Fun Things To Make From Household Items

 Here is a useful handicraft project to make with things lying around the house. You will need:

A cat who likes being groomed.
Failing that, a cat who hates being groomed, some chain mail gauntlets, TCP and lots of bandages.
Sticky-backed plastic (or sellotape)
Cling film
Some scrap card or thick paper (the postman helpfully delivers loads to us every day)
A drawer full of oddments (see later)

Step one is to collect large amounts of cat fur. A mad-cat-lady biscuit tin was employed for this purpose, while I muttered "It puts the cat fur in the tin, or else it gets the brush again!"

Step two is to make the cat fur into felt. There are loads of instructions online, and it's really easy, so I shan't bother to type them up again. Tim got me this book for my birthday (and has apologised profusely to the cats ever since). I recommend reading (a) the most helpful customer review on that page, and (b) the "look inside" bit of the book which actually contains the full instructions.

Once you have made your finger puppet, raid your drawer of oddments for suitable beads, sequins and mini bells (left over from the 1990s - when I used to plait them into my hair. I have no excuse, other than it being the 90s), and apply them with glue.

And voila! Cat-fur cat finger puppet!

Ohai! You look familiar!

Hanging with my new best bud.

Sledging!

It's snowed! So once again BRITONS must panic, abandon their cars and walk everywhere (which is confusing to me, 'cos if so many people can walk when it's slippery and cold, why don't they walk all the time?).

We took a bus to Richmond Park to enjoy the pistes there:

The local youth showing their ingenuity

Pudding-head!

The cats have had a good festive season...

Christmas Eve Starlight

In a gap between rain last night, nipping out to sprinkle the Reindeer Dust (a higher percentage of glitter this year - we assume this is to help Santa land in the low-visibility weather conditions we've been having), we noticed that there was a clear patch of sky.

And then the clouds came back...

Putting the rabbit back together again

When I was an undergraduate some thirteen years ago, we watched an educational video in a "practical" physiology class. The reason it was a video was for animal welfare purposes: by recycling a video made in the seventies, various instructional things could be demonstrated without the need to unnecessarily dissect other critters. Anyway, in this video a much younger version of one of our lecturers took the fluffiest whitest bunny rabbit I had ever seen, anaesthetised it, shaved it, hooked it up to various life-support systems, and opened it up to demonstrate the workings of the contents.

At one point in the proceedings (I think it was at the point the lungs were removed) I had a sudden horrible realisation and turned to my neighbour and said "They're not going to be able to put the bunny back together again, are they?" Until then, I'd been kind of assuming that at the end of the demonstration, everything would be popped back inside the rabbit who would be stitched back together and given a carrot.

Anyway, the concept of not being able to get the bits back in the metaphorical bunny is something I frequently use when describing films. For instance, in The Departed, there comes a moment when you realise that there is no way out for certain characters, and a happy ending is impossible. So next time I'm watching a film and say "I don't think it's going to end well for the bunny", that's what I mean.

Pretty lights

Last night I went and hung around Southbank and Somerset House with Auntie C, and we accosted people with our cameras. She concentrated on people, and I aimed for long-exposure blurs:

My photographic mentor

Next time someone asks me what travel-sickness feels like, the answer is this!

The ghostly skater

Bundi and Beyond

After Karauli, we moved on to Bundi, a rather pretty (and friendly) little town. We stayed in the Bundi Vilas, which had (as we later discovered) amazingly helpful staff. Not only did they leave us in charge of the Rooftop Terrace Anti-Monkey Defence System (a rifle) when they went downstairs to retrieve more gin, but when Tim decided (in the best of colonial traditions) to take to bed with a fever, they arranged the doctor's visit, and offered to let us stay as long as necessary until he was recovered. In the meantime, I explored the town alone.

View from Bundi Palace

Lots of the children only knew the English words "Hello! Photo! One rupee!" but these two girls were polite and just wanted to see their pictures on screen.

Whilst Tim was ill, I made a new friend who fed me chai.

This is what he was working on. Can you see the signature?

...there it is! On the ear-ring.

The artist at work