Happy Birthday Mister Seeds and Stitches!

I promise that a post about my Dorset Sojourn is imminent, but in the mean time, would you kindly join me in wishing my mister an exceedingly happy birthday?

I made him a silly mini scrap book about how me and his friends and family came up with his birthday present...




We gave him a course in woodwork! He was incredibly excited about it, and we spent this morning hung-over in bed googling dove tail and mortise and tenon joint techniques. I have learnt more about furniture joints and sharpening tools than I ever wanted to know.

We spent the weekend doing lovely Birthday mister things. Dinner out on Friday, Final destination 3 in 3D on Saturday (craptaculous but incredible all at the same time) lots of coffee and bacon butties in bed, a barbecue with power ballads, games, lots of booze and chums, cricket with more chums and another dinner at another local restaurant tonight. We sure like to drag out our celebrations! (I believe in the 'any excuse for a celebration' model, do you?)

So yeah. Quarter century today. Happy Birthday mister! You're pretty rad.

Dear foreign exchange students,

( Image London Evening Standard)

Dear foreign exchange students,

Welcome to London! I do hope you are enjoying our great capital and getting the most out of the city. I have the great pleasure of walking through the Royal park of St James twice a day, and when there I often bump in to groups of you. Whilst I am struck by the culturally rich tapestry of our fine city at these moments, I am also struck by one or two other things that I wish to discuss with you.

To begin with, I must say how very handsome you all are, with your uniform of sun tanned skin, low slung rucksacks, sunglasses and ludicrously tight jeans. But I’d rather you were more discreet in your groping of each others bottoms. There is more to London than the chance of an adolescent fondle on the back seat of your school bus, which by the way, happens to be parked obtrusively on the pavement.

Anyway. I do hope that you are enjoying taking photo’s of the now obese squirrels and pigeons that flourish during the summer period as groups identical to yours feed them incessantly. The signs clearly ask you not too, but we won’t get in to that, shall we? I have watched in wonderment at the bodily positions you will put yourselves in, in order to get close to a pigeon and have your picture taken with it. I have seen more of your g-strings as you crawl, coo, creep and cluck than I care to count. I gather that squirrels and pigeons simply dont exist in the rest of the world, so make sure you enjoy allowing the rabid pigeons and flea bitten squirrels to peck at your hands in search of food.

One small thing; I would really appreciate it if your idling group didn’t take up the whole pavement and/or path, thereby pushing me either to my death into the road, or into the muddy grass at the side of the park path. And, young man, it is not polite to bash my face with your rucksack accidentally and not apologise. It is even less polite to turn and laugh at my muddy shoes and the red mark on my face where it recently had contact with your ruck sack.

And lastly, perhaps some of you could share some self confidence tips with me? I thought your were school kids, but given the cocky way you stood in my way on the park path and grasped your p*nis at me, I fear I must have been mistaken. Please accept my apology, you are obviously someone extremely important.

And no, I don’t have time to take your photo because my train leaves in 7 minutes time and you have already bumped and bashed your way into me so many times that I am going to miss it, which will mean I wont have time for a run before dinner.

Good day.

Ode to the NHS!

(my friend Elizabeth!)

Dear America,

Ok, about this whole hating our national health system thing. I think that perhaps some of you might have the wrong end of the stick. Don’t believe whats been said about the supposed low quality of the NHS compared with American standards. According to Avaaz the US system is the most expensive in the world, but ranks 37th in quality, and 40 million Americans can't afford any care at all. And, for Gods sake, dont take the word of (British Conservative MP)David Hanan! He represents nobody but himself!

Really, the NHS is pretty rad. My step mum had a water birth that any celeb would have been proud of, complete with candles, private suite and music. All via the NHS. I get to see my doctor, for free anytime I need. And If I have an accident and break my leg, its gets treated, for free. Its true! A national health system in the US would jeopardise the business interests of the corporations that fund it, so of course they are going to throw a wobbly, and of course, they’d try and mislead the public about it too. Well, that’s my opinion anyway. Don’t get me wrong, the NHS system isn't perfect but I wouldn't want to be without it. I guess what I’m saying is just give it a chance. Have an open debate.

That’s my tuppenceworth anyway

Yours, in good health,

Hannah

P.s On a slightly more light hearted note, If you have an upcoming date with the NHS, which ends up with an over night stay (naughty naughty) you can now do it in style! The teenage cancer trust have teemed up with tons of designers to create designer hospital gowns! How cool!

(Images are my photos of the September issue of British Vogue)

Treehugger Tuesdays: Fran Crowe

This weeks Tree hugger Tuesdays is dedicated to website. A really great one. Its a website by Fran Crowe and its called flyintheface.com. And it has so many tree hugging projects that I seriously considered dedicating the next 478 tree hugger posts to it. Its amazing, tongue in cheek work that focuses on marine and wildlife conservation.

Here are my faves:

self portrait

"I walked due north along the beach and picked up all man-made debris that was in my path until my two carrier bags were full. I then fixed the objects randomly to a wall. I see a kind of self-portrait of society in the debris we leave behind."

Food Parcels

"harvested by hand from Suffolk's beaches - guaranteed to tempt turtles and marine mammals!"

wild bird food

"Contains colourful bite-sized pieces of plastic that float on the surface of the water or lie at the high tide line These are IDEAL for attracting wild birds, especially mothers feeding their chicks."

Need some Fresh air?

"The Airtight Corporation brings to you a unique range of Fresh Air, captured especially for you at very special coastal and countryside locations in the Suffolk countryside."

Via brilliant blog Give me one good raisin.

I HEART YOUR WORK FRAN!

There's tons more- check it out!

Dear Viv...

Dear Vivienne Westwood (can I call you Viv?),

I love you. Your sort of one of my hero's, because your clothes celebrate women’s curves, you have drawn on eyebrows and bright ginger hair, and you don’t wear knickers when you wear dresses even though you are in your sixties. You Rock Viv. Well, I am writing to you because I wonder if you could give me this dress?

(Image)

I cant give you money for it I'm afraid, but I could offer you some home made bunting, some hydrangea cuttings and half a frozen lasagna? Um, no I'm not getting married. But when I saw this dress my whole body ached for it because its so beautiful. I would simply like to own it. To hang it on the wall and coo at it. Please? Whaddaya say?

Kind regards

Hannah

Catherine Soto...

Dear Catherine Soto,

I really love your photos.

Love Hannah

'Things I dont own Anymore' By Catherine Soto.

Via Design for Mankind

Have a happy Friday bloglings!

Holiday please!

(Poolga)

Yeah. I do.

I finally managed to crawl to the office after over a week off work. It wasn't with out a few comedy false starts first, involving turning back at 2 different train stations, whole body sweats, and feeling like I had marshmallows for feet. All this being ill malarkey sure does tire you out! So its a good job I happen to be going away for a week to a beautiful place with its own private beach with a gaggle of particularly pleasant chums. To this place, in fact.



I cant wait.

And, guess what.

(shhhhh)

I think its gona be sunny!

(Did I just jinx it? Famous last words and all that?)

Well, just in case, maybe, I should cover all eventualities. And if I'm going to do that then I might as well do it prettily? Maybe I'll bring these...

(Image)

£150?! SURE!

And for good measure I should totally bring this!

(Image, via Katy Elliot)

120 euro's?! PIECE OF CAKE!

Pah. One can but dream.

Fuck it, I'm gona go out there and bellow it!

(From Love Shop)

But don't worry- I have some posts scheduled! (How uncharacteristically organised?!)

Oh, I nearly forgot! I got a lovely award!!! From Becky of the brilliant Teacakes, cupcakes fame. Thanks Becky! If you haven't read Becky's blog, do, its beautifully written (With best blog header Ive seen in ages) I think I ave to pick 3 blogs to pass it on too, but thee are so many that I love that I'm going to be a chicken and choose the next three later!!!

Hurrah for Holidays!!! And for blog awards and for dreaming of liberty sunglasses and pink umbrellas! And hurrah for feeling irrationally happy because I finally feel better!

Treegugger Tuesdays miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles

(Image)

'World breakfast' is not exactly the phrase that springs to mind when you think about an english fry up is it? It certainly isn't for my mister and I, who enjoy a proper fry up most Sunday mornings, and very nice it is too thank you very much. But recent holidays and illnesses necessitated a supermarket Internet shop and, like geeks, we looked at the packaging of each item we bought for breakfast. With tomatoes from Saudi Arabia, potatoes from Israel and pork from the Netherlands, we concluded that there was nothin English about our English Breakfast ! Harrrumph!

Stupid us for going to the supermarket in the first place I guess. Not only because of the food miles (= masses of carbon generated in transport)but also because it also tasted RANK! Tesco's shitty tasteless bacon falls apart in the pan! Their bread has big holes in it and tastes like cardboard! Booo Tesco's boo!!!!

So, um yeah. Hannah's wise tree hugging words are that Tesco food tastes gross and is bad for mama planet. The end.

Here are some pretty pictures to illustrate!

Bananaplane!

By George Sander Jackson

Whats not to like?

'Far Foods'
This has done the blog rounds recently, so you may have already seen it but its still pretty rad. James Reynolds has come up with a very clever idea. "Alternative packaging for supermarket produce, highlighting the distances that some foods travel from and the resultant carbon dioxide released during the journey. The receipt features a boarding card style tear-off strip."

I saved the best till last. This is the work of my very talented friend, and business partner to my hubby (mouth full?) photographer Owen Silverwood (O-ZONE!). I LOVE these images. They show commonly purchased supermarket produce in the crude oil it would take to transport them there.

Rad-alicious.

(Images: Owen Silverwood. He has tons of other cool work- check him out)

Adieu bloggy friends!

Swine flu produce...

There have been some sweet moments over the past week of what I have dubbed 'high time'. And sadly, no, I don't mean illegal drugs. The heady mix of antibiotics with Class A's would, I fear, lead to a fate worse than swine flu. The cycle of my antibiotics and painkillers mean that I have high highs and low lows. The difference is quite astounding; crying out of sheer pathetic-ness one minute, doing a sofa dance (waving my arms around) the next. Incidentally I was sofa-dancing to Un Dia by Juana Molina. Its bloody brilliant- have a listen. Anyway, I digress, during some of my more productive high time, I made some stuff! Yes I did!

I made stuff that involves sitting and not talking and not exerting myself too much. Stuff like bunting...


And greetings cards. A whole set. Just because its useful to have a batch to refer too for last minute birthday's (me, every time). I'm really pleased with how they turned out.


All made from recycled materials. Partly because I was too weak to leave the house to actually buy anything new. Wallpaper (found on my street) fabric scraps, recycled wrapping paper and pressed flowers. Even the envelopes are paper bags that I salvaged from the bin from my last work place.

They will each have a brown paper greeting on them, hopefully typed on my type writer! Because the lovely Serena has told me about a website that can provide type writer ribbons! Hurrah for Serena!

I quite like the idea of always making stuff like this, maybe even to sell? I'm trying to make enough professional looking bunting samples to take to local gift shops and see if they want to sell it. If not they make nice presents for friends. And I just like making it all. Oh to be a full time maker of things! (Stares wistfully, in a drug addled way, out the window...)

Bye for now!

x

P.s Bear with me whilst I fiddle with the blog layout. I got bored.

Hubble bubble toil and trouble... warning rude words!

(Image)

Ooooooo I'm angry.

Its been a week now. Of sore throat and aching body and snotty crying and continuous headache and a horrid cough and blocked nose and wet food that wont hurt my throat and fucking Penicillin which is rancid and makes your piss stink of acid. I even wrote my tonsils a polite (ish) letter but to no avail. I. Got. SICKER! Brace yourself for some misery porn, kay?

This has been my view from the sofa for the last week. Telly, laptop, magazines and a shit load of drugs.



My tonsillitis turned into flu (possibly swine flu, they cant be sure because it could be a secondary infection from the tonsillitis but it still SUCKS). So not only have I felt sorry for myself for 5 days, this means Ive had to cancel a highly anticipated trip to see my family for a long weekend. I would like to be able to tell you that I handled the whole ordeal with maturity, grace and poise. But when the doctor told me I scrunched my face up as much as I could and I folded my arms and CRIED LIKE A BABY. This means I wont see THE DUDE. Look at him.

(apologies for quality- just phone pics my family send me)

This is what I'm missing. I WANT TO EAT HIM. (Is it wrong to want to eat babies sometimes?) Boo hoo.

We were going to take him to the ZOO! Too see the ANIMALS! Now when will he meet the animals, eh? Complete disaster!

And just to add a proverbial cheery on top of my double chocolate chip misery cake, my mister and ALL my friends have gone out into London for party tonight that I AM TOO SICK TO GO TOO!

(Image)

In between expletive addled moaning, monging on the sofa, sleeping and watching grand design repeats I have actually managed to have 1 or 2 hours of productivity. But all this ranting has sapped what little energy I had today so I shall post about that in the morning.

Good night!

humph humph HUMPH!

Paper, I miss you!

You may notice more posts than usual over the next day or two. I know I should really try and space them out but meh, I'm off work and bored, eating porridge, soup and ice cream, and blogging is keeping me sane!

You could probably categorize my life thus far by the vast amount of paper I have accumulated around me. I have a bit of an obsession, I think. I have note books, list books, personal journals, travel diaries, look books, wedding books, dream house books and sketch pads. Note pads for work, for ideas, for shopping lists, for music , for recipes..... I love my moleskines, my filofax and my plain old note pads. I really do love each and every one of them. But since the blogging world bumbled so unexpectedly and insistently in to my world, my laptop has gradually taken over. I realized (with a growing sense of horror) that nowadays I rarely actually put pen to paper, and I rarely care what it looks like when I do. But this cant happen! No! I wont give up on paper!

After this realization and after stumbling across this gorgeous blog, and reading this post, I thought it very fitting to write a post purely in celebration of paper! So I dug out all of my scrap books, sketch books, note books and journals over the last 5 years of my life, just to look at them! Here the best bits.

Travel journals, Vienna, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Switzerland and New York…









My diary around the time when I was finishing my exams... (pro plus, post its, lists and wolves at the door! Very telling!)



My wedding scrap book...




My sketch book...



Aahhh, paper I miss you!

I don't have time to journal like I used too, but I'm going to try and bring elements of this back into my everyday life. Not quite sure how but I'll let you know how it goes...

I'm all buoyed up now. I want to create a pledge! The paper pledge!

"Even though I love the Internet and new technology, I am a tactile person and I wont give up on paper! I will buy it, use it, display it, and I will enjoy its textures, looks and smells and I will definitely celebrate it! "

Whoop!

Do you manage to keep a written journal/ sketch book/ scrap book as well as a blog and online stuff? I'm in awe of you if so! Please tell me how you organize it all!