Great Christmas

I hope you've all had a great Christmas, I certainly did. Our Christmases tend to be slightly unconventional, as many years ago I decided I just didn't want to be one of those women that had to spend all day chained to the kitchen lol. I'm so lucky that my daughter isn't into those kind of Christmases either.

Our day started when my daughter got up and I gave her the presents I'd bought her, and within the hour we were off up into the mountains for 4 hrs. As always it was stunning up there, unfortunately it was pretty slippy in most of the places we went to, so I stayed in the car, while my daughter jumped out taking loads of photo's. It didn't take away from my pleasure of being there though. In a forest park we went to there was thick ice, which made some very loud creaking and cracking noises as we drove over it, I loved it but my daughter was glad when we managed to get away from there lol.

As we've only had one day of snow here on Anglesey, it was lovely to see snow covered mountains and frozen ponds and lakes. There is however another cold spell due to come in next week, so maybe we'll be luckier then.

A couple of busy days

The last two days have been a bit busy. Last nite I decided to start doing a new style mirror with the much hunted for cellophane !!! One thing I found out was that it's very difficult to stick down and even harder to get the glue to dry, 24 hrs later and some of it still hasn't dried. Good job I'm in no rush for this particular mirror. First thing this morning, I started to get things organised ( don't laugh those that know me ) to do a new blog, this one is going to be just for photo's taken with my new camera.

Today saw us going off to the wonderful world of manic buying at our local Tesco store. Almost every parking spot was taken, apart from an odd one of two 1/2 mile away in the far corner.There was no way we were going to park there as it was very icy, and me falling over is not the way we intended to go !! So round and round we went until at last we spotted someone pulling out, at last we got into the supermarket. What a sight .... throngs of people everywhere you looked, trolleys piled almost up to the ceiling, kids crying, parents looking frazzled and each and every ailse was full of trolleys, it was like trying to navigate a slalem course lol. As we went round getting our usual store cupboard items, I noticied pretty quickly that almost everything has had a price hike, especially in the fresh veg department, up to 50p on some items, shame on you Tesco's don't you make enough profit out of us as it is !!!

Once the shopping was done, it was time to let the dog have his walk before we went to unload all the shopping. It was sods law that as we sat there a gorgeous fat robin, straight off a Christmas card by the look of it, sat down on a post right by us. Of course I hadn't got my brand new camera as I didn't want to risk leaving it in the car while we went shopping, so as Mr Robin posed first sideways and then a full frontal, we cursed the fact my camera was safely at home !!

Once home it was the battle to get all the veg in the fridge, mainly because of our christmas dinner a nice smoked gammon joint. No matter which way or what I tried to get everything in, the door just wouldn't shut. So out it all came, and seeing as our outhouse is probably colder than the fridge, a lot of veggies were relegated to sitting on one of my art cupboards.

After a quick egg mayo roll, it was time to start my last Christmas present, what it is will stay under wraps, just on the off chance the person it's intended for happens to pop along to my blog :o)

If I don't happen to have time to write again before Christmas, I'll take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas to my regular readers and I hope you all have a fantastic New Year.

What an amazing surprise

Last Wednesday saw us driving off down to the Midlands, to met up with some of our family for a pre Xmas meal. When most of us met up our friend Mandys house before our meal, my son Ben presented me with a rather large present in the shape of a teapot for Xmas. Imagine my surprise when I peeled off layer after layer of packing on this odd shaped present, to find my dream camera !!! For years I've wanted a DSLR camera, but knew that I'd never be able to afford one. I was so overwhelmed I just burst into tears. Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever think I'd be lucky enough to own a camera like this. The surprises still hadn't finished, when we got back to my oldest daughters house, we exchanged presents and I found my daughter Jenny had bought me a telephoto lens for the camera, my oldest daughter Emma and her husband had got me a large sized memory card, and my two grand daughters Raggz and Lacey gave me some macro lens. How lucky am I ...everything I could possibily wish for all in one day !!! Thank you all soooooooooo much.

When we arrived back home, I turned my pc on looking forward to reading up on how to use this amazing camera, when after half an hour the internet went down !! How was that for bad timing lol, I rang up the technical support line in the morning when it still wasn't back on, only to be told there was a fault and it would be repaired in 24hrs. That time came and went and we still weren't reconnected, so I rang again and was told exactly the same flipping thing .....grrrrrr. Then on Monday nite my youngest son and his girlfriend came to visit, and after a while my son asked me if I wanted him to have a look, I said yes .... of course. Amazingly he managed to reconnect us, I'm still not sure how he did it, but he has and we're back !!!!

I'm going to set up a new blog very soon, which I'm going to put the best of my photo's on, as this blog will get swamped with mine and my daughters attempts at photography lol. This will also allow this blog to concentrate more on my arty crafty stuff. Below is a couple of mirrors that I made for Xmas presents this year, this is a new style for me and also a picture of one of Raggz one of my lovely grandkids, that I took with my new camera !!

Whatever happened to cellophane !!

For the last few days I've been trying to find some coloured cellophane to use on a project. I've checked florist shops, craft shops, cheap shops, stationery shops and yet none of them seem to sell it any more. I can get clear cellophane with flowers, stars, father christmases, easter eggs but NO coloured plain stuff, how strange and pretty annoying too. I got so desperate I even considered buying one of those Christmas tins of chocolates that are wrapped individually in cellophane, but that seems a bit extreme, especially as me nor my daughter are particularly fond of Quality Street lol.

On the upside, some really pretty glass tiles arrived from America yesterday....my little treat to myself. Why buy glass from USA I hear you asking, well basically because it's considerably cheaper to buy them from there, than here in the UK even with the extra postage costs. Also America seems to have a huge choice of products for doing mosaics compared to the UK too, which is quite a shame really, I would far prefer to buy British but not at the inflated prices they charge.

Coming back down the island yesterday, the mountinas looked amazing, even more snow has fallen since we went up there the other day. Just our luck we went too soon lol.

Brrrrr it's turning colder

Brrrrr after all the rain, it's started to turn colder now and we've got a sprinkling of snow on the mountains now. It looks gorgeous and makes it seem more christmassy. My daughter took me for a drive up there yesterday, and I loved it. I just wish it wasn't so expensive to turn the heating on *sigh*

Sadly the firing of the kiln never happened on Monday, because Mike at the gallery had a couple of commissions to do. So it's been rescheduled for Saturday now, but I've just remembered my daughters got a friend visiting ..so I'm not sure how we'll fit it in.

I'm on a mission today to get some bits and bobs I need for my new style mosaics. That's the one good thing about tempered glass mosaics, they are much more versatile than the stained glass ones I usually make. Also not having to cut the glass gives my hands a rest, so no pain for a few days I hope.

Here's a few photo's I took yesterday in the mountains.

Busy couple of weeks.

I've had a couple of busy weeks, getting some pendants in the gallery ready for the Christmas rush ...we hope. Also doing another 35 pendants for stock, for when I'll be doing my website in the new year hopefully. I've also done a first for me, a tempered glass mosaic, this will be one of many I'll be doing I hope as I've got tons of idea's for mirrors and panels. This one is bright and colourful so it's been called a rainbow mirror. I've included a photo at the end of my blog for you.

Along with the pendants I've made ready to go in the kiln tomorrow, I've also made a panel for us for the front room. I'm praying this comes out ok, which there isn't any guarantee's. Glass has a mind of it's own once you put it in a kiln and heat it up, and something that looks great before it's fused, can sometimes come out looking a right mess lol. Fingers crossed this won't happen to this one, as our walls are still looking quite bare here. I've put a before photo of the panel, and good or bad I'll put an after photo up later in the week too. To add some interest to this panel, I've used, metal inclusions and also some copper collars which are usually used by plumbers. I've filled these collars up with frit, which I hope will add some more detail.

The last couple of weeks has seen us hit by torrential rain and gale force winds as has most of the country. The rivers have turned into raging torrents and I'm sure the waterfalls up in Snowdonia will huge. We went to the beach a couple of times for high tide and it was spectacular. The waves had crashed so much against walls and rocks the whole part of the top of our favourite beach was smothered in foam, which flew up and onto the path and made it look like it had been snowing. I've taken a few photo's so I'll put them up with my next post. Now its all calmed down and I've seen the first sprinkling of snow on the mountains, quite early really compared to the last few years.

My first tempered glass mosaic mirror


A close up of the mirror


The panel for my front room ...I hope


A further photo with the flash

Long time no blog

Yet again real life took over and I've neglected my blog badly :o( However .... slowly but surely we're getting things made for the house, and it's starting to look more homely.

Last Tuesday saw us doing what we thought was going to be a flying 2 day visit, to my oldest daughter in Bromsgrove. As always the best made plans and all that fell by wayside, and we ended up staying 5 days. I have to admit I was pretty reluctant to leave our new little house, but I'm glad I did, as we had a great time and loads of laughs on the way.

On the Weds we went to see a friend of ours we hadn't seen for a quite a while, we had loads of laughs and it was great to catch up with all that's gone on in her life. We left with promises to go and visit again soon, and next time my daughter Jenny would take her tattoo stuff and do tattoo's for my friend and her fella.

From there we headed off over to Acocks Green to met up with my son Ben, and mates Martin and Mandy. Mandy had invited us for a meal and we were all looking forward to that, as Mandys well known for being a great cook !! On our way there by sheer fluke we spotted another of my sons Jed, and had a quick kiss and cuddle with him too, with promises to try and get back and see him while we visiting. The meal was gorgeous and we had lots of laughs as always when we're there.

The next day we'd arranged to go over and visit a friend of mine Vikki, that I'd met on a forum we both use. Vikki and I have similar lack of mobility problems, so I mentioned a few things that I thought I might help make her life a bit easier from day to day. So hopefully she'll get some much needed help from occupational therapists in the near future, as her house really wasn't geared up for someone that has trouble getting about. Sadly her husband Julian was away on a buying trip in France. He buys beautiful old wood burners abroad and does them up in his workshop and sells them on. Next on the visit list, was to go and see my oldest grandson Martin and his girlfriend.After his girlfriend had told us how excited he'd been about us visiting, I felt quite guilty that we hadn't got there before now :o(

Friday saw us heading for Ikea in Wednesbury, somewhere I really wanted to visit as there isn't a store anywhere near us. Even getting there was a mission in itself. We couldn't use the sat nav as my daughters lighter socket wasn't working, so what should have taken about 1/2hr actually took us more like 1 1/2hrs lol. We seemed to be going round in circles and went through the same town not once, nor twice but 3 times in the end. Luckily my oldest daughter eventually spotted something that looked familiar, and we eventually managed to get there. It was a wonder we never got kicked out, we laughed and messed around so much. I was the butt of the laughter at one point, when we needed to go down an escalator. I have a terrible phobia about going down these dammed things, and despite my daughter Jenny holding my hand like I was kid, I still couldn't step on to it, so I ended up having to use the stairs. It doesn't sound funny put into words, but trust me it had my two daughters howling with laughter !!! By the time we left, the weather had turned really nasty, torrential rain and very windy. My oldest daughter was driving, and I have to take my hat off to her, at how well she coped considering she's a learner.

Saturday morning we headed back home, and the weather hadn't improved much then either. Torrential rain, made the spray on the motorway so bad we could hardly see where we going at some points. But at last we arrived home safe and sound back to our little house. How I loved sleeping in my lovely big bed last nite !!!

Wow what a week

Last week saw us having 12 visitors, more than we usually have in a year lol. But it was good fun and it was really good to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for quite a while. It did put pay to any work getting done around the house, but what the hell, sometimes you just have to hang up the paint brushes and enjoy the company.

One visitor had a camper van, which needed some restoration to put it mildly. It used to have a kitchen but that went flying one day while going round a corner quite quickly lol. So everything was taken out of the van and scattered all over the car park behind out house. There was a pile of keep me's, a pile of rubbish and a pile of this might be useful. Once the pile of rubbish was deposited at the local tip, it was the start of rebuilding the kitchen again. This time it was all screwed together properly, and attached to the side of the van too. On a test run we went over speed humps at some speed, lurched round corners and gave everything every chance to go flying. But it all stayed exactly in place !!

My youngest son came round last Weds, and had a tribal tattoo done on the back of his neck. Then on Saturday a friend called freaky Mark (please don't ask why lol) came round and had a pentagram on the back of his neck. My sons one needs a bit of touching up, but the one on Marks neck was pretty much perfect and he was really pleased. Considering Mark had large portion of his body already tattooed my daughter was really pleased when he said it was the least painful tattoo he'd ever had !!

Once the last visitor had left, I got out a canvas I've been itching to paint for days now. I drew on the abstract design on the first night and started doing the initial painting the 2nd day. This is the largest oil painting I've ever attempted do to at 40" x 30" but it's a challenge I'm enjoying. This painting is for above the fireplace on the feature wall, which is a deep aubergine so one of the best things about painting your own picture, is that you can incorporate a touch of the matching colour to tie everything up together. Which is exactly what I've done of course lol.

My son's tribal tattoo

Freaky Marks pentagram

Real Life !!

Real life has again taken me away from my blog, the seemingly never ending stream of jobs to do round the house, has limited me to an hour or two on the pc.

Wallpapering the hall eventually got finished, and for now it'll have to do. It's not perfect by any means as the coating over the plaster is very uneven and shows through my wallpapering which wasn't too bad considering it's been years since I did any. I'm hoping after a while I just won't see the unevenness, as I really don't want to have to do it again. I started painting it yesterday ...with a 2.5" brush as the paint pad we'd been using up to now, seemed to have vanished into thin air !! It took me most of the afternoon to do 2/3rds of the walls, hopefully I'll get the rest finished today.

My oldest daughter and her family came to visit over the weekend. As it was very windy on the Saturday we went off to take some photo's at various beaches. We went to Newborough beach first and was appalled to see that it had gone up from £2 to £3 to visit this beach, I can't see how they justify this price rise, but we had a good time while we were there. From there, we went to a smaller beach called Cable Bay as we expected the sea was very rough and there were loads of surfers there. Next was Rhosneigr beach and we watched wind surfers doing their stuff !! Lots of photo's were taken and 4 of my favourite ones I'll put on the end of this post.

On Monday some plants were offered on my local Freecycle or Freegle as it's now known. As I want to add to my small collection I wrote asking for them and was very happy to get an email to say I could share them with another lady. We duly set off to pick them up, only to get there and have the lady say " Oh I know you !! " It turned out she followed my blog lol, and I follow hers...small world isn't it. We really enjoyed seeing this lady's garden, as it was one of those quirky ones that had lots of different corners packed full of interesting plants and weird and wonderful containers. This lady is also a fan of car boots like myself, so while we chatted about them my daughter enjoyed having a nose in a very cleverly converted summer house, which was wallpapered with old newspaper clippings. As I know Vicky will probably read this at some some point, thanks again Vicky and we loved your garden. Do pop along to Anglesey Alsorts to read Vickys blog.

Some seaweed that had lovely rainbow coloured bubbles


This is a garden we pass to go to Rhosneigr beach, it always makes me smile.


Some wind surfers at Rhosneigr beach



Surfers taking advantage of rough sea's at Cable Bay

Lovely day

Yesterday was my birthday, and a very pleasant one too. Although my birthdays are always low key anyway, a visit from a close friend and a trip to the beach on a warm, sunny autumn day to watch the sea which was a beautiful turquoise blue, with my daughter made it a very happy day. I had numerous birthday wishes on my facebook page, some text messages and a visit from my oldest daughter this weekend to look forward as well.

Yesterday was also my 2nd day at attempting to wallpaper our hallway. Both days I've managed to do 4 lengths of wallpaper before my back gave out because of the standing. I was hoping to do some more when we got back from the beach, but a walk along the beach put pay to that lol. Today should see it finished hopefully as there is only the fiddly bits to do above doors etc, then my daughter will get stuck in painting it.

Then at last I might be able to make a start on the large abstract oil painting I'm going to do for above the fireplace. Np photo's of the fireplace yet as we still aren't happy with it. We were talking about it yesterday, and neither of us are happy with the cladding on the side of it, due to the fireplace being very uneven it's stopped the mdf from sitting neatly against it, so I think we're going to remove the sides and see what we can do instead. We're also going to change the colour of the paint to a deep chocolate brown too.

Chirk Car Boot

Yesterday morning saw my daughter and I up and out at the crack of dawn. We were off to go and have a look round a car boot we'd been told was really good. An hour and half later we arrived at Chirk car boot, and sure enough there were loads of booters there. Sadly there wasn't really anything that caught our eye, so we only came away with a couple of things each, very disappointing for such a long drive. Maybe the organisers should also put the postcode of the actual car boot rather than the one that's on there, as we couldn't find it from the one on the website, and neither could another couple that we bumped into either lol.

However, the day wasn't a total waste of time, as we popped into visit Bryn a good friend of ours who'd moved recently, and we spent a couple of hours catching up with others news and helped Bryn sort out his pc so his dongle would work and he could get online.

I've definitely paid the price for walking round a big car boot, even though I left a lot of the them out. I was in agony while we were there and still am today too. But I expect I'll survive I always do lol !!

Nothing got done around the house yesterday, we were both so tired when we got home, we had to go to sleep for a couple of hours lol. But hopefully today we'll get the fireplace finished at last and some photo's taken, then I'll be moving on to the wallpapering in the hallway, maybe that won't get started until the pain in my back eases off a bit though.

Slowly but surely

Slowly but surely the fireplace is coming together. I have to say it hasn't been helped by the floor being uneven and I don't think the original fireplace is level either !! Oh well these things are sent to try us.

In between waiting for paint to dry on the fireplace, and glue to dry on some mosaic balls I'm doing for a good friend of mine for his garden, my daughter and I also started to strip the wallpaper in the hallway. If this wallpaper hadn't been patched up so much I would have left it to be honest, but odd squares of paper just stuck on randomly just doesn't look good, and when these bits of paper aren't even matched to the pattern it looks even worse. So it had to go !! Re papering might take a little longer as it's not one of my daughters many talents, and I can't stand for very long.

One of my daughters talents is learning the art of tattooing though, and below is a photo of the latest tattoo she's done on herself. How she manages to contort her body enough to do a tattoo on her foot, is a mystery to me lol. I love the words of the tattoo, and think everyone should follow them.

We went off on a mission yesterday to get an off cut of carpet for the hallway, and what a bargain we got too. A nice piece of very hard wearing, good quality cream carpet 15ft long by 4ft wide for £15 from a little carpet shop in Pentreath. I've just realised as I typed this that I meant to go and pay a visit to the garden centre where I bought a slice of tree the other week, but we forgot as we were so pleased to get such a bargain with the carpet grrrrr.

Light at the end of the tunnel

At long last I can see the light at the end of the tunnel where the mosaic for the fireplace is concerned. The three panels are now sporting some very colourful mosaics, which have been grouted and decorated and have had one coat of background paint. Once the 2nd coats on, there's just the rest of the fireplace to clad and the jobs done whooooo. It's been a much much longer job than I expected, I really did think the whole lot would be done in a week, I should have known that was a bit optimistic of me lol.

A trip back to the doctors to have my blood pressure checked is on the cards tomorrow :o( I had a good few days where I felt decidedly unwell I have to say. I was feeling lightheaded, dizzy and just not right. But that feeling seems to be fading slowly, so fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow.

My daughters car has now passed it's MOT ...whooooo. She had a day of having to get around on the bus yesterday, always a long drawn out affair round here as the bus has to go round all the little villages, before it gets where you're trying to go. But it's done now for the next year.

New patient check up :o(

Yesterday saw me waking up feeling anxious and stressed for no apparent reason, this is quite unusual for me, as I'm quite a laid back person. I thought no more of it, apart from wondering what was causing it, and trotted off to the doctors for the usual new patient check up. To my horror my blood pressure was 195/85, although I've always been overweight my blood pressure has always been surprisingly normal. The nurse took my blood pressure 4 times in the end and it was the same each time. I'm hoping that it was just feeling anxious and stressed business that caused it, and nothing that's going to make high blood pressure a regular feature in my life. The trouble is worrying about it being high doesn't do any good, but I can't seem to help it !!

Supermarkets are getting very sneaky. I usually buy enough dog food to last a fortnight, however the last fortnight we ran out well before time, which I found very odd as my dog has a measured amount of food each day. Then I realised that this fortnights dog food was also going down very quickly too. Not wanting to run out while my daughter was away at her sisters, we went to Tesco's where I bought an extra packet, but I noticed the price had gone up by 40p. When I got home I compared the two bags of dog food and surprise surprise, Asda have reduced the size of their bags of dog food by 1/2 a kilo. How sneaky is that !!

Twilight shift again

Well I woke up at 3 am this morning and try as I might, I just couldn't get back to sleep again. As I've got to be awake for an important phone call, which could be any time after 9am, I doubt I'll be able to snatch an hour to catch up later on. So it looks like I'll be having a very sleepy day today ....not good when I've got so many things to do at the moment.

Our trip to Wrexham on Sunday was a lovely. My friend has bagged herself a fantastic little stone cottage with an amazing custom built fireplace. It had lots of quirky little features and I just fell in love with it. While we were there my friend told she'd had to make a mad dash down to the Stratford Upon Avon area after a frantic call off her mother. When she arrived she found her mother in a very agitated state, my friends father in law sadly has a brain tumour and there's no cure. The reason for all the agitation, was because this poor man has suffered a catalogue of appalling treatments from the various so called "care" agencies involved with him.

A trip to the local hospice resulted in him being given a sugary cup of tea and a slice of cake when he is a diabetic two days running, despite his wife pointing out his medical condition, all because he wasn't given a wrist band indicating he was diabetic !! This amongst other things made his wife decide to care for him at home. Since then, there has been a constant stream of care workers, district nurses and respite care staff visiting their home daily. This you would think would ease the burden of watching a loved one die slowly, and make this mans time left on this earth a little more comfortable ...but oh no, there has been one medical catastrophe after another.

I would go into detail and would list the many and constant mistakes, some of them which could have serious consequences for this man, but I doubt anyone would believe me. I know the NHS is seriously under funded, but there is no excuse for the disgusting way this man has been treated. I'd like to think that the people responsible for these many errors in care, would be brought to task, but I doubt very much whether his wife will be in any fit state to take the matter any further, and people wonder why I avoid hospitals and medical staff like the plague !!

One panel finished

Late last night I finished the mosaic on the first panel for the fireplace, and though I say so myself, I'm quite pleased with it. It still needs some little extra's added to it, and the background painted, but the hard bit is done now. I shall have to get my daughter to cut the rest of the panels, before she goes off down to her sisters, for a couple of days in the Midlands. I'll also have to cut a load more tiles before I start the next one, which I'm not looking forward to incase it kick starts the arthritus in my hands again, how I wish I had one of those glass cutting machines to make the job easier.

A couple of days ago on the way to Caernafon we popped into a garden centre I'd spotted previously, Treborth Garden Centre. What a great place, my daughter and I spent a very enjoyable hour there. There were some beautiful house plants (something we'd been looking all over Anglesey for, with no sucess), beautiful tubs of colourful plants even at this time of the year, and also some very unusual ornaments, at quite reasonable prices too. This place actually looked like a garden centre, unlike the Hollands Garden Centre on Anglesey, which has now turned into a glorified, over priced gift shop.... big mistake there I think !!!

We went on a mission yesterday looking for a 2nd hand double oven cooker, something we've needed for a while now. Luck was with us and we spotted a lovely one over in Colwyn Bay. This will hopefully be winging it's way to us once its had a safety check :o) We also popped into B&Q on the way home to check out their paint section, as most of the other major DIY shops seemed to have all the same coloured paints called different names. They had a great selection, metallic wall paint ( I was very tempted lol ) suede effect paint, and loads of different colours to the other shops. I've now found the paint for my bedroom ...deep purple of course, my favourite colour. So that will be got in a couple of weeks time.

Today we are having a break from all things to do with the house, and are going over to Wrexham to visit a friend in her new house. Well I say new, it's actually a listed building lol. As it's surrounded by woods I think I'll take my camera, which reminds me I need to recharge the batteries, so that's it for me today folks.

Time running away

Time seems to be flying past since we've moved. No sooner have I written on here, than another week has gone by !!

Now all the unpacking is done, it's time to get down to the more enjoyable stuff. Putting up shelves to show off my ornaments etc. The mantlepiece is now in place, my daughters not totally happy with the way it's being held up, but it's ok for now. It looks amazing. I've been busy for the last two days doing the first of 3 mosaic panels to cover up the hideous 50's tiles fireplace. I wish I'd made the design a little smaller as it's using up quite a lot more of my glass tiles than I expected, but seeing as it's 3/4's done, it's a bit late to moan now lol. I keep meaning to take photo's of the mantle piece but keep forgetting....ooops.

On our fortnightly shopping trip, I spotted a gorgeous rich deep blue duvet set, I just couldn't resist it, even though it was well over priced. It's rare I treat myself so I'm trying not to feel too guilty about it. I think I'm going to have to do a different colour theme now though. I was going to do an indian themed room in deep purple and and deep red, I'm not sure if I'll be able to incorporate deep blue into as well. Maybe it'll be deep blue with deep purple and splashes of deep red now.

Wee small hours

Yet again my sleep pattern is all out of sync, with the rest of the world but not to worry.

The last two days has seen the piece of wood for the mantelpiece taking shape. It's been cut to size and sanded down by my daughter, then yesterday afternoon I sat and gave it three coats of wax. It turned out even better than I hoped, so later today it will hopefully be finding its way to it's new home. My daughter also sanded down an old pine tool box which she has utilised for her tattooing stuff, that came up beautifully too.

The other piece of wood I bought was delivered and seems even bigger now it's here !! This wood is elder, and it'll be even more interesting to see the grain in this appear as it's been stood outside for quite a long time so is looking very weathered. That might have to wait for a few days though, as we have to sand outside and I don't want to annoy the neighbours too much so early on in my tenancy lol.

The house is slowly but surely starting to come together. The front room is almost presentable now, the kitchen just about passable and my bedroom is looking better than it did, but far from finished. So all in all I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far.

I was texting with my friend Ray who lives on a narrow boat yesterday, and he's planning on being around the Birmingham area from next week up until Xmas. So hopefully there's a good chance we'll be able to hook up at long last. We've been trying to met up for over a year now, but are never in the same place at the same time lol. The only problem is, now that I seem to be getting arthritis in my hand I'm not too sure whether I'll be able to manage to hold the tools to learn to make glass beads now. Time will tell I'm sure.

How time flies

Wow.... already a week has passed since I wrote on here !! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun lol. The unpacking is pretty much done, but I have to admit quite a bit of the stuff unpacked, has just been put in places to sort out another day. But at least now there's a bit of space and room to breathe.

My daughter finished off laying the laminate on her own !! She's one of those girls that can't bear seeing things half done, so when my friend was too busy to come and help when he expected, she decided to have a go herself. She's done a brilliant job, and what a difference it makes, although the dog's still coming to terms with looking like Bambi, when he tries to stand up.

The front room wall now has a feature wall too, in a rich deep aubergine colour ( aren't we posh lol ) It looks amazing, as well as doing this my daughter also put up 3 floating shelves, which now have my favourite ornaments on, and the front room has started looking like home.

Saturday found us taking a trip to a car boot in Bangor that we'd never been to before. What a waste of time and petrol that was !! I can honestly say its the worst car boot I've ever been to. So Sunday we went to our usual one and came home with some cream curtains for Jen's room, a pair of matching Ikea lampshades and a couple of other bits and bobs.

Yesterday we took a trip to the recycling centre, to get rid of all the boxes we'd used to move. Then it was on a mission to find a timber merchants my friend had told me about. When we got there we found a beautiful slice of yew complete with bark. The guy told us that the tree was 600 years old, imagine that ..all those hundreds of years old, we managed to knock the guy down from £30 to £25 for it. This is going to be cut down to size, sanded and oiled and used on top of the fireplace, which I am mosaicing to cover the awful 50's tiled one that's there at the moment. Next was a trip to yet another garden centre on the hunt for a decent sized house plant. I've lost count of the number of places we've already tried. We still had no luck, but on the way out we spotted a corner of the garden centre which was a reclamation yard. There was some more slices of tree one piece in particular caught our eye, it was a beautiful shape, with loads of character. It was huge ..at least 8 ft long and 4ft wide in places. Not even thinking we might be able to afford it, we asked how much .....£30 !!! What a bargain, there was no way we could miss having that, so now we are waiting to have it delivered. That will be sanded down and made into a coffee table and at a later date we'll find something else for my clever daughter to make with the rest of it.

I'm back did you miss me ?

I'm back !! The big move has happened, and we are safely in our new house ...well bungalow, and we love it !!! When we actually got inside the bungalow, we were pleasantly surprised to find, that it looked bigger than it had from the outside when we peered through the windows. Also there was more storage than we'd hope for too, including a small storage room, which has now become the new place for my mountain of glass and art stuff.

When we came to sign the lease last Weds, we were very surprised when the council guy told us that we had to hand the keys in for the old place by the Friday at 4pm or we would have to pay a weeks rent. We were expecting to hand the keys in on the following Monday, thank goodness we'd already spoken to my son in law about the possibility of moving on Thurs already, and also that the van hire place had a van available on the Thursday too. My oldest daughter text me to say that my grandson Martin couldn't help us move after all. So we were left one man short, luckily after a couple of phone calls, a friend of ours Gwyn agreed to come and help us. So thanks very much to both of you, and my daughter Jen for making a stressful time, a lot less stressful.


There were times when we looked round at the mountain of boxes and bags and wondered if we would ever manage to get them sorted out. But now 6 days later, we're getting there very slowly. There's been a constant stream of moving boxes from one room to another in order to try and get one room straight, and then having to fill that room back up again in order to get another room sorted. My constant aches and pains meant that my daughter had to do almost all the moving and rearranging of boxes and bags on her own, where she got the strength I don't know...but thanks Jen. My son Billie and his girlfriend Alisha came round on Friday and Saturday, and Billie helped move things around, and sorted out some wiring for us too. Then on Sunday Billie tried to help my daughter Jenny lay the laminate flooring...what a nightmare that stuff is, to someone that's never laid it before. No sooner was one piece laid, than it popped out again. So yet another attempt failed miserably.

Just as we were about to give up on the laminate, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine to see if we were alright, as he hadn't seen me online. After hearing our tale of woe about the laminate, he offered to come and help Jen lay the first few rows to get her started in his dinner hour. The first few rows ended up being half the room, but I have to say even though my friend had experience at laying this type of thing, it certainly didn't go smoothly. As he had to get back to work himself, we'd hoped that Jenny would be able to carry on laying it with a little bit of help from me ...wrong !! My numb fingers on one hand and raging arthritus (which has only flared up this past few weeks) on the other hand, I just didn't have the strength to pull and push the strips of flooring enough to help Jen finish the job. My friend rang again to see how we got on yesterday, and has suggested we see if we can get my son to help instead, if not he'll book a day off work and come and help Jen get it finished. Thanks a lot El.

Sunday found us heading off to our local car boot to try and get some curtains and odd and ends. We had to try and be very strict with ourselves and only buy really essential things as I'm very short of money at the moment. But I just couldn't resist a beautiful steel ornament in an art noveau style, it was only £6 and I loved it. On the same stall my daughter saw some gorgeous pictures which she fell in love with and found it very hard to walk away from. But walk away she did. On another stall we bought an ashtray and from overhearing us talking the couple selling realised we'd just moved, and asked us if we needed a washer dryer. We didn't, but luckily they had a mexican pine bed ...which I did need, after sleeping on the settee at the old house for the last 18 months, it even had an orthopedic mattress. We arranged to go and pick it up that night.This lovely couple Mel and Vikki insisted on giving us some lovely stuff for free, and even filled their car up with stuff to save us having to do 2 or even 3 trips. How Mel managed to get a double mattress in my daughters car I'll never know...but he did lol. Thank you both so much, I hope karma returns your kindness many times over.

As we collected all the various bits and bobs we returned to the stall with the pictures my daughter fell in love with. She really wanted them, and much to my surprise she actually bought 2 of them for £29. Anyone that knows my daughter, will know that she, like me is constantly short of money despite being as thrify as possible, so for her to pay out this much on two pictures, I knew they meant a lot to her..but I'm so pleased she got them.

Whooo at last

Well I got an email yesterday from the housing woman, and we're going to see the new place and sign the lease today !!! So it's all systems go here.

We went and booked the hire van yesterday, but as my son in law is going to have to come up from Bromsgrove on Thurs to finalise all the details with his licence etc, we thought we might as well try and move on Thurs instead. If we can wangle this we will at least, be able to get the van in our street without the hassles we had when we moved in. Any time after 5pm and all weekend it's murder trying to get into our street, as it's very small and a dead end.

We went and bought the laminate flooring for the front room yesterday, and will be trying to lay it today, before all the furniture comes. Wish us luck as we've never done this before. I don't know if I'm going to be a help or a hindrance, I had so many things going round in my head last night I couldn't sleep, and then I woke at 4.30am and couldn't get back to sleep again...hey ho, I should have expected this to happen. Hopefully adrenalin will kick in.

Passing time

As I'm not very motivated with my latest project, my mind has wandered towards making a few things for the new house. I'm going to paint some stones to put in a bowl, this shouldn't take long and my box of acrylic paints is one of the few arty things that hasn't been packed yet. It's amazing how many times this week, I've needed something that's been sat there for months untouched .... sods law I guess eh.

I've also been thinking of colour schemes for the new place too. As always it'll be a riot of colour as I'm just not the type of person to follow the norm and go for safe colours. Various rooms will probably have some kind of theme, the front room will be a mystical theme, the bedroom will be Indian style and the kitchen Mexican, all of which will allow me to fulfill my love of rich colours. It'll probably be a long job, but worth it now that this is our home. The bathroom has eluded me so far, I think that's maybe as it looked very white from what we could tell through the patterned glass. As it's got a walk in shower there's possibly going to be floor to ceiling white tiles in some part. These will probably be way too expensive to re tile in something that would be my taste. I know there's tile transfers, but I expect these are all pretty much middle of the road style ...so no good to me lol. I've also read that tile paint isn't very good either, so I shall have to put my thinking cap on.

One of the people interested in the kiln, decided to have it, and that got paid for and is being picked up and taken to Derbyshire, this week. My daughters bandsaw also sold and went yesterday. So that will be two heavy items not to have to be moved thank goodness.

Getting there ...

My blog has definitely been suffering since I got the news a move is on the cards. This week unlike last week, has been a flurry of activity. Boxes have been packed and all moved to one room, and everywhere has been cleaned and hoovered to within an inch of it's life. A load has gone to the tip, and surplus goodies put on Freecycle. Stuff too good to give away, has been put on my regular forum uk hippy and also the realsellwales forum too. Sadly my lovely kiln has had to go, and I've got a couple of people really interested in that, my daughter has also decided to part with her band saw. It's of those handy to have things, which hardly ever gets used though, so because of the size of it, it has to go I'm afraid.

There hasn't been much time to do any work on the mannequin, and also I've hit a problem. Because I couldn't get the lid off my pva glue. I thought I'd use wood glue to do another layer on top of the glass. BIG mistake it's dried opaque and ruined days of work. The only way to get it off, appears to be to pick it off each individual teeny piece of glass and there's thousands of them. So this has demotivated me hugely and the mannequin has sat there for days mocking me now.

I had an email off the housing lady to say, that there are now heating engineers needing to sort something out in the new place :o( More delays ... our time in limbo land is now dragging and it seems like we'll never get moved. I know we will, but I wish it would just hurry up and happen, so we can start our new life in a home of our own.

Oh dear

Oh dear, this is a week where I should be packing and cleaning with gusto. Instead, my sleep pattern has gone out the window and I'm waking up at 3am all the time. This is leaving me tired, low and demotivated, all the time even when I do manage to grab an hours sleep during the day.

My daughter and I had one day where we attacked the house with hot soapy water and cloths, and this has made me realise what lousy housewifey skills I've really got. How the hell did all those spiders webs appear without me even noticing, was there really that much dust on the skirting boards, how did everything I wipe clean manage to get so many stray dog hairs on it. We've vowed that in the next house we'll really make an effort (yes I can hear you laughing, those of you that know me offline !!)

I haven't even managed to do much of my latest mosaic either, which is annoying. I also need to put hanging loops on some angels as the gallery has run out of them. On the upside, I had a phone call off Mike at the gallery this week to say the last guitar had just sold at the gallery. Perfect timing, hopefully that will cover the cost of laminate flooring in the front room at the new house. My daughters been watching " how to lay laminate flooring" video's online in hopes that we'll be able to manage to do it ourselves.

For some reason my slideshow on here has stopped working which is very annoying. I've tried redoing it, using a different photo hosting site, in fact everything I can possibly think of, but it just won't work :o(

I had an email off the housing lady this week, saying she hadn't received the keys back off the maintenance men yet. That was a bit of a blow as we'd hoped we could have moved in this weekend. Oh well ...never mind.

I'm back !!!

I'm back ...has anyone missed me lol. The last few weeks have been busy busy busy with one thing and another. As soon as the guitar was finished I started on a brand new project, which is coming along very nicely.

Then it was off to my oldest daughters for a few days, before all the family travelled down to Falmouth for my son Dans wedding, and a very posh one it was too. Although I have to say the hotel it was held at could have been a bit better organised. It was so hot there and someone had to ask for the air conditioning to be turned on, and even then one of the wedding cakes a beautiful white chocolate affair, melted at the back in the heat !! The food for wedding meal could have been better too, the starter I had was goats cheese on red onion relish was delicious but the bread it was served on was so hard I couldn't get a knife through it. The main meal was a medley of mediterranean vegetables in filo pastry, the pastry was so hard I couldn't cut that either !! The sweet was luckily ice cream and they couldn't mess that up. Despite this we had a good time and it was great that 7 out of my 8 kids were all together for the first time in years.

After the wedding it was back to my daughters house in Bromsgrove to wait to met up with the son who was missing from the wedding.While we were there I got an email off the housing officer here in Anglesey to say that they'd got a bungalow for us at long last !!! Was I happy about that, I spent the rest of the time at my daughters in a happy bubble of excitement. When we got back home my daughter and I couldn't resist going to have a peep through the windows of our new home. I was very pleased it had bigger rooms than I'd hoped for and small gardens back and front. So that's it ...our time in this temporary accommodation is at last coming to an end, and we'll have a secure home of our own. We're both over the moon.

Presenting my latest commission !!!

Finally ..... my latest project. As some of you might know, I was given a free hand with the design for this. The only thing requested was that I cover the guitar entirely.

Now this is off on it's journey to its new owner, I've started something new. A completely different type of mosaic this time. I'll be using tempered glass this time, a first for me, so an interesting project.

Pretty much finished at last

Well yesterday saw me finish the guitar at long last. This was the most challenging thing I've ever done, but looking at the end result, it was worth it. I shan't post any photo's of it, until after its in the hands of the new owner though.

I also got a good way on to finishing two mirrors I started just before the guitar commission arrived. Once these are finished I will be posting photo's of them lol. I worked on mosaics from 5am till about 8 ish last nite and now I'm paying for it, my right hand has swollen up due to arthritus....never mind.

My brain is already buzzing about the next project I want to do. In fact I've got several projects in mind. But to start any of them I need to source some tempered glass, so I've put a wanted post on my local Freecycle. Hopefully someone will be glad to get rid of a cracked windscreen or a replaced patio door. Tempered glass mosaics is something I've wanted to try for ages, it's a totally different way of mosaicing than the sort I've been doing up till now, so I can wait to have a change.

Dyserth Waterfall, Rhuddlan castle and St Bridgets churchyard

After working on the guitar most of the morning, my daughter and I set off to Denbighshire to see a waterfall I'd found online. It was in the small village of Dyserth, only a small waterfall compared to some in North Wales it was still alovely one to go and see. Steps alongside the waterfall lead up to where you can see it from the top.

After the waterfall we moved next door to St Bridgets churchyard where I'd read about a couple of unusual tombstones which I thought would be worth a look. I'd have liked to have seen the stained glass windows inside the church, but as most churches they hve to be on their guard from theft and vandalism so the doors were locked. We soon found the two tombstones we were looking for, and sure enough under the arch of both of them carved in the stone was two skull and crossbones.... not often you see those in a churchyard lol. Apparently the tombstones belonged to the Hughes family, and in 1638 one of the members of this family was accused of witchcraft in the Court of Arches in London.

Finally on the way home we popped to have a look at the remains of Rhuddlan castle. This castle was built between 1277 and 1282, by King Edward of England who was trying to conquer Wales, and a new town was built for English settlers. In 1400 Owain Glyn Dwr and his troops rebelled againts the English rule and attacked the town of Rhuddlan but didn't manage to capture the castle. The castle eventually belonged to King Charles, but when he lost power the Sherriff of Flintshire was told to make it unstable and since 1648 the castle has been in ruins. Luckily in 1947 the state took over the care of the castle and it is now conserved and is open to the public.

Light at the end of the tunnel !!

I seem to have turned the corner with the guitar now, and things are starting to come together. I did the first layer of varnish on the back and neck of the guitar yesterday, and as I type it's drying off nicely. Hopefully later today I'll be able to flip it over and do the front. Then just the task of threading hundreds and hundreds of tiny seed beads to redo the neck part of it. Not something I'm looking forward to doing , but at least I'll know the end is in sight then :o)

While I've been waiting for the varnish to dry, I've been cleaning the grout off a mirror I've been making for another gallery. I've used clear textured glass on this one, which at the time I thought was a good idea...on hind sight ...no it wasn't lol. The grout has stuck to every part of the glass and it being textured has made it a very long job, to pick off all the dried grout. Why don't I think these idea's out properly before I do them lol ? I've also got a 2nd mirror I've done, this one is a sort of sunburst style and has loads of beads in the design ...once again when I've managed to clean the grout off it, it'll look pretty stunning I think. Although I can't decide what colour wash to do on the grout yet. I also need to assemble some more pendants as the gallery on the island is getting low on them.So much to do, so little time to do it in sigh !!!

A real battle

This guitar and I are having a real battle !! This last few days it's pushed my patience to the very limit. But at the moment I'm beginning to win the battle ...thank god for that. It's all been grouted now, and the once pure white tacky grout has been washed with a nice charcoal grey colour, which is making the colours really stand out. One more coat of the wash today and it'll be ready to varnish. Once that's done I'll have to start the very time consuming job of replacing all the beads on the neck of it. I'd done this once, but the sealer I'd used to hold the beads in place, had gone dull in the cleaning up process. So they all had to come off, no point in spoiling it for the sake of re threading hundreds of seed beads is there now !!

I had a visit from the enviromental health people the other day. They'd come to check out the damp in the kitchen, which the council had insisted was condensation. Wrong ...it's rising damp, they've confirmed it, which is what I've been saying since I moved into this house 17 months ago !! So I have now been awarded another 10 points, for the damp and for the fact I can't store food in the kitchen...yippeeee. The envoiromental officer was the one that had come to visit me, in my last house, where the landlady wouldn't do any repairs. She told me, that she uses the photo's of the disrepair there when she teaches students, as it's STILL the worst house they've ever seen. Am I unlucky with my houses or what lol ? I also heard from Shelter that they have recieved a report from the spinal specialist and will be forwarding that on to the council too and asking for more medical points. So hopefully this means we'll get somewhere permenant sooner rather than later. :o)

Grouting and grout dust

Grouting and grout dust are rapidly becoming the bane of my life !!! Despite putting a sheet on the floor, the dust has got everywhere and I mean everywhere. It's becoming a real battle between me and this grout, and I SHALL win come what may. After cleaning off the latest lot of surplus grout on the guitar, I ended up covered in the dammed stuff. A quick look in the mirror as I went to the loo revealed it had made my already greying hair look even greyer, in fact I resembled a badger there was so much of the stuff !!

Never ever again, will I do a mosaic guitar with tiles on the head and back of the neck of it. I don't care how much money I'm offered, it's just not worth it. At a rough estimate I think I will be earning approximately 20p an hour (if that) for this commission and the guitar isn't even finished yet !!

My daughter and I unpacked, sorted out and repacked 7 boxes today, in between me working on the guitar. We're now down to 5 boxes and quite a bit of stuff to put on Freecycle when we've finished sorting boxes out. Only the attic to go now, I dread to think whats up there, as I've never been up there. But once it's done, they'll only be the stuff that's out on display to be packed up...when the council finally does the business and allocates me a permanent bungalow at long last !!

My friend Cathy has started writing a blog, it is going to be partly therapy for her and also a warning to other women that are thinking of bringing a Nigerian guy over here to live. Let me assure you I am by no means racist, but the way my friend has been treated by this guy is just disgusting and has reduced her to shadow of her former self. http:/cathyslivinghell.blogspot.com

Not very good news

I heard yesterday that the bungalow the council were considering me for, has been allocated to someone else :o( Not the news I was hoping for obviously, especially as recently the stairs are becoming very painful for me to get down. Oh well I guess these things happen for a reason, hopefully it might be because there's something better round the corner... that's what I've been trying to tell myself since yesterday afternoon anyway.

The guitar also decided now would be a good time to throw a spanner in the works too !! I grouted the back and front of the neck of the guitar the day before yesterday, but after cleaning off the surplus, I'm not happy with the way it looks. The grout is wide and bulky looking, so I'm not happy with it. So yesterday, I took the last row of glass off the curved side and repositioned it. A messy and time consuming job, and I had to be very careful not to pull any other tiles off with it too. Today I'll re grout it and see if I'm happy with it then.

Feeling a bit low

For the last couple of days I've not felt my usual happy self. At first I thought it was my continuous early mornings. But after a lot of sleep on Sunday/ Monday I woke up yesterday feeling decidedly out of sorts.

I'm not sure what's up with me, I feel extremely tired even though I've had about 5 times more sleep than I usually have, since Sunday.Apart from my knee's being very painful for the last 10 days or so and my hands being very shaky yesterday I seem to be ok physically. Maybe I've just got a bout of the blue's.

Time will tell I guess.......

Lazy day

Yesterday I had a lazy day, every so often my 4 or 5am early mornings catch up with me, and this was one of them. But not one to sit totally idle, I surfed the net looking for inspiration and did my usual pc maintenance of backing up photo's, doing a deep scan on all the usual progs, and then defragged my pc.

This week I'm going to take my lovely old dog to the vets. He seems to be having increasing problems with his back legs and I want to check and make sure he's not in too much pain. The past week ge seems to have got noticeably worse, and much as I love him, I don't want him suffering.

My daughter did a great job on doing a cover up tattoo on my arm yesterday. She drew the design herself and then tattooed it on my arm doing some of it free hand. I'm really pleased with it ;o)

The end is in sight

After another week of working hard on the guitar, the end is almost in sight I think. The back of the neck was as tricky to mosaic as I suspected it would be, and if I get any more commissions for guitars I will be trying to avoid doing this again. The back is pretty much grouted now, just the back of the head part to grout. Then I'll flipping it over to do the front. At the moment the grout is all white, but I'll be doing a wash on it, as I find white a tacky look, especially on something as big as this. But all in all I'm very pleased with the way it's looking now, in fact I think I'd go as far as to say it's my best piece so far.

Today my daughter Jenny that lives with me, will be going over the first tattoo she did on me. She was very nervous when she did it, and had a proper tattooist watching her, which didn't help, and consequently she made a mess of it. But she has made another design that will go over it and cover it completely. Last weekend she did two stars on my other daughters foot, and wasn't happy with one of them at all, in fact it worried her that much that one of the stars wasn't 100% perfect, and she thought the design was going bleed at the edges, she almost gave up the idea of doing tattooing at all. But a week on and after being reassured by her sister that the tattoo is healing up nicely and the design hasn't gone smudged on the edges (bled) she's ready to bite the bullet and redo my one. She has started a folder of photo's on her facebook for her journey into tattooing, so I thought I would support her and also do her journey on here too. So today's photo's will be of the 3 tattoo's she's done so far. Incidentally you can get a brief preview of the guitar I'm working on now, in the background of my foot.

Yet another week wizzes by

Yet another week has wizzed by, I just can't believe how fast time is going lately. This week has passed by in a whirl of working on the commissioned guitar and grabbing a bit of sunshine when I can.

The guitar is coming along well, and so it should be the amount of hours I'm putting into it !! I've now finished 2/3rds of the side of it now. The back of the neck is something I'm almost dreading now as I know it's going to be a long and time consuming process, to cut the tiny pieces of glass I'll need, and to get them to mould around the curve of the neck. Any further commissions of guitars will not include this option that's for sure. I'm pretty sure this guitar is bigger than the last one I did as it's taking an incredible amount of glass to do it.

My oldest daughter and her family came to visit over the weekend. We had a brilliant time. While other parts of the country had thunder storms we had hot sunny weather. So we took advantage of this to go to a couple of our favourite beaches, and go paddling in the sea. My son in law shocked my daughter by stripping off to his boxers, so he could run in the sea and throw my grand daughter in head first, that was really funny. Their visit meant I had to do the guitar very early in the mornings and late into the night to keep to the schedule I've made for myself. But it was well worth it :o)

Gorgeous weather

Yesterday saw a return to some lovely sunny weather. With my bronchitus slowly starting to disapear, I thought now would be a good time to start my walking back up again. That little plan almost went out the window when I had an asthma attack just as we were leaving the house. But by the time we'd got a few things done, and got to the beach, I felt ok again.

So with my trusty old dog by my side I went for short walk to the sea edge. As it looked so inviting I couldn't resist going in for a paddle with him. I managed to get my skirt and my bag ( which I'd taken with me for some unknown reason ) wet, but the sea was lovely so who cares !!!

The mosaic guitar is coming along nicely, and I spent yesterday afternoon sitting in the garden in the sun, cutting even more small pieces of stained glass.It's a boring and thankless task and sometimes even gets painful if I do a lot of glass cutting, but it has to be done. On this guitar the client has requested that the back of the neck is also mosaiced, so I will have to cut some specially sized pieces to follow the curve of it, that will be a challenge on it's own. But the customer is always right as they say.

Time flies by

It seems impossible that a week has already gone by since I was at the Peace Festival last week. Where has the time gone ??

The whole time has been spent either working on the guitar, taking the dog for a walk or sleeping it seems. Apart from one day where I ventured into Bangor with my daughter, to look for something to wear at my sons wedding. No joy there though, the one skirt I did like was £35, no chance of me spending that much on a skirt alone !! But while we were there we bought my son in law a little pressie to say say thank you, for rescuing our dog who escaped while we stayed at his house last weekend. As it was so hot last weekend and because no one would be home for hours, I thought it might be a good idea for our dog to stay outside while we were gone. The garden is fenced all round, there would be plenty of shade for him and he could go to the loo whenever he wanted,eat and drink when he wanted, much better than staying in the house all day I thought. How wrong was I !!!

We were on our way back to Bromsgrove after the festival finished, when we got a phone call from my son in law Sparky, saying the dog has escaped and there was no sign of him. My daughter Jenny who lives with me immediately burst into tears and said there was no way we were going home without him !! Even though I was worried sick because I know our dog has got no road sense at all, I kept it together and was trying form a plan action for when we got back. After about 20 mins there was another phone call, my son in law had found him !!

The relief prompted another flood of tears from Jenny and a huge sigh of relief from me. Sparky had driven around and found our much loved Zaccy in the back of the dog wardens van, who was just getting ready to take him to the dog pound !! The dog had apparently been wandering around for best part of 5 hrs and had been seen in various streets in and around where we were staying. I can't even begin to imagine what was going through the dogs mind, he must have thought we'd abandoned him ...the guilt was terrible. The dog was overjoyed to see us, and licked every tear off Jennys face, and this was from a dog that very rarely licks anyone and a daughter that very rarely cries either, a very touching scene.

The whole thing had obviously traumatised the dog, as he was very reluctant to go outside after that. We literally had to take him outside and stay with him, while he did his business. As soon as we moved to go inside he was by our side, awww bless. Luckily once we got home to Angelsey again, he seemed ok again, but this was an experience I never want to go through again with him, the outcome could have been so very different than it turned out. Sparky as always played down his role in rescuing the dog, that's just the type of guy he is. But there's not many people that would have gone out searching for a dog, after a full day out racing his nitro car, picking up his younger daughter, then coming to the Peace Festival to pick up and drop off two of my grandsons in different places !! So to Sparky a HUGE THANK YOU !! Our daft old dog means the world to us. I'm sorry about the fence the dog destroyed to escape through too.

Fantastic festival !!!

After working flat out on the guitar for a week, I thought I deserved a treat, so Friday found us driving the familar route down to my oldest daughter in Bromsgrove, in preparation to go to a festival for the weekend.

The Peace Festival was held in my old home town of Leamington Spa, and was somewhere I used to go on regular basis for many years when we lived there. The plan was to met up with old friends, some new ones off a forum I use, and met some new random people. For once the plan went perfectly lol.

The weather was amazing for the whole weekend, so long as you enjoy hot sunny weather ...which we do. For a small sized festival, this one packs in a huge amount of things to do. One main area for bands, a smaller area for bands where there was also poetry, and talks about various global issues, loads of workshop tents, display area's for dancing, alternative therapy tents and loads of very reasonably priced stalls.

It was brilliant to met up with some old friends that I hadn't seen for years, and catch up with all their news and to do the same in return. A little more nerve wracking for me was meeting up with some people from a forum I go on daily, but I needn't have worried they were all lovely !!

Some pics of old friends to start with















Friends off a forum













And a couple of new random friends.