Sunny Sunday in the park

Jase and I spent most of today in the park. Firstly we went to Bushy Park near Hampton Court. We had a picnic - I had sushi, salad, and green tea. We both had some millionaires flapjack which is like millionaires shortbread but with flapjack base. Very nice it was too but a bit impractical in the heat! It has been around 32 C in the sun (nearly 90 F in old money.)

Jase took some good pictures of deer and other wildlife whilst I just lazed in the sun! I did take a couple of pictures in the park of the rather threatening looking clouds. It was a very humid heavy hot day like some of those very hot sandy impressionist paintings you get. I think there is one by Sisley I'm thinking of.



After our picnic we headed to the newly renovated South Park Gardens in Wimbledon. We spent a good hour and a half just sitting on a bench and chatting. I tried to learn some more of my Japanese homework in the sun.

We got home only for me to ruin our dinner by throwing our mash all over the kitchen floor! This was totally by accident! Luckily Jase found it very funny and laughed and laughed and we just had baked beans with our very nice haddock in oatmeal breadcrumbs.

Busy day tomorrow as I have to sit through 4 web developer tender presentations running from 9 - 5:30! I will be dreaming about CRMs, servers and design specs tomorrow night! Yawn.

Mayor faces 'naked road' protest by blind people

I miss understood the headline in this news story from the BBC - I wish it had really been about what I thought it was going to be. I thought that the Guide Dogs for the Blind supporters who were protesting at City Hall, were threatening to be naked! That would have been a great protest. I would be up for that - I'd join with my fellow visually impaired brothers and sisters and strip off in protest against shared road schemes and Boris' silly pedestrian crossing proposals. (Boris is cutting down on the time the green man is displayed at crossings. This gives less time for pedestrians including older, disabled people and parents with kids and buggies etc. to cross the road but it gives cars, lorries and bikes more time to run people over.) Having been run over twice on zebra crossings by cyclists I am one partially sighted person who gets angry about this type of thing!

Any blind and partially sighted people out there who fancy joining me on a naked protest against Boris Johnson's ludicrous policies please let me know!

Wonderful Worthing

Yesterday we went to Worthing for the day it was very sunny and I got quite sunburnt even with my factor 15 on so now I have bought some factor 40

Here is a picture I took of the pier and pavilion at WorthingWe decided to go to Worthing as we wanted to go to a quiet part of the coast and when I read that Worthing was the home of Crown Green Bowls I realised that this was the quiet place for us. I had been to Worthing before many times as a small child but not since I was about 10. I was pleased to see that the children's trampolines were still there. I used to love the trampolines at Worthing.

After I paddled for a bit we had fish and chips on the beach, ice cream and then a bit later after a stroll a pot of tea and a toasted tea cake. I bought some souvenirs and spent too long in the sun.

Jase also wanted to try out his new zoom lens and he took some fabulous pictures which you can look at on his flickr page here

Here is a taster of some of the pics Jase took - you should be able to click on the pic and it will take you to the original photo on Jase's Flickr page.

I really love the picture of the seagull above it makes Worthing look totally tropical!

Here's a picture of me enjoying the sea and sand!

Disabled people in leadershop roles - research

Are you or do you know a disabled person who is in a senior role, paid or unpaid? RADAR is researching into disabled people who are high flyers. Check out the text below which was sent to me as an email. Please let others know about this, it's a good piece of work.

An invitation from Baroness Campbell of Surbiton DBE & Roger Berry MP to participate in RADAR's research project on high-flyers

We would like to ask for a few minutes of your time to complete a RADAR online survey, which will identify factors enabling high-flyers living with ill-health, injury or disability get into & succeed in senior roles.

By sharing your experiences you can influence the behaviour of major employers, help others to climb the ladder to success and ensure that disabled people can make a full contribution to British society and the economy.

Please complete the online questionnaire at:
http://tinyurl.com/qhw3uc

This is an unresearched issue and you can really make a difference by taking the short time needed to complete this questionnaire. The result of this research will be a report summarising our findings and exploring what individuals and organisations can do to enable people to thrive and progress in their chosen field.

If you would value networking opportunities or other career support this is an opportunity to tell us how to provide it.

Please do forward this email to anyone else you know who might contribute to this research, or might know someone who could. We'd like to reach as many people as possible, including those who may not identify as disabled.

Thank you,

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton DBE,
Roger Berry MP

Co-Chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Disability Group
Survey deadline

The survey should take 5-8 minutes to complete - and your deadline is 6pm, Wednesday 15th July 2009.

Radar People of the Year Awards 2009
RADAR will soon open nominations for the People of the Year Awards 2009. To nominate your organisation for the Public Sector Award, please visit this link on the RADAR website.

Sarah Waters: The Little Stranger

I haven't been too well again this week, this time with a migraine. I have to cut out chocolate, cheese and cut down on fatty dairy rich food like custard slices! (Not that I at that many custard slices)

I managed to finish The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters on Friday night and below is a review I posted on Facebook

Sarah Waters is such a fabulous story teller. This is a different tale to her others, kind of half way between the Night Watch and Affinity. I can see why some readers have felt disappointed in some way. It's not as exciting or thrilling as say Finger Smith but it is a haunting, absorbing tale of a country, society and family coming to terms with huge upheavals and the after shock of war.

Sarah Waters loves to play with narrative conventions and styles and this time it is a subtle undermining of the "trustworthy narrator" common to most ghost stories old and new.

I did think that the ending was a little rushed - but I wonder if that was because I was rushing to finish it, to find out if my suspicions were right. But nothing can take away from the fact that this was an excellent, intelligent entertaining read that I would recommend to anyone