Okay, so I haven't yet finished the cushion covers for the living room. Or arranged a new (matching!) set of bed linen. I haven't made a toilet paper cosy, a pot holder or sewn up the hole in my pocket.
But I did make the most darling cushion cover... for the balcony... in October. No, I can't remember the last time I was accused of being practical either.
The fabrics are a mix of my leftovers, off cuts priced for pennies at the local fabric shop and, for the middle right, a vintage floral.
For the next three weeks I’m helping with Brownies. Brown Owl (the woman in charge) is also an assistant at guides with me and she needed a bit of help.
I said I’d come in to do a badge. Being a visitor like this helped me decide on what to do. I like talking about world issues with our girls but the added respect and detachment I get from being just a visitor was a big help in bringing up more difficult problems.
So I have the chance to do the World Issues badge. And – as it’s the centenary year – I’m going to be asking the girls to identify an issue they feel strongly about and have them work to make thing better.
This week we took on children’s rights. Not the easiest of issues to explain. Teaching about hurt and pain and the horrible things people do to each other is difficult for them and me. Add to that children who are being treated like crap by the people who are supposed to protect them the most – parents, teachers, governments – and yeah. Hard.
But we got there. To explain the concept of children’s rights with them we started with a game. They chose the game and started playing. It was All Brownies for those who know it (I didn’t!) and I walked over and announced that the winner would get a prize. They played the game and the winner stepped forwards.
I told her I didn’t much like the idea of giving my prize away, that I was going to keep it and she had no say.
After the complaining settled down I asked them if they thought it was fair? No. I asked them if they thought it was right? No. Then I asked them how it felt to be ignored and treated unfairly.
Then we used an Oxfam produced activity to introduce the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We discussed what we thought was important and why.
I pulled my map out and attacked it with sticky notes. ‘Does anyone know where Sierra Leone is?’ We talked about war, drought, and access to medicine. All with real life examples.
Then we went back to playing games. Right before we finished for the night we held the big vote. What issue do the girls want to work on in the next three weeks? What do they want to change?
All hands went up for stopping Animal Cruelty. Check back next week when we’ll have more of that plus talking about the work of international charities.
You can see the World Issues badge here, sign your daughter up for Brownies here, or become a leader yourself here.
I'm busy getting ready to fund raise for Edinburgh tonight and I'm planning four weeks of discussing important world issues with girls age 7-9.
More on those when they have happened. All I have for you now is some hand stitched flowers out of leftover materials that I'm hoping to get a few pennies for later.
I feel like I've been punched in the head. Not that I can remember what that feels like. I'm just assuming that it feels something like the brain aching, blocked up feeling I'm having right now.
I have another bloody cold and have spent all week either tearfully exhausted or surviving on a bizarre blend of Hall's Soothers, spicy crisps, chocolate and pouting at boyfriend.
What I'm trying to say is that this isn't the most interesting blog post in the world, ever. In fact, it's about things that I'm not doing. So take that as some sort of sign.
Oxfam are up to something. Well, I mean, they are always up to something, they are a busy organisation. Anyway. They are asking for people to fund raise. In the office, school, wherever you happen to be. It's to help fund climate change projects.
They offer such ideas as denim day, collecting 1p and 2p coins and, awesomely, baking. Unfortunately I'm already spending my October fund raising for something else and I don't have an office to force to participate. But if you would and could like to give it a bash you can find the info here.
Also in October is World Food Day and people are needed to Stand Against Poverty. So if you are into raising awareness and know a few like minded people why not hold an event. We'll be participating with Guides but it will have to be the Monday after for us.
Did you notice? Officially Britishly at least we just had the last weekend of summer. We spent Sunday at the beach, arriving when the tide was going out. We had a dip, Stephen dammed a river, I read a bit, we ate lunch, we ate doughnuts. We explored the low tide. There was more swimming, ice cream and slushes.
And that was the end of another summer. Also I got decent shots of the dress I wore to the wedding.Shots that don't involve me stood in a badly lit pub. Hope this gives a better idea. If not, at least I've got my hair down.
I just got my Ultimate Edinburgh confirmation which is making me very happy right now.
So I thought I would use the opportunity to share with you our new unit guidelines. The girls thought up the rules, we vetted them and then held a vote.
I've never took a peek at The Telegraph's style guide. I owned a copy of the Times version and wrote to the Guardian one at university but I haven't seen The Telegraph's.
I wonder though. Does it say, like the others I've seen, that when referring to people that you should always use their preferred gender? Is that rule and it's been broken here or haven't they got a shred of humanity at all?
The headline is 'Boy, 12, is having sex change, school announces' the actual story is that the School called an Assembly to tell the students this girl must be treated like a girl.
Or, as the Telegraph would spin it, that this school is forcing kids to be accepting and understanding without first informing the parents. In their own words now:
'the boy...was immediately taunted by classmates who recognised him from primary school.
'As a result, the 1,000-pupil school in south east England decided to call an emergency assembly ordering children to treat him as a girl and use his new name' [emphasis mine]
Way to go Telegraph. You can't even show the same understanding that we're expecting of twelve year olds.
And let's face it we should be expecting this of them. The question isn't whether these kids are old enough to understand gender identity in the most basic of terms (or, rather, if their parents are) but whether they are old enough to show someone basic common decency.
Whether they are old enough to know that we shouldn't persecute people for not being 100%, certified normal.
To suggest that this girl should put up with - as The Telegraph lightly puts it- taunting because parents think their children might find the concept of her existence a bit difficult is more than a little bigoted. Not to mention completely crap.
So well done to this school and to this girl and her parents and to the kids who, and I'm sure they existed, were more accepting. Screw you Telegraph.
And no, I couldn't bring myself to search for the original Sun coverage. I'm just going to assume that it would anger me.
'"But that's not you. It's not really you when you are ill"
"Yes it is, it's a part of me."'
I'm exhausted. I've just finished reading Seahorses Are Real as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme. Whether it was the writing, the unrelenting misery, or my own problems getting in the way it took me all bloody week. For perspective I could usually finish something of that length in two days so yeah, I'm exhausted. As you can imagine I had a bit of a mixed reaction.
Seahorses are Real details the abusive relationship between Marley, who suffers from depression, and David. David plunged himself into the relationship with hopes of saving her and, as the novel opens, he realises he can’t. How surprising. And the misery they bring each other is the subject.
The idea that depression makes you miserable isn't new nor is the idea that it can make the lives of people around you miserable. You, in a sense, loose all perspective. Things get blown out of proportion, you become irrational. You can say, and do, shitty things as a result of that. I have. And I have the ends of relationships and bruises from punching walls to prove it.
But I think David gets off lightly here. He too has a skewed view of things. He is the stereotypical nice guy (with as many TM's as you would like) who wants to save Marley. In his dreams he is rescuing her. He thinks he can protect her and rescue her. Fix her. The fact that he can't, that he has failed adds bitterness to an already sour situation. I really don't think that is explored enough.
The story is told in through cycle of fighting and making up. Abuse and making nice. And the unrelenting cycle that is Marley’s life: Jobcenter, ineffectual councillor (who makes remarks and hand her pills in sealed envelopes, this book could be read as an advocacy for proper treatment if nothing else!), home. The cycle that she longs to ditch as much as the depressive thoughts.
Like that, as a study, the novel doesn’t do too badly. It shows the horrible reality of a couple who only show affection with a side of sarcasm and who are overly dependant on each other for their happiness quite well, even if Marley is up – I think unfairly – for more criticism.
However the writing falls short. And I hesitate to say thing because I can see what’s trying to be achieved but it does just tend to fall back. The overload of adjectives, clichéd similes, repetitive sentences are a tool to let us see through Marley’s mentally ill gaze. However with the third person it just makes the novel seem clumsy and unpolished.
When the viewpoint characters switch and we see things from David’s eyes it does so clumsily. Several places I was dragged out of the story wondering where I was and who I was with now.
I will treasure the description of the calm after the storm, the hopefulness following a breakdown but ultimately the writing keeps me from giving the thumbs up, excited grin recommendation.
