To me, most fleeces look pretty similar. So I was surprised when browsing in a shop in St. David’s, finding some fleeces from Seasalt of Cornwall. At first they looked ordinary enough, until you saw the tag on it proclaiming “I’m made from plastic bottles!“. So nifty I thought I better encourage them and invest in one

In case anyone else would find this helpful, here are some of the places we ate at:

• The Evergreen Pub, The Green, Tenby - we had takeaway from them as there wasn’t space in the small indoor eating area. Typical pub fare, mostly not home cooked. 2.5 out of 5.
• The Stackpole Inn, Stackpole - expensive, but what do you expect for a pub that won Best Pub Food awards a few years ago? Wonderful fish options, though few pudding options. 4.5 out of 5.
• The Refectory, St. David’s Cathedral - more expensive and with a smaller range than expected, it served us well before a gig at the Cathedral. Good quality, and good sized portions. 4 out of 5.
• Cafe Vista, Bridge St., Tenby - really a coffee shop, so little choice in food. Also long waits to have any drinks or food prepared, but it doesn’t really matter when using their wifi
• The Carreg, Narberth - new, arty, cafe with lots of great photos on the walls. Very rich chocolate in the cakes, hot chocolates and mochas. Avoid if on a diet!

From Digital Nomads And The New Workforce:

[Inspired by reading The Economist - The New Oases - Nomadism changes buildings, cities and traffic.]

We have all become Digital Nomads. Able to work wherever we’re feeling most inspired (as long as there is wi-fi). I wonder how the masses will deal with this? Is it possible to just show up and grab any desk in an office building and log on (there are many companies that have this as part of their corporate culture already)? How will in-person, team collaboration dynamics be affected? What about the overall dynamics and vibe we get from going to our offices?

I saw this on holiday, having saved up about 500 blog posts to read. None of us are working in the normal sense, though Emma is closest revising for her A2s. So many times already we could have used WiFi, and it feels like being on a fast not having any internet access. To the point that we’re heading to a nearby hotspot later today, primarily so Emma can send/receive emails from her teachers about her revision. I’ll also use the opportunity to look up details to help me with some designs I have in mind, as well as following the links on some of the 50 or so blog posts that sufficiently caught my eye to check out properly.

If this is what we feel like on holiday, how much more so must it be for knowledge workers? If I was mobile much more, then I could see myself getting mobile broadband, even at the lowest possible rate.

(Via Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights Blog and Podcast - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image.)

I prefer emails over traditional letters (or txt msgs, or twitter or IM), and sometimes I feel in a minority for doing so. For example, my church leaders request people don’t send emails, preferring letters or face-to-face meetings.

Happily, I’m not alone in favouring emails: is a short blog post from the CEO of an American Publishing company that made me nod and laugh.

But I think we’re both implying emails that follow the standard etiquette. I’m offline right now so I can’t link to any well-written summaries of this. But my list would include:

• being aware that things can be taken the wrong way, as there’s no tone or body language — so, use emoticons or other ways to make sure people know you’re making a joke, teasing them or being ironic
• writing when calm, not angry or upset
• where there are many different points, use interleaving for your response, leaving a blank line before and after
• for threads about only a few points, respect the top- or bottom-posting before you
• writing in normal sentence case, not in ALL CAPITALS
• using a subject line that does summarise the email — and change it if you’re starting a significantly new idea
• using BCC to send something to me and to a large list of other people, to keep my address private

So, if you are writing to complain about something that upset you, then bashing out a revengeful note is definitely off-limits. It’s a sad commentary on the state of the Christians in our churches if they get enough of these to comment publicly that emails are a bad idea.

On a related note, I’ve just read about some email pages that can help email recipients quickly help emailers with poor etiquette:

• Thanks, No turns down unwanted email
• five sentences explains why his email messages are so short
• BCC please asks that bulk senders use the BCC field to hide your address

The unexpected highlight of the weekend probably came during our medium-length walk that started and finished at Minstead. (And it wasn’t the ancient little church there with its rather unusual double balcony arrangement - one for the little band of musicians, and one for the servants from the big houses around.) It was visiting Furzey. We’d looked around the art gallery next to the Tea Shoppe and we were all very tempted by the mounted photography of Mark Baeur - some examples linked below.

We had enough time left so we shelled out (quite a lot) for garden tickets, and I was hugely impressed. 30 acres or so of well maintained, but still fairly wild-feeling, spaces dominated by very colourful azaleas and rhododendrons and other flowering trees and hedges, interspersed with a variety of thatched things and tree houses. We’d all forgotten to take a camera, but here are samples from its own website …

And here’s a sample of the photos taken by eunique1234 on flickr at almost the same time last year. A fair bit of the work is undertaken by adults with learning difficulties who live near by at the Minstead Training Project. There’s also a Retreat House in the Gardens, and it would be a wonderful place to stay from May onwards, and I imagine into autumn with fall colours on some of the trees.

We spent most of the weekend with Tim and Ann in Romsey, talking, eating and generally relaxing. This morning we sat in their lovely new conservatory sipping coffee, enjoying the sun, and listening to the birds sing as we discussed Ignatian spiritual exercises. Sounds much harder than the run I did with Tim around some roads and fields near them, despite Tim’s pace being rather faster than my normal one. (Which incidentally means I’ve achieved my first running goal of 10 runs in 4 weeks - just!) Here’s the pic after we’d got back - still breathing deeply!

Unfortunately we narrowly missed getting a table at the Tapas bar in Winchester that was hosting some live Jazz as part of the Mayfest. But means I can recommend eating at Prezzo; we’ve now eaten at their Winchester and Salisbury branches, and both times their Risottos and other food was really good.

Some cholesterol matters … ‘cos cholesterol matters.

I said to Adrian the other day that I was keen to make sure my cholesterol levels weren’t too bad - I realised I didn’t actually know what cholesterol was, or why some of it could be ‘good’ and some of it ‘bad’. And that the labels showing the nutritional content of food rarely mentions cholesterol. He pointed me at a little book that would answer both my questions.

I’ve now read a lot of the material on it that deals with cholesterol, plus some related subjects around cardio-vascular disease, such as blood pressure. As much to check I’ve understood it, I’ve tried to do a short summary …

Cholesterol is one of many fats in our bodies, and we can’t do without it, as it helps form cell membranes, some important hormones, and helps absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. The problem comes if we have too much of it floating around. Despite what I’d assumed, most of our cholesterol doesn’t come from what we eat, but is naturally produced in our livers. LDLs carry cholesterol from the liver to the cells - but have the rather Royal Mail-like tendency to lose of its fatty payload in the arteries along the way, leading to the build-up of deposits which produces angina, blood clots and heart attacks. HDLs on the other hand carry spare cholesterol from cells back to the liver to turn them into bile acid which helps break down ingested fats. So what’s the fuss?

Well, the amount of fat-laden foods we eat does determine what goes on in the liver and then the blood. Eat more fats and more LDL is produced. In this, saturated fats are worse than polyunsaturated ones, which are worse than monounsaturated ones - and trans-fats are possibly the worst of all.

It suggests blood levels of LDL + HDL need to be less than 5, and ideally less than 4. Back in 2002 mine was 4.8. It all suggests that more importantly that the TotalChol:HDL ratio be well below 4.5. Mine was 5.3. So, some work to do. Hence the recent exercise. There’s lots of sensible-sounding advice on diet in the book, which I can summarise for me as being to eat more oily fish and nuts - particularly instead of some red meat and processed grains. Egg yolks - despite having more cholesterol than most foods - are also good for raising HDLs and lowering LDLs.

The book also mentions Body Mass Index as being another useful indicator - it should be between 18 and 25. In 2002 I was 21.9, and I reckon I’m now 22.7.

Today I’m happy to say I’m half way to my first running goal:

It’s too early to see any improvement in heart rate, recovery rate, weight etc. But it is encouraging when I finished my run today, clicked ’stop’ on the iPod, and then I heard Lance Armstrong say:

Hi, I’m Lance Armstrong. Congratulations - you’ve just completed your longest workout yet!

Clever old Nike/Apple

Here’s a good looking site, and one that should help us all be a little good-er to the world around us.