April was

April was the month of Easter and my Mum’s birthday and my nephew’s return form a 6 month trip – all of which called for family get togethers for food and laughter

April was a month of contrasting weather – weeks of sun and no need for a jacket followed by cold days of wind and rain

April was the month of the Science Festival which delighted all my senses -

I ate mealy worms and drank tea made from a jasmine flower  and an orange concoction created using molecular gastronomy

I saw the blackest black (vanta black) which is indeed very black and looks like it would feel like velvet

I heard experts talking about the ways in which human use of language makes us unique and how colour has been an important commodity through history

I smelt coffee roasting and salmon smoking and beer brewing

I touched a map to hear associated sounds (developing new technologies)

I made a smartphone microscope

April was a month of digital creativity.  I joined the 100 days project – I’m sharing them on instagram .  Each piece is made using several photographs which  I am turning into a piece of abstract digital art using Photoshop Elements.  To provide plenty of material I’ve been taking lots of photos of colour, texture and patterns of light (sunshine on clouds works very well) so my photos for the month look mostly like this

I also had a play with merging a photo and the person’s initial – having seen some examples on the interweb somewhere – here are my nephew and my cousin’s daughter (for which there does not seem to be a concise term – ‘first cousin, once removed’ is not catchy)

In sign language I learnt about word order – when, topic, description/comment; and the different syllable breaks in spelling words – using finger patterns rather than sound to break a word into letter chunks eg H-ele-na

I read 6 books plus a short story published as a book

Christopher Brookmyre is an Edinburgh author who incorporates an astute observation of people and behaviour around strong narrative based on murder or espionage – I highly recommend him

The Last Days of Dogtown follows an interesting group of characters through several years with interesting stories about each but no central narrative

Bitter Sweets follows a family from India to London and The Binding Chair follows a family from China to Nice – both mix interesting cultural history and norms with stories of family and generational change.

A nicely creative and stimulating month with some much appreciated sunshine – May is already looking busy and fun – happy May everyone.