| Jamaican room with a view
Like most people, I have always associated the British-born raconteur with his plays such as Private Lives, Easy Virtue and Blithe Spirit, though he was also a talented and well known actor and songwriter. I had no idea he liked to paint, until a visit to his former hilltop retreat on the northeast coast of Jamaica. His small art studio is the first place you see on a tour of the home, which has been open to the public since 1995. There are old tubes of paint, an easel and a few of his colourful canvases of local scenes. Many more paintings of all sizes adorn the walls in other rooms. Coward spent three to six months a year at Firefly from 1956 until his death in 1973. By the time he arrived in Jamaica, his most creative years were behind him, though he did write at least three works here including a comedy, South Sea Bubble, a musical, Ace Of Clubs, and a novel, Pomp And Circumstance.
A weekend of dogsledding and fun
There is a lot of hype building in the biggest little town for its biggest winter weekend extravaganza: the annual Kearney Dog Sled Races. After much planning, organizer Christine Perry reports that everything is falling into place even though she and fellow organizer Lisa Houliston are "very busy, and getting busier as it gets closer." The races, held from this Friday to Sunday, are chock full of not only exciting dogsled action, but events for young and old alike. The weekend kicks off with a community bonfire and family skating at Kearney's Lions Park at 7 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday, a buffet breakfast will be served at the Kearney Community Centre (KCC) from 7:30 to 10 a.m. Opening ceremonies are at 8:45 a.m. The 40-mile race starts at 10 a.m., the four-mile race starts at 11 a.m., the six-mile race starts at 1 p.m.
Mt. Vernon Township Trustee sentenced to home confinement
A former Mt. Vernon township trustee has been sentenced for stealing from a Jefferson County home. Craig Chapman will face 60 days of home confinement and 30 months probation after being convicted of criminal trespass and residential burglary charges In April, 2004, Karen and Gary Simmons said they caught Chapman trying to steal antiques stored in their home. They caught Chapman in the act by setting up a makeshift burglar alarm by spreading the floor with flour to capture his footprints. .
Earni Young | Lots of condos to suit your needs
NEW CONDOS IN Center City and Manayunk are nothing new. It is new, however, to find this trendy product in West Mount Airy. It's even more of an oddity on Germantown Avenue. Mt. Airy USA held an open house at Winston Commons (http://www.winstoncommons.com), on Germantown Avenue at Phil Elena Street, recently to show off the buildings - five two-bedroom, two-bath and a single one-bedroom, one-bath unit - for the first time. The condo project has been at least four years in the making. It's no easy feat for a non-profit community development corporation to round up $4 million in financing for a purely market-rate project. Mt. Airy USA executive director Farah Jimenez gathered a veritable village of financial sources to back her plan to convert the historic Victorian building into a mix of residential and retail.
ASK MARTHA
Dear Martha: Do I need special lights to keep my houseplants healthy in winter? A: This is a good idea. To understand why, it helps to know a little about how light works. All light contains a spectrum of colors, ranging from red to violet and beyond. Blue light fosters growth and photosynthesis, and red encourages flowering; both are vital to keep plants green and robust. Although daylight is composed of all the colors in the spectrum, most incandescent bulbs -- the kind typically used in the home -- provide lots of light from the red end but very little from the blue. What's more, about 70 percent of the energy that it takes to run these bulbs is converted to heat, not light. If you place them too close to plants (within a few feet) they can burn the leaves and dry out the soil; move them too far away, and the intensity of light is too low to benefit plant health.
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