A life-changing website

No, I'm not going to suggest you convert to anything, or send money, but I DO suggest you look at http://bookmooch.com/ which is the brainchild of John Buckman and which has been going for about two and a half years now.

Basically, it's all about swapping the unwanted books you have sitting on your shelf for those which someone else no longer needs, and it has been very thoughtfully devised to be as simple as possible. You get points for sending books, you spend them when you ask for books from other people, and you get fractional points just for listing books - which means you can start mooching as soon as you have listed ten books you no longer need.

Who benefits financially? Mostly the Post Office, as you pay to send out books, and your kind fellow-moochers pay to send you books. John has kindly assumed the running costs up to now, but has recently asked for donations as costs have risen considerably, due to the scale of the project. One gives if one can.

I have found new homes for some very odd and esoteric books and received some very lovely ones in return. There are now over 100 000 members and over 600 000 books available, about two-thirds in the USA and the rest worldwide, so there's a fairly good chance of finding something you'd like to read!

Have fun book-mooching!

Ticking over

A much quieter week this time, but I still had a painting class on Tuesday, using the luscious new paints I had bought on Saturday - blessings on Cass Arts for making such great materials available at affordable prices! Started by painting a 3-D invention of my own devising (photo to follow) and then went on to fiddle with some of the other pieces which were standing around. The availability of more subtle tones enabled me to get the two larger works from last week to a state where I was happy to bring them home, and I also started another canvas with gorgeous sunset-and-green tones - but that will need to be completed next week. Still have no idea where I'm headed with all this, but I'm certainly enjoying myself!

Snow week!

London underwent an amazing transformation on Sunday night and the early hours of Monday morning, as snow fell steadily for almost 16 hours, and continued gently throughout most of Monday. Alexandra Park, very close to my home, was thickly carpeted, and by 11am was full of delighted children who had the day off school. All the boots, gloves, scarves and hats had come out from the depths of cupboards, as had the toboggans and even skis! Anyone walking across the park like myself had to keep a good eye out for those coming down the hillside at high speed, and with absolutely no brakes - they did all seem to have very good lungs though.

My painting lesson was again in the conservatory, with a splendid view of the snow-carpeted garden and steadily falling flakes. Worked on two larger canvases this week, both of which received additions to the surface - one had curved shapes cut from thin polystyrene, the other sheets of rice paper, later partly torn away and a few pieces of cloth, as some of our painting rags had such lovely colours that it was fun to incorporate them. I went back on Tuesday to continue them, and even remembered to take some photos this time - now to see if I can get them up on blogger!