Broken Key in lock

A few days ago I broke a key in Roberts bike lock, which would have meant getting someone over to the house to try and cut the lock off. It was a brand new giant lock so thick it would take a week to cut off. I had things to do I didn't want to be wasting time sorting this one out. So my frontal lobe started working. I got out tweezers and pliers and tried to pick it out. This was not working because it had a little door that automatically kept spring closing. Then inspiration came and I got some metal craft glue and mixed it and put a very tiny bit on the inside of the tweezers, then put tweezers onto the end of the key in the lock and pressed the tweezers together. The glue had an hour to set so I put masking tape around the tweezers to clamp them together, then left it alone for an hour and came back and pulled the tweezers out and the key came with it. I undone the tape then the tweezers separated from key and rubbed the glue of tweezers. So all was saved.

Flaming hot

All the flames that have been happening in Australia made me want to write something, in prevention of flames. Australian airports should have large warning signs telling tourists the do's and do not's of Australia or even a 30 minute introduction lecture at the airports and ports. Like even telling people not to touch the barrier reef, not to drop litter or cigarette buts and to be nice to every creature and person.

Houses in the bush should made underground. 

Teenagers should have more contact with adults using community festivals as a point of contact. At the festival the teenagers and the whole community should all have a responsibility to make the festival happen. The adults can then pass on knowledge to the younger generation like fire safety and ways of having fun that builds the community instead of destroying it.

Fire safety tips.

1. Soak a wool blanket in water and cover self with blanket if there is no way out. 

2. Roll person on fire in nearest wool rug. Not man made fibers, they may melt.

3. Not to use block type double adapters in electric socket as they become heavy and when half stuck in they ark and make a flame.

4. Try not to stack video tapes next to TV and other players or near heat.

5. When cleaning the oven with chemical cleaners, make sure oven is well rinsed before turning it on.

6. To have all fire alarms working in home.

7. To learn the art of climbing up and down a single rope.

8. To have a turn off after use sign next to gas fire place.

9. To Have fire blanket next to cooker.

10. To unplug computers, telephones, during lightning storm. 

11. When having a fire outside to make sure the ashes are completely wet before leaving the fire unattended. Fires can travels underground burning roots.

12. Making sure electric leads from hand held tools are behind you and lead rests on the back of hand, so if it was to cause shock it will fly backwards instead of round the wrists. No one must be standing behind you when using the tools.

13. Hot oil spill, remove clothing, quickly wipe the oil off with dry cloth and immerse in running water for over twenty minutes.

14. Hot water, remove clothing and immerse in cold water for over 20 minutes.

 15. Hot oil pan fire. Smother with fire blanket or damp well squeezed cotton cloth tea towel.

Hold corners turned towards you and raise high to cover in one go.

16. Garlic skin placed over burns or cuts with dry dressing can help speed up healing. 

17. Cuts, tape cut together as neat as possible and keep dry. 

That's about all I can think of, any other tips you may think of write in the comments box. 

Chauncy Maples Hospital ship.

Today is the launch of the Chauncy Maples hospital ship restoration fund raising website.

Robert created the website for Auntie Janie who is director of the project of restoring the ship. Aunt Janie has spent her whole life writing Health books for Africa and making it her main concern. 

We are very lucky in the UK to have ambulances, that pick us up from where ever we have an accident, no matter how hard it is for the ambulance people to get to us by sea, air or van. Then we are taken to a hospital that is 5 minutes or so away and then helped by doctors at the hospital with in an hour. 

In Africa this is not the case, they are very few doctors per people and hospitals and if you have a broken leg you may have to drag it a few hundred miles to get help. 

So the Chauncy Maples is really great, the ship moves around lake Malawi and helps people that live miles apart.  The ship was originally made in Glasgow by fine ship builders in 1885 and taken in separate pieces to Africa to be assembled there. The ship has been used constantly, till 2003. Which is a good run of over a hundred years. 

I see this project as very important. Much more important then restoring ships for historic purposes or buying a yacht to cruise round the world in.  

The quicker the funds are raised to restore the ship the quicker it can be back in action on the lake Malawi, serving the community.

Janie has lots of photos of the parts of the ship that need repairing, for you to see on the beautiful Chauncy Maples website.

Art can have a heart part 3

More pictures done at the retirement home. This is another Christmas wrapping paper one but can be done with old magazines and Christmas cards or even newspaper. I drew an out line but sometimes they developed into there own picture.

This one could be a cat or a kangaroo.

This is one from the second world war series of colouring in pictures. Catching swans and eating them is illegal as the Queen owns all the swans so she says. They are beautiful birds and should not be caught but when people are caught up in wars they are of course staving to death and will do anything to get something to eat even if it means going to jail for it. I also feel wars should be made illegal and owning birds and animals should be illegal and having a royal family should be illegal and going to jail for stealing food should be illegal and shipping food around the world should be illegal and fishing with lead weights should be illegal because it kills the swans as they swollen little pebbles from the bottom of the river and in that swallow lead weights from fisherman. I found a dead swan when I was a child and it had electric burn lines straight across it. So over head power lines should be ilegal and Nuclear power stations should be illegal as they spill out hot water which boils the fish and sea life as well as many other things they do. Bring back pedal power.

A crab supper, again Christmas wrapping paper picture. I did a little personal survey at the retirement home and asked everyone what there favourite dish was and they all said crabs. Norfolk is famous for crab. But the population of course is depleting as they fish them out of season so there is no time for them to breed again. Is this due to foreign factory ships scooping up the ocean beds. It must be because local fisherman known when the right time to catch the poor unfortunate creatures.

Flower arranging. Another activities that is a favourite. These plastic flowers were all donated to the home for the Lady's to arrange. Real flowers would have been nicer but health and safety say there not good as there is different natural chemicals in each real flower. When you go down the road of health and safety your left with nothing left on the planet.

Doves colouring drawing. Coloured in by a lady who let me know what fully blown epilepsy is like, not very nice at all.

Her mind was trapped in the 2nd world war and she talked in every detail of the bullets killing her friends at the factory she worked at. Not one piece of information was left out the whole war period was grafted onto her memory. So I tried to help her escape with art.

I wonder if there will be a period in time when people don't have to have a memory of war. I certainly have memory's of war that will never go away. Growing up in Ireland the news was a constant spill of war. When I got a to about 8 years old I refused to watch or listen to it. It made me feel sick. When visiting Northern Ireland on a mothers Union shopping trip I got caught up in the war and had to run across a road of an inch of broken glass and firing of army and men to get back to my bus home. I hid in a little book shop for a bit to get my breath back. The whole place was completely ridiculous every shop I had my bag checked before entering the shop and every street had a road block again to be checked. Even the bus was checked on the way into the city. To live that everyday for an entire life time would send me bananas and maybe I would say that dementia in the elderly may have something to do with having to live with a war.

Please stop all the wars they cause so much pain and suffering that we cant cope anymore.

The last in the series of activities for retirement homes and dementia. I do have a whole list of more activities that I did at the home I was at, but they have photos of people in and due to the respect of the family members I have not put any recognisable photos on my blog.

It will be you one day. part 2

More activity pictures of what I got up to in the retirement home. This is the start of the Norwich Cathedral Lantern making. As you can see it did not require a table. I decided to use old electrical wire to join the old cane blind as this process has a bit of weaving in it which is easier then using masking tape and the heat of the home made the tape come off.

This is a painting done of Norwich. The painting was very big so everyone could work on it. They really enjoyed this one and new people to the home totally related to it and admired the picture. The self esteem of the people there lifted enormously after this was finished and the picture was talked about amongst the residence.

Flower pot painting. Also a winner and I took the pots round to every single person even the bed ridden to plant the magic sun flower seeds and bought a little watering can. They loved this one because they could smell the soil and get a little dirty and watch them grow. The plants grew inside till they were to tall to fit in the window then they were transplanted to big pots in the court yard. Then as the weather got warmer they took it in turns to water the plants. Walking outside sometimes was quite difficult when they have been indoors all winter. So I helped them make every step to the plants. After they had been out they looked like they had been for a walk on the beach all full of life and colour int here cheeks. The plants could be seen from there windows and grew so tall they could have been entered into the tallest sunflower competition.

Paper aeroplanes made for the 1940s party. Each one was cut out and coloured in and hung from the ceilings throughout the home.