Thing 7: Create a flickr account

So, here's a screenshot from my photostream, having uploaded some pics to flickr.

I had a dormant flickr account which I've successfully revitalised - something I'm very pleased about! I love photographs and joining flickr to check out a pal's pics was my original motivation for joining. I'd never uploaded any of my own pics, however, and I was pleased to find it very straightforward. I was a bit baffled by all the different licensing options regarding copyright and have now pulled my head out of the sand long enough to seriously consider how I'd feel if someone snaffled my pics. Pretty cross, actually, yet I'm guilty of doing this quite frequently (usually through Google Images, rather than flickr, however). It doesn't seem very fair to steal other people's pics and this is my major reservation about using flickr. I'm sure there's an option which enables me to retain copyright on pics; I just haven't found the time or the inclination to read the small print, yet. Even if I did tick the relevant box, surely it would simply be a case of right-clicking and saving any pic I took a fancy to? I'm also making a huge assumption that anyone would actually want to snaffle my pics. Ha! The arrogance!

I do love any site which enables users to share, however, especially with something like photographs. Maybe the generic setting for people uploading pics should be for all pics to be copyright, unless otherwise stated. Maybe this option's already available and I just haven't done my homework? I need to catch up!!

Place 6: Hadrian's Wall/Lindisfarne/Bamburgh Castle

It's my 30th birthday in July which is very exciting and I'm trying to figure out what I'd like to do and where I'd like to go. I'm not the greatest hostess as I'm usually too busy worrying whether everyone else is enjoying themselves to have a good time myself. As this year is quite a special birthday, I'm concentrating on having maximum fun and enjoyment for me!

I really want to spend it with both my partner and my pals, so it's just a case of finding something to do that isn't too expensive. I've been toying with the idea of walking some of the wall (not all of it - it's 150 miles!) then heading on to Bamburgh Castle and Lindisfarne. I've never been to any of these places and I've been dreaming of going to Lindisfarne for so long, now. To keep it cheap, we could catch the Megabus from London to Newcastle for £7 each way and camp. Bargain!

Hadrian's Wall runs coast-to-coast; from South Shields all the way across to Cumbria, and Bamburgh Castle has possibly the most perfect location of any castle in Britain - check it out:

Right on the Northumberland coast, with lots of huge, empty beaches to walk along... perfect.

From there, we can go on to Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne (or Holy Island, as it's also known) is an off-shore island, off the coast of Northumberland, and can only be reached by a three-mile causeway at limited times. Fabulous! I quite like the idea of getting trapped over there for a spooky night or two. There's a castle and a priory on the island - here's
a pic for you:




Usually I feel really fortunate that my birthday's in July. With the exception of the last few years, it's usually sunny and warm, with lots of opportunities for lounging around in grass, glass in hand. However, I'm not sure that I really want to visit Lindisfarne in the summer! This goes back to my pull towards the north and bleak and mysterious landscapes. Lindisfarne is the absolute epitome of this, so how can I go when it's sunny?

Another point is that I've just found out Fever Ray are playing at Bestival. Wah! Very exciting news. I couldn't afford to do the above trip and go to Bestival (tickets alone are £150, before budgeting for travel to the Isle of Wight) so a decision has to be made! Having a car for the above trip would make it so much easier, I think. Although I have a licence, I rarely drive from one year to the next and the prospect of driving on a trip like this makes me quite nervous. Neither my partner or many of my friends drive, unfortunately. I also think that while I still enjoy going mad in a field for three days, I should maybe make the most of it while the appeal lasts! I've been to Bestival twice before and had an amazing time... to be continued!

Place 5: Paris!

As it's February 15 (ok - a day late, I know), I thought I'd choose one of the most oversubscribed places in the world for this time of year: Paris!

I've never been to Paris - or France - in my entire life. I have watched far too many French films, however (is this even possible?), although I don't really think this counts...

Why Paris? Do I even have to answer that question (I'm going for a short post, here, people)? It looks fabulous. A month in Paris would be perfect, followed by another month spent in the south of France, lounging in the sunshine, eating endless cheese and drinking loadsa wine. Parfait.

Things 5 & 6

Thing 5: "Sign up for Google Reader and subscribe to updates from this blog".

Thing 6: "Find more RSS feeds to subscribe to".

Erk! Things are so busy at work and I'm really behind here... February is already looking like it's going to be my most hectic month of the entire year - in and out of work - so I'm struggling to stay afloat. I might have to spend the first few weeks of March catching up on February's "things" and "places".

So: subscribing to RSS feeds and Google Reader. This all seemed pretty self-explanatory and I like the idea of having instantaneous updates to blogs I'm following (which happen to be a lot).

The first site I tried to subscribe to is "Eat, Sleep, Cupcake". It's a site where people share and show-off their fabulous cake making ventures, many of which are seriously high grade munch! None of your Victoria sandwiches here (a humble cake which I happen to love, for the record - massively underrated, in my opinion) - check out the Valentine's cake below!

I'm not sure who 'I Am Baker' is (proud creator of the glorious cake on the left), but they're welcome round ours any day!

Ahem - back to the RSS feeds...

The 'Eat, Sleep, Cupcake' site has a sidebar reading 'subscribe', but no URL address, so I manually copied and pasted it into my Google Reader account, as directed. Voila! Glorious cake making to inspire and salivate over around the clock!

I've also subscribed to Alan's (lower reading room library assistant) sketch blog, which is really impressive. How on earth can he produce something like that in less than sixty seconds? Baffling and brilliant.

Other blogs I've subscribed to include:

- ColorByNumbers (v pleasing and inspiring art and design blog)

- Little White Lies film magazine blog

- Birds Eye View blog (utterly fantastical female film-making collective) STOP PRESS! When I clicked the 'subscribe to' button, I was directed to a page full of raw HTML nonsense. Oh dear. I tried copying and pasting the URL into my Google Reader, but when I pressed 'add', a box appeared stating that this particular website doesn't provide a feed. It offered to create a feed for me, however, which I thought was very enterprising, so duly pressed 'create feed'. Only problem now is that the 'summary' screen is blank. I'm not sure if this is my mistake, theirs or just a technical impossibility...

Place 4: Jordan

Did anyone notice the glossy supplement that fell out of the weekend papers on "Experiencing Jordan"? Prior to reading this, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell you very much about the place, but now I've been totally suckered by a bit of PR (and some incredible pics).

The natural evironment just looks remarkable and relatively untouched, which is pretty rare these days. The supplement gives the reader plenty of examples of fabulous things to do and see, many of which fall into the "outdoor activities" category. Walking the Malaqui Trail "amid dramatic canyons, waterfalls and rock pools" sounds incredible, as does the walk through the Wadi Rum desert. Wow!

The ancient city of Petra looks like nothing else I've seen, with its red rocks and ancient ruins, and some snorkelling in the Red Sea would be amazing. I don't think I could leave without making time for a float in the Dead Sea... brilliant. Round it all off with some delicous mezze and every one of my boxes is ticked for an all-round perfect trip.

Place 3: Mount Kinabalu, Borneo

In a shameless contradiction of my earlier claim that "I never return to places I've already been", please humour me whilst I waffle some more about previous travelling experiences.

I travelled round Malaysia for a month as part of my backpacking trip in April 2006, and spent a bit of time in Borneo. What I saw of the place was just incredible, though as I remember it it predominantly catered for expensive diving or wildlife sanctuary packages for tourists. As I was on a backpacking budget, I couldn't really afford to do a lot of the things that I would have liked to here. One such thing was climbing Mount Kinabalu. I've never climbed a mountain and wouldn't consider myself the fittest person in the world, but no matter. At the time of my travels, I was relatively fit and this is something I should have done. I don't have many regrets, but not climbing Mount Kinabalu is definitely one of them.

NB: While looking for some images to accompany this post, I discovered a Guardian article about climbing the mountain. It talks of how ill-prepared the guides organising the climbs are, and how little or no reference is made to health and safety or climbers fitness levels, etc. This was something that really struck me whilst out there. The general message received by most travellers was that anyone could climb the mountain, regardless of health or fitness. You can read the article here.

Thing 4

"Register your 23 things blog and explore others".

Done! The issue of "exploring other blogs" is categorically not an issue for me, although it's turning into one. I've just counted 104 blogs in total for everyone doing the 23 things project!! Wow. There are only so many hours in the day, but it's really interesting reading other people's thoughts on the project (even more so when they're staff you either know or even just know by face/name...).

In other news, I changed the time on my blog to GMT. Not very exciting, but I'm genuinely pleased with myself for the progress! Only problem with this is that it keeps a record of when you post so there's no denying spending excessive amounts of time blogging to the boss! You could, of course, draft your post out of office hours and post during. That's the official line I'm sticking with, anyway! It is staff development, though, and fortunately my supervisors are both very supportive of me taking part in this, which is good news.

More general thoughts on blogs and blogging is that I love them! I think they're absolutely great and there are some amazing ones out there. I love that the web offers people the opportunity to 'self-publish' and think it's a great way for people to connect and share ideas, which can only be a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I know a lot of people can be quite sniffy about them, but I can't see how residents of a free society can deny people a forum in which to express themselves. All good, I say!

Thing 3

"Create your 23 things blog and make your first posts".

Done! As I already have an existing blog, this wasn't too difficult.