Gabielle has been playing clotheshorse for me; first there was her Christmas dress:

And now my latest creation I've been working on - "Lilac Faery":


( Click for more pics.... )

Gabrielle's normal default eyes and hair didn't really suit the colours of this oufit, so I swapped out her green glass eyes for a pair of blue Eyeco silicone eyes, and her wine-coloured wig for this white one. 

Handsewn over 2 days, the dress is inspired by the Lilac Fairy character in the ballet "Sleeping Beauty". The dress consists of a long tulle skirt overlaid with three layers of lilac crystal organza lace spangled with rhinestones; the front panel of the bodice is lavender satin and purple velvet, trimmed with white and gold cotton lace. The front ruffles are white chiffon trimed with lilac silk ribbon, and the sleeve ruffles are lilac crystal organza.

The outfit will be completed with a pair of shimmery gold stockings, matching undies, a ribbon lace headdress, and a purple organza choker - and, if I can pull it off, purple velvet ballet pumps. I'm hopeful it will be finished in time to go on sale this weekend. 

Live streaming video of a mother cat and her baby kittens! :-D

"Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl. And her name was Emily.
And she had a shop. There it is! It was a rather unusual shop, because it didn't sell anything. Everything in that shop window was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emily had found and brought home to Bagpuss.
The most important
The most beautiful
The most magical
Saggy old clothcat in the whole wide world...."



Rest in peace, Oliver Postgate; you brought magic and enjoyment to the lives of the children of my generation. Thank you for Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog, the Pogles and the Clangers. You were a gentleman from a gentler age who will be sadly missed.


"Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep, was just an old, saggy clothcat. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams; but Emily loved him."

1 dessert-spoonful of Nutella/chocolate spread
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp margarine or butter
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp self-raising flour

Spread Nutella/chocolate spread in the bottoms of 2 teacups. Cream together butter/marg and sugar; whisk in egg and milk. Stir in cocoa powder and flour; mix to smooth batter. Divide evenly between the two teacups. Zap each pudding in the microwave on High for 90 seconds. Allow to stand for a minute before inverting over a plate; serve fresh and hot.

You can make a non-chocolatey version by omitting the cocoa powder and milk, and instead adding 1 tsp vanilla extract; substitute either jam or golden syrup for the chocolate spread.

julietk is currently at Climate Camp, a gathering of people in Kent to protest against plans to build the first new coal-fired power station in the UK for 30 years, and the general expansion of fossil fuel use. The camp also hosts a large number of workshops on sustainable living and politics of climate change, and will be attended by people such as Green MEP Caroline Lucas. My understanding is that the landowner is fine with what's going on, so they are not doing anything illegal. Unfortunately, the police have been quite heavy-handed this year, searching everyone on the way in and confiscating dangerous items such as guy ropes and children's crayons.

At about 5:30am, the police (who, remember, had searched everyone going in so knew there are no weapons or anything illegal on site) decided, for reasons best known to themselves, to force a confrontation with the peaceful protestors by removing two vehicles belonging to camp members. Contrary to what has been reported by the BBC, this was not peaceful; as of 6:30am police in riot gear were attempting to break onto the site, hitting people and using pepper spray. Ambulances were called for casualties, but the police refused to allow them onto the site; people with head injuries were taken to hospital in private vehicles. As of about 9am, the front gate was clear of police but there was still an ongoing incident at the rear gate with the riot police. Live updates are available on Juliet's twitter feed (public).

There is likely to be further violence at about 2pm - 5 environmental protestors are intending to break their bail conditions to join the site at 2pm, which is likely to provoke further altercation. There's a Sky News crew at the site presently, waiting for them.

The Guardian appears to have a more balanced and sympathetic view.

Please repost and disseminate.

(X-posted to arkadyrose, integralthought and protest_survive)

Transphobia reared its ugly head at the Pride rally in Trafalgar Square yesterday. At about 6:30 in the evening, Roz Kaveney (long time human rights campaigner, journalist and transsexual woman) was denied access to the women's toilets. Official stewards who were running the toilets at Trafalgar Square announced that all transgender or transsexual women had to use the disabled toilets and would not be allowed to use the regular women's toilets. A police officer - an LGBT liaison officer, no less - insisted that transwomen would have to show their Gender Recognition Certificates if they wished to use the women's loos.

Sadly, this is just further proof of how the B and T part of LGBT are there very much on sufferance and are marginalised and discriminated against, even within the Pride movement. It's disgusting, small-minded bigotry, which is all the more sickening in the context of where it is happening.

Please feel free to use this banner and link to the article on Trans At Pride. Roz's own post on the incident can be found here.

I finally have the date for my baptism - Sunday 11th May! It will take place during the morning service at St. Mary's in Walthamstow, which starts at 10:30am. It will be baptism by full immersion.

It feels great to finally have the date firmly set and to be able to look forward to it with anticipation. It seems like forever since I made the decision to be baptised and fired off that first email to the vicar back in December. I've done my best to be patient as I waited; it's taken longer than I thought, and I've had to contain wistful feelings of longing at every Communion I couldn't partake in and the stirrings of envy at each baptism that's taken place since my decision - but the wait has been well worth it, and those feelings of longing and envy have only served to confirm (if ever I doubted it!) that thos is the right move for me and I am ready for baptism.

It's such a gloriously sunny day here in Walthamstow; it almost feels as though Nature is sharing in my joy. :-)

Yesterday was bitterly cold with driving sleet and occasionally hail; the girls and I popped down to Selbourne Walk to do the shopping, and were "treated" to the spectacle of one of the local charismaticblack evangelical churches putting on a re-enactment of the Passion. We all felt very sorry for the poor chap playing Jesus; it was definitely not the sort of weather you'd want to be stripped down to a loincloth and hoisted up on a cross in! Amongst the many torments Christ went through on the cross, I'm pretty certain hypothermia wasn't one of them....

We woke up this morning to proper snow, which had Diva bouncing around like an excited 7-year-old as he made the coffee; inevitably though it turned to sleet soon afterwards and all the snow melted. Currently it's alternating between flurries of snow and then sleet. Kit, Freda and I are off to church shortly for the Easter Sunday service, then this afternoon the girls, Liz and I are supposed to be going to a doll meet in Brighton - assuming the trains don't all decide to stop running at the first hint of snow, of course!

Religion linked to a happier life.

90dayjane is a blog purportedly of a woman who claims that at the end of 90 days (she's currently on her 7th day), she's going to kill herself - for no other reason than she's an atheist with no real reason to live:

"This blog is not a cry for help or even to get attention. It's simply a public record of my last 90 days in existence. I'm not depressed and nothing extremely horrible has lead me to this decision. But, does it really have to? I mean, as an atheist I feel life has no greater purpose. My generation has had no great depression, no great war and our biggest obstacle is beating Halo 3. So, if I feel like saying "game over", why can't I?"

The first phrase that springs to mind is "attention whore", but I suspect there's perhaps more to this than meets the eye. If you watch her video that's supposedly of her going shopping for a dress for Day Zero, there's something very "staged" about the whole thing. She is very aware of the camera and plays to it; always keeps her face in shadow, poses in a way that is obvious acting. The editig is suspiciously professional and the whole thing comes off as rehearsed. Most telling part though? The camera has supposedly been put down on a bench in the changing room whilst she tries stuff on... but it moves, indicating an unseen cameraman.

If you Google for "90 day jane", she's being talked about widely on a lot of fora. It's been claimed (here, amongst other places - scroll down to post #114) that this is her MySpace profile (though "Jane" does have a MySpace as well).

So, attention whore... or something more? A number of people are theorising that this could be some sort of viral marketing; question then would be, for what? There have been suggestions that it's religious propaganda; one comment I have seen suggested "Being an atheist and with nothing to live for, I think it'll explode into how she found God and how our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will save her on Day 1. Day 1 will be 11-May so she won't be pulling any April Fool's Joke on us. It is a Sunday, so maybe it'll put the fun in fundamentalism."

It reminds me a bit of the hype build-up on the internet before the release of The Blair Witch Project. I'm inclined to agree somewhat with the religious propaganda theory; I personally think this is viral marketing building up to a film - maybe a sort of Blair Witch Project meets Stigmata perhaps?

Interestingly, a WHOIS on 90dayjane.com throws up the following information:

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.

DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: 90DAYJANE.COM
Created on: 07-Feb-08
Expires on: 07-Feb-09
Last Updated on: 07-Feb-08

Make of that what you will....

For Firefly/Serenity fans there is a spoof version. :-)

Hmm, LJ appears to have fallen over again... or possibly our ISP is having routing issues. I don't seem to be able to reach Facebook either.

[Edit] Looks like it was ISP weirdness.

(In other news, I need to kick Wine and Semagic so I can do simultaneous multi-site blogging again....)

That was a bit of an odd weekend....

Saturday wasn't quite as bad as I'd expected - yellowrocket said much the same in her reply to my email. It wasn't easy writing the emails to her and my daughters, and I ummed and ahhed over each one for quite some time before finally clicking "send" on each and hoping I'd found the right words and hadn't inadvertently said the wrong thing in any of them and "put my foot in it". I think they were OK though; I got a reply back from Kit yesterday saying the email was just what she needed.

Oh for a dragon that can fly between for times like that. :-(

medusa's "Gin & Whores" evening was a non-happener for us unfortunately; Liz was too ill to make it, and when mirrorshard, Diva and I got there with Freda, they wouldn't let us in with the baby - despite the fact that the party was supposed to be in a private room, and Melanie had been assured on the phone that Freda would be OK. But the bouncer and a woman I presume was the assistant manager both insisted she couldn't come in, so after a phonecall to Melanie to let her know what had happened, we went home again. I ended up with blisters on the ball of my right foot, as my velvet "Victorian" boots really aren't suitable for lengthy walking in.

And church was a bit odd - I'd not made it to the morning service, so I decided to go to the evening one instead, which was Holy Communion. It was very quiet and had a different feel to the morning services I've attended with Freda, but quite a few people had noticed we weren't at the morning service and came over beforehand to say how pleased they were that we'd managed to make the evening service (which given that we've only been going a couple of weeks is quite touching). Not having been baptised, I knew I wasn't allowed to take communion myself so sat quietly at the back with Freda; but whilst sitting there I suddenly felt - for no apparent reason - an overwhelming urge to cry. I don't know why; I wasn't thinking about anything sad in particular. I did feel a bit "odd-one-out" as I was the only one not going forward to take communion, but not tearful about it. It was a little unnerving. I didn't actually cry, but the feeling persisted afterwards as I took Freda home again; just as I was passing the graveyard towards the church gate it got very intense. I was a little flustered when I got home, and then whilst cooking dinner a nasty headache came on. It went away later after dinner, but I could really have done without that.

So, yes. Bit of an odd weekend all round.

This morning I got a letter from the council, demanding £1800 in overpaid housing benefit. Not really the sort of letter you want to wake up to. Still, I bit the bullet and rang them, pointing out that I'd never seen a penny of the housing benefit as it was paid directly to Eastbank Studios, the landlords, and as I'd had no luck getting any response from them with regards to the £2k they owe me, I wished them best of luck getting the housing benefit back. The woman I spoke to said that as they had Eastbank Studio's bank account details, they'd just take the money straight from that and they wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop it. Unfortunately she couldn't help me with regards to the money they owe me, and wished me good luck with the small claims court instead. Oh well. At least I don't have to worry about the £1800.

Then more phone calls to shelters - and to Environmental Health to find out if any dead cats had been picked up recently. The animal warden is away on leave until Tuesday, but the call centre gave me his email address andI've sent him an email with a couple of pics of Tom attached.

I then spent a couple of hours this afternoon posting Tom's details on pet lost and found websites, in and around baby-wrangling - another growth spurt means she's been in a fractious mood, alternating between crying, feeding and sleeping.

On top of all that, my mood has been pretty low due to tomorrow's anniversary anyway. It's like a little black cloud snuck up on me then tapped me on the shoulder to remind me. I wonder how the girls are bearing up, particularly Smaller Smallperson. I'm going to email the girls tomorrow to let them know I'm thinking of them.

Lemon drizzle cake turned out very well indeed. I think I shall be making this one again!

What with that, plus getting three doll tops finished and listed on eBay, it's been a pretty good day in terms of getting things done.

Sadly, there has been no sign of Tom, with zero responses to posters or leaflets and no word from the vet surgery or animal hospital. Tomorrow I'm going to ring the various animal shelters; if none of them have seen him either, then there's nothing further that we can do.

*sigh*

Tom's been missing since Sunday night now. I put up posters in several local streets and leafletted local houses today. I can't shake this feeling that he's not coming back though. He hasn't been handed in at the local vet, or at the nearby animal hospital.

I alsways thought that when the end came, I would be there with Tom; I never thought it would be like this - a random disappearance and not knowing. I wonder, did he get hit by a car? Had a scrap with a fox that was too big for him? Or a stroke, and he wasn't able to make it home?

I'm trying not to give up hope, but a disappearance this long is very out of character for him. It's been a week, and he's not come home.

( 20 years ago meme )
2)

Tom has now been missing for two days and has missed his fourth consecutive meal. I'm now very worried that something has happened to my grumpy old man and that this time he may not be coming back. It's very unlike him to disappear like this. :-(

An Indian story tells that we all go to Heaven, but when we get there, there is a bridge, and before we can cross we have to be judged by every animal we have encountered in our lives. If they deem us fit, they then escort us to Heaven.

Contrast this with ( the story of the Rainbow Bridge. )

It's not known who precisely is the authour of "Rainbow Bridge"; it has appeared all over the internet and is generally attributed to "author unknown", but there are three possible contenders:

• Paul C. Dahm: A grief counsellor, he is said to have written the poem in 1981, copyrighted it in 1994, and published it a book titled "The Rainbow Bridge" in 1998.
  
• William N. Britton: His book, Legend of Rainbow Bridge, was copyrighted and published in 1994. Mr. Britton and his late wife were co-founders of Companion Golden Retriever Rescue in West Jordan, Utah.
  
• Dr. Wallace Sife: Also a professional grief counsellor, Dr. Sife heads the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement, and his version of the poem, titled, "All Pets Go to Heaven," appears on that organization's site. Dr.Fife's poem also is featured in his book, The Loss of a Pet (1993).

The inspiration for the poem is usually acknowledged to come from an ancient Norse legend. Bifrost, the rainbow bridge was a bridge the gods used to travel to and from earth, and where worthy Norse warriors crossed to Valhalla. However the similarities to the Indian story suggest that perhaps it was the Indian tale and not the Norse Bifrost that inspired the modern internet legend we know as the Rainbow Bridge?

I've created a blog over on Wordpress to write about faith; you can find it here. This way I don't have to faff with custom filter groups, and people who don't want to read it can happily ignore it.

Channel 4 are currently showing a programme series called "Bringing Up Baby", which showcases three different parenting methods, from the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Apparently the lady who is the 50s guru is paid up to £1000 a day to tell people that they must feed baby every four hours (7, 11, 3, 7, 11, 3) and at no other time, whether baby is crying or not. They must not look at baby while they are feeding them, and must hold them away from their body, so that they don't become clingy. Baby must not be touched in between feed times - and during the day, must be left outside in the garden. (feanelwa, this made me think of your neighbours....) When baby goes to bed after her 7pm feed (in her own room from day one), you must not go into her again, until her 11pm feed - no matter how much she cries.

I've been deliberately not watching it myself - it would upset me too much, and there are enough people on certain communities I'm on who have seen it and gotten very distressed over it, posting about what the program shows, to know that I'd be crying myself to sleep after every one. Apparently there are two sets of parents who have chosen this method on the programme, and it doesn't seem to be working for either of them - one of the mothers is distraught because she can't go up to the baby's room when she is crying before her 11pm feed.

Speaking for myself, no force on earth could keep me from going to my daughter if she were crying, especially if she were hungry.

A petition has been launched on the No. 10 website in response, demanding that the Prime Minister take urgent action to protect infants and their parents from television programmes that promote such outdated and discredited parenting theories. Such programs basically use child abuse and neglect for entertainment.

I've signed the petition. Please do the same.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/parentingshows/