Heads & Dovetails

Eleven days after an insect / spider bite Jamie has been to A & E as his ankle kept swelling. He was recommended to take some antihistamine tablets and went off to buy some. He was given a choice between a branded one tablet or a supermarkets own brand at a much cheaper price. Jamie of course took the cheaper one and no real differnce according to the person serving him. It leads to a chat about the difference in cost between branded and non branded items. Gill says she has 2 friends who know a lot about plants and there medicinal properties. She wishes she could plug her brain into theirs to download the information as she knows she must have a lot in her garden that she could use. She tells Jamie about how, when she worked as sales admin in a cardboard box factory and had to deliver some samples to a customer, she was shown around the factory and saw various brands being made next to each other. The only thing that needed to change between them was one ingredient! Jamie has also been carving a little mouse, copying it from a carver, Robert Thompson, well known for his mice. Jamie explains how apprentices are often told to copy something from a Master in that field as it puts you into the same frame of mind and makes you think about how to acheive the same result. Gill jokes about how in a 100 years someone will appear on the Antiques Roadshow with Jamie' mouse thinnking they have a Robert Thompson mouse worth a fortune and be disappointed. Jamie explains that he will burn his own mark into it so that there is no mistake and when an apprentice copies a Master's piece of work it is not allowed to leave the workshop but is destroyed. This leads them to talk about 'biting off more than you can chew' when learning a skill. Gill talks about a new willow weave she has been learning and it's defintiely not perfect but has helped her learn what she needs to do / change much earlier on in the process next time to make it better. They both agree that it is good to remind students / newly qualified people watching or wondering how they came to certain decisions that they have years of experience of doing their jobs.

With AI and so little face to face communication these days Gill tells Jamie how a simple act of taking a photo of a flower high up on a wall became, what she's now calling, a 'touch point of human contact' and how she is looking to have more of them. Another one occurred when she wnet to pick up a pizza from the van that comes to their village and how it became moch more than collecting a pizza. Having a dog Jamie says he gets plenty of these moments chatting to other dog owners and with his workshop in the Ruskin centre next to the cafe people tend to drop in to his workshop to have a look. They chat more about human contact and how important it is to us as humans. Jamie says he is now doing less videos for YouTube and as a result getting more done in the workshop and in future will only do videos of the things he enjoys making. As a result of his shift in thnking about his work and making more of the things he wants to make he's decided to change his workshop around a little remvogn some things adding chairs. These changes in what he wants to do has also had a positve effect on the rate he charges for any work he does. Jamie has also been busy in his garden removing ivy that was choking an old cherry tree and how having removed it the tree has already got new little shoots coming from the branches. Gill and Jamie have something new for their next podcast a guest! They can't wait to see how that goes.

Jamie had seen some posts on Gill's Instagram accoutn about their cat Silvio and asked what had happened. Gill tells Jamie the sorry story. Silvio has been in a fight with another cat and had a badly injured, ripped open cheek which needed sititches. He is an outdoor cat and after 4 visits to the vet was still not allowed out! She said that right now she wasn't sure who's was more stressed him or her and Clive! Jamie has a bit of a story of his own about his leaking water bed having woken up in the early hours to feel a damp patch on the side. Gill was surprised that he had a water bed and said not for her she'd rather sleep on the floor! Jamie said they had to drain it straight away and for a few nights sleep on a blow up mattress whilst they decided which bed to have next. His wife doesn't really like the water bed so he thoguht he'd give her the option to choose a new bed. He started to do some research into various beds but after a few nights not sleeping on the warmth of the water bed his joints started to complain. Gill and Jamie chat about beds and consequently that leads onto discussing bedding as well and how they can impact your sleep to such a large degree and yet it is often one of the items we rarely think about spending a lot of money on. They discuss the toxic effects of beds and the more natural ones now being made.

Jamie and Gill start talking about technology and the reason Gill has never worn blue tooth headsets or i pods as she has had several friends who have had brain tumours - maybe a coincidence?? They discuss if the problem of now having to connect headsts etc by blue tooth or the 'old fashioned' wire ones via an adaptor could that be part of the reason so many people now have conversations and listen to things on loud speaker annoying everyone around them! Jamie tells Gill he's made a change and wants to know how much mindset plays a role in the impact he's experiencing. He's changed his milk from semi-skimmed to organic whole milk and feels it is having an impact on what he now eats as well. He's using less sugar, wants to snack less and wonders if that's as a result of the change or that he believes it is making a difference. They chat about beliefs and the placebo as well as the nocebo, effect and somemore about today's food in supermarkets. Gill talks about the chemicals in the things we now use everyday and the impact it has on our health and how difficult it is to know what's true even in the results of 'research'.

Jamie missed the time they were due to record this episode. He explained he had a lot going on in his head, not in a stressful way but in a good way, and had taken 5 minutes to sit in the garden and forgot they were due to record. Gill and Jamie chat about how they approach tasks or chores in various ways that they don't want to do and 'future pace' the results like Jamie and tidying his woodstore to make things easier in the winter. When it comes to work it's sometimes means saying 'no' to jobs even if you want to do them or putting in a your own 'end date' and taking control of your life rather than feeling pressurised. They chat about how funny it is that the things they love to make are often the most popular items to sell as if they have a different energy in them. Gill tells Jamie about the TV show 'Take it to market' as a great example of that. Jamie and Gill talk about how teaching is the best way to learn a subject and how important it is to learn how to do the job properly before learning the 'cheats' or 'shortcuts' as there will be times when a cheat won't work. Gill brings up the subject of being adaptable and able to flex quite easily, like Jamie not turning up on line to record this episode and how you can respond to similar situations to avoid getting frustrated or angry.