Generally Gemma

Madness

Is it what it would be to stop blogging after all the lovely comments in the last post. I was really, really touched. Thank-you so much you lovely people.

For this evening though my newly painted toenails and I are off out. (reminder to self book pedicure! They are baaaad feet!)

Be back soon!

Questioning

I've been thinking a lot about my blog recently and how I feel about it and whether I want to change it in anyway, move forward, make changes, move backwards, stop. A few months ago someone asked me what I what wanted from my blog, what my goals for it were in the coming year and it started some ideas forming which I may or may not do anything about. But it forced me to consider the idea that my blog isn't stagnant. That it doesn't just have to exist as it is and perhaps it shouldn't just BE but that perhaps I should have goals for moving forward in terms of this corner of my world. What they could be is another question entirely!

Then Ali posted this list of questions and her answers, that she found on Manda's blog, which in context with my thoughts I found rather interesting so I thought I would share and hopefully some of you reading this will too.

What makes you enjoy a particular blog (not just this one, any one that you read)?

For me it is a number of things. I like a good mixture of stuff. I love to read about peoples lives and see their houses and what they get up to on a day to day basis. I love a good project, a renovation, a process that we get to see building up day by day, week by week.

For me blogging is an extension of people watching in a way. Although instead of having to make up lives for people in my head I have the back story all laid out for me. I want to feel as though the person is blogging because they want to, not because they have to but because the putting finger to keyboard and sharing for the sake of sharing is something they enjoy.

I also like to hear about the hardships, the struggles, the difficulty of living a day to day life. I know that as bloggers we all censor our lives and whilst I don't want to read doom and gloom constantly I do want to feel that you are a real person and not a stepford wife. I want to be inspired by blogs but I'd like to feel it is an achievable aspiration and for me at least a perfect lifestyle isn't something I am ever going to manage!

What type of post is your favourite?

I like posts that give me something to take away when I leave the computer. Something to think about as I walk to work in the mornings and thankfully there is always at least one post an evening that gives me that. Be it a thought, a project, a way of living to incorporate into my life.

How important are the photographs?

They are pretty important to me. I don't expect every blog I visit to have a professional photographer but I do appreciate it if the photos are in focus and have decentish lighting. I know it isn't easy to get pictures that you are happy with and it is something I struggle with daily. But I like to think that the person taking the picture has taken a bit of time over it.

I know that personally for every half decent picture you see on my blog there are probably 10 or 15 that just didn't work for whatever reason, blur, focus, lighting, bad composition. If a blog consistently has bad photography then I tend to stop visiting.

Does the design of the blog attract you or even stop you from reading it?

Blog design does attract me, I love a well designed banner and layout, I like seeing what people have in their sidebars. I try and actually visit blogs rather than just read from my google reader especially for that reason. If the design is too busy or especially has music running, a pet hate, then I don't tend to visit or comment as I find my focus is removed from the post and the person. I would probably still read the blog though as I tend to read through my igoogle feed.

Do you like blogs to be colloquial/regional or fairly generic?

I love the differences in blogs! I don't want to live in a homogenised society so I certainly don't want to visit one! Vive le difference! The only time it does make me think drat is if it is a shopping post and it is about something I want and can't get here in the UK!

An equal amount of craft and family, or does too much of talking about the kids put you off?

Absolutely not! I love the mixture. No one is defined by purely one label so why should their blog be? If you are a working mother who crafts and gardens I want to hear about it all not just one aspect! If you are a knitter with a sideline in woodwork I want to see your latest coffee table! A Mum who hula hoops for money at the weekend? Give me the glitz and glamour along with the sleepless nights and the dirty fingerprints.

This is something I struggle with personally. I don't have children so it isn't something I can talk about. I don't have a lot of time for crafting so my output is limited and therefore so is my blogging about it. I do sometimes wonder what it is that I bring to the blogging table? And if I'm honest this is one of the main problems/questions I've been thinking about lately. I find that my life isn't terribly interesting in terms of blogging material and I start to wonder if in fact during the two years I've been blogging whether I have squeezed all I can out of it. The G&G household runs to a cyclical pattern and I find comfort in repetition and routine, I go a little mental without it, however, it does mean that a lot of things are the same from year to year. Hmmmmm, something to think about anyway.

What else? What are the best words of advice you can give a blogger?

Keep a camera with you at all times! A picture tells a thousand words and I find it so much easier to build a post around pictures, I find that without one my writing process doesn't happen as easily.

So that is that! And after saying I love photos and I write more easily with one this post is picture free. As both Ali and Manda said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic, so leave a comment or let me know if you are answering on your blog. Hopefully you've found it as intriguing as me!

Memory Lane

Yesterday I went to visit my Grandmother, which I always find a bit of an odd experience. Not because of seeing Granny herself but because of the walk there. M moved to the house that Granny lives in now when she was two or three years old and all three of her sisters were born in the house. When I walk there I take the same route that M and her sisters took for years, all through school and jobs until they married and moved out. It's a peculiar sensation to walk up the path next to this wall and know that M walked it for years before me. I always trail my fingers along the warm brick and wonder what the chances are of her fingers having hit the exact same spot on the exact same brick when she was my age. What's really spooky is that M always seems to phone when I am exactly at the half way point on this wall!

When we were younger and we used to come and visit Granny it used to be passing under this arch way that the excitement used to really get under way. I still stand underneath it and look at that little window and dream on day about living in a turret just like it.

I love the way that this walk makes me feel connected. As though I actually belong to a place. Moving around as much as we did when I was younger made me feel really rootless when I was a teenager. A sensation that came with a whole bag of troubles when I moved back to England for university. But when I am on the way to Granny's I feel grounded and as though I belong here. When I used to come and stay on my own I used to yearn for a place where I would one day be able to bring my children to visit. To point and say this is where I grew up, this is where everything happened to me, the good and the bad. I used to think that I wouldn't have that. Having taken G to Spain now I know that isn't true. I know that Spain is where I will take my children and say see this is where I was young, this is where I became me. To show them the hill I skateboarded down, the trees that we hid in, the corners I cried and laughed on.

However, I have this little corner of England too. This roundabout is a big family tradition. Even now when M comes to visit we have to walk to it especially so that she can walk all the way around it on the wall when she was little. It's something I've done countless times too, and actually did yesterday just so that I could tell M that I did! I hope that one day I can bring my children back and make them walk it too, let their footprints tread in where mine, M's and Granny's all have. Because she grew up on one of the roads off here too.

I'm the only one of the grandchildren to have actually lived in her house for a little while. When I came back to England after my mental break in Spain I moved in with Granny for about a month whilst I found a job, a home and my feet again. In fact I was living here when I first met G! I get such a warm feeling when the house comes into view. For someone who felt so flotsam and jetsam for so many years it's a feeling that I can't get enough of.

Urge

The last few weeks I felt an urge come upon me. An urge not felt since the great Blankie urge of last year! Round about the same time that the ripple and striped blankets were doing the rounds a few Granny square blankets seemed to keep popping up. But of course I was submerged with Blankie and could think no further than the next stripe of the biggest project I had ever undertaken. But slowly, slowly I started thinking about a new blanket. A sofa blanket that wasn't as big and could be done in little pieces over the Summer when it was warm and I didn't really want a whole pile of fabric or yarn draped all over me.

So I emailed the lovely  Lynn and asked if she would share her pattern as I loved hers and I wasn't quite getting the hang of how the whole thing went together. I had a brain block that meant the blocks were coming out with far too many corners. But Lynn put me on the right track and two weeks in I reckon I am about a third of the way through. And I am loving it!

So we shall see if this actually all comes together of if my newly discovered love of crochet and cosmopolitans is going to prove a disastrous combination!

12 on 12

 

Day off ahoy!                                       Scrummy

Beautiful                                            Imposing

Hello New York                                   Windy

   

Tile                                                       History

Mental                                                 Mad

EXCELLENT                                         Bleary

Lazy Weekend

Last weekend was one of those that are classed way up there in the Summer has begun categories. I certainly wasn't as busy as these little chaps! Lazing in the sun and doing some crafting, catching up on the last few episodes of the West Wing. Admittedly I was inside for that but my word it was necessary!

I don't normally get as close to bees as this as I am rather scared of them as I react unpleasantly to being stung. Not in an anaphylactic shock kind of way, but in a swelling, uncomfortable, nasty to look at way.

But look at the details on the wings of this fellow! I was amazed! It is when I see shots like this that I love my new camera!

On Saturday I took G to Garson's for his first visit. He has sampled the produce before but had never been with me. But once we were independently mobile this was one of the places on the list of must goes. I think he was smitten with the place before we even got there and he saw these cute little balls of fluff!

We had to pull over and take a closer look! I don't think I'd ever been this close to a cygnet before. Obviously I wasn't as close as the picture seems, I was pretty zoomed in as Mummy and Daddy did look rather protective and frankly death by swan attack wasn't really on my to do list for the weekend!

Once this little bundle of fluff started to raise his downy head and opened a bleary eye I decided that the time had come to leave them to their snooze in the early afternoon sunshine. Plus Mummy Swan had started to pay me a little more attention than I was strictly comfortable with!

But of course Garson's isn't really about admiring the wild life on the way in. It is about the delicious goodies that you pick when you are there.

Peas and broad beans! I sat in the sunshine when we got home and shelled them all. Loving the pop of a pod as you gave it a squeeze and the furry interior of the broad beans. Each bean nestled into it's own little perfect indent. They were delicious! I didn't want to do much with them as I find that when we eat our pickings on the same day the flavour is so much more intense then you get from a supermarket or grocer. So for these I blanched them so they were just a little bit softer, dejacketed the broad beans and then when they were cool I tossed them with a minty vinaigrette and a little sugar. DELISH! G is already planning his next visit!

In other news tomorrow is the 12th and I will be doing my 12 on 12 again, although tomorrow is certainly not an average day in my life! But more about that when I post. I will be posting on the 13th as I will be home far too late tomorrow evening to be faffing with pictures. But if you are going to play along with me then leave me a comment and let me know as I would love to visit and see other snapshots of the day!

Update

I have much to tell and many pictures to share, however this is where the whole two camera usage thing falls apart. The pictures I want are on the new camera and that isn't here! My organisational qualities are just as good as ever it would seem!

Posts to come with pictures will be,

PYO
Cygnets
New crafting project
Thursday evening I shall be having "the time of my life"!

Also, Thursday is the 12th of the month again so I shall be remembering to do my 12 on 12!

the game ...

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I stole from Ali, and as with her the proper answers are on flickr.