Friday Night Films at CADS and The Long Well Walk

My good friend Liam Garcia has set up his own charity - The Long Well Walk - to help the poorest African communities develop clean water. This involves him walking from Sheffield to Cape town - 15 countries, ten water projects, three years.  100% of the donations will go to the selected communities!

Last Friday was one of many fundraisers and took place at CADs in Shalesmore. After spending half an hour trying to find the place and turning my phone upside down and every angle possible whilst trying to figure out what was going on with the map and even contemplating if the picture was even in Sheffield I finally found this secluded venue.

The evening involved a selection of 6 short films by Sheffield and London university students as well as a silent auction, cocktail bar and art wall. The cinema was outdoors which added a nice touch and there was even free popcorn!

The prizes for the auction had all been donated and included various art, a thorntons hamper, a spa day pass and a rude shipyard guiness cake.

I tried my luck and wrote a bid for the cake and places it in a glass. I then socialised with some friendly folk including the lovely Felicity Hoy is the lady behind "There's nothing like a Sheffield girl" and is an amazing artist and sets up exciting events were people can meet others and make plans to collaberate.

After the films had finished, I found out I had won the cake! All in all the night was a lot of fun and I'd recommend going to every fundraiser he puts on in the future as he needs to raise £40,000 and you'll have a great time too!

Here are a few pics from the night: Photo credit - Rebecca Halliwell

by Felicity Hoy

Watching the movies on the projector



An artist drawing



The cocktail bar!

The Vault

I remember when this place was a bank. Now it sells lovely things like sequin-embellished bags, vintage clothing, shoes, ornaments, furniture, tea and cake.
It's great value too, great for Christmas gifts. Go and explore, you'll find something interesting every time.

Sharrow Festival 2012

the sun came out!

children were enjoying the fun and games

dancing..

nice stall

enjoying her pork sandwich.

more fun and friendly faces

my lunch of rice, dahl and pakora

acoustic guitar player

I only found out that the festival was moved to today this morning. I was in doubt at first as I've never known if to be in autumn and I'd seen no advertisements for it whatsoever apart from the sharrow festival banner on highfield library which I'd assumed had been left there since then. How wrong I was! Sharrow Festival was in full swing, full of friendly faces and happy children enjoying themselves. There weren't many stalls unfortunately. But I had a great time nonetheless. I saw a few singers, heard some poetry, drank some tea and ate some free biscuits in the jesus tent, ate some tasty dahl and pakora, filled out a questionnare on sexually transmitted diseases and got loads of free condoms, bumped into some friends and left as it got a little chilly.

The Old Sweet Shop

The Old Sweet Shop is an art lovers paradise. With a huge variety of things including local artists work, stationary, clothing, a gallery currently  featuring my favourite Sheffield artist - Craww and lots of other bits and bobs. 

I love coming in here to browse, the owner is really friendly and there is so much to discover. If you like art and you haven't visited The Old Sweet Shop yet, well..what have you been doing?

The Winter Gardens

The winter gardens is a stunning place. Me and my little sister were the first members of public to set foot in here when the queen opened it, back in 2003!

If you get hungry there is a Zooby's and Fancie.
There is also a gallery inside the winter gardens where you can see some great exhibitions. I saw some breathtaking apocalyptic paintings there a while back. Also the kid acne exhibition was awesome!

Graves Art Gallery

The city centre library is a wonderful place. Whether you want to browse, catch up with the outside world via the Internet or borrow some music or fantastic world cinema, he library has it all..

Yesterday I visited the gallery above the library - Graves gallery.

They currently have an Andy Warhol exhibition full of fascinating memoirs plus a few self portraits. I haven't seen that much of his work, only the classic Monroe and Campbell's soup can, so it was a great education for me. Plus reading all this background information on hims and seeing that personality reflected in his art gives you a better understanding of the kind of character he was.

Highlights from the other exhibitions included a Damien Hirst painting featuring a skull, lots of vivid bright colours and jewels. There was also some great contemporary art and I particularly liked a beaded design of a machine gun by Hew Locke. I believe the beads represented the bullets which were set against this blood red fabric.

The shop offers fantastic arty postcards, pinhole cameras and other quirky souvenirs that you'd expect from a gallery. The also have a cafe that does a pretty decent hot chocolate.

Millhouses Park

I love this walk from the side of the big Tesco's on Abbeydale road to Millhouses park. It provides a lovely backdrop if you fancy a jog and it leads nicely to Ecclesall woods which compliments the route nicely.

If you crawl through the fencing on this path you will find a lovely discovery.

 Once you've explored then follow the river along and up to Millhouses park. A beautiful flat park with dog walkers, joggers and many friendly folk.
If it's open then a trip to the cafe is recommended. It's just by the boating pool.

A fish stream

There is also an impressive selection of sports and activities including a skate bowl, assault course, outdoor gym, small climbing wall, football fields, a flower garden and tennis courts.