Ekkkkk almost a month ....

Ooops almost a month since I've updated my blog. Real life seems to have overtaken my online life, almost completely these days. Not that I'm complaining of course, far from it. So many years of my life has pretty much been spent online due to me not being able get out and about under my own steam.

But this last 6 months since I met Jim, my life has turned round completely, and every bit of it for the better. My days are full of love and laughter now. Even the most mundane things seem to become fun, with no effort from either of us. In fact only the other night, Jim was lying in bed and started chuckling away to himself, when I asked him what he was laughing at, he simply said " I was thinking of the fun we have together ". What a lovely thing for your partner to say to you ....long may it last.

Often our trips to town are brightened by buskers in the town center. A couple of weeks ago we saw a brilliant band playing samba music, we could have spent all day there listening to them, they were that good. There was also a flash mob in Lancaster about a week ago, this is where people appear to randomly start singing, it is of course all preplanned, but the general public don't know. Luckily someone videoed it. To listen to the beautiful rendition of The Messiah they did, click this link >> Lancaster Flashmob Messiah

Often on the way back from town, we come home via either the canal or the river, and as we always have the camera with us, we often get some nice shots, some of which I've included below.

This is the samba band, the guy on the far right was bouncing around the whole time he was playing, he so obviously enjoyed his music.



The next 4 photo's are of things we have seen on our wanders.









Lastly a photo of me, wrapped up against the terrible weather we've been having lately, with a rainbow above me :)

Fireworks, Hest Bank and Morecambe.

What a fantastic and busy time I've been having lately. Since arriving in Lancaster, I seem to be out and about more than I have for years, and I love it !! After spending the last few years dependant on family and friends as the only way of me getting out and about, this new sense of freedom I've got here, is brilliant. Trips into town are a regular occurrence, and Jim and I often go off on longer adventures as far a field as the batteries, on my scooter will let us.

Since I last wrote on my blog, we went to a firework display, went for a trundle along the canal to a place called Hest Bank which was beautiful, it was so good to see and smell the sea again, and as the weather was so nice we took a picnic with us. Then on Sunday as the weather was still nice, we decided to go to Morecambe. The ride there was really enjoyable along the cycle path, which is perfect for mobility scooters, we got to Morecambe in good time and only used up a tiny bit of battery power too.

We went for a wander around the indoor and outdoor market before we headed for the promenade. Then all of a sudden the battery lights started going down very alarmingly. Within 15 minutes I was left with only one bar left on the battery, which is the very lowest amount of power left. Of course I immediately started panicking, wondering how the hell we were going to get the 3 miles home. Jim checked all the battery connections to make sure nothing had come adrift or loose, but nothing was wrong. So we set off for home, with Jim insisting I wasn't to worry it was all part of the adventure ..... I didn't share his optimism though I'm afraid. We got a mile further on, and my one battery light started flashing, this means the battery is about to conk out. As you can imagine knowing that we had a further two miles to get home, I was pretty stressed out by this point. In his usual calm fashion Jim said don't worry, he'd get his daughter to come and pick me up and he'd bring his bike and the scooter the remaining way on his own !! I couldn't imagine how the heck he was going to manage that as my scooter isn't exactly the lightest of ones, even without me on it lol. But manage it he did, and got home about 3/4hrs after me.... and was greeted by a huge sigh of relief from me too !!!

Lots of photo's to share with you this time, some firework ones which I'm rather proud of, a couple of Faith, one of Jims grandkids that we looked after for the day as she had chicken pox and couldn't go to school. One of Hest Bank with the salt marsh at the forefront of the photo and lastly one of me on the jetty at Morecambe.

Birthday fun and busy days

A couple of weekends ago was my birthday, Jim came down from Lancashire and family and friends came up from the Midlands for 4 days. On my actual birthday we went up into the mountains and I actually managed to get to the bottom of a waterfall I've wanted to get close to ever since I moved to Wales almost 10 yrs ago. We started off on the Saturday night by all drinking rather a lot, and singing our heads off. We had a brilliant time, and the party went on till the early hours of Sunday morning. Martin had brought his laptop and a set of good speakers so I think I can safely say we made quite a lot of noise. It wasn't until the next morning, that I realised my elderly neighbour hadn't gone away to South Wales as we thought ....ooooops. The next day we went off go carting, the following day was another day at different go carting track followed by some fishing.I had the biggest catch of the day .... a supermarket wire basket, I was gutted I thought I'd caught a big fish !!! Jims met all but one of my kids now, and he's still with me, so they couldn't have scared him too much lol.

On the Tuesday every set off home, including Jim. However it was only going to be a short time apart for Jim and I, as I was travelling up to Lancaster again. This time I wanted to take my mobility scooter and also some of my glass, my art stuff and a load of other bits and bobs. So we decided the easiest way to do this was to hire van, which Jim's daughter Rachel kindly offered to drive for us. All went very smoothly and we made the trip in good time. The only hiccup was when Jim tried to install a wireless card in my pc, it just didn't want to have it, after a couple of hours, he finally got it to recognise his pc and all was well again.

Now I've got my scooter here, this means Jim and I can go out exploring, Lancaster being a city caters for scooters much better. So I got the chance to see the weir on the River Lune which is 2 mins away from Jim's house. What a beautiful spot, the amount of bird life was amazing, we also went into the city centre, and even though I normally don't like shopping, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Today we went for a wander along the canal which is about 10 mins from Jim's house, yet again I really enjoyed myself, it's been years since I've been able to do this. The photo's this time are a mixture of my birthday, family and some of the things I've seen since I've been at Jim's.

Copper embossing

This last few days, after a very long period of artistic block I had a go at copper embossing. We've had a sheet of copper hanging around the house for more years than I can remember, but after Jim had helped me sort out my outhouse, which doubles as an extra big art cupboard, I spotted this tube of copper sheet, and thought I'll have a go at that soon !! Just for once I actually did have a go at it.

My design was as usual an abstract one, and seeing as our sheet of copper was only small, I made do with a panel 2" wide by 6" long. It doesn't sound very big, but I've filled the space quite nicely I think. The copper was medium weight, which meant you had to press quite hard (well I did) to get the design nice and clear. The fun bit started when I decided to heat treat this little work of art. It was good fun watching rainbow colours appear the more I heated up the copper. It was also very random and quickly overheated and went a dull silver grey colour !! After using good old Google, I found that I could immerse the copper in lemon juice and it would take off any patina good or bad, and I could start all over again, which I've done a couple of times now. One problem I read about online is that unless you seal the panel, the patina will lose all the beautiful rainbow colours. Luckily I had some Briwax, and that has I hope stopped the dulling process.

The only downside to the embossing is that it made the arthritis in my hand flare up, and at one point I could barely move it without being in considerable pain. But 4 days later and it's eased off again, so I shall have another go later on today. I've enjoyed doing messing with this so much, my oldest daughter is going to buy me some more copper sheet for my birthday next Friday.

Talking of my birthday, my family in the Midlands is coming on the Saturday and we are going to have a few drinks to celebrate, actually it'll probably be more than a few drinks lol, and then a couple more days going go carting and hopefully fishing as well, weather permitting. Jim was planning to come down too and meet some of my rather large family (poor him lol), but unfortunately due to the unexpected illness of an elderly relative who he helps care for, this hangs in the balance at the moment. Fingers crossed, he'll make it down for my birthday at least, but if not, I'm sure we'll be able to share plenty of other birthdays together.

Did anyone else see that beautiful rainbow halo around the moon on Wednesday night/ early Thursday morning ? I got up early Thursday morning as usual, and when I went to let the dog out, I looked up and saw the full moon surrounded by a beautiful rainbow halo, which had a whitish circle around that, and to the left of the moon was an extremely bright star too. I rushed to get my camera to try and capture this stunning sight, and thought I did. But later on when I downloaded the photo's I hadn't managed to catch it, I was gutted and a little puzzled too, it was only later that I realised I had an ultra violet filter on my camera at the time, I wonder if that was what spoilt my efforts, does anyone know ? Please leave a comment if you do.

I'm going to add a photo of the copper embossing, if I can get a decent photo at the right angle to show the patina, so watch this spot !! As promised here is a photo of the embossed panel, sadly it's a very poor photo, it hardly shows up the pink patina on the copper. I'll have a go at another better photo another day.

More wanderings

Last Thurs saw my lovely Jim making yet another trip to see me. This time we were blessed with some reasonably nice weather for a change, so we made the most of it and went on a couple of wanders.

For our first walk we decided to see if we could get as far as Moel Y Don, with my mobility scooter fully charged. Right from the very start our plan was thwarted by there being no footpath for me to go on, to get to the turning by Star. The road was also a no no as motorists were going so fast, we didn't think it would be safe enough. So we took the turning before the one we'd planned, a little country lane. The hedgerow was very interesting and being much lower than I would have been had I been walking, I spotted lots of interesting things I might have missed otherwise. Although we didn't have a clue where this road lead, it became pretty obvious it was a well used road. It eventually led to the A4080 which is the main road to Newborough, and guess what ...no footpaths again !! So I was forced to trundle along on the road facing on coming traffic. Luckily it was pretty uneventful, but there were a few times when I wondered about our wisdom of coming on this busy road. We got as far as Plas Newydd country house and gardens, and decided that I hadn't got enough battery power left for us to get to Moel y Don, which was a shame. So into Plas Newydd we went, unfortunately the house and grounds were closed that day, but the cafe was open !! So we grabbed a cup of tea and had the picnic we'd brought with us. After spending an hour or so taking photo's, we decided it was time to make our way home again.

On Jim's last day we decided to go to one of our favourite places, a little beach close to my home. This is a favourite place of ours, there's never anyone else there and I can manage to get my scooter actually on to the beach itself. We sit watching the boats, the birds and this time I even managed to catch the train going under the A55 which I've never seen before, sadly I also managed to catch a pylon in the photo too, but I thought it'd still be worth putting up to show you. On our way back home Jim spotted a beautiful big bracket fungi on a tree, that had to be worth taking a photo of to share with you. It was about a foot wide, and six inches deep.

All too soon it was time for Jim to go home again, it seems to get harder and harder to leave each other, something neither of us had banked on happening. But thanks to the power of the internet, we can talk every day online.

The train going under the A55



A lovely butterfly at Plas Newydd



A couple of autumnal photo's





Jim hunting for little treasures for our future art project.



Finally the beautiful bracket fungi.

Best made plans and all that

With the best will in the world, the delay in writing my blog wasn't actually my fault this time ..... well not directly !! After having a fantastic week in Lancaster with my fella Jim, and meeting two of his lovely girls and some of his grand kids.I suddenly started feeling unwell. Expecting to be able to shrug off whatever had struck me down in a couple of days, I ignored it as I usually do. In this case that wasn't the best idea at all. I became really poorly and a kidney infection was diagnosed and antibiotics prescribed.

At one point I hadn't eaten for almost a week, had such a high temperature I thought I was cold when I was in fact burning up, and visa versa. When the antibiotics didn't seem to be working, both Jim and I were getting pretty worried, I decided I needed to get home and see my own doctor. With a lot of effort from my son Ben, he managed to get one of my other sons Dan to come up from the Midlands to Lancaster and brought me and Jim back to Anglesey, and an appointment was swiftly made for me at my doctors. She agreed with the previous diagnosis but said that she was going to give me another antibiotic as sometimes some infections become immune to them.

Another two days of tablets and I was still really ill, I couldn't eat or drink anything, and I had visions of me ending up in hospital. Then finally they started to take effect and I was able to eat and drink something at last. Even now the infection has gone, I'm still feeling very tired and haven't got any energy. But that will sort itself out given time I'm sure.

I honestly don't know how I would have coped without my lovely Jim. He was there constantly for me, and nothing was too much trouble, so I want to publicly say a huge thank you Jim, love you loads.

Once I was well on the mend, we decided a breath of fresh air would do me the world of good, and for once the weather was on our side. So we set off to the nearest beach that I can get to on my scooter and Jim cooked us breakfast on the beach. We enjoyed ourselves so much we decided as the weather was holding we'd go off on another trek the following day too. This time we headed down to Menai Bridge, taking the scenic route. I'm ashamed to say that Jim is already more familiar with pretty ways to get to places than I am !! We had a 5 mile round trip in the end, and on the way saw some amazing fungi, a view of Menai Bridge that I hadn't seen before and had lunch at the pier this time.

One thing that has become more apparent on these two jaunts is how bad Anglesey's footpaths are for the disabled !! So maybe Anglesey Council should forget putting speed humps that they've got funding for and spend it on something that REALLY needs doing !!! On a couple of occasions Jim had to literally bump my scooter down off a path because I couldn't ride the scooter down. If I'd have been on my own, there's no way I'd have managed to do it on my own !!

Here are a few photo's I took while we were out and about.

Jim cooking breakfast on the beach yummm.



A huge fungi that was about 3 1/2 ft across



A lovely view of Menai Bridge



One of those arhhhhh photo's.

See I kept my promise

As promised I'm trying to be more diligent on my blog now, and keeping you up to date on my quiet little life.

On the spur of the moment while I was talking to my oldest daughter online on Friday, I said it would be nice to have gone to her house for the weekend. As not only had my other daughter got a friend staying over at our house, my oldest daughter had got me a load of clothes off her friend. As new clothes ( to me ) are quite a rarity for me I was quite excited to see them, especially as I'm going to stay with at my man Jim's place on Weds, and will be meeting two of his daughters, and I want to try and make a good impression lol. Hmmm me trying to make a good impression, that's a new one for me lol !!

In the blink of an eye, my daughter said her and her husband would come and pick me up that nite whooooo. I do love doing things on impulse !! As it turned out by the time they'd come to pick me up and we'd done the return trip back down to Bromsgrove it was 3am...way past my bedtime !! But even then we had to have a bit of a chit chat, and my son in law sorted out my net book so I could chat to my fella first thing in the morning as we usually do lol. So it was 4am before we all got to sleep, I still managed to wake up at 7.30 for my early morning chat thought..not bad eh lol.

Usually when I go to visit my oldest daughter, its a whirlwind of going to visit people, but because we'd all had a late nite were shattered and we did nothing!! But two of my sons came to visit so that was nice. I'd intended to go and met my newest great grandson Tyler for the first time on the Sunday, unfortunately I was ill overnight, so that ..... plus my little grand daughter Lacey waking up screaming in the middle of the night, meant that plan went out the window and I had to spend most of the day lying on her settee drifting in and out of sleep.

All was not lost though as my grandson, brought his son over to visit me instead. It was ages since I'd seen my grandson, and as him and I have always had a special bond since I was the first one to hold him when he was born, it was huge hugs with each other first and foremost. Then I got to see Tyler .... that was a bit of a blast from the past, as my great grandson is the spit image of what his dad looked like when he was a baby too !!

I'm back home now, with lots of washing to do, and stuff to get sorted, ready to go off again on Weds. This trip up north is going to be a little adventure on it's own I think, as Jim is coming down tomorrow to go back up with me on Wednesday, on the train. We are going to take my mobility scooter with us, as my daughters current car isn't powerful enough to pull the trailer up the hills to get there. As Jim does a lot of mountain biking, he already knows that his area is a lot more scooter friendly than where I am, so I'm really looking forward to exploring the countryside where he lives, with my trusty camera along with me too. Hopefully they'll be lots of photo's for on my blog.

For now here's 3 more photo's of our mad weekend when my family came down.

Oh my poor long neglected blog

Hands up, I am very guilty of long neglecting my blog !! This is partly due to my not really doing anything crafty since Xmas, and partly because my life seems to have been turned upside down in a way, I can honestly say I never expected it to..... a man has come into my singleton life !!

I've chosen to be single for some years now, most of the time this has been my own choice, but also because of my mobility problems, and other health issues, I felt I couldn't really expect to find anyone that would accept me, nor that I had a lot to offer really. How wrong was I !!!

By pure chance I was putting a comment on a forum I use, and it got a couple of funny remarks back from one of the members on there. Humour is something dear to my heart, I couldn't, nor would I want to be in relationship that had no humour in it, I know that's not always a factor the average person looks for, but to me it's a very important one, along with love, loyalty, trust, caring, intelligence and a huge dollop of impulsiveness !! By some amazing stroke of fortune, I seem to have found all these traits in one person ..... aren't I the lucky one :o) Whats even more amazing is that he seems to find those very same in traits in my personality, very appealing too. Neither of us was actively looking for anyone, and yet we seemed to hit it off immediately. Even the distance between us, although mildly annoying doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, with the help of web cams, voice chat and British Rail lol. The rest as they say is history, and I find myself in an extremely happy relationship.

So for those of you out there, that despair of ever finding anyone..... fear not, you just never know what's around the next corner :o)

Last weekend, I had a visit from family and friends in the Midlands for a long weekend. As always, this was a hectic time, with loads of laughs. We even managed at one point to be kicked off Porthmadog beach, we weren't doing anything really bad ... just having some fun as my mate Martin tried to tell the beach warden lol. Despite the nipping wind, almost everyone went in the sea, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The night of their arrival, unusually saw us all having a drink, my first proper drinking session in 6 yrs !! What a laugh it was too, surprisingly even though I drank almost a whole bottle of peach schnapps, I was not only still standing I was still talking sense too lol.

Anyway, I promise to try and find time to update my blog more regularly now. Here's a few photo's of some of the fun we had at Porthmadog beach before we got kicked off, and a couple of my man.

What a scorcher

What a lovely change to see the sunshine yesterday, the hottest day this year here I think. It was very humid though, and I was glad of the sea breeze that hits our back garden, down by the beach it was even cooler and the dog enjoyed a ramble down by the Menia Straits.

When it started to cool down, I decided to try and put up the canvas wardrobe I'd bought a few days previously. If you've never done one of these before ....don't bother is my advice lol !! Even when I followed the instructions, actually getting the canvas bit on was a nightmare. In the end I had to shout my daughter and get her to help me, and she ended up having to get inside the dammed thing to get the last poles in place. The actual rail the clothes hang on, seems to be a bit unstable so it remains to be seen whether it'll hold the weight of my clothes !!

By the time the wardrobe saga had finished, I was just too tired to clear all the bags and junk off my bed properly, so I just pushed everything to one side. But for some reason despite being really tired, I just couldn't get to sleep. I tossed and turned for most of the nite falling asleep just before 4am and then waking up again at 8am :o(

My mobile rang unusually early this morning, it was a school in Bromsgrove where my oldest daughter lives. It turns out they found my daughter phone she'd lost on Saturday, and as I was in her phone as MOM they decided to ring and elt me know they had it. Can you let her know please said the woman on the phone, yes I said ...I'll text her ...... then realised what I said ....full marks for being a dope first thing on a Monday morning for me lol.

A few more photo's from the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham.

This was the bonsai section, I was quite disappointed I'd expected much smaller tree's



My daughter and I both enjoy macro photography, so here's a couple of close ups we took while we were there.

My recent wanderings

Yet another long break in my postings. This is mainly due to me still not having found my crafty mojo, so life can be quite quiet here in my world.

However the last week or so has been a bit more interesting, so I have something to write about. As usual at this time of the year, we made our annual trip to Leamington Spa, to see family and go to the Peace Festival. We also planned to go to Birmingham Botanical Gardens, while we were there.

Anyone planning to go to the Botanical Gardens, I can highly recommend it. As me and my two daughters all enjoy photography it was the perfect opportunity to get the camera's out. It has 4 glasshouses, varying in heat from tropical, down to arid. I was a bit worried about using my camera in the tropical one, as it's so hot and humid, but I'm glad to say it survived. The grounds outside are huge and much bigger and better than I expected, even though I'd looked at their website. A day there really isn't long enough, as everywhere you go there's little paths that lead to little area's of either sculptures, or various specialised plants. I'm sure we missed loads of good things as there just wasn't time to explore every single pathway. A couple of times there were heavy showers which had us diving for shelter but also meant we got some lovely photo's of flowers with rain drops on them. One huge plus for me was the fact that they have mobility scooters which you can borrow, this meant I could enjoy the whole experience, without being in constant agony.

As usual going to Leamington Spa Peace Festival, it was an opportunity to catch up with family, friends and friends from a forum I use, as well as watching live bands, and all the other things going on there. For the first time in a good few years I was also able to go round the stalls which I loved, as my son Ben hired me a mobility scooter. There was a slightly hairy moment when I accidentally run into my son and almost knocked him off his chair, with the mobility scooter...oooops. He thought it was a lot funnier than I did at the time, and the scooter had a rather large scratch on it :o( The highlight for me was watching the brilliant singer Rory Mcleod, if you've never heard of this guy look him up on you tube, especially the track called " When mommy and daddy made me" my favourite. I'd already got one of his cd's from a previous festival I'd seen him at, and this time my son bought his latest album Swings and Roundabouts.

As my daughter Jenny didn't enjoy the festival as much as usual and I was starting to get more than a bit homesick, when she suggested that we came home a day early I jumped at the idea. Usually I'm scared witless at the thought of night time driving, but because it was so late when we made our decision, the roads were relatively quiet, and I survived the trip home with only a couple of freak outs, which is pretty dammed good for me lol.

Thursday just gone, found me and my daughter Jenny off on a trip towards Bewts y Coed on a wood hunt. My daughter had got a project in mind but to start it she needed some nice pieces of gnarled wood. After a lovely drive through Snowdonia,we found some bits of wood, took some photo's and then headed home. My daughter decided she wanted to treat me to a meal out, so we stopped at the Swallow Falls Hotel, there we had a lovely meal, served quickly by very polite staff, so well done the management there for getting it all right.

The photo's this time are from our trip away mostly. Firstly my ever photogenic grand daughter Lacey Mae, posing in the Botanical Gardens.



Next a flower we found there, that looked just like curtain tie backs lol



This photo is of a very friendly hand reared pea hen, that wanders the grounds of the Botanical Gardens



Next a photo of my very cheeky grandson Ryan, who I met up with at the Peace Festival.



This last photo of my gorgeous grandaughter Hayley on the left, and my lovely daughter Jenny, about summed up the weather at the Peace Festival, and makes me smile when I look at it