2015 - 12 things. 1: Wet Plate Photography.

Jo & I had our photographs taken using an old-fashioned wet-plate camera (1860s) called Thelma!

This is the one with me in it as well as Jo; didn't come out too well, but is rather cool in an odd way :D

We reckoned that it was a good 'unusual' thing to have done, and since we did that in January, we decided to attempt an adventure each month this year.  That seems a reasonable and achievable goal, Twelve new/different/adventurous things in the year, and if they're not exactly one a month, well, so be it!

Random musings

I've been full of lurgy the last few days and I'm just about feeling up to doing stuff again. Some of the low-key things I've been doing include sorting through the piles of paper which seem to accumulate near me.  I honestly don't know what happens there... I can have a clear desk and within seconds it's acquired three lists and a random scattering of other stuff!!

Anyway, one of the lists was my old 20-in-40 list, and I thought I'd revisit my blog :)

I'm also reminded by randomness, that Jo & I went to the Science Fair which was held at Newcastle University in late 2013, where we saw our hearts beat (as a wire vibration), made lightning (using genuine Victorian apparatus) and heard the Music of the Spheres (what 'noises' the planets make, their EM emissions translated into sounds)

I also have finally visited the Jekyll and Hyde pub in Edinburgh, having failed to do that in my first challenge.  Himself and I spent a happy few hours there catching up with an old friend Gill, and a new friend Dixi.

I'm more than happy with all the things I did in both my 40-by-40 and 20-in-40 challenges. However, there were some things I didn't do (no time, no opportunity, whatever...)

So I'm going to list some of them here (some old, some new ones) mostly as a place-keeper of ideas of things to do.

Visit: 

• Cuthbert's Caves in Doddington (nr Wooler) and Holburn (nr Lindisfarne)
• Spiral carved rocks at Chatton,  Fowberry (nr Wooler)
• The Forbidden Corner in Yorkshire.
• St Mary's Chapel/Well Jesmond

Try a real stottie; apparently the ones from Greggs aren't 'proper' stotties, as you can't stott them off the floor.

Spin fire poi in the Culvert.  I've been out with the North East Light Painters once so far, and I definitely want to go again, somewhere I can get the best spinnin' on!

Try FreeRunning.  This will have to be once I've lost a bit more weight and got a bit fitter, I think!
I had hoped to be able to do the Warrior Beach challenge this year (2015) but when I started training for it last year, I instantly got shin-splints, so that put the kibosh on that rather.

Take a Bartitsu lesson!  There's one coming up this weekend if I'm feeling better enough to try my hand at Victorian martial arts!

As I think of other things, I'll put them here.

Things from the old list that I haven't done and still want to, but are more on a someday-maybe list:

• Carriage Driving
• Side-saddle riding
• Horse-ride along a beach, in the surf :)
• Hang-gliding and/or Ride in a hot air balloon
• Fan dancing Class
• Hang Aerial Class
• Hang Yoga
• Capoeira lesson
• Blacksmithing workshop (PH)
• Woodworking workshop (PH)
• Stained Glass workshop (PH)
• Calligraphy
• 3D dreamcatcher
• Make a hat
• Make paper
• Box Brownie Photography
• Make Tea Wine
• Make Ginger Beer
• Make a Herman Cake

So busy!

"Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time."  Tallulah Bankhead.

It's been rather a long time since my last post, largely because I've been busy doing things!

Some of the many things which have kept me busy of late include (in no particular order):

Visiting The Chocolate Story in York & Trying an unusual flavour of chocolate there!
Visiting the last manned Light Ship
Going Punting on the Cam
Seeing the original of Newton's Principia Mathematica
Visiting the Cutty Sark
Visiting Melford Hall
Throwing a clay pot
Making a glass sculpture
(Other things at Maker Faire, such as seeing Mitch Altman and Cory Doctorow's talks!)
Going on a Badger watch
Tour of the Northumbria Cheese Company.
Playing a clarinet (albeit briefly!)
Trying a Papaya and Sharon Fruit
Visiting the Trincomalee in Hartlepool (I has a stall at the Steampunk Convivial Tiffin on the Trinc there :) )
Performing a Pagan Handfasting for two of my friends.
Sitting in KITT!

Which brings my total of things done already to :

Scuba Diving
UrbEx
and nothing else from my original list... but I've also done:

Making a snow dragon
Making napkin water lilies
LARP
Omnomberry cake
See a concert at The Sage
See Noctilucent Clouds
Sitting in a Box at the Theatre Royal

and the list above....
makes it:

At least Twenty!!!  And two months before my birthday, means I've technically finished my Challenge.  However, I'll still keep doing things & adding to the blog, just 'cos it's fun!

I'll catch up with proper blog posts on what I've done recently, but for now, I'll just leave this here as a reminder to myself to get on with writing it up!

Smorgasbord!

Again, it's been a long time since my last post; but that does mean I've had lots of time to do things. Some of them were on my list, others weren't, as usual.

On 28th of March, I went to the Sage Gateshead for a concert for the first time.  I've been there before, for the Antiques Roadshow a few years ago, but I'd never seen a performance there.

I saw Morris Offspring & Faustus. They were fabulous!  I'm sad that it was Morris Offspring's final show, but I'm so glad that I did get to see them.

On the way to the Sage, I'm fairly sure I saw a fairly rare cloud phenomenon: Noctilucent Clouds.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a photograph of it, but it was a really magical sight.

I'd ordered a coupon for a Scuba Diving session, to try to get me over my slight fear of being underwater for any length of time... whenever I'm watching someone do a deep dive, or even playing a computer game which involves swimming underwater I tend to hold my breath!  I was hoping that this would help.


On the 3rd of April, I tried it.


There were a few technical issues (the jacket was too big for me, the mouthpiece was broken, I got water in my mask; that kind of thing).  I gave up after about half the time, as I couldn't suppress my Lizard-Brain which kept thinking it was drowning :(  I tried using the snorkel instead & could just about cope with that.

However, I can't see me doing it again, and I think I'll still be holding my breath when I dive in a computer game!

That was a busy week, as two days later I went on a Guided Tour of the Theatre Royal.  A guided tour with a difference.  Dr Mullins Anatomy of the Theatre Royal.  Splendid!  Jo & I got into the mood of the thing, engaging in in-character conversation with the actors doing the guiding (the actors were wonderful, by the way - really bringing to life the Victorian Theatre!) I think the highlight for me was sitting in one of the boxes - I've never done that before, and given the prices, probably never will again! so this was rather special!

(I did get 'trolled' by one of the special effects... there was a door in one of the rooms, behind which was supposedly the 'theatre's cat', as one of the actresses said when she opened it.  I opened the door "to let the cat out", and a tiger roared!  I shut the door and fled, giggling with Jo!  Later on, someone else opened a similar door to the tiger's roar, so I figured that the first one just hadn't worked properly for the actress but that didn't make it any less scary at the time ;) )

Last week I was in Colchester with my German friends Karin & Karen (K1 & K2!) and their school group, but I think that's a job for another post!

Water-lilies and other things

I've done some other new things since the post in (oh my!) October!

We visited his family for an early Christmas celebration, and Sam decided that she wanted napkin water-lilies for decoration.  Himself being clever-like-that Googled for the instructions, and Sam handed him a napkin saying 'you're good with your hands!' However, napkin-origami is not one of the things he's good with :(

I picked up a napkin, fully expecting to make an equally disastrous mess of it, but instead, I produced a fairly respectable-looking water-lily.  This of course meant that I was then on napkin folding duty, and made about a dozen in all!

Since then, I've started with a LARP (Live Action Role Play) group called 5000REM, a post- apocalyptic scenario, based on Roadside Picnic/Stalker, Metro 2033 and other similar things.  I'd tried LARP once before, and hadn't really got on with the system,  but this one is really fun! (However we're planning another trip out this Saturday, snow and all, so I might change my mind on that!)

A few weeks ago, Himself found a recipe online for an Omnomberry Cake.  This is something which is in the game we play online (GuildWars 2) and someone has 'translated' it into a real-world thing.

The way to make Omnomberries is apparently to soak blueberries in purple food colouring and Chambord raspberry liqueur!

It was indeed Omnomnom delicious!  

The Omnomberry cake was not a lie!

The green leaves were supposed to be mint, but we didn't have any normal mint, so we used catnip instead....

Kerryl, investigating the cake.

Sliced to show the delicious layers!

Snow Dragon

I haven't felt like posting in a while, as I thought I hadn't actually done much since the last post, but looking back, I've got several things to add!  However, last things first....

Yesterday, he & I went to see The Hobbit.  On our way home, the snow was perfect snowman-making snow (he checked!) and he mused as to what to make this year.  (Previous years we've had typical snowmen, a snow bunny, snow bear, snow alien, several snow mutants, and so on.)  However, me being me, and with Smaug's glowing eye still fresh in my memory, I jokingly said "Snow-Dragon!"  

The lesser spotted Honesty-Wing Dragon

Next-door's snowman had solar lights for eyes,
so we decided to follow the trend!

Well, of course it breaths fire, it's a dragon!

Not a Pyro, honestly! 

A  Fire Breathing Dragon, breathing a fire dragon!

 The last photo is by far my favourite!

Urban Exploration

Last Saturday Jo & I went to The Culvert in Jesmond Vale for an explore!  We went with a couple of friends who had been to this place before & knew their way around, for which I was grateful, as although it would be difficult to get lost as such (it's a straight line!) it had the potential to be dangerous, and having people around who knew what they were doing was definitely a good idea!

We started at the south end of the Ouseburn, not far from the Farm, and scrambled down the embankment.  I had hopes of keeping my feet dry for as long as possible, but that was not to be, as I slipped slightly on one of the rocks and *sploosh* went my foot into 6" of water!  (I've since then bought myself some better boots and some waterproof trousies, for next time!)

We clambered up into the top half of the culvert, above the river itself.  This part is girdered with iron which gives it a wonderfully post-apocalyptic sci-fi feel!

Someone had a party!

Further along, the character of the tunnel changed to a concrete lined, high ceilinged passageway. This would have been the area used as a bomb shelter in WWII, as evidenced by the blast baffles at intervals along the tunnel, and the pots in the floor in some parts!  These are towards the edges of the tunnel, over the sewers which run either side of the Ouseburn.

Blast baffle (used with permission from Jo)

Some of the holes in the floor are less deliberate and more dilapidate:

We had to tread carefully to avoid these gaps in the floor.  A sprained ankle here would not have been pleasant.

We found a variety of objects along the way; a burned mattress, a toaster, also charred, and a caster; possibly from the same bed that the mattress came from:

Toasted

Cast off

Further along was some interesting graffiti!

Right over the sewer!

Gut party, ja!

The tunnel ends in a 'room' with a shaft up to the surface, but we did not investigate this, as the rungs in the walls looked somewhat rickety, and the manhole cover at the top is usually locked.

So we retraced our steps to a section where we could gain access to the river itself:

MIND YOUR STEP

The edge of the tunnel we were now in was fairly dry, but sloped, and after the first time I slipped and nearly fell in to the water, I decided that my feet couldn't get any wetter, so I'd wade.  The footing was easier, as the floor was flat in the middle, which made the going much better.

The water was knee deep! (Used with permission from Jo)

An artistic shot (used with permission from Jo)

A storm drain (used with permission from Jo)

When we reached the end of the Culvert, the tunnel opened up into a broader passage for a few yards, and beyond that was a waterfall. To one side were more of the rungs, set into the side of the tunnel and leading up to a fence.  I looked up with some trepidation.  No one had told me about this bit, and as you'll remember from my experience at the climbing wall, I'm not very good at this sort of thing.  However, I shimmied up the rungs with no trouble, and, trying to keep out of mind the thought of falling into the river from a great height, I made my way along the narrow ledge, clinging to the fence like grim death!

Clambering out! (used with permission from Jo)

The final obstacle was a curved spikey bit of fence, designed to stop people from doing exactly what we were doing.  To make matters more complicated, the ledge dipped inwards at this point.  I was told that it would bear my weight and to just swing around it.  I swallowed, took my courage and the fence in both hands, and went for it.  It was a huge relief to get back onto terra firma but I felt so elated that I had managed it, and I had a grin on my face for several hours afterwards!

20in40

Well, as I said in my previous post, I enjoyed my Challenge so much that I don't want to stop!  Therefore, I'll be trying to do at least 20 new things in my 40th year :D  As before, I have a list of possible things, although it has already got a couple of things on it which weren't there to start with, so nothing much is different in this respect either!

So; here's my starter for 20!  Some of them are the same as before, things I couldn't do, but still want to...


Scuba Diving
Urban Exploration
Carriage Driving
Side-saddle riding
Horse-ride along a beach, in the surf :)
Hang-gliding and/or Ride in a hot air balloon
Fan dancing Class
Hang Aerial Class
Hang Yoga
Capoeira lesson
Blacksmithing workshop (PH)
Woodworking workshop (PH)
Stained Glass workshop (PH)
Calligraphy
3D dreamcatcher
Make a hat
Make paper
Box Brownie Photography
Tea wine
Make Ginger Beer
Make a Herman Cake
Watch at least 5 'must-see' classic films
Make Dragon sculpture, since it is Chinese Year of the Dragon! (at least by the end of the CYotD 9th Feb!)

There are more than 20 things, which should give me a bit of lee-way for not managing some, and as usual, I'll swap things in & out as I see fit!

Final Roundup

This is an overview of what I've done, what I have not done, what worked well, what did not, and all that kind of thing.

I am very pleased with myself for having finished my Challenge, despite some things not going to plan, and others having to be substituted at the last minute!

Things that worked well seemed to be 'trying things out' - making the corset, trying tablet weaving, bookbinding and so on.

What didn't seem to work so well was anything which required a major investment of time (and willpower!) longer term... the money diet didn't really happen, neither did the actual diet.  Surprisingly, neither did watching 5 must-see movies; we're apparently useless at sitting down to watch a film!

One thing I have learned about myself from doing this Challenge is that I love trying things out, even if I then don't feel inclined to pursue them any further.  For instance, rock-climbing and tablet weaving are things I'm glad I've tried, but won't continue.  Corset making however, I will do again, and I'll probably try spinning again at some point.  I'll definitely go on another tour of the Victoria Tunnel, and I might even become a tour guide for it!

I have thoroughly enjoyed my Challenge, and in particular, I have enjoyed the variety that the 'scatter-gun' approach has given to it.  Therefore, I will be doing a new Challenge, starting after my birthday.  Since 40 things was rather a lot, I intend to try 20 new things in my 40th year, so the new Challenge is going to be called 20in40!

This means that I will continue to try new crafts like woodworking, blacksmithing and stained-glass making, as well as hopefully doing some of the things which I could not manage this year (horseriding on the beach, side-saddle riding, and so on).

The final round-up of what I achieved:


1   Thames river cruise (18th April 2012)
2   Visit Stonehenge (17th April 2012)
3   See the Northern Lights (2nd March 2012)
4   Visit Thackray museum in Leeds (12th November 2011)
5   Have a Belly dancing lesson (8th January 2012)
6   Do a day of Falconry (24th April 2012)
7   Handbell ringing (16th December 2011)
8   1:1 Barre class (3rd November 2011)
9   Hold a tarantula (25 February12)
10 Try at least 5 new foods (Finished March 2012)
11 Do something completely spontaneous (Shoeshine) (26th October 2011)
12 Rode the Brighton Wheel (26th October 2011)
13 Visit Mother Shipton's Cave (5th June)
14 Visited parts of Yorkshire Sculpture Park I hadn't been to before. (4th June)
15 Tried Lavender & Lemon Scones (5th June)
16 Visit Lindisfarne (7th June 2012)
17 Go to the Hoppings (26th June 2012)
18 Thai Food (11th June 2012)
19 Read at least 3 classics (20th July 2012)
20 Make a corset  (Finished 3rd July 2012)
21 Hold a tortoise (6th July 2012)
22 Wear more colours (ongoing!)
23 Visit the Lit & Phil (23rd July 2012)
24 Try at least 3 new bands (26th July 2012)
25 Rock climbing (2nd August 2012)
26 Learn to use a Spinning Wheel  (7th August 2012)
27 Money-diet for a month (July 2012)
28 Tour the Victoria Tunnel (23rd August 2012)
29 Have a 4-hand massage (17th August)
30 Colourful plants in garden (September)
31 Settle Down cafe & Sugar Down bakery (August sometime!)
32 Mariner 9 exhibition (18th August)
33 Make a leather masquerade mask (3rd September 2012)
34 Bind a book (4th September 2012)
35 Tablet weaving (3rd September 2012)
36 See a film I wouldn't normally watch (Verhängnis) (8th March 2012)
37 Drop casting silver (June/July 2012)

38 Face Painted. (21st September 2012)

39 Take a tour of St Mary's Close (22nd September 2012)
40 Spend a night in the Library room at the Witchery (22nd September 2012)

Edinburgh

My 40th Birthday was somewhat like my 39th, in that it didn't all go quite to plan.  However, it was a lovely day & the bits that did work were lovely!

I had a lovely birthday breakfast of thick pancakes with a variety of things sprinkled on them, then went into Town.

We didn't make it to the Jekyll & Hyde pub, thanks to the sat-nav on my phone being unreliable :(
Instead, we went straight to the Mary King's Close tour.  This was a fascinating 'living history' tour of the underground streets beneath the Royal Mile.  Our tour guide was really enthusiastic, and really made the streets come to life.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos while we were down there and the infra-red photo that we had taken really didn't come out well enough to spend money on.

Then on to the Library suite at the Witchery; the final item on my list, and a real treat.  The bathroom was amazing, underfloor heating and a huge bath!  We had a picnic supper & watched a movie before snuggling up in the lovely cosy bed :D

The Fantabulous Bath!

The Bed

The 'hidden' bookcase door to the corridor.

Lounging on the Chaise.

My Best Beloved and me.

Something from before, and a random new thing.

Luckily, I'd kept a couple of 'new things' in reserve until the end in case I needed them.  This was a good move, as I'd planned to do the Box Brownie photos last Thursday, but I found myself really flustered with getting ready to go to Edinburgh, so I postponed that until another time... more news about that in another post!

So, for your delectation; drop casting of silver!

I'd previously drop-cast pewter, which was fun, but I knew that silver takes a bit more effort, as it has to be heated to a much higher temperature than pewter.  Also the dropping of the hot metal into cold water has to be done into a bucket or other deep container, unlike pewter, where I used a tall glass.

A 'cup' with a drop of silver nestled in it

I love the patterns on this one

A couple of weird mushroom shapes

I've had my makeup done many times, but I have never had my face painted before.  So when my dear friend Gill asked if she could paint me, I said 'yes!'  and this is the result.  I can't believe she's only been doing face-painting for a bit over two WEEKS! She's brilliant, and will only get even better with practice ;)

Cool!

The Red Arrows just flew over our house!

They're flying at today's Great North Run...  Good Luck to everyone running today, especially to you Michael :D

Not Challenge related, but a minor epiphany and a small realisation

I have been doing a lot of reading and sorting things out on my computer over the last couple of days.  This is due to me finally leaving Firefox for Chrome as my browser of choice; so I've been sorting out my bookmarks, pruning dead links, and reading some of the articles I've had bookmarked for a long time.

In particular, I've been reading Puttylike (thanks Liz!), looking into the Pomodoro Technique and a  simplified Getting Things Done  and I've realised something about how I do things...

I have lists.  Lots of lists.  And some things on those lists don't belong where they are.  I've been mistaking a lot of my Projects for Items-to-do, and that has overwhelmed me.  Just now, when I was sorting out some lists and re-assessing some things, I put some Projects on a To Do list & felt wretched.  When I realised that I needed to make a separate Projects list for them, and only put the next step on the To-Do list I felt so much lighter.  I think this might work better for me from now on!

The epiphany was that at some point, I have to stop organising (be that reading, sorting files & lists on my computer, or physically organising things like my jewellery findings) and start doing something with that knowledge (or list, or organised things).

So my new mantra is going to be "Less organising, more doing!"

We'll see if it works ;)

Having said that, though, I do know that I have to work with whatever my mood dictates; today is a doing things with the computer day, rather than a making things day, so I'll do some more blog related work, and so on.  Maybe tomorrow one of the more physical projects will get a look in, like making some jewellery for the upcoming Newcastle Alternative Expo.  If you're around, please pop in, it looks like it will be lots of fun!

Bookbinding, tablet weaving and mask making

Many thanks to K for showing me how to make a book!  I am very pleased how it turned out, although in hindsight I would have used the flour paste glue for the cover instead of the fabric glue as I think it would have stuck better! However, several days under a heavy weight seems to have sorted out the last few blisters which hadn't stuck down quite right!

My first codex

All four codices

Sewing the codex

The finished binding

The finished article!

The endpaper

On display

Thanks also to Jo for showing me tablet weaving & mask making...  all problems with these parts of the challenge are entirely down to pilot error!

The mask was going fine until I cut the eye holes... too big :(  I am going to try to remedy it with judicious use of decoration, but we'll have to see how that goes.  Here's a few pictures from the process, before it went wrong!

The base mask.

Shaping the decorative cogs

  

Cogs fixed to the mask, all painted & pretty!

As for Tablet weaving - I think that's one for you Jo!  I tried, and the first little piece I made was OK...

Once I got going, all was well!

 Then I tried something a little more complex, with a border either side.  I had a lot of trouble with the S & Z threaded cards next to each other getting caught up together, and forgetting which way I was turning the cards to make the pattern!

Not so good....

I tried another variant, tubular weaving, which worked OK, but still not spectacularly well. 

Tubular!

Remembering what Jo had said about tablet weaving needing more cords to make it worthwhile, otherwise I might as well be doing finger-braiding, I figured I would look up finger-braiding too... and I tried that as well. Once I realised how it was supposed to be done, it was fine, but I don't think I'll make a habit of it!

A simple finger braid

Finally, I decided to try out normal weaving, since Jo had loaned me a loom to do the tablet weaving on... the sides kept pulling in and I just don't think I have the patience for this kind of thing!

Nope!