Awesome

Found over at India Knight's blog. Well worth a read - I have yet to read anything by her that I haven't enjoyed, and her book recommendations are spot on.

Despite not being a morning take-out coffee/tea fiend, I love this Tea Lover's Eco Cup - I've always liked the idea of re-usable cups, but they're normally so ugly. Now I just have to move back to London to get back to my Pret-a-Manger soy milk hot chocolate habit. After all, with something this pretty it'd be a shame not to put it to use...

Favourite photos...

I've been going through some old photos and thought I'd share - they remind me of travels, times come and gone, and both happy and sad memories. I love taking photographs and wish I was better. Another photography course is definitely on my to-do list!

"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul"

As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm worrier, and tend to carry the woes of the world on my shoulders which is, to be frank, utterly exhausting and completely unhelpful (not to mention somewhat self-indulgent). Anyway, I love things that make me feel motivated, remind me of how I want to live my life, and what I want to contribute to the world. I'm a huge fan of doing something tangible on an individual level - some of the most amazing development projects I've seen have been small scale. One orphanage, one village, one hospital. But they make all the difference. So today I wanted to share a few videos that have made an impression on me. I can't claim to know much about the organisations behind them, nor their working practices, but the hopes expressed in these videos has re-motivated me at a time when I've started to feel overwhelmed.

First, FOUR YEARS. GO. I always find a sense of urgency to be a huge motivation for me. This definitely does the trick.

Next, I'm a HUGE believer in girl power (Spice Girls were my era after all!) and I really truly believe that a teenage girl is one of the most powerful drivers of change our world has.

And this last one. Not a video full of hope, but beautiful and hugely disturbing and one I'd recommend everyone watch. I looked around the bathroom this morning and all I could see was plastic. There are more videos which explain the work of Midway and include trailers for their upcoming film at their website.