join the guerilla shopping bag movement!

Does anyone have any recommendations for cheap/guerilla marketing ideas books?

My friend Rhiannon has updated her website.

Very driech day here again and have run out of coffee... I might have to leave the house. Here is a link to the completed Haunted Photograph Project done by The Photographers Gallery.

The joy of cancelled plans

sort of.

I was supposed to be in London on Tuesday... but I misread my ticket - the train wasn't at 3 but 11am ! So I'm still in Edinburgh and in posession of a bus ticket now for Sunday. This trip to London has cost me £130 before I've even got there. However as I now have unexpected time at home I've been renewing my job hunt and things look a bit more hopeful. So this unexpected parcel of time has had good results. It would be wonderful if I got a yen to so housework at the same time ... but that feeling hasn't overcome me yet.

One of the things I have done is put a link to the Amazon book and video sale I've got going on in the side of my blog - do hop over and see if anything is of interest.

Looking down the high st on a misty day - holga

advice for photographers assistants

Off to London for a trip so blogging light until return.

Its the season of casseroles and tea. Yesterday went here for tea. After a brisk walk around the policies to admire the Highland Cows and the peacocks we went in. We had afternoon tea beside a roaring fire and chatted and discussed and debated. When we left it was dark and Arthur's Seat loomed above us and the most wonderful full moon hung over the city.

"It's not about making art, it's about living a life that makes art inevitable."
Robert Henri via Andrea Scher.

Went to see Dargeeling Limited on Friday. The cinematography and colours of the film are wonderful. One of the railway carriages had a wonderful blue colour which I've been trying to find online but failed.

I saw it with my Uncle who left India when he was 9 - shipped to Scotland durig WW2 I cannot imagine the grim and gray contrast.

Bonus the Dargeeling Himalyan Railway Society website.

slightly odd picture in that I can't quite imagine the angle I wonder if it has got flipped over?

Realisation last night christmas is coming and I haven't organised a christmas work lunch. But you are a feckless underemployed freelancer ... where can you crash lunch? So H & R are you up for organising our own officeless christmas lunch... I was thinking Urban Angel...

Permission cards

Joan Eardley

I wanted to post something with colour - its super driech today. Bucketing down and gray. Luckily I had to meet someone for coffee this morning so have been out and searched for bargain wool at charity shop on way back - nothing ! I am writing to friends as its so gloomy the only thing is to try and spread some postal cheer. More about the artist here.

Misty window at Spoon Cafe Blackfriars St, wish I was there having lunch!

Today is dreich... only way to describe it. Luckily I have to leave the house. I do find that on a day like this its best to leave - go out and do something. Being amongst people is the best thing.

Second best would be a large and substantial piece of cake... must bake tonight I think.

Went to see elderly rellie today - wet, windy, grey, cold and miserable. Dark by 4pm. Want to get christmas lights by the mile to cheer the place up. Hotwater bottle MIA but found this local crafty blogger while wasting time.

"Our truest responsibility to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find the truth."
Madeleine L'Engle

busy sat

I had to go up town to the post office - Amazon booksales. Stocked up on stamps, then went and had breakfast out. What a treat! Free reading of newspapers and free postcards to pick up at a cafe. Then dashed to library and changed books. Got the bus home and saw the amateur football going on in the park. It must have been half time as serious strategising meetings were being held at either end of the field with the teams.

It was just lovely being out on a dry autumn morning.

Holga Leith Links

Jess's birthday holgas

thoughts while soaking feet

Last week I had a stimulating email exchange with H. I went for a job interview for a job I really wanted but didn't get. H emailed me to say it was the universe pushing me to do what I do. And I replied 'What is it that I'm supposed to be doing?'

She replied 'You are supposed to be telling stories, Just like I am'

and went on

'I haven’t been out of the apartment for nearly three weeks! That bit I didn’t realise until F pointed it out to me. Now you go out of the apartment. You have your artist dates and your meetings with friends but so much of that time is spent for others M? How much time do you actually spend on you? Thinking about what you want? Doing what you want to do? (sorry M this really is a bottle and a half of wine sort of email!). It just struck me though. The two of us are really good at advising other people as to what they should be doing with their lives. And our advice is good. It’s really good. But we never ever take it ourselves. Maybe because its too hard. Maybe because taking that advice means that we have to stand up and be counted. And we can justify not writing our books (me) or not making our films (you) because we need to pay the bills, because we need to be sensible and responsible and (at our age) debt free…'

And I really thought about it. About what I really want to do and have I given up on some of the things I wanted to do because really that last few years have been really hard. I don't write about it/didn't write about it but some times getting up, going to work, producing a meal is heroic and then doing it the next day and the next day. I also thought about the fact I've not admitted to myself I'm scared. I've had so many disappointments the last 5 years I don't want to put myself in the way of anymore. I'm not ashamed of that fact. We have our limits and there is no shame in protecting ourselves. But I wonder have I taken it too far?

Finally I'm sitting here in front of the TV immobilized as I've got my feet soaking in Dead Sea salts and warm water in a basin. Frida the cat is enjoying my stillness and I'm knitting. H & C both recommended this as a cure for ailing feet. I've got something which I suspect is incipient Psoriasis which itches like hell and I've been living with for a few months. This is proof by my body whatever my mind connives that I've been stressed the past few months.

Finally finally I think of a walk I had at the beach a week or two back. It was dark. I love walking on the beach in the dark, for a start its quiet and people free, and you can see the lighthouse signals in the Forth and the boat lights. Anyway I was incredibly irritated to see someone walking along the beach holding a torch, Now there are lights on the promenade, quite strong and you have to walk quite far away from them to get away from the light they cast. This annoying light bobbed up and down distracting myself from the joy of being in the night light. Of course if you take your own torch your eyes never adjust to the light levels at night and rather than giving you more light it makes the background even darker even more instinct and and frankly scarier.

Turn off the light look at what scares you and it might be less scary.

Time is Luxury

- great article by Jeanette Winterson

Bruntsfield holgas from my coffee meeting with Helen-Ann a few months ago.

watching films like a blue streak

Saw Brick Lane on Sunday a free preview - I thought it captured the beauty of London very well. I've not read the book so I don't know if its a 'good' adaptation or not. Only disappointment was the failure to find an Asian actor to play the part of the lover.

Tonight I saw Into the Wild a more compelling film - and one which made me feel old. I wanted to shake the main character and say 'you know nothing about human beings'. But I won't say more or I'll spoil the film for you.

good stuff

Article about the Magnum Photographers collective at the Independent.

Buying Green Jasmine Tea at the Chinese Supermarket on Leith Walk - 65 p for 20 tea bags.

Taking Lomos of the new rash of graffiti down the walk - 'I got you flowers but you wanted chocolates'

Meeting H for coffee and thrashing out what is it that we really want, being scared (One of the graffiti's is 'Don't be Afraid'). I realise I've been aiming low in order to avoid disappointment. Hey I'm human its ok.

I'm back in the warm embrace of the City of Edinburgh Library System. I've paid off my £14.35 in fines and now have - gasp- taken out books! Oh the joy of new books.

Challenge yourself

Do something nearly every day ( every day if possible )that you love doing - walking through the city taking photos is mine.

Buy the little luxury which adds to your life, green jasmine teabags, library books what ever that is for you.

Think about what you really want to achieve and make baby steps towards it. Write your goals somewhere you can see them. I find I keep on forgetting them in the melee of every day life.

bread making

came across this article on breadmaking

If I buy bread flour from Lidles at 49p for 1.5 kg I can make 3 loaves for the price of almost half a loaf.

This is my basic recipe

Mix 500 g of flour, 1 dessertspoon of sugar, 1 desert spoon of oil, one egg, one teaspoon of granular yeast, a pinch of salt, and temp water 250 g (if its too hot the yeast is killed) Mix, kneed for 5 mins of so until a smooth dough. Cover and leave to rise.

Either shape into bagels and do a second rising then briefly dip into boiling water and then bake for 15 mins or put the dough into oven for a loaf. About 5 or 6 gas mark until the bottom of the loaf is hollow sounding.

If you have no egg you can leave out the egg and a mix of wholewheat flours is good and sunflower seeds.

gloomy gray day

Post Guy Fawkes (last night the local teenagers were letting off rockets in park, creating bonfires and using shopping trolleys from Scotmid to transport burning flames of a don't know what) Observed for a while then decided to skedaddle home as I was sure I'd end up witnessing some terrible accident.

The gray makes me feel I should count my blessings.

I've paid my vast library fine ! I can now take out books !

Bread rising in the kitchen as I type.

Washing in machine being cleaned.

I scored two £5 tickets to London in January so I can see my niece and have something to look forward to after Christmas. Even better my trip will co-incide with R's trip to a conference so we can have madcap photographic London adventures.

I'm going to Glasgow tomorrow - so I can visit the magazine section of Borders (almost all my current students put this down as an artist date last week!)

There are cute ferrets at Cuteoverload and an account of Kaffe Fassett lecturing at Mason Dixon.

orange almond cake

I promised my students a cake a week this is the one I made up last wed.

100g ground almonds
100g flaked almonds
3 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
tablespoon of vegetable oil.
zest one orange and squeeze the juice out.

Mix all together. I kept on moving the mixture from cake tin to cake tin as I couldn't quite get the right size for the amount of mixture.

Put in oven 20-25 mins until knife comes out fairly clean at gas mark 6.

Bonus this is gluten free.

National Novel Writing Month starts today!

Nanowrimo