Festival of Light at Longleat

Utterly beautiful and gloriously festive and fun. Even the light up singing Christmas tree was magical and I was expecting to find it ridiculous. It was over the top wonderful and fantastic. Thank you Longleat folks and thank you to my parents for taking me.

autumn leaves

Sitting in Sheffield Botanical Gardens on Sunday. Felt overwhelmingly happy surrounded by the intense yellow of crisp fallen leaves with sunlight sprinkling across as they fluttered gently with the wind.

post rain pre sunset

Ordinary Beauty - the photography of Edwin Smith - RIBA

I hadn't heard of Edwin Smith before and I think I really should have. His photographs are beautiful with amazing light and show the beauty of everyday life.

On till 6 Dec 2014

Plums???

Pretty colours outside our flat. Possibly plums?

Finally finished practice dress!

Spent all day yesterday sewing and can't quite believe I've made a dress! This was the test run made with old curtains/quilts I had but I think it's wearable and I'm happy because I love these fabrics and so pleased they've been made into something. It's not perfect but it's not bad! Yay! Now to make the actual dress, which will be bright yellow.

Beautiful moment

It's been a while since I've had one of those moments when the world feels beautiful and happiness washes over you.

I don't like having moved to Barnet but the sky is still beautiful.

Porthcurno Beach (Cornwall) Swan Boats (Ally Pally London) Arthur's Seat (Edinburgh)

I've been doing too much gallivanting to post much this month.

A few days in lovely Cornwall and I'm in love with this beautiful beautiful beach. Perfection.

Back in London, I finally rode a swan boat at Ally Pally Very relaxing and calm...apart from when I pedalled us over a large stick and I think it went inside the underneath of the boat as there were disturbing clunking sounds for a good while after!

Afternoon tea at Biscuiteers - tasty and adorable. I think the biscuits look better than they taste though - I'd rather have a bourbon! I wouldn't pay full price either (£40 for 2 people to eat one sandwich cut into 4 and some mini cakes each! what!?) I had a 2 for 1 voucher so it was £20 and it was a treat for my little sister's birthday. It was lovely though. The raspberry jam in the battenberg and the icing on the cupcakes were especially good. 

Then up to Edinburgh for a fantastic Easter wedding and a walk up to Arthur's Seat which is a glorious walk. Lucky, lucky people who live in Edinburgh!

All in all I had an amazing break :)

Talk - Creating meat with stem cell technology - Kings College London - 13th March

When news came out last year that a real burger had been made in a lab using stem cell technology I was immensely excited. As I've mentioned before, I care deeply about both animal farming practices and the environment, which could both be affected for the better by this research. 

It is extremely unlikely that people will just stop eating meat (it is DELICIOUS - I may be heading towards vegetarianism but I'm not ready yet - it's a struggle to even only eat free range meat, damn my love for greasy spoon fry ups and cheap fried chicken! I think I manage it 90% of the time though!)

Animals for meat require a lot of land, which could instead be used to grow food - grains, vegetables etc that could feed many more people than can be fed by meat produced on the same amount of land. Plus the huge amount of methane produced by cows, adding to the problem of global warming problem. And farming practices can be awful, causing unnecessary pain and suffering to the animals we eat to make it cheaper and use less space. As the population ever increases, the problems also increase.

So when I saw that Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University (whose team is behind this research and the burger) was giving a talk at KCL, I had to go. 

And I found it very interesting and informative. Prof Post explained the reasons behind the research (see above - environment/animal welfare) before explaining how the burger was created. This made sense to me at the time but I wasn't making notes so cannot now remember the how, but moving on, they are now working on perfecting the taste/texture of the burger, increasing the efficiency of production/sustainability and lowering the cost! Also - creating a steak is on the agenda. They think that in 7-10 years these burgers could be in shops, though this sounds rather overly optimistic to me considering the cost for the burger last year was something like £220,000!!

I do hope this research succeeds in creating affordable, ethical meat on a mass market scale though. How amazing!


Links:

BBC news - World's first lab grown burger
KCL - Creating meat with stem cell technology
Evening Standard article - image taken from this page
Scientific American - Meat/Environment
Wiki - Meat/Environment
Compassion in World Farming

Kew Gardens

Had the loveliest day at Kew a couple of weeks ago with my parents. Such a nice park its worth the 2 hour journey to get there! And I still haven't seen it all.

Love the galleries there too. One is the Marianne North Gallery and exhibits the work of Marianne North, an adventurous lady who travelled the world and painted the natural world. So epic.

There's a gallery that exhibits botanical drawings/paintings too. Particularly liked the work of Regine Hagedorn. This is her painting of Mermaid Rose Stamens:

There are also some fun giant woven sculptures of different types of mushrooms by Tom Hare :)

Saw so many inspiring plants this visit. Made me want to draw. It's been so long I'm not sure I can draw anymore! I need to practise!

Thames Walk/Albert Bridge

A beautiful evening walk along the Thames from Chelsea Harbour to Vauxhall. I'd never walked that bit of the Thames before. I liked Albert Bridge lots, all lit up and pink!

Georgians Revealed at British Library

Bit of a history lesson for me...despite having grown up near Bath and its beautiful Georgian architecture, I don't know much about the Georgians. I know a little more now though, mainly about how people lived. I think how people lived is the most interesting thing in history. Secondary school history really put me off because it was ALL politics and war. Obviously this is important but young me wanted to know about people and how they lived and felt. Present me still finds that more interesting but I do now want to understand politics and war as well although I find it hard.

This exhibition covers everyday Georgian life and pleasures. As you wall in there is a brief timeline of Georgian kings and historical events and we go on to normal people.

There were more middle class people so more people were able to read for fun, decorate their homes, go on holiday and go out dancing etc

Highlights for me include a set of teeny tiny exquisite little books called 'The Infants Library', various massive books with botanical illustrations, Jane Austen's writing desk and tiny glasses, plans of dance steps and Harriet Parry's 1825 travel diary. The travel diary is a scroll map annotated with pen and ink with drawings and notes as she records her tour Scotland. It's beautiful and I want to do this!
Then the last room is a giant map reproduced on the floor of Georgian London. They had wanted to show every house and number on it but realised it would be impossible! It's a beautiful map (love old maps anyway) and it's great to see it so big.

On till 11th March

Links:

Georgians Revealed

250 Euston Road glowing up ahead

Buildings covered in mirror look stunning at sunset.