I attended my first U3A lunch yesterday. I was met by the luncheon secretary and hosted at the top table, which was out of sight of the screen and talk, so I had to move my chair to be able to see the presentation. This put me in sight of all 100 members much to my dismay. The talk was on 'Myths and Legends of Baggy Point' which is a local finger of rock that goes about 1.5 miles out into the sea on the coastline near where I live. The one item that struck me as the talk finished was the many ships that had come to grief along that coastline. We were also told that the reason we had a coastal path was due to the need of the excise officers trying contain the smuggling that was rife in those days.
The luncheon finished with the Chairman, Ken, reading out notices amongst which was a call for a new webmaster as the lady who was doing it would not be continuing. Afterwards I asked Ken what was entailed and before I knew it I had become the new Webmaster!
The downside is that the host site is closing down due to local council cutbacks and all the information will have to be transferred, but the upside is that I can start from scratch with a new host site and that has to be good.
So my new life has begun, I'm out at meetings twice a week and have doubled my trips out with my dogs. I have also started using my Wii excercises again to combat the weight I put on whilst taking some terrible tablets. On top of that is my work with Sue where we have come up with Bridal Wallets - a pouch in waste damask with a beaded edging on the flap for putting money, cheques or vouchers in - for giving to wedding couples.
Talking of dogs wanting their walk...
I went to the library for my weekly club outing and attended a fabulous talk on 'The Frozen Planet'. This talk was given by a BBC photographer who had been contracted to film for a proposed series starting in September. He showed us his arrival in McMerdo bay in Antartica, hosted by the US, the equipment they had to use to drill the hole down through the ice so that they could dive under it. Then followed a series of photos showing what lived under the ice and the brine tunnels that formed down from the icecap. Masses of star fish live off the plancton etc brought down by these brine tunnels until they hit the ocean floor and skid away.
Then he went on to show pictures of the Killer Whales that hunted in Weddell bay, in particular the class B killer whale - identified by its long white eye patch. They only seemed to go after the Weddell seals and had a distinctive way of washing the seals off the ice flows - the pod would swim a distance away and line up, then all charge towards the iceflow and stop dead just before it, causing a huge wave to upend the flow and topple the seal into the water where a designated catcher was waiting. This has only been seen about 5 times in the world but in Weddell Bay it happened quite frequently.
He also showed us a female Humpback whale actually rescuing a seal from the pod by surfacing upside down under the seal as it was toppled, and catching it on her belly then swimming away with it. The photos were truly awesome!
The photographer is now filming in Africa which must have been a huge culture change for him, ice to heat.
I was just trolling through some information from Cloth Paper Scissors when I came across a new website - just set up - with wonderful mixed media journalling techniques and articles.
http://www.createmixedmedia.com/
I've not read the free ebook yet but from the front cover it looks exciting and there is so much to delve into that it will take a while to assimilate it all. However I thought it worth posting so that anyone else who is interested in mixed media can have a look.
