Monday, 27 February 2006

Writely so

Oh my what a cool service, www.writely.com is an absolute must if you are someone who needs to write and edit documents from a variety of sites. This web based word processor is well featured and stores your work online. Brilliant. What's more you can use it to blog.

Thursday, 2 February 2006

Making your own ink

Making your own ink

My first foray into this fascinating world involved collecting Elderberries in the autumn – not a large volume, but enough to part fill a smallish stainless steel pan.  I put in the minimum water I felt necessary and with the aid of a wooden spoon gently heated and then boiled the resulting mixture.   After a while I strained it and then reduced the resulting liquid by further heating it.   After it had cooled I added a little Gum Arabic.  The result is not entirely satisfactory, a bluish black ink of not very great density.  But it was a very satisfactory first step and I think I may be hooked …