A treat for the birds

At work this week, a conversation about bird feeding came about. Emma told me about an ace way to make a bird treat out of the following:

– a pine cone
– string
– peanut butter
– seeds

You will need a spoon and some scissors too.

My Grandad, who we called DeeDee, was a bird feeding champion. My Dad, Stevie has inherited the bird feeding gene and the birds in Birmingham are fat and happy. I love to feed them when I visit, so thought trying out this bird treat was a great idea!

1. Tie string around the pine cone.

2. Using a spoon, lather the pine cone in peanut butter (our birds were spoilt with sunpat crunchy peanut butter).

3. Bathe the pine cone in seeds until covered. (again, spoilt with Waitrose seeds)

4. Get two of your favourite people (Al and Stevie), who are taller than you, to hang it in the garden from a tree.

And there you have it, a delicious treat for the birds!

Massive thanks to Emma for cheering me up at work with this idea!

My friend Ben

It has been 5 years since I lost my wonderful friend Ben to Cystic Fibrosis. He was an incredible friend; always thinking of others, he made me laugh A LOT and believed in making the world a better place. If you’re reading this as someone who knows me, you’ll already know that I have some ‘interesting’ taste in music. Ben would always persevere with me, sending me different music to listen to and would be so happy when I announced that I quite liked ‘System of a Down’ or ‘Nine Inch Nails’ (and didn’t mention Hanson in the same sentence!). Ben loved music and going to festivals and always wore his Glastonbury wrist band with pride.

In the last two years I have been involved in helping organise The Waterfront Festival in Nottingham (Ben would have been relived to hear, I don’t book the bands!). The festival raises money for the Nottingham Hospitals Charity Cystic Fibrosis unit and this year, Framework too. It is always all of the fun, with three stages packed to the rafters with music, a raffle full to the brim of ace prizes and a super atmosphere to top it off.

I think about Ben a lot and I don’t think this will ever change. I am extremely lucky to have had Ben in my life and he has, and always will be an inspiration to me.

You win some, you lose some

Yesterday I had one of those daft moments in life. I got on the bus home and instead of the £1.70 bus fare being well spent, I instinctively jumped off the bus two minutes in as I spotted a leather sofa. When I got to it and realised I had left my camera at home and my phone was so low in battery the camera wouldn’t work; I wanted to weep. Not feeling great anyway, and feeling disheartened I stomped my journey home.

My grumpy face was greeted with a lovely smile when my friend Ali bumped into me. I blurted out my tragic tale and like the true friend she is, offered to take the photo on her way past. I was so pleased!

Then something happened, as I was walking down a side street I witnessed, what could have been an advert for true friendship. A girl saw her friend in the distance, waved and then in a Phoebe from friends style run, galloped towards her and her friend did the same. When they got to each other, at speed the girl jumped up, legs around her friends waist and they spun round. Then still hugging (in the middle of the road) swayed from side to side. I don’t know the back story but they both really meant that hug and I felt happy (and slightly voyeuristic) to have witnessed something so genuine.

Bits left behind

Love these corners left behind on a poster board.

Armchair saga

Caroline kept me updated with this particular armchair. Every time she passed it, was in a different position, made me think it was doing armchair yoga.

I made it into an animated gif.

Sky

Whilst adventuring last weekend, I saw a lot of beautiful sky.

Odd

My friend Phil sent me this photo. (thank you!) It’s very peculiar! The chair is so over sized and the bear is quite unusual. This is a rare find in the world of discarded furniture.

Metro cut out

All the animals

Al and I took Friday off and went to the Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry centre. It was great fun and a chance to play with my new camera some more. I couldn’t take any photos of the butterflies as my camera started sweating as soon as we entered and never acclimatised. Here are the chosen photos from the many I took that day: