Catherine’s Blog

It is snowing heavily in our part of London.  Neither Anthony and I have evern seen it so thick in London!

It is very cool!

Anthony and I had a lot of fun last night.  We have had the obscene novelty of being able to buy and set off fireworks… in our own backyard.  We had an old wine bottle, popped in the rocket and lit the fuse.  Whoosh, bag, whizz and explosions in the sky.  It was good fun and had that naughty edge to it.  It is something we will have to exploit whilst living here!

We are back from the wilds of Yorkshire.  Ahhh, Whitby, it is like coming home, almost.
We spent most of Thursday morning performing a tardis trick in packing the car.  We really did over pack but it is all the fun of the fair and we took stuff for our cottages mates as well.
We arrived in Whitby just before five, this gave us time to unpack, explore the lovely flat and get ready for dinner.
We ate in the local pub and then headed to the Elisnore to catch up with people.  It was a gentle breaking in to the theme.
Saturday morning was up early and off to the Met to drop stuff for the Bring and Buy sale.  We looked around but to be honest none of us were in the buying mood and that was the end of shopping for us.  I suspect both Gerry and I spoil ourselves somewhat being aware we can make a lot of the clothing ourselves.
Then it was picking up tickets for the Spa and the Spa theatre, this was a faff and frankly the organisation for this event does worry me.
Then we shopped for food, saving us a lot of money in the long run.  Once unpacked our horde of food we headed off to Robin’s Hood Bay for some old fashioned sight seeing.  It is such a cute village.  Not much in the way of roads and lots of little paths for you to wander between houses.  Sooo cute!  We did think it may be difficult to get your Amazon orders though!
Then back to the flat for Stir Fry and getting dressed.  The high lights were, Ben’s beautiful new frock coat and Gerry’s stripped corset.  Anthony was not feeling the best and opted not to drink and we drove.
We went to see the Irrepressible Mr Flay perform.  We waited some okay burlesque with repetitive dances and then it was Mr Flay and flaying arms as he struggled out of his straight jacket at impressive speed.  He was thrust up by his beautiful assistant, Madeline.   The bullet catch looked very daring but possibly an little ham acted.  The whole ‘chap’ feel of the act worked very well, Ed, himself looked very dashing in his duster and flying helmet.  He made me want to say ‘dashing’ and frightfully’ a lot.  I got a lot of good photos as well.  Being able to say the performer has asked me to take photos was very cool.
We wandered around the spa later but the bands on did not interest us that much and we were there for the socialising.
Saturday dawned sunny and we went for steam punk outfits to stroll around in.  Anthony received his second birthday present, a steam punk tie clip to go with his cuff links.  We were up late so there was not much sunshine left but we headed out any way.  We took photos and generally just pottered around and of course had our photo’s taken, a lot.  There was also a purchase of jewellery.  We bought me a Whitby jet ring, with little Celtic knots either side of a shiny black stone.  It for the moment has replaced the ring I have worn on my right ring finger for at least 10 years.  It is very nice and Anthony and I choose it together, have tiny fingers makes the choice a little limited but I am sure they could have adjusted some for me if need be.
We then swanned up to the steam punk meet but it proved to be very crowded so the colonials decamped across the road and had tea and scones together.
Then it was up to the pub, to find the Elisnore full of Goths and loud drunk tourists/locals and not that pleasant so we went back to the flat.  Consumed gilled sandwiches a dressed up.  The highlights for Saturday nights clothing was Anthony’s antique top hat, Gerry’s polka dot bustle drape and my kimono (if I don’t say so myself).  We had a great night and were very impressed with Voltaire’s singing, having never heard him before we thought he rocked.  The rest of the bands were okay but nothing really floated my boat.  Some of the outfits were astounding and there were some screams as well.
Then it was drunken wanderings to Fran and CJ’s to bathe in the glory of her new hair cut.  I was a little sleepy when I left and in the morning realised my phone was back at there!  Oppps.
Sunday was a late start and off to the football.  It was freezing and I did take pictures I don’t think the camera was all that responsive to the cold.  We chatted in the club rooms after the match, catching up with Yana and meeting the delightful Vics.  Then it was off to the Elsi and more drinks before heading back to the cottage to gorge ourselves on home made pizza.  Then it was a quick change for the Laughton’s 80’s night.  The highlight was Anthony in a kilt, he does look good in one!  There whilst trying out my new flash I meet and took photo’s for Voltaire and Jayme, who had left there camera’s behind!  That was my small celebrity brush with fame.
The next morning was packing up and heading home.

So, the over all feel for the weekend was a lot wetter and oddly not as friendly as the April Whitby.  There were lots of tourists and that was disconcerting.  The events were okay but £45 is a lot of money just to stand around and chat!  Our cottage mates were lovely to share with and full of good ideas.  There was a 1000 piece puzzle in the cottage that we completed and that was a relaxing thing to do.  I was also pretty pleased with the fact that in the outfits we wore in the evenings had at least on hand made item in them.  I am pleased with my out put of sewing for the time.

I have quite a number of photos to go through and am more than a little insanely busy with going to Scotland on the weekend.  I am going to be in need of a rest soon!  The only other thing of note that has happen recently was I applied for a photography tender and unfortunately missed out, to be offered to submit was pretty cool but it was disappointing to miss out.

The Day

Originally uploaded by LPM

I won smoothies! Expect me to bring litre containers as presents and to share!!!
Thank you to all those who voted!
I never win such cool things.

Last night I had a great time!
I joined Mel and Bill at the Olde Cheshire Cheese pub for a quick drink and bite to eat.  We were joined by Ruth and Cecile, whom I have finally now have met in real life.
Decamping the vaults of the pub, we set off to the St Bride Printing Library.  Meeting Madeline there, loitering around the main entrance to the library, hearing our phone call through the wall.  We were rescued by the Librarian, Nigel Roche, who like most librarian and especially specialist librarians was eccentric.  His green renaissance era coat complete with slashing was dashingly set off by a cattleman’s style hat.  Meeting him was the first indication this was going to be a good night.  Nigel had internet stalked the group, bibliogoth, and knew there were librarians in the group and had prepared the most wonderful collection of stuff for us.  He had also left a message on the groups LJ community page!  There was even a lovely red sweet wine that we got to sample through out the browsing part of the evening.
There was a William Morris, Chaucer, a fabulous rendition harking back to a long ago era including a pig skin hand tooled binding.  The print was very black and gothic type with printed illuminations in black.  Divine!
There were original broadsheets with horribly wonderful tales of murder, shipwrecks, lovers quarrels, cannibalism and gallows laments!  For special interest to me were the transcripts from the Old Bailey.  Records of the crimes and the sentences, from just guilty to death and of course, transportation.  Lots of it, from 7 years to life; very sobering especially when you are aware of the horrid death rate aboard those ships and hard life when they got the far flung place they were sent.
Nigel then gave an interesting talk about the history of the Library, and the surrounding area, as they are tied closely together.  At the moment the library with it’s 50,000 item collection is run by a charity, the St Bride Foundation.  The reason it is a printing Library is of course, Fleet street, the hub of the printing trade in London for hundreds of years.  They even had a school for printer’s apprentices there for many years.  The library carries not only books on all subjects related to printing from ink manufacturing to book binding to graphic art, they also have a font collection and small number of out-moded printing presses.  It is a wealth of printing knowledge!
We then got a tour of the Library, the store rooms in barely organised chaos and seemingly fast running out of room!  Then it was down and up stairs to the new modern reading room.  The library is reference only so people have to come into use it, there is a Librarian, Nigel and an assistant Librarian Elizabeth, whom we briefly met.
We then go let into what I can only describe as a store room.  Full of out of date printing presses and letters by the million.  Yep, those little metal rods with the letters on them to use in print presses.  I have no idea the technical name for them but they were every where and not just in characters.  There were Sanskrit and Arabic scripts jest to name a few.  There were all sorts of tools of the trade scattered around this room, it was like a candy shop for curious fingers.  I am kicking myself I did not take my camera with me!  So much so I think I am going to organise a flickr meet to go and take photos!
We ended the tour checking out some wonderful superseded printing presses from at least a 100 years ago.  Heavy elegant things, including and American model that was a little Broadway with it embossed dragons and eagles!
It was a wonderful night, thank you to Mel for finding this little gem and Nigel for being informative and personalising the workshop/tour for our group.  For £ten per person the tour is well worth it a undiscovered gem in the heart of London.

I am not that sports mad even though I spent years involved in rowing.  Joyce and Arnie are more sports mad than I.
This years Olympics have been really interesting.  You can not go far without them appearing on the radio, the TV or newspapers but this is my first Olympics in a foreign country.  I am pretty sure the Athens Olympics were on whilst I was in Australia.
Great Britain or Team GB as they are known has here are doing very well, in fact they are doing better than they have done in about a 100 years when the Olympics really was just a group of mates having a go.
As I write this they are Third on the medal table behind the huge power houses of the US and China.  Russia is sandwiched at fourth and Australia is fifth.  We are not doing badly, the men in the pool seem to be not to be doing as well as pervious years, I am thinking this the Michael Phelps effect.
I think the placement of Australia in the top five just goes to show what hard work does.  I am a little disappointed with what could be termed as sore losers with comments from Australians that the British are only good as sports that require sitting down.  I just hope this is tongue in cheek because the British have done very well.
John Major started the funding of sport here in Britain with the use of Lottery funding.  This is finally bearing fruit in the haul of medals.  I am hoping that this haul will bring out young champions for the 2012 games in London.
As for Australia, we are doing well, as we have always seemed to do.  I think many people forget we are a country of 21 million people, not a huge population but we are more than slightly sports mad.  For me, here in London it is odd not to have heard “Advance Australia Fair” on the television coverage but to hear Australian commentators with the British makes it really odd.  I am so used to green and gold being the focus that red, white and blue is all just a little odd.
So I watching a bit of the Olympics, Joyce, not as much as you but I am watching the medal tables and hoping we do well as well as Britain.
I might have a search for medal hauls compared with per head a capita and with per head capita spending on sport.  Now, that would be interesting.

I have been playing on wordle.com It takes text and turns it it a cool sort of snap shot. The more I use a word, the bigger it is. This page of posts is all about Anthony apparently.

My mother sent this link : http://www.glumbert.com/media/graphicartists