Van Owner

Well I have my van. I picked it up last night after school and took it for a short drive. It's very different to driving my car. The brakes are so keen I ricochet forwards even when I barely touch them - thank goodness for seat belts! On the other hand, I have to use a lot more gas to get going and pick speed up. This is probably due to me not being used to driving with diesel. I don't have to go very far though for me to start getting used to it so I'm sure I'll be feeling at home driving it in no time.

The interior sides and floor have been hardboarded over and there's also a piece of board completely blocking off the cab. This makes the cab feel a bit claustrophobic and shortens the length of the available space in the back. So my first job this weekend is to take that piece out. I want to be able to climb into the back from the front when it's chucking it down so that's another reason for it to go.

I feel quite excited about my new project but at the same time it was quite a wrench letting my old car go. It's served me well over the last six or seven years and I have some great memories of trips and holidays made in it. I really hope my van turns out to be as good and I get lots more great memories from it.

Waxing 3

I just got braver. I had my third waxing appointment this evening and this time I went for a bikini wax as well as a full-leg wax. I didn't do anything too dramatic with the bikini wax and just got a basic one. It hurt a bit, but nothing like I thought it might have done. Next time I go I'll get my under-arms done as well and then this challenge can be successfully ticked off. I had thought that once I'd finished the challenge I probably wouldn't bother continuing with waxing as the first time it didn't last too long and so seemed easier (and cheaper) just to shave. But the second time lasted much longer and presumably this time should last longer still. So I think this could become a regular thing for me.

Just call me Mma Ramotswe ...

... because I have got a little white van.

My mechanic checked it out yesterday and I took it for a test drive today. All went well and I'm due to collect it on Wednesday. I'm already getting excited thinking about what I'm going to do to convert it. It'll get its first camping outing at half term in June. I'm planning to use my tent but I'll try to sleep in the van at least one night to get a feel for it.

Not sure if I'll keep it white though - I might respray it orange.

Oh, and if you don't know who Mma Ramotswe is read this.

Photography blogs

I was reading one of the blogs I follow (a blog about Iceland) and noticed a comment on the bottom. The comment seemed interesting so I followed it up and discovered two bloggers who have three photography blogs between them. One of them is basically a record of photographs taken every day for a year. As this is something I've been trying to do this year (and failing miserably) this interested me straight away. The other two blogs include one in which the two bloggers set themselves a photography project once a fortnight and one which seems to have lots of opportunistic photographs. I'm looking forward to having time to look through them properly and hopefully pick up some good tips. At the very least they might help motivate me!

White Van (Wo)Man

Today I went to look at vans/cars. I either want a car that has a bit of extra height and that has easily removable seats so it can be used for sleeping in, or a van that I can do a semi-conversion on and turn it into a campervan. My other criteria are that it should be orange and have cup holders, but I realise that might be expecting a bit much.

The first place I looked didn't have anything to suit.  The second place didn't have anything either, but one of their partner showrooms did. They actually found a couple of options for me and I've decided to go with the second which is a white Berlingo van. It's only five years old and has really low mileage. At the moment it's in Doncaster so I haven't seen it myself yet, but they're going to get it driven down here this week and then I can test drive it and get my mechanic to check it over. All being well, by next weekend I'll have my van. So quite a productive Sunday really. And we were finished in time to go for a nice pub lunch.

The Hajj Exhibition at the British Museum

The Hajj Exhibition at the British Museum was of relevance to me because of my interest in Islam. As an aspect of Islam the hajj is of particular fascination because it's something I'm unlikely to ever experience. To be allowed to enter the area of Mecca I'd have to be a Muslim. As a female I'd have to be in the company of my husband or close male relative who would also need to be Muslim. Now that I'm over forty I could get around the unacompanied female clause by going as part of an all female group, but there's no way around the non-Muslim bit unless I was to convert. As I'm not religious and don't hold any particular belief in God that would be rather hypocritical of me.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. All able-bodied Muslims must make this pilgrimage once in their lifetime as long as they can afford it. And of course it is something they should try to afford. As pilgrimages go this must be one of the, if not the, most ritualistic. Over the course of five or six days the various steps are followed by several million pilgrims, aided by around 12,000 guides. Bear in mind the setting is the red-hot Saudi Arabian desert, and one of the steps involves standing out on the plain of Arafat for the whole day, and you can begin to see that this is no holiday but a real test of mind and body.

This site is the official Saudi Arabian site for the hajj and gives lots of details.

But, back to the exhibition. I'd bought my ticket well in advance and so could go straight in. One of the first things I saw was a piece of a kisweh. The kisweh is the gigantic cloth, usually black and decorated with a band of Arabic inscriptions embroidered in gold thread, that covers Islam's most holy place, the Ka'aba. It is to the Ka'aba that Muslims all over the world turn when they pray. A new cloth is produced each year. The piece in the exhibition was huge and it was wonderful to get so close to it. I can't imagine the majority of pilgrims themselves getting that close. Although all pilgrims must circumambulate the Ka'aba seven times, sheer numbers must surely mean the majority are circumambulating at some distance. 

Once inside the exhibition proper, the displays wound around the hall imitating the journey of the hajj itself. The first section showed what it's like to prepare for hajj and had stories told by people departing from different countries. The next sections followed the days of hajj culminating in the pilgrims' arrival back at home. Each section had a range of exhibits, which I found quite interesting to see, and various short films, audio speels and photographs to complement them. There was plenty of information provided in each section so a visitor not so familiar with the procedures and meanings of hajj should learn plenty and have no trouble understanding what they are looking at. I found this slightly less interesting as it was a little too basic for me. Any visitors who have studied Islam should go to the exhibition with the intention of seeing artefacts they would not normally get the chance to see, rather than to learn something new.

Would I recommend this exhibition? Yes. Is this one of the best exhibitions I've been to at the British Museum? No. 

Here are some statistics about last year's hajj that I've copied from the Telegraph website.

Key numbers for the hajj this year:

– An estimated 2.5 million pilgrims are gathering in Mecca this year – 1.8 million from abroad and 700,000-800,000 from inside Saudi Arabia.

– Every Muslim country has a hajj quota of 1,000 pilgrims per million inhabitants and the biggest contingent – 200,000 pilgrims – will come from Indonesia.

– Saudi Arabia is deploying some 63,000 security forces, including 3,500 anti-riot policemen backed by 450 armoured vehicles, while the civil defence is deploying 22,000 forces and 6,000 vehicles.

– Some 1,500 CCTV cameras have been installed in and around Mecca's Grand Mosque and 29 police stations will be open to serve the holy places.

– Some 20,000 health workers have been mobilised to cope with any emergency and five rescue helicopters also have been readied to serve the faithful.

– More than 12,000 male and female guides known as "mutawif" help organise the pilgrims' stay.

– The Grand Mosque at the centre of Mecca, where pilgrims gather to pray and circle the cubic Kaaba building, covers 368,000 square meters and can hold more than 1.5 million people.

– The Kaaba rests on a marble base and is built from granite, and has a door made from 280 kilos (616 pounds) of pure gold. The black silk kiswa covering, made anew every year, is embroidered with holy phrases using 150 kilos (330 pounds) of gold and silver thread. 



Whilst I was googling I came across this site - I've only had a quick look at it but it's definitely one I'll come back to. 

Hockney at the Royal Academy

I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the Hockney exhibition whilst I was in London. The online allocation of tickets had long been sold out so I was reliant on buying a ticket once I arrived. The queue for same day tickets was an hour or two long, but for next day tickets it was only 5-10 minutes long. Lucky me.

The following day I turned up and got straight in. It was quite crowded but the timed tickets made sure it wasn't over-crowded and so it was still easy to get a good look at everything.

The exhibition was much bigger than I'd expected and spanned a period of about fifty years. Many of the paintings depict landscape including a series showing the same countryside scene throughout the four seasons.

Not all of the works were paintings however. Several large scales images were actually made up of hundreds of polaroid photos. These photographs were each taken of a tiny part of a huge landscape such as the Grand Canyon and then pieced together jigsaw style to create a whole huge image. The look was really effective and this is something I really must try at some point. I don't have enough wall space (or enough patience) to do anything on his scale, but even a smaller version would be fun to try.

Hockney has recently discovered iPads and has been using one for his intial sketches. One exhibition room had a series of iPads showing the sketches he's done. In one of the main exhibition rooms was a group of primary school children all squatting on the floor with their own iPads copying his paintings. It was fascinating to watch them and seeing the iPads in use - they were getting almost as much attention as Hockney!  

One of the best exhibits was a series of films. Hockney was born in Bradford but has lived in Los Angeles for decades. A few years ago he came back to Yorkshire to spend time with his sick mother and rediscovered his love of the place. He's painted quite prolifically since then, but also got into film making pioneering a technique using 18 cameras. The cameras were all loaded onto the front of a landrover at different heights and angles. As he drove slowly up a Yorkshire lane the cameras captured the scene from eighteen different perspectives. These films are shown simultaneously on eighteen joined together screens. There is some overlap which in itself creates an interesting effect, but mostly the perspectives merge well to give the impression of actually moving down the lane yourself. One camera, even with a wide-angle lens, shows such a restricted perspective but it's only when seeing something like this do you realise how restrictive normal photography and filming is. I really felt like I was there and it seemed more realistic than any 3D film I've seen.

I spent about two hours at the exhibition and could easily have stayed longer, but I had to leave to ensure I was on time for my floatation appointment. I would highly recommend this exhibition, but do allow plenty of time.