Hills & Peanuts

Sometimes this venture has been like pushing a peanut up a hill with our noses. Tricky, tiring, but there is a great view to be had at the top when you get there.
We have just got an order for soaps for the England Tourism Awards goodie bags for the event on 23rd April which is really fantastic news.
And The Orangutan Foundation have had a new member sign up through us which makes me very very happy.
We will be at the London WorldFair again in December and lots of other eco events.

And the long awaited palm oil free candles are nearly ready. It sounds simple, melt some wax, put in some scent and let it set.......300 candle trials or so later we think we've got the knack of making a candle that actually smells!

They will also be on sale at my friend's shop at the Bluecoat Centre in central Liverpool. see next blog x

Borneo Orangutan Survival

I have been looking for this to post. It is from the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and was shown at their Christmas Event & Art Auction which I attended at Flemings.
It really says it all about what is being done to the Orangutans, many other species, local people and their forest home. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation have teams that rescue Orangutans from the Palm oil plantations and during the de-forestation. http://www.savetheorangutan.org.uk/

Happy New Chinese Year Celebrations 10th Feb 08- Year of the Rat

Happy Chinese New Year for 7th Feb! (:

Am hoping to get along to China Town on Sunday for the New Year Celebrations. This is a big event in Liverpool, everywhere is packed and the atmosphere is really lovely.

Liverpool is home to one of the oldest Chinese communities in Europe. Chinese New Year is celebrated at the Chinese Arch on Nelson Street, and 2008 is the Year of the Rat.

There will be dancing dragons, unicorns and lions, firecracker performances and Tai Chi demonstrations. The event is also a great opportunity to enjoy a variety of Chinese food and traditional New Year's delicacies.

Year of the Rat - gave me a smile too - will be a good year for some men I know (:

imagine

whilst at the Anne Frank+ you exhibition at Liverpool Cathedral I also did some other stuff.

I sneaked a look at our Scouse Soap on sale in the shop ( and earwigged into two tourists laughing at the names which made me smile).

I went and had a look at Anthony Brown's portraits from his '100 Heads thinking as one'. There are a few of the 100 on display, and each portrait has pictures and press cuttings about the subject within the piece. I liked this one of John Lennon.

http://www.100heads.co.uk/

As I live just along from Penny Lane, quite often drive past the church in Woolton where Paul and John first met and live down the road from where they grew up (hence the Fab Four taxi tours can always been seen round and about) I often think how even though we don't realise it, somehow the Beatles are woven into the Tapestry of every Scousers life someway or another. maybe that's why we make Scouse Soap!

seeing through someone else's eyes

Liverpool hosted this years Holocaust Memorial Commemorations throughout January 08. There were some thought provoking exhibitions and events.

I went to Liverpool Cathedral to see the Anne Frank + You exhibition which runs until early Feb. Survivors who came to Liverpool on the Kindertransport to escape persecution and settle with foster families have been talking to school children during the event to give them an insight and remind us of how 'bad things happen when good men fall silent".

Having been ill I intended to just pop into the 'Respectacles' exhibition at the town hall to donate 3 pairs of glasses as they are all going to Vision Aid when the exhibition finishes. But I was drawn into the exhibition and the main hall. It was of thousands of glasses representing different communities who were pulled to pieces during the Third Reich's reign. Some were laid out on a train track to represent the camps and other spelled out the word 'Hope'. It was easily one of the most moving and 'get under your skin' exhibitions I have seen about the subject of the Holocaust and I am proud that Liverpool had the chance to host it.

I am going to Bosnia this year to do holistic treatments at a centre in Sarajevo and other work in local villages with people who suffered during the Balkans conflicts. It really brought home to me seeing this exhibition that the Holocaust was only several decades ago and though we say it must never happen again there are genocides occurring everywhere. We can do our bit, but politicians must do theirs, as actions speak louder than words and also save many more thousands of lives.

One quote from the exhibition stuck out too, it was both sad and optimistic at once, it was found, scrawled on the wall below a Star of David, by American soldiers searching a cellar of a bombed house in one of the war-torn cities of Germany. Whilst I am not religious it seemed very profound in so many ways. It could mean something to so many people in so many different circumstances.
"I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I do not feel it. I believe in God, even when He is silent."

and to end with some words from Anne Frank,” How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Compassionate Shopping Guide - we're in it (:

Little Satsuma and Scouse Soaps are happy to be endorsed in the 2008 Compassionate Shopping Guide from NatureWatch (http://www.naturewatch.org/)
The 80 page pocket size Guide provides a very practical and positive way in which you can make a difference. It clearly lists which products have been developed using recently animal tested ingredients, and covers most personal and household brands in the UK. Through making informed choices, you can use your purchasing power to support companies that have committed to cruelty free - you do have more power than you think!

Cruelty-free shopping needn't be difficult, once you know which companies do have an ethically sound approach to animal testing, and which don't. So keep this essential guide in your shopping bag - don't leave home without it!

Meeting Jane Goodall - Dec 2007

I got to meet Jane Goodall at a lecture at Liverpool University one evening in December 07. I have a quote on the website in 'Poems to Ponder' page, taken from her book 'Reasons for Hope' and she signed the book for me.
She is one of my heroes and so I was soooo pleased to share the same air as her for just a short time. One of Leakey's Angels she headed off to live in the middle of nowhere in Africa to study chimps. Only 5 days later I was in Mayfair at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation Christmas Event and there she was sending a video message to us all!!

Just a shame I look like a right wally on the photo! (: