Happy Father's Day!!

I'm in Maryland spending time with my extended family and my parents are also in town visiting, so I get to spend Father's Day with my dad for the first time in years.

I love you, Dad!

running around like a

It's been a crazy week getting ready to go away for a month.. I think I've just about finished everything I need to do. Tomorrow I'll fly to Maryland to see my grandma and extended family, then to San Diego to spend a week with friends, and then to Arizona to see my family. It's a huge trip, and I'm so excited to see so many people!

This morning my dad sent pictures of the spring flowers near their home.

Aren't they beautiful?

I can't wait!

(The picture at the top is Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for 18 months sans tête.)

the mice ate my parsley

...but interestingly they didn't like the stems.

looking through the center of the world

Last night after watching an unintentionally silly production of The Revenger's Tragedy at the National I walked down the South Bank to see the Telectroscope.


The Telectroscope was created by artist Paul StGeorge with the help of Artichoke, the arts group who helped bring The Sultan's Elephant to London. Supposedly, more than 100 years after it was begun by (fictional) Victorian inventor Alexander Stanhope StGeorge, a tunnel running under the Atlantic ocean was completed and "an extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa."



In reality the Telectroscopes are video installations erected in New York City and London allowing viewers on either end to interact in real time.

When we were there last night it was sunny in New York, and people on both sides were laughing and waving and holding up signs to communicate.

More images (including the giant drill bit used in the installation) can be found here, and people's experiences of the Telectroscope can be found on the Telectroscope blog.

spelunking in the closet

I suddenly realized I leave to go to the States in about a week and a half. I'm trying to be very very productive in the interim. Much exciting progress is being made on my current projects (hurrah!), but I keep needing little odds and ends.. bits of metal, tiny fixings, and today I needed some pieces of fur. Unfortunately my bits of (vintage, not new) scrap fur live in the back of my closet, which, unlike most British closets, is cavernous. I had to crawl to the very back of it to dig out the box I needed. A miner's lamp would have been helpful.

(the piece of fur in question)

I also got a beautiful print in the post from the very talented Rima, which you can see here. Thank you, Rima!

lucky girl

I'm feeling very contented this morning. I got to spend time with my sister and Ryan not long ago, my friends in Bristol this past week, and last night a friend of my sisters came to stay on her way home from Istanbul. Not only did we have a really nice evening but she gave me an incredibly sweet little Turkish bowl as a thank-you.


It's so nice to meet nice new people!

Today I get to sit at my desk and make lovely tiny things, and maybe make a pattern for some summer-weight shrugs. This evening I'm meeting my best friend to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I'm completely, geekily excited.

O soothest Sleep!

I'm very tired as I've been away in Bristol since last week, ostensibly to teach a master's workshop, but I've mostly been visiting friends, eating nice food, watching a village fête themed cabaret, taking part in a tiny, tiny piece of theatre, putting friends' lovely daughters to bed and helping to write a ghost story. I also saw a fawn gamboling in the evening sun from the train and was forced to watch this on television. Hope everyone else has had a happy weekend too.

yawn... off to bed.