7 May 2010 

DEDICATED knitting lessons for pupils in Shetland will cease this year as far reaching local authority cost cutting measures start to bite. Shetland Islands Council services committee on Thursday agreed to save an annual £130,000 by dropping a subject seen by many as fundamental to Shetland's cultural traditions. 

When it came to the vote in the council chamber just five councillors were in favour of maintaining knitting lessons while the Blueprint for Education review takes its course, but ten councillors said knitting was an extra and not a core subject and therefore had to go.   

Fourteen part time staff, making up 4.4 full time equivalent jobs, will have to be redeployed within the council or offered voluntary redundancy.  The council's schools service will now look into other ways of teaching knitting through arts and craft classes and by depending on volunteers.

North isles councillor Laura Baisley warned colleagues that it was a grave mistake to cut funding for teaching the two crafts Shetland was world renowned for – Fair Isle and lace knitting – as well as music tuition, for which the council is in the process of introducing charges.   She was supported by veteran councillor Florence Grains who argued that it was deplorable to pick on the two cultural subjects knitting and music.  She claimed that in fact no money would be saved should the part time teachers be re-deployed, but was told by councillor Bill Manson that she was talking "rubbish".

"They will be re-deployed into vacancies and therefore there will be savings," he said.

The education spokesman told fellow members that for years the council's education budget had been squeezed, and it was not just knitting and music that were being targetted.

"If you want to continue knitting tuition you have to give education an extra £130,000 for the next years," he said.

Shetland Islands Council has to identify almost £10 million of saving in the current financial year of which £1.2 million has to come from the education budget.

The meeting heard that officers were working hard to identify those savings, although £900,000 had still to be found during 2010/11.

Shetland North councillor Alastair Cooper reminded members that they had approved the council budget back in February and should therefore stop "tinkering around the edges".

Shetland South councillor Allison Duncan said that 60 years ago it was a necessity for local people to have knitting skills as it helped families to supplement their income.

But now knitting was a "dying art", he claimed, adding: "We have to make difficult decisions now and this is only the beginning."

via www.shetland-news.co.uk

the gardening blog community is reacting in shock to the recent suicide by elspeth thompson.  below is a comment i left on a fellow ET lover blog:

i reacted as you did – and was in shock. and still am. my life is rather tough right now and one way i cheer myself up is reading several women’s blogs – yours and Elspeth’s are among the ones that help me feel less blue – by reading of the glimpses of life in your blogs i feel a part of a kind of life i wish i were living – and may never have – however for a brief time it helps take me away from the current troubles.

i am still reeling in a deep place inside about ET’s suicide … depression is a dangerous black place to be … and takes a strong sense of survival to climb out from under – the hardest part is the facade that was in her posts – i love that she continued to find joy but ache that she felt she couldn’t share or get help about the illness (although i don’t know that)

in trying to explain to myself, i seem to remember something about her mother’s death last year – was it the anniversary? – in trying to understand why?

to me her life seemed one of charm and beauty and grace and joy and love from family and friends – many things that to a mere reader seemed to add up to a wonderful life.

oh the ache and tragedy of it! and the pain she must have had in that final act.

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the latest photos of the cleanup
(Start on the 35th photo)

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Elspeth Thompson Photo: Andrew Crowley

Note:  The Telegraph reports that death was by her own hand – this is so terribly upsetting.

Elspeth Thompson, the much-loved gardening and interiors writer for The Sunday Telegraph who has died aged 48, had a particular talent for bringing beauty to the places where she lived, no matter how unpromising those places first appeared.   rest at THE TELEGAPH

a lovely tribute by Justine Picardie

Elspeth’s website

TWENTY BLESSINGS
adapted from the Celtic by Thomas A Clark

May the best hour of the day be yours.
May luck go with you from hill to sea.
May you stand against the prevailing wind.
May no forest intimidate you.
May you look out from your own eyes.
May near and far attend you.
May you bathe your face in the sun’s rays.
May you have milk, cream, substance.
May your actions be effective.
May your thoughts be affective.
May you will both the wild and the mild.
May you sing the lark from the sky.
May you place yourself in circumstance.
May you be surrounded by goldfinches.
May you pause among alders.
May your desire be infinite.
May what you touch be touched.
May the company be less for your leaving.
May you walk alone beneath the stars.
May your embers still glow in the morning.

(this was one of her favorites)

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MESSAGE FROM ELSPETH THOMPSON’S HUSBAND FRANK WILSON

so sad (no details) sending prayers for her husband and daughter –

this was one of my most favorite blogs –  do have a look at the wonderful posts about converting several railway carriages into a lovely beach home.

Elspeth had only one post in her new blog Gardening Against the Odds – full of great promise. 

a life cut down too soon.

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he trash bags – six, all full to the dotted line – and the pile of larger branches cut down to the required length:

the bed i cleaned up for my elder neighbor (the other ground floor apt)  – i am going to take away some of those leaves during the next big clean up* (its raining today and the next few days) and leave half of them to decompose)  * when i clean up the rest of my beds)

the more securely staked pergola – between the stakes (pounded in the ground for about 1.5 feet) and the screws and the wire – this should be set for another year!  (it IS level, its the ground that slopes!)

the cleaned up potting bench all ready for action

the view from the alley
before

after

an upcoming project  – to redo the border around this bed (bricks? stones? combo?)

and finally – wonder how long it will take for the neighbors to fix this…(sigh)

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Guardian Obit

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• Gollum (Christopher Llewellyn) threatens Bilbo (Peter Howe). Picture: Complimentary/Dan Wooller

“When we were working on the adaptation we tried to stay within the bounds of the story as much as possible,” says director Roy Marsden – who, as a TV actor, is best known as PD James’s police commander Adam Dalgliesh. “There’s a part in the book where the characters cross the stream by boat, and we decided to use a rope swing instead – but really the majority of it is truthfully told.”

Marsden’s experience as an actor was useful. “I’m very aware of all the physical problems they have, because it’s a very physically demanding show,” he says. “And I think the actors appreciate that there is someone out there trying to be a midwife to this show, because as an actor, I know what it feels like to be up there doing it.”

The Hobbit is such a concentrated dose of imagination that it can be tricky keeping the audience on board – Scotsman.com News

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a looooooong day in the garden
– since Thursday –  SIX bags of garden debris – leaves, branches etc. (photos on sunday).

– cut up and bagged two huge branches for neighbor (husband out of town for two weeks)

– pruned branches of overgrown evergreen tree* and cleared off all the dead leaves and debris in the two beds on the other side of the yard for the elder Vietnamese tenant (lives on the other side of the same floor) who was wistfully looking at the over strewn and shady beds on Friday saying how he wants to plant something

– got next door neighbor to chop up the rotting picnic table that has been sitting in the yard since last feb (as in 09) when the last tenant left it. **

– cleaned up one garden bed as there was room in the last trash bag.

– finally staked and wired my homemade pergola  – still need to get one more stake and find the heavy duty wire bought last year.

– cleaned off and reorganized the top of the potting bench – always makes me feel like spring is here

and

put out two candles and listened to the last half hour of PHC in the falling evening light by candlelight.

sigh
now for a long long hot shower and a few britcoms – and some lovely salmon with a little wine.

photos tomorrow – promise!

*wish i could cut this thing down. 
**taking bets on how long the landlord leaves his long ladder in the yard (photo soon)

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