Africa and the East End

I went to a fantastic Lebanese cafe today called Le Comptoir Libanais that had great North African decor. The walls are covered in huge pictures of Lebanese sweets, and the knives and forks are held in old chilli tins.

The boat is also going to be African themed (South, North, whatever, I'm not fussy), and here are two cushions and a curtain I made today for it. The Obama one is from some fabric my brilliant sistaire bought me in our favourite shop in Cape Town. The next pic shows the back with the limo. The red rectangle is a lovely Algerian picture frame Frank bought me. He put in the picture of me, which was taken in Bulgaria.

The floral fabric I bought in a great shop just off Brick Lane in East London. It's run by a Jewish family who have owned it for about 100 years. They have a huge black and white pic of their whole family standing outside the shop in about 1925. It's really near where my granny was born in 1906. She's ill in hospital at the moment. We don't know if she'll make her 104th birthday on 13th Feb.

East London

Went for a walk in Victoria Park. The lake was partially frozen with birds sliding around on the surface. A joker had changed the warning sign (see below). From there we walked along Regent's Canal all the way to Limehouse, Canary Wharf and the Thames. It was freezing - literally. We saw a huge dead fish caught in the ice of the canal (see pic), as well as lots of exciting narrowboats.
It was quite amazing to get to the Thames, which was at high tide and splashing up and over the walls on to the pavement. I love London!

check out my first film

So, a while ago I asked you guys what to call a film competition I'm running at work. The idea is for people to submit short films (up to 5 mins) about their experiences of health or healthcare so that we can use them to teach medical students.

We ended up calling it Reel Health Stories and we've just made a demo video for the website
the first time I've ever been involved in making a video.

Safety in South Africa

Everyone in South Africa seems to be obsessed with personal safety. South Africa (Jo'berg in particular) has the highest murder and rape rates in the world, so perhaps this is the reasoning behind it. My sister and I were strongly advised not to walk through the city centre on a Sunday at noon.


This was in the shopping mall in central Cape Town. Carjacking, murder, child abuse, it's all there. Click on the pic to read each card.


This is a security guard in Jeffrey's Bay. Not sure exactly what he was doing.

Thoughts about Cape Town

The next few posts will be pics of South Africa, with some accompanying musings.


This is the view from outside the first place we stayed. Cape Town clings to the side of fantastic moutains, the most famous of which is Table Mountain. It's the most climbed mountain in the world apparently.




We stayed in Bo Kapp, which is very picturesque, but a bit edgy. These are the famous Bo Kaap painted houses. It is a Muslim area. The oldest mosque in Cape Town (possibly in South Africa?) is here - 1834 from memory. Sometime around then.

Fair Trade hat - not knitted by me thank goodness

My own knitting leaves something to be desired, so after several unsuccessful attempts at making a hat, I ended up buying a beautiful purple alpaca wool one from the Fair Trade organisation Mamacha .

The stall I bought it from was manned by the boyfriend of the founder. She sounds like quite a remarkable woman. Also, from the pic on the website she looks about 25 (so did he, so she probably is).

I can't tell you everything else I bought because they will be Xmas presents (and you never know who's reading this) but all will be revealed after Christmas.

Also had fun today making a short film about a scary experience I had with a GP. More of that later too.

Brand new Lewis Carroll book!

Check out the new biography of Lewis Carroll by none other than Jenny Woolf (no relation...cough). This is the American publisher, but it's coming out in the UK too - have a look on Amazon.