Time management

I thought about what to write about this week and realised this is on my mind. I have been lucky enough to get 3 commissions in the past week.

I have agreed to make a set of 9 circus figures in 4 weeks and then a cuckoo clock followed by a Princess Diana sheep jumper.

The thing is my time is my own and without the high pressure of a Social work office it is so easy to waste.

The rules are

Keep smart phone out of reach.

Go on computer once a day

Plan my week

Have specific breaks for limited time

Have weekly goals of what I need to do.

This is really working. I got up really early (for me on a Sunday) as I know what I want to achieve today. It does feel good.

Costa does not care

This is the email I sent to Costa 10 days ago that they have not bothered to reply to.

My knitting group meets every Wednesday in Costa Golders Green. Last night two young men were trying to sell us flowers. We had difficulty getting them to leave. I went to the counter to get some help and whilst I was explaining the situation I heard my friend yell at these men, they left and I went back to our table.

We soon realised they had taken my friend's I phone. She is self employed and her phone is an important business tool. We told the staff what had happened. I was told that these things happen and that they tell customers to be careful. I found this strange; no Costa staff member has ever had anything resembling a conversation with me.The manager said they would have film. I suggested the police needed to be called.

Some of my friends went up and down the street to see if they could find these young men. I saw the manager outside smoking and talking on the phone. I assumed he was talking to the police. Sometime later I went again to the counter to ask was was happening and found the police had not been called.

This incident raises many concerns.

1.Until they changed their opening hours we met for many years in Starbucks Golders Green where the staff were consistently warm and welcoming. We have never in any way been acknowledged by your staff. Remember we come every week. There is also a church group who met on Wednesdays in this store. I doubt they have been made to feel welcome either.

2. No staff member at any point bothered to walk over to see how we were. This was a very distressing incident, but hey I guess cleaning up and packing up the store early is far more important.

3. What is happening in the store should be monitored much more carefully. As soon as hawkers walk in they should be asked to leave.

4. What is the procedure when a crime occurs in a Costa store? Have those procedures been followed as a consequence of this incident.

I have no idea what Costa spends on advertising but I imagine it is a significant amount. Yet manners, smiles and a concern for customers is free and incredibly effective and sadly not to be found in Costa Golders Green.

Sue Margolis

easy cooking

Every now and again I play with an old favourite recipe and come up with something really good.

This may take 45 minutes but the preparation can be done in under 10 minutes. Tasty and easy.

Leek baseless quiche with jacket potatoes

Turn oven to 200 and put potatoes in oven.

Grease a quiche dish or any old dish

Scatter 1 cup grated cheese and 2 leeks washed and chopped up in dish.

Mix (I use the small bowl attachment that came with my hand blender) half cup flour, half teaspoon baking powder, one and half cups of milk, 3 eggs, and 1 tablespoon of oil.

Pour into dish and place in oven with potatoes.

Turn oven down to 170 and bake for 40 minutes.

Make a salad or microwave peas to go with it.

Graphic design and The Science Museum.

This is the horribly un photogenic me with the very photogenic Abigail Lee. I did some knitting for her graduate show-she studied Graphic design at Kingston. Her work was based around OCD and used missed stitches in knitting to symbolise OCD around numbers. It was simple and powerful work. She also did a piece where she made a book of her fellow students with photos and contact details. However the photos she used were downloaded from Facebook and did not reflect well on the students concerned. She was able to get such photos of the vast majority of students. As she pointed out over 30% of employers now check Facebook before employing someone. Just telling my daughter about this was enough to make change her Facebook security. Another example of a simple but very effective piece of work.

Please please see her work-www.steptripstep.co.uk/projects/abigaail-lee
This is the husband who actually learnt to knit at the Knitted Universe Installation at the Science Museum on Sunday. He was taught by a lovely and incredibly patient neuroscientist. We have been married 22 years. I never had a chance in hell of teaching him to knit.

My commission on line

See steptripstep.co.uk/projects/abigail-lee the jumper is one I knitted.

Graduate Fashion Week

What fun. My friend and I got somewhat confused about where we should go at Earls Court and wombled into the back bit. This man came rushing up to us and with a look on his face that said 'must I deal with you oiks' asked 'can I help you Ladies?' I explained I had done some work for one of the exhibitors and had come to pick up my tickets. With a look of complete disbelief he directed us to the desk. There the snotty woman said there were no tickets for us. By this time I had had enough and got a tad grumpy that resulting in them giving us tickets anyway.

We went up stairs to find ourselves in a Invitation Only Preview Evening for a South American Art Exhibition amongst the Gallery owners, The Press and selected buyers.

The staff were happy to escort us off the Premises and show us the way to London Graduate Fashion Week.

This was great fun. It was a buzz seeing my work on the catwalk.Amongst the outlandish and bizarre were some lovely pieces. Some European schools had stands and the Milan School there stood out with the quality of their construction.

I networked like mad and had a lot of interest in doing work with students next year. One college wants me to go and speak to their students.

An evening well passed my friend and I thought we should go back to the Art Exhibition and quaff champagne which we did. We walked in again and the staff came rushing up to us but WE HAD TICKETS!. Ha! Great fun was had pretending we had some interest in £20,000 paintings and meaningful sculptures.

The tube home did not quite match the evening but still a fab night out.

What do you wear to London Fashion Week?

Love Skype love it. My daughter now has internet in her apartment on Kibbutz Degania in Tiberius. This proved remarkably useful as on Monday I am going to the London Fashion Week Graduate Show where hats I made on commission will make their way down the runway. We were able to fine tune what I am to wear.

This was a big decision. I am too old, too fat and not rich enough to do interesting-it would rapidly be transformed into deranged if I even tried.

So I am going for natural classic-dark blue linen trousers, cream linen top (loose over the stomach)

birkenstocks and wooden jewellery.

This will mean a trip to Topshop for said jewellery. Hannah suggested a nice wooden necklace I found in a charity shop and then remembered it is now in Israel with her. Ah the joys of children.

I will of course report on this.

Two other things.

We went to a friend's 31st party last night (yes by at least a decade we were the aged ones of the evening) and I made a birthday cake. Only thing was the New Zealand bible of laughingly easy cake baking; The Edmonds Cookbook has been kidnapped by a friend. I ended up using a recipe I had never used, replacing cream cheese with marscapone and whats more it came out of the oven more a burnt offering than food. Never being one to waste a perfectly good though burnt cake I scrapped the burnt bits off and covered it in icing.

The birthday boy's boyfriend did a big cake thing-lights out singing happy birthday etc and all I could think was that I had no idea at all what it was going to taste like. Luckily it was fine but the morals of the story is to only bake for people with recipes you know and love and never loan out your favourite cookbooks.

Last rant for the day put your pillows and cushions out in the sunshine for several hours. This dries out all the sweat that accumulates and the sun sterilises them. They come back inside smelling sweet and all puffed up. Trust me on this one. Do you really want to continue to sleep on the pillow version of a manky tee shirt?