Monday, 29 June 2009

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)

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Tuesday, 23 June 2009

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.

Sunday, 21 June 2009

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.

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

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


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Friends off a forum

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And a couple of new random friends.


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Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Time marches on.

Time marches on and I keep getting distracted from writing on my blog, on a daily basis, like i usually do. But life's busy at the moment and something has to take a back seat.

A trip back to the doctors has resulted in me being sent for a x ray and being given a course of steroids ...6 a day to be taken all at once grrrrrr !!! This is due to take place on Thurs afternoon, I might just accidentally on purpose forget to go I think. I'm happier in my ignorance.

The front main part of the guitar is finished now, and I'm doing the beading up the neck of it now. This is a very time consuming, slow process as I use tiny seed beads, each of which has to be thread onto a very thin line for each seperate line of beads to keep them in place until I grout the guitar.

Today was our once fortnightly shopping day, which myself and my daughter usually hate with a passion. But today for a change I decided that maybe a trip out to Asda in Llandudno might make a nice change. I spent more money than usual I think, but we've got a few different dinners for a change. I also bought some hallomi cheese which I'd been told about over the weekend. This is a greek cheese which you can toast or fry and it stays solid. So tonight for my dinner I fried some of this cheese, with a salad of lambs lettuce, beetroot and some other type of lettuce that escapes me lol.

Saturday, 6 June 2009

Great Time

Well the last couple of days I've had a great time. Last night we went down to Holyhead Breakwater Park, with my daughter and friends Coral, Will and Mandy. Will, I have to admit had drank quite a few cans of beer on their way to us. When he's had a few beers Will developes what can only be called a motormouth lol, he just doesn't stop talking for even a minute. He was so funny, and with my sarky sense of humour I managed to throw a couple of one liners at him, which he took in good part. The reason for going up to the Breakwater Park was to have somewhere to spin fire poi, and there was the perfect place, for my daughter and Coral. We were there till 11pm and then my daughter and I left to come home, leaving the rest to spend the night in the van.

The next day was a day of different workshops and stalls to launch the opening of Ysgol Llanfawr Outdoor Classroom, where the kids are taught how to grow organic vegetables etc. There was two particular workshops I was interested in, one was making benches and the other was spoon carving. The bench making was run by a great guy called Azz who had brought with him a hand made slave horse which grips the wood so you can carve things such as the bench legs etc. Azz was a fasinating guy who up until recently had been living in 3 interconnected yurts, but recently decided to build himself a straw bale house, as this was as cheap as replacing the canvases on his yurts !! He invited me up to see his straw bale house sometime when we are close by, something I'll look forward to. I also made some new friends, which I hope to met up with again in the future.


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Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Hot hot hot

My posts have been a bit thin on the ground these last few days. This is partly due to me working flat out on this guitar commission, and partly due to the very hot weather we've been having.

The guitar is coming on well, and I'm quite pleased with how it's looking. Although I am questioning my wisdom of using such a large abstract design on it as this has meant cutting a lot of individual pieces of glass that have to be cut very accurately to fit within the design .... if that makes any sense lol. Luckily, I've been able to work outside doing the guitar which was an added bonus, as I would have hated to have been cooped up inside during such lovely weather.

Mind you the hot weather combined with my lingering bronchitis did cause me to have a bit of a wobble on Sunday. My daughter and I decided to go to the little beach we found, all was ok on the way there although I got a bit breathless. But on the way back, the heat aggravated my asthma and I was struggling to breathe. This was a horrible feeling and at one point I doubted if I was going to get back to the car at all. With loads of stops I did eventually get to the car, but I don't mind saying it really frightened me and I felt very close to having a panic attack, which I also got last time I had bronchitis too. Never have I been so glad to get back home, this little episode left me feeling out of sorts for the rest of the day. I hope today's visit to the doctors will get me some more effective antibiotics, as I want rid of this bronchitis.