More DIY tips - electric cooker on/off main switch

I had a call today that the electric cooker didn't work, the ON/OFF switch did not show a light (as in ON) and I was told there was a problem. All it was, when I got there, was the trip switch on the MAIN FUSE BOX had tripped to OFF position, probably due to overload.

So hoping now this will work. Please note: Any electrical jobs should be looked over by an electrician. 

OFF:

ON:

The orange switch needed to be in ON position. It had tripped to OFF. I switched to ON, and voila! 

And here are some lovely blossoms in the front garden - given to me years ago by my mum and much loved:

Highgate meadow

Sitting a private meadow in Highgate. Listening to birdsong as I watch the birds come and go to and from the feeding spot. Lovely.

Have a safe journey

Remembering a near and very dear. 

Have a safe journey and rest well. 

Plumbing

Changing tap washers - an added skill.

These Swedish taps required a special washer. Always important to keep spare washers of the required kind. 

1. Turn off water

2. Open the taps fully 

3 Remove tops - for this one I just pulled the brown tops/covers off

4. Use wire wool to clean inside the tap and anywhere lime scale has built up 

5. Pull off the old washer and clean the area before inserting a new washer and washer ring. 

6. Put everything back, turn off taps so you don't get soaked when water is turned on. Turn water back on and check tap no longer leaks. 

Spring

Spring today, at last.

Dorothy Parker

Autobiography

Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat;
My dress is 1922....
My life is all like that.

Poem by
Dorothy Parker
Image by me

Research leave

Time to spend time on focus
and some time to reflect

Easter Eggies

Easter

Easter again
Easter egg painting once more!!
Wonderful teenager made some gorgeous
character faces.

Blurred vision

Blurred view of my window a dark and rainy Saturday night. Waiting for project to render..

Compiling work

link to video

Compiling work into categories and sorting files - discovering new and forgotten work on the way. Looking for venues to show and share work.

stills chapel dance NY aug 12 - heidi saarinen   

Octagon Tower

Beautiful staircase Octagon Tower Roosevelt Island - in an old 70's New York travel book in the charity shop. I believe the space has been developed into apartments :-(

Amazing how much information I have found through this one image..

I am finding some very interesting background info on this site. Here is a blog link about young female journalist Nellie Bly who became interested in the lunatic asylum on Blackwell's Island, now Roosevelt Island. Bly spent time in the original lunatic asylum, then wrote about the experience What Nellie Bly found on Blackwell’s Island

source: http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/what-nellie-bly-found-on-blackwells-island/ 

I must go and visit the site next time I'm in NY. Fascinating architecture, site, location and history.

related links:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/copper/blog/episode-1-banished-to-blackwell-island/

http://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2012/11/27/nellie-bly-and-ida-m-tarbell/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/the-roving-runner-roosevelt-island/

*** and I just can't get enough of this blog with rich and fascinating content on everything NY history:

http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com 

Union Square/E14th/5th Ave

source: http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/category/union-square/

fast forward...

..........................FAST FORWARD

I need a FAST FORWARD button.. I am moving very slowly today. Waiting for video to upload to youtube, why is it taking so long today, when I had plans to leave the house early - there is a lot to do! Going to Kinetica today and getting my train tickets for remote encounters in April.
MORE LATER.

Remote Encounters - disDance 11054.80

Remote Encounters 11-12 April 2013, Cardiff, where I am performing on site, together with performers in a remote location.

disDance 11054.80

Abstract:

disDance 11054.80

The proposed project involves two geographically separated, distinct, performances which influence each other’s progress using a novel networked connection system. The audience at each site (one performance would take place in Cardiff and the other will be hosted at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore) will directly experience only the physical elements of the activity at their site, but because of the disruptions to and changes in the presented material, will be aware that its progress is inscribed by events in an unseen performance - a hidden rationale. Each performance determines the structural unfolding of the other producing a non-linear narrative, at each end of the disDance, referring to immediate place yet simultaneously bearing witness to a connection, to distance and remoteness. 

The content of each performance will be choreographed and devised by Heidi Saarinen (dance, articulations of space) and Ian Willcock (digital materials and sound) through a collaborative, exploratory process working with small groups of performers in each location. These processes will include sustained networked contact (through Skype); the project acknowledges that the process of making a performance begins well before the actual presentation itself and seeks to integrate networks into the preparatory phases as well as those activities actually presented to audiences. The performance will last for approximately 20 minutes. 

scents to get the day started

today 

a documented dream

A documented dream - represented on this quick sketch found in my old notebook
What ever may it have meant, or mean..

A day in Coventry

I visited Coventry today as I had a meeting at the university. It was a very cold and grey day but the ruins of the old Cathedral were so beautifully amazing in the hazy winter light... some snap shots -

a broken plate

I broke a dinner plate today
one of the two last smaller white ones
Now there is only one
the other ones were replaced
a while ago
with bigger white ones

I miss the smaller
white one
with the scratches that
looked like cracks
I miss the way they sat
as a pair
of white smaller plates
on top of the
new
bigger white ones

It makes me think
that the time that was
has gone
with that one smaller
white plate

Reading..

Reading and reading some more..

Terpsichore in Sneakers S Banes publ Houghton Mifflin Co Boston

Sunday

Sunday Sunday
I have been getting my act together
Research worked on
Thinking of ideas for performance coming up in April
Been to library
Been reading
Been to a Gallery

Looking to find like minded people now
Need inspiring people around me
Who understand and can share discuss and get things moving

Camden Arts Centre, Film in Space 

New Year, new tasks

.......It is still dark when I leave the building in the morning, there is ice on the windscreen and the car is freezing, until the heat kicks in.. But there is this new, lighter, clear light starting to appear as I hit the M1 around 8am. It is the first hint of spring. The horses in my favourite field are still, staring in a dreamlike manner, into the future, it seems. I want to stop the car, and time, and all the tasks and duties that are piling up already - and go over to the far end of the fields to spend some time with the horses. I feel as if I have gotten to know them, after all, I have been passing them and their field twice a day for the past few months..

I am also getting work back in order, research work, I mean. Thinking work. Creating work, and getting determined to complete what I have been wasting time on for too long. Now it just has to happen. I must learn to find ways of saying 'no' at work without having to work in the evenings on silly admin stuff for the institution. I want free evenings, for breathing and thinking and getting my research completed. It is time to become self centred in this matter!