In last month’s Long time, no blog post I alluded to a ‘big personal project’ on the horizon – all is revealed in the above film!

This film is my first stab at creating a digital story, the result of a digital storytelling course facilitated by Breaking Barriers Community Arts that I did over Easter.

Photo by Chris Killip

Another rough and ready bit of creative writing – the result of a second ‘story circle’ exercise we were set during the digital storytelling course I attended over over Easter. We had to very quickly create a story from a photograph we were shown. Above is the brilliant photo by Chris Killip. Here’s what I came up with:

School was finished for the day and there were still a fair few hours left until teatime. Jenny’s grandmother, anxious to have Jenny out from under her feet whilst her parents were still at the factory and she was busy cooking, told her to go out and play. It was the usual daily routine.

Jenny went out and was unsurprised to see Mary already out on the street. Jenny sat down next to her on the kerb of the pavement and saw the she was sucking on a bright orange lolly.

“Where did you get that?” asked Jenny.

“That guy with the camera over the road just give it me,” said Mary. “I’ll bet if you asked him, he’d give you one too.”

Jenny pondered on this for a moment. She’d been told not to accept sweets from strangers, that it might be dangerous. But Mary seemed fine and the lolly didn’t appear to be poisoned. Jenny knew her parents wouldn’t like her getting sweets from strangers but she very much wanted a lolly…

One of ‘story circle’ exercises we were set during the digital storytelling course I attended over over Easter was to very quickly create a story from a series of random words we’d all come up with. Above is the picture of the words we were working with. Here’s is the story I came up with:

Grandmother didn’t know what possessed her to take the journey at rush hour but she regretted it when she found herself struggling to get on the train from the packed platform. She found herself swept up by the tide of people onto the train, where she was wedged in between the crowd and a plastic panel.

Luckily a young lady beside her made a fuss and got someone to give up their seat for her. Grandmother didn’t normally like a fuss but it was worth it in this case. She sat down and arranged her shopping basket on her lap, which was full of tins, bread, milk, sausages and some yellow daffodils poking out the top.

The tube train thundered along. Someone in the carriage was obviously smoking, the smell of burnt tobacco caught in the back of her throat. She wished she’d had some water.

Just outside Tower Bridge the train inexplicably ground to a halt. Even worse, all the lights went off and the carriage was plunged into black darkness. Grandmother was very alarmed but also confused – no-one else seemed at all put out by this and the other passengers carried on staring fixedly into space. She could hear muffled drumbeats from several ipods, their owners absent-mindedly nodding their heads along to them.

Just at that moment, the worst possible thing happened. A spider dangled down from the carriage roof, right in front of Grandmother’s face before coming undone and landing, ‘plop’, on her her hand. Grandmother hated spiders and one landing on her in a pitch-black, overcrowded tube train was more than she could take.

She screamed long and loud. The other passengers seemed to suddenly wake up and react. As the lights came back on, everyone was staring at her, silent and open-mouthed. Grandmother vowed never to take the tube again.

London calling

Guardian Open Weekend

I’ve found myself going to London quite a lot, for work and pleasure. I’m just about getting used to landing in Paddington rather than Euston now. A lot of my trips have been to deliver Talk About Local training sessions, which is when I definitely see quite a different side to London than I do as a regular visitor/tourist. I find myself visiting areas I’d never think to go to otherwise, such as Walthamstow (for a Nesta Neighbourhood Challenge project training session), the Priory Green Estate in Kings Cross and Lambeth North (for training with Peabody Housing).

I find I’m learning to a lot about London’s places and people as a result. During the last training session with Peabody I heard Steve’s story about the Cumberland Market Estate, previously owned by the Crown Estate. Steve was an active part of the residents’ Our Homes Are Not For Sale campaign to prevent the estate from being sold to private developers when the Crown Estate announced their intention to sell in 2010. The campaign worked well, influencing the Crown Estate’s decision to sell to social landlord Peabody.

But not all the London visits are all work and no play. I also found time to go to Matt Locke’s gorgeous The Story and Carl and I managed to create a lovely long London weekend break around the Guardian Open Weekend, where I took part in a panel discussion on hyperlocal journalism. The event itself was great fun – full of good food, thinkers and things like The Book Barge and that guy who dances like a lobster.

Back in Brum

Carl and I found ourselves drawn back to Birmingham for the brilliant Flatpack Festival. We spent Saturday night at The Edge, which had been transformed into a remote Peruvian fluoro village in the mountains with equally colourful locals for the Outersight Overnight Psychedelic Psynema Psleepover. Despite the cinematic strangeness being projected over our beds I slept like a baby until we were awoken the nest morning and invited to watch the sunrise on the roof. It really was quite magical and I left feeling I’d spent the night in some far-flung land rather than familiar Digbeth.

The next day I had a Filum Afternoon in the Spotted Dog as part of Flatpack, screening some Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland archives and Nichola Bruce’s haunting, dream-like film I Could Read The Sky. I loved this film when I first saw it a couple of years ago – Dermot Healy plays an old Irish immigrant padding around his London bedsit whilst he recalls his life, which has been far from easy. Certainly not a ‘feelgood’ film but I found it beautiful all the same. Being back in the Spotted Dog for Filum made me reminisce for the good old days, I do miss those gentle Monday nights in the pub, watching Irish films whilst drinking tea and eating cake!

I’m back in Birmingham again this weekend for the #TAL12 unconference, which we’re a busy bunch at work gearing up for. I’m particularly looking forward to providing Friday night’s entertainment – giving people who are there the night before a guided tour of Digbeth!

Staying local

As well traveling a fair bit I’ve also been busy at home, getting to know my new Cardiff neighbourhood and what’s going on locally. I was delighted to be asked to speak at the February WordPress Users Wales meetup about working with WordPress with Digbeth is Good and in my Talk About Local work. I met some great people there who really opened my eyes to the Cardiff’s emerging hyperlocal scene, which prompted a lengthy blog post detailing some of the very many sites and projects around.

I also worked with anti-smoking charity Ash Wales, assisting them with their interview process for their new role of Social Media Expert Officer. It’s a fantastic position and unsurprisingly there were many applications, which made for a full days’ interviewing. One thing I learned from the exercise is there really is no way of foreseeing what will happen sometimes. Before the interviews, I created a series of questions, one of which was ‘Describe a particularly effective social media campaign that did a lot to raise awareness of and engage new audiences in a worthwhile issue. What about it do you think made it so successful?’ I was basically looking to see how candidates were watching what other were doing online and taking away lessons from that. But of course, just before the interview date Kony 2012 went and happened!!

Rather than go away for the Easter break I stayed at home and attended a ‘train the trainer’ digital storytelling course in Ebbw Vale facilitated by Breaking Barriers Community Arts. I was tempted by this when I saw a previous run of the course advertised last year but couldn’t attend then, so was very happy to have gotten to go this year. It was great 5 day intensive, which focused as much on the process of drawing out and developing a good story as it did the more technical aspects of building a digital story. By the end of the course we had all created a short digital story film – I’ll be sharing mine on here shortly, just as soon as I’ve made some little tweaks!

Chilling out

Bute Park by Snowshot

When I last saw my nutritionist she advised me to meditate or do some sort of activity to help me relax. I’ve not gone for meditation but I have been making sure to take some time out – long evening walks in Bute Park, the odd lunchtime picnic in Llandaff Fields, getting my drama fix from Netflix and filling Carl’s Facebook profile with costume dramas as a result.

I’ve also the taken the time to learn a little bit of Welsh at Chapter Arts Centre, who hosted free Tuesday morning conversational Welsh sessions for beginners over February-April. Admitedly, I learned just a little (languages never were my strong point) but it was good fun and a nice way to meet people . I’m hoping to find some time to follow this introduction up with the help of Say Something in Welsh – a series of brilliant, free-to-download podcast lessons for beginners with regular local meet-ups for the online community that’s developed around it.

In terms of nutrition, according to Getgood Eats I’ve not eaten for over a month. A stomach upset kind of put paid to the strict diet for the moment but hoping to meet with nutritionist next month and try to get back on that wagon.

That’s all folks!

So that’s the last couple of months in a nutshell! Feels strange that what’s felt like quite a busy period can be rounded up pretty quickly. There are a couple of other things I’ve omitted that I feel warrant their own posts, from discovering the genius of Joss Whedon to eating a meal of Titanic proportions (more on those later). In the meantime, I’ve got #TAL12 to help make happen and shortly after that, the launch of an exciting new Talk About Local project which I’m really looking forward to! But it’s not all work and no play, I’ve a May camping trip to look forward to and a big personal project on the horizon – watch this space!

A lot of the women on there spoke about how changes to their diet seemed to help alleviate the symptoms, which I found interesting. Towards the end of last year my diet was pretty awful. It’s never been great but being extra busy and on the move a lot of time seemed to make it worse – lots of train station croissants for breakfast, carb-y buffet fair whilst at events and cheeky cakes with my americano’s at coffee shop meetings. My waistline as well as my general health were telling me that things needed to change!

So, I started thinking not simply about eating healthier but eating in a way that might help with endometriosis. Some women telling their stories on the Endometriosis UK website said that consulting a nutritionist had helped, so I thought that’s where I’d start. I googled ‘nutritionist Cardiff’ and came up with Joanne Crovini at cardiffnutritionist.co.uk,  who seemed to fit the bill.

After submitting a food diary and a pretty hefty amount of medical information I met with Joanne in a room above Canton Health Foods store the other week. She was very nice and her conclusions seemed to make sense – the way I was eating, I was sugar-rushing and crashing like a yo-yo throughout each day and needed to eat foods that released energy slowly to keep me nice and balanced.

This means I’m to avoid sugar, refined carbs (white bread/rice/pasta), potatoes, fried food, red meat and dairy and up my intake of essential fats (oily fish, nuts, seeds, etc.), protein, vegetables (especially broccoli) and dark berries. Obviously, the advice Joanne gave me was a lot more detailed than that but I won’t bore you with the finer points here.

What I shall do is continue to keep a food diary until I see Joanne again in March. Although I’ve embraced the Pink Pad technology with keeping track of my cycle, I’ve been pretty old school with keeping a food diary so far and written it out longhand at the end of each day in a little notebook. But then I spotted Nat Higginbottom’s online food and ’4 Hour Body’ diet diary chinup.posterous.com and I thought, what a brilliantly simple and visual way of doing it! I can do it all with my iphone, include photos of my meals to see as well as read about what I’ve eaten and include any odd related notes/reflections on the day. So I’ve pretty much copied Nat’s technique and created getgoodeats.posterous.com (hope you don’t mind, Nat!), more as a record for myself  than anything but available for my nutritionist or anyone else who might be vaguely interested to read.

I’ve been on the diet for a couple of weeks now and so far, so good. I get the odd craving for bread and cakes but it’s not overwhelming and the variety of foods I’m trying to eat combined with experimenting with new recipes and Carl’s slow cooker has meant no boredom has set in. That said, I’ll not be shying away from the inevitable lapses I do have and looking at why these might have occurred and getting back on the right track again afterward.

I think I’m already starting to feel the effects – less up and down, less ‘afternoon dips’ of severe sleepiness around 3pm and a bit more energy. However I am finding certain things difficult, such as cutting right back on caffeine. So I suppose time will tell on how I get on with all.

This one was taken in the tube near Victoria late on a Friday night – I was traveling from post UK GovCamp drinks to my easyhotel room in Paddington, so I could be around for more UK GovCamp fun the following day. Looking down the carriage it suddenly occurred to me what a rare sight an empty tube carriage is, so I took a quick photo on my iphone with instagram. I liked how the filter made the yellow tubing stand out.

 I think this is my favourite so far – a display of bugs for sale at Jacobs Antiques Market, which I was delighted to discover is still open after all these years. I have fond memories of frequent trips there with my Dad when I was young, rummaging through aged treasures. It’s still just the same. This photo was very much a case of capturing something I really wanted to take home with me but just couldn’t afford to buy!

As I walked past this ghost bike near Kings Cross station I realised it is the symbol of a story I’d been following online for quite some time. Student Deep Lee died in October 2011 whilst cycling through a notoriously dangerous junction. Will Perrin has covered the story at Kings Cross Environments, raising awareness of cycle safety issues and holding Transport for London to account for failing to make the junction safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

I’m unsure what my photo for this week will be – to be honest, I don’t think I’ve taken it yet. As I’m going to Birmingham tomorrow and London on Saturday, it looks like it will be yet another ‘away’ shot!

Pink Pad - a bloody brilliant app

I’ve introduced a new category to this blog, ‘Health and happiness’ to chart a few changes I’m making to try and be…er…healthier and happier. (Just as a pre-warning, these posts will be quite personal – I’ve been inspired by Ellie Stonely to chart a journey I seem to be on.)

The lifestyle changes have come about following a surprise diagnosis of endometriosis after an operation in November. I didn’t really change anything about my lifestyle in reaction to the news at the time – no sooner had I taken stock than it was time to move to Cardiff. But now Carl and I are settling into our new home and things are calming down a little, I have a bit more time and headspace to devote to my health.

Although the diagnosis came as a shock, it kind of made sense to me once I’d worked out what endometriosis is. My periods have always been very long and painful, I just naively thought that that must be the norm as no Doctors I spoke to about it thought there was any cause for concern. Quite frankly, they’re a drag and in the first couple of days it’s always a choice between knocking myself out on painkillers (the Weekend Option) or gritting my teeth and getting on with things. To be honest in some ways the diagnosis was a kind of relief – I’d feared I must just be a bit weaker and whinier than most other women!

But, as my consultant explained, it also presented another problem, as 40% of women with endometriosis have trouble conceiving and the only way to find out if I’m one of them is to start trying. Erk. Carl and I had discussed having kids sooner or later but now my body was telling us that if we didn’t start trying sooner there may very well not be a later. We suddenly discovered that we weren’t as free to decide when and how (a natural childbirth is already out of the question) as we thought we were.

After we’d had time to digest and think and freak out and talk there was a return trip to the consultant to discuss our options. The conclusion of that was, as it’s causing some pretty painful symptoms and may be causing problems with conceiving, we’d wait until April and if I’m not pregnant by then I’ll undergo another operation to treat the endometriosis. No pressure, then. :-/

In the meantime I’m to keep a diary of my cycle and all the related symptoms I’m experiencing. I’ve never been very good at keeping track of my cycle, I had a vague idea but never got into the habit of marking dates, etc. Luckily a friend introduced me to the fantastic free iPhone app Pink Pad, proving beyond all doubt that there really is an app for everything. It’s a great little calendar app where you can chart your dates, physical symptoms, mood changes, when you’ve been ‘intimate’ (ahem) and notes for anything else. It uses the information you put in to work out the averages of your cycle and displays with a little flower when you should be more fertile. It’s perfect for any woman wanting to keep track of their cycle and how it’s affecting them.

So when (or if?) I next see the consultant and he asks to see my diary, it’s my iPhone rather than a pocketbook that I’ll be getting out of my handbag!

I was amazed to see these daffodils for sale at Cardiff Central Station on Monday, so bought a bunch and took a photo of them when I got on the bus to Pontcanna. Now the winter frost has returned, will the spring blooms that made an early entrance perish with the cold? I really hope not – daffodils are my favourite flowers!

My second submission to The Guardian’s 52 weeks photography project.

Photo by avlxyz

Tomorrow is my 35th birthday. I’m not angling for birthday wishes, to be honest when people say, “It’s your birthday tomorrow!” it serves more as a sharp reminder rather than to build-up excitement.

I’m celebrating this Saturday in Birmigham with Sas Taylor (whose birthday was a couple of days ago) and Carl, who’s keen to mark our new Cardiff adventure, with ‘A Brummie Fiesta’ (Sas’s idea). Here’s the eventbrite’s blurb:

Last year we celebrated the birthdays with a cheesy grin. This year we’re hoping for more of a DIY Mexican wave, so…

• If you can rustle up some chilli, make it.
• If can you do a mean mojito, mix it.
• If you have a fetching sombrero, wear it.
• If you have some Mexican music in your collection, bring it.

Hopefully we can mix up a lovely warm, fiesta feeling that will take our minds off this wet, post-holiday winter weather!

Join us at 7.30pm onwards on Saturday 14th January 2012.

Friction Arts have very kindly given us use of The Edge in Digbeth for the evening – see location details.

I’m hoping a few friends can make it!

I’m keen to record what happens whilst I’m settling into Cardiff life so joining in The Guardian’s 52 weeks photography project (‘join our photo project to share your 2012 in pictures’) seemed like the perfect way of doing it. A photo a week seems do-able, more so than a lengthier blog post or photo a day (with 365 Days), with which I could imagine myself lapsing with.

The project features a fair bit of ‘iphoneography’ but my first image was taken with my trusty Canon G12 after I’d tried and failed to capture the image in the failing light with my iphone.

I took the photo last Thursday evening. After having had my brolly blown inside out and getting soaked as a result early that morning, this bin with broken brollies sticking out of it in Bute Park seemed to say it all about the stormy weather.

The weather wasn’t the only unusual thing – being in Bute Park after dark also felt like quite a novelty. Bute Park traditionally closed its gates at dusk, forcing commuters to walk or cycle around rather than through the park after dark. But over October-December Cardiff Council held a three-month pilot where they opened the major routes until 7pm to allow cyclists and walkers to use them for their journeys home from work.

I’m unsure what the results of the pilot were – the routes seem to have been well-used after dark. But the gates have remained open until 7pm after new year, so the pilot seems to have been extended at least. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it becomes a permanent arrangement, as the walk/cycle from Pontcanna to central Cardiff via Bute Park is a particularly pleasant experience.

I’ve not taken my second week’s photo yet, I’m hoping inspiration strikes me soon!