BEWARE: Crash photos....

What an interesting morning. First up I had to be at work at 9.00am, and for those of you who don't know me I work for the New Zealand Army, I put together a small community newspaper for the Army Camp here in Palmerston North. As I am it, I do everything, from taking the pics, writing the articles, thru to design and layout ready for printing.

This morning the local police held an exercise in camp for the benefit of local teenagers who have been convicted of drink driving or other serious driving offences. Apparently this is a new programme which has only been run once before here in Palmy. The teenagers are subjected to a range of experiences over 2 days, starting with a trip to the morgue. So, they happened to be driving round camp and came across a mock accident involving 2 cars, both cars contained young guys who were driving while under the influence of alcohol. Shortly after the teenagers arrived at the scene, the fire fighters and ambulance arrived. They arrived to find 2 occupants alive but suffering serious injuries, and the driver of one car dead. Although I have seen these exercises a number of times during my time at the camp, I could tell that some of these kids at least would remember what they had stumbled on. After the 2 injured guys had been bundled into the ambulance, the funeral director/undertaker arrived and loaded the "dead" body into the hearse.

The police officer who was in charge was telling me that a nearby city has been running this same programme for 3 years and they have 100% success rate! Not one of the teenagers who attended their course ever re-offended! Palmy held their first course last year, 20 teenagers attended it, and not one of them has re-offended as yet either.

I was very impressed. I hope that what they see helps to turn their lives around.

The top photo is the mock crash scene, the bottom pic is the firefighters dealing with the removal of bodies from the car. The guy with his head out the window covered in paint should be in the movies, he played the part real well. All 3 of the guys in the cars were soldiers, the fire fighters were also all soldiers, but were volunteer firefighters.

Then it was a trip into town to find some fabric to make a couple of bookmarks for another swap. I want to use fabric that is New Zealand related, so hope they don't look too boring! Mmmmm, might need to add some embellishments.......

And speaking of embellishments, last night I treated myself to a night of bead making for a swap with Fibre Art Traders. These beads were lots of fun to make and very effective, although I think I'll probably use them as embellishments on things rather than the tradition bead. However, what cool embellishments!!

Some I made from rolling tyvek round an old knitting needle, then painting them with a mixture of glue and paint, then applying some embossing enamel and zapping them with the heat gun. The other lot were made with some silk carrier rods which I had bought some time ago and had no idea what I would use them for! (Am I the only one who buys stuff cos it's way cool and think sometime, one day, I'll need this????) So I snipped them up rolled them round a needle and them put some thread and wire round them. I am pleased with the colours, and think now that I wouldn't mind making a few more!!