Akers &

[akersand]

Chorlton // Wishing Tree

In June we had a trip to Harlech during the Jubilee Weekend and visited Portmerion (famous for the Prisoner).

Whilst wandering through the amazing gardens packed with exotic plants and trees we came across this:

Hammered into the stumps were a variety of coins, I remembered reading about Wishing Trees in the past so it was nice to see them in the flesh. We added our own and made our wishes.

Information on the Portmerion Wishing Trees via BBC:

Meurig Jones, an estate manager at the tourist destination, told the BBC: 'We had no idea why it was being done when we first noticed the tree trunk was being filled with coins.

'I did some detective work and discovered that trees were sometimes used as "wishing trees" .

'In Britain it dates back to the 1700s - there is one tree in Scotland somewhere which apparently has a florin stuck into it.'

He said that a sick person could press a coin into a tree and their illness would go away. 

'If someone then takes the coin out though, it's said they then become ill.'

'We haven't publicised it at all, it's just happened,' he added. 'It's quite amazing really.'

In Scotland, there is also a legend about a kissing tree. If a young man could drive a nail into a tree with one blow, he earned a kiss from his sweetheart.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-14464862

I really liked the history and magic around this ritual so decided Chorlton needed it's very own. One early morning I jumped on my bike with a bag of coins and went on the hunt for the right stump...

After a while whizzing up and down the Chorlton woods off Beech Road I came across this newly fallen beauty:

Wish my bag of coins and a rock I spent a good half hour hammering in a multitude of wishes to get the ball rolling. (In true English style the passers-by and dog walkers didn't enquire as to what I was up to).

So there we have it, Chorlton's very own Wishing Tree (in a secret location you'll have to uncover yourself). I left behind a few rocks for people to add their own wishes in the future.

Hopeully they will all come true.

P.S. This may not be the only stump I worked on...

[akersand]

Chorlton // Open & Closed

As I continue to do a little more research for my Digital Chorlton project i've decided to add an additional element to the website: As users hover over the shops they can see the shop in it's closed state.

To do this i'm going to create each shop as a sprite PNG file and use CSS to switch it's current state. This not only speeds up the loading of the page but also removes and "flicker" as the rollover image gets loaded.

Here's how Dulcimer will look:

To achieve this I will use the following code:

.dulcimer {background: url(http://i.chorlton.me/dulcimer.png) 0 -145px;}

.dulcimer:hover {background: url(http://i.chorlton.me/dulcimer.png) 0 0;}

Now if I can make this happen automatically when night time falls that would be fantastic. Or, taking it further, have the shops open and close in real time.

Time to figure out how to do this methinks...

[akersand]

Chorlton // Hover state

I've had a thought...

How about when you hover over the business you get to see what it looks like when it is closed? The benefit of the website is to allow people to instantly recognise a place without knowing the name, this gives an additional level of recognition.

I've tried this out on Proof and it looks good:

Going forward I will create two versions of each business; one opened, one closed.

[akersand]

Chorlton // Tea Hive

The next addition to the Chorlton project is the lovely Tea Hive.

I went here recently and had their "afternoon tea" which consisted of 3 types of sandwiches, 4 different cakes, 2 scones and a pot of tea of our choice. All for £14.95, bargain!

From the outside it is quite basic so i'm going to see how I can add the plants, chairs and teapots somehow. Additionally there's a canopy that's extended in the day so it would be good to show this also.

[akersand]

Chorlton // Azad Manzil

The first digitised shop/bar/restaurant I created was of Azad Manzil. I went on my birthday last December and after the owner, Babu, plied me with 3 shots of Flaming Sambuka we started chatting about how important it was he had a website set up as he was missing out on an important communication channel with his customers. I've actually done it (http://www.azadmanzil.co.uk if you are interested*) and it is this that spurred the whole Chorlton project.

As there was no logo available online I traced it in photoshop using a google street view image. It was at this point I decided to trace the rest of the shop and out popped this:

Quite nice I thought, so following my usual trend of going off at a tangent I tried it on another familiar Chorlton location, Proof:

Very nice I thought, imagine a website with all the independent Chorlton Bars, Restaurants and Shops...

I've just set myself a mammoth challenge.

Ground Rules:

Independent business only (sorry Dixie Chicken!)

Image dimensions are 200x145px or 400x145px depending on the physical business size

Link to each businesses online presence (include opening hours, twitter?)

To maximise it's potential through further developments and collaboration

There's no time limit on this so i'm going to make additions whenever I can. If you have any comments or suggestions please email me via: [email protected]

James

*I actually need to tell Babu that he's now got a website as he's currently unaware.

[akersand]

Chorlton

After living in Chorlton for the past 4 years I have come to thoroughly appreciate it's wonderful range of independent shops, bars, restaurants and the people who reside here.

Although I have created websites and had minor dabblings with coding in the past it was always self taught and intermittent. In January of this year my job role changed to be Digitally focussed which has allowed me to immerse myself in learning new abilities on a full time basis, which ultimately and most importantly, I love.

So here is where Project: Chorlton starts.

How do I combine Chorlton with my new digital skills? By creating a Digital Chorlton of course!

Let the fun commence...