May seems to have passed me by, deciding that there is only so much one mama vulturess can accomplish with 24 hours a day, my husband clipped my cultural wings, took me to Cornwall and unplugged me from the grid for a week. I grudgingly accepted 4 channels on tv, no network coverage, wifi and hifi and sunk my teeth into pasties, clotted cream teas, paddling, and tried to get to grips with the St Breward village gossip as quickly as possible.
On my return my good intentions to slow down, stop tweeting, lasted all of five minutes, as I got myself (and Michelle) embroiled in a number of well intentioned, but most likely time consuming, opportunities to make the world a better place. Empty shop units? Pah, we” ll show you crowds. Two new rooms designing for a social enterprise on a microscopic budget? KAPOW to scant funds, helloooo to quirky fun meeting rooms. Keep it simple for the Charming Armley Cake Competition this year? No don’t be daft, let’s extend it to include Home Brew, Pies, Allotment Produce and Morris Dancing – ‘Make Bake Rake’ here we come. Oh and that’s before we create this year’s calendar for it with the Leeds Met Graphic Design students. This year’s book swap at the I love West Leeds Festival? Hmmm, let’s make it part of the national ‘Big Lunch’ initiative, books and bread everyone? Oh I forgot to mention the life size gingerbread house fundraiser, and a national leadership development programme.
Naturally I don’t try to do all this stuff at home alone! It’s only fair, when you are a whirlin’ dervish to drag everyone else into your mania! Michelle has copped most of it, including my wholeheared agreement that we use our blog as a vehicle for personal therapy! Actually she suggested that once a month we go something cultural that we feel a bit ginger about ourselves, so that the readers who feel a little nervous about doing stuff called ‘culture’ can see we are just as uncomfortable about it too sometimes. ‘Going to the Theatre’, and ‘Public Dancing’ rank as my least favourite activites, along with keeping my meddlesome nose out of everyone’s business.
June looks exciting, and I will be tapping into the collective energy generated by the new old guard of tomorrow. ie being the old matron at lots of beautiful young optimistic arts and design students grad shows. I am so lacking in any kind of dress sense and style that I’m hoping I will somehow end back on trend by being quite evidently an anti fashion statement.
On t’other side of the Pennines, I would like to draw your attention to two pretty cool events that I wish we had thought of doing here first! One is The Cutting Room Experiment – social media/culture/ flash mobbing in Ancoats, big buzz and very playful. Secondly Contents May Vary, art car boot sale! Nice…really feel that the recession is doing wonders for us getting back to grass roots, or dark roots at the very least. What trend will be next after the new thriftyness?
So now to enjoy sweet dreams of bluebell woods, bleating sheep, buccolic pastures. Can I tweet the pictures I uploaded to flickr to you via my crackberry? Then can I arrange a social media workshop that I live tweet from to show you how to do it too?
Ahhhhhh lights out now…