Heads & Dovetails

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...

Following an observation from Gill's husband on last week's episode she apologises to Jamie  for talking so much at the start of the last episode. In her defence she says she was praising Jamie about his skills.  Talking of skills Jamie is a bit 'miffed' as he was asked to become involved with a tree removal at a local church. He was asked to use his skills to make some things, stool, benches etc....

Gill has lost her voice with the dreaded lurgi that everyone seems to be getting but Jamie thinks it makes her sound sexy!  Gill starts this episode by giving a shout out to Jamie and his expertise as she wanted a particular sign for a present - Mary Poppins Patio, and knew just the man to make it for her! She explains the reason behind it in the podcast and how people don't see the expertise and...

With it being cancer awareness month Gill questions are companies simply doing, what she's calling, 'pink-washing' similar to 'green-washing' the public? Jamie and Gill discuss the irony of companies going pink, printing pink ribbons on their packaging to promote cancer awareness month when those same companies use known carcinogenic chemicals in their products! How can that be right? They chat ab...

A cough from Gill at the start of the recording opens up a discussion about editing both this podcast and Jamie's videos. That discussion then leads into talking about being authentic and how people seem to be slowly returning to a need to see what is actually real rather than acted 'reels' on IG. Gill wants to talk about a particular topic to do with sustainability, which in part has come from th...

It seems Gill's turned into an Agony Aunt for Jamie in this episode! Jamie had several things, problems he wanted to ask Gill about to see if she could help him work out what was going on in his brain!  They talk about the possible reasons for Jamie's washing up obsession and how he's been training not only his brain but his family! His family are now expecting him to do certain tasks - Dad's jobs...

Jamie has been pondering on the chat he and Gill had in episode 69 about ironing and had an 'Aha' moment about why he doesn't iron his shirts. He realises it goes back to his days of working on boats and having to be in meetings with management one minute whilst also working on boats the next. An unironed shirt seemed to cover both situations well - smart enough for a meeting but not too smart to...

Jamie had sent Gill a link about Freud versus Adler and had society been following the wrong theory? They chat about the differences in approach to helping people - Freud looking back to childhood traumas and Adler looking forward. After chatting about the various types of therapy they both decide they're more in the Adler camp but recognise that what works for one person may not work for another....

Jamie and Gill wanted to start the episode by giving a big shout out and dedicate this episode to Alex Holden https://www.holdenconcertinas.com/ for no other reason than they found out he has listened to every single one of their episodes! If you are a maker, listened to our podcast and would like a mention let us know.  Gill had a couple of big questions for Jamie as part of her 'research': Did J...

This may sound like a dark episode but it really isn't, it's more about taking stock of your life and who you are. Gill and Jamie define the difference between an obituary (the written word usually in a newspaper announcing someones death with a bit about their life) and a eulogy (usually spoken at a funeral / memorial service about someone's life but can be written down). Jamie had read an articl...