Sometimes people say things which are completely out of context and yet later you realise how useful they were.
I was at a few art sessions last summer. It was a 'Beading for Charity' initiative in which an Australian lady, Jeanette, taught us how to make bead jewellery. We made ornaments using her beads and our own sense of colour combinations and gave them to her to sell for charitable causes. Simple.
Most of the time, during the sessions, we talked about the different types of ethnic jewellery worn all over the world. Jeanette gave us details about the different types of beads in her collection - the pretty glass beads, the rustic wooden, the subtle corals, the elegant shells, the glittery metallic, the precious, the semi-precious, and the ordinary. She had a fine collection that showed how much she had travelled all over the world.
After Jeanette taught us the technique of putting together a project she had selected for the day, for instance, a bracelet, we got down to work. We lay out our beads in a sequence to have a pre-view of what the bracelet would look like.
Finally after making our choices, we strung the beads onto the cord and the discussions would move from jewellery to other topics.
On one such session, a lady I hardly knew said,
"Do you know that if you keep open bottles filled with water in your car, it keeps the car cooler in the summer?"
We all looked up.
"Really? Have you tried?"
"Yes" she said.
I went home, dug out three empty jam bottles from our 'To be recycled' collection, filled water in them, and stuck them into the water bottle pockets in the car doors. I didn't notice much difference in the car temperature that day.
A few days later we went on our annual summer holiday for more than a month. We inhaled deeply the wet monsoon air of our native place. It was a refreshing break indeed.
When we came back, summer was still going strong in Muscat. The garden was dry, the car was dusty. A carpet of dried pink bougainvillea flowers lay around the house. The cats, who had become skillful hunters, came one by one to say a meaowy hello.
After dusting the car, I decided to rush to the grocery to buy fresh milk and other groceries. A most pleasant moisture-laden scent greeted me as I turned the car key. The water in the jam bottles had completely evaporated. The inside of the car felt like a wet monsoony cocoon.
Now I keep open jam bottles filled with water in the car all the time. What a top tip given by a stranger!
I was at a few art sessions last summer. It was a 'Beading for Charity' initiative in which an Australian lady, Jeanette, taught us how to make bead jewellery. We made ornaments using her beads and our own sense of colour combinations and gave them to her to sell for charitable causes. Simple.
Most of the time, during the sessions, we talked about the different types of ethnic jewellery worn all over the world. Jeanette gave us details about the different types of beads in her collection - the pretty glass beads, the rustic wooden, the subtle corals, the elegant shells, the glittery metallic, the precious, the semi-precious, and the ordinary. She had a fine collection that showed how much she had travelled all over the world.
After Jeanette taught us the technique of putting together a project she had selected for the day, for instance, a bracelet, we got down to work. We lay out our beads in a sequence to have a pre-view of what the bracelet would look like.
Finally after making our choices, we strung the beads onto the cord and the discussions would move from jewellery to other topics.
On one such session, a lady I hardly knew said,
"Do you know that if you keep open bottles filled with water in your car, it keeps the car cooler in the summer?"
We all looked up.
"Really? Have you tried?"
"Yes" she said.
I went home, dug out three empty jam bottles from our 'To be recycled' collection, filled water in them, and stuck them into the water bottle pockets in the car doors. I didn't notice much difference in the car temperature that day.
A few days later we went on our annual summer holiday for more than a month. We inhaled deeply the wet monsoon air of our native place. It was a refreshing break indeed.
When we came back, summer was still going strong in Muscat. The garden was dry, the car was dusty. A carpet of dried pink bougainvillea flowers lay around the house. The cats, who had become skillful hunters, came one by one to say a meaowy hello.
After dusting the car, I decided to rush to the grocery to buy fresh milk and other groceries. A most pleasant moisture-laden scent greeted me as I turned the car key. The water in the jam bottles had completely evaporated. The inside of the car felt like a wet monsoony cocoon.
Now I keep open jam bottles filled with water in the car all the time. What a top tip given by a stranger!
