facebook

Photos

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Flickr Badge. Make your own here.

My Flickr Photos

Amazon links

My Wish List (UK)

My Wish List (US)

Blogroll

MiscLinks

Domino 7 LotusGeek CoComment RSS Feed RSS Feed

03/08/2008

LEGO: Beijing Olympics - all bricked out

QuickImage Category LEGO

The Brothers Brick blog recently pointed us to the amazing work the Hong Kong LEGO Users' Group has done on the Beijing Olympics. The photoset is here on Flickr. It is truly fabulous and I recommend you popping over to have a look.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 14:19:55 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

02/08/2008

Doing things in Edinburgh I've not done before

QuickImage Category Edinburgh

Now that I am walking home from work at least two nights a week I am finding lots of lovely little places in Edinburgh that I have not seen before. One of these is Dunbar's Close Garden which hides itself just off the Royal Mile, beside the Canongate Kirk. The Royal Mile is full, totally riddled, with 'Closes', 'Courts' and 'Entries' most of which are quirky, pretty and narrow. The picture at the start of this post is what you see of Dunbar's Close when you walk past its entrance - a gate which doesn't immediately attract you to wander any further - but which in fact hides a wonderful and beautiful little garden, a spot of tranquility in the heart of the Old Town. Strangely I can't find much of a write-up of how it was created, but this article is probably the best of those I've found and this site has the nicest and largest set of photos of this little gem.

I highly recommend popping in to have your lunch or grab a cup of coffee from Angel's cafe, which is almost opposite and is a marvellous family-run coffee bar, less than a pebble's throw from (yet another) St*rbucks.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 22:42:15 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

16/07/2008

LEGO: Aluminum 2x4 Brick Keychain

QuickImage Category We wants it

How cool are these? An engraved one of these is definitley on my wishlist!

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 22:47:10 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

13/07/2008

Doing things in Edinburgh I've not done before. And other Sunday things.

QuickImage Category Edinburgh

Amazingly I won a voucher to be spent in 'Curvy Girl', a wonderful clothes boutique for those of us on the curvier side. So today we headed up there to spend it. Sadly, the shop was closed - no way of checking before we went as their opening times are not on their website - so we decided to wander round the area were the shop is anyway. It is not somewhere we are unless we are passing through and it is full of lovely little shops, whihc we thought would be perfect for some Sunday afternoon browsing. Oddly we found that Morningside and Bruntsfield are 'closed' on Sundays. Literally there were about  2 shops in the whole are which were open.  Nevermind.  

We continued down across the Meadows & Bruntsfield Links and discovered that it has a pitch-and-putt golf course - I never knew that! We then headed through the new Quartermile area of town - being redeveloped from the old Royal Edinburgh Infirmary - and then took a small detour into Greyfriars Kirkyard. Probably the best known story from this part of town is Greyfriar's Bobby, but I wanted to see the altogether less warm-fluffy Covenanters' Prison.

We continued to wander home-wards, with a stop in Jenner's for a fabby outfit for me to wear to my friend's wedding next month  - all the better for being a bargain in the sale! - and a stop in Sainsbury's to stock up on food. One oufit, lots of tomatoes and a basil plant later we reached home. A quick consult of Google Maps later confirmed my thought that we had probably walked somewhere between 3 & 4 miles this afternoon. Which means I have walked at least 12 miles this week - pretty good I think!

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 18:50:09 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (2)

06/07/2008

Being Greener: Green-ing up my wash bag contents

QuickImage Category Being greener

On my 'hit-list' of things to be greener at is my toiletries. As I have said before, I don't have an extensive beauty regime, but, as 'The Lazy girl's Guide to Green Living' says even the most un-regimed of us uses at least 10 products and I think that is probably about right. Personally I regularly use toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, shower gel, facial scrub, deoderant and perfume. I use moisturiser, depilatory cream, intensive moisturer for feet/hands, bubblebath, salt scrub and cotton buds every so often.  I use make-up, and hence make-up remover and cotton wool, occasionally.

Now I have to admit that there are some of these that I am going to struggle to give up, but as a first step last weekend I went to our local health food shop and bought up some organicy, non-paraben, non sodium laurly sulphate, recyclably-packaged goodness. I ended up with the JASON Tall Grass Shampoo, JASON aloe vera stick deoderant, COSLYS olive shower gel, Organic Surge facial scrub and a Monte Bianco toothbrush.  Having not tried any of these brands before I figured I'd start out with a variety and see which I like best. If I'm happy with what I've got then I'll stick with them and if not then maybe I'll find a brand I particularly like and I'll switch to having everything from them.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 19:41:12 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (2)

29/06/2008

Just So Stories - Wordle-d

QuickImage Category fun

Carl did Shakespeare and I thought it might be nice to see what the Just So Stories looked like when wordle-d. This is The Beginning of the Armadillos. I have done some of my other favoruites which can be seen on flickr here.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 00:22:12 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

28/06/2008

Keyboard shortcut skins for Macs

QuickImage Category Gadgets

For all you mac-heads out there a little something you might find useful and that you may not have come across. Found it here on shiny shiny.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 23:26:29 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

28/06/2008

2008 Edinburgh Book Festival

QuickImage Category Books

So, you may be aware that Edinburgh holds maybe just one or two festivals in August. one of my favourites of these is the Edinburgh Book Festival. This is the 25th year of the festival and there are, as always, a simply amazing range of 700 events featuring 800 authors.  

Thanks to a very committed effort from Bill Buchan (which involved two phones on constant redial, a website on constant refresh and 50 minutes on hold in the phone-booking queue!) he, his SWMBO, Warren & I are getting to see some of my most favourite authors. I am SO excited!

Woo! And muchos, muchos thanks to Bill for getting through when I couldn't.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 22:40:13 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (2)

28/06/2008

UKLUG: Have you registered yet?

QuickImage Category Conferences

UKLUG is open for business and we would love to see you there. We are very thankful to our sponsors who are making this event possible and to our speakers who are giving their valuable time to share their expertise with you. Warren has all the details of who is signed up for both those roles so far over on his site here.

If you are interested in sponsoring or speaking then please email 'info {at} uklug {dot} info' and we'll get back to you.

Please head on over here to register for UKLUG - and we look forward to catching up with you then.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 21:27:08 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)

23/06/2008

Schmap! Guides now on the i-phone and i-pod touch

QuickImage Category Photos

In January I mentioned that Schmap!! had used some of my photos in the New York and Amsterdam. Well the other week they emailed me to say those guides have now been released for the i-phone and i-pod touch and included a link to show you - if you are not already browsing from an i-phone or i-pod touch, what you pics look like in the new guides!

I am impressed that they emailed me to tell me.

Posted by Teresa Elsmore At 21:17:56 Location Edinburgh | | Comments (0)