Fur and Feathers!

I know I promised these photos a bit sooner but my camera battery died so I couldn't post them until I was home (I forgot to take the charger with me!). Sorry!

I'm very pleased to introduce you to some very special cats though.

This is Rosie, she's an 18 year old tabby. Ash described her as 'an old soul' and I think he's right. She's got the bearing of a great queen or a pharaoh's cat. Even if she drools a bit when she's being made a fuss of =P, it's hard not to drool when your 126 in cat years!

Hidden behind her in that picture is George. You can see him better here:

He's a great big ginger tom cat. He's getting old too, although he's younger than Rosie (I think he's 15). He loves snuggling up and is very affectionate but has an annoying habit of extending his claws just enough to be uncomfortable when he's perched on your lap! He's also very heavy to carry!

This is his twin brother Fred (yes they are named after the Weasley twins =]). He's a bit more taciturn and reticent than his brother, but if you sit quietly he'll come and rub his nose against your hand and purr like a steam-train. Unfortunately he has a nervous habit of pulling out his fur =[, it makes it easier to tell him and George apart but he must get cold in winter. I brought him some cat treats for 'healthy coats' to help it grow back and he went completely nuts over them so I hope they help!

So that's the furry companions, time to meet the feathered ones. We'd better take them some food...

They have hen food to eat all the time (mostly corn) but they like fresh vegetables too so here are the off-cuts of courgette and spinach from an omelette I had for lunch and a couple of tomatoes which were going a bit soft; they were home-grown but I didn't pick them in time and they fell off the vine and went squish on the greenhouse floor!

They are very eager to see us aren't they, I think they might be hungry!

It's very hard to take photos of hens, they move so fast!

They live in this brilliant fox-proof compound. The chicken wire on the sides goes under the ground too and the slabs around the outside stop foxes from digging their way in! There are 2 hen houses to choose from; 6 like to sleep in the big one and 2 in the 'upstairs apartment'!

They lay their eggs in the houses too, sometimes in funny places, I'm not sure how they managed to lay these against the wall...

Oh no, don't even think about it....Please don't go out there...Come away from that door!

They like to escape! On the last morning the wind blew the door and they all got out. I was nearly late for work because it took a long time to round them up. I sent my boss a text to say 'I might be a tiny bit late, the chickens have revolted!' I really felt like I was in Chicken Run! Besides, there won't be many times in my life when I'll have an excuse like that for missing the bus...

They were definitely plotting, very shifty if you ask me!

I'm going to miss the hens and the cats most of all. It was a very lovely week though =]

Cooking With Hens

Don't worry I'm not cooking the hens, I'm still a vegetarian =]

I'm looking after my friend's mum's house this week with 3 cats and a whole load of chickens! I seem to have earned a reputation as the go-to house-sitter around here =P

I've got lots of fresh food from the greenhouse and their allotment to eat and fresh eggs every day, it's going to be awesome.

It's also a perfect way to kickstart my Bat Fit!

Last night I cooked spaghetti with courgette sauce and spinach balls, I tried to follow this recipe, but I left out the chili because I can't handle it =P (I know, I know, I am a source of shame to both my Trinidadian and Bangladeshi family members, but it burns my mouth so badly). I divided the amounts by 4 to get one portion.

First I prepared the spinach, the leaf parts for me and the tough stalks for the hens (they love fresh veg).

Pureed the garlic (home-grown; it was drying in the greenhouse =]).

I crumbled some slightly stale bread into breadcrumbs (the hens will be eating the rest of the stale bread =P) and grated the cheese. Then I cracked an egg and beat it. As you can see there is no shortage of fresh eggs here, these are from one day!

I blanched, drained and chopped the spinach then mixed all of the ingredients for the spinach balls together. I meant to only pour in half of the egg (to match the proportion of the other ingredients) but my hand slipped and about 3/4 ended up in the bowl so the mixture was a bit runny! I had to drain off some of the egg and give each ball a good squeeze to keep them together, how slimy!

This is what they looked like after cooking:

Then I made the sauce with grated courgette (the ends of the courgette go to the hens as well), garlic and Parmesan. I also cooked spaghetti as I had no rigatoni.

And the finished dish with extra cheese (naughty me), voila!

It tasted pretty good, but I think next time I'll put in some extra herbs or spices to make up for removing the chili =]. Not the healthiest recipe in the world thanks to all the frying but still full of fresh ingredients and a carefully controlled portion, so not a bad start!

I'll post some pictures of the cats and the adorable hens tomorrow when I have the day off work =]

Home to Wales

I'm sorry once again for the delay in posting. I have a lot on my mind at the moment. I'm struggling with anxiety about my PhD; unable to work for fear that nothing I write will ever be good enough (my lack of improvement on the theory side of things in the last year is really getting to me). I'm worried that with the job market the way it is in academia, my PhD is fairly pointless, and that even if I can get a job in academia it may not be what I really want (I'm not sure that all of the networking, politicking, constant struggle for grants is for me, and although I love my research I'm not sure I'll still love it when I'm working a 70 hour week with teaching and admin). I'm having some counselling for the anxiety and then I may take a leave of absence whilst I work out what I really want to do.

Anyway, I'm sure none of you want to hear about my personal struggles and angst. You'd much rather see the photos I took when I went home to Wales right?

I went back to the village where my grandmother was born, where my mum spent her childhood holidays, a place I have only seen a few times in my life, and yet it feels like home; more than this sprawling city in many ways. As soon as I cross the border; follow the road which climbs up the Brecon Beacons and see the valleys spread out before me, my heart starts to sing. 'This is where you soul belongs' it says to me, 'This land is in your blood', 'You are made from the coal seams in the earth, the grass upon the hills and the wide open skies', and I want to rejoice.

It is a home-coming tinged with sadness though; the villages which nestle at the bottom of these valleys were built here for one reason only; the coal that lies beneath them. The mines have been closed for half a century or more and these ones bustling communities have a half forgotten air. Their rural beauty is marred by the slow decay of time and poverty. The people here have always been poor, but they were self-suficient and hard-working, now most of those left are old or must commute to Cardiff daily to find work. The few young people left here do not remember the mining past or respect it's history.

Now I only return to the village for funerals; as my nana's brothers and sisters who remained here dwindle. This visit was for the last such funeral, my grandmother is now the only sibling left of 13. I worry that I'll never see this place again, never have cause to visit, and walk down the streets where old ladies smile at my cheekbones and know what family I'm from.

Some things do not change. The views are still breath-taking; the valley sides are steep, the hills sparsely wooded with scars of land-slips showing dark against the green, a reminder of the fragility of the balance between man and mountain.

The sheep are still here and the wild mountain ponies; this is their land too and they thrive despite the hard slopes and uncertain weather.

Wildlife has returned as people have migrated; much of the slope above the village is a nature reserve now, with pools of clear water reflecting the hills, until the reflections are broken by the wings of a myriad of waterfowl.

Above the village, fenced off from the attentions of the sheep and horses, there are 2 graveyards where monuments to mine officials and others of local importance rise out of the long grass covered in lichen; the air here is clean now, no longer choked with coal-dust and smoke. Be wary; there are many hollows where the finally resting places of ordinary folk are marked only by wild flowers. Before you reach the main cemetery, there is a small, lonely group of memorials. This is the cholera graveyard; victims of the outbreak were buried here together, away from the rest of the villagers. Cholera was greatly feared and thought to be spread through 'bad air', deeming this precaution necessary.

The village cemetery is larger, with modern stones as well as old ones, their black granite gleaming in the sun. Some of my family are here; although not Auntie Iris I came to say goodbye to; her ashes are drifting on the breeze above the mountains, laughing in her soft warm voice, smelling of hugs and welsh cakes.

I make a promise myself; to return next year, to stay longer, sit upon the hills, sink my toes into the long grass and breathe in the sweet air of the valleys.

Fabulous Modelling Debut!

OK, so this title is more than a little tongue-in-cheek, because although it was a shoot with a professional photographer, who is also a MUA and straightened my hair, the first time it's been pampered in like a year- when did it get long again?! Woohoo! I don't feel like a model at all, especially not a fabulous one! My lovely friend Olivia had just had her home studio finished and wanted someone to test it out with =] Check out her site here!

The original plan was to photograph one all black outfit and one all white outfit, but we couldn't be bothered with the hassle of changing the white backdrop to blue, so only the black got used.

Here is the black outfit:

Sitting on the suitcase I brought all my stuff in! Wearing the Camden blouse, with my black pinafore and petticoat (I would have liked to have a black skirt underneath too but didn't have one long enough).

Impersonating the pin-up girl photograph on the wall beside me:

We also took pictures of my new black and white skirt outfit:

The bow wouldn't stay straight for some reason.

So I took it off (next time I'll tack it down!). Also I swapped back to the top hat because the other one was a lot warmer under the stage lights! That's also the reason I'm wearing the lace tights - I think plain black might have looked better but I was already melting!

With teapot:
Olivia has the cutest teapot ever!

Close-up:

I found the whole experience to be pretty fun, strangely tiring (many failed attempts to get a picture that looked like I was flying Mary Poppins style probably didn't help there...) and more than a little embarrassing!

I think I thought that after all the work these pictures would be amazing, that I would look like a real model and feel really pretty, but instead a lot of them look a little awkward, because I'm quite a physically awkward person, the oddness of the situation doesn't help and I couldn't see myself and many of them have really goofy expressions! I hereby pass a decree that I'm never allowed to show my teeth when smiling again. It looks awful!

See?

In fact there is something I absolutely hate about every picture I've posted. Maybe practice makes perfect? Maybe I'm too self-critical at the moment? Maybe I should just stick to the day job =P Still it was an amusing evening and if Olivia needs a guinea-pig again I'll be happy to oblige!

One thing I won't be forgetting though - MAC make really good ghost pale foundation so at least my skin looks alright here!

SOS - Save Our Shoes

It been a long time since I posted a craft project, I've been so lazy lately! I've not done much that wasn't an emergency fix for a while.

These shoes are the ones which I brought when I started my job last summer, seen here.

I'm majorly clumsy though so the toes got wrecked by me tripping over all the time, I can't be trusted to walk even in this kind of heel! The shoes aren't real leather so when they scuffed it revealed that the leather effect surface was only thin and beneath the shoes are grey with a woven fabric appearance. Next time I'll check the label a lot more carefully before I spend £50 on shoes!

 I couldn't afford new shoes for the conferences I recently attended so followed this tutorial, with black cotton fabric and black lace. I also added black lace laces, which I got in Claire's accessories. 

Beware, this process is not really weatherproof, at least not when I did it! Luckily I took some glue with me to make running repairs! I've been patching them up for a month now (because I don't actually need properly smart shoes very often so I spent any money I could have spent on shoes on my lolita stuff instead =P

This is what they look like today:

Not too shabby eh?

I hope this is a useful tip for others too. If it saves you any money on shoes you should donate to Trystan of This Is CorpGoth and help her say F**k You to Cancer! I've made a small donation and hopefully will be able to do so again next month. Here in the UK, the NHS means that no one has to pay for medical insurance or treatment; it's free at the point of use for everyone (paid for by taxes) and I've never felt so lucky; I wish the rest of the world was the same (the NHS has it's faults and inconsistencies but the basic principal is wonderful). 

In the next week I'll hopefully be posting pictures from a recent trip to Wales and the long-awaited results of the photoshoot (once I get over my dumb facial expressions =P).

What I brought in Camden

In my previous post I mentioned that whilst I was in London I spent an afternoon shopping in Camden. Whilst I was there mostly to hunt for vinyl to give to my dad for father's day (I scored a rare Jefferson Airplane double LP for him =]) I popped into Sai Sai. They stock a range of goth and alternative clothing, and also some lolita stuff from GLP and Red Queen's Black Label. The quality is pretty variable and often poor, but the prices are far lower than brand; comparable to bodyline but without the shipping cost to pay and the chance of actually trying things on to check they fitted.

I therefore decided that I would buy this Red Queen's Black Label blouse even though the quality wasn't fantastic because it was £32 and some of the worse offences to the senses were so easily fixed:

As you can see I've already removed the largest part of the jabot bow because it was just faintly ridiculous. It was far too easy to remove the bow (held on by 2 stitches!), tug the large part out of the central band and then stitch the bow back onto the jabot. (far more securely!)

The lace on this blouse isn't fantastic but the collar lace is small so it doesn't show too badly and most of the ruffles are made from dotted tulle instead =]. I'll probably remove the lace from the sleeves and replace that eventually, but for the moment I'll just hide them under a jacket or cardigan.

My black and white Meta skirt arrived too!

I wanted to post another picture too that included my shoes, but blogger is playing up...

Next time I post I will have some much better pictures anyway I hope! A professional photographer friend of mine just built a new home studio and wants a guinea pig, so I'm making my fabulous modelling debut (gulp). 

A magical week in the cemetery

I've just returned from my fieldwork in Highgate Cemetery. I spent an entire week measuring memorials, drawing maps and photographing everything. I would love to show you all the photographs I took but I have an agreement that the photographs I take are for research purposes only.

However I also took some photographs of friendly local wildlife, who just happened to be in the cemetery... So I think it's OK to post those here! 

This fox was sunbathing on the catacomb roof on the first afternoon I arrived and after that he came to check on me whenever I was in his part of the cemetery; when he wasn't in the courtyard by the chapels (unsucessfully) begging for food! The cemetery is a nature reserve and so it's also something of a fox sanctuary, where an old mangy fox like this one can live out his days safe from dogs and other hazards. Apparently someone does feed him too, so he doesn't have to chase after the cemetery squirrels (who were too quick to photograph).

On two different afternoons I was followed around by a cheeky robin; he hopped from stone to stone, cocking his head to stare at this strange girl with her tape measure and compass. He was a very willing models for these photographs. 

I also spotted this beautiful black cat slipping between the memorials. He paused momentarily, fixed me with a look of pure cat-like disdain and continued upon his way, leaving me little time to capture him on camera!

I'm also going to include a couple of bonus images of the cemetery because this kind of image can be found in many other places and so I don't feel like I'm breaking the rules too much =]

This is the entrance to the famous Egyptian Avenue.

It is lined with catacombs.

And leads to the Circle of Lebanon; a ring of catacombs surrounding a Cedar of Lebanon tree which Pre-dates the cemetery, having been planted when the land belonged to a manor house.

Although I had a wonderful time at Highgate I am very happy to be home to my boyfriend, with my comfy bed and somewhere to put my tired, tired feet up. I could also finally get back to feeling like myself and put all my practical clothes in the wash! This is what I look like when I am doing fieldwork; very glamorous!

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, I am indeed wearing a full set of waterproofs and carrying a hard hat (I only have to put it on in high winds when there is a risk that branches might fall on my head!) and a walkie talkie (so that if I fall down a vault I can call for help!). My trusty doc martens protect my feet from injury with their steel toe caps. The rucksack holds my equipment, notes, first aid kit and lunch.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and having a small insight into both this beautiful place but also the world of archaeological research! My next post will be about something lovely I brought on my one afternoon off in Camden Market!