Snow bound Anglesey

After a couple of days of being snowbound, we were able to get out yesterday and take some photo's, so I was a happy bunny. It's very unusual for us to get so much snow I have to say, so we were quite excited. As I'm a member of a weather forum, I knew this snow was coming and made sure we were stocked up with enough food to last a week or two. My daughter went to check our elderly neighbour was ok, as her usual stream of visitors were noticeable by their absence, but she's fine and has been told to bang the wall if she needs anything. She also went and cleared another disabled neighbours snow off his car for him after noticing he'd been trying to use his car heaters to melt it with no success lol. The temperature was -8 this morning, which is the lowest I've ever seen it, so we might well be icebound now, as our street front and back hasn't been treated at all, so the snow is very compacted now.

All my commissions are now done and have been sent off. However 4 of them might not reach their new owner as quickly as she'd hoped. As she is still stuck in Cyprus after spending the last two days at the airport waiting to get a flight home to the UK to see her family. She was hoping to get a flight at 6am this morning, but after seeing the news today I think it's doubtful her flight will get to Heathrow as she'd hoped.

As all my commissions were done, it was time to clear the decks of all my usual crafty clutter ....my front room looks very bare. I'm also starting to get bored with nothing to do, so some clutter might have to sneak it's way back in again, which I'm sure will cause raised eyebrows from my daughter lol !!!

On our travels yesterday, we spotted some wild ponies in a field so stopped to take some photo's. They were obviously not used to visitors as they headed our way very quickly, wow they were scary looking with really wild looking eyes !! As the light faded and the temperature dropped we got to see mists rising above the road, which looked very odd, it was good to have a break from the house though.

Enough of my waffling here's a few photo's we took yesterday.

An update at last !!

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten all about my little old blog ......no way !! I've just been really busy working on my latest mosaic. It's taken me 5 weeks to create this little beauty and my first go at doing one that's not an abstract, and I have to say I'm quite pleased with it. It measures 20" x 15".and is for Redskin Tattoo in Bangor.

Towards the end when it really started to take shape it became almost like a drug, I just couldn't stop doing it. I even worked on it for 12 hours a few times too. I made a bit of a rod for my own back, as to get the effect I wanted I had to cut the 1" mirror tiles into 25 pieces, which was very time consuming as you can imagine. Even the 1 cm grey and irridised tiles I cut into 9 pieces each. I also decided to paint the background with a matt black enamel paint, rather than do the whole panel with glass. This was to enhance the effect of the shiny mirror tiles, and it worked, I'm pleased to say. I think I may use this technique in other mosaics I do, as it was so successful.

I've also got a commission for 3 stained glass sun catchers 2 crosses and a pentagram, and an oil painting to do too. The sun catchers are almost complete and then I'll move on to the painting which is half done. So I will probably have to go quiet again as these need finishing before Christmas.

Here's a photo of the mosaic just finished, hope you like it.

Fishing, a christening, go carting and a birthday

It's been quite a busy time here this last few weeks, one way and another. Since I last updated my blog we've had 2 fishing trips, my youngest grand daughters christening, a trip go carting, my birthday and my daughter getting 4 weeks work experience at a tattoo shop ...not bad for a sleepy little back water eh lol.

Since my daughter showed an interest in fishing, I've wanted to take her up to Holyhead Breakwater for a fishing session, as I knew we'd catch some fish even though they'd be small ones. A few Sundays ago we actually managed to get up there, and as I hoped we actually caught some fish, much to my daughters delight. She caught 3 wrasse, one was a particularly pretty shade of green, a pollack and a crab, whereas I caught 2 pollack, a blenny and a crab lol. We really enjoyed ourselves and came away feeling extremely relaxed, all the fish were safely returned and all our mess was cleaned up and taken with us. The 2nd fishing trip was last weekend when a we had family and friends here visiting for my youngest grand daughters christening. Yet another trip to the Breakwater of course, and there was fierce competition between the men and women !! The first and biggest fish of the day was caught by my 15yr old grand daughter Raggz a good sized wrasse, not bad for her first attempt. More fish were pulled out including a scorpion fish by my other daughter Jenny, some pollack by the lads and nothing from me !!! It ended up as a 3 all draw, which wasn't bad as it was quite a short fishing session :o) My son Ben brought with him loads of fishing tackle for us, so with what had already been given to us by a good friend of mine, we had more than enough rods and reels to go round everyone.

The next day was the christening of my 6 month old grand daughter Kacey Louise. Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not too keen on anything to do with religion, churches, sermons or anything else along those lines. The christening was in with the usual church service, and this made the whole thing a very long drawn out affair, of over 1.5hrs, probably closer to 2hrs. During one of her sermons the vicar mentioned how good it was to see so many young people there and that the church worried how few young people attended church services these days. In all honesty if this was typical of a church service these days, I'm not surprised !! For starters, it was way too long, the christening only accounted for approx 20 mins of the time we were there, there was nothing in the service that that any of the younger people there could relate to whatsoever, so very little chance of them wanting to go back again, and lastly there were only two hymn books between 10 of us, so even if we wanted to join in there was no chance !!! I have to say my grand daughter behaved beautifully, and had a good few of us in fits of giggles with the expressions on her face looking at the various comings and goings of the vicar, and the choir. After the service it was off to a nearby pub for the get together afterwards. As there was only one out of 10 of us that drinks, we didn't stay too long. Once back at my house it was decided to go off go carting, before everyone set off on their long journey home.

There's a local go carting track called Cartio Mon Karting, so we all headed off there. My daughter and I had seen this place from the A55 many many times, but this was our first visit. I have to say I was extremely impressed, all the staff there were very friendly, helpful and all aspects of safety on the track were covered very well. I can also highly recommend the cafe on site. It was very very clean, had large windows to watch the go carting through and the drinks and food were very good !!! It was all reasonably priced too. Some of the people with us were regulars to larger go carting tracks down in the Midlands and said that this track compared very favourably to those down there.

My youngest daughter who lives at home with me, is very interested in tattooing as a few of you will know from reading my blog. Four weeks ago she was lucky enough to be given 4 weeks work experience at Redskins Tattoo shop in Bangor. After her initial misgivings about her ability to actually cope with this, she really enjoyed her time there, and was extremely sad to leave last Tuesday. The tattooists and the owner of the shop were also very sad to see her go too, but couldn't afford to take her on, so they are looking into to seeing if there is any chance of them getting funding to keep her there for a longer period of time. I'll be keeping my fingers and toes crossed for this to happen, as I've watched my daughter bloom, and grow this last 4 weeks, and have never seen her so happy and content for a long long time.

The last thing to report was my birthday last Thurs, I had a fantastic day and was thoroughly spoilt by the amazing presents I got, thank you everyone for making it such a special day :o)

This first photo says it all, the look on my daughters face when she caught a fish was a cracker lol.



My lovely little grand daughter Kacey, wearing the christening dress that was her moms before her.



The gang ready to hit the track go karting.

My paintings part 2 and 3

Another long silence in blog land while I've been preoccupied with carrying on doing the set of paintings for myself and also doing a seascape commission too. I've been alternating between the three paintings, as even with the drying oil, there's always a gap of two or three days while I wait for each coat to dry. But at last my two are finished and up on the wall, although not in their permanent home until I've done all five paintings, so that I can juggle them around here there and everywhere, till I'm happy. The second photo below I think is my personal best so far in 20 odd years of painting. I've really enjoyed doing these paintings, and it's been a nice change from the constant cutting of glass, which takes it toll on the arthritis in my hands.

It's probably as well that the mosaics have taken a back seat as the gallery where I show my mosaics has now sadly closed. Partly due to ever increasing overheads, and the recession, but also due to personal circumstances of Mike the owner. I am seriously thinking of doing a website with crafts on though, as this seems to be a natural progression. But for the time being that's still in the "things to do" section of my life lol.

My daughter Jenny is currently doing 4 weeks voluntary work at a tattoo shop Redskin Tattoo's, as some of you know she has been interested in tattooing for quite a long time now, and has done various tattoo's on willing victims lol !! Being at the tattoo shop has let her see that a lot of the little things she has worried about, were needless worries. Everyone working there has bent over backwards to make her feel welcome and she feels part of the family already. One thing I learnt was that tattooist have their own special handshake lol, which involves elbows touching rather hand shaking .... this is because tattooists almost always have ink covered hands and also it stops any risk of infection should they be working on a client. We've also decided that my next tattoo wil be larger one than usual and I have a yearning for it to be in the style of one of my mosaics, so designing that is also on my list of things to do, and may have to jump the queue as my daughters quite keen to get stuck into it ...not literally of course lol.

First of a set of oil paintings for myself

I finished doing this first oil painting for myself a good few days ago, but it's been really difficult to get a decent photo of it.This is because the painting has got a sheen to it, caused by me mixing a drying oil to the paints, so it doesn't take days and days to dry. The photo at the end is about the best of 20 odd photo's I've taken lol. I've already finished the 2nd painting all bar the edges of the canvas, so I'll take one of that as soon as I've done that bit. I've also made a start on a 3rd painting now. If I've got enough canvases I'm hoping to do a set of 5, all with a similar theme to them.

The sunset seascape however is causing me loads of problems. I just can't seem to get the effect of " moody clouds " that the guy wants. I've tried about 5 times now and not been happy with any of the end results. The one good thing about oils is that you can go over and over it, with layers of paint lol.

The weather has been so nice again here the last few days, so I've been able to spend a bit of time sat in the garden reading. The other day my son and daughter decided to go fishing. The first thing on the agenda was to dig for some bait, that alone was quite a challenge as they had to navigate sinking sand that had a layer of very smelly mud under it lol. I had quite a laugh watching my usually very agile kids slipping and sliding all over the place. My daughters trainer got left behind at one point when she took a step forward. By the time they'd managed to get some lug worms, the tide had gone so far out I knew there wasn't going to be much chance of catching any fish. My daughters rod was a bamboo cane from the garden, with a bit of fishing line sellotaped on the end lol, my son had the more usual type of rod. But much to my daughters delight she caught 3 crabs and my son caught nothing !!

Things are looking up a little

I've been a bit busy this last couple of weeks, working on an oil painting commission for a friend. Hand on heart I can't say I really enjoyed doing it, because he wanted one the same as a painting I'd already done ...so that made it a bit boring. But when I took it round for him on Saturday he was really pleased with it, so that's the main thing, but I forgot to take a photo of it dohhhh. I've also been working on the first of a few paintings I want to do for myself. The walls of my little bungalow are sadly a bit bare looking, so I thought I'd give the glass things a miss for a bit and do some paintings. The first painting is almost finished, just a couple of touch ups here and there and it'll be ready to show you. Note to self ... do not keep fiddling with the painting too much lol !!!

A couple of other friends popped round unexpectedly yesterday afternoon, and I ended up with another commission !! This will be just a small oil painting as it's for in his camper van, he wants a sunset seascape. I always find seascapes quite difficult because of the reflections in the water, but hey ho I'll give it a go :o)

I seem to be getting a little bit domesticated and have baked two cakes this last week, don't fall off your chairs in shock lol. The first was a carrot cake, which we love, and the 2nd was a new recipe for me a lemon yogurt cake. On hindsight I should have doubled the quantities because before the icing even got time to set, 3/4's of it had disappeared down the throats of my son and daughter lol. I got the recipe from a very good blog I've recently started following called the English Kitchen, well worth a look at if you enjoy cooking, or even if you don't as in my case lol.

We recently acquired two additions to our garden, one was good the other not so good. The not so good, was a non working motorbike which my son was originally intending to do up for himself. He's now changed his mind and decided to strip it down and sell the parts on Ebay, so I currently have half a flipping motorbike in my garden. The other addition was much more welcome, a 3 seater garden swing. A neighbour of mine was moving out and she didn't want it any longer, so now it has a new home with us. We plan to respray it and give it a bit of colour, which probably won't surprise many of you knowing our love of colour in this house.

This is the link to the English Kitchen blog if any of you would like to go over and have a look at it. The English Kitchen

Chuffed to bits

I was chuffed to bits yesterday to see that an interview I did for Deviant Art (a huge art and crafts website) was published. Out of the hundreds of mosaic artist myself and 4 others were the chosen ones lol !! I've had some lovely comments about my mosaics and also someone made a wallpaper out of some of mosaics too. Sometimes it's just nice to see that other people like the work you're doing and that alone makes it all worthwhile ... well it does to me. This is the interview and I'm manicmosaics Deviant Art Interview This is the link to the wallpaper someone did of my mosaics too, Mosaic Wallpaper

Where does time go

Where does time go, yet another 13 days has gone by without me updating my blog.

My time off here hasn't been wasted though, I finally finished off a panel I was doing and have done an oil painting that a friend asked me to do for him.

Also on a whim a week ago last Friday, we went to take our dog for a walk and ended up in Blackpool lol. Quite a long way to go for a walk I admit, but the dog enjoyed the change of scenery. It's donkeys years since I last went to Blackpool, and to be honest it doesn't seem to have changed that much lol. But we really enjoyed ourselves and I love nothing more than to do things on the spur of the moment.

For the last couple of days my daughter has been taking our jungle of a garden in hand. The strimmer came out and no plant, weed or piece of grass was safe !! It does look much better now, and I've decided that next year I'll just have the odd bush round the edge of the garden and have more sculptural things around, to decorate it and add interest. It'll be a lot more low maintenance this way and maybe thats for the best. Trying to keep on top of watering pots of plants, has been difficult in a lot of ways, and even with the best will in the world the veggies I grew have been a flop really. The spring onions seemed to just dwindle away, the courgettes that started off so well, got attacked by some kind of mildew looking stuff on the leaves, the runner beans got savaged by slugs, the carrots are the only things that seem to be still going !!

The gallery that I exhibit my glass things in, is finally going the way of a lot of small businesses. High rents and rates and people hanging on to their money has taken it's toll and the gallery will be closing in Sept. I'm really sad about this but not all that surpised to be honest.

Blah blah blah

I seem to be finding it increasingly difficult to think of titles for my posts lately, hence the blah blah blah one this time lol.

After a few days where my hands have been so painful I've barely been able to type or turn the cooker knob, the arthritis seems to be easing off a bit again, thank goodness. So I've started to do a painting for a friend of mine, while the goings good so to speak. I've just done the basic background layer so far, and as soon as that's dry I'll start with the more detailed work. It's a shame my friend wanted a replica of a painting I've already done, a new challenge would have been good, but the choice is his. I've also been spray painting the board for my latest glass panel. I tried painting it by hand as I had some paint the right colour, but the finish wasn't smooth enough for my liking. This isn't a mosaic this time, hard to explain what it is really lol. But eventually a photo will be taken I expect and shown to you all as usual.

Along with the arthritis, the extra beats in my heart I've written about before, seem to have returned this past week or so. The last couple of days they've been particularly bad, and although it's not something that's painful, it can feel pretty unpleasant and makes me feel like I might have a heart attack (although the doc has said that won't happen). So one way or another I haven't felt 100% ...but life goes on and I'll carry on plodding on as I always do. I'm sure a bit of sunshine would make me feel tons better !!! But it seems like there's a rain cloud permanently over Anglesey at the moment. The other day the rain was torrential all day and I even contemplated starting to build an ark, but the arthtirtis in my hand put pay to that idea lol.

Normal service is now resumed

It's been a while since I wrote on my blog, there's been a lot of things going on here and I just wasn't in the mood to write on here for a while. But things have calmed down a bit now, and hopefully it'll stay that way.

A couple of weeks ago on our way to take our dog for his dily walk we spotted what looked like a scene from Time Team in a field we passed. We were quite intrigued but didn't really think much more of it. The following day when we went past there were loads of signs saying open day, so we decided to go and have a look. It was an archealogical dig, as a few finds in the field had led people to believe that there was a Roman site there. Their finds were correct and when the field was excavated a number of Roman finds were dug up. The guy that was talking to us showed us a piece of pottery that they could date back to between 140AD - 160AD, it was the bottom of a pot which was in 2 pieces. One piece was found one day and the 2nd half 2 days later. Impressed in the clay was the makers name too, which is quite rare, we also learnt how to tell the difference between expensive pottery and normal househld pottery back in those days. It was fasinating, just a shame that it wasn't more widely known about, I've got a couple of friends who would have loved to have seen it, but we couldn't get hold of either of them. For anyone that would like to read more about the dig, there is a blog here >>>>>> Tai Cochion Dig Diary

We've also been off on our travels to a friends wedding last weekend. This time we stayed in Leamington Spa my old home town with my oldest son, his girlfriend and her daughter. My sons girlfriend and I get on really well, so quite a few nights were spent cackling late into the night lol.

These two pics are of the dig down by Menai Straits.

For now ...

For now I've shelved the idea of doing the african themed panels. I'm not 100% sure why, they just don't seem to appeal to me at the moment. Instead I've doing a sort of abstract 2D long thin panel. It's coming along nicely just a case of waiting for glue to dry all the time as usual *sigh*

I went to see a friend of mine the day and he asked me to do an oil painting for him. So that'll make a nice change from doing mosaics. I shan't be able to start it for a week or so though as we're off on our travels again next week. A wedding this time, with what is looking like a brilliant party to follow !!

Freegle/ Freecycle

Despite the best of intentions I never did get round to varnishing this flipping heart mosaic !! I'm beginning to really hate the sight of this particular mosaic which is currently sitting behind me on the back of the settee. It's not a big job, and yet every day something seems to distract me from doing it grrrrr.

Yesterday was a pretty good day though. Via Freegle ... the old Freecycle website, I managed to acquire a pine bed base the kind with slats across it. This is going to be a perfect fence to stop my dog escaping down the side of the house !! Up till now I've been using the top half of a welsh dresser ( which wouldn't fit on it's base in this house ). This dresser top has been the bane of my life since we moved here, because it was so solid it was constantly getting blown down in the winds, and god was it heavy to heave back up again too !!! I've also driven my daughter mad with my constant hunt for wood to make a fence before yesterday lol. Until I can come up with some kind of way to attach this new fence to the wall it's being held in place with some string lol. One side is attached to a plastic down pipe, the other side very precariously hanging on to a very long nail that I've managed bang into the wall. It's not a pretty sight but until I can do the job properly it's stopping my wayward dog, so I'm happy. While we were picking this wood, up my daughter spotted a very nice funky coloured, comfy computer chair abandoned at the same place, so she smiled sweetly and we got given that too. Trying to get this bed base and a computer chair and a rather large dog into the back of a tiny Peugeot 106 was no easy feat trust me, and our attempts amused the workers where we got these goodies from. But after getting the dog in and out several times, dropping the back seats and having the afore said fence digging in the back of our heads all the way home, we managed it whoooooo lol. We will of course recycle my daughters other pc chair back on to Freegle.

Seeing as photo's have been a bit low on the ground lately, here's a couple of photo's of my little grand daughter Kacey Louise I took last week.

Neglecting my blog

Oh dear I've sadly been neglecting my blog of late. Truth is the lovely sunny weather we've been having recently means I've spent most of time sat in the garden enjoying it ...can you blame me lol. But that also means there isn't a lot to write about on here !!

My mosaic making has been very low on the agenda oooops, I have almost finished the mosaic heart I started quite a while ago though. A couple of coats of varnish and it'll be heading off to the gallery, I seem to remember saying about the varnish just needing to be done about 10 days ago, ooops lol. Although the wood is cut for the African themed panels, the arthritis in my hands has halted me starting on those too, because they are too painful. I've also noticed the last two days that the dreaded arthritis is spreading to my right elbow as well as the left one. It's not a bad pain just irritating.

I went back to the doctors last week for the results of all my tests I'd had done previously. I was dreading this and the doctors had even written to me saying that I needed to go and see them, which I have to say scared me. I was most frightened about the result of the chest xray I had, especially as I'm a heavy smoker. But as it happened I needn't have worried, most of the tests were all good, in fact the only one that showed anything slightly wrong was the x ray and my blood pressure. However the x ray showed an angular shadow on my heart, which they said could be due to previous surgery, but they had no other xrays of me to compare it with. It just so happens that I had heart surgery when I was 4, so this is no doubt what the shadow is and the doctor agreed. The blood pressure is treatable with tablets, the trouble is I know I find going to the doctors or the hospital stressful anyway so maybe this is what pushes my blood pressure up.

The doctor also did a test on his computer which would predict what my chances of having a stroke or heart attack in the next 10 years would be. This involved using all the results of the blood test I had, and putting how much I smoke, my height and my weight. Before the results came up he told me for my age group the average is 10%, anything 20% or over would mean steps being taken to reduce this number ..... being overweight, with high blood pressure and a smoker I wasn't too optimistic about the results to be honest. But much to my surprise and even more so for the doctor my results came in at 14% !!! So that was really good news. The original reason for me having all these tests were because I was having weird feelings in my chest, which the doctor diagnosed at the time as my heart beating too many beats. He rightly diagnosed this as nothing serious at the time and the test were just to be on the safe side. Out of the 3 reasons he suggested might be causing this .... alcohol, drinking or stress, the stress option is the only one that it can possibly be the one. So he's decided not to give me any medication for it, and I'll just try and keep my stress levels at a minimum :o) If you manged to get to the end of this medical waffle blog post today ...gold stars for you lol.

Thunderstorm

We had an brilliant thunderstorm here on Anglesey last night. One of the best I've seen, I think. At the first when I heard the quietish rumble of thunder, I thought for a while it was my dog snoring at the bottom of my bed. When the next rumble was considerably louder I knew he wasn't the culprit. I lay in bed with the window open listening to the rain lashing down, and the light show in the sky, it was pretty amazing. When I got up this morning, and went outside, my carrots I've been growing are looking a little worse for wear, the wind has knocked all the feathery greenery down, my runner bean pot had lost the battle with the wind too and was lying down. A small fence had got blown down and our wheelie bin was in the middle of the garden lol. Everything's been put to rights now and won't suffer any lasting damage I don't think, isn't nature wonderful.

It was only when I was reading yesterdays blog I realised I'd forgotten to varnish the heart..... oooops. Oh well maybe later, when its cooled down a bit. My daughter cut out the 4 pieces of wood for my African themed mosaics, but two of them are slightly the wrong size as she had to use a very heavy circular saw, which she isn't used to and it made the job pretty difficult. But no matter it'll be a set of 2 mosaics now, and I'm sure I'll find a use for the other two panels. I also got left with rather a nice long thin piece of mdf, which I may do a flower panel on for a change.

The reason I forgot about the heart yesterday was because I decided to tackle a long over due job. Namely tidying up the small room with all our tools and a huge part of my arty crafty bits and bobs. As more stuff had got added to this room, the harder it became to even get in there, and closing the door on the mess was a long ago memory lol. Although there's still a lot of crafty stuff I seem to have lost track of somewhere in there, it is at least looking tidier !! I was planning to sort out the huge double cupboard in the front room which houses the rest of my arty crafty stuff today, but it's just too hot and humid especially as I know I'll have to drag everything out of the cupboard, to make any headway into tidying it up...... maybe tomorrow lol.

Hmmm what to do next

I've finally managed to get back into work mode after our visit to the Peace Festival, and done the 2nd side on the heart mosaic. I'm just waiting for all the glue to dry out and then it's varnish and finish !!

While I've been waiting for the glue to dry ...almost as boring as watching paint dry lol. I've been debating what to do next, my african themed set of mosaics is still quite near the front of my mind, but I've also got some slices of slate we managed to "acquire" at a slate mine in Snowdonia the other week. Should I do a couple of quick mosaics on slate I wonder ? I've also got a couple of those glass blocks people use in bathrooms, which are screaming out for some simple mosaics to pretty them up. I do hate it when I've got so many idea's buzzing around, because I can never decide which to do first, and end up doing none !!

Added to all the idea's buzzing around, the weather has been amazing. I find it almost impossible to stay inside when the suns out, it seems such a shame when our weather can be so unpredictable. It was a scorcher yesterday, I'm so glad there was a stiff breeze taking most of the heat off. I love days when you sit there almost shivering but know you're getting a suntan too lol.

Home sweet home

Arhhhh it's always good to be back in your own home. I had a great time while we were away, but there's always that longing to be back home again.

We left here on the Weds with the sun blazing down on us, when we were about 9 miles away from my daughters house we got stuck in traffic and my daughters car started to overheat the last thing we needed on a packed motorway !! I quickly turned on the heater full blast and luckily we managed to make the bit of our journey without mishap, but we were both boiling hot as we daredn't turn the heater off lol.

Weds afternoon we went over to Acocks Green to see my son Ben and friends Martin and Mandy. We had a lovely BBQ while we were there too. Thurs we went off to see my friend Emma and her boyfriend Steve. Emma was going to cut my hair for me and my daughter was Jenny was doing a tribal dragon tattoo on Steve's arm for him. We also rounded off the day going to see Rich my oldest son and his girlfriend Georgie, so all in all it was a lovely day. Friday we dropped my daughter Jenny off to do yet another tribal dragon tattoo on the cousin of Steve, while me and my other daughter went to visit an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen for almost 15 years. That was a real blast from the past, and we had great fun catching up with all that's gone on in each others lives. Then it was off to my oldest sons again, who funny enough only lives just up the road from the friend I hadn't seen for a long time. While we were there Jenny did yet another tattoo of my sons childrens names on his arm, and his girlfriend cooked us a lovely taco feast for dinner ...it was yummmmmy !!

The weekend of course had been reserved for the festival we planned to go to. The highlight of this day was that 6 out of 8 of my kids managed to make it there, and also we got the chance to met up with lots of old friends. One of my sons Jed, had injured his back moving some scrap metal and was in agony for most of the weekend, as he's probably the most active out of all my kids, it was sad to see him in so much pain. By the Sunday the pain had eased off a little thank goodness. All in all it was a great festival and two of my friends Jo and Sharron are coming up to see me during the summer too.

As photo's have been a little low on the ground here's a selection from our time away.

Two of the four tattoo's my daughter did.





My lovely friend Jo



My daughter Jenny and all in pink is my grand daughter Jo and her two children ...my great grand children.



One of my favourite photo's of the weekend, my daughter Jenny with son Jed.



My son Rich and his girlfriend Georgie



and finally me and my mate Al.

So much to do ...so little time

This is one of those times, when I've got so many idea's for new mosaics I'm almost begrudging other things in my life, that are going to take me away from them. With a festival planned at the weekend, all the idea's I've got buzzing round in my head will have to be shelved from tomorrow onwards (that's when we set off). Unfortunately for me I'm one of those people that can't concentrate on things when I'm away from home, so even though I'll probably have time in the next 5 days to do some initial planning for these idea's, the chances are I'll get distracted by things going on around me and won't get anything done lol.

It was a chance remark by someone on a forum I use, that set this train of thought for some completely different style mosaics. My creations are almost always abstract, and almost always freestyle too. I usually have one idea for a single part of a mosaic, and then the rest just evolves literally as I put the glass tiles on the board. My haphazard way of working may not appeal to those who like doing more structured mosaics, but it always seems to work for me.

The mosaics that are next in line to be produced, have got a lot more planning involved, they are actually going to have something recognisable in them (I hope lol). My idea is that the subject of the mosaic is going to be as colourful as possible, then the background will be less so, a complete about turn around for me. I'm also thinking along the lines of doing a set of 4 mosaics, two abstract and two structured but all with the same basic theme, so they compliment each other. To keep the cost so they are still affordable when they're finished, I think I'll have to make the panels a lot smaller than I usually do, which may make things a bit more fiddly than my average style of mosaics are already ...perhaps not a good thing, as it already causes me quite a lot of pain cutting tiny tiles anyway. But we'll see how it goes I may have to revise my way of thinking on that one.

With all these idea's racing around in my head, researching for these new idea's online, and also working on my latest mosaic, other things that need doing have got pushed to the background. So with only a day to go I find I've got tons of things to do before we go away tomorrow. I've never been known as the organised type person anyway, but this time I've excelled myself with the long list of things to do, before we can set off tomorrow !! So my friends this is me signing off for now. Just realised I've forgotten to take a photo of my new plant pot that sets of the panel outside my front door I was going to put on here ....oh well it'll have to wait till we get back now !!

Busy week and new idea's

I've had quite a busy week this week, I started on a new project and caught up with some much needed things in the garden.

The new project is a 2D heart, made from wood this heart is going to be a hanging piece for a change. As the centre is cut out, my plan is to hang a nice crystal which will catch the light as the whole heart moves round in the breeze. Because my hands are sore from doing the latest panel for myself, I decided this would be a great time to use all the brightly coloured sweet wrappers I'd been sent, and make a tempered glass mosaic.

On tempered glass mosaics most of the design is done before the glass even touches the object. Any manner of things can be used under the tempered glass, sweet wrappers, foil, glitter, magazine cutouts, in fact almost anything that's flat. My love of bright colours drew me towards using the brightly coloured sweet wrappers sent to me by a my daughter and friend and fellow stained glass artist Kev. Once I'd attached the sweet wrappers with a little help from my mate Steve lol, I then did two coats of a holographic glitter paint. This will shimmer as the heart slowly spins around, giving an extra dimension to it. I've used large seed beads as an edging to the heart and then I'll be filling in the rest with tempered glass. One side is complete now, but I need to get some more large sized seed beads for the other side.

I've also been catching up with planting out the seedlings I've been nurturing this last couple of months. So tubs of flowers have been planted up, along with 3 courgette plants and 2 runner bean plants, and my carrots are also coming along nicely too, as are the spring onions. It probably doesn't sound much of a veggie garden to most, but I've got very limited space in my garden so all my veggie plants have had to be done in pots, this is also partly so they survive my big old dogs wanderings too. I had planned to have more veggies than this but there just hasn't been enough hours in the day to do everything !!

I treated myself to a lovely pot for a plant to go underneath the mosaic panel by the side of my front door. It's in lovely shades of green and as the plant is a quite unusual twisted spiral one, both are set off beautifully against the white wall and finish off the whole look I wanted for the porch. Photo's to follow !!

New blog " Manic Mosaics "

For a long while now I've been aware that my ramblings on here are losing track of why I actually started this blog ....to showcase my arts and crafts. So I've had it in my head for a while now, to do a blog which really will have just my arts and crafts !!

So here begins the birth of Manic Mosaics, it still needs a bit of time spent on it, prices added etc etc, which I'll do as soon as possible. But for now here it is
MANIC MOSAICS in all it's glory, do pop by and say Hello.

My latest mosaic

This is my latest mosaic and why I've been a bit quiet lately lol. Measuring approximately 18" by 30", I've used stained glass, millifori, mirror tiles, seed beads and glass nuggets.

I wanted something a little bit different for outside my front door, and this is the result. As it's exposed to the weather, I've used two coats of varnish to protect it. I'm also going to look for a nice plant to put underneath it, just to set it off.

I've already started my next project, this is going to be in tempered glass on a wooden heart, my oldest daughter got for me a while ago. This will be a piece that can be hung from a ceiling so it will be seen from all sides. As with all my mosaics it'll be a riot of colour.

The first two photo's are of the panel from the street, the next is the top half of the panel in more detail and last one is a close up of the bottom half.

Sea fishing and more sunshine

Well here on Anglesey we've been enjoying the longest spell of sunny weather that I can remember. In the last couple of months (maybe longer) we've only had one proper rainy day and a couple of cloudy days. My daughter and I love the sunny weather, so we've been making the most of it.

My friend Steve came and took me sea fishing for a couple of days, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed fishing. We went to a popular place to fish, Holyhead Breakwater and over the two days we caught 11 dog fish. The fact that Steve's got a camper van added to the fun, you just can't beat a bacon butty and a cuppa while you're fishing lol. He wanted to take me to RAF Valley to watch the sunset, but as the tide was a high high tide, the sea started coming in a bit too quick for our liking, so we abandoned that idea before we got cut off lol.

I've also been spending most early mornings and nights working on my latest mosaic panel. Yesterday morning I put the last piece of glass on it ...whooooo. This only left the grouting to be done. Grouting is very time consuming, putting it on isn't quite so bad, but cleaning it off again is a nightmare as it's not a nice smooth surface like when you do tiles in bathroom. It's a mass of 100's of slightly uneven pieces which are a nightmare, as I have to clean off pretty much every one individually. But eventually by midnight last night I'd done the first rough clean off. Shortly, once I've posted this and wrote an email I'll do a 2nd clean clean on it, this involves polishing the tiles of the residue of grout dust and checking to make sure I've got it all off. Quite often this involves having to scrape off grout that I've missed, which I'm not looking forward to as my hands are already really painful from last nights grouting. Then once that's done it'll be a couple of coats of varnish as this panel is going to live outside my front door, so needs protecting from the elements.

Here's some photo's of my fishing trip, and my new grand daughters first smile captured on a photo awwww, she's so cute.

Sunshine stops play

The amazing weather we've been having has definitely been affecting my online ramblings. Once the sun comes out I can't bear to be inside, so many hours have been spent in my garden reading, relaxing or down by the beach taking the dog for a walk, and enjoying the sea breezes. I hope we're in for a good summer this year, there's been so many let downs over the last few years.

I've been making slow progress on the mosaic for by my front door, as I've only been doing it early in the morning and late at nite, when it's been cooler. I'm quite pleased with it so far ....did I really say that lol !! But the weathers due to cool down a bit this week, so maybe I'll get a bit more done to it this coming week.

When I got back from my oldest daughters this time, I was feeling a bit odd. My heart seemed to be pounding much more than it usually does. I put up with it for a few days waiting for it to disappear but it didn't, so I thought it'd probably be a good idea to get down the docs asap, although I did feel a bit of a fraud as i wasn't actually in any pain, it was more of a feeling inside me. After taking my blood pressure 3 times (which was way too high), he listened to my heart and pronounced that my heart was beating more times than it should be. So now I've got to have a barrage of blood tests, and ecg, a chest x ray and also have my asthma checked out. I find this kind of thing very daunting as I hate doctors and hospitals even more, but I suppose it has to be done. So time will tell whats going on, the doc was 90% sure his diagnosis was accurate and this kind of thing is usually caused by one of three things, caffeine (I only drink decaf tea)alcohol (I don't drink) or stress ...well I guess its stress then lol. But the doc assured me I wasn't going to pop my clogs, so I was pleased about that, I've still got plenty of things I'd like to do with my life yet !!!

Best made plans and all that !!

We were due a visit from friend Coral, her mate Steve, and her son Deckie on Saturday due to arrive in two vans. Everything started well and I was due to go sea fishing with them on Saturday night.... that was about the last thing that went to plan !! After meeting Steve for the first time, we got on really well especially after I realised very quickly Steve was a cheeky scouser, with a sense of humour that matched mine perefectly and there was loads of banter flying back and forth lol. As Steve was a dab hand at DIY, I thought I might as well ask his advice about my bed !! When we first moved here I bought a lovely mexican pine bed, very comfortable ...however because I'm so tall I can't stretch out in it properly, because it had a foot board at the end. This has been a real bug bear for me and try as we might, every idea me and my daughter came up with seemed very complicated so we never got round to doing it. Within minutes Steve came up with an excellent idea, went to his van and got his power tools and within half an hour had it all sorted out !!!

PLAN A ...... was for us to take both vans and go up to the other end of the island, to fish off a popular fishing spot called the Breakwater. Steve and Deckie shot off first with me and Coral bringing up the rear more slowly in her camper van which she also happens to live in. We hadn't even got out of our village before I realised that Corals van wasn't very well at all !! But Coral being Coral decided to plod on anyways. We got about 1/3 rd of the way up the island going up a hill when the cab of the van started filling up with smoke and we were losing power fast. Now I'm a pretty unflappable, laid back type of person usually, but even I started to get more than a bit alarmed at this point. I suggested to Coral that smoke might mean fire, and that maybe it might be a good idea to stop straight away !! It was then that Coral told me her handbrake wasn't any good ...so stopping on hill might not be a very good idea, plus she had no hazard lights, so maybe it wasn't such a good idea. With my heart in my mouth, clutching my bag and a camera ready to make a quick exit incase any flames followed the smoke we struggled up the hill. Once at the top, in the distance we could see a lay by, Coral was convinced we could make there by coasting down the road ..... we DID much to my surprise. With much relief we pulled into the lay by and Coral turned off the engine ( oh yes ..I forgot to mention her alternator was also bust so once the engine was off there was no chance of turning it on again without a jump start lol.

PLAN B ..... ring Steve and get him to come back and help. The only flaw in this plan was that Coral had left her mobile at my house, and even though I had my phone I didn't have Steve's number seeing as I'd only just met him lol. A quick text to my daughter who was at home, asking her to use Corals phone to ring Steve and tell him what had happened and where we were, seemed like a logical idea, but Steve's phone went on to answer phone. So we were sent Steve's number to carry on trying to get hold of him. It was only much later that Steve told me he always kept his phone off, as he was having some hassles off an ex girlfriend lol. We sent a text hoping against hope that he might turn his phone on and get our SOS message. By pure good luck he turned it on and came to hopefully rescue us. Once our knights in a shining van arrived, it became a bit obvious that Corals van wasn't going to go anywhere quickly as the clutch had gone !!

It was decided that it might be good idea for my daughter Jenny to come and pick me up and take me home again, as there was no point in all 4 of us spending the nite in lay by. Oh did I mention that Corals side door on the van doesn't lock, so it couldn't be secured ?? By the time my daughter arrived, the kettle had been put on and we were having tea and cake with music blasting. As we were having such a laugh, it was decided that maybe we should leave my daughters car behind, all pile into Steve's van and go off to a beach at the top of the island and for some fire spinning to go on. Once we got there, Steve decided he might as well do some beach casting, while the others did their thing. After a few hours, with more tea, biscuits and crackers with cheese, it was time to go back to the lay by and for me and my daughter to come back home.

PLAN C Sunday arrived and it was decided that the best plan of action was for Coral to join the AA, and then on Monday we would see how much our regular mechanic would charge and also Corals mechanic who specialised in working on Renault Master vans, who was back in Oswestry.

No doubt there will more to follow in this little saga ...I shall update you as it carries lol. But for now, here's some photo's of the fire poi and fire staff antics, and a picture of Steve after one of my Sunday dinners...I shall take great pleasure in embarrassing him on Facebook with this photo lol.

A staff burn out, for those not familiar with fire spinning. A staff is a long metal bar with wicks soaked in paraffin on each end, and a burn out is when someone gets rid of the surplus paraffin.



A cage of fire



Close up of one end of the fire staff



Coral doing fire poi.



Steve after devouring one of my Sunday dinners lol.

Home Sweet Home

After a long fairly slow drive back from the Midlands we're home again !! My pc is now rejuvenated with a much bigger hard drive and loads more memory thanks to my son Ben and friend Martin. Just need to get the home phone sorted out now, then I'm going to get on at BT as we've got a stupidly low download speed here. Martin also managed to fix my camera for me too while we were visiting, I felt really lost without the telephoto lens, it was like part of me was missing lol.

The weather wasn't very kind to us while we were visiting, it was either raining or too windy sit out in my daughters garden, which was very disappointing. I was praying that it'd be raining here at home too, so my seedlings didn't suffer. From the look of the garden there hasn't been much rain here though, but my seedlings survived thank goodness. The damp weather made the arthritis in my joints hurt too, and I really missed all the little things round here that makes, my life so much easier.

Being back home again was slightly spoiled, as when I got back the phone bill was on the mat. This has scuppered my plans to go back down to the Midlands for Birmingham Gay Pride in a couple of weeks. But I can't work miracles and only have so much money to go round for bills etc.

I'm looking forward to getting on with the mosaic I'm going to do for outside the front door. I've been longing to get back to this since I went to my daughters, but as she has a very lively 3 yr old around, there was no way I could take anything to get on with lol. But now I can get stuck into it again, although we're expecting visitors ourselves this weekend.

No photo's this time as my camera was out of action.

Quiet times and off again soon

It's been pretty quiet in my world since the last post. But I've been busy none the less, the good weather meant we spent quite a lot of time in the garden, and I've managed to sow some veggie seeds, albeit in pots rather than the actual garden, which is too small. So hopefully some time soon I should see a couple of courgette plants rear their heads, some french beans ( which might be planted against the new fence ) some carrots and finally some spring onions. I also did 5 small pots of flowers, but I'm dammed if I can remember what kind they were now lol. Outside my kitchen window there's a long ago redundant coal bunker, but the bunker itself has become a storage spot for things that don't mind getting damp, and the top of it has become my nursery garden. It's packed with pots and seed trays of all different sorts of flowers, ready to be planted out when they get big enough.

Last Saturday we went off to Benllech car boot, still a bit early in the season for it to be packed with car booters, but I got 3 books and 4 vest tops for the summer anyway. Sunday saw us at Mona car boot, and this was pretty quiet too considering it was bank holiday, the only thing I bought there was a pile of big pots for the garden for £3.

We're off on our travels again on Thurs, down to my daughters in Bromsgrove again. Her hubby wants my other daughter to give him a hand doing a couple of driving jobs. While we're there, it'll off to see my son Ben and our friends Martin and Mandy. Martins going to put some more memory in our pc's and do something else with them ( which I can't remember lol ) and is also going to reformat them both, as they are both running at a snails pace !! Saturday I'm going off to spend some time with my friend on his barge again, as luckily he's still in the area. Also they'll probably be some visits to other friends in our old home town of Leamington Spa, I think one of them wants my daughter to do a tattoo for them. Talking of tattoo's I've been trying to design a tattoo for my hand, I've drawn two so far and they'll probably be lots more drawings yet before I'm finally satisfied with it lol.

Photo's today are of some lovely macro shots my daughter took in the garden.

First a pretty odd looking wasp which had a beak like a duck lol.



Next a poppy past it's best, but which I found very attractive still.



A pretty but rather tatty moth lol, I seem to enjoy things that aren't picture perfect don't I lol.



Finally one of many bee's that are enjoying our bluebells.

Coed y Brenin and Abergwyngregyn

Since I've been home, my daughter and I have been to a couple of beautiful places, the first was Coed Y Brenin and the other Aberwyngregyn. Coed Y Brenin is a beautiful forest nestled in the Snowdonia National Park, it's well known for it's mountain bike trails, some beautiful walks, and a high wire course called Go Ape, picnic area's, a children's play area and a visitors centre which includes a cafe. We sat down by a babbling stream for a picnic, while my old dog wandered around enjoying all the sights and smells, I'd advise using the picnic tables as there are loads of huge wood ants on the ground, they must be the biggest ants I've ever seen lol !! From there we went up to the visitor centre area, here's there's a number of mountain bike trails in varying from a family route to some for experienced riders, and some lovely walks through the forest. One of the highlights for us was watching people on the high wire course that's newly opened called Go Ape. For anyone that's fit I can definitely recommend this it looks great fun. We chatted to some of the people running the course, who were very friendly and they told us that there's 5 different courses, these courses include high-wire tree crossings, zip wires and tarzan swings. It costs £30 for 3 hrs and although that sounds a lot, it's certainly good value compared to go cart racing which costs £30 for 30 mins !!

The second place we've been this past week is Abergwyngregyn, this little village leads to Aber Falls, in the Coedydd Aber nature reserve. This is another stunning place to visit, the scenery is stunning and a 1.5hr walk takes you to Aber Falls. I did this walk before all the arthritis kicked in and it was well worth it to see Aber Falls. This time I just managed to get a short way in, but it was still worth it as the scenery is spectacular from the word go. The cafe in Abergwyngregyn, is well worth a visit after a long walk too.

Yesterday my son Billie came round and put up a fence for us in our garden. We've wanted this up for ages, as now our dog can wander freely in the garden with no fear of escaping. Road sense is something my dog has no concept of, so until now he's always had to be on a very long lead to go in the garden.

Photo's today are of one of my gorgeous grand daughter Raggz that I took while I was staying at her house. One of my 13th grandchild Kacey Louise who was born on 14th April, and is my youngest son Billies little girl, one of me that I actually like ( which is rare lol) and one of a beautiful wood carving at Coedydd Aber nature reserve.

Adventures ...

For once Anglesey wasn't soothing my soul as it usually does, in fact I was feeling a bit like a time bomb waiting to explode ...which is totally out of character for me. So after chatting to my daughter in the Midlands, her husband came up the next day and whisked me off to their house for a week. As it turned out, one week turned into two.As my daughter had passed her test since I was down there last, I knew we'd be out and about a lot, something I was really looking forward to.

First things first though, as next of kin my daughter had her fathers (my first husbands) funeral to organise. By the time I arrived most of it was sorted out and there was just loose ends to get sorted. I have to say that I was appalled how much a funeral costs, every person involved seemed determined to make money from someones loss. Even the relief vicar of the church my ex used to go to, was out to make money !! After hearing the ceremony I can tell you he wasn't worth the money !!! He repeated himself and obviously hadn't listened to a word that was said about my ex, as a good part of the speech he gave about him was totally unrelated. Incidentally whoever is in charge of Oakley Woods Crematorium your ceilings in South chapel need a dammed good clean ...the size of the cobwebs in there are massive !! As my ex and I stayed friends even though we parted many years ago, I wanted to go and say goodbye to the old bugger, and also met up with my brother and sister in law as I hadn't seen them for years. When we arrived I was really pleased to see my brother in laws wife there, I knew she'd been ill so wasn't expecting to see her there. She and I got along so well way back then, and it was as though we'd seen each other last week. My daughter spoke at the funeral as she wanted to say a few words about her dad, I knew she'd get upset but I was really proud of her, she spoke of the real man, rather than the clap trap the vicar spoke about him, and tears were shed by plenty of the people that were there.

After a day to recover from the previous 3 weeks of organising the funeral and the stress of having to clear out his flat, my daughter was more than ready for a few adventures !! As always high on the list of things to do was to go and visit my son Ben and our friends Martin and Mandy to catch up with their news. Martin and Mandy have had all their garden redone and it's looking amazing. My son whisked us all off for a lunchtime meal at the Big Wok in Birmingham, as always the food was gorgeous. We also went to visit various friends while I was there including Vicky and Julian in Rugby some friends I know from a forum we both use.

But the highlight of my whole trip was going to met my friend Ray at long last. Ray and I have been emailing each other for the last 2 years, and have tried to met up quite a few times. But with him living on a barge and travelling the length and breadth of the UK in it, we weren't always in the same area at the same time. Plus nerves got the better of me more than a few times I have to admit, and I chickened out even when we were in the same area at the same time. On hindsight, I really regret missing out on spending more time with him due to nerves, all those other times. He was a lovely guy, and I was at ease with him straight away. He has converted his barge very cleverly, not only to cater for his glass bead making by adding extra space at the end of the barge for his workshop and a shop frontage to sell his beads and the many things he makes with them. But also to allow for the fact that he's 6ft 5" and needed extra height. This was an added plus for me too as I'm 6ft 2" ... I have to say it's very rare for me to have to look up to a guy, but this is one guy I'm more than happy to look up to lol :o)Time passed really quickly and all too soon it was time to go, we've already arranged to met up next time we're in the same area's.Also I'll take photo's of his workshop and beautiful beads he makes. In the meantime here's 3 pics I took while I was there this time, including one of his cute little dog Bob.

Easter fun and car stresses

Just before Easter my daughter took her car into our regular garage as there was a knocking noise when she went round corners. The guy in the garage took the wheel off to have a look and found that the brake callipers were worn and rusty. So advised my daughter to go round to another guy that does car repairs to get him to have a look and see if he could get it done quicker. To cut a long story short, the brake callipers got sorted out, but much to my daughters dismay the original knocking was still there !! This causes so much stress as any car repairs are a major financial headache in this house, so she knew that even more money was going to have to be spent on the car. However lack of cash was going to stop the 2nd job from being done anyway.

My daughter was so het up about the car later in the day, she accidentally let it slip that one of my sons was planning a surprise visit with some friends of ours from Birmingham the next day !! Friday duly arrived and my son and our friends arrived a little fraught as the traffic on the M6 was terrible. After some discussion they booked into the Auckland Arms in Menai Bridge for two days. I felt terrible when they went to drop off their luggage and came back saying that the place was way below the standard they expected from the website. The kettles were filthy inside and had to be brought round to my house to be scoured out before being used. Not a good start !!! They came back and we talked quite late into the night catching up on each others news, and my son bought us a chinese meal for our dinner ...I had king prawn curry it was yummmmmm lol. Then off they went to their B&B for the night.

The following day they came round ready for a day out sightseeing. It turned out that things didn't improve when they got back to the Auckland Arms, as the beds were very uncomfortable, also the breakfast in the morning wasn't up to much either. It took ages to get served and even when it did arrive it wasn't very warm, the toast had been put on top of the disgusting tasting beans, making it go soggy. My friends were not impressed !!! At £240 for the two nights they were here they expected better, so I advise anyone looking for B&B's on Anglesey to avoid the one I've mentioned here. It's obvious from the link that follows that my friends weren't the only ones that found this place substandard either, just wish I'd found these reviews before they'd booked in there !! Trip Advisor.Co.Uk

It was a warm and sunny day, so we set off to Porthmadog's black rock sands, for a day on the beach followed by a trip through the mountains on the way home. Much fun was had by all, playing frisbee and football.My youngest sons huge 6ft kite was the most popular thing to have a go at though lol. My friend Mandy went off to the loo and was gone for at least an hour and half, we were all wondering where she'd got to when she back clutching a load of leaflets and telling us all to get in the minibus she'd got us an invite to a free bbq lol. She'd gone to have a look round a caravan holiday park and the owners had invited her and the remaining 6 of us to go to the bbq too. By the time we left there, there's no doubt in our minds that if she'd have had the money to buy one of the holiday homes there and then she would have, she was so impressed. After that we took a leisurely drive back through the mountains to get home. We were quite surprised how much snow there was still on the ground in places, some of it quite thick.

Another sunny day dawned on Sunday, and we'd arranged to go to the car boot at Mona. Much to my surprise my youngest son and his heavily pregnant girlfriend had managed to get up in time to come too. This son is not known for getting up early I might add lol. I was disappointed to see that there were only 4 rows of booters even though it was Easter, but I suppose as the weather had been so unpredictable earlier in the week, it wasn't that surprising. I managed to find myself some new books to read, a little tea light lamp and a cardi. My friends Mandy and Mart surpassed themselves and bought an X box and a motorbike lol. That's the first time in all the years I've gone to car boots that I've known anyone spend over £600 lol.

Once we'd got back to my house and had a coffee, my older son decided he wanted to treat us to Sunday lunch before they set off back home. As we all have healthy appetites it was decided to try and find a carvery not too far away. We found one in Pentraeth but sadly it was already packed to the rafters, so we carried on towards Benllech and found a little pub which didn't do a carvery but their food was gorgeous. I just wish I could remember the name of it to give them a plug but I can't :o( All to soon it was time was my son and our friends to start their journey back home to the Midlands again. The time had gone way to fast, but we'd all enjoyed it !!

Waitrose in Menai Bridge !!

A little bit of excitement on sleepy Anglesey, we have a new Waitrose supermarket opened up in Menai Bridge. Even though we don't enjoy shopping my daughter and I thought we'd go and give it the once over. The car park was busy as you'd expect, and no doubt the powers that be at Waitrose, thought someone directing the traffic there would be a good idea. WRONG ..... the only thing holding up the traffic, was the guy that was trying to guide people to parking spaces !! Maybe they should have thought of employing someone that could see over the tops of the cars, rather than someone who had to continually run up and down to see if there were any spaces ....dohhhh.

Once inside we started looking at prices ...OMG all branded items were at least 40p dearer than they are at the regular supermarkets. Even their own cheap brand was expensive, so it's back to good old Tesco's for us !! When we got to the checkouts, although friendly enough, the cashier was a little too sickly friendly if you know what I mean. I didn't really need to be told to check my change, or be told to have a good day or to be told to come back soon ...because I won't be lol.

Much to my surprise my daughter stuck her head round the door yesterday morning and asked if I wanted to go to Mona Car Boot ..did I ever !!! I got changed in record time and within 10 mins were off for some rummaging. How disappointing, only 2 rows of booters, my daughter kindly pointed out even if there were more booters, it was doubtful I'd have managed to walk round many more anyway :o( !! Still you never know what little treasure you might find. As it was the only things I bought was a keyboard for my pc and a couple of books. I was quite pleased with the keyboard, as I'd worn the letters off my one, but once I'd plugged it in I found out why it only cost me 50p !! It had some weird affliction which made it go up and down the pages all on its own lol. Being the frugal type person I am, I decided rather than just throw it away I'd pull off all the keys and put them on my old keyboard ...success !!!

So later on there I was happily surfing the net, when all of a sudden there was a bang and our electric went off. As the noise seemed to come from my daughters room I went to investigate. She confirmed that yes indeed something in her room had caused the bang. As our electric fuse box has one of those trip switches I foolishly thought I'd just have to flick the switch and normal service would be resumed. Wrong ... for some reason flicking the switch didn't work. While I was stood there wondering what to do next my daughter joined me, and we crouched down looking at the fuse box for inspiration as to what to do next. Then we made the biggest mistake of all we started randomly flicking switches up and down, completely forgetting to keep track on where they were in the first place. After 10 mins we were defeated, and as I didn't have a clue who to ring, I used the intercom system in all these bungalows. The guy that answered asked if I wanted him to ring Manweb on my behalf, not knowing any different my reply was ...If that's who has to be rung then yes please. About an hour later the Manweb man duly arrived, and with a few quick flicks he sorted out the fuse box and power was restored. As he was leaving he asked if the bungalow was council I said yes, and he told me that they weren't the ones that should have been called, apparently the council have their own emergencies contractors ...so I hope there's not going to be a bill land on the mat !! The one odd thing about the whole saga was, that I noticed when the switches are in the right place, the little indicator colour below the switch was red. Yet if you flicked it off then the indicator colour was green. Now to my mind that's the wrong way round surely ?

Anyway ramblings aside here's a couple of photo's I took yesterday.

Amazing recycling

Yesterday I spent some of my day surfing blogs, one I came across was written by a lady that worked at Proper Job I was so impressed by this website, and wondered why this kind of thing can't be implemented all over the UK, in particular on Anglesey ?

Time after time, after time, when I go to the one or the other of the local recycling centre's on Anglesey, I see perfectly good things thrown in the skips. It's complete madness, especially when there's so much unemployment, people just haven't got the money to spend on new things these days.

This kind of scheme would create a few jobs, and provide an excellent source of affordable items to the people of Anglesey, not least of all it would keep things out of the landfill sites !!

Peacocks and Daffodils

Spring must definitely be on it's way at long last, hedgerows in some of the little lanes we go down, have now got daffodils swaying in the breeze. In one of the lanes we go down some people keep peacocks, we keep popping down this lane in hopes that one of these days we'll see their tails up showing all their glorious colours. So far this year we haven't been lucky. But we took some photo's anyway.

It seems like my 13th grandchild is trying to make her way into the world, albeit very slowly as her mom has been having contractions for the past two days lol. I can't wait for her to arrive, so I can take loads of photo's of her !! My oldest daughter is on her way to visit today, to bring down a pram, car seat and some other bits and pieces, so it would be nice if the baby arrived while she was here.