Making Every Day Count: 2,3 & 4/40

Day 2

On Sunday I led our Quaker Children's Meeting on the theme of 'Living Adventurously'.  It was inspired by no 27 of the Advices & Queries:

Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak. When decisions have to be made, are you ready to join with others in seeking clearness, asking for God’s guidance and offering counsel to one another?

We talked about adventures, adventurers and the qualities that might be required.  We then played a game which involved plotting symbols on a compass, drawing a map, looking for blue birds in the trees, drawing mini beasts, taking bark rubbings and tying knots.  Card cutouts for each task fitted neatly into coloured card backpacks, all designed and drawn by my younger daughter.  The rain held off allowing the meeting to be held in the garden with plenty of scope for mini adventuring.

One of the aspects of Quakerism I find attractive is this notion of allowing one's life to speak.  It's also quite a challenge.

Day 3

On Monday I cleared my kitchen windowsill and planted some herbs.  My daughter brought home an Ikea pack containing pots, soil, and basil, mint and parsley seeds in circular tissue mats.  We potted them up, sprayed them with water and are checking daily for the first signs of green.

I've failed miserably on the gardening front this year.  I blame the local elections which had me out leafleting and campaigning when I should have been digging and sowing.  Although I've missed the boat for anything major I'm determined to grow some herbs, and perhaps a few salad leaves. 

Day 4

I attended a interview to become a volunteer for b.friend.  This is an organisation that matches local people with refugees and asylum seekers to develop mutually rewarding relationships.  Once matched I'll meet my befriendee once a week for a cuppa, or go for a walk, or to introduce her to the local library or to help her with English or ... the possibilities are endless.

Issues surrounding refugees have been headline news for some time now.  I've been sympathetic to their plight but, apart from making the odd donation and signing the odd petition, I haven't personally done anything about it ... until now.  It's a totally new experience and I'd be lying if I pretended I wasn't a bit apprehensive, but I'm sure it will be fine.  I'd like to be able to make even one person feel at home in Bristol and I suspect that I will receive as much, if not more, that I can offer.

I'm back to where I started in this post - living adventurously! - although I'm sure that even my most daring adventure will pale into insignificance when compared with what most refugees have to go through.

Making Every Day Count: 1/40

Today is the first day of my summer holidays.  I work term time only in a primary school office and and am looking at 40 days of freedom before the beginning of another academic year.  With such a long break and very few concrete plans, it would be easy to fritter the time away.  In years gone by I've drawn up lists of activities and am already working on one in my head.  But this year I've decided to raise the stakes, and recognise my good fortune by making every day count in some way or another.  I haven't yet worked out all the details and perhaps I never will.  Maybe I'll just run with it.

Anyway this afternoon I attended Bristol's Green Party leadership hustings.  You may not have realised that the Green Party is in the process of re-electing its leaders, perhaps because the media often overlook the Greens' activities or perhaps because they are (thankfully) not nearly as dramatic or contentious as those of the Tories or Labour.  We're just getting on with it.  Polls open at the beginning of next week and, as a result of today's question and answer sessions, I'm now pretty well decided on who is going to get my votes and pleased that under the single transferable voting system each of them will count.

(Not the) Cookery Calendar Challenge: June

I'm (sort of) joining with Penny at The Homemade Heart who invites fellow bloggers to choose one cookery book each month, select and cook two dishes from it and post their thoughts at the beginning of the following month.

Finish Potato Salad

In June I should have been cooking from Sabrina Ghayour's Persiana but, in honour of the EU Referendum (to which I fervently hoped the answer would be 'Remain'!) I decided, over the course of the week leading up to the vote, to prepare and eat one dish (or drink one wine/beer) from each of the 28 nations of the union.

Balbuljata
Maltese Scrambled Eggs

Danish Bubble

I kicked off with Irish soda bread and rounded it off with a Hungarian goulash.  In between we were treated to a cheese pie from Sweden, a Danish bubble and squeak, a fiery pepper sauce from Coatia to go with Bosnian burgers, an almond cake from Spain and a Finish potato salad.

Tarator
Bulgarian Yoghurt & Cucumber Soup

I tried two cold soups, the first a refreshing yoghurt and cucumber one, spiked with garlic, from Bulgaria, and the second a dayglo pink beetroot one from Lithuania.  The recipes ranged in effort required from the lightly pickled Latvian cucumbers to the tricky cheese noodles from Austria.  I included a few indulgences including a Dutch apple tart and some Slovenian apple doughnuts.

Lithuanian Beetroot Soup

There were a few dishes that did not particularly inspire, which may have had more to do with the lack of authentic ingredients or my inexperience in cooking them, but there were many more that I would happily try again.  These included a simple yet tasty mushroom and potato gratin from Estonia, a delicious Greek take on ratatouille, a delightful honey and lemon flavoured haloumi dish from Cyprus and a rich and creamy Portuguese custard tart.

Portuguese Custard Tarts

Dutch Apple Tart

Tackling three or four new recipes a day proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated but I can honestly say I enjoyed the experience.  It's just a pity that what started out as a celebration of our union ended as homage to its demise.  The Italian prosecco bought to cheer our victory ended up drowning our sorrows.

Halloumi with Honey & Thyme

Persiana has not been forgotten and will be my cookery book for July.

Here's (some of) what I did in 2014

Major changes:  Alan took voluntary redundancy from the BBC in the spring and was unemployed for six months until he found a new job with the Royal Voluntary Service in the autumn.

Green Party:  I campaigned for the local and European elections and was rewarded with success for our candidates in both seats.  Alan has agreed to stand as a candidate for our ward next year so we'll have our work cut out for us in spring, canvassing for him and our parliamentary candidate.

Campaigning: I knitted 3 metres of the 7 mile pink scarf that Wool against Weapons used to link the atomic weapons establishments at Aldermaston & Burghfield to protest against the proposed renewal of Trident.  Alan joined me in Living Below the Line (£1/day for 5 days - harder than you'd think) and, at the other extreme, we hosted a Karma Korma curry evening in aid of Frank Water.

Singing:  In addition to continuing to sing with the Gasworks Choir, and the Gasworks Singers, I have also been involved with another local choir, Handfuls of Harmony, rehearsing children in the school where I work.  We've given four performances and, in November, won £50,000 in The People's Millions to help get the whole community singing together.

Culture:  I travelled to Birmingham with bluehands to see Grayson Perry's outrageously colourful tapestries (and to pop in to the gloriously shiny new central library).  In the autumn Alan and I visited Crucible 2, a stunning display of sculptures set in and around the magnificent Gloucester cathedral.

The Girls:  Iona graduated with an MA in History from Glasgow University in the summer, with Alan and I cheering from the gallery.  She now finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the world of politics.  Who knows where it will end?  Eilidh is now in her second year at Falmouth University studying illustration and enjoying life in her beloved Cornwall.

Holidays:  What with one thing and another we didn't have a family holiday this year.  We took a few mini breaks to visit the girls, and my sister in Edinburgh.  I'm enjoying discovering a bit more of Glasgow and Falmouth each time I visit.  We also treated ourselves to a few days out in the summer, including a long overdue trip to Tyntesfield and a morning of indulgence at the Lido.

Visitors:  We hosted my school's French assistante, who was very unlucky with the weather, and in the summer we welcomed my Canadian cousin and her daughter, whom we hadn't seen in years. 

Quakers:  In addition to weekly Meetings for Worship I've been attending a smaller discussion group, learning more about what it means to be a Quaker, and making new friends.

Bristol Pound:  The Bristol Pound goes from strength to strength and I've been steadily increasing the percentage of our weekly budget we pay in local currency.  Avoiding supermarkets helps and, after having sailed through my November no-supermarket challenge, I plan to buy most of our food etc at local independents in 2015. 

The Referendum:  Having lived outside Scotland most of my life, I didn't expect to become as emotionally engaged with the Referendum campaign, to find myself on the opposite side of the argument to members of my own family or to shed tears when the result was declared in wee hours.  Despite the belief that we missed our golden opportunity to explore a better way of doing politics, I was never prouder of my people and remain convinced that one day Scotland will be an independent country.

2014, the usual mixture of highs and lows.

What will 2015 bring?  Electoral success?  A return to Cornwall in the summer? Unexpected guests? 

Come back and find out.

This Weekend ...

... was one of political engagement.

On Friday evening I signed up for a double bill of two of my heroes at Bristol's excellent Festival of Ideas.

First up was Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the British civil liberties advocacy organisation, who spoke about her new book On Liberty. Liberty celebrates its 80th anniversary this year and Shami reflected on the differences, and similarities, of the issues it has faced then and now.  The audience was particularly interested in her views on anti-terrorist legislation and the government's proposal to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Next up was Owen Jones, left wing author and commentator, who spoke about his book The Establishment.  In his opinion the biggest threat to our democracy lies in the power exerted by those at the top (politicians, the media, directors, bankers etc) and he issues a powerful rallying call for them to be challenged.  He ended by quoting the late great Tony Benn who said 'You see there are two flames burning in the human heart all the time.  The flame of anger against injustice, and the flame of hope you can build a better world.'

Well on Saturday I did my bit.  I travelled up to London to take part in the TUC Britain Needs a Pay Rise march.  I'm a member of Unison and I joined tens of thousands fellow unionists, representing an impressive range of unions, to protest against the deeply damaging effects of our coalition government's austerity programme. According to Frances O'Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, the avergage worker is £50 a week worse off then in 2007 and 5 million earn less than the living wage, while top directors now earn 175 times more than the average worker.  It's just not fair and we were there to tell them so.

Maybe it was just the beginnings of a cold I glibly thought would pass, or maybe it was the 14 hour round trip with all that marching/dancing to the samba band and standing listening to the speeches, but today's been a washout.  I've spent half the day in bed and the other half on the sofa.  I hope I'm not too old for this demonstrating lark because I fear there'll be need for more of before we're done with building a better world to live in.

This Weekend ...

... I bought two sea bream from our friendly new market fishmonger and cooked them according to his instructions.  They were delicious.

... I made a blanket for the homeless from three lengths of the 7 mile scarf I'd helped knit to link Aldermaston to Burghfield earlier this summer.

... I enjoyed lunch at No 1 Harbourside (pork & sage arancini with spiced apricot jam, baked English Camembert with courgette pickle and a salad of green beans, spring onions, raisins and cumin seeds).

... I was greatly encouraged by Will & Testament, a film documenting the life and work of Tony Benn, one of my heroes and a continuing inspiration to all who strives for justice and fairness.

... I baked batches of cookies (cranberry, white chocolate and walnut) and scones for a Bristol Pound Open House, and hopefully persuaded a few friends to sign up and start spending them.

Should Scotland be an Independent Country?

Yes or No?

As a non-domiciled Scot I have no vote in tomorrow's referendum but, and this will come as no surprise to any of you, I do have a view.

We have reached the end of a passionate debate, over many years and covering a wide variety of issues; nationalism, the democratic deficit, Trident, sterlingisation, the Barnett Settlement, oil revenue, the privatisation of the NHS, the Scandinavian model ... even pandas! Both sides have bombarded us with statistics, paraded experts before us and cited examples of the success or failure of small independent states to support their opposing arguments. So much information but no right or wrong answers.

However, the question being posed of every voter tomorrow is a surprisingly simple one: Should Scotland be an independent country?

If independence means the freedom to create a fairer juster country in which to live, and to leave to future generations then, for me, the answer must surely be Yes. No one should be under any illusion that the ride will always be smooth, but it will be the Scots who will chose the direction of travel.

Never has the much used phrase 'too close to call' been more apt. There is little more any of us can do except watch and wait to learn the settled will of the people. But, there is a sense that, no matter what the result, Scotland has already won so much more than anyone could ever have imagined. The debate has ranged over every nook and cranny of the land, engaging people who don't usually do politics, giving 16-18 year olds a vote and with it a voice in their future, provoking a 97% registration and promising a record 80+% turnout. The Scots have invested everything in this referendum, too much for this to be the end of the process, no matter what the result.

I have always been proud of Scotland, the land and its people (in a completely non jingoistic way, of course). This referendum has done nothing to diminish my pride and everything to vindicate it.

Summer 2014: A Review

At the beginning of the summer holidays I drew up a To Do List.  This is how I got on.

Cycle to Bath along the railway path

Having been knocked off a bike aged 18 and not ridden again until last summer on Colonsay, I was more than a little anxious about my ability to reach Bath without incident, but it proved to be much easier, and far more enjoyable than I'd feared.  We hired Bromptons from Temple Meads station via Brompton Dock, whose service I thoroughly recommend.  The path was a delight, taking us out behind back gardens and parks into the open countryside where we rode through wooded areas, along causeways with views out over the fields and following the river into Bath.  There, after a pot of tea in a cafe, we folded our bikes (albeit with a few teething problems) and carried them on to a train back to Bristol.  I enjoyed the experience so much that I'm planning to do it again.

Bake 5 pies from my new Pieminister Pie book

I managed two.  They were the Screaming Desperado (chilli con carne in a rough puff pastry) and Porkie Buns (Vietnamese flavoured sausagement in a hot crust pastry).  I loved the filling in the first and would eat it again on its own (the pie had a 'soggy bottom'), but the buns were a sensation.  We at them on a picnic at Tyntesfield with coleslaw and my daughter's boyfriend's mother's(!) piccalilli.

 Visit Tyntesfield

We caught the bus and claimed our 20% discount at the ticket office, cafe and shop.  It was a glorious sunny day and we spent a couple of hours wandering round the grounds, admiring the sculpture exhibition, exploring the outbuildings and the kitchen garden and eating our picnic, before entering the house. Restoration is ongoing and given the quality of what has been achieved thus far, the finished article will be truly amazing.  

Make falafels
I used Jamie Oliver's recipe.  They were alright but not nearly as good as ones I've eaten from street stalls; more bean burger than falafel.  So I'm going to try out Yotam Ottonlenghi's recipe which I'm certain will be more authentic.

Read 5 books
I read three (well almost three!) - Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gayle, A Death in Tuscany by Michele Ferrara and How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.  A varied selection but all good reads.

Create a sourdough starter
My starter is well and truly established and has been used to make three loaves.

Get up early to watch Bristol Balloon Fiesta Dawn Ascent
I've watched many an evening ascent, but whether it's the satisfaction of making it up the hill that early, hot cups of tea from a flask, the absence of the fairground noise, the soft light or the anticipation of a bacon butty on our return, but this one was extra special.

Bake 5 new breads
I managed four - irish soda bread, flatbread, cornbread and sourdough.  And if I count the kanelbullar (technically buns, but made with yeast!) then it would be five.

Picnic at Bristol Zoo
I spent a leisurely day at the zoo with my younger daughter and picnicked on the lawn.  There's always something new to see and the promise of even more to entice you back.

Visit the Jeremy Deller exhibition
I'd never heard of Jeremy Deller but found his work very thought provoking.  I particularly appreciated the huge paintings on the wall.

Visit St Werburgh's City Farm, eat meatballs @ Ikea and shop at Bristol Sweet Mart
We had to go to Ikea to buy a table for my younger daughter.  I like to make the most of my £4 day rider bus ticket so we combined it with a visit to St Werburgh's City Farm and a short walk through Boiling Wells.  We enjoyed our meatballs at Ikea but sadly didn't have time for a cuppa at the farm.

Make rhubarb & ginger jam
I managed to get five jars from our new rhubarb plant.  I took a chance with a bag of jam sugar that was four years past its best before date, but we're still alive and kicking!

Take advantage of podiatrist appointment to window shop in Cotham/Clifton
I popped in to Kitchens and bought a banneton for my sourdough breadmaking and two pie dishes for my Pieministering.  Having drooled over The Philosophy of List's madeleines I'm kicking myself for not having bought the baking tin I saw on my way out.  Still, I'll be back that way on Saturday so ...

Swim and lunch at the Lido
Although I haven't technically done this during the holidays I did book our visit during that time.  We're swimming and lunching there this weekend.

Make a start on a recipe folder
Our house is littered with piles of magazines and boxes of cuttings but, with no way of knowing where any of them are when I need them, I rarely use any of the recipes I collect.  So, armed with a ring binder, an A4 pad, a pair of scissors and a Pritt stick, I went to work on the pile of Guardian 'cook' supplements.  I was ruthlessly selective and have ended up with a folderful of recipes that I might very well use.  Indeed I've already cooked two of them.

Make pizza
I made a couple of the best pizzas I've had in a long time.

Walk: Leigh Woods
I dragged my younger daughter and her boyfriend round the second longest trail, stopping to admire the view across the gorge and eat banana bread.  Despite being the weekend it was unusually quiet.

Picnic on Brandon Hill
We ate tortilla and salad and watched language students play frisbee under the trees.  Rain and the absence of the Vee Double Moo van prevented us from lingering.

Finish crocheting my daughter's quilt
It's almost there.  When I started to crochet the granny squares together I discovered I didn't have quite enough of them, so I had to rustle up a few more.  There's only five to go now and the border to add.

Walk: Bristol Old City
It's amazing how often we walk past building without actually looking at them.

So I didn't hold 5 dinner parties, visit Oxford, make tomato ketchup, take a proper look around the M Shed, watch the Night Glow, walk round Snuff Mills or Blaise Castle, shopped for clothes for work, swim in the outdoor pool at Street, make icecream, crak Prashad's khokla recipe, preserve lemons, make lemonade, have a barbecue or take the ferry boat to Beese's Tea Gardens.

But I did have lunch with friends at the Tube Diner, follow the Secret Cemetery trail around Arnos Vale, attend Amnesty's Goldney Garden Party, eat kebabs and jalebis at the Islamic Cultural Fair hand out leaflets at Temple Meads protesting about the increase in rail fares, run a Bristol Pound stall at the Tobacco Factory Market, see What If and Two Days and One Night, oppose the Metrobus proposal at a council planning meeting and generally enjoy not having to go to work.    

Iona

Quotations on the Abbey wall

My elder daughter is called Iona and it has been our intention, ever since she was born, to introduce her to the island after which she was named.  Well it took 21 year,s but last summer we finally made it.

Our visit was part of a mini tour of the Inner Hebrides.  We spent a few days in Tobermory before catching two buses and a ferry to the island.  The scenery was spectacular and the fine mist only added to the atmosphere.  

Iona Hostel

We were booked into the eco award winning Iona Hostel, at the north end of the island.  You can just about see it in the photographs, nestling under the hill.  There was no one around when we arrived, but the door was open and there was a message on the front desk inviting us to kick off our boots and make ourselves at home in the kitchen.  Which we did, and the memory of that cup of tea on a comfy sofa looking out over the sea to the Dutchman's cap and beyond will stay with me to end of my days.

View north from Iona Hostel

It wasn't long before the other residents began to drift back in after their day's adventures, followed closely by John, the affable owner, who showed us to our room and gave us a tour of the facilities.  The room was basic, two sets of timber bunk beds.  That was it.  The toilets and shower rooms were equally minimalist.  But the walls were dotted with poems!

The kitchen/dining/living room ran the length of the hostel and was very much the heart of it.  Visitors were encouraged to make full use of anything and everything on the communal shelves and although we ate separately there was much sharing of tasks.  While drying dishes I met a woman who knew folk I hadn't seen since I was a child in India over forty years ago.  We bumped into a French family we'd first met a couple of days earlier in Tobermory.  We played Articulate late into the night with a young couple from the north of England and the two resident hostel helpers.  And on our final night we were entertained by the arrival of a large Scottish/Italian famiily who filled the hostel with laughter, the pattering of little feet and the aroma of herbs and tomatoes.

With only two full days on the island we couldn't hope to cover it all, so we picked out a few sights.  On our first day we braved the mist to walk right down the island to St Columba's Bay at its southernmost tip.

Dun I

St Columba's Bay

The next day, as bright and sunny as the first was cold and wet, we headed for the abbey.  To celebrate its 350th anniversary Historic Scotland has produced an excellent audio guide which allowed each of us to explore the site at our own pace.

Iona Abbey

St Martin's Cross

St Martin's Cross

St John's Cross

St Columba

Descent of the Spirit by Jacques Lipchitz

Afterwards we took advantage of the weather to climb Dun I for a bird's eye view of the island, including our hostel and the island of Colonsay to the south, our next destination.

Iona Hostel from Dun I

But of course, no visit to Iona would have been complete without a pilgrimage to John Smith's grave, perhaps one of the best Prime Ministers we never had.

Next stop Colonsay!

Out with the Old. In with the New.

Time for the annual roundup of the year's highlights.

Top of the list has to be our summer holiday in the Inner Hebrides, when we finally introduced our Iona to her island namesake.  I've been meaning to blog about it ever since we returned but have never got round to it.  But I'm determined to do so, so until then all I'll say is that the photograph is of the view from the living room of our lodge on Colonsay where I spent many happy hours reading and knitting (that's when I wasn't spending many equally happy hours exploring the island by bike).

On 6 January I attended my first Quaker meeting and have been going ever since.  After years of searching for somewhere I can continue my spiritual journey I believe I may have found it with the Friends.

My younger daughter was offered the university place of her dreams, at Falmouth, to study illustration.  After a year of travelling up and down the country attending open days and returning for interviews, this came as a great relief to all of us, although I did enjoy the opportunity to visit/reacquaint myself with several lovely cities.

In May I accepted the challenge to live on £1 per day for 5 days.  I am grateful for the generosity of the friends who sponsored me and the opportunity to raise the profile of extreme poverty in Bristol via two interviews on BBC local radio.

I continue to volunteer for the Bristol Pound and in the autumn was elected to the Board of Directors to represent the individual account holders.  The local currency is over a year old now and I'm really looking forward to playing my part in its continuing success.

Now that the girls have both left home I've been doing more singing.  In the summer I took part in the biennial Sing for Water on Bristol's harbourside and then I finally plucked up the courage to join the Gasworks Singers.  This is an offshoot of the Gasworks choir (of which I've been a member for many years) and is a much smaller group who sing more often at festivals and charitable events.  There was a fairly long list of songs to master before our first gig at the North Bristol Arts Trail but I managed and can now relax and enjoy the music, the friendship and the spectacular shared lunches.

There have, of course, been occasions on which to try and set the world right.  In April I paid my first visit to Aldermaston to protest against the obscenity of nuclear weapons.  In June I was in London to highlight world hunger, a week after I helped feed 5,000 people with food that might otherwise have been send to a landfill site.  It does sometimes feel as if we're bashing our heads against a brick wall but if that's what it takes to create a better world for everyone then I for one am prepared to carry on.

Fortunately there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful and that's what I plan to concentrate on in 2014.

I'm looking forward to:

• taking my elder daughter on a European city break (Prague?) after she sits her final degree exam and then to attending her graduation ceremony in the summer
• campaigning for the Green Party in this year's local and European elections and persuading people to consider the environmental impact of their vote
• getting my head around Quaker faith and practice and perhaps attending the Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath (even if it's only for a day or so)
• helping to convince more individuals and businesses of the merits of the Bristol Pound
• listening to the debate on Scottish independence and (hopefully?) witnessing the birth of an independent Scotland in September
• carrying on baking, campaigning, composting, crocheting, gardening, knitting, protesting, reading, recycling, singing, walking,  ...

Happy New Year to all of you!

Eurovision 2013

I love the Eurovision Song Contest.

There, I've admitted it.

It's not the greatest competition from a musical point of view but it's not the singing that attracts me - it's the spectacle.  (That, and the belief that coming together to sing and play and dance is infinitely preferable to declaring war on each other!)  And last evening's performance did not disappoint.  The Greeks extolled the virtues of free alcohol while prancing around in a black and white rugby shirts and kilts.  The Romanian, in operatic leather and diamonds warbled in falsetto as near naked dancers emerged from the cover of a red plastic sheet and writhed around at his feet.  Finally the Azerbaijani danced on a box containing a acrobat mimicing his every move and and was reunited with a woman in a short red dress with an impossibly long train.

There is a growing tradition of throwing Eurovision parties with fancy dress, sweepstakes and drinking competitions.  I wasn't anywhere as well prepared as this.  However I did rise to the preparation of a three course Swedish feast in honour of the host nation.

We ate:

smoked salmon served with mustard & dill dressing and rye bread

Jansson's frestelse served with runner beans

saffranspannkaka served with sylt lingon and cream

I now have a whole year to plan a Danish menu to accompany next year's Eurovision.

Millennium Development Goals

5 April 2013 marked 1000 days to the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, the most successful global anti-poverty project in history.

The target of halving the proportion of people who live on less than $1.25 a day was met five years ahead of schedule.

However, given the projection that in 2015 almost one billion people will still be living on this amount, there is a lot more work to be done.

That's why I'm going to Live Below the Line for 5 days from 29 April - to try and illustrate what this means in practical terms and to raise funds for Oxfam.

So far I've had two generous supporters, but I'm a long way off my £250 target.  Please consider giving as much as you can afford.

You can follow my progress and donate here.

Thank you!

47/365

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
 and their spears into pruning hooks:
 nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,
 neither shall they learn war any more

If I had £100 billion would I spend it on ...

... building more hospitals, employing more doctors and nurses, ensuring that every child had access to a good school, investing in the public transport infrastructure, supporting individuals and their families with physical and mental needs, sponsoring medical research, providing shelter for the homeless, funding research into sustainable energy, ensuring that everyone is paid a living wage, eradicating extreme poverty ...

or would I spend it all on a nuclear deterrent?

Hmmm.

In 2012 ...

I knitted and crocheted

I cooked and baked

 I sang and listened to others sing

I involved myself in politics and campaigns

I supported local independent traders

 I went out and about in Bristol ...

... and in London

I went on holiday to St Ives

I started running and went on a diet and ...!

I survived the Jubilee but entered into the Olympic spirit.

I made holiday lists and managed to cross most items off them!

I met Fatmumslim's Photo a Day Challenge but didn't quite meet my own challenges to photograph A Month of Dinners or my Advent countdown.

All in all it's been a good year and I've certainly had fun trawling through my posts and reminding myself of its highlights.

Here's to 2013!

PS  I've thoroughly enjoyed reading other bloggers' reviews and greatly admire those whose photos are better displayed than mine.  Any tips on how to create mosaics on blogger would be much appreciated.