Tamsin's Blog

This blog post is what I would like to say to the man in the car who my daughter and I encountered this morning on our bike ride to her school. She's only nine years old. She likes to ride her bike to school because she enjoys riding and because she knows that it's better for the environment than getting in a car. And it's quicker than walking. Her father and I have spent a lot of time teaching her how to be a considerate and careful user of the road. We only cycle on the quiet side streets between our house and her school - most of them have speed bumps on. I had assumed this was a safe enough environment for her to get her cycling confidence up on.

This morning we had just set off from our house, turning right on to our road, no cars in sight, when I heard a car accelerating at great speed up behind us from the bottom of our road. He came right up behind me and my daughter and then began beeping his horn loudly. I looked back towards him to check what the problem was, and he began gesturing violently that we should "get out of the way". Because there were cars parked on both sides of the narrow road this was an impossible request to fulfil anyway. But given that we had been ahead of him in the road, I didn't feel like he had any right to demand this of us. After driving right on our back wheels for another 10 seconds or so, beeping his horn continually, there was a small gap in the parked cars, which he used to drive past us at great speed, driving within a foot or so of me. He sped up and drove perhaps another 150 yards or so up the road. At which point he stopped, pulled in to a parking space and parked his car and went into his house without giving us a second glance.

We got a few feet further up the road and my daughter got off her bike and started to get upset. She told me that she didn't want to ride her bike any more and just wanted us to walk.

So here's what I'd like to say to that man in that car:

Your car isn't a dream machine. It isn't a beautiful, streamlined, hand-crafted work of art like a classic Porsche. It's a rusty, bland, light green, small Vauxhall Corsa. It's old. It looks ugly. And yet despite its mediocrity of design, this box of metal and plastic pumps out fumes which poison us all when we breathe them in, and poison the planet's atmosphere. Every time you get in it, you pump them out. And every time you get in it, it costs you money. You are actually putting your hand in your pocket for the privelege of pumping out noxious fumes for the rest of us to breathe. How "liberating".

It gets worse though, because as well as poisoning us, your "symbol of personal freedom" has the power to kill and maim. When driven at 40 mph, anyone you hit with your car will almost certainly be killed (90% of people hit by a car at that speed die). Even at 30 mph they only have a 50/50 chance of survival. I wonder how fast you were going as you drove up behind my daughter and I this morning?

Here's the thing - you may drive around residential, speed-bumped streets in your crappy car getting angry at the people who are getting in your way, knowing that where you need to be and what you need to do is so much more important than the things that the rest of us are trying to get done. You may, in your head, be a glamorous driving hero. James Hunt winning the F1 championship in 1976, perhaps? Or Malcolm Campbell in his Bluebird chasing world record glory. But I'm here to tell you that you're not a hero. You are a cock in a crap car.

And today you made a nine year old child cry. But at least you didn't kill anyone. Well done you.

Have a nice day.

Extraordinary moments

2010-09-26T16:15:00.004+01:00

I've been thinking a lot about the extraordinary moments recently.

Yesterday I was helping my friend D look for pics to use on her invitation for her 40th birthday party that's coming up soon. She grew up in Yorkshire and her family were, until the closure of the mines, miners. We were talking about the huge impact that the miners' strike had on the lives of her family. Browsing through Flickr we found this brilliant set of images by Swedish photographer Bjorn Rantil showing the back to work march by miners and their families in her village of Armthorpe - a march that she went on. We were completely gobsmacked to find the image that's I've reproduced here - the bloke second from the right is her uncle, who sadly died last year.

For a moment it was like she was right back there, in the thick of that passionate struggle. "It was like there was a war on," she said. "Our village was the frontline. Police on horseback and in riot gear everywhere. Blockades and pitched battles, people hiding in our attic. It was a war."

I've been glued to the various documentaries about the Battle of Britain that have been broadcasting recently and been finding those stories absolutely fascinating.

From my perspective, those events must have been some of the most extraordinary of my grandparents' lives. My dad's dad was always reticent to talk to me about the war. He told me not very long before he died that he resented the swallowing up of 6 years of his prime years. "Six years of me life that I'll never get back!" he told me in his heavy Brummie accent. But he also told me about reaching liberated France post D-Day (he was in logistics - his job was to get vehicles to where they needed to be and make sure that they got fixed quickly when they broke down) and his commanding officer deciding that they deserved a small drink in celebration of what had been achieved. He told me: "We went into the chateau where we were planning to spend the evening and had a look in the wine cellar. The only thing that was left in there that hadn't got smashed up or damaged was a crate of champagne. So that's what we drank. It was the first time I ever drank champagne, and the last time until today. I didn't half have a headache the next day." He was sitting sipping champagne on my wedding day when he told me this story - claiming that this was only the second occasion that he'd drunk it, and the first time since that original taste in France in 1945. Amazing! I will never know whether he was telling me the truth.

My step-mother's father was one of the elite Jamaican airmen who came and served in Britain in the RAF during the war. The selection process was rigorous, and he would have had to really shine to be selected. And then to come to a freezing England to serve in a society where racism was the norm. It must have been quite an experience.

Meanwhile my mum's dad experienced a broken heart (my gran temporarily dumped him for an American GI) and a broken back (during RAF training) in the war. Both experiences that he often spoke about to me when I was a little girl.

Despite my Brummie grandad's dour assessment of his contribution, I can't help feeling amazed and proud when I think about what the people from that generation did. The sacrifices they made and the way they lived their lives on a knife edge in so many ways. I can't even begin to imagine it.

It feels to me that, miners' strike aside, my generation has its extraordinary times still to come. Sometimes it feels like we're asleep. We think that the world is being changed by our iPhones and our iPads. But I'm still looking for the evidence. The internet and the communications revolution we're experiencing will be so much pointless distraction if all it leads to is an ability to share stupid video clips on Facebook or access and app from Jamie Oliver.

What's the point of being able to talk to anyone in the world and share ideas across borders and cultural boundaries if all we do is recommend more pointless shit to each other and get excited about how we can buy yet more STUFF from the palms of our hands?

When our brave new world of communication connects ideas and actions in a way that changes things for the better - shared wealth; a shift to a way of life where we are living within our resources not wasting them; an end to the crazy financial system that requires endless, exponential growth to function; peaceful conclusions of ideological wars . . . *that's* when it will really be extraordinary. Until then, it's just another great big shop window.

My dad said to me recently that when talking to a person at an organisation in Birmingham (I won't go into details to protect the innocent!) that he was struck by the way organisations that used to have a genuine ideology, based on a vision of equality, are now just operating in a vaccuum. No foundation of ideas about what is right and wrong. Just expediency.

My next personal extraordinary step is going to be to find a way to stop being a shop assistant. Time to focus on the things that have genuine meaning, honour and integrity.

Things I'm worried about being cut under the Tories

2010-09-10T17:26:00.003+01:00

This blog post is about one of my more selfish concerns. It what I worry about when I think about the things that might be cut by David, George and the rest of the Eton gang who are currently mascarading as our government. I make no apologies for the fact that it's entirely fuelled by concern for my daughter.

When my daughter was just five months old, she contracted Bronchiolitis and was admitted to hospital in the middle of the night with a rocketing temperature, difficulty breathing, reduced blood oxygen levels and a heart rate that sounded like the drumbeat to a gabba rave tune at +8. It was a scary 24 hours, and watching her tiny body try and cool down and get enough breath was the kind of heartbreaking experience a mother only wants to go through once.

She recovered pretty quickly and was home with us safe and sound a couple of days later. At a follow-up check-up with my GP, we were warned that the virus that causes Bronchiolitis, RSV, would have a bit of a free reign in her immune system for a while and that up until 3 or 4 she was likely to get every sniffle and snuffle going. He told us to be prepared for a lot of snotty noses, gluey ears and sleepless nights. This turned out to be a very accurate prediction.

Most significantly, she became extremely prone to picking up ear infections. And as a result, her ear drum perforated 2 or 3 times before she was 2 years old. She was referred for an operation to insert grommets into both her ears when she turned 2. A couple of months later she had this operation and the ear infections became a thing of the past.

At about the same time, she had a hearing test which showed that she was experiencing reasonably significant hearing loss in her right ear. We were reassured that it was likely that this was caused by all the gunge in her ears, so we weren't too concerned. And we were told that she would continue to be monitored as she grew and developed.

I remember sitting in the audiology clinic at the Royal Sussex Hospital and thinking "Yeah, sure. You mean she might get a check up every few years."

But my cynicism was misplaced. Since she was 2 years old, she has been attending regular hearing tests and check ups. First of all these happened at the audiology clinic, but from the age of 4 onwards, they happened at school. And unbeknownst to me, as the hearing loss didn't disappear with her gluey ears, she has been observed and supported by an audiologist in her classroom with a visit every term since she started school.

This audiologist, a lovely lady called Sul, last term took the decision to recommend that our daughter try using a hearing aid, because, as she told me: "Your daughter's really smart and confident, and she could probably manage ok with a bit of lip reading and a bit of asking her friends what's going on. But why should she have to? Why shouldn't she have the opportunity to be supported to hear things as well as she can."

So a couple of weeks ago she was fitted with a rather natty sparkly blue hearing aid, and Sul has been with her in class and here at home a couple of times now to help her to get used to it and to do everything she can to make sure that my daughter is hearing things as clearly as she possibly can. She'll be visiting her in school every month for the foreseeable future, and if anything goes wrong with the hearing aid in the mean time we can call her and she'll pay us a visit and help us sort it out.

I've been sitting here this afternoon pondering the fact that we've had all of this care, help and support since my daughter was 5 months old (she's 9 now) and it hasn't cost us one single pence in direct costs. Just the hearing aid itself costs £1500 if you buy one privately. And what price all the hours that Sul has put in to helping my daughter in class?

Every day I hear about the next round of cuts. About the need for "austerity". About how the public purse just has to be sorted out. And I wonder how long it's going to be until outreach services like the one that my daughter has benefited from will be considered "a waste". (After all, her hearing isn't *completely* damaged. She probably could muddle through with some self-taught lip reading and asking a few questions about what the teacher just said.)

What I don't hear being asked is what the banking system is being asked to do to address the deficit. After all, wasn't it their "credit crunch" which wrecked our government's finances? Before we tackle the small fry "scroungers" who make living on benefits "a lifestyle choice" perhaps we could have a look at better ways to TAX the VAST salaries and bonuses that these SELFISH BASTARDS are paying themselves just 12 months on from our bail-out.

I may be selfish in my desire to see my daughter's care continue. But you know what? I have paid for it in my taxes for the past 16 years that I've been working since leaving university (which I also paid a contribution towards). I've never once hired an accountant to help me find "tax dodges". The "smart money" would say that makes me a fool. I think it just makes me a decent and contributing member of my society. But if those stinking rich Tory BASTARDS come for my daughter's health, it'll time to stop being nice and start taking action.

Things that make you go hmmmm . . . .

2010-06-25T20:50:00.001+01:00

Remember this toe-tapper? Great video . . .

Top crap reasons to hate a football team

2010-06-22T21:27:00.001+01:00

1. I don't like Argentina because they used to have crap hair. 2. I don't like Germany because of Rudi Voller always looking a bit shifty. 3. I don't like Portugal because Ronaldo really gets on my nerves. 4. I don't like Italy because their tops are always a bit too tight. 5. I don't like England because they are, in the main, crushingly disappointing to watch. 6. I don't like Holland because orange is my least favourite colour. 7. I don't like Wales because they deprived England of Ryan Gigsy-wigsy's sweet left foot. 8. I don't like Brazil because it gives commentators license to say things like "precocious talent" and "samba rhythms". 9. I don't like Spain because they should totally have won the world cup by now. 10. I don't like Scotland because of Rod Stewart.

What I read on holiday

2010-06-06T14:24:00.003+01:00

Ok so I know that picture is a bit depressing to illustrate an "I've just come back from holiday!" post, but it's the only CC-licensed one I could find that relates to the brilliant book that I read whilst I was away. And this is just a post about that book, not about the holiday itself (which was, bien sur, freakin' awesome).

The book is called The Book Thief and has been a massive international best seller for the last three years or something, so I know I'm behind the times with it. But having read quite a lot of much harder-work (but incredibly rewarding) style literature recently - Marilynne Robinson, mainly - I was feeling a bit, let's be honest, snooty about The Book Thief. My snootiness continued for about the first 50 or 100 pages. I thought it was pretty contrived to have Death as the narrator, and I found his narrative style a bit irritating. But next thing I knew I was preferring to lie in the coolth of our room reading all afternoon instead of sitting on this beach:

That's got to be some kind of a gripping book right? So if you happen to read this and happen not to to have read The Book Thief, I recommend it. For me, it was the perfect holiday read - a story that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and wouldn't let go till I read the last page as our ferry arrived back in Piraeus and I had to work hard not to sniffle and weep in public.

And not a "chick" in sight. :-)

Holiday to do list

2010-05-22T12:29:00.002+01:00

1. Organise a bridging loan from my long-suffering mother due to optimistic reliance on freelance payment and resultant cash flow cock-up. (WILL I NEVER LEARN? Thanks mum!)

2. Fail to hold nerve and have minor panic about not having pre-booked ferry tickets from Athens-Naxos (it's much cheaper if you buy on the day from Piraeus, but WHAT IF THE FERRIES HAVE ALL SOLD OUT? NB This never happens.)

3. Vainly struggle to remove all rogue "unfeminine" hair from body via combination of foul-smelling creams, blunt razors and torture implement known as "epilady". (How did it come to this. I mean, I'm 38 years old, And as @bolexjo once memorably told me: NO ONE IS GOING TO BE LOOKING!)

4. Pack clothes and fail to persuade myself that I really *don't* need a cardigan, hooded top, coat and kagool and then curse myself for making my bag absurdly heavy all the way to Naxos. (Yes I know it's an island in the Med but, you know, it might get parky in the evening, mightn't it?)

5. Go to Boots and spend a small fortune on creams and detergents that I will then not actually use. (Another reason why my bag is pre-destined to weigh just under a ton.)

6. "Whittle down" the list of books I want to take to five. (Yes, that's right, I'm going to read a book every other day. And otherwise my bag might not be heavy enough.)

7. Get over excited the night before and drink far too many G&T's because, well, I AM going on holiday. (Of course, my trip to Boots won't have yielded anything USEFUL like hangover cures.)

8. Organise someone to come and feed cats and water my potted garden. (Last year the cats were fine, but all of my plants were dead. I guess that was the right way round . . . )

9. Hop from foot-to-foot every half an hour or so singing "I'm going on holiday! I'm going on holiday!" until someone punches me. (It's worth it!)

10. Power down all forms of communication with the internet, switch off internal work to-do list and RELAX. (This will be the easiest thing to tick off on my list.)

See you all on the other side. This holiday is going to ROCK. :-)

Don't just sit there - do something

2010-05-10T18:57:00.005+01:00

I just read a lovely post by a new blogging pal - Lisa Wright - about how pleased she is that she came to an event that @greenwellys and I organised on behalf of "best selling writer Lisa Jewell" (no one ever seems to ever just call her Lisa, which I reckon is a bit of a shame, but to be expected in this age that so badly requires us all to be labelled and defined . . . ) last week.

Lisa W was really pleased to meet best-selling Lisa because she loves her books. But pleasingly, she was also inspired by the experience of meeting fellow bloggers and aspirant writers, which was as much the point for greenwellys and I as anything.

What I found really interesting about her post was the point she makes that often, it's really easy to end up not doing the things that you really want to do, because of all the commitments you've made to doing stuff that you're not that bothered aboout.(I'm paraphrasing - I hope Lisa W doesn't mind! :-) )

As she says:

"It's too easy to say no after all, to find the excuses so we don't have to make an effort and put ourselves out just a little bit. But if we don't then how do we move forward? How can we possibily achieve our potential? What will we miss?"

How true. I spend the vast majority of my life doing the things that I'm not really that bothered about and only a very small part doing the things I really want to do. (I refer you to my previous post about things I'd do if I had more time for details of what those things are). I regularly tread the same groundhog day routine in an effort to just "keep the wheels on" - at work and at home, expecting this to keep me more sane. In fact, it's bound to drive me round the bend because if there is no chink of difference in each passing day how can you expect new things and new opportunities to find you? And you won't find them because you're not even looking for them.

All of which is a long-wided way of saying I'm so glad that my life is about to change so radically. Of course, knowing that you aren't guaranteed to earn enough to pay the rent and the credit cards and the loans each month is kind of scary. But not as scary as realising too late that you never even gave opportunity the chance to knock on your door. :-)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

My latest sewing project - a hippy beach dress

2010-05-03T12:15:00.002+01:00

This dress took about 8 hours in total to make. Super simple pattern from New Look. Lovely cheesecloth and a loose fit, designed for REALLY REALLY hot days. Fingers crossed we get a couple of those this year . . .

I am going to set one of these up in Brighton - who's in?

2010-04-20T16:24:00.002+01:00

via guardian.co.uk

A genius idea - sent to me by the lovely A. I reckon this could make serious money in Brighton. And what a laugh it would be too. Sewing plus cake plus coffee. What's not to like?

Anyone interested in investing in me?? :-)

Part-timer

2010-04-02T10:02:00.003+01:00

I took the scary decision to go part time from the start of June, recently. This week it all became official and real as it was announced to the rest of my team. I'm going to work 3 days per week from 1 June.

If I had any doubts about why I was doing this, yesterday I spent the first day of the easter holidays with my daughter and had one of the most enjoyable, fun, rewarding days that I've had in ages.

That's not to say that I could give up working completely. I learnt the hard way when my daughter was first born that full-time childcare is not for me. I need something other to do to keep my brain ticking over.

But balance is most definitely good. And I'm hoping that being a part-timer is going to give me a shot at the balance that has most definitely been missing from my life for a couple of years now.

Wish me luck.

My dad gets an award :-)

2010-03-26T14:16:00.002Z

This pic is from the British Press Awards which happened earlier this week. The good looking guy on the left is my dad! He edited the Telegraph's MP Expenses Scandal supplement which a) got the paper the single biggest boost in circulation in many, many years and also b) won Supplement of the Year at the awards this week. Hence the pic. The guy in the cool white glasses is Himesh - his right hand man.

My dad rocks.

:-)

How about this for a literal dream?

2010-03-10T12:28:00.001Z

last night I dreamed that I was trying to work out a project plan . . . the problem was that the plan that I'd originally put together involved people who were no longer working with us any more. I needed to change the plan timeline and resourcing. Only the actual plan was set into the cellar floor of a pub and each element of the project was represented by a slightly different coloured tile. That was grouted in. My plan was quite literally set in stone. And people kept walking all over the top of it.

Hmmmmmm . . . I wonder what *that* could have been about?

BBC News - Massive earthquake strikes Chile - waiting for news

2010-02-27T08:40:00.001Z

via news.bbc.co.uk

We have family in Concepcion. My sister's grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and their small children all live in that city. All we can do is hope it's not another Haiti.

Know thyself

2010-02-26T10:17:00.002Z

This is why I love the people I work with. This pic just got posted on our intranet. It makes me giggle every time I look at it :-)

CLASSY 40s DRESS PATTERN FRONT BUTTON McCALL 7135

2010-02-24T15:54:00.001Z

Really like the one on the left.

1940s TAILORED DRESS PATTERN SNAPPY STYLE McCALLS 7611

2010-02-24T15:53:00.001Z

Option 3 - bit scary . . .

1940s SLIM DRESS PATTERN SOFT TUCKS AT HIP SIDES, PLUNGING V NECKLINE EASY TO MAKE VOGUE 6839

2010-02-24T15:50:00.001Z

Option 2 - the one on the left.

1940s WAR TIME PRETTY DRESS PATTERN FRONT BUTTON SIMPLICITY 1042

2010-02-24T15:47:00.001Z

I am searching for the perfect pattern for my new fabric. This is option 1 - the dress on the right.

Housekeeping: Amazon.co.uk: Marilynne Robinson: Books

2010-02-21T20:06:00.002Z

via amazon.co.uk

I finished reading this book whilst I was sick-a-bed in Middlesbrough this week. It's one of those books that I know I will think about for a while and then most definitely go back to. And I haven't read a book that I've wanted to go back to since I was in my early 20s. That's not to say I haven't read some great books since then - but they have all been "good read but now it's over" type books. The characters in Housekeeping, and the setting of Fingerbone on the edge of the great lake, are just haunting.

A beautiful, beautiful book. Read it if you haven't. Read it again if you have.

Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day

2010-02-13T21:50:00.002Z

Another instalment of genius from my second favourite film ever.

On fashion and mental health

2010-01-24T13:17:00.002Z

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant piece by Tanya Gold in the Guardian on Friday. It's called Why I Hate Fashion and it describes how she was able to break the vicious circle thought patterns that fashion and most female-focused media encourage and perpetuate inside the head of most women. It couldn't sum up my own feelings more perfectly.

Here's what she has to say:

I decided to write this piece late last year, when I read that a 16-year-old girl wearing high-heeled shoes had fallen between the carriages of a train in West Sussex. She died, of course. It was snowing that night, but still this young woman, with a lifetime of fashion choices before her, ran along that platform and is now dead. And I couldn't help suspecting that had she been wearing a shoe designed for movement, rather than to push her breasts out and her pelvis forward, she would be alive.

This was different from the usual Fashion Death, where a model has a heart attack on the catwalk, because she lives on grapes. This was an ordinary girl – a bystander. And why was she wearing high-heeled shoes on an icy night? Because fashion, the whispering monster, told her to.

I thought about that young woman for days; I couldn't forget her.

It's perhaps a bit melodramatic to blame this unfortunate accident on "fashion" - although it is a good question: why was she wearing high heeled shoes on an icy night? But the head state that she goes on to describe - the constant search for the ultimate outfit that is going to make everything ok, the trailing through endless rails of clothes to find "the dress" that is going to stop me feeling so crap about myself, exactly describes my own experiences with shopping and clothing until, like Tanya, I put on so much weight after having my daughter and taking anti-depressants for three years that all of a sudden there weren't any fashionable clothes in my size. I thought it was the end of the world at first. And then I realised I was set free - I didn't have to try to force my fat thighs into skinny jeans! I could just flop about in baggy trousers. The relief!

I've been reading a great book called "Overcoming Depression" by Paul Gilbert which was recommended to me by my lovely CBT counsellor. It's based on CBT and Mindfullness theory. It talks in detail about the vicious circles of negative thought patterns that are at the heart of depression, anxiety, compulsive disorders and various other common mental health complaints. I can't describe how clear and obvious it is to me, having thought a bit about all this, the direct connection between the way women are made to think about the way they look and dress and their mental health.

26% of women are likely to suffer from major depression in their lifetime. Only 12% of men are. Call me a feminist, but I don't think that's a coincidence. (And I by no means am suggesting that depression in men is any less devastating than it is in women!)

Predictably, underneath Tanya's article are a number of mean comments pointing out that, being a fatty, she would have to say that about fashion wouldn't she? That it's all just "sour grapes" because she's not thin. Talk about missing the point.

I love lovely clothes, and I especially love being to make them for myself. But I also love the fact that I don't spend a single moment chasing the unobtainable "look" . . . I can honestly say I've never been happier about my appearance than I am now as a 38-year-old size 16. That's the power of positive thinking, that is :-)

Become a hero

2009-12-01T10:04:00.002Z

via tackfilm.se

Now *this* is what I call viral marketing.

This is a little tool that the Swedish version of the BBC are using to thank those who have paid the equivalent of our license fee - and to encourage those that haven't to do so.

The point - everyone who contributes to independent broadcasting with their fee is a hero. Because that's how we can protect independent thinking and journalism.

I am LOVING this.

Compare and contrast with the TV Licence adverts we have here. You know the ones: "We're tracking you down you snivelling wretch! You can't hide from us! We're going to come round your house and scare your children and beat you up!"

In an age where we all have an ever increasing choice over what we watch / listen to, when we do so, and how much (if anything) we pay for it, I'd argue that the Swedish decision to invite its stakeholders to opt in to a "thank you" conversation, rather than shouting "you owe us" at everyone within hearing shows wisdom, imagination and most of all a deep understanding that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED FOR EVER.

Here's my movie - it took 15 seconds to build: http://www.tackfilm.se/en/?id=1259661308982RA76&q=low#

123456789101112

2009-11-10T11:45:00.001Z

This is one of the most vivid memories of childhood TV viewing for me. And it's got a GROOVE. Enjoy :-)

Community cinema - how brilliant

2009-11-09T19:42:00.001Z

via bffs.org.uk

I stumbled across this website this evening - it's for the British Federation of Film Societies. Basically, you can set up a local film society and then start showing movies in your local community shed / hall / library / park cafe etc etc.

What a totally brilliant idea.

Last year community cinemas screened more than 600 movies to over 300,000 people in Britain.

I think I just found something else to add to my "if I had more time" list. How cool would it be to set up a community cinema? Very cool.

If I had a bit more time

2009-11-08T19:10:00.001Z

I would practice the piano every day.
I would write my book.
I would make a new dress for a friend each month.
I would read a new book every week.
I would call all my friends once a week.
I would see my mum and dad at least once a month.
I would garden every day.
I would join a choir.
I would make birthday cards for my friends and family and never miss a single one.
I'd watch a classic black and white movie every afternoon.
I'd learn to cook all the really hard meals that I find a bit scary sounding - things like bouillabaise and potted shrimps.
I'd write a screenplay and produce it with my film making friend.
I'd paint my bedroom and make new curtains for it.
I'd volunteer at my daughter's school.
I'd go fishing once a week.
I'd learn how to do bicycle maintenance.

I could *definitely* be a lady of leisure.

Withnail & I (In the tearoom)

2009-11-05T16:52:00.001Z

One of my favourite scens from a film ever. I have been this person. I have felt these feelings and had these thoughts. Sad, but true.