Fada Moranga loves window shopping!

Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge, London

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Celebrating Charles Darwin!

Once upon a time there was a little boy who collected birds' eggs and sea shells, beetles and coins, moths and minerals. He wasn’t a very good student, school just bored him. He had some difficulties in memorizing but he never tired of studying the details of the natural world. He was born in Shrewsbury, a rural town in England and he spent hours watching birds and lying under the dining-room table, reading.

As a teenager, he was thrilled by chemistry, biology, botany and geology. His father wanted him to be a doctor. But as he studied at the University of Cambridge, his teachers recognized his potential. Finally, his true talent for natural history blossomed.

One day he was invited to join a ship called Beagle for a trip around the world. It was time to follow his dream! He went as the ship's naturalist and for most of the next five years, the Beagle surveyed the coast of South America. He was free to explore the continent and islands, including the Galapagos and he filled dozens of notebooks with careful observations on animals, plants and geology, and collected thousands of specimens, which he sent home for further study.

Darwin later called the Beagle voyage "by far the most important event in my life," saying it "determined my whole career." By the time he returned, he was an established naturalist, well-known in London for the astonishing collections he had sent ahead. The Beagle voyage would provide Darwin with a lifetime of experiences to think about and the seeds of a theory he would work on for the rest of his life.

Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809 and this week we celebrate his 200th birthday!

All images taken from the book “The Tree of Life” by Peter Sis

more BOOKS about Darwin
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000332901
http://www.charliesplayhouse.com/Bibliography.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Charles-Darwins-Recipe-Book/dp/0980155738
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3884822/Revealed-the-recipes-that-fuelled-Charles-Darwin.html

TOYS
http://www.charliesplayhouse.com/index.html
http://www.amazon.com/EVOLVING-CHARLES-DARWIN-PC-PLAYSET/dp/B001FXCNE2
http://www.science.siu.edu/zoology/darwin/#bobblehead

Learn all about CHARLES DARWIN – LINKS
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Evolution/Darwin.htm
http://www.darwinfoundation.org/en/library/children
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
http://www.aboutdarwin.com/index.html
http://earlyhumans.mrdonn.org/evolution.html
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/
http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/ch/Charles_Darwin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
http://darwin.gruts.com/
http://darwinbeagle.blogspot.com/

EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS
http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk/
http://www.darwin200.org/
http://darwin-online.org.uk/2009.html
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/darwin/slideshow.html
http://www.kent.ac.uk/whatson/darwin/index.html
http://www.darwin200.org.au/events/
http://www.gulbenkian.pt/darwin/home.html

VIDEOS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7875657.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWaQ3wXylOM
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4471435322910215458
http://science.discovery.com/videos/galapagos-beyond-darwin-reviewing-darwins-findings.html

Fada Moranga loves Soop!

Soop is a London based design studio headed by top chef Wai-Lian Scannell in London, UK. She's forever rustling up new recipes in the Soop kitchen.

You can use your imagination to put an entire wilderness in the palm of your hands … or at least the base of their fingers. Wear your favourite animal or create your very own finger farm or enchanted forest.

You can get them here in Soop's Etsy shop and further taste what they have to offer by logging onto the Soop website: soop-group.com.

Soop also designs and creates ceramic tableware and other homeware products...all with a sprinkling of charm and quirkiness. Bon appetit!

A Pink Velvet Christmas!

One day I fell in love with this girl... Velvet!

I also fell in love with her pink blanket...

So Corinne, Velvet’s mommy decided to make me a pillow!

Self portrait, cuddling my new pink pillow made by Corinne

Velvet and Corinne’s Love Story

“I live in London, Ontario. I have a lovely whippet named Velvet Undergrad III. She was given to me from a breeder at an annual dog show in 1997! I believe I was in the right place at the right time. I truly adore the whippet as a pet. I really wanted to have a greyhound, but when I saw the smaller sized sighthound packaged as a whippet...I just could not resist.

In Feb 2005 my whippet Velvet suffered a (multi-focal) Fibro- Cartilagenous Embolism Stroke. When it happened she fell down stairs and could not even move. Her left side was affected; hemi-paresis. Temporarily though!! We were both traumatized by her inability to get up and walk in the very beginning. I rehabilitated her almost non-stop for the next 7 dys. She was shaky & weak, but standing; taking baby steps by the 5th day. She could walk again by 2 wks time. The veterinarian said that Velvet made an amazing recovery, and that most dog owners would have euthan...oh heck, I can't even say that word!

Velvet is no longer able to run really fast like she was used to, she looses her footing. Plus, she has to think of placing her front left paw down for each step she takes. It's kind of sad in a way because she has lost most of her muscle tone and that is why she looks very thin now. Some people think I do not feed her, however, that is clearly the wrong impression because they do not know her health story.I understand the affects of a stroke and how it makes one weak, whether they be a human or dog. Even as a slightly disabled whippet, I still have her with me to love and take care of. Isn't that just the best?”

Corinne aka magneticwun

Their 10th Anniversary

Velvet, 1 year old
London woods, Ontario – Canada (click to enlarge)

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London birds!

window shop on Kings Road, London