Picture Book
I am a big fan of BBC Four programming, and have been delighting in their current three part series called Picture Book which documents the history of illustrated children’s literature over the last 150 years. The first programme ‘When We Were Very Young’ which can be seen again for a short time online here focuses on when we very first start to read and develop our imagination.
The second programme ‘Now We are Six’ aired this week focuses on reading when we are going to school and how it helps us both understand the world around us but also to escape from it, and can be seen again online here.
The final programme I believe will be aired Wednesday 19th 9pm BBC Four. It has been a wonderful nostalgic literary blanket that has wrapped around me and reminded me of all the fantastic books I read as a child, and has featured some of my favourite writers/illustrators such as Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, Raymond Briggs, Quentin Blake, Roald Dahl, Michael Rosen, Phillip Pullman and many many more talents.
I will leave you with my most favourite picture book from my childhood…………
Print Gocco Mania
My Gocco PG-5 finally came today!!
Earlier in the year I had heard some twittering about the Gocco no longer being in production in Japan and that the increasing scarcity of machines had pushed up prices and also interest in them. I thought nothing of it until my path crossed once again with Gocco, by inadvertently finding an Etsy tutorial about printing using a Gocco on You Tube – it looked so easy and appealing that by the end of the video I was hooked. I eventually managed to procure myself a PG-5 from Australia, but not without having a major dilemma about purchasing, at a vastly inflated price, a machine that may become obsolete if they also stop making the consumables. There is one slight problem, the instructions are in Japanese! But then there is always You Tube to teach me how.
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Poetic, poignant and filled with pathos, this film won the Camera d’Or in The Cannes Film Festival 2005. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to find it. Beautiful.
A Cup of Mookerimungeri and a Good Book.
When I was a little girl my father told me that my great grandmother was a gypsy and used to travel around the country with the fairground telling peoples fortunes for a living from personal items such as a watch or a handkerchief. I have absolutely no evidence that any of this is true but the bohemian in me likes the idea of having gyptian heritage, so I have been reading a few books about these people and their way of life and found it fascinating. The books describe the lives of some of the original Romany families travelling around Britain from the turn of the century up to the 1960s, the two books by Betsy Whyte are autobiographical and the other is written by Rowena Farre who had travelled for a time with the Roma in the 1950’s.
Doodad and Thingamajig Update
Just in case you were wondering when the shop will be stocked, here is a teeny tiny glimpse of what I am working on at the moment……more to follow shortly.
The Change We Need
Congratulations and thank you to the people of the USA, here’s hoping for a new era of international unity and cooperation.
Mixed Emotions
On Monday just gone I had my farewell lunch with a group of close colleagues in the NHS organisation I have just left. It was a time of mixed emotions, I was on the one hand glad to no longer have the daily 50 mile commute in awful traffic, the constant bombardment of people at my desk and of e-mails each demanding often unobtainable information with ridiculous time frames and the feeling when I was finally about to leave (frequently long after 5pm) that I had achieved very little that had a direct impact on patient care. But on the other hand, seeing those warm friendly faces I have now left behind made me a little sad and I shall truly miss them. Those same people and many others in the organisation had very generously sent me off with some wonderful best wishes and presents too.
I will leave you with this poem that Margaret, a friend and colleague of many years and many re-organisations gave me, it says it all.
Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail. Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war, elect an honest man, decide they care enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor. Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best intentions do not go amiss;sometimes we do as we meant to. The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
My closest friends have either had or are expecting babies, so my crafting thoughts have turned to handmade baby items. Having knitted bootees in the past I thought that I might try my hand at making some cloth baby shoes, the pattern is straight forward enough but parts of the making up are a bit on the fiddly side. Here is my first attempt.
Just Like Emily
As a very little girl I absolutely loved Bagpuss so in love was I with this enchanting programme, that I wished very hard that when I grew up I too would have a little shop just like Emily, so that if I might find some lost whimsical item, I could bring it home, fix it up and put it in the window just in case the person who had lost it happened one day to be passing by.
Times changed, I grew up, left home and became a nurse. Instead of fixing things I helped to fix people. But I never forgot my childhood dream and after many years in the NHS, I decided to change direction and with the love and support of my wonderful husband to follow my dream.
So I now have a small and whimsical shop which can be found here and I am currently working very hard on stocking it with handmade items, so that if someone just happens to be passing by and looks in they may find something pleasing to buy.
Never give up on your dreams.
If you want to know about more about the very new and wonderful MyEhive then click here.
