Landlocked Mermaid

Back in the summer, we had a chat with a friend of mine, Niamh, about her EPQ . She planned to make a sculpture highlighting the plastic pollution issue . The exhibition for her artwork was at the beginning of last month, so I thought it was high time we caught up and had a chat about it. Last time, we met in the picturesque village of Norton-in-Hales and went for a stroll in the summer sunshine. It was a bit grey and drizzly this time, so we met in the local cafe, The Hideout , for coffee and a catch up. Her final sculpture was a shark; frame shaped by chicken wire and filled with plastic bottles collected from the college campus. I bet you can guess my immediate response was 😍. She chose this design because it was the most striking of the ideas she'd put to paper. The shark is an iconic image and familiar to the public and she, quite rightly, argued that "scary attracts more attention". She wanted something recognisable and, taking inspiration from the famous ...

I love to read. Always have. As a kid I wandered around Hogwarts with the Golden Trio (and wondered why there was not more Neville). As a teen, I adventured around Tortall with all the heroines. As an adult, I read ahead of Game of Thrones and felt really smug when people were theorising what was going to happen and I just knew.  Over the last few years, I have struggled to keep up with reading. Between busy lives and Netflix being so easy to binge, books have stayed on the shelf. However, my family and friends have a book club which recently celebrated its second Birthday, and that gets me reading at least one book a month. (Providing I actually read the selected book, there have been a few which I didn't.) Still, slowly but surely, my love for reading is returning.  And with that comes a TBR Pile. A small section of my TBR Pile My "to be read" pile largely consists of books borrowed from other people, but in it are a few books which I hope wi...

In case you missed my Insta-spamming, this Sunday just gone was the Dive Show! It's something we'd had pencilled in the diary for a long time but never actually got round to organising, life am I right? But thankfully, a couple days before we were still able to get tickets and saw it as a sign! We had a look at the talks on the Sunday, as that was the day I had off, and were excited to see a talk on plastic pollution! So despite some last minute can I really be bothered? feelings, it was looking like it was worth attending after all. The original plan was to get most of our gear from the Dive Show - snag some deals as we were buying two lots of expensive equipment. Well, we didn't need to do that anymore which is why I was wondering if it was worth us going. Thankfully, Chris convinced me and I am very glad he did. Because I had a very good time. We got lots of information about holidays, saw some talks, and got sooooo much swag. It was tote bag heaven. The firs...

You know how you see something once and then several times over that day you see that same thing over and over? Well, that happened to me recently. I was scrolling through Instagram and someone mentioned EcoBricks . It came up a couple more times and then my co-worker messaged me, asking about them! It was a sign from the universe, my next post was going to be about EcoBricks after doing some much needed research. EcoBrick wall. Photo from cobute 🌍 WHAT IS AN ECOBRICK?!  I think the website puts it best: An EcoBrick is a reusable building block created by packing clean and dry used plastic into a plastic bottle to a set density. Essentially, plastic bottles are stuffed with non-recyclable plastics to create a sturdy building block with almost limitless uses. Much like the water bottle houses I covered recently. EcoBrick is a global organisation which is trying to give our essentially value-less trash value. By packing it into a bottle, it has been removed fr...

In a blog slot later than usual, it is time for Marine Creature of the Month! This one was inspired by an episode from the O series of Qi , Ocean, where I honestly would have scored all the points. One of the questions was about this particular creature and I knew the answer (if you ignore the fact I refered to it by its Pokémon counterpart!). Naturally, I wanted to learn more about this weird and wonderful creature, so without further waffle, here we are! Sunfish, Mola Mola Photo from Apex Predators Kingdom: Animalia Class: Actinopterygii Conservation Status: VU (Vulnerable) Found: Across the globe Diet: Jellyfish, small fish, larvae, squid Weight: Between 247 - 1,000kg (545 - 2,205lbs) Size: Up to 3.2m (10.5ft) Habitat: Tropical, temperate waters; pelagic water. Can I just start by saying, isn't nature wonderful?! Look at that shape! This fish does not look like it could possibly exist, let alone function and survive, yet here it is. One of...