Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Wednesday evening

So much is happening at the moment, I don’t seem to be able to squeeze in blog time. I went on a fabby course this weekend gone, at Creative Glass in Medway, Kent. We were tutored by Gail Crossman Moore, a renowned glass artist who works mainly in borosilicate glass, and so the course was all about this type of glass, one that I haven’t even dared try to use before. It was very informative and lots of fun, especially as we turned out to be a very small select group of 5 including Gail, 2 students having bailed out just prior to the course. Gail gave us a really solid grounding in using boro, teaching us about the metals used to make the colours, and good colour combinations, and how to vary the effects.  We also had the added bonus of making a felt bead, that was fun. I feel so fired up by what I’ve done, and can’t wait to get my beads that I had to leave there from the second day. I was also very pleased that we all went out for dinner on the Saturday evening (this is something that doesn’t normally happen unfortunately) and the added bonus was Rick and our daughter being with us too as they’d driven to Kent to collect me (still only 1 car). The only down side is that I now am bursting to go and try what I’ve learnt and can’t because we dismantled my studio yesterday.

Oh yes, it’s all in pieces, and all my equipment is in the garage or scattered around the lounge floor. Oh it’s fun to be back in chaos in our house again, not, but it is worth the mess and disruption. It’s amazing how little I can actually do when Rick is working on a project. I seem to spend my whole time troubleshooting and running around buying things we need, or brewing endless mugs of tea, preparing lunch and cooking dinner. I still haven’t managed to do the washing up, but I did actually order a washing machine last night, so that’s another good and necesary job done, just the car to find now! and all the mini problems of landscaping the garden to solve to accomodate the new shed.

Thurs evening

I have a couple of spaces available for beadmaking courses

The first is a space for 1 person on a 1 day beginners course Thurs 21st May.

The second is suitable for you if you have taken a course but not yet set up your studio, or if you are self taught and want to improve your skills or simply see someone else make beads. The dates for this 2 day refresher course are Sat 16th May and Weds 20th May.

See my tuition page for more information and email me now to reserve your place.

Plans are going ahead for my studio refurbishment, or should I say demolition and rebuilding. It’s been a long time coming, we chose a new shed last year, but the weather was soooooo cold in January that I had to put my plans on hold as we were concerned about freezing concrete. I’ve since found out that I don’t need to lay a concrete base, which I’m really happy about as it’s not very green laying masses of uneccesary concrete. I ordered my shed on Monday, with a whole 25% discount, the best I’ve seen for this make, and it should be here in 2 to 4 weeks. In the meantime we will be packing up the studio on Monday and dismantling it, then lifting the old slabs, cutting away the lawn to make space for the extra 2 foot width and hauling the sleepers along before laying the base. There’s so much to do but I’ve decided to deal with each stage about a week before it’s due to happen. I can’t be doing with sourcing everything right now as I have an urge to make as many beads as I can before I see my studio collapse.

So what about our fabby new car? Oh dear, after masses of agonising on Tuesday we walked away from the deal because the dealer couldn’t locate the Service History. To say we were gutted would be an understatement, but the saying ‘that you get what you pay for’, and ‘some things are too good to be true’ are spot on. It was such a good deal, very new second hand car with a low mileage and a high specification that was 1K less than it should have been.  So now the hunt continues, although I think we’ve narrowed down the choice of cars, so could possibly task a garage with the fun of tracking down our ideal car.

Saturday night

What a roller-coaster of a day! I decided yesterday, that today would be the day we buy a car, and it was, at last. We’ve only been looking for about 2 months (yep, it really is that long), and I realised that what we have been waiting for will never come, that is basically a car with enough wellie to tow a small caravan (oh the shame), with a lowish mileage, in good condition and at a cheap enough price. Well, I got fed up of dodging the flying pigs so today we went to see the 4 cars that we’d earmarked as real possibles. After finding that 2 of them had been sold this morning (out of the hundreds of cars they hold at Jeffries Farm – how is that possible?) and dismissing the 3rd as in poor condition, we headed on over to an independant dealer to view the 4th car on the list. Oh what joy, fantastic condition, nearly top of the range but not with the price tag to reflect that, especially compared to all the other tat we’ve seen (and yes, I do mean ‘other tat’ not ‘others that’). So……the deal is done, and we can finally say that we’ve come of age because we’ve bought a proper all-growed-up car rather than an old banger kindly offered to us by friends.

It was all rather exciting today, however the dampers were chucked on us when we got home as my computer crashed yet again in Firefox, and it turned out to be a nasty virus that I somehow caught somewhere. Fortunately my genius of a hubby, my uber cybergeek extraordinaire (otherwise known as CE or should that now be UCE?) has managed to sort it, obviously, or I wouldn’t be sat here blig bloging. I was starting to think that my poor little pooter had come to the end of it’s silicon life and was preparing to meet it’s chippy maker in the sky, and that we would have to fork out for another lip lappy top, in addition to the car (which we’ve just bought) and the washing machine that we haven’t ordered yet. Phew, thank you Dickie!

And so the perfect end to this unusual (yer, different…(See Kath & Kim)) day was watching the fabulous Annie Lennox singing with the BBC concert orchestra on BBC1. Pure class. I can go to sleep a happy woman. Night all.

Thursday morning

What a gorgeous morning, again. I can’t wait to get out there and into my studio to enjoy making my handmade glass beads in the spring fresh air (7 deg C today). I seem to be waking up a bit better in the mornings now, this may be due to the earlier sunrise but Rick thinks it’s the start of my regular brisk walk, either way I’m feeling happier about not sleeping so much and having a bit more energy. Of course the other option could be the effect of Paul McKenna’s CD that I’ve started to listen to more regularly, after all he does say I will start to have more energy and that my ‘metabolic rate will increase now’. I always go tingly all over after that phrase. The other night I thought it would be relaxing to listen in bed before I went to sleep as he gets you completely relaxed, but it wasn’t a good idea as when it finished I felt really (and I mean REALLY) fidgety and awake even though I was mentally tired.

In my quest to walk regularly we went to the local shops and back yesterday for the first time ever since we moved here 9 years ago. I Googled it first to see how far it was and found that it was a weeny bit less than twice around the block, so that was it, we donned our rucksacks and headed for our local Co-op to buy 6 pints of milk,  some fruit and carrots (yep, all the heavy stuff) and walked home with it all. Now this may not sound very major to you, but for me it’s a breakthrough. I was very surprised at how close the shops were, only 10 minutes brisk walk, and will definately be doing this regularly, if not all the time, especially when I need to post out your bead orders. We’d always gone in the car as I though it was further than it really is. I must admit to being a bit niggled that I hadn’t realised just how close it was as I would have walked there during my recouperation instead of going around the block and exploring all the little side roads, although that was interesting, lol.

So now I have to make sure I do this regularly, and that I gradually increase the number and length of my walks until I can do 3 miles comfortably. I don’t believe this will be a problem now I know how far the shop is, as we often go there for milk, and I can stop by on my way home if I plan my routes well. I don’t want you to think I never walked at all since my op, but it has been only when I’m out for the day (which is not very often), for example we’ll walk from the top of the North Lanes in Brighton to the seafront and back when we go there, but it’s normally done over the course of several hours, wandering slowly from shop to shop.

Tuesday morning

It’s time for me to start getting fit at last. After 15 years of virtual inactivity I’ve decided the time is right to get into shape, and what better way (and cheap)to do that than walking. Last year many of my friends did the Midnight walk for our local St Catherine’s Hospice, and my dream last year was to be able to join in this year if my new hip was up to it, but I haven’t done any training and feel that 13 miles may be too far at this stage, especially at night. So I’ve decided to try walking the Race for Life which is 5 kilometres and will give me a real reason to make sure I start walking seriously and regularly, and to steadily increase my distance.

So yesterday my daughter and I started our new regime of taking a brisk walk after school once the parents and toddlers were all out of the way. Not having a pedometer yet I endeavoured to count all my steps around the block and was pleased to find it is 1300, so twice around the block which we did yesterday was 2600, more than achieving my first goal of increasing my daily step count by 2000 steps. I think I must have had a serious look on my face as I walked as fast as I could counting all the time, while my daughter scooted on ahead.

I love walking so much, and have really missed not being able to go on rambles, brisk walks, or even short walks on holiday. I’m not really one for exercise, and the thought of going to the gym makes me shudder, but this I can do, and I’m so happy to be able to once again. I think this is what makes me want to walk for charity all the more, because I can now and am so grateful and still amazed that I’m so much better than I ever thought I would be. I seriously had no idea that having my hip replaced would get me back to my former self. I was just resigned to the thought that I’d always need my stick, I really wish someone had told me I wouldn’t need it and that I’d get my life back, as I would have had this done ages ago. Anyway, I’m digressing. Now all I need to do is try to go out for a walk at least 3 times a week, preferably everyday.

I’ve been having a quick look on t’internet for pedometers, and have browsed some interesting websites, but it’s so offputting! I found this chart that shows how much excercise you need to do to burn off certain foods and calories, and I have to say it’s really demoralising. I think it’s supposed to encourage, but frankly it all looks like such hard work. I’d much rather spend time listening to Paul McKennas CD again, I think I’ll stick to his thoughts of ‘moving my body more to supecharge my metabolism so I burn calories faster even while I sleep’, yep, that sounds like a plan to me! Sleeping and weightloss!

Monday morning

Last week it was the boiler, which fortunately only needed a minor overhaul including it’s overdue service, this week it’s the washing machine, gahhhhh, and just when I was getting Mount Washpile under control. I suppose I should be glad that we don’t have various foothills already, but it won’t be long, and at least we have clean bedding already. I’m so good at shoving the changed stuff in the cupboard with the rest of the 60 deg wash items, that this year (again another resolution) I decided that I’d try to wash it the day after it comes off the bed. It hasn’t been the day after but within a few days, so I see this as positive improvement. So what about the machine? I really don’t know, it’s coming up for 13 years old, so hasn’t done too badly, but to repair or buy a new one? We’ll just add that to the list of other bits that don’t work in our house, like the shower (it’s OK we do wash, just have to use the cheap hose on the bath taps) and the cooker hood, which has this really flimsy plastic flange that snapped off and is part of the switch ….very poor design.

It’s finding time to look which could be tricky, as we can’t really hang around with this one, especially as I hate launderettes. This could be partly to do with the occasion as a student when every time I removed a pair of knickers from the washing machine and dryer, an old geezer sang ‘la da de da de da’. It obviously amused that pervert, lol. But seriously though, the hire machines just don’t wash very well, and I got really fed with my clothes smelling the same as they did before the whole process, which incidentally I also find very tedious, the fact you get stuck in the lauderette waiting for the washing and drying to be done. I suppose the upside is that you can people watch, but I’d rather be doing that whilst sunning myself on a foreign beach.

Monday tea time

The police were out in force on the M25 today, doing their ‘lets drift along at 60 mph and see if anyone has the guts to overtake us’ thing. I passed (Yes, I have guts) 4 police cars en route today, I have to say I find it rather amusing the way all the speeders don’t even have the guts to legally overtake and go faster than the police. On the subject of cars, the boring search for our Mondeo replacement continues, it’s all getting rather boring now to be honest. We have looked at all sorts of MPVs and chosen a few that would do the job, but now it’s a case of waiting for the right make, model, engine size, age, mileage and of course price. Yawn. I think I know the medium size mpv market inside out now, and have a few favourites, but they’re just not coming up.

Back to Lost again this week, and another good episode aired, in which we found out a little bit more (sort of) about why there are Polar Bears on the island and saw Sawyer smiling a lot. I never knew the guy had dimples. He’s my favourite character, but got a little too neatly shaven in this last episode called ‘LaFleur’, he was also a bit serious. There was lots of going back and forth in 3 year intervals and I can’t wait to see how it all fits in with ‘the future’ since they’re all back in the seventies at the moment.

Thursday morning

Oh I can hardly type, my fingers are starting to seize up I’m getting colder by the hour. What’s occuring? The boiler has gone kaput and not firing, just in time for the cold snap, would you believe. It’s 16 deg C where I’m sitting, maybe not that cold, but when you’re not moving around it seems too chilly. I think I feel the cold, I remember when I was doing my Mechanical Engineering course that we used to go into the Metrology lab which was a completely sealed and air conditioned room kept at 18 deg C and I was always freezing in there. Well it’s colder here right now. The good news is they’re coming tomorrow morning to get it sorted so that will be good. Speaking of temperatures, it was 3 deg in my studio when I popped out a moment ago to fire up the kiln, I know it will warm up when I get in there and switch on the heater and the torch, I think in fact I’m looking forward to getting outside to warm up!

On another note I was so pleased with myself last night I could hardly get to sleep even though I was shattered as usual. Hmmm, how sad, and all over getting my show stuff and our huge cupboard organised. You know how it is, you start off small, then over the years get more equipment for your stall, first the fake shelf, then the lights, then other different sizes and makes of boxes to put jewellery stands and other bits in, and so it goes on over the years (9 of them) just evolving and turning into a total eclectic mishmash of an untidy bunch of boxes that have to be put in all sorts of different places in the cupboard and the car to fit, and that have to be pulled out of the cupboard every time Rick needs something of his. Well no more. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been popping into our local Staples to choose different Really Useful Boxes and see which shape best suits my application and at last I have the problem solved. Last night I knuckled under and we pulled everything out and repacked it, and ta da, what a difference. My gear is now all in one (yes, only one) single very neat stack of boxes all on top of a 35 litre box, and yes, bar 2 boxes they’re all the same footprint. I’ve also worked out how I can replace my sneaky shelf prop tins (4 large Family Circle biscuit tins I had given that took up oodles of space in storage) with the much smaller Pencil boxes also made by Really Useful Products Ltd. these stack and give me 4 different height options whilst also containing my beads for sale, which I obviously have to pull out and put somewhere while I set up my stall, but I have that planned too.

You know whilst all this may sound boring, or exciting if you’re a tidy freek, you may say why didn’t I do this before? But life happens, things change slowly and you don’t necessarily realise things need changing in one go for the better. I only happenend to realise I needed a change a couple of weeks ago when for the umpteenth time poor Rick had to pull everything out and it made a huge mess all over the lounge floor yet again. So there we have it, next time you see us setting up at a bead fair we will have our new minimal sleeker stack of stuff. And hopefully I won’t let lots of other thing gradually change for the worst, we all know what happened about my hips. I shall be trying to keep a closer eye on life.

Tuesday morning

What a wet day, it’s been so dry lately I was almost thinking it was time for Rick to give the lawn it’s first haircut of the year. At least if it’s wet it can’t be so cold as it was a month or so ago, although they are predicting another cold snap for the weekend, which is a bit annoying as I was thinking we could make a start clearing out the garage.

The kiln is on and heating up (8 deg C today in the studio) and I have yet to don my thermals and stuff, although I haven’t need the long johns for a week. In store for today I’m planning to continue making handmade glass beads for my jewellery range ready to make more pieces to top up my Surrey Guild cabinet, and hopefully make a stock of jewellery ready for the forthcoming Open Houses. I’m also starting on my beads for the Dorking bead fair and to put in my webshop. I’m absolutely determined to try and get ahead this year while things are a bit quieter as I hate the stress and last minute rush of preparing for fairs and shows, and I want to try and avoid this as my fairs seem to be at the end of weeks off school and during our summer holiday season, which is rather unfair on our daughter if I have to sit and work when we could be doing fun stuff together at home. How long I’ll stay ahead will be seen, I really hope some other problem doesn’t rear it’s ugly head this year, we could really do with a break from dramas.

On a lighter note I was relly pleased yesterday to actually achieve making almost an inch of a chain linkage that I’ve liked for a long time but never had the time or decent instructions on how to make it. The chain in question is Jen’s Pind and makes a chunky looking but nicely articulated piece. Following the instructions every third link looked wrong, so I undid it and made the links look how I thought they should and hey presto, what a result. I now have to wind and cut more jumprings so I can continue the linkage and make either a necklace or bracelet or both. It really helps to get the ratio of wire diameter to ring diameter  correct, as I had tried it out using cheap wire available that was the wrong ratio and the whole pattern just didn’t work.

Thursday afternoon

Woops, I didn’t mean to leave it that long! It’s officially half term, and as my daughter noted this morning, we’re nearly at the end. I’ve been having this week off work more than a usual half term to keep her company and do things, although to be fair we’ve not not done that much, only several appointments that I lined up for this week, which meant that we’ve spent a couple of afternoons in Horsham, visiting the shops and generally smooching around. We were also due to have a fellow beadmaker around to try one of my torches, but she very unfortunately broke down a few roads away and ended up being towed back home to London. We walked round to see her and took emergency rations of a Kit Kat in case she was hungry, and had a good chat before she left.

So I’m sat here on one of our arm chairs, watching kids TV, next to our daughter, who is sporting her new glasses, well, actually her first ever pair of specs, and they look so cool, she can’t wait to show her friends and really loves them. I would have loved to be able to wear glasses like that as a kid, instead I had the frightfully hideous NHS round wire ones in pale pink to start with, then progressed to the transparent plastic ones with springy ear hooks when they came in. Lovely. I couldnt wait to get contact lenses.

And what’s on? Well, we’ve just finished watching Da Dick and Dom Diaries, a marvelous mix of snipits from their Bungalow series. These 2 blokes are just so funny, and it’s great to watch them at work, they obviously love what they do. I was sad to see D & D in the Bugalow finish, but now we have the splendid Legend of Dick and Dom on in the afternoons, it’s so sureal and very Pythonesque.  I’m a bit of a fan of some childrens TV, we often make time to sit together and watch something that we both like. I’d better go and hang the washing up now. TTFN.

Thursday evening

I have restocked my shop! There are 8 new beautiful sets of beads for you to buy, 4 with a distinct pink Valentines theme going on, especially the dotty heart set. You can email me to buy and I’ll send you a Paypal invoice in return, and the good news is that you don’t need to have a Paypal account to shop this way. I also opened a Flickr account this week and have already started uploading my hugely ginormous back catalogue of sold and unsold bead photos to my album. There’s lots of work to do there as I only have a measly 9 photos in so far, but I may well get his geekness involved in helping me here since he loves doing this sorta thang so much.

As for the photos of snow on my mobile that I was going to upload here on Monday, well, it’s official, it’s not techno-fear. Rick tried for several hours to get them off my phone card but to no avail, they’s really gotten stuck! It would appear to be a problem with Picasa so we now have that to fix also. Honestly there’s so many things here that need doing or fixing, but at least I’m starting to succeed a little way with my new years resolutions, one of those was to update my shop more regularly, and ta da, I’ve done it once this year! Another was to put more photos in my beadlog here, well you can’t say I haven’t tried.  So to make up for the lack of snow pics I’ll stuff in a couple of bead pics instead to give you a taster of what’s new in my shop.

Monday lunchtime

I’m stuck at home, well, not really stuck, but I decided to stay in today instead of venturing around the M25 on this very snowy day. Maybe I would have got to my destination, but would I have made it home again,  especially since traffic has been brought to a standstill today slap bang along the section that I would be coming home along? So I’ve had a leisurely morning, pottering around in my lovely new snugly pink fleece dressing gown (I’m dressed now BTW) and generally getting over the weekend. I have to admit to being rather distracted today, probably because I’m shattered again, and maybe because of the snow. I was expecting to get a call from school to go and collect my daughter, but they’ve obviously got enough teachers in today, what a shame, I think they should have been let off to enjoy the snow! I couldn’t really keep her home because of the weather as we only live 5 minutes walk away, I think they’d have twigged what was going on.

I was about to upload a couple of quick snow snaps but I was challenged by that awful red error box that came up twice as I tried to put them on Picassa, so you’ll have to wait until Rick gets home, so there you will. Also I hope to be updating my shop in the next few days, adding a few Valentine themed beads and some gorgeous blue Double Helix sets. We’re meant to be practising music this evening with some friends, but if the weather gets in the way of this then it may well be sooner rather than later 😉

Thursday morning

There’s good news and bad news…….the good news first…..It seems to be warming up! Yesterday my kiln showed a temperature of 9 deg C when I turned it on at 10am, not bad considering it was a toe freezing minus 1 the other week, and try as I may I just couldn’t work fast, which was bad ‘cos I desperately wanted to go back indoors. The bad news is that they predict cold weather sweeping in from the east, wow, I managed to listen for a couple of seconds to a weather forecast, that’s a first. I’m sure I’ve written about this before, I try so hard to listen to weather forecasts, I really do, I wanna know what’s going on,  but even though I’m stood/sat/balanced on one leg watching and listening intently, I find I only catch the first couple of comments then find myself in a mind stupor watching him/her waving their arms about as if to sing ‘the wheels on the bus, then I awake to the subtitle ‘Thursday PM’ and realise I’ve just missed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday……..for the 1000th time.

So to prepare me for the possible icy gales that will start this afternoon I have stoked my internal boiler and fuelled up on my usual porridge, although this is not just ordinary porridge, this is Sarah Downton’s chocolate porridge. After my fiasco with the cinnamon porridge of a couple of years ago I’ve shied away from spiking my porridge in any but the traditional ways, you know, salt and a bit of sugar, well I always use salt now, but also have it occasionally with little extras like soft dark brown sugar, golden syrup, maple syrup, chocolate sauce  or caramel de leche. Today I felt inspired by Jamie Oliver’s list of porridge variations in his new book, Ministry of Food, and decided to try my hand at my version, but using cocoa powder rather than sacrificing my Divine fair trade chocolate bar and using Nigella’s ‘Chocolate Rice Pudding’ recipe from ‘Feast’ to work out how to do this, after all, cooking dry oats is probably not that different from cooking rice pudding.

Success, it was really yummy, and I have some to put in the fridge for tomorrow as I always do a double batch. It was may not be so sweet as I tried not to overdo the sugar, and maybe not buttery, I’m guessing Jamie’s is buttery from the chocolate bar, but that could be easily tweaked if desired by adding some butter.

here’s my recipe for 2 servings:

1/2 cup rolled oats,  1/2 cup milk,  1 cup water,  1 twist sea salt – my normal recipe but with less salt.

1 tbsp Cocoa powder,  preferably Green and Blacks,  1 1/2 tsp sugar,  1/2 tsp real vanilla extract.

Just bung all these ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil, whisking to disperse the cocoa powder and stop lumps. When the coca is mixed in you can revert to using a wooden spoon, but not one you’ve been using for stir-fries or it will taste of garlic and chocolate (maybe not a bad combo actually). Bring to the boil and simmer for 7 minutes. Serve. Oh yum, you could probably add cream to this at the end if you felt really naughty.

Thirsty te thyme….thes pist has bon majerly edeted ta stip Ricks’ wineghing aboot moy apostrophies ant spoolling….and hear I waz twodai treying to speeed thinks oup bi knot labouriously cheacking evrythong. …tee hee

Monday lunchtime

I’m so tired! I’m supposed to be out today, but didn’t wake up until late and I’m dragging myself around the house like a draggy thing. I really should be taking it easy having worked every evening last week in addition to everyday, and all day and evening Saturday and then at the beadfair yesterday. I also had my accountant round last night (that’s my MIL!) and we went through my tax accounts ready to do the online bit, woo hoo. I was hoping to come home from the fair and put my feet up with a glass of wine but at least the bulk of the tax thang is done now. I’ve been in a haze of tax and beadfair stuff this month, but now I can look forward to planning my new year of work and projects ahead of me, and I may even cook an evening meal or two! The last 2 years have been a bit wierd with health issues happening early in the spring that have knocked us all sideways for the rest of the year, last year was my hip replacement, which took much researching, organisation, and recuperation and the previous year our daughter had serious pneumonia in February with a long stay in hospital and about 4 months off school as she didn’t go back full time until June. Both of these issues put a huge emotional stain on us all, and have seriously reduced my worktime for several months of the last 2 years, so I’m hoping that something else doesn’t happen this year! Although another hip replacement is on the cards, this time for my left hip, but I have no idea when I’ll need that done. I suppose I should be grateful really that I’m not employed full time by someone else, as it would be very hard to cope with all these upheavals if I was having to ask for time off.

Yesterday at Ardingly was another very pleasant day, meeting with other bead enthusiasts and lampworking friends. Even though the fair was relativley quiet compared to the summer one, I saw no evidence of the credit crunch. It was a compact affair on one floor this year, probably because the other half of the traders were at the Hop Farm in Kent for a Gem and Bead fair. Thank you to everyone who came by to say hello and buy my beadies, and thank you for all the lovely compliments, they make the day so special and encourage me to continue making my gems. I hope you all liked my improved packaging and the little extra goody in with your shopping 😉

Wednesday afternoon

nrrrgghhhhhh! I’m feeling swamped! I have paper everywhere, all over my desk and the dining table and in my filing tray and stuffed away in numerous drawers. I try so hard, I really do, but I just can’t keep things tidy, and I really struggle with keeping the piles of paper down and keeping all the odd things in the correct place, I just don’t understand how some people have such immaculate desks, I really don’t get it. I keep so many pieces of paper because if I don’t I forget stuff, then I go and loose the scrap with the information on.  I’ve tried so many things, buying desk tidies, filing trays, folders, pop files, magazine holders…I could go on. These things have helped to an extent, but the mass goes on increasing, as fast if not faster than I can throw stuff away (or rather recycle). At the moment I’m doing my accounts for the year ending April 08, and having the usual struggle of finding and remembering everything I need to find and include, although I should say that so far things are going faily smoothly, I’m just feeling panicked as I empty another drawer full of paper (surprise, surprise). Maybe I need a break, I can’t do this stuff all day, I get bored and then start working slower and loose my attention, then start panicking that I won’t finish fast enough. I have so much to do this month with these accounts and making new stock for the Ardingly bead fair (sunday 25th January), and also fitting in my regular order which seems to be taking twice as long to do at the moment, I think it’s the cold weather and me feeling absolutely shattered from my 1 month cold. I must stop panicking.

Monday morning

It’s back to normality again, at least kind of, because I have my daughter here on an inset day, and I only found out about that by chance after a party she went to yesterday. If it hadn’t been for my friend saying ‘oh you do know it’s an inset day tomorrow’, my poor daughter would have been walking up the school path on her own,wondering where on earth everyone else was, ha ha. I had all sorts of things planned for today, well, I say that, but I was planning to make my weekly 90 beads today, but I’m not really ready, well, I should really say that the studio isn’t, I have to tidy it and remove the 2 spare kilns from the floor and anything else that was shoved there out of the way on Christmas day so we could sit down on chairs instead of kilns to have our festive lunch! I expect there aren’t any mandrels ready either, I think I’ll bring those indoors to dip and dry because it’s a bit white outside with thin patches of snow. There’s nothing more frustrating than going to make beads and finding you have to spend an hour tidying up first.

So we’re having a nice quiet day together today, just me and my daughter, as Rick is back to work after a 2 week break. I may just make the effort to take her into town and get her feet checked while all the other kids are in school, that will save queuing.

Of course this month is also my dreaded month of catching up with my accounts and doing my tax, oh joy of joys. I always dread it but enjoy it when I get going, I just have a real problem making a regular slot to do my bookeeping, there’s always something more urgent needs doing. We were planning to replace the studio this month with a much larger version while I’m indoors doing my accounts, but discussions with the shed suppliers have revealed that I’ll need a concrete base to support the new size and of course it’s been very frosty this winter, so we’re rescheduling this for the Easter break. Also this month is the Beadworks bead fair at Ardingly on the 25th January, so I’ll have to punctuate the month with bead making sessions, what a pity..lol. I’m planning to make more Double Helix beads for sale at this fair, using my new found silvered glass skills, yipee, I can’t wait to get out there and play.

Tuesday afternoon

It came and went! We managed all of our preparations, and a lovely slap up Christmas dinner of turkey and all the trimmings and more was had and enjoyed by all at our house on Christmas day. Apart from all the stress and hard work we had a lovely day, and lots of fun presents. My favourite has to be the cute little fluffy sheep with spindly legs that goes ‘baa’ when you squeeze it. I’m easily pleased. 😉

Boxing Day evening was spent with lots of the in-laws, followed by a quiet Saturday, then I somehow managed to get the winter vomit bug, yipee. Actaully it wasn’t too bad, as I had it at night, and it didn’t last long, it just left me feeling extremely tired and fed up because I couldn’t enjoy any of the lovely food in the house. I’ve also been avoided like a leper by Rick and our daughter, who fortunately haven’t had the joy. I reakon my defences are so low at the moment because of the stupid cold I still have. At least I’ve had lots of much needed rest now and have lost another couple of pounds weight. Oh, did I tell you I’ve been losing weight since last April? Nah, I didn’t because it was too embarrassing and rather personal, and I couldn’t get myself out of it, but to date I’ve now lost nearly 2 and 1/2 stone, so the bug has had some benefit I suppose, and hopefully it has counteracted the effects of all the lovely Christmas food. I had my first taste again of our lovely festive Nigella ham that we cooked last week, and hope to manage a mince pie later maybe? And of course tomorrow is New Years Eve, so seasons greetings and a happy new year to all my readers.

Tuesday morning

Cometh the hour…..oh dear, doesn’t it creep up on you even though you know it’s coming and everything you do and think about is geared to preparations for it? Less than 2 days to go, and I should really be doing some food prep or something rather than blogging, but this is more fun. I’m rather reluctant to be cooking at the moment as my cold is in major full swing, and doesn’t seem to be getting any better at all. I still have achey teeth (I always get that), a painful throat, a throbbing headache, I’m very bunged up with gloop, and my eyes are bloodshot and sticky. Oh doesn’t it sound just lovely! It just doesn’t seem to be easing at all, to the point that I’m considering going to the doctor for some antibionics. Loads of my friends have had all this too, it’s a real sharing cold!

Yesterday I  took my life in my hands and braved the hoards in Sainsbury. I was kind of hoping that it wouldn’t be too busy as there are still another 2 days left to shop for food. I was so wrong, it was awful. There were 2 or 3 people for every normal one shopper with more people shopping anyway, lots of teenagers continually restocking the shelves – this was good but also meant lots of space taken with extra people and a couple of extra stacks of crates in each aisle. It was 10 times worse than Ikea on a Saturday, which I can cope with, but the slow shuffle around and waiting to get to all the shelves was awful. It took me a mamoth 3 1/4 hours to get round as I was buying lots of things I don’t normally, and it took me ages to find everything. I must have bumped about 30 trolleys in the process. I had planned to split the shop into 2 visits but couldn’t face going back again so pressed on and managed to get everything I could possibly need.

I was faced at the end with a whopping parking fee of £50 when I put my card in the slot!  This I was definately not going to pay, as I would have got round in half the time had it been less busy. I had visions of camping in the car park, hoping that the barriers would go up and stay there overnight, alternatively I would ram raid the barriers when no one was looking, I’d have to wait for the queue of cars leaving to die down first. Maybe Rick would have to bring sarnies and a hot flask of tea down to keep me going. How would he get the heavy turkey home? Would it fit on his bike? Fortunately Rick went and questioned the fee, told them to look at the swarms of shoppers, showed them our shopping bill and we got out of it. Phew.

The moral of this story…..Don’t do Christmas…..or if you do…..have beans on toast.

Friday morning

It’s official, I’ve lost my voice….but not the use of my fingers, ha ha. Oh dear, this cold I’ve had for the last 2 1/2 weeks was actually starting to clear up on Wednesday, or so I thought, then my ear bunged up, my throat started hurting and I’m full of yuk. I’ve had earache for the last 36 hours (I thought only school kids got that) and today I woke up and for the first time in my life I can’t speak…hurrah said Rick…..and my daughter came in our bedroom just to say hello and laugh at my response. huh. Honestly, my family, what are they like???? lol.

Needless to say all this illness is putting a bit of a strain on my efforts to sort Christmas for us. Rick said last night that we weren’t organised, I think we are, we just haven’t finished everything we need to do! I mean, what does ‘being organised’ mean?  Lots of people smugly ask if I’m organised, now do they mean ‘Have you done everything?’ or ‘Is everything going to your plan for preparing for Christmas?’. I have to admit to always thinking I’m not organised because everything’s not done, but actually last night I realised that I am actually organised, I just haven’t done everything yet, but it’s all going to plan….except for the Christmas cards which I haven’t started yet, cos I’m too tired in the evening due to my cold. I know what we need to do each day, and have planned the jobs for each day next week. I also cunningly wrote down lots of notes about how we cooked Christmas dinner 2 years ago, you know, stuff like how many veg to do and about not cooking it to perfection………did you know if you put perfect cooked veg in a covered dish they keep on steaming and get soggy? what time things came out of the oven, and even what dishes we used to serve them. I know it may sound over the top, but the thought of having to learn it all again another year sent shivers down my spine, so I wrote as many notes as I could after the last event, and I have to say it’s already made me feel more on top of things.

Well, as nice as it is talking to you guys, I must stop procrastinating and get on with my list of jobs for the day. I hope your plans go well.

Thursday lunchtime

At last, I have restocked my shop with some of my handmade glass beads, and I hope to add some jewellery later to the jewellery and pendants sections. Please do go and take a look see. To order just drop me an email and I’ll send a Paypal request unless you tell me otherwise.

2 deg C, that’s what it was in my studio yesterday, brrrrr, and it was soooo cold that I decided to have the heater up full blast.  That was a huge mistake, as halfway through my session something went click and I was plunged into darkness and silence as the light went off and my radio, oxygen concentrator and fan heater came to an abrupt stop. Oh dear, my first thought was that we had just had a power cut, but a quick whizz up to the house to inspect the many clocks and appliances told me otherwise. An hour later and I had pulled myself together and found the blown fuse in my new Wattmeter, removed it from the circuit and managed to have lunch too.

So today, I just can’t bear to be outside again, its been really cold this week, and even with my thermals head to toe I’ve been feeling it. Let’s hope it warms up a bit next week, a bit of rain would help……tee hee. I’m hoping to make some icicles (glass ones, not ice ones, I know I’ve been complaining about the cold snap), some big holed beads for my lovely Pandora bracelet that Rick gave me for my birthday (which reminds me I need to order some larger silver tubing), and some whopper beads to adorn some of the many beadable winestoppers I had Rick bring back from the States in October.  I’m hoping to make some of these to put in my shop, and I’m planning to make a new section for my big holed silver core beads that I made to fit the Troll System. I’m still trying to think of a suitable name for them, I wish the names came as easily as the designs.