printed material

 The other day my friend Sue wrote this post about her walk to work. I left a comment which disappeared somewhere in the ether about responding with my walk to work ... although strictly I only walk the last part of it as I have to drive 5 miles first but when I leave the car I walk along the road overlooking the North Beach in Tenby. On any day, in any weather, the view provides a lot to take in.
 To get to the museum I have to climb a small hill, best tackled if you take a run at it or if you stop and stare at intervals. Guess which is my preferred option?
 By mid morning this beach is crowded but at 8.30 no-one is around and I see very few people enjoying the best of the start of the day.
 Personally this is when I like it best. It's quiet - apart from the seagulls - and I can look over to Caldey Island where I imagine the monks also enjoying a contemplative start to the day.
 By the time I get to the door of the museum I am puffing a bit but I always, always stop for a few minutes and take in the view over to South Beach. I love the stillness of it all without lots of people and it helps me prepare for the day ahead. This is a daily ritual that I relish.
I look up at the sign every day I'm here and head on in to get cracking on the job in hand. I have five weeks of my contract left and the list to research seems to get longer rather than diminishing so it's heads down and work all day. I hear visitors coming in and telling the team what a fabulous museum it is - a hidden gem. They're right too and we've been longlisted for the Daily Telegraph Family Fun Museum of the year alongside the likes of the Ashmolean and the Natural History. Wonderful museums all .... resources for us all to cherish.

So, that's my walk to work added to the list. Anyone else want to share?

 I delivered a cyanotype workshop today and was delighted with the variety of prints we achieved.In a small room with a darkish room to the side to work in, the group worked on paper and fabric as well as wood to experiment with this beautiful process. They found that the different types of paper created different effects and that the paper needs to be dried between coats to get an even print. Contact with the glass is crucial and accounted for a few white spots but knowledge is power and that mistake won't be made again I know. Different fabrics produced different images and the most crucial thing of all - the exposure to the sun was illustrated clearly. When we started it was overcast so exposure times should have been extended, shortening them when the sun started to break through at lunchtime. They worked solidly all day and must have produced upwards of 40+ prints using natural materials and digital negatives of their photographs. Using a transparency with their own handwriting proved popular as did cyanotyping on different materials like maps and old book pages.

I can't remember who did what so cannot put a name to all of these prints but place them here to enjoy! Thank you for another great day everyone. What shall we do next I wonder?

 They have the advantage over honey bees that they can take nectar from tubular flowers and even though our foxgloves are going over they're still swarming with bees...... not that you'd know it from my photos
 ..... but if you're not quick, they're gone. That's why the training focussed on gently capturing the bee for close study, so I have to wait for some inspection pots to arrive before we can do the job with a bit more efficiency. We have 250 species of bee in the UK, 25 of them being bumblebees. These are split into 19 social species and 6 cuckoo species. Two species have become extinct within the last 8 years and 2 others are giving serious cause for concern. So, without doubt they need our help.

One of the most shocking things I learned yesterday is that tomatoes are exclusively pollinated by bumblebees so large UK growers buy in bumblebee nests from abroad to work their crops. These are not native species and have been bred specifically for commerce. Imagine the carbon footprint of importing bees! What's more, a large percentage of them have disease and what's worse, they've been fed on pollen stripped from honey bees that have been killed for the purpose. How can this be happening in today's world? Each bumblebee nest lasts a year until the Queen hibernates. She is the sole survivor. So, the imported nests are meant to be destroyed by the growers at each season's end but there is evidence that this does not happen. Who knows what these imported bees might do if they get into the gene pool of our native species. It was a salutary piece of knowledge and made me more determined than ever to continue to garden responsibly for all insects, especially bees. If you're interested in more info please follow the links and join up. All help gratefully received!

 I have reached the half way point in my Heritage Lottery Fund project at the museum researching the volunteers for the Great War. Every day throws up something to fascinate me and take me off exploring another avenue on the chase for detail. Amidst the sad stories I also come across stuff that just appeals to my sense of humour. Here is a perfect example.

Trawling through the back copies of the local paper for 1917 I found this call for help from the children of Tenby. Of course I understand that the desire then was to maximise crops for the war effort but the picture it conjures up of children running all over the place with nets and the paraphernalia to wipe out the Cabbage White in West Wales just makes me smile, especially as the following week's paper carried the report that 'Up to date 1350 white butterflies have been destroyed by Tenby schoolchildren'.  If they all collected their 2d they'd so far earned about 4 shillings and sixpence by my reckoning and probably decimated the populations of species like the Wood White or the Green Veined White that are in decline today. I doubt they stopped to check which white butterfly they were murdering for their 2d!
It's a great example of how times change and how our thinking is so different today, knowing what we now know. Today, because of the conversation that ensued from this article, I found out that the museum has an extensive moth and butterfly collection in trays stored away. I can't believe I didn't realise that until now and could kick myself for not finding out before. Still, there is a plan to show me everything next week sometime and I am excited already. I'm also off on a Bumblebee Identifcation training day on Friday and I'm excited about that too. So many things still to do. So little time.