An early morning blog

I've been awake since 4am, so I thought I might as well update my blog. Last nite found me snuggled up for bed really early, as I'd only had about 4 hrs sleep the nite before and I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

I spent a good couple of hours talking to my mate Sharron on msn, before I went to bed. We had so much catching up to do, I couldn't believe her and her hubby Martin have been together for 15yrs now...how time flies. It seems like we'll be meeting up much sooner than I expected as Sharron doesn't want to wait till we go the Midlands next month, so is coming to visit me instead whoooo !! Although both she and I lead a much more sedate lifestyle now, once upon a time she and I used to paint the town red almost every nite, looking back god knows how we managed it, but we did lol. So I'm sure we'll be spending some of the time reminissing about the mad, wild days long gone now lol. Sharron is one of those friends you make in life, who you know you've got a special bond with, and no matter how many years go past when you're apart, that bond will never be broken. We've both vowed this time we won't lose contact again !!

I also caught up with my mate Caz yesterday morning on msn. Her and her cousin Rich and I, all used to go to school together ...more years ago than I care to remember lol. As they both live in Cornwall we're planning to met up when I go to Falmouth for my sons wedding.

This year seems to be a time for blasts from the past for me. Already this year there's been Eilidh, the daughter of an ex who used to live with me, a very close male friend, who is a very private person so I shan't say his name, and now Sharron. I don't think they'll be any more people popping up from my past, although there is a friend from my old home town I'd like to be in touch with again. We shall see if fate throws that friend up again in time I expect.

My daughter Jenny who lives with me, is off to Manchester for 3 days on Weds, so I shall have to make sure that I've got everything I might need while she's away. Luckily today is my fortnightly shopping day, so it shouldn't be a problem. I've also got to streak her hair some time today too, I was going to do it last nite but her pc was playing up really badly last nite, so her hair got forgotten ( by me anyway ) in that drama and by the time she popped her head round the door to ask me to do it, I was already snuggled up ready for the land of nod ....sorry Jen.


My friend Sharron and her hubby Martin



Me and Sharron when we last met up at my daughter Emma's engagement party 8 yrs ago.

Brilliant day !!

What a great day I've had, first of all a phone call from my son the bride groom to be, saying as an early Xmas present him and his girlfriend have booked myself and my daughter into a hotel for 3 days in Falmouth, for his wedding whoooo. As my other son Ben, my daughter Emma her hubby and 2 of her kids, plus our friends Mandy, Martin, Paul, and Jason from Birmingham, are also booked into the same hotel, I can see it'll be a good time even without the wedding lol !!

Then as an added bonus I've found my long time friend Sharron on Facebook via her ex boy friend Scully. Scully very helpfully passed on her mobile number to me and it turns out Sharron had been trying to find me too, but as I've moved around a fair bit in the last few years she didn't know where to start !! Even better she's not a million miles away from where my daughter lives in the Midlands so we'll be catching up next time we go and visit I'm sure.

Happier day

My sad mood is slowly inching away, and I'm starting to think of happier things. The dress to impress saga for my sons wedding is causing much hilarity in our house, between me and my daughter.

The bridegroom to be, has rung me up two days on the trot now, which is quite a rarity in itself lol. This time he started going on about where we would be staying and started telling me about the cost of hotel rooms, b/b's etc, it was then I had to give him a reality check. When I say we're constantly skint, I really mean it.

Even buying a new skirt will be a supreme effort, as there's literally no money left once the bills have been paid, and foods been bought.So the luxury of staying in an hotel in Falmouth which isn't the cheapest of places, at the height of the season, is just not going to happen, unless a miracle occurs and I find a way of earning extra money ...which is also highly unlikely.

Once my son had grasped the concept that skint in our house really does mean skint, he then remembered that his mate Paul had got a 12 man tent ...now he's talking !!! So, hopefully we'll be able to find a cheap campsite and do it that way. Although I have to say the thought of trying to get ready for wedding in a tent isn't very appealing lol. But when needs must, you do what you have to do.

The sun showed its face today after a week of very grey, damp weather and very welcome it was too. I managed to clean up the top part of the garden which had been shelved before, because the weather turned. Now all in the garden is ship shape, and I sat and enjoyed looking a a couple of plants that are looking very spring like.

Scalding hot bath

The second scalding hot bath in two days seems to have eased off the pain in my shoulder, at last. Fingers crossed it stays away too. I only managed to do 2 strings of beads to decorate the boot yesterday, but now hopefully I'll get the rest of it done.

While we were visiting my daughter, we popped over to Acocks Green to visit my son Dan in his warehouse as well. What was once a nice neat place is now a complete shambles as my son has closed the warehouse to the public, and is concentrating on selling on Ebay instead. This son is getting married in August and the wedding invite arrived today, along with a menu to chose from (and a lovely vegetarian choice too )and directions on how to get to the church. One thing that jumped out was the dress code ...Dress to Impress...this is something totally alien to my side of the family !! We're strictly a very casually dressed family, so it will be funny to see everyone dressed up to the nines. I'm sure none of us will be feeling comfortable either.

My daughter has had dreadlocks for the last two years, and then about 2 weeks ago she suddenly decided she'd had enough of them. So she's spent hours and hours and days and days taking all the dreads out, all 53 of them !! I only tried to help her undo one and that was enough for me, after doing about 1/4 of one I gave up. We were amazed at how long her hair was once the dreads were all out, see the photo below. But last nite I chopped off a good 6 inches off the length, so it's more managable now. One side effect was that when she hoovered up all her stray hair, it clogged up the brush on my hoover and I had to spend a good couple of hours taking it all apart today to replace the belt that had burnt out grrrrrr.

Crafting again

After feeling pretty sad for the last few days, I forced myself to start doing the other Dr Marten boot yesterday. To my surprise it's come on really well, despite the fact I haven't enjoyed doing it, but I think that's probably down to me feeling low rather than anything else. This time I've used different sized pieces of glass and mirror to give it a different look to the first one. Today all being well, I'll be doing the beading round the edges of it. Last time I used tiny seed beads this time I think I'll try slightly bigger ones.

When I was way visiting my daughter, I woke up one morning with a very painful shoulder blade. I thought I'd just sat in a draft or something, but 5 days on it's still really painful. Typing seems to aggrevate it, so I've kept this to a mimimum as much as possible, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I think I'll have to make a quick trip to the doctors if it isn't any better by Monday :o(

Once I've finished the boot, I'll be finishing off some dichroic glass pendants I've made, at a very reasonable price. These pendants come complete with a 16" chain and in a gift box. I'll be putting these for sale on here, at a ridiculous £10 plus £1 P/P.

Back home again

Well I'm back home again after few days away at my oldest daughters. The trip away started off well, the sun was shinning and we had music blaring as we set off for the Midlands. We were almost at Stoke On Trent when I remembered my mate Ray was moored somewhere around there, a detour to go and see him for cuppa sounded like a good idea. So after a quick text, I found out exactly whereabouts he was, and we pulled in at the next services to check on the sat nav how far away he was. It showed he was 45 mins way, so we decided that as we were a bit short of petrol we'd leave it this time, and carried on with our journey, we were all gutted but it couldn't be helped. When I got to my daughters I went on the net and found exactly where Ray was .... it was then, that I realised that as we carried on towards my daughters we were actually getting closer to him !! Ooooops that'll teach me not to have a normal map book in the car. Sorry Ray next time eh :o)

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day but as my daughter Emma we'd gone to visit, had been struck down with the tummy bug my grand daughter had the previous week, we spent the day sunbathing. Sunday brought a visit from a friend from the past and we spent a few hours catching up with all the travelling she's been doing this last 9 months or so.

On Monday my daughter felt much better, so we set off to drop me off at a biker friend of mines place, as I hadn't heard from him since I moved to this new house. As soon as we pulled into his road, I knew something was wrong as his trike wasn't parked outside his flat where it always was. I went and rang his bell and a woman answered, she told me that he'd passed away about 9 months ago, and that her mom and dad had lived there since. I was absolutely gob smacked he was only 42yrs old, it never occurred to me that this could have happened. Why is it only the good die young, this was a big bear of guy, who if you had any sense you didn't mess with, but with me he was always a funny gentle giant... I'll miss you Buck :o(

Just a quick one

Just a quick blog this morning, as I'm off to my daughters in the Midlands today for a few days. As usually getting things packed is a last minute thing, one of these days I'll be organised !!!

While we're at my daughters this time we're meeting up with an ex of my sons, who we haven't seen for 8 yrs. She's just back from a trip to Australia, one of many adventures abroad she's had since we last saw her. So it'll be catch up time. I'm also going to see a biker friend of mine, who I haven't seen online for a while, I just want to check he's ok. I'm not keen on the area of Birmingham he lives in, last time I went to visit him he had to tie his huge trike chain around my steering wheel and round my accelerator to make sure no one stole my car !! So this time my daughters will just drop me off there, and come and pick me up later lol.

Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day and sat outside in the garden most of the morning, I just hope this isn't our summer !!!

Right time for me to go and get organised ...such a difficult thing for me lol.

What a farce

What a farce the whole hospital thing turned out to be !! After arriving at the hospital in plenty of time for my appointment at 2.15 I sat and waited ...and waited.. and waited, finally at 2.45 I stopped the woman who took my hospital letter off me with the appointment time on it and asked why I hadn't been seen yet, she dissapeared off for another 5 mins and then came back to tell me that on Monday they'd changed my appointment to 3.45 pm. What a bloody shame no one bothered to tell me !!! I was fuming, so when I was told I could wait another hour and see the dr I refused point blank and said no thanks I'll go home. I walked off before I totally lost my temper and swore at someone.

I got back to my daughters car with steam coming out of my ears lol. I soon calmed down when she told me she'd just had a phone call and were going to see, a guy we both know who was moving to Thailand on Friday, and who had a washing machine he didn't want. I hoped it might be a higher spin speed than the one we got off Freecycle last week, but it wasn't, so we left it there. After a cuppa and a few laughs with Rob and his mate Hugo, Rob dissapeared upstairs to get us a couple of mechanical dolls he thought we might be able to sell on Ebay and make ourselves a few quid. When he came back down bearing these two treasures, we all roared with laughter, they must be the most ugly dolls I've ever seen !! If anyones seen the film Bride of Chucky, these dolls made him look like Goldilocks lol. But we took them anyway and at some point I'll put them on Ebay.com they might sell as they were made in the Bronx so someone might buy them.

Last night my keyboard decided to throw a final wobble and die on me completely. It's been playing up for few days now, but of course it had to go completely just on a night when I couldn't get to sleep !!

I had an email off my mate Ray this morning, and he'd sent me some long awaited update photo's on the refit of his boat he lives on. As I've mentioned before the refit has happened because he's had an extra 10 feet added on it,this is to give him more workshop room. I can see a definite improvement Ray lol.

We'd hoped to met up last year as Ray's going to teach me the basics of flame worked beads, but for various reasons it just never happened, hopefully as we've got more relible transport it'll happen this year. I'm not particularly into beads, but I am interested in the technique as I have a small kiln so could make small roundells and then anneal them in my kiln and use them in stained glass panels.

Filled with dread

I've been dreading today for ages, this afternoon I have to go to the hospital in Bangor to see a specialist spinal physiotherapist. I've already cancelled this appointment 3 times now because of my phobia of hospitals. This appointment has come about because the last bout of sciatica I had, was the most painful thing I've ever known in my entire life, and I've got a pretty high pain threshold too.

It started off as normal sciatica, unbearable pain in my back, then it started moving down my leg. I get sciatica on a regular basis so don't bother going to the doctors any more, I know the rules, rest but not too much rest and take painkillers, which is exactly what I did. Until the pain moved down to my ankle too ...then I got hit by the worst pain I've ever known. It felt like someone was twisting a broken glass round and round in my ankle constantly. After a day of this I went to the doctors who gave me Diazipan, that didn't ease it at all, if anything the pain got even worse. I couldn't walk downstairs any longer I had to sit and edge myself down. The following day the pain was even worse, I was crying it was so bad by now and I couldn't even get downstairs at all. I knew then I had to get the doctor to come and see me. This time it was a different doctor and she was very thorough, she prescribed some even stronger painkillers. I suffered the pain for a couple more days as the painkillers never even touched the pain, by this time I'd had no sleep and felt there was no way I could deal with this agony any longer. I must have been on the verge of overdosing on the painkillers by this time, as I was so desperate to have a break from it. I can't remember how many painkillers I took that day, it was at least double what the doctor had prescribed me if not more, in desperation we got someone to make me a very strong joint, I smoked that and passed out ( I normal never touch any drugs )!!

I woke up in the morning and the pain had gone completely. I couldn't believe it, I kept waiting for it to kick back in again, but it didn't ..... brilliant !! After a couple of days I noticed a couple of my toes had gone numb, I didn't think much of it, at least I wasn't in any pain. The numbness gradually spread over the following days to all of my toes, the top of my foot and part of the underneath of my foot and had moved up to left side of my calf too, my circulation was also getting very poor in that foot. At this point it was starting to affect my balance, so I reluctantly went back to the doctor. She was quite puzzled as the numbness was going up my leg, so she ordered a load of blood tests and said she was going to get me an urgent appointment at the hospital. Which she did...howver my fear of hospitals kicked in and I put off the appointment 3 times, now it's got the point where if I don't go today, they'll refer me back to my doctor again. So I've got to bit the bullet and face my fears and go to the hospital ekkkkk, wish me luck.

Yesterday my son and his girlfried came round as arranged. While he was here he moved some heavy stuff around in the garden for me and lifted my big dog in the bath so we could give him a well overdue wash...smelly old thing he was. They also offered to come shopping with us, which was great. As a thank you I got the stuff for him and his girlfriend to have something to eat with us.

Once they'd gone at 7 pm, I logged on the pc, but within a couple of hours my back and knees were so painful I had to lie down. I quickly fell asleep and didn't wake up till 6 am this morning !! That's the best sleep I've had for a couple of months, and this morning I feel bright eyed and bushy tailed. :o)

Sunny days

Yet another sunny day found me out in the garden again, finishing off all the weeding. For a tiny bit of garden I've managed to fill one of those big green wheelie bins ....I'm sure it wasn't that untidy !! I managed to sweep down one side of the garden, but had to give up after that my back was killing me. My son and his girlfriend are coming round today so I'll get him to tidy up the top part of the garden by the back door and move the old washing machine so that looks tidy and then that's the whole thing all neat and tidy ... a job well done me thinks. All I need then is to get a few bedding plants when the time's right and I'll have some colour out there for the summer.

I still seem to have a creative block for some reason, so the 2nd boot still sits there mockingly looking at me all day. It's rare I get these blocks and they always seem to happen when I need money the most, maybe there's a link ...hmmm not thought of that before I actually wrote it.

I was chatting to my oldest daughter and her daughter online last night. It seems there was a slight accident at their house yesterday. My grand daughter who's been helping out in the garden lately ( well done Raggz ) went into the garden stood on a rake handle and it hit in her the eye !! She's now sporting a lovely black eye lol, it sounded like something out of a comedy script when they were telling me last nite. Not to miss a photo opportunity my daughter took a photo of it, apparently the bruising has come out a lot more since the photo below, I guess that means a lot longer spent in front of the mirror this morning doing her eye make up before school. Also a photo of my youngest grand daughter who's been laid up with a tummy bug for the last few days also feeling very sorry for herself. This little girl is one of the happiest kids I've ever known, so it must be very bewildering for her being sick all the time, bless her.

Not quite such an early morning

I managed to sleep till 3.30 am today, a bit of an improvement to Sunday morning, I suppose lol.Yet another warm day yesterday found me back in the garden, pottering about again. I managed to get a bit of weeding done this time, and then with the dog, we both sat enjoying feeling the spring sunshine on our faces.

After a while I came inside and decided to start designing buttons etc for my new website. That resulted in me having to go through a box of discs to look for the program I needed, I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone and sort these back up discs out while I was at it. That ended up being a real trip down memory lane ..... and brought back a lot of happy times from years gone by. I eventually found the disc I was looking for and had a go at making a few buttons etc, none of which I was really happy with.

Prompted by getting some baby corgettes from the reduced section at Tesco's, on our way to take the dog for a walk, I came home and made myself a lovely dinner. Sweet and sour vegetable stir fry with rice and a side salad, it was yummy though I say so myself. I couldn't help wishing that had a garden big enough to grow my own veggies though, they're so expensive to buy in the supermarkets these days, I must spend at least £20 a week on fresh veg. I can remember the time when seasonal veggies would reduce in price, that doesn't seem to happen any longer.

Very early morning

It's 3.30 am in the morning, and I've been awake since 2.30am, my body clock seems to be completely out of synch with the normal world at the moment. I don't usually mind getting up early but this is a bit extreme even for me lol.

I spent a couple of happy hours yesterday in my tiny bit of garden. I pruned back a bush that was threatening to take over what little space I have got outside, and cut off last years dead wood on some bush type things that manage to live on top of the wall that I share with next door. If the weathers fine today, I might clear the weeds that sprung up since last year in the tiny flower beds that go down the sides of my otherwise concrete garden.Unattractive as my description sounds I love this little garden in the summer. It gets the sun from first thing in the morning till it goes down at dusk, and I've been known to be out there as long as the sun too. It makes such a welcome change from looking at the four walls in the house.

Well I think I'll go and surf the net for a while and hope that I can grab a couple of hours sleep afterwards.

Giving up !!

After spending the last 3 days on the 2nd boot, I'm giving up. I'm just not happy that I can't get the vibrant colours with the material,embroidery, beads, and mirrors that I can with glass. If I carry on I'll never be completely happy with it, and that's just not good enough for me.

Also and much more important to me, is that doing the hand sewing has made arthritus flare up on the base of my right thumb. As art and crafts are a huge part of my life, I can't risk continuing doing something, that might in the future affect me being able to carry on doing other artisic things. So the embroidered panel is being consigned to the bin lol !!

So I've been sat here since 4am this morning debating on what to do next. I've got some wavy mirrors which would look quite nice mosaiced, and I could sell for a reasonable price or I might start doing a new mosaic on the other boot. The owner of the gallery where a lot of my glass work goes to be exhibited was very keen on the first boot and wanted it down there, but it had sold already, so maybe I'll do it for there. Hmmmm I'll see.

As I mentioned on yesterdays blog, the lady that's got the first boot is going to a collectors fair to show her collection of Dr Martens. My boot I've found out since is going to be shown on an illuminated glass block with spotlights on it !! So I've arranged to do some business cards, hopefully with my new website ( when I do it ) on it and they'll be put next to the boot. So hopefully I may get a commission or two from this.

I had an email yesterday from a very good friend of mine Terry in North Caroline, she and I have been penpals now for the last 15 months, and write to each other every day. She has also taken the plunge and started a blog, she does beautiful stained glass. It was our mutual love of glass that first made Terry get in contact with me, but over the months we've been in contact we've got much closer and there isn't much that goes on in both our lives, that we don't share with each other. Her blog is here http://seacatzglass.blogspot.com
and below is a photo of one of her stained glass panels as a little taster of what you'll find on her blog.

Making progress

Yesterday, my day started off on my hands and knee's trying to shampoo off the black rubber marks, the washing machine left in my hallway. I'm still not quite sure whether it's done any good as the carpet is still a bit damp at the moment, but fingers and toes crossed !!

At last the block has cleared and I'm making progress with the 2nd boot whoooo lol. I've spent the last two days, carefully doing some machine embroidery, a first for me and a bit harder than I was expecting too. Not one to let inexperience hamper her, I carried on and now the panel has that part of it completed. I also did some hand embroidery with some very sparkly metallic thread that I swapped with my mate Mel, when I was up in Scotland. Then yesterday I spent all day sewing on 6 shisha mirrors. For those that aren't familiar with shisha mirrors they are they small circles of glass that you embroidery to attach on to material. Usually these mirrors are about 1/2" across, but because the boot isn't that big I've had to use 1/4" circles, which makes a fiddly job even fiddlier !! I've done another one this morning and another 2 or 3 should be enough for this panel. I've made the embroidery different colours on each mirror, and at last this section is starting have a splash of colour which pleases me greatly, I'm hoping by the time I've finished it will be a riot of colours. :o)

I've included a couple of photo's of shisha mirrors, not my work as I don't want to reveal any of the boot until it's completed, but just to give you a rough idea of what they are. I've also included a couple of photo's one the first boot in it's new home and also another of some this ladys amazing collection of Dr Marten boots. I've been informed that since this photo was taken, the boot has been given a shelf of it's own awwwwww lol. My boot along with all the rest of the collection, are going to be shown at a collectors fair, how exciting is that !!

Mental block

I seem to have a mental block on doing the 2nd boot for some reason, which is very annoying because I want to do some machine embroidery on it and I've only got the machine for a short while.I'm tempted to just leave it for a bit and do something totally different, but I know what I'm like when I leave something part done ...... it usually ends up never getting finished lol !! Decisions decisions

We picked up the washing machine from the person who'd kindly donated it to Freecycle, and it's taken me and my daughter 2 days to get it in place and plumbed in !! Also there's a trail of black marks ekkkkkkk, where my daughter had to walk it through the house, as I just couldn't manage to help her move it after we'd struggled to get it out of the car. At first I thought it was just normal dirt marks but yesterday I realised it's actually the black rubber feet that have done the damage. What a nightmare, I just hope the carpet shampoo stuff I bought yesterday does the trick !! Yesterday made me and my daughter realise what rubbish tools we've got. It took a joint effort on both our parts, before we managed to undo the water pipes on the back of the new machine and attach my old pipe back on it again, with a rusty and very heavy adjustable spanner. But we did it in the end and there's no leaks ....sigh of relief !!

The mosaic boot arrived at it's new home yesterday, and has pride of place on the ladys mantlepiece now and she loves it. It's arrival did cause a bit of a stir on the forum we both use though. This lady has been going through a pretty hard time one way and another lately, and was also a bit short of cash so had asked if she could pay me in a couple of weeks. I was more than happy to do this because I knew I'd get the money. However the twist to the tale was, that in the meantime one of her friends decided it would be great to buy it for her as a surprise !! So when Jo opened the parcel yesterday morning all she found in it, was a cryptic message from me saying this was bought as a surprise for her lol. Even though she begged me to tell her who'd bought it for her, I decided it wasn't my place to tell her and in the end I had text her friend and get her to come online and reveal herself, as Jo was frantic to know who this person was lol.

Grumpy old git

The last two days I've been a right grumpy old git, and feeling pretty sorry for myself.I'm rarely low so it does tend to hit me like a ton of bricks, but now the doom and gloom has gone and I'm back to my usual self again.

Due to my grumps nothing crafty has been done either tut tut !! But hopefully now I'm feeling happier I'll be able to get on and create something again. Any money I make from them will go to my going back to Scotland again fund, to see Andy and Mel from http://theblackbuscompany.blogspot.com/ Even though we've managed to stay in touch by text, when they've been somewhere with a signal, it's not been the same as reading their adventures on their blog. So I was really happy to see that Andy had managed to get somewhere with a signal when they went to Inverness today and managed to update his blog a bit. He's also found a pc shop where he can go and do this regularly now, so that's an added bonus :o)

The mosaic boot got posted off to it's new owner and she should have recieved it today or tomorrow hopefully. I hope she likes it !!

I got a phone call this morning from someone on Freecycle to say I'd been lucky enough to get the washing machine they'd put on there. That's brilliant news as my faithful old one, that I had inherited from my dad had given up the ghost, and was pouring water all over the kitchen floor. So we're going to pick that up tonight, I can't wait. I just hope it fits in my daughters car which is only small, fingers crossed about that one !!!

Wasted day

Well yesterday was a bit of a wasted day. I didn't want to start getting all the stuff out for the other boot, as I knew I had to go shopping later on once my daughter woke up. She eventually woke up at 1pm, she certainly made the most of being back in her own comfy bed lol. So by the time the shopping was done and I'd cooked dinner, the day was pretty much over for me. I'm an early morning person, so once it gets past 4pm my body automatically starts winding down ...not the time to start a new project. So I caught up with loads of emails, that were long over due, with me being away.

But I'm up early, so once I've parcelled up the mosaic boot to send to it's new owner I'll be getting stuck in with next boot.

I downloaded the photo's Id taken while I was at my daughters yesterday, so here's a few of them.


Eilidh, the daughter of an ex and my youngest grand daughter.



My grand daughter trying to stop her mom from taking close ups of snowdrops lol.



A knobbly tree which made me think of Dave from the Woodwose blog.



And lastly a couple of residents from the nature centre.

Blast from the Past

Yesterday was a real blast from the past, myself and my two daughters went and caught up with the daughter of an ex of mine. Her father who was a single dad at the time and I, lived together for about 18 months many moons ago. So it was nice to catch up and go back over old times. The only thing that had changed, was her very broad scottish accent which is much more englified now. One odd thing was, that none of us could remember why me and her dad had split up lol.

In a few hours time we'll be setting off back home again. I'd hoped to get some craft stuff done while I was here but that never happened as we were too busy gadding about lol. I didn't mind too much, as I don't really get out to explore any more, when I'm at home, and it's something I really miss.

But once home I need to knuckle down and get some serious work done. My daughter has lent me her sewing machine, so I can get some embroidery done, once I get home which is handy. I also need to get the 2nd Dr Marten boot decorated and up for sale too. I also need to try and get hold of some more boots, as Mike at the gallery where my work is exhibited and up for sale, was very keen on the boot when I showed him the photo's of it.

Time to go and pack I think :o)

At last !!

At last I've remembered what my password is on here dohhhh lol.

Well it's been a whirlwind of activity here since we arrived. We've been out every day for most of the day and I can honestly say I'm knackered, and my back and knee's are really feeling it, but it's been good fun though.

We've been to car boots, visiting my sons, exploring woods and going to a nature centre. I really enjoyed the nature centre there was a lot more to see than I expected there and my youngest grand daughter loved it too. As you can see from the photo of her she really didn't want to leave. For me the thing I enjoyed seeing the most was a barn owl, such beautiful birds. I haven't downloaded my photo's yet, so I'll nick a couple of my daughters ones although I took the photo's of the barn owl anyway.