Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Monday night

Oh the joys of wet weather. I’ve just come back indoors from my second snail hunt of the evening (after dipping my new mandrels first that is). The first one reaped about 15 – 20 and the second one 15 more. As I said in a previous post I really dislike killing garden or house pests, but when it comes to my Hostas (which I adore), it is the Hostas that win every time. I see it as a service to the birds, I’d rather squish them (or get Rick to squish them) so the birds can eat them, than use slug pellets which do a great job but can harm the other animals if they then eat the snails. I must say that I’ve found it even harder to squish them since I used to watch the kids programme ‘Snailsbury Tails’ (which I also like…..but not as much as Hostas).

If only they would munch the plants you don’t want in the garden, like the weeds. I almost felt like putting them all amongst the Ground Elder, which has come back yet again (am I surprised?). They could be a new type of weed control, people might buy them by the bucket load for keeping their weeds at bay. Maybe I should put some up for sale on my website?

All this reminds me of when I stayed in France as an eleven year old with a French family. We came home from a wet day out, the kids excited that it had been raining and we tore around the garden collecting snails, and carefully putting them in a bucket. When Francine, my host announced we were having Les Escargots for dinner I nearly heaved! I think we may have had steak that night instead.

Sunday night/Monday morning

Hi there, just thought I’d pop in and say hi before I trot off to bed (after I’ve tidied the kitchen and stuff). I survived the week, just, lots of late nights (2am) getting ready for the Open Houses in Worthing, and Barton Beading day (that was today). I had a lovely afternoon at our private view in Sheilas house in Worthing, (address No. 9 and on the events page) and took time out to chat with the other exhibiting artists and admire their lovely work. Sheila has a lovely ecclectic mix of styles of work displayed in her house, but I suppose the thing that links all of it together is the amount of colour that we all use, most pieces are very colourful, from patchwork to papermache, and resin jewellery to lively cat paintings. The walls are covered in beautiful paintings, pieces of decorated driftwood, colourful crochet scarves, silk paintings, hats, bags and there is also rumered to be a cabinet full of glass jewellery by me. I even treated me to a wonderful garden sculpture based on the idea of the faces at Easter Island, now I have to tart up the garden so it looks fabulous in it.

Gotta go and get some zzzz’s in…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz