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.