i thought I’d try a recipe I saw on Facebook. Cinnamon and sugar coated sweet potato chips. It didn’t go so well. I was trying to work at the same time as cooking and left them in the oven too long. Even the tasty coating couldn’t save them.
At least I was able to eat enough to realise that the idea is worth trying again sometime.
A friend of mine started a facebook group a couple of days ago, aimed at those of us who fear that the new tory government will mean more suffering for those most in need. The idea being that rather than just moaning about how unfair it all is we’d try and do what we could to provide mutual support. I think this is a brilliant way of looking at the situation – practical help and emotional support can make a real difference to those who need them, and lets face it that could be any of us.
This time last year I had a nice full time office job that I knew I was good at and that felt ‘safe’ – now I think it’s unlikely that I will ever work full time again.
Anyway, one of the things I decided to do as a way of making a little bit of a difference was to volunteer with the local food bank. There’s one run from the church in Ramsey that’s part of the Trussel Trust. I found their website and tried emailing them but the email bounced so when I went to the craft course this morning I thought I’d call in. The website said to ask at the cafe in the indoor market – only when I got there they told me that was no longer the case so I went down to the church where the food bank was actually in session.
I had a chat and gave my details and it all looked to be going ok until they started talking about “Revive” which is a prayer group which also serves food. I said that wasn’t for me as I am not a Christian and just wanted to help with the foodbank. And at that point I was told that I couldn’t be a volunteer as it was a church thing only.
If that’s their attitude to potential volunteers what on earth are they like with non Christians who need help? That’s over 40% of the population if we match up to the national average. We probably don’t match up given how ‘middle England’ Ramsey is but I know there are pagans and buddhists and muslims in the area at least.
Oh dear. My attempts at making the monster dice bag have so far been disastrous.
It started ok – I worked out my plan of attack, found fur fabric and red and white felt, cut them to the appropriate sizes, got some googly eyes I’d purchased from ebay and was all set to go. It should be a fairly straight forward make, just sandwich white felt teeth between the fur and the red felt lining. Sew that together then seam the whole lot into a tube, close the fur end and most of the felt end, turn right side out and add in the eyes and a tube for the drawstring – should be done in half an hour. I’d even worked out plans for a removable tongue that would double as a mini pouch for pencils or special dice. Looking good.
Gary dug out the sewing machine for me from where it had been stashed when we moved here over a year ago (How can it have been so long?) and that’s where the problems started.
First step should have been to wind a bobbin of appropriately coloured thread – but when I removed the housing there was no bobbin in the machine. And of course the box of accessories was nowhere to be found. So we jumped in the car and drove to the nearest haberdashery which had exactly one pack of bobbins on sale. So I bought those, some velcro, some snap fasteners and some cord and toggles and we came home again – only to find that the bobbins were the wrong size so we hadn’t solved the problem at all.
I then tried plan B which was to try and borrow one. Dawn had a couple lurking in the depths of her sewing box which turned out to be a reasonable fit so all was looking good – until I’d threaded the damn machine at which point I realised the foot was missing so it wouldn’t work anyway. Gah!
I’ve ordered replacement bobbins and foot from ebay – hopefully they will be here in a day or two and we can try again. For now though I’m just making chainmail
The C Spot 