Not-stagram 05/07/2021-12/07/2021

L: First up, this week we went to Happy Earth Place, which is a low/zero waste shop in Dunfermline, only a short hop up from where we live on the Fife Coast. Sourcing low waste stuff is harder here than when we lived in Edinburgh, and so we were really pleased to see this place open, and go in and chat with Claire the owner who was super welcoming and friendly and happy to chat. The place was spotless, a lot of care had been taken with storage and hygiene and everything. We got some seeds and a couple of toiletry bits to try, including some bath melts as a treat.

L: Abi and I have been together for 7 years! We met on OkCupid, and never really looked back. As a wee celebration, we treated each other to a meal out at Sora Lella, which is an amazing Roman Vegan resturant in Tolcross, Edinburgh. Weirdly, it was also where we went for my birthday meal at the start of March 2020, so it was strange going back after a year and a bit in which everything has changed. The food was delicious, and plentiful, and as you can see from my placemat (I had the gnocchi) I have forgotten how to eat out and spilt food and water everywhere.

L: Another highlight of our wee weekend in Edinburgh was hanging out with our pals cats Ghillie and Arwen (and our pals too obviously). I got an early morning cuddle from ghillie which was probably the happiest I have been in months. As you can see I’m a natural cat photographer.

A: I’d like to point out the sheer joy of hanging out with likeminded friends. I was super nervous about getting back to normal and my ability to socialise for more than an hour, but we had an awesome time and I’m feeling a bit more hopeful about seeing other people now!

L: I also finally got to go to Little Fitzroy which totally lives up the hype, and I may have bought some club mate which is dangerousss for me lol NO REGRETS.

L: Uncharacteristically I actually managed to like… make some zine pages this week which was…unexpected? I’ve been in a bit of a rut recently with the pressure of everything, so it was nice to do some linoprinting and also to make this page during a digital cut and paste workshop I was faciliating for the Fish Factory School of Fish. If anyone wants me to run a digital cut and paste: using online archival collections to make digital zines workshop then hit me up (but also pay me).

A: I too have managed some art this week! I am very excited to show the world, but it is first going to go out to our patreons. It is the first art I’ve managed to make in a long long time and I’m wondering how much taking the focus away from social media has had to play in my ability to create?

L: Finally, exciting newssss…. we’ve got some of our campfire recipes in this months Vegan Food and Living – ignoring the fact their choice of stock image is two thin and I would assume cishet campers this is very exciting and the process of writing up the recipes and taking photos of them was really fun! Would definitely do this again (is there a Gears for Queers cook book on the cards….? if there was would you read it?)

A: Finally, I’ve been updating bits of our website, so if you go to our zines page you can now see our whole zine back catalogue and buy some of them on our bigcartel!