Spoons - Olive spoon

This spoon is the length of an ice-cream or dessert spoon with the head of a teaspoon and a hole through it! The hole lets the brine drip through when removing olives from a jar.

Spoons - Sugar Sifter

In Cardiff at the weekend, we followed signs for a "Vintage Fair" and found ourselves in a church hall with tables set up in typical fashion.

One sweet little stall sold silverware and cutlery. And I found it hard to choose between two beautiful silver-plated "sugar sifters"

I chose this one because of the dainty edging:
Haven't used it yet!

And isn't the label beautiful?! Every item on the stall had a similar label, tied to the item by its little ribbon.

Sewing a purse

My flatmate wanted a purse that was slim enough to fit in her back pocket. But also had dividers for coins / notes / cards.

It was her birthday. I headed into town.

There are so many basic purses in the shops. €4, €5, €7, €8 and onwards and upwards for a zip attached to a pretty-patterned fabric; no dividers!

I popped in to the trimmings shop and bought a 4" zip for €1.50 and with some black satin fabric I had at home, proceeded to piece together the purse.

Here's the design:

• 4x rectangles of fabric, same size + zip
  
• turn down the long edge one of the rectangles and sew an edge - do this with two of the rectangles
• sew the zip onto a long edge of the other two rectangles
• place all four pieces of fabric on top of each other (placing the edged pieces and the zip on the same side) and sew the three edges
• voilá

What's the best direction for sleep?

I did a search for the above sentence a few week's ago and came up with the most nonsensical answers; an array of reasons and justifications and dismissals for sleeping N-S, E-W or not. The explanations ranged from sleeping in the direction of the rising sun, magnetic energies and much more besides.

But there was no conclusive argument that I could find.

The reason I'm bothered recalling any of this, is that I'm in a very contented, relaxed, happy mood at the moment. And I'm putting it down to sleep. And the biggest change in my life regarding sleep is the position of my bed. Because - I will confess - I did experiment with positioning my bed different ways.Now the problem I had to contend with was that the house isn't facing due anywhich way!!!

I chose E-W after consulting Spiro Kostof's History of Architecture. Churches are constructed on an East-West axis.

A busstop on a wall

picture taken in Moone, Co. Kildare of this old bus-stop mounted on a wall.

Table Legs

My brother once made a bird table.
And another time, he made a table - I can't remember what it was to be used for - something light like wallpapering possibly!

But neither stood up.

It's a tricky business: table legs. A flat surface with four legs - and how are those legs joined to the table. A lazy nail through the top and into the leg won't work.

And maybe that's why this lovely table leg in a lovely pub (alehouse??) in London caught my eye:Or maybe it's just because it's so beautiful and clever that it caught my eye. I'm a sucker for beauty and cleverness.

The Bridge in Ireland inspired by a Harp

I've always been quite cynical about the idea that the Calatrava bridge at Macken Street was inspired by a harp. How fitting?! How handy! The harp is a native symbol of Ireland. Strings are cables. And curved steel can imitate curved carved wood.
Santiago Calatrava has designed other bridges in similar style:

• Serreria Bridge in Valenica, Spain
• Footbridge Puerto Mujer, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Light Rail Train Bridge, Jerusalem, Israel
• Katehaki Bridge, Athens, Greece
• Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay, California, USA
• an early design for the Alamillo Bridge, Seville, Spain

But today, listening to Morning Ireland on Radio One, I was alerted to Love:Live Music day. One of the many free performances involved 12 harpists, strewn across the bridge playing music.
When I arrived at lunchtime today (thankfully) there was no strew-ing. On the south-side, there was a cluster of harpists strumming Carolan tunes harmoniously. And I thought (I love Carolan's music) that perhaps this connection might not be a bad thing... and might possibly, I conceded, be intentional. Because the Beckett bridge does join the mast and the flat bridge at a particularly graceful angle and the steel given a particular design treatment at this point.
However, I am far from convinced - mostly because a harp on its side is a daft symbol!
Similarly, the bridge in Greece claims to be inspired by Athenian sailboats - perhaps part of the designer's charm is making these tenuous links between a generic, international bridge design and the native culture.I've tried rotating an image of the bridge and comparing it to a harp - the most noticeable difference/mismatch is that the strings on a harp run from the flat towards the top which is concave. If we are to look at the cables on the bridge running from the flat - they go towards a convex curve.
Too much analysis always spoils the fun so I'll finish by admiring the heavy steel at the base of the mast again - that shape and angle and mould and curve does bring a harp to mind.