Keep practising - one day you may be as good as this....

Another headline event in Hackney.

I've grown a mammoth tomato plant from a seed in the compost heap. It's dwarfing a little apple tree and now the squirrels have begun to eat the little fruit, so I'm going to have to pick them to keep ownership. Shame.

Feed the fish.

well hands up if you can see the fish, and if you can't get your own here

It definitely wasn't all work.

it's not all work on a hot trip to NY

I'm sold, I think it's worth supporting.

Make sure you watch to the end.

On my way back from Docklands and the Girlguiding do, I found a bit of a crowd at my neighbour's house. Stik of stick men fame was doing some wall painting in the front garden and had gathered an admiring crowd. When I mentioned that I had met Jack Petchey at the Guiding do he said that he had also been helped by the foundation in the past. There is an academy up the road from us called 'Petchey Academy' it specialises in medicine and healthcare. So many coincidences...

Anyway Stik is painting some works for the NHS highlighting the various addictions that plague local society. I think that more than that he's got lots of people talking together on the street who normally don't even notice each other's existence.

You can make your own guess about the references here. And if you look carefully you can see a man wearing an Ally Capellino Jonathan, bought for him by his very generous wife he told me.

Yesterday I was asked to open an exhibition at the Museum of London docklands celebrating 100 years of girl guiding. I've never done anything like that before. I was a bit of a thrill seeing a small group of the 600,000 strong girls movement all wearing the uniforms that I had designed 10 years ago.

The badges definitely seem to be the main attraction, I love the way the girls make free with where they sew them on. Here's a sample of badges that you could have qualified for in the past - it must have been wartime judging by the variety - Laundress, Electrician, Carpenter, Domestic Service, Flyer, Rifleshot, First Aid and I think that the last one must be Radio. My Brownie uniform, I remember as being much like these ones from the 1920's, and as I was a Brownie in the 60's I presume they weren't so quick to update in those days. I loved my hand-me-down with it's giant, turned up hem, breast pockets, lanyard, whistle, scarf/tie, epaulettes and jangling belt.

I think that Frank is almost a direct descendant.

At the presentation of a Queen's Guide Award to a young achiever I also met Jack Petchey, who I learnt has donated £1.4m to the guides in the last 10 years. More about him in the next post.......