Prickles on parade

It seems I am not the only one who is seasonally confused. Ms Tiggywinkle put in another appearance today, during daylight. She and Otto have something in common; both seem to be very short sighted. Mercifully for the hedgehog, Otto is too slow (low slung sardine pouch) to catch her, and she most likely sees a large black and white blob on the horizon. So far so good. However, our naughty tortie can smell meat on the move at 500 paces. Sadly this version comes with several hundred built in tooth picks.
She also has a nose which senses liver / beef / and probably gamey hedgehog from under her blanket on the sofa.

I have covered up the wee creature with leaves, in the hope that will throw Cookie off the scent. She wouldn’t be seen dead nosing through vegetables!

Peace diamonds

I’m a girl who loves jewellery. Not the high value, need-to-take-out-insurance type, but the quirky, cheap and “this says who I am” type.

So it was no surprise to start fundraising with second hand jewellery. A group of five of us started with a handful of items, then we sent out letters to contacts, then the jewellery started to pour in. So far we have sent funds to charities helping homeless women, disabled, food banks, and children who needed heart surgery in Israel. The money has gone to both Jew and Arab – just in case you were wondering.

We have our stalls in our homes, local craft markets, local fruit markets (!), conferences, churches, cinemas. In fact anywhere where we can roll out our stall.

Our road map to peace is done one pair of earrings at a time.

Another great Saturday

We are a tad confused, meteorologically speaking. It is a “don’t need to wear a coat” day. I am making marmalade from our window ripened lemons and the clematis is budding. This is supposed to be the middle of winter, but it feels like spring.

I have finished my assignment. Both grey cells are putting their feet up with a cup of tea. Later I look forward to baking a cake for some friends who will visit tomorrow. The only dark cloud on the horizon, a cholesterol report I received yesterday. I am 1.4 points above average. I have to cut back on dairy products. Sigh. Anyone have any cake recipes that use olive oil?

A Silver Fern, by any other name

Today, I watched two ancient cultures collide in front of me like out of control trains.

I was sitting eating lunch in the sunny courtyard of the college I’m attending. A few students were singing to the crowds, another was practising a folk dance, another was offering to paint cultural symbols (the 24 hour wash off variety) on any bit of your anatomy it was decent to reveal.

Myself and another “mature” student volunteered to have a koru spray gunned onto our forearm, with our younger classmates cheering us on. From today, I am an honorary Yorkshire Maori.

The collision happened later as I was wading through rather a lot of botanical terms, trying to decipher a complex piece of floral art, attempting to find the common terms rather than the technical ones.

There I was, muttering Latin to myself at the computer, whilst displaying an ancient Maori tattoo, which will vanish tomorrow in the shower.

I am seriously wishing that the long Latin botanical terms would vanish down the drain too, and I could stick to “Peace Lily” “European Privet” and “Rattan Cane”.

Mid week grump

Is it just me, or does the extravagance of Dubai really make you think it has a Tower of Babel complex? I have just read the following about the construction of the Burj Dubai, soon to be the world’s tallest building.
When completed, Burj Dubai will have consumed 330,000 cubic meters of concrete, 39,000 metric tons of steel rebar, 142,000 square meters of glass and 22 million man hours. The tower will have 56 elevators traveling at 1.75 to 10 meters per second and double-decker observatory elevators that can carry 42 people at a time.
The 80,000 square foot foundation slab and 50-meter deep piling are waterproofed. More than 5,000 consultants and skilled construction workers are employed onsite, and the world's fastest high-capacity construction hoists, with a speed of up to two meters per second, move men and materials.
I can’t help wondering what kind of legacy the Emirate would leave to the world if it had invested all those resources into a humanitarian project. After all, it has Internet City, Media City, Medical City. What about Hope City or Compassion City? How many more buildings, islands, soccer stadiums must it build to justify its wealth?

The token right winger

Every year the capital hosts a rather good world film festival, with a handful of local films thrown in for good measure.
Today I received a rather hilarious and somewhat panicky email from my husband at work. It seems he has a role in one of the films (shot in the 1980s).
It is called “A Civilised Society” with the country’s Education system at the centre of the film (Peter Jackson sure upped the ante on movie content and interest). To quote one of my husband’s colleagues “You win the prize for the longest sound-bite of any non union card carrying official!….. Don't worry, you looked so young that it is unlikely that anyone will recognise you now.”
Famous for 5 minutes and he is more handsome than Tom Cruise! Excuse me whilst I go and wriggle into my Blahniks for the after show party.

The language of flowers

Today a small triumph; I managed to wrestle a single carnation into a respectable cellophane cone, tie a florist’s bow and attach it to said cone. Trust me, this is NOT for the faint hearted or stiff fingered. It is a humble start, but I’m completely hooked.

I have ten classmates, the youngest is 19, and I’m happy to say, I’m not the oldest carnation wrestler. Our classroom sits on a hill in native bush, overlooking a bay. But lest that sounds too romantic, our toilet is in a shed and has a single outside cold tap to wash our hands in. Temperatures this week have not managed to get into double digits, so a visit to the shed is done in nanoseconds.

Glamour school this ain’t.