world malaria day

Each 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. Each of these deaths is avoidable. Join the world’s largest international effort to end malaria deaths. The countdown has begun.

25 April is a day of unified commemoration of the global effort to provide effective control of malaria around the world. This year's World Malaria Day marks a critical moment in time. The international malaria community has merely two years to meet the 2010 targets of delivering effective and affordable protection and treatment to all people at risk of malaria, as called for by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

The next two years present a rare window of opportunity to save a million lives by rapidly delivering malaria interventions - protective nets, diagnostic tests, antimalarial drugs and indoors spraying - to all people at risk of the disease and to pave the way towards virtually ending deaths by 2015.

You can read more at the Roll Back Malaria website here.

This is also an interesting and tragic story of Briton Harry Yirrel who was volunteering in Ghana.  For all of us fortunate enough to be travelling in endemic areas there could not be a more compelling and convincing reminder to take your malaria prophylactics...

leaving on a jet plane...

I'm off everyone... I arrive into Kisumu on Monday evening and then head off to spend Christmas with my Kenyan brothers and sisters at Rang'i. I'll then return to Kisumu via Katolo to meet Kirstin, Georgia and Harriet - just in time for New Years on the 30th.
Have a lovely Christmas break everyone - stay tuned for reports on the progress of Stage 1 in early January.
xx Amber

pretty christmas idea.....

Our friend Felicity has always been so creative, but this I think is especially beautiful.  She has made these "snow flakes" for her front window. They sound so simple to make and look so pretty, only Fliss could come up  with such a great idea. Read more about how she made them here.

sunday afternoon

So the time finally arrived this past weekend to make the long awaited Christmas wreath. My mums house in Avalon turned into the wreath making factory for the afternoon. We scoured the streets and our own garden for all our materials and came back with baskets and arm loads full! We used wire frames as our base and a thinner wire to attach what we wanted to the wreaths.


There were three wreath making teams and we all went for the natural look. All with a slightly different slant. I went for the pretty flowers, eucalyptus leaves, little white flowers and hydrangeas..... this is it in progress.

Mum had a wilder approach, her finished product......

Anna and Kristina were somewhere in between..... they used chilli's too.

This is my finished product ready to hang on my door.

A fun weekend project and we all made pretty beautiful wreaths.... success all round.

checkonsite.com

This is a top website for those of us who love to check out architectural delights when in foreign cities! If you have ever travelled with an architect you will know that we would walk all day to catch sight of a precious gem of the building variety. Website designer/creator and fellow architect, Leigh knows all too well the hours you spend scouring the cities streets. Leigh has cleverly taken the stress out of this process by creating an online database for her three passions in life - architecture, photography and travel.

Checkonsite is an online reference created by a community interested in identifying and locating the sites worth checking out throughout the world. Through this site you can locate buildings or sites worth checking out using google earth, suggest and share your favourite site or building and say what you think of a building by adding comments.

So if you are planning a trip to a new city and wondering what architecture you should be checking out? or you know what you want to see, but don’t know where it’s located, or if you have some photos from previous trips you would like to share, why not checkonsite!

weekend project

a Christmas wreath! I've been wanting to make a wreath for my front door for a few years now and this year is going to be the year! I've been having a good scour around all our favourite blogs to get some inspiration..... 

The first photo is from the lovely Pia, she used a wire base and pussywillow. She adds flowers and berry's during the year, very versatile! 

This next one I really love! It's Sara's effort from last year (you have to scroll to the bottom of the page), so very pretty...... she used grape vines as her base... not sure I'm up for that yet!

The final one is from a blog that is new for me blomsterverksta, this lady makes wreaths for a living. Sophie also blogged about a pretty one she found here.

As Pia suggested I think I'm going to keep it simple and see what I can find in my garden.... maybe some eucalyptus leaves, flowers and berries. Hopefully it will be a fun and successful weekend! Next up christmas cake, anyone have a good recipe?