This week’s Fiver goes to Angel Bear
From their website:
Welcome to the home of Angelbear, the UK's fastest growing family of knitters and crocheters who knit bears for children in crisis. Angelbears are used by police forces in the UK, US and Australia, major children's hospitals, hospices, women's refuges and all major critical care services.
I shall be knitting a few of these bears up to send to them. You can find the free patterns here
I thought I would have a go at making my own soap, so after a while ploughing my way through the ‘interweb’ I can across this relatively easy and foolproof soap making recipe from Small Notebook
The first time I tried it I think I was over ambitious as I added colour and fragrance. The soap turned out well but the colour was yuck and had no smell. I was going for a purple, lavendar fragranced soap but ended up with a grey, normally soapy smelling bar. I little bit more research on adding colour and fragrance I think.
Mixing the lye
Mixing the oils
Pouring the soap mixture into the mould
Setting in the mould
Frist attempt – Grey looking but perfectly usuable
The second time around I left out the colour but added some coconut fragrance. Not sure whether this smells yet as I haven’t used any yet. The second more natural looking soap, I plan to gift some on Mothers Day.
Second batch – more natural looking
You should try it, its fun!
At last I am bang up to date with Friday’s Fiver. Yesterday’s Fiver goes to The Hooved Animal Rescue & Protection Society, (HARPS)
From their website:
I first came across Harps when I saw these videos on another site. The foal in the video is Phoenix the stunning horse in the picture above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fbLCocnokPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N7D6dEy_yng
I am only one Friday’s Fiver behind now. I will catch up either later on today or tomorrow.
February 24th Fiver goes to: The Brook
From their website:
We are an international animal welfare organisation dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys and mules in some of the world's poorest communities. We provide treatment, training and programmes around animal health and wellbeing, operating across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
From humble beginnings as a hospital for ex-warhorses in a dusty Cairo street founded in 1934, the Brooke has become the leading international welfare charity for working equine welfare.
On arrival in Egypt in 1930, Dorothy Brooke was horrified to see hundreds of emaciated horses being used as beasts of burden on the streets of Cairo.
The wife of a British army major general, Dorothy Brooke was appalled to learn that these walking skeletons were ex-warhorses of the British, Australian and American forces.
All of them had seen service in the First World War. When the conflict ended in 1918, they were sold into a life of hard labour in Cairo.
Dorothy Brooke could not shake off the memory of these pitiful creatures. She wrote a letter to the Morning Post – which later became the Daily Telegraph – exposing their plight. Read the full text of her appeal.
The public were so moved they sent her the equivalent of £20,000 in today's money to help end the suffering of these once proud horses.
Within three years, Dorothy Brooke had set up a committee and bought five thousand of these ex-warhorses. Most were old and in the final stages of collapse, and had to be humanely put down. But, thanks to her compassion and tenacity, all of them ended their lives peacefully.
But Dorothy Brooke knew that her work could not end there while thousands of horses, donkeys and mules still suffered.
In 1934, Dorothy Brooke founded the ‘Old War Horse Memorial Hospital’ in Cairo, with the promise of free veterinary care for all the city’s working horses and donkeys and the Brooke Hospital for Animals was born.
