lucky enough to catch her work being exhibited at the Design Museum where I popped in for a quick visit on my lunchbreak from the London show we were working at last weekend. Truly inspirational. We need more people like Bethany pushing forwards.
Arilx
"Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion."
Spike Milligan.
He always had such a way with words that man! It made me inwardly titter when I read that quote.
Arilx
Roundabout art....lousy photos, but we were travelling round the roundabouts at the time so 'twas to be expected!
The Shoreham Sheep. These were put there in 2011 to promote the South Downs National Park. Now you would think that half a dozen green plastic sheep wouldn't trouble anyone, but concerned drivers kept reporting that there were escaped sheep in the middle of the roundabout. In a bid to put people's minds at ease the council placed yellow plastic barriers round them, but it didn't work. In the end they were removed for a few weeks and then reappeared alongside a new obviously metal shepherd designed by Danny McBride and there they stay much admired as we all fly past.
Hope you all have a great weekend....we shall be working. I might have hatched an escape plan though for a couple of hours....watch this space😉
Arilx
May is a very busy time for me birthday wise.....I've got two family members plus a friend with birthdays who I like to buy a small something for and friends getting married....add in the big upcoming London show and with the Morris season now in full swing it was all starting to feel slightly manic. I shouldn't have been, but I'll freely admit that I was quite relieved that yesterday's house sparkling client has gone on holiday which left me with a day off work. All of a sudden I could see my way through to catching up and getting everything done on time. Mission accomplished. Of course in between searching out some locally made goodies I wove in a little bit of adventuring to keep me amused😀
My first stop of the day was to drop off some bits with my friend E and whilst there I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to drop into the nearby microbrewery. It's rather charmingly called the Kissingate Brewery and does a good range of ales....I have a Dad and a son who both enjoy craft beers so I was always going to be on a winner there wasn't I. The owner kindly let me have a quick look around and showed me this rather fantastic model of a kissing gate and a crow on it which her son had made for her.
It was never going to go down as an average Saturday morning in town when you encounter this huge yellow being.....
I am reliably informed that it is a transformer which made a great deal more sense when I later found out that there was a Comic con event being held. The weirdest thing was that it kept bopping away to Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up"!
Mind you whom am I to talk as I spent most of the day wandering around with this jammed on my face...😆
At long last the Horsham Day of Dance has returned after three years. It was sooo good to catch up with many dancing friends from the Morris world....we all retired to a local watering hole afterwards and had an impromptu couple of hours of beers, chats and each side taking a turn. I met some lovely new people and forged new connections with other sides which we intend to turn into shared events further down the line. Please allow me the liberty of sharing a couple of snaps of other teams we shared our stands with. Despite my best intentions I forgot to take any more [bad blogger!] but I was having way too much fun!!
On Monday I joined my friends for a belated Beltaine jaunt up to the woods for a spot of magic and making merry. Walking home I admired the freshness of the sharp green Spring growth and then noticed these....the chartreuse [I can't tell you how many years I've been waiting to use that word on this blog😁] flowers of the English Oak. In all my born years I've never seen them before. So the old adage that every day's a school day certainly did ring true! Anyway with whatever you're up to this weekend I hope you have a splendid time. I shall be jangling the old Morris bells in the sunshine and there might be a bit of ale supping going on at some point during the proceedings! Thankfully it's in the town so we'll be on foot.
Arilx
Always on the lookout for things that inspire me I was pleased to see that some of the BT boxes have been turned into pieces of art. So much cheerier than the bog standard olive [or goose turd green as the Tudors called it!] paint job they usually get. Since then I've found out that Chester launched a mini mural trail in March and these are three of them.
I'd love to see more of this sort of thing being rolled out in other places. Brighton has some incredible decorated street furniture.
Arilx
After two years of waiting, TYM finally graduated from Chester uni on Friday. I kept my fingers crossed and kept a little of myself back just in case it got cancelled. He's already had his Masters one postponed once this year. However, with a great sigh of relief it went ahead on what was a beautifully sunny and warm Spring day. We travelled up the day before and took him out for a delayed celebratory meal at the Frodsham pub where we'd taken him the night before he started back in 2017. It seemed an appropriate way to bookend his whole experience and we owed him one. The poor lad got his degree during the first lockdown and all the restaurants were shut....a takeaway from the local Chinese had to suffice, but we were blooming grateful to be able to do that at least.
Now our adult son has inherited his parents dislike of the being centre of attention and he's not very keen on having lots of photos taken either [that comes straight from his Mother...unless we're in fancy dress and then we don't give a monkeys!]. The uni had provided two huge deckchairs and the big orange Chester lettering which the others attending were having great fun with. However, as I suspected, it really wasn't his scene nor was having any official ones taken either.
Arilx
We've only put the trap out twice this month so this is our new one. Called Maiden's Blush I'm guessing because of the rosy coloured stripe across its wings.
Alexander Neckham [the then abbot] claimed in the 13th century that way back in the 6th century due to wars between the Saxons and Britons the city of Cirencester was besieged for six years, but the Saxons couldn't break it. That is until one day when their leader noticed the many sparrows who spent their days feeding in the fields and their nights roosting in the thatch rooves. Apparently [this is now beginning to sound less and less plausible] the Saxons managed to catch all the spadgers and tie burning straw to their tails so that their return to the city dwellings would set everything ablaze and force the Britons to flee. It makes for a dramatic story🔥🔥 irrespective of whether this medieval account is true or not.
Our visit to Cirencester thankfully went off without a hitch and not a hint of drama. We were staying a few minutes outside the city centre so we able to leave the car at the hotel and just walk. It is by far and away my favourite way to travel with much better opportunities to snoop about😆
We started off along Gloucester Street which is full of lots of lovely old buildings all in that gorgeous creamy stone that the area is known for. The cottage below is called "Tatty Marsh" and was built in 1796,. It's one of a series of cottages supposedly built for the "drowners" who were the men who looked after the water meadows. It's all very tastefully done with greys, sage greens, creams and then one person went rogue and thought s*d that for a game of soldiers I'm having a pink door....I just love it when people do that! Further along I stuck my big snout up an alley and found the rather attractive hidden view.
On our way into the town centre we passed these arches which are the remains of the chantry and hospital of St John the Evangelist. It was set up by Henry I in 1133 as a place for travellers to rest and the destitute to live. It eventually came to be owned by the local abbey and as is always the way, it was brought to its knees by the Henry VIII's reforms in 1539.
This view just made me smile. Seen in London on a warm sunny day. Have a great weekend everyone. Arilx