• Monster-making

• An origami-zoo

• A cosy-corner

• Doodle-fun

• Games

• Music

• Book-swapping

• Woolly-hat-treasure hunt

• craft workshops

• Tea & cup cakes & more!

Bring your own picnic, blanket & sense of childish abandon.

GET INVOLVED!

If you’d like to get involved, we’re looking for volunteers to help serve drinks and snacks at the cafe and crafty types to help run workshops. Email us and we’ll put you in touch with Emma at Trinity.

Otherwise, simply bring along your knitting and a spare ball of wool and show a stranger how to knock together a scarf; bring along Scrabble and challenge a picnicker to a game or tuck the Sunday papers under your arm and share the supplements out. After all, it’s cold outside, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than  to cosy up on a picnic blanket, share some Scotch eggs and meet new people.

So which is your favourite?

The 6th Bristol Storytelling Festival will begin in two weeks time, offering 16 events over 11 days to celebrate and enjoy the magic of storytelling in Bristol.

The full programme is available online and printed flyers are making their way to public places across the city as we speak. This year will use more venues than ever before including old favourites and brand new ones, with events from early in the morning until late at night. The line up includes a sparkling constellation of spellbinding storytellers offering stories from here, there and everywhere to suit young and old ears alike. So do you best to get to one or more the events, and please spread the word to others who might be interested…

Finally to whet your appetite for storytelling before the Festival, the Storytelling Cafe is running this Wednesday 11th January, 8pm at La Ruca cafe on Gloucester Road.

Go along to tell a tale, sing a song or just listen and enjoy. Guest performer is Darren Hoskins. Food and drink available.

Valentines Day usually means a romantic meal, the back seats of the cinema or a cosy night in. That is if you are already in a couple. But what about the thousands of people still dreaming of finding their soulmate? Well, Wacky Nation, the off the wall events company, has created a match made in heaven where singletons can have a really fun evening whilst mixing with the opposite sex without the pressures normally associated with dating.

The Valentines Rock Paper Scissors at V-Shed on 14th February will take the concept of blind dating and speed dating to the next level. Instead of nervous chatting up or protracted flirting, participants can mingle with the sub text of playing the cult game of rock paper scissors.

The idea of Rock Paper Scissors is for two people to go head to head using one hand to imitate either a rock (clenched fist), a piece of paper (flat hand) or a pair of scissors (two fingers in a V shape). Rock beats (blunts) scissors, paper beats (wraps) rock and scissors beats (cuts) paper. Perhaps surprisingly the game is not just about luck and avoiding elbow cramp. It’s very similar to poker with a lot of bluffing and putting out mixed signals.

The game is usually played to decide an argument e.g. who pays for the next round of drinks or who does the cooking but at the Valentines night event there will be romantic subtext. There will be an official contest limited to 64 people but the main event will be the Street rock paper scissor challenge where participants must challenge everyone else to a game of rock paper scissors staking fake money. Whoever has amassed the most fake money at the end of the night takes home a small prize. But unlike other events around the year, there will be a strict rule that competitors can only challenge a member of the opposite sex.

Event organiser and co-founder of Wacky Nation Sally Raynes commented: ‘For our other Rock Paper Scissors events, the emphasis is on winning or at least looking as if competitors know how to win. But at the Valentines Rock Paper Scissors we are encouraging entrants to challenge the opposite sex to a game which we hope will be a prelude to something more long lasting. Rock Paper Scissors is a really fun and addictive game which gets the heart racing because it is tense and nerve-jingling especially with money at sake, albeit fake. It is also a great ice-breaker. In fact all the pressure will be on worrying what symbol to use so once our entrants have played a few games, chatting someone up will be a doddle, even for people less confident. Whatever happens everyone can at least experience several hours of fun and excitement but hopefully by the end of the evening the unofficial 4th symbol of a kiss will be the most commonly played between competitors!’

If you would like to find out more or register to take part visit www.wackynation.com or www.ukrockpaperscissorschampionships.com. The contest will run from… with a disco at the end of the night.

Rock Paper Scissors Tips:

1. Men are more likely to throw a rock on their first throw – if you play a bloke, throw a paper first

2. Women are more likely to play paper on their first throw – if you play a woman, throw scissors first.

3. Belie your physique e.g. if your big, scary and muscular, throw paper

4. Scissors is statistically the least thrown – therefore paper is statistically the safest throw, but not if everyone follows tip no. 2.

5. For experts only, change your throw at the last minute e.g. twitch your fingers to signal a scissors before reverting to a rock. This is called ‘Shadowing.’

6. Wear sunglasses to prevent your opponent from studying your eyes

7. Study your opponent’s eyes (if they aren’t wearing sunglasses). Are they looking up to the right or are the eyes glazed over. They could be about to throw scissors.

8. Taunt the opponent and try reverse psychology! Tell them what you think they will throw and they may throw the opposite.

9. Finally, if you’re a bloke and you win buy your female opponent a drink

10. If you’re a women and you lose, demand a drink off your male opponent!

About the organisers: Wacky Nation (www.wackynation.com) is undoubtedly Britain’s craziest events company. Their aim is simple: to invent or re-introduce wackiness for the British public to experience and further the popularity of alternative sports and exercise, such as backward running and rock paper scissors (more to follow). With the London Olympics getting closer they also want to remind people of the fun events that exist where you don’t have to be incredibly fit or adhere to strict diets in order to become a UK or World Champion. They have already organised backward running races in London and Manchester as well as several rock paper scissor tournaments. Whilst their website is arguably the authoritative source for all unusual and unique sports, contests and races. They have also written a book (title: Wacky Nation) raving about 50 of Britain’s craziest contests.

We’re trying out the idea of a regular (2nd Saturday of each month) ride, suitable for most riders, which gives us a chance to get to know each other and explore some of the cycle routes that are easily accessible from central Bristol.

A couple of us are working out routes, generally alternating between heading east or west. Suggestions for routes/others getting involved with planning and leading rides are welcome-the aim is to have a consistent meeting time and place and the route can be tweaked on the day as required.

These regular social rides also provide an opportunity to discuss/propose ideas for future rides with others from the group (all members are free to propose/discuss meetups themselves).

For more info see http://www.meetup.com/bristolcyclists/

The plan is to run these as a regular social night every 3rd Thursday of the month through 2012, excluding August and December.

We’ll have a selection of short-play fun/sociable games/mix ups (e.g. Boggle, Jenga, ‘Devil Bunny…’, Snakes+Ladders/trivia cards mix up etc.) and some Origami paper/instructions.

Nothing too serious/complicated, all welcome for chat and sociable games playing. If you have a favourite game that you’d like to play, you’re welcome to bring it and we’ll give it a go…

For more info see http://www.meetup.com/optibris

I think it had reached a natural end – most of the tags were written on and the sign was looking a little worse for wear.

But thankyou thankyou thankyou to all the people who’ve written their resolutions on the luggage tags. I’ve just spent an hour looking through them all as I detangled them all. I’m going to scan some of my favourites over the coming days, and then I’ll put them all into an album – it looks like there are about 500 of them in total, so it’s going to be hard to pick…

In fact, there have been so many resolutions that I’ve been out to tie up another 150 luggage tags. And whilst the wind made the original long-strings-of-tags-dangling-down plan a little impossible, I quite like the new luggage-tag-bunting effect.

So the tags will remain for several more days yet, at least until the weather threatens to ruin the tags. And then I’ll gather them up, scan in some of my favourites and store them all in a scrapbook.

In the meanwhile, have a look at the photos and if you’re in the area, stop by to write up your resolution(s)…

Resolution tree low

Here are a few photos from the initial installation…

Here in teamloveofit, we’re a big fan of our friends. In fact, we think they’re pretty much the best around, and so why not celebrate how special that friendship is. I mean, birthdays are cool and everything, but a friendiversary is individual just to the two of you.

In fact, tomorrow is my friendiversary with loveofiJo – it’s been two years since we first met properly and plotted our loveofit world domination plans at a friend’s 30th birthday. And that has led to an awful lot of fun involving swimming, treasure hunts, adventures and lots and lots of picnics. Definitely cause for a celebration I say…

So have a think and remember when you met your closest friends, and drop them a line to let them know how much they mean to you. Maybe even bake them some cupcakes or make them a badge. Because friendships are worth celebrating…