This Week I will mostly be ...

... reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
... knitting a sleeve
... watching Strictly-related shows
... chilling - got Thursday and Friday off work, plus no singing class or youth club
... going to a wedding on Saturday (yay!)
... practising walking in knee-high boots with a 3-inch heels for said wedding
... feeling Christmassy now it's dark when I leave work

This Week I will mostly be ...

... reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
... knitting a scarf and possibly a sleeve
... watching 'Casablanca' (didn't get chance last week)
... hobbling (pulled a muscle at the ceilidh on Saturday, ouch!)
... looking forward to half-term next week

Ooh la la!

Remember a while ago I mentioned making a beret that was way too big for my head and made me feel sad? Well, I've now transformed it into this:

So chic it makes me want to speak French! I just stuck it in the washing machine with some clothes on a hot wash (normally stick to 30 but on this occasion went higher to achieve the effect)and it came out looking like a fancy felt beret from a shop! The wool content of the yarn makes it a bit itchy but I've sewn some ribbon into the band to stop it scratching my forehead - so I'm also getting my stitch on a little!

So now I'm just knitting scarves to go in Christmas shoeboxes for children who won't otherwise get a present. I've done one, nearly finished another and I might have enough spare yarn for a third if I don't get sick of knitting them. I also need to get back to my cardigan, not even half-finished and the winter is upon us!

My Blog Action Day post

I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

When I heard about Blog Action Day, I instantly wanted to get involved. I wanted to join the thousands of bloggers writing about poverty today. And I started writing a paragraphs on how modern society has got the wrong priorities, and the virtues of Fairtrade and the ‘Big Issue.’

Then I thought, who am I kidding?

The truth is many of the other blog posts that will form part of this day of action will be far more insightful, and probably written by people who are actively fighting poverty. This makes me feel very small, because I know that so much of the way I live my life is short-sighted and selfish. I don’t do enough to fight poverty, either through fear, greed or apathy. I don’t give money to homeless people because I find them intimidating; I don’t tithe my earnings because I’d rather have a bit saved up for a rainy day; I don’t participate in activities aimed at reducing poverty because I feel like I don’t have the time or energy.

I’m hoping that, by being honest, anyone who reads this will think, ‘thank goodness, I’m not the only one,’ and not, ‘God, what a selfish cow.’ If you do think the latter, I am trying. I try to buy Fairtrade goods as much as I can to support the initiative of allowing people to work their way out of poverty, I sometimes buy the ‘Big Issue’ (not often admittedly) and I do give some money to charity. I give to and buy from charity shops, and try to avoid cheap fashion because you never know how they’ve cut their costs. I try to reduce my carbon footprint, aware that the people most adversely affected by climate change are very often the poorest. These are all achievable little things, and I know I should do more.

So, for my Blog Action Day post, I ask you to leave a comment suggesting another action I can take. If this day is about anything it’s about sharing ideas, and it seems I need more than I can share. So please leave a comment. Thank you.

This Week I will mostly be ...

... reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee
... watching 'Casablanca'
... knitting another scarf
... sewing ribbon into the band of my now-felted beret
... blogging about poverty on Blog Action Day (Wednesday)
... getting leeched on Thursday (or giving blood as it's normally called)
... going to a ceilidh on Saturday, weeeee!

Another link

I was just having a browse on Recycle This when I came across a post about refashioning clothes - and it referenced a blog by a woman called Amy Quarry. This is my kinda blog - craftiness and a love of green-ness combined. So I've added it to my ever-growing list of quite interesting websites so I don't forget her. And if you're interested, you have a look too!

200-word review: 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom

What a load of sentimental codswallop! I read this book because it was on the list of 100 best novels I posted a while back – the only explanation for this is that it was inserted by the kind of person who sends sickening chain e-mails about ill children or dying old men. I expected the epilogue to contain a demand to pass the book on to ten people in exchange for something good happening to you.

Here’s the story: 83-year-old Eddie dies in an accident at the amusement park he’s worked at most of his life. He goes to heaven where he meets five people from his past who explain his life to him. Even in a nutshell this book sounds nauseating, and it lives up to its promise. If the premise wasn’t bad enough, then Albom’s visualisation of heaven is cringeworthy. He half-heartedly describes skies changing colour and people flying, but in a disjointed way that just feels like he thought, “Hey, this isn’t ethereal enough, I’ll stick some trippy stuff about dry snow and clouds in there, that’ll work.”

Sorry, but it doesn’t work. What you have here is the world’s longest glurge e-mail put into book form.

Blog Action Day

I heard today about Blog Action Day. It's on 15th October, and bloggers everywhere will be posting something about poverty. I think it's a great idea - get people talking about the issue, and maybe action will follow. All I need to do is think of something to write next week!

If you're interested in this, click on the title of this post and it will take you to the website, you can register your blog and join in. It's going to be really interesting to see what sort of posts will come out of this, so sign up!

This Week I will mostly be ...

... reading 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven'
... watching 'The Count of Monte Cristo' (a more recent and hopefully better version)
... knitting a scarf
... practising for my driving theory test on Thursday (eep!)
... wrapping up warm, it's turned freezing suddenly!

It pays to be a vegetablist!

Just a little sidenote - apparently turning veggie could reduce carbon emissions generated by production of meat:

http://generous.org.uk/news/103-go-veggie-just-for-one-day

So I've been unwittingly cutting carbon emissions for 14 years! Love it!