Heads & Dovetails

This week Jamie and Gill are joined by another creative this time jewellery maker Lauren Gunning. Jamie had seen Lauren's account on Instagram and had messaged Gill to say you need to follow this account and think she'd make a lovely guest as she has simialr beliefs and values to us.  Lauren's ethos is to 'use what the earth already offers rather than taking more from it'. This is very much the ba...

Episode 100!!! Jamie and Gill are shocked to have reached their 100th episode and reflect on how it came about. From Gill spotting a post of a pantomine crocodile on Instagram and then Jamie agreeing to do an episode with Gill on her 'GilHB and Friends' podcast to starting Heads & Dovetails. They chat about how did they get to 100 episodes! They decide it all boiled down to consistency. They'd tri...

Gill had a branch snap on a tree, not completely but was overhanging the lane, so it needed to be removed before it fell onto someone. She tells Jamie the fun and games she and Clive had trying to remove it whilst cars waited. Jamie has also seen several trees with snapped branches. They chat about how many trees they have seen recently where . what appear to be healthy branches, have snapped off....

Gill explains that a few months ago they have moved away from using tea bags, because of the chemicals contained in the bags, back to using loose tea. Apart from the tea tasting so much better and them actaully needing to use less she was interested to see if there was a difference in price. On comparing the prices per 100g there was a marked differnce with loose tea being cheaper. Jamie had liste...

Jamie is tired of people being given a range of 'labels' even when not officially diagnosed as an example how somebody wanting to be organised or liking things to be tidy is suddenly seen as being OCD. Jamie has various examples and he and Gill chat about both the positives and negatives of people being labelled and the role of 'Dr Google' in self diagnosis. They questions when did the use of labe...

Gill and Jamie are joined in this episode by an octogenarian author, John Uttley who has written his 4th and what he says, being realistic about his age and a recent health concern, is his final book.  Originally from a working class family in Lancashire John went on to study at Oxford and had a career in what was orignally the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board) and when privatised he wor...

Jamie is being badly bitten by something up his garden unlike previous years and asks Gill if she gets bitten more now than a few years ago as he has a theory.  Gill says she only has to walk outside and she gets bitten even through jeans, hence she never wears shorts or dresses! She reacts badly to bites with them itching constantly and they become swollen and red for days - she still has the sca...

Following on from the last episode Jamie and Gill chat a bit more about EV's and the problems they've come across in last couple of weeks. Jamie had an incicent with a student and when Gill was in Lyme Regis with Clive she saw an 'exchange' between 2 car owners - one in the charging space and one waiting to charge. It did raise more questions about owning an EV car.  Gill's husband had suggested t...

In this episode Jamie and Gill are joined by a guest Andy Leech, founder of Fleet Evolution (EV cars). Andy is a horse lover and somehow very early on in the podcast they start talking about horse s**t and the furore it can cause in a community. There are people who think owners and riders should clear up their horses mess the same as dog owners are meant to, Jamie of course is a dog owner. They c...

Of course with the recent heat wave Jamier and Gill have to talk about the weather! Jamie says that somehow he has been very productive doing little jobs on his list including lots of sewing. With the hot weather Gill's been busy washing everything like the sofa cushion covers, the mattress topper and getting them all dry in the sun. Letting nature do its work rather than dry cleaning! Jamie confe...

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...

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. ...

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...

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 list...

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...

How far would you travel to see a professional you trusted? Jamie has broken a tooth and doesn't trust the dentists local to him but has located his old dentist and is happy to travel to herknowing how skillful she is.  Jamie and Gill chat about skills and how good it is when someone you are teaching reaches a certain skill level or as a learner you feel you reach a certain level and ready to move...

Jamie and Gill talk chat about how they get ourselves into things without meaning to?! Gill explains that she's found herself running a willow obelisk workshop for her village 'allotmenteers' having been asked by her neighbour but didn't think she'd actually said yes so not quite sure how it happened. Gill describes what is involved in preparing for the workshop especially when you don't have the...

Jamie and Gill have both been busy in the garden. Gill has been clearing their wild flowers area in the garden which has became overgrown with deep rooted plants like: nettles, cleavers and dock leaves whilst the clay soil is wet enough to get them out. Jamie has been busy removing ivy covering a tree at the end of his garden.  The mention of ivy leads Gill to talk about making laundry liquid from...

 Gill starts the episode by sharing a piece that her friend Justin Buckthorp posted on how our fitness regimes change as we age and for good reason. What we could do at 25 and get away with we can no longer do at 45 and for good reason.  Jamie and Gill chat about how health, for them, has become the number one driver as they age. They very much think about and are far more aware of what they do, h...

Jamie and Gill thought they'd see if they could have 2  random topics to talk about and if they could somehow get from one topic to the other linking them together. They both agreed that being typically British they had to talk about the weather and Jamie had said he wanted to talk about smoking - well giving up. The challenge was set!  They started, as agreed, with the amount of rain everyone has...

Back to talking about AI again.  Jamie tells Gill about his use of ChatGPT and what he sees as the positives to for a one man business. It's helped him with his YouTube videos and to be more eloquent when messaging an ill friend when he didn't know what to say in his message. Whilst Gill can absolutely see the benefits of AI in lots of areas she share her concerns around AI, including environmenta...

A new year and episode 80 of our podcast! Gill wishes Jame Happy New Year but wants to know when do we stop saying Happy New Year to people?!  They chat about family adaptability over the festive season and how that changes over the years esepcially as the family grow up. Somehow this leads to Jamie saying he has had to contend with snow and ice going up a hill. He tells of how he managed to get a...

It's Christmas this week Jamie and Gill decide to  chat about their memories of Christmas past and how we've changed how we feel about it now. Gill can remember lots of her family traditions based around Christmas including the last one she had with her Dad before he died in the January.  Jamie admits he struggles to remember anything of his childhood Christmases other than his Action man tank whi...

This episode it's Jamie's turn to sound sexy as he's got a sore throat!  Apart from his sore throat he's really happy as he's sold the crocodile that the made a couple of years ago for a panto. (Look at his video of it on his YouTube channel The Worcestershire Cabinet Maker). He could have sold it for a lot more, as one person told him, but he is happy with the price and explains that he found a b...

Gill and Jamie chat about why, after some research, they've decided to stop posting their  podcast (and Gill her other podcast too) onto Spotify. Spotify are getting wealthier by the day and the average creator is struggling with musicians getting between £0.0024 and £0.004 per download. With the introduction of AI being able to use any content on the platform creators will end up becoming obsolet...