Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Sunday evening

It’s bluebell season again, and whilst enjoying one of my ocassional drives to the Surrey Guild Gallery at Milford I had the pleasure of seeing huge swathes of bluebells making a purple haze under the trees along the way. I also nearly suceeded in killing 1 grey squirrel, 2 sparrows, 2 blackbirds (the birds were having a mid afternoon snack, tea break and general old crows meeting on the road) and one pheasant. I also had the dubius privaledge of hearing distant guns shots probably from game shooting. There were numerous other patches of pretty spring wild flowers and I had to turn off the stereo and listen to the birdsong as I drove along. Ahhh bliss.

I can now report that my cabinet of jewellery at the Milford Gallery is now replenished with some new pieces including my ever popular Porthmeor pendants and a new style of bead earring to match.

Wednesday morning

What a lovely crisp wintry morning (and doesn’t wintry look odd spelled like that?). There’s frost everywhere and the sun is shining making it sparkle. Again I’m glad I don’t have to travel far today like I did yesterday, when I went to the Guild shop to do another days duty. Honestly that dratted auto-piloty thing and not really twigging about where I was going yesterday saw me pootling up the road towards Guildford for 10 minutes in totally the wrong direction for the road I normally take. I suddenly realised I was going the wrong way as my brain was working out the rest of the route and I had to stop and see if I could get back on track easily. Fortunately for me there was a short cut across country which took me through Ewehurst and Cranleigh, which I was quite pleased about because I’ve never seen Cranleigh and my curiosity has been very piqued by all the signs that you see on the road that say ‘Cranleigh, England’s largest village‘.

I have to say that after driving through the place, It’s gotta be a town, it’s so big. Anyway, what is the definition of a village or town? Surely if it has a big church, used to have a hospital and has a largish supermarket and a couple of pedestrianised shopping squares it counts as a town? In modern day terms it must be a town if it boasts a ‘Costa coffee’? Wikipedia says a town can be a village that is larger than surrounding villages and has a regular market, and is also a community that doesn’t survive on mainly agriculture – well I passed signs to what looked like a large industrial estate. A village can also decide to call itself a town by it’s Parish Council calling themselves a ‘Town Council’. So I reckon it should be called a town, but they want to keep themselves as the largest village. And why not, if you’ve got a uniqueness, flaunt it!

Wednesday evening

I was going to blog this morning but we had naff connection all day, so here it is now, trouble is I’m absolutely shattered……..it must be all the thinking……I’m doing my business accounts…..yes, I know, I said I wasn’t going to be doing it last minute again. I really must work out a reliable way to achieve this, I can’t bear being away from my torch and not melting glass for so long.

I was womaning the Surrey Guild shop yesterday, after my usual lovely woodland drive, which was very different yesterday – I’ve never seen so many broken branches and ripped trees before, all debris from last weeks strong winds. I even saw a tree trunk freshly split in 2 down the middle lengthways (top to bottom). Of course strong winds are natures way of pruning the trees and bushes.

Today we awoke to a fresh blanket of snow, and of course it looked beautiful. Rick took several pictures, but I haven’t downloaded them from the camera yet because my hard drive is stuffed full to the gunels, needless to say computer speed is not very good at the moment. I was so pleased that I was at the shop yesterday and didn’t have to cope with driving up remote lanes in the snow. Ooo that reminds me…..

I have new stock in the Surrey Guild Gallery including some heart pendants perfect for Valentines Day.

I must go an get me some zzzzds now, I’m getting desperate to finish my paperwork and need to be fresh if I’m going to get most finished tommorrow. The problem is I’ll be so glad to see the back of it that I won’t want to sort how I’m going to tackle next years (which is this current year). maybe I’ll go through and do what I can while it’s all in my head, like I considered doing last January but didn’t….nah…too easy.