Christmas is a very peaceful time in the neighbourhood where I am. Mainly because there is a big exodus of students and people who visit relatives in other countries leaving just about a quarter of the crowded streets. Sometimes I feel like I have God’s earth all to myself.
All photos © Southampton Old Lady
Also in response to the Weekly WordPress Challenge: Horizon
Black Friday is a recent consumer sales hype adapted from North America which takes place after Thanksgiving Day (the last Thursday in November) despite the fact that the UK does not even celebrate Thanksgiving.
Buy Nothing Day is an annual event in Britain to highlight the issues around consumerism, especially in the lead-up to the festive season. It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life!
To mark Buy Nothing Day in the City of Southampton, this Black Friday, the Art House Café is partnering with Curb, The Real Junk Food Project, Clothes Swap and Books for Free!
They will be taking over The Art House until 6pm on the 25 November, offering food on a pay-as-you-feel basis, clothes to swap or pay-as-you-feel and books by donation!
Food will be available until it runs out – a big part of waste reduction is challenging the notion that there is always ‘plenty’. Be sure you get a plateful of delicious nosh made from food diverted from landfill.
Drop in any time to enjoy some nosh, swap your clothes, pick up a book and have a chat about the ways you can reduce waste in your own home.
178 Above Bar Street, Southampton, Hampshire, UK SO14 7DW
Copyright © 2016 The Art House Southampton CIC, All rights reserved.
In response to the WordPress Photo challenge. This week: Transmogrify
In response to the WordPress weekly photo challenge: NUMBERS
In response to WordPress photo challenge: Spare
I imagined that I was a person from the future, taking photos in a museum about the history of this decade (2010-2020 The Shrinking Age). Here are 12 photos I might have taken of relics in cabinets.
This project is in response the WordPress Photo Challenge: Future
All taken in 2015 © Southampton Old Lady. They were snapped at various exhibitions in England as well on streets and in auction houses.
To see others or submit your own click here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/future/
Let me know what relics you think you might find at in a future museum…
More about Cancer and DNA on an early post: https://southamptonoldlady.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/cancer-research-at-southampton-university/
I suppose this self portrait, like my name, is quite anonymous. I am quite an ordinary person so why the mystery?
I place great value on my privacy. More and more it is being taken away and what I have left is precious. Please do not be offended when I won’t give my email – mobile phone number (it is off most of the time). I don’t want a chat or a reminder while I watch a film; eat a meal, am out on a walk. I get annoyed during a lovely conversation when interrupted by another on the end of a phone. I am just old fashioned and not one for selfies.
In my past I have been stalked, attacked, had my identity stolen, been near to death. I am left untrusting. But I am also friendly and have good friends. I worry too much about others – I don’t want to offend while seeking truth and stating what is. If I am invisible, I can be myself. I can speak my mind – can write what I like openly. This is me!
This post was inspired by Strata of the Self – If you like self-portraits you need to visit: https://strataoftheself.wordpress.com
I just love walking along empty seasides in bad weather — for some reason they just fill me 
with so much happiness.
We took a 40 minute drive along the South-East coast to Bognor Regis on a visit to some returned British friends we made in Spain. This is a very run-down, small town filled with Georgian and Victorian decaying old grandeur — which I adore.
Bognor is one of the oldest recorded Anglo-Saxon place names in Sussex. In a document of 680 AD it is referred to as Bucgan ora meaning Bucge’s (a female Anglo-Saxon name) shore, or landing place. Bognor Regis was originally named just “Bognor,” being a fishing (and smuggling) village. In the 18th century it was converted into a resort by Sir Richard Hotham who tried in vein to rename it Hothampton.
King George V bestowed the suffix “Regis” (“of the King”) on Bognor in 1929 when his physicians recommended he convalesce there to recover from lung surgery. The King, when pestered with petitions for the town while undergoing his treatment, was said to have uttered the line: “Oh! Bugger Bognor!” — which has never been forgotten.
In 1959 Butlins (who ran affordable holiday camps for the British working classes) opened their resort here. It declined in the 70s but started to make a bit of a come-back this decade with the “staycation” trend to holiday at home. It was hoped that these would be a way out of Dismaland (see my blogs on Banksy’s Dismaland). Seaside resorts are not popular with young adults; many have no wonderful childhood memories of them like us oldies — and prefer music festivals, or active holidays such mountaineering or trampolining in disused Welsh mines. Butlins have launched vintage weekend raves which seem to be gaining in popularity though. Recent immigrants to Blighty, have opted to live near cheaper seaside towns like this, in the South’s warmer climes. Polish shops have started opening up next to ye olde rock shoppes, so the fashion of the British seaside is once again changing.
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Change.”
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