Audrey Hepburn's Beauty Tips

There is an email going the rounds at the moment containing a series of 'human' beauty tips attributed to Audrey Hepburn. I am not going to repeat them all, since many of you may have come across them already. However, as councils round the UK gear themselves up for ever higher levels of recycling, I find this one particularly relevant, and appropriate for the Christmas season:

People,
even more than things,
have to be restored,
revived,
reclaimed
and redeemed;
never throw out anyone.

Slideshow

I tried to use the new Blogger slideshow element in the page layout, as I had created an autobiographical slideshow in Photobucket to celebrate my 80th birthday. It should have appeared in my sidebar, but I couldn't make that work. The instructions are confusing and inadequate and I could find nothing in Blogger Help. In the Help Forum I found lots of other baffled bloggers, and some tips, but still nothing that helped me. So I loaded my biographic in the main column of my autobiographical blog, which was as easy as pie with a 'share' link in Photobucket, and tried something else.

I created a biographical Flickr badge, and after some more puzzling, found that I could load it in my sidebar via the HMTL/Java layout element.

Then finally, after a period of rest and reflection, I went back to Photobucket, discovered something else I could tweak, and lo and behold, at last I was able to get my slideshow in my sidebar, using the new slideshow feature in the layout.

I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but I do persevere! I must add though, that it was thanks to a tip from somebody in the Help Forum; it was not done by following the Blogger instructions.

Last updated 22.12.2007

"Balloons away!"

Granny J commented on my previous blog: "If the balloon had to go away, it would have been far better had it flown many miles of its own choice." I replied that she had caught my sentiment exactly. And then I thought of these two pictures in my album.

The occasion was the annual gathering of members of Growing Old Disgracefully, the women's network I belong to. (We were at Sneaton Castle in Whitby.) We had set up a massive workshop for 80 people at once, (10 teams of 8), to discuss how we should be running the organisation, and the winning proposal was put on the agenda of the business meeting the following day.

Each team table was decorated with a group of three balloons, and there were labels attached with contact details for the organisation. At the end of the afternoon's hard work we trooped outside with our balloons and released them into the sea breezes of Whitby. You can see how joyfully we did so.


PS ~ I have been hearing recently of people releasing balloons at funerals - an absolutely splendid idea which I propose to copy. It is so good to observe the growing trend towards joyful celebratory events on these occasions.,

Outrage...!!!

Somebody stole my balloon!

After my birthday lunch last Sunday, I brought home the Happy Birthday banner and the 80th birthday balloon, and put them up in my glass porch. (Nothing like a bit of showing off, eh?)

When I came home from visiting my family in the village this afternoon, the balloon had gone. It would not have floated away if the door was left open, as it had an anchor weight, and there was not enough gas left. So it must have been taken.

I found that I was very upset by this. (Picture it: an 80-year-old grandmother sniffling because someone pinched her balloon!) I did not mind the loss of the balloon so much, as I was about to take the decorations down anyway - a week is enough I think. But it was the thought that someone would be prepared to do that to an old person which upset me. And they not only stole it from me, but also from Sarah Jane, who put so much loving care into decorating the room at the restaurant for me, and who will ask where it is when she comes tomorrow.


So after a week of being a child again at heart, I shall have to go back to being a grown-up, and pull myself together!