Frogpondsrock...

Blogging away from home

I am sitting in bed in a cabin in a caravan park, my laptop is balanced precariously on my knees and I am trying to write outside of my comfort zone. I only have picasa installed on the laptop and not being able to edit my photos how I am used to is bothering me much more than it should.

I stopped on the side of the Midlands highway just outside of Campbell town yesterday to talk to my daughter Veronica on the phone. As usual most of our conversation was about the apple of my eye, my grand daughter Amy and Aspergers.I took this photo as the trucks were roaring past my window, shaking the car and shaking me.

I am here in Launceston for the Junction 2010 Regional Arts Conference and Festival. I have been sent up here as a delegate for the Greater Green Ponds branch of Tas Regional Arts. This is an amazing opportunity for me to network and meet other artists and arts workers. My focus this weekend is the  role of Arts in health and the Arts and disengaged youth.

The fact that my gorgeous girl most probably has Aspergers has made me determined to pick the brains of every Artist working with children like Amy. I am going to be very busy this weekend.

Comment Policy.

I do not moderate comments here on this blog and I generally do not remove comments either. I used to have my comment policy displayed as a page on this blog but when Veronica did the redesign there wasn’t any room left for it.

So I am going to republish my comment policy here now, just so as everybody is clear on where I stand regarding comments on this blog. I will also add it to the “about me” page.

I welcome any and all comments. I especially like the nice ones, they are chocolate for my soul.

You don’t have to agree with me. You can disagree with me in the comment section any time you like as long as you do so in a polite and civilized manner.

I like to debate and comments with opposing views to mine are welcome .

But be warned.

Trollish comments will be edited until they amuse me. I will mock all trolls and publish their details.

Abusive comments will be removed.

Comments with  links in them that are off topic will be removed.

Comments that give me the shits will be removed.

Is there anything that you think I have forgotten?

Hadrians Walk, what has happened so far…

As I sit here in front of my computer, nice and warm The Hadrians walkers are pitching tents at the end of the third day of their walk. News of the walkers and how they are going is scanty and I am hoping that Martins feet are still firmly attached to his legs and that his sense of direction has improved.

I have struck up a tentative friendship with Dad who writes and you can read his updates of the walk here

Dad who writes, posted this photo with the caption,

“We are walking across the strong, rocky bones of our land #hadrianswalk”

This photo really brings home the enormity of what these people are doing.

They are walking 84 miles in 6 days.

I walked a couple miles around a perfectly flat headland recently and it nearly bloody killed me.

So I am in awe of their efforts to raise money for the Joseph Salmon trust with this massive walk.

Well done to them.

If you want to donate some cash you can do so here.

But if you are broke and cant afford it just go and comment here and I will donate a dollar for you.

Sunday Snippets (on Monday)

Marylin has started  Sunday Snippets. I am hopeless with memes I either forget about them or I have all the best intentions in the world and then I write about something else entirely. But in the spirit of friendship I am going to do this one and it still counts even though it is Monday.

I need a good recipe for fake blood. I have been given a few recipes via twitter friends but they all seem to be very sticky, the main ingredients are either red jelly or corn syrup mixed with cocoa. The Spouse will be covered with this blood and as we will be filming on location, it needs to be easy to clean up. Also, “The Spouse” has super sensitive skin due to his EDS so we have to be careful there as well.

Did you notice I said filming on location? hehe That sounds very exotic when in actuality we will be filming about an hours drive away from home near the water somewhere. The only requirement being that the ground needs to be sandy as I cant have “The Spouse” writhing around  fighting for his life on a pile of sharp rocks. Just because he is going to die a gory death, doesn’t mean he has to be uncomfortable whilst he is doing it.

One of my props, a large blue seahorse has been posted and I am tossing up whether to alter it or leave it all shiny and blue. I think it might add an extra creepy tone to the film if I leave it pretty.

I will be firing some of the dragon eggs in reduction on Wednesday and having some of the dragon eggs actually finished makes me a bit less stressed. The exhibition is only seven months away and I have heaps to do.

Half of my studio has been delivered but I am still waiting on the excavator to come up and clear the site. I will post photos when something actually starts to happen.

I made something blue with butterflies for Tiff but the blue ended up black, so it is back to the drawing board there. Sorry Tiff.

My friend Martin and all the other walkers are ready to begin Hadrians walk. Things aren’t looking good for Martin if his tweets are anything to go by.

MartinFitz Wore backpack from train to baggage drop off point, took it off and had to steady myself from falling over. Kill me now. #hadrianswalk

To encourage Martin to keep on going you can go over here and leave a comment if you haven’t already done so.  I will donate a dollar per comment. (the small print says only one comment per person and a valid email address is needed in order for the comment to be valid.)

So there is a snippet of what is happening here with me.

This will make you smile. Yay for Team Ivy!!!

If you want a nice start to the day, this video clip will do it for you. Regular readers of this blog will know that Ivy is the youngest daughter of a friend of mine and now new readers know as well. yay.

Ivy spends an incredible amount of time in hospital and because she is only little this means that her mother, Tiff also spends a lot of time staying in the hospital as well. Tiff wanted to raise some money to make things a bit more comfortable on the ward where they stay.

Together we have raised over $5000 that is a massive effort. So give yourselves a clap on the back.

Ivy’s elder siblings organised a fundraiser at their highschool and as Tiff says here:-

The response was amazing, many of them dressing as fairies and princesses (Ivy’s favourite things) on what turned out to be the coldest day of the year so far.

It was a wonderful day and rather than trying to explain to you how one school came together to raise well over $2000 for Team Ivy and what that means to me, I’m just going to show you