National Old Stuff Day

Today is National Old Stuff Day - a day to appreciate old things! If we can appreciate old things and not constantly be buying new then we are reducing the waste we produce.

I love old furniture, and we  have several pieces in our flat,including these two items in our living room
 

 
  Some people like to refurbish these types of items by sanding them down and painting them in bright colours, but I like the original look!

National Old Stuff Day is also an opportunity to think about old things that you have that you don't want any more and see how you can bring them back into use - perhaps by repurposing an item for another use, refashioning an old item odclothing, donating old furniture to a charity that houses homeless people, giving the item as a gift or donating it to a second hand shop.

Age UK asked their staff to share their most treasured old items, you can read what they said here.

What are your favourite old things?

Snow

Well the so called 'Beast from the East' storm has arrived in Edinburgh, bringing high winds and blizzards.

These photos are from Crafty Green Boyfriend who works just near Corstorphine HIll and walks round the hill most lunchtimes! He takes birdfood with him to leave on walls and logs at the top of the hill (where several other people do the same). He took extra food yesterday and attracted blackbirds

carrion crow

and dunnock

Birds are really struggling in this extreme weather, here's some advice from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection for Birds).

Meanwhile over on my Shapeshifting Green blog, I've shared some photos of the snow people of Edinburgh!

Quick and easy fridge magnet

I'd had this wee magnet lying around for a while, annoyingly attaching itself to random metallic crafting supplies, so finally I decided to superglue it to a piece of sea pottery and it's made a lovely little fridge magnet.

There are some beautiful pieces of sea pottery out there on beaches everywhere and there are plenty of ways of using them in crafts! I've made rings, brooches (like this one in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop) and most recently decorated a picture frame.

Have you made any interesting things using sea pottery or sea glass?

Finding Verity by Jenny Louden

 
 
I don't normally read romance novels, and Finding Verity seems at first glance to be purely a romance novel, but when Jenny Louden asked me to review this book she emphasised the connection that the main character Verity has with nature and thus persuaded me to read the book! And I'm glad I did as it's engagingly written and I felt immediately drawn to Verity as a character, her creativity and her relationship to nature. She's a character who notices things, whether it's the leaves on a plane tree or the decor of a house she's visiting. It's also refreshing to have a romantic novel featuring a female protagonist who for most of the book is 'around 50'.

Verity marries Matt and they live in London, with Verity hoping that eventually they will move to the countryside, while Matt sees this as too much of a risk. He wants Verity to continue running her interior design business and paint in her spare time, while she wants to paint full time and live a rural life:

'if there was anything these past years of trying to paint had taught her, it was that she worked best outdoors, and she needed a proper large and well lit place in which to complete her work......The paintings which had been chosen forexhibitions over the years had all been landscapes she had done while on holiday in Italy or France. It was hopeless trying to do anything in this confined space where her elbow hit the wall and her canvases were, of necessity, small......She could not put off her dream any more.'

A holiday weekend in the south of France unexpectedly brings Verity back into contact with Edward an old friend and pushes her into reassessing her life.

 It's a very readable novel about finding the courage to live your dreams and explore your creativity  and has plenty of drama to make you keep turning the page.
 

Surveying Plants along the Water of Leith

I've joined a team of volunteers who will be surveying the plants along the Water of Leith downstream from the Water of Leith Conservation Trust Visitor Centre. This is to update the information held from the previous plant survey made ten years ago. Last year I updated the plant survey information for Colinton and Craiglockart Dells (just upstream of the Visitor Centre and the patch I patrol most weeks). This year my patch is the area running from the visitor centre up to Saughton Park (though not including the park as it is currently being restored and remodelled).

We're concentrating on trees and wild flowers,  though we include whatever else we can! (I particularly record fungi and ferns).

At this time of year the only flowering plants are winter specialists such as winter aconite

snowdrops

and the first crocuses of the year

There were plenty of birds around too, including several goosanders

and this carrion crow, which is either a hybrid with a hooded crow (and there are a few such hybrids around here, with differing plumage patterns) or partially leucistic.

Finally I took this photo from near the bus stop,

I look forward to seeing the changing plantlife of the area over the next year!

Hidden Figures - Shape of Water - Parallel Worlds

We recently watched Shape of Water, widely tipped to walk away with the best film Oscar this year and it is strangely like a parallel reality to Hidden Figures, which should have won the best film Oscar last year (you can review my brief review here).

In Hidden Figures (a story based on historical facts) Octavia Spencer plays brilliant mathematician Dorothy Vaughn who in 1961 was a vital part of the team behind putting the first US astronaut in space.

In Shape of Water (very definitely not based on historical fact), set around 1962, Octavia Spencer plays Zelda a cleaner who along with her colleague Elisa (Sally Hawkins) becomes aware of a strange water creature in the top secret  government facility where they work. NASA are interested in how this creature could help their research in the space race.

To make this feeling of parallel realities even stronger, the sets of the research centres in the two films are very similar. 

So I got to imagining Dorothy Vaughn dreaming of finding a sea monster while working as a cleaner or is Zelda dreaming of being a top class mathematician? Anyway these musings added another layer of enjoyment to what is already an excellent film.

Shape of Water is showing at Edinburgh Filmhouse until 15 March.

These two films would make a brilliant double bill.......

Gorgeous Gorse and the first bumble bee of the year

It's a beautiful sunny day today with the scent of Spring in the air (though we are promised a cold snap next week!). The gorse is beautiful in the sunshine

As I took this photo (on Corstorphine Hill) two sparrowhawks were circling each other high above (probably a courtship display) not far from a buzzard (probably hunting). Lovely to watch!

While waiting for the bus home, I watched two bumble bees (probably buff tailed bumbles) flying round this heather. The bees didn't pose for their photos, but the heather is still very photogenic.

Sadly there haven't been any bunnies on this slope outside the hotel for over a year now. They used to offer great entertainment while waiting for a bus. Of course there's plenty of animal entertainment in the nearby zoo, but we miss the bunnies!