Life drawing and animation come together beautifully, all by Robyn.

I love these short animations that Robyn has produced as part of her A Level Art, they are simply wonderful. All posted on Robyn's YouTube channel.
(Proud Mum!)

A wonderful lunch at The Belsfield Hotel, Bowness-on-Windermere

Having wandered around Bowness-on-Windermere for a while enjoying being tourists but not finding anywhere we were inspired to eat we found ourselves back at the boat pier where we had arrived on the steamer 'Tern' in the morning; overlooking the pier is the The Belsfield Hotel. We crossed the road and found the brasserie menu displayed by the gate and it sounded very interesting, so a short walk up through the gardens and we found our way in through the terrace doors. Very quiet, empty in fact, and I was afraid that they were not serving food, but the moment we spoke to staff we were looked after attentively and yet utterly unobtrusively. The service really was second to none and the food was delicious. The hotel itself is out of our price range, to stay at, but for a lunch overlooking the lake from a fantastic vantage point I think The Belsfield is impossible to beat. They are in the process of major renovation to move from a 3* to a 4* rating but this was in no way detrimental to the service or the food.

I don't sit taking photographs of my food so you will just have to make do with a picture of Lake Windermere from the terrace of The Belsfield Hotel.

"You can't stop the signal Mal"

It is not so far in the past that I was given odd looks (ok I still get them but not for this reason) due to my usage of the internet. For the last 25 years the internet and for the last 22 the world wide web has been a major part of my life. Yes, the web has been around for that long and in saying 22 years rather than 24 I feel that I'm a bit of a late adopter ;)

Enabled by the internet I have made friends, travelled to different countries, cried, laughed with joy, shared my deepest secrets (ok they were never very deep and they're definitely not secrets any longer!), found pleasure, sadness, learnt, lost, won, bought and sold, made so many friends (yes I know I've said that) but that is it really friends, community, people - its bloody wonderful!

People said "how can you spend that long online?", "how can you trust anyone you meet online?", "they could be anyone", "isn't it all a bit sad?" (cheers for that one btw), ...

My mind just returned to such memories which are only from about a decade ago, those things were probably said by people who now have Facebook accounts, know exactly what CandyCrush and Farmville are and have people in their friends lists they have never met. Something I thought very early on in my relationship with the internet has stayed with me...

The internet and it's most prolific child, the world wide web, have given a voice to millions. At one time I'd have particularly spoken of those who are shy, ill, lonely, disabled, single parents, people whom for whatever reason have some limits placed on their social interactions but now I should add to that list whole countries, those who are discriminated against, victims, politics, religions, education, opinions of ever sort, inventors, artists, charities, the list really is endless. How did the world function without it!?

The internet ignores borders (in most cases) and even when borders are placed upon it such as in the case of Turkey recently (BBC report) people find their way around them and the uproar such attempts at control create just go to further the wish and belief in our right to unrestricted access to information and communication. We live in a much more open world today, how much more open it might become due to people and organisations such as Edward Snowden and wikileaks will depend on how much we believe openness and transparency are more important than privacy and secrecy.

"You can't stop the signal Mal"

Holidays!

Wow! I've done it! I've actually booked a holiday, two in fact. This is rather amazing, we flew to Australia with all the kids  6 years ago, to get married, and while I have visited family I have not been away for more than 3 nights or out of the country since then... oh wait I did visit Tim at uni in Wales for 3 days with Rob and Oli.

In fact Alastair and I never actually went on a honeymoon and any travelling we manage tends not to be together!

So what have I booked? Well 6 nights in Germany with Rob and Oli, this is still visiting family as we are going to Freiburg im Breisgau and will be meeting up with Tim and Anneken who are living about 15km south of the city. Flights and apartment all sorted :) But again this is without Alastair...

... and so Alastair and I are going away for a weekend (gotta start somewhere) to Newby Bridge in the Lake District.

So a May weekend in the Lakes and a June week in Germany, there is also a family booking for the Lake District for next year. So it looks like I'll have to stop saying that the only holiday I have is 3 days pulling pints in a field at Galtres Festival :)

A little boring catch-up... (a post that should have been posted but was sat there as a draft - so rather out of synch as this is really from October 2013!)

So I have officially left the nursing course - this was hard to do but I'd known for months that this really wasn't going to be happening. I was/am happy with this, I don't look backwards that much (or at least I don't believe regrets are much use in life), it's not that I am wonderfully forward looking, endlessly planning my direction or anything I just prefer to move on but it was still hard... Why? I think that while I don't need a strong direction I'm very aware that I am squatting in the middle of a crossroads at the moment and that rather than moving on, choosing a path to follow, I am, for a while, just camped out here. This is what feels strange, to leave the old behind but not actually move on to the new.

Current things that are keeping me at a crossroads:

• We are half-way (ish) through buying a house, exchange of contracts should have taken place every day for the past two weeks
• I have a place on a Masters in Public Health course that I can't take up due to the ridiculous way they set the fees: £4,500 for full time, £9,000 for part time. So that is deferred for at least a year whilst they come to their senses or I win the lottery!
• I've been looking for part-time (very part-time) jobs, but ones where I feel I am using my brain and are on a new path (see I just hate following old paths).
• Oli is still suffering with his CFS, but at least we have had no big set-backs since the weather became cooler (the hot summer was hell for him).

New paths or at least ones I am peering down to see if I like the view:

• Oli has now started attending The Stables Project part-time and this is going well. After his first full teaching day he came home nearly bouncing. Mainly excited about the Gold Arts Award and how it was "just brilliant" for him.
• I start a (very) part-time job on Friday; pharmacy trainee - a slightly random direction but that's nothing new for me! Just Friday afternoons and some Saturday mornings to begin with, in Knaresborough.

All change at the next stop...

Well in my last post I promised it wouldn't be a two month wait and it was not, it has been six months! Six months of bits and pieces of change. Chronologically:

The sad loss of Angela Michel, co-author and co-walker with Nick Warlow of Freedom to Rome: A Long Walk, at the end of November seemed to come so soon after hearing she had cancer. A truly beautiful spirit with the ability to create whole choirs of angels through her wonderful gifts of singing and teaching.

A new job since early October, pharmacy dispensing, just one afternoon per week in Knaresborough. I'm enjoying the learning and the doing aspects, the people are great but my mind is not inspired enough to feel this as part of my being. So learning, doing but not being... hmm I need something more...

My father turned 80 on 20th December 2013 and we managed to get the whole family together for a celebration! This was something of a feat as we have not all been together for quite some years. The logistics of coordinating travel and group hospitality from France, Germany, Essex, Oxfordshire and Yorkshire, plus life changing events such as moving home/country, babies, studying, graduating have prevented a family gathering happening. We rented a fantastic converted barn in Ludlow, little more than a stones throw from my parents new house, and enjoyed a convivial family meal for 17 which included new members as well as old.

We had our last Christmas at Fox on the Roof Cottage and a wonderfully family filled time it was, Shelly and Dean, and Tim and Anneken were able to come directly to York from Ludlow and stay with us through Christmas. It was a good way to end our tenure of the lovely, tatty cottage that has been our home for over 5 years. I expected to miss it but actually don't; proof, I hope, that our new house is already becoming the home we were looking for :)

As we were busy with our move my step-son, Rab, took the huge leap of moving cities for the first time,  I hope he takes Jamies Italian in Edinburgh by a storm! It is sad for Alastair to see his son move away but Edinburgh is not 'that' far. My step-daughter, Chloe, is back in Bosnia Herzegovina, and this is truly a world away. She is so bravely facing life and learning to be her own person whilst also learning to accept help and support from those around her in a way that belies her years. It is so hard these days for our children to find their path as they grow towards and through early adulthood; there are no certainties out there for them. While we adults might feel that the rug has been pulled from under us because the certainties in jobs, housing and financial security we were promised are proving to be somewhat elusive, at least we had the solid, stability of belief in those things to carry us through our formative years. Now our children are growing-up to meet a world that doesn't promise them anything.

So the something more...

Well this week I accepted my place on the Masters in Public Health course at Leeds Metropolitan University (about to rename itself Leeds Beckett University). I think it is this change that has encouraged me to write again, which is rather a positive sign. I'm tempted to say "Watch this space!" but hey my track-record of keeping this blog up-to-date aint very good so far...

Freedom to Rome

I am enjoying Freedom to Rome by Nick Warlow and Angela Michel so much :)

From the publishers website: "This book charts the route taken by a couple of non-hikers who decided to walk from York to Rome in 2012 with a pair of artificial hips."

It seemed particularly fitting to start reading it yesterday sat in the sun on the new steps up to York Minster (the Minster Piazza), under the silent gaze of Constantine the Great who was declared Roman Emperor whilst in York in 306AD.


A little more about the journey and the wonderful Angela and Nick can be read on their blog:
nickwarlowangelamichel.blogspot.co.uk/

You can also get free courier delivery if you live in York - ours was delivered to the door on Saturday by Nick himself just before I headed to City Screen to see Lois get her head shaved for Kyra... more on this in the next post (and no it won't be a 2 month wait!)

I will write more when I have finished the book but, for now, all I can say is order one now!!