Ramblings from an artist on Anglesey

Time doesn't half fly when you're having fun.

2012-01-08T09:58:00.002Z

Already a week into the New Year before I get round to writing on my blog. A belated Happy New Year to everyone, I hope every one's dreams and wishes happen for them this year. Has anyone made any new resolutions ? I don't usually bother, but as I had such an unproductive one art and craft wise last year, I am going to try and do much more this year, and stop being so dammed lazy lol !! It will be hard though, as I'm loving the freedom of being able to get out and about to so many places, since I started staying with Jim. As he's someone that loves being out and about too we are a very good combination. Even in the really windy weather we've been having, we've been out and about most days.

The wind has brought down many branches where we are, so we've been collecting wood most afternoons. Even if they don't get used this year as it's so mild for January, it can sit in the garden and dry out ready for next year. You can never have too many logs !! My poor scooter is looking very muddy, but there seems little point in cleaning it as it'll only get dirty again when we go in the woods the next day ...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it lol.

My daughter Jenny came and fetched me before Christmas, and we spent a few very happy days together. I don't think either of us realised how much we'd missed each other. On Boxing day we headed down to the Midlands, to go and spend some time with my oldest daughter, and then the plan was to go the next day to my oldest sons and stay at his overnight. However, things didn't go to plan, eating meat for a couple of days over the Christmas period really upset my stomach and I had bad pains all the way down to the Midlands. I was also starting to really miss Jim, as he stayed behind to be with his family too. As the day went on, the pains didn't ease and I got a blinding headache into the bargain. I got really upset, and when Jen asked me if I wanted to set off back to Jims earlier than planned I agreed. I felt bad about not seeing the rest of the family and not going out for a meal with family and friends, but as it turned out I was in pain for another couple of days before it started to ease off. So I think the right decision was made. Also a couple of days after I got back Jim came down with man flu, so it was nice for me to look after him, as he did me, when I was ill.

I did get to met up with some of my grand kids while I was at my oldest daughters, so that was good, as I haven't seen some of them for quite a while. I also got to see my youngest sons two kids while I was back in Anglesey, and really enjoyed that too.

Enough of my waffling on, and here's a few photo's of family taken over the Christmas period.

A lovely photo of my grand daughter Kacey, and although I took loads of her laughing and smiling I particularly liked this one.

Kaceys little sister Ruby Jo, who looks so like Kacey did when she was young.

My daughter Jenny in the middle with Lacey Mae on the left of the photo and my great grandson (am I really that old :o( ) Tyler.

Another one of Tyler, who was happy and laughing the whole day bless him.

Ekkkkk almost a month ....

2011-12-13T16:11:00.003Z

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.

2011-11-15T10:45:00.006Z

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

2011-10-31T21:16:00.004Z

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

2011-10-14T07:56:00.008+01:00

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

2011-10-06T10:42:00.011+01:00

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

2011-09-24T16:13:00.006+01:00

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

2011-08-29T08:33:00.004+01:00

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

2011-08-25T09:26:00.008+01:00

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

2011-06-27T11:04:00.004+01:00

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

2011-06-25T06:04:00.009+01:00

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

Blogger problems

2011-05-30T10:54:00.006+01:00

I've been trying to write on my blog for just over a week now, and not been able to log in. From what I've been reading online there's been quite a few other people suffering the same problem. In all the time I've been using blogger this is only the 2nd time I've had problems with it. The only way I've managed to get on to my blog now is by using internet explorer, which is annoying really as I far prefer firefox.

It's been a bit of an odd time for me this last month or so, I haven't been able to do anything crafty for some reason. All my creativity seems to have deserted me, and the 3 mosaics I made have laid unfinished. The beautiful sunshine we had for weeks on end, has also vanished, and been replaced with high winds and loads of rain.

However the weather didn't stop a very good friend of mine taking me on an overnight drive through mid Wales. As it was a full moon that night, we were hoping to see a moonbow, similar to the one we'd seen years previously. For those that don't know a moonbow, is the same as a rainbow, but because it's night time and a full moon the moonlight shines through the rain and creates a pure white rainbow. Sadly the skies were full of clouds, and any hope of seeing a moonbow rapidly declined.

But that didn't dampen our spirits and we happily drove along narrow, very bendy dirt tracks singing our heads off, just incase my friend should happen to read this maybe I should rephrase that, and say he sang.... I warbled along with him lol. A lot of the time we were driving through heavy rain, sometimes fog with 200 or 300ft drops on one side. If I didn't trust his driving so much, it might not have been such an enjoyable drive. At one of the places we stopped at a big moth flew into the car, I've never seen such a big one, so I took the opportunity to take some photo's of it. After we watched the dawn come up we started to take a leisurely drive home, a good time had by both of us.

The photo's this time are, a photo of the big moth I've just written about. The 2nd one is a photo of a mural of Menai Bridge the same friend has recently finished in someones conservatory, and finally the 3rd is a photo of some young friends that popped by to see us the other day with their little girl Effy Summer.

Amazing surprise and busy times

2011-05-07T07:01:00.009+01:00

I had an amazing surprise last Friday, I heard a noise in my hallway I went to investigate and it was my son Ben and his mate Martin come to visit from Birmingham. After some lunch...made by Ben, and a quick catch up, my son got me to go out to their van with him. I was gobsmacked, sitting in there was a mobility scooter !! For the last 18 months my mobility has got so bad I can't even walk 25 yards without being in unbearable pain, which has meant I've been housebound apart from on my daughters days off work. I've always been a pretty independent person, so losing this over the last 18 months has been a hard thing to come to terms with. But now, thanks to my son I can get to the shops in the village on my own, such a little thing for most people, but such a huge thing for me it's hard to convey in words what a difference it'll make to my life. So a huge thank you to my son Ben.

Also a big thank you to Martin, who while he was here got high jacked into doing a few jobs around the house that me and my daughter couldn't do. He also made me a lead that will reach the scooter from my outhouse to recharge it, without having the hassle of using extension leads etc. Mart is a very methodical person and I got quite a lot of pleasure watching him do these jobs, and also picked up a couple of tips that will stay with me for a long time.

On Sunday there was an added treat ...a trip to the car boot !! I so enjoyed it, it's a year since I last went there and even then I couldn't enjoy it because the pain was too much for me. But this time I went up and down the rows of booters like a thing possessed lol. Sadly there wasn't as many booters as I would have liked, due mainly I think to the freezing cold wind that was whipping across the field. But I still got a few bargains so I was a very happy bunny.

Sunday was my sons last day and as a final treat we got taken out for dinner to the Breeze Hill Hotel in Benllech. If you're ever visiting Anglesey be sure to go for a meal here, their food is amazing, and very reasonably priced too.

I've been asked to make some mosaics for a shop on the island, so I've been busy doing that lately. I also thought that for a change I would turn my hand to making some bracelets. These will be made completely from recycled materials, I've made 3 so far and they just need some tweaking to get them how I want. I'll share all these things with you as soon as they're finished of course, but in the meantime a couple of photo's we took of my daughter using a laser light that Mart brought down for her, we were really pleased with the results and thought the 2nd photo would make a brilliant album cover for a band. Also I've included a pic of my lovely new great grandson Tyler, with his daddy my oldest grandson Martin. On my pc I can see white bands on the bottom of the two first photo's, so apologies if anyone else can see them too.

Long ovedue update

2011-04-10T06:51:00.002+01:00

Wow where does the time go, I've sadly neglected my blog since January. I wish I could say it's been because I've been producing loads of works of art and have been frantically busy keeping up with orders, but the truth is I've been spending time pottering around doing jobs in the house lol. Mainly tiling ....how exciting can life get !! It's been a huge learning curve for me though I have to admit as it's something I haven't done before.

The painting I was intending to do for the bathroom has been one of my few failures I have to admit. I had a plan but it's not turned out how I wanted by a long long way, so for the present the canvas has been thrown in our outhouse, and probably won;t see the light of day for quite a long time lol. But my daughter and I have been asked to do some projects to sell in a local heritage centre so I'll be blowing the dust of my stained glass and getting some mosaics done :o)

In February I had a visit from most of my family that live in the Midlands. Which was great, but trying to squeeze 13 people into my tiny front room was quite a feat, and the noise level was a lot higher than it usually is lol. But a good time was had by all, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone. It was also good to get out and about a lot more than I usually do too.

I've been reading a few things online that have really annoyed me. In times where David Cameron has been making huge financial cuts, British troops go without proper equipment, schools are closing, benefits are being cut, how can he possibly justify in donating £650 million to Pakistan's schools !!! What about our schools, what about our children's future ? Also Mr Cameron has been saying we're all in this together, yeah it really looks like it when they've managed to up MP's expenses so that they claim more money for hotels and rents, and get this ... MPs with children up to the age of five can claim an extra £2,425 per child for accommodation - and could claim for up to 30 journeys they make between London and the constituency.Under the revised scheme, they will be able to make the same claims for children aged up to 16 - or 18 if they are in full time education - and for journeys by spouses or partners accompanying the child. This kind of thing makes me sick, for even more disgusting expenses read this article. Rules relaxed for 'commuter belt' MPs

A few photo's for you anyway.

A particularly nice photo of my grand daughter Lacey Mae

My daughter and son messing around

A surprising sign we saw at one of our local forests

No wonder this country is in recession

2011-01-18T06:32:00.004Z

No wonder this country is in recession when even the Royal family doesn't support it. I was horrified to read recently on a craft forum I use, that the tableware for Prince Williams wedding is going to be produced in China !!!

It's hard enough for any businesses in the UK to survive these days, without the monarchy of this country handing over an order for 16,000 pieces of tableware to China. I'm disgusted and I'm sure a lot of other people are too. Out of the 500 companies who put in bids to produce this tableware surely there was one in the UK that could have been given it. I'm not interested in the royalty personally, but this is going to a globally covered event, surely the Royals could have used this to promote buy British !!!

New Year and new projects

2011-01-03T05:14:00.009Z

Happy New Year to my followers and to the many people that pass through my blog. I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours here was a very quiet affair as always, the big day itself included a trip up into the mountains, a little tradition my daughter and myself have. This year the scenery was even more spectacular than usual with the heavy snow we'd had, so I make no apologises for all the photo's on this post. The first 4 photo's were taken just before Christmas in and around Anglesey after a night which dropped 10" of snow on us, which was very unusual for here.

After two weeks of having all my art and craft stuff tidied away, I always find it hard to get back into creative mode, so the time has been spent turning out cupboards and drawers and tidying them up, something that was well over due lol. One job I really enjoyed doing was the large cupboard in my front room which stores most of my arty crafty stuff. This was a job I'd been dying to do for ages, but I needed to have the sliding doors off it, so as my son was floating around I got him to get them off ....which trust me isn't an easy job !!! Now everything is all sorted labelled and tidied up and for someone that's natural untidy I'm getting a lot of pleasure of being able to see exactly whats what and where for a change lol.

My latest project is going to be a painting for my bathroom which is going to get decorated at long last. This is the only room that hasn't been decorated since we moved in just over 12 months ago. The delay was caused by us not being able to decide what colour to do it and not having the money to do it either. But the arrival of a bill I was dreading ( gas and electric )has come and gone, and I was really pleased that I had managed to save enough to pay it !! So the extra cash I'd put to one side incase this bill was even higher than I thought, can now be used to decorate the bathroom. The colour is going to be a bright lime green which will contrast nicely with the black tiles in there. I'm going to do an abstract painting in there, but I'll also be using copper wire, glass tiles and goodness knows what else on it, as I want it to have the wow factor.

Anyway enough waffle from me, here's the photo's I mentioned earlier.

Cable Bay

Hermon

Two photo's of a mass of icicles in Cable Bay

Snowdonia

These icicles were huge at least 6or7ft and very thick.

A stream that produced some very unusual ice formations.

Snow bound Anglesey

2010-12-20T06:23:00.004Z

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 !!

2010-11-30T22:36:00.004Z

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

2010-10-24T05:46:00.004+01:00

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

2010-09-27T15:12:00.003+01:00

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

2010-09-09T06:20:00.004+01:00

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

2010-08-30T07:48:00.004+01:00

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

2010-08-19T09:51:00.004+01:00

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

2010-08-15T05:49:00.002+01:00

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

2010-08-02T06:26:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-27T11:22:00.008+01:00

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 ...

2010-07-15T20:10:00.002+01:00

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

2010-07-08T04:53:00.005+01:00

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

2010-07-07T11:02:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-29T16:27:00.004+01:00

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

2010-06-28T07:58:00.005+01:00

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

2010-06-23T14:01:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-15T06:36:00.005+01:00

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

2010-06-14T07:25:00.003+01:00

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 "

2010-06-08T10:31:00.005+01:00

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

2010-06-06T06:14:00.004+01:00

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

2010-06-03T06:30:00.006+01:00

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

2010-05-25T06:36:00.002+01:00

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 !!

2010-05-17T05:52:00.007+01:00

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

2010-05-14T04:49:00.002+01:00

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

2010-05-05T05:43:00.008+01:00

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

2010-04-30T05:39:00.007+01:00

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 ...

2010-04-27T07:45:00.010+01:00

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

2010-04-07T10:27:00.008+01:00

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 !!

2010-03-29T08:52:00.008+01:00

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

2010-03-27T06:36:00.004Z

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

2010-03-23T09:26:00.005Z

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.

Nothing days and slip ups

2010-03-21T08:54:00.003Z

After being really busy, I seem to have had a couple of nothing days. In my world these are days where I don't actually get round to doing anything constructive !! These kind of days always seem to happen when I've got so many idea's buzzing round in my head, that I can't decide what to do next ...so I end up doing nothing lol. I did manage to sort out the room where a lot of my craft stuff is though, so something was achieved :o)

Yesterday afternoon we went to a small park type area in an industrial estate, that my daughter had mentioned last week. Much to my delight we spotted 3 squirrels running around. A perfect photo opportunity I thought, and we happily snapped away for well over half an hour. Once I got back home I downloaded the photo's and started going through them, I was very disappointed that none of them seemed to have their usual crispness. It wasn't until this morning when I happened to glance at my camera I realised what the problem was. The camera was on the wrong setting ...dohhhhh, how annoying. Mind you it's a good excuse to go back there again and take more photo's lol.

It looks like the suns coming out today, so hopefully I'll be able to get the rest of the plants I bought last week, unpacked and planted out.

I thought I'd share the squirrel photo's even though they aren't brilliant quality.

I need more hours in the day

2010-03-18T06:52:00.010Z

I really do need more hours in the day, 24 is just NOT enough lol. This last few days I've been busy building a couple of blogs for other people. The first was a blog to showcase a friends greenwood carving workshops, she is going self employed and needs a blog to show off what she can offer. Her plan is to do festivals, fete's and any community days, it appears to be popular as she's already got some bookings. Here's a link to her blog http://thewoodcraftscrew.blogspot.com/ The second blog was for Bryn another person who is going self employed, Bryn provides training and support for anyone who is dealing with their own or another’s anger and also stress management. He is currently working with some children at a Holyhead school and is very pleased by their commitment to his program. Here's the link to his blog, if you click on the tab called information there's some free downloads and a free online anger test both are very interesting http://welshassociationofangermanagement.blogspot.com/ Please feel free to pass their blogs on to anyone you think may find them interesting or might like to use their services. As if these two blogs weren't enough, I've also started to design myself another one too, I've decided I need a separate blog with my arts and crafts on, as they are getting lost in amongst my waffles on here. I'll also be putting some of my work on one of the craft selling sites and doing direct links to that too. I'm quite excited about this, especially as I've got a new project in the pipeline, which I think is going to be very popular.

Sunday saw my daughter and I off on a wander in the car as my mothers day treat....my perfect present :o) First we headed off to Pwllheli to a little part of a huge beach called Gimlet Rock. Here I managed to find some small bits of driftwood something that is sadly lacking on Anglesey. I was also on the look out for some interesting but bigger bits of wood for my garden. On our way to Black Rock Sands in Porthmadog, one of the few beaches I know where you can drive your car onto the beach, we saw loads of pieces of wood but the lanes were so narrow there was nowhere to park !!! As there was a bit of a breeze that day I hoped there might be some kite surfers around for me to photograph. But as luck would have it, the tide was out and there were some wind buggy's flying around the beach too, also one lone guy having a go at kite boarding. The kite buggy's look like amazing fun and was I younger and a lot fitter, I'd love to have a go at this. On the way home we were still scouring for wood for the garden, my daughter screeched to a halt and started reversing, she'd spotted something she thought I might like out of the corner of her eye. Not quite what I was looking for but just as good, some dead ivy roots had fallen off a tree, I do love these twisted gnarled pieces of wood, they look so lovely hanging up with some crystals or gem stones attached to them.

My waffles seem to be getting longer and longer, to anyone that's made it this far ....... well done lol !! If anyone fancies saying hello, just click on the comments link just below the bottom of each entry, you don't have to have a blog yourself and can even be anonymous if you like :o)

Yet another busy week

2010-03-13T05:36:00.004Z

Yet another busy week again !! A week today my friend Bee and her son came down from Liverpool again, bringing with her another friend Ricky and his son. Bee is convinced that she's lived on Anglesey in a previous life, as she feels so drawn to here.

Sunday I had a rare treat, my daughter and I went off to Mona car boot. Considering how lovely and sunny it was, I was surprised how few car booters there were. But I still managed to get a couple of bargains, from there it was off to Tregarth to pick up some much needed flower pots off a Freecycler. Everything was looking good, and we headed back home to carry on starting to sort out our new garden.

Then disaster struck !!! The front of my daughters exhaust fell apart, we managed to get the car into a quiet side road, the exhaust dragging noisily on the road. We knew that somehow we'd have to get the back end of the exhaust up off floor to get home, otherwise it might have pulled the whole thing off. Realising we had nothing suitable to hold it up, my daughter headed off to see a friend of ours Mike, who was working close by. Thank god for men who've got bits of wire handy !! Mike gamely got under the car and with a little help from us, he got the exhaust up off the road, so we could get home, albeit sounding like a tank !!

We knew another friend Coral was due to visit in her van in the next day or so, we hoped that she'd be able to tow the car to the garage we use. Coral arrived on the Monday and we decided that maybe it would be safer all round if my daughter drove her car to garage, with me and Coral following closely behind incase the wire broke or any other disaster happened. It didn't thank god !!

Early Tuesday morning, saw Coral and I heading up the A55 towards Valley to do a car boot with the last remaining things from Corals cottage she'd just given up, to live in her van. Once there we were shown where to park up, it must have been the coldest spot in the whole car boot. While all the other booters were bathed in the warm sun, our van and a guy next next to us sat in the freezing cold, with no hope of the sun moving round to warm our chilly bones. But we soldiered on and by the end of it pretty much most of Corals stuff was gone. The rest we intended to drop off at the tip on the way home.

Once we got back and we'd managed to thaw out, (which took some doing I can tell you ) I got a nice vegetarian stew and dumplings on the go. While that bubbled gently away, I started working on doing a blog for Coral, to showcase her greenwood carving workshops etc, which is part of her action plan to become self employed.

Wednesday dawned and knowing that Coral had to leave that night, to get home for an important appointment, we knew that this would be the last day we'd have a lift to get to the somewhat remote garage my daughters car was in. So we decided to go and check and see if any progress had been made on it, just as we pulled into the garage my daughters phone rang, it was the mechanic to say her car was ready ...good timing or what lol !! As always we were short of cash so were dreading how much it was going to cost, so we were delighted when we were told it'd only be £10, how many mechanics would weld an exhaust back together for that much ...not many I can tell you !!!

Next on the agenda was to drop my daughters car back home, and for us to go and pick up things needed to start getting Corals van sorted out for her to live in it. As we needed some wood, we thought it was worth going to the local tip and see if we could get any there. Our luck was in and we managed to get some, we also got the last post we'd need to put our fence up in the garden, a new set of car mats for my daughters car and a glass topped garden table to replace the plastic monstrosity we had. We'd have got loads more stuff, but the guy at the tip was getting a bit jittery saying that we were being watched by cctv !! In this day and age when most councils are trying to keep as much stuff out of the landfills as possible, it seems ridiculous to me that we can't recycle some of the very useful stuff people throw away ...bureaucracy gone mad I call it !!! Anyway ... the next thing to do was get everything out of Corals van so we could lay some carpet on the floor and believe it or not some on the roof too, hopefully this will insulate the van a bit on cold nights. Once we'd done as much as we could, it was off to the beach for sunset as Coral wanted some decent photo's of herself for her blog and also some fun poi pictures. I was quite pleased with the end results, what do you think ? All bar the 4th photo down are of my daughter though lol.

One of those times

2010-03-04T05:50:00.002Z

There have been quite a few times in my life, when I have suddenly realised that I feel truly happy and content with my life. This is one of those times, I wake up looking forward to the day and whatever it brings. I might not have the latest flat screen tv, a posh car parked outside or any of the other material possession that seem to mean so much to other people, what I do have is, peace of mind, and that to me is priceless....

As we were driving along the A4080 at the weekend, my friend that came to visit remarked that at some point, there must have been sea covering a lot of this area to produce the many sand dunes. This got me thinking, as the sand dunes cover quite a large area away from the sea, and I couldn't imagine the sea coming that far inland. By pure chance I happened to stop and read the information board at Newborough forest, where we take out dog for his daily walk quite often. How surprised was I, when I read that 700 years ago this area was hit by storms that actually engulfed a cottage and it was buried in sand. When I got home I decided to try and find out more about these storms. Much to my surprise I found out that in the winter of 1320, and over 211 acres was hit by a series of such violent storms that 11 cottages were buried under sand dunes, some of the ruins can still be found in Newborough forest now. So maybe there's a link between the sand dunes we saw and the effects of these violent storms ?

Whoops there goes another week !!

2010-02-28T06:14:00.004Z

Yet again time has flown by, and a whole week has gone without me updating my blog ...whoops !!

It's been a pretty productive week though, I managed to get the large oil painting I was doing finished at last, and up on the front room wall. I decided to add some small glass tiles to it so that it fit in even better with my front room, and I'm pretty pleased with the end result I have to say. I also carried on doing another project I started a while ago before my motivation left me. This time it's a half sized violin which I'm decorating with an assortment of tempered glass, stained glass and tiny seed beads. This is a pretty fiddly mosaic as the violin has such acute curves on the sides, so I have to do a little and then wait while the glue dries, very annoying lol. I've also got an idea for a 2nd oil painting I want to do for another wall in the front room.

I had a lovely day yesterday, a friend of mine Bee and her son H, who live in Liverpool came to visit for the day. As she's very fond of ancient momuments, we went to see the burial chamber Bryn Celli Ddu near Llandaniel. My lack of mobility stopped me from getting right to it sadly. Afterwards we stopped off at Cable Bay for a picnic, and then on to Rhosneigr where we spent a pleasant hour or two. While we were there a couple of horses with rigs made an appearance, so that was a nice photo opportunity for me.

Anyway here's the oil painting in situ

My friend Bee and her son H.

The horses and rigs at Rhosneigr beach.

Treat of the day

2010-02-21T06:10:00.004Z

I had a rare treat yesterday, a trip out to the car boot at Llandygai in Bangor. Last time we went there it was rubbish, but it seemed much better this time. The reason for the treat was to look for a dvd player for myself, and I managed to find one for £3 and whats more when we got home it worked perfectly ...bargain. I also picked up an ornamental metal bird cage for £2 to hang in my bedroom...if I can find a beam to screw a hook into.

I was very lucky on Freegle (Freecycle) this week too, I was picked to get a large under the bed storage box, a small bbq for the summer and a couple of nighties, so I was very pleased about that. I'm hoping when the warmer weather arrives I'll be able to pick up some bushes and plants for the garden too.

My motivation has returned I'm pleased to report, so I've been cracking on with the big oil painting for my front room. This is an abstract painting in vibrant yellows through to oranges, deep blues, aubergines and purples with a background of brown. It's not everyone's cup of tea but I like it. I spent yesterday cutting some pieces of glass to use on parts of the brown background, to add some sparkle, which I'll probably add on today sometime. Next on the agenda is a small house warming present for a traveller friend of mine, who has just decided that a home base feels like a good idea, after a very close call where he almost lost his eye due to accident with a hawthorn bush while he was laying a hedge. Plus like me he's not getting any younger, and doesn't think he can face another long winter in his van.

All being well I should be getting a tattoo on my ear sometime today too, if my daughter manages to come up with a design I like. I did a rough sketch of one the other night, but she thinks it should be more of a statement than that, so I'll leave it up to her. I've wanted an ear tattoo since we went to the Llandudno tattoo convention last year, and saw quite a few people with them there. Perfect for me as I can't wear earrings as I get an allergic allergy to any metal.

Industrial type photo's

2010-02-16T08:44:00.004Z

When my daughter and I go off on our drives round the island, I often see rusty old objects, for some reason these odd things always appeal to me. I'm not sure if it's the gorgeous colours rusty metal goes or some other strange thing that makes these abandoned items stand out to me. But I just can't resist taking photo's of them, so today there's 3 photo's of things I've spotted over the last couple of weeks.

On a completely different subject, behind our bungalow there is another council bungalow which has now been empty since before Christmas. I find this amazing when councils all over the UK are constantly saying there's a shortage of council properties, and Anglesey council is no different. If I lived in a run down area, I could possibly understand why this property has stayed empty for almost two months, but I actually live in one of the most popular area's in Anglesey, there's a strong community spirit and everyone is very friendly. Such a waste !!!!

Parys mountains and an award

2010-02-14T08:14:00.006Z

Last week my daughter and I were passing by Parys Mountain in Amlwch, so stopped to take a couple of photo's. If you ever happen to be visiting Anglesey this is definitely worth a visit. In the late 1700's this copper mine supplied the world with copper, and employed 1500 people. Sadly by 1808 the amount of copper being mine had reduced greatly, and it came to end. There is still a ruin of a 5 vaned mill there and on the opposite side of the road an impressive looking winding gear construction. When my mobility was much better than it is these days, we took a walk around the mountain it's an amazing place the rocks strewn everywhere come in an amazing array of colours, and the mine craters, remind me of how I imagine the moon to look. When the mining was at it's height of production the toxic dust and sulphur gases from the mine fires, destroyed all plant life for miles around. Nowadays the mountain is covered in heather which looks beautiful when in full bloom.

This week I've been given an award by the lovely Vicky from the Anglesey Alsorts blog. In being given this award of " The Circle of Friends " I must also list 5 things I like to do...

I like to create, I don't mind what I create so long as I manage to create something. I usually use glass, but have been known to create other little works of art with paint, driftwood, crystals etc etc.

I also love to take photo's, this has become even more of a passion since Christmas due to some of my kids getting me the camera of my dreams.

Travelling around, whether it be locally on Anglesey or further afield. I just love being out and about exploring, never knowing what little gem might be round the corner, whether it be animal, mineral or vegetable.

Car boots are also something I like, even though I don't get to them very often and can't manage to walk round anywhere as much as I used to, I still get that same surge of pleasure from finding one thing I really wanted.

The last thing in my list, is my home. Having moved to this bungalow a few months ago I have found a peace of mind and security that's been missing in my life for the last 16 yrs. I was getting way too long in the tooth to have to put up with grasping landlady's, who were quick enough to grab the rent but not do any repairs. One particular landlady allowed the property I lived in to decline so much, I was forced to call in the enviomental health who rapidly condemned the building, and reported it was the worst house they'd ever seen on Anglesey and even now are using the photo's when they train up new students !! But having lived there, now makes me appreciate the warmth and security of this place more than I ever would have done before.

Parys Mountain

An impressive winding gear construction.

A close up of the top of the above.

Puffin island

2010-02-11T05:07:00.004Z

After looking around the buildings at Penmon, we carried on down the lane to the beach, where you get a clear view of Puffin Island. This is an uninhabited island that is protected because of the huge colony of thousands of sea birds that live there, landing is only allowed on this island by special permission of the owner.

The island has approximately 12 species of seabirds living on it. These include guillimots, razorbills, cormorants, kittiwakes and of course puffins. The puffin population was almost killed off when rats were accidentally introduced over there in the late 19th century. There is also chance you might see grey seals or if you're really lucky bottlenose dolphins or harbour dolphins. Boat trips are a popular way to enjoy the colony of birds to the fullest. There are also some ruins of monastic buildings left and it is reported that St Seirion could have been buried there.

There is also a lighthouse just off Penmon Point, this was built soon after 1831 when a steamship The Pioneer ran aground, due to the treacherous waters between Penmon Point and Puffin Island. This was booming away the day we were there as it was quite misty.

St Seiriols Holy Well and Dovecote

2010-02-08T06:36:00.004Z

As promised a follow up post on our visit to Penmon Priory. After we'd finished looking at the ruins, we headed off to find St Seiriols Holy Well,this well has been there since early in the 18th century and is reported to have healing properties. I was expecting to see my idea of a well, but this was a much more shallow affair, there are a couple of stone benches inside the building, but the spring that supplies the well was in full flow and the whole well was under a couple of inches of water. You have to pass a monastic pond, where the Monks used to keep fish to eat. Although it's overgrown, it was a pretty pond with some colourful moorhens on it.

Next we moved on to have a look at the Dovecote, this is quite an interesting building, especially if you step inside. Dated from the 16th century you step inside to a dome shaped interior to find little pockets everywhere, for a thousand pigeons to nest. I did take a photo looking up in here, but it didn't really capture the shape of it. The birds were used by the Monks to supplement their diet. In the center of the dovecote there was a stone colum with a spiral of stone steps, this was used to access the higher pigeon holes to get the young birds out of the nests. I was surprised to see no sign of birds using the building these days, not sure why this was though.

As we paid £2.50 to look round the priory etc, we decided to get our moneys worth and go down the lane and get some photo's of Puffin Island and the lighthouse, but I'll save those photo's for tomorrow.

This first photo houses St Seiriols Holy Well

A view of the actual well.

This is the Dovecote.

Inside the Dovecote a shot of all the little holes where the pigeons would make their nests.

A trip to Penmon Priory, St Seiriols Holy Well and a Dovecote

2010-02-07T12:13:00.002Z

I was suffering from serious photo withdrawals, as we haven't been anywhere for me to take any new photographs. So when my daughter asked me if I wanted my bedroom painted or a drive out, a drive out won hands down lol. I decided that a trip to Penmon Priory would do nicely. Although the original monastery was built in 6th century, it was destroyed by Viking when they raided. The church now there was built the middle of the 12th century and is considered to be the finest example in Gwynedd. My interest was mainly in the ruins that were left of the 3 storey building that housed the monks dining hall and dormitory. Tomorrow I will write about St Seiriols Holy Well and the Dovecote. The first photo was taken from what was originally the cellar and is where access is gained.

This 2nd photo was set in the wall.

The third and last photo today is the outside view.

Neglecting my blog

2010-02-05T08:12:00.003Z

Whoops I seem to be neglecting my blog lately. I seem to have lost my motivation for pretty much everything lately, not sure why ...but if anyone finds it can they direct it back to me please.

It's been a couple of quiet weeks here, nothing particularly interesting going on and no wanders in the car to take photo's either. My sleep pattern which is always all over the place, seems to have got even worse this last few weeks. I usually have no problems getting to sleep, but lately I can't even seem to manage that. I'm not getting to sleep till about 2am and then waking up again around 5am. This means I'm constantly tired of course. Even when I manage to grab another hour so so later in the day, I'm still left with that worn out feeling all the time.

There's reports on the news there's going to be another really cold spell coming up shortly. I'd already been checking this out on a weather forum I use. It's still not 100% dead cert, but then nothing is with the weather until it actually happens. But even if the snow doesn't get here, the cold almost certainly will, so maybe some interesting photo opportunities.

Longer wander than usual !!

2010-01-24T09:30:00.002Z

Well yesterday my daughter and I went off to take the dog for a walk, as we do every day. After he was sorted, we went off on what we thought would be a short wander. Three hours later, we were totally lost, which never happens lol, in fact we got that lost we ended up having to turn on the sat nav to find the way home !!! But it was great fun and we found some villages we'd never heard of before, and also saw a huge lake, which I'd never seen before. We also saw the first lambs of the year, no matter how many times I see these, they always look cute lol. I'll also put some other photo's on my other blog.

Awwwwwww

Not so cute, but equally as worthy of a photo.

Photo's after all

2010-01-21T06:04:00.003Z

Despite yesterday being a grey and wet day, I was suffering from withdrawals from not taking any photo's. So off down a little lane we went, where we found the next 3 photo's and also some new ones for my other blog ...Angleseyphotofanatics the link is above this post, if you fancy having a wander over there.

We couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for this horse, it was so wet and soggy, but we also had to laugh at his funny head wear lol.

This delicate little tree decorated with wispy bits of sheep's fleece, was only about 3ft high and caught the eye of my daughter.

Lastly, this dried rhododendron head with glistening rain on it, seemed worthy of a photo too.

Just a short blog

2010-01-20T06:37:00.004Z

Just a short post on my blog to let my regular readers know I haven't fell off the side of the earth, it's just my life is pretty quiet at the moment. I seem to have lost the motivation with my mosaic work, and the arthritis in my hands has hampered my photography a little too. Also the dull grey weather, isn't very inspiring for taking photo's, so my other blog has also suffered a little. But there are a few signs that spring, is just around the corner. Although I don't think winter has finished with us yet !!

I took 4 photo's of snowdrops peeping out the ground yesterday and each one was a little out of focus. I think this was partly due to pain in my hands and partly due to the fact we shouldn't have been on the little road we were on in the first place, so I wanted to get photo's taken and get away as soon as we could lol.

It seems that some parts of the UK are due snow again today, but as usual it's going to miss us :o( At 5 am this morning when I got up, the temperature was a balmy 6 degree's way too warm for snow.

When we went to take our dog out for his usual walk on Monday, we got into conversation with a lovely old guy, who was also taking his dogs out. As soon as he got out of his van I said to my daughter, I bet he's had an interesting life, and I wasn't far wrong either. We sat listening to tales of his life for a good two hours, it was fasinating. Some of his stories confirmed what I'd already guessed about the depth of corruption, going on in this world.

Two close shaves

2010-01-14T07:09:00.004Z

On our way back from Llandudno yesterday, I thought it might be interesting to go a route different than the A55. It took us through a bit of countryside that we hadn't been through before. As it happens it lead to a road that my daughter recognised we'd been down before...that was a miracle on it's own, as my daughters memory is not the best lol. As we were driving along we both caught sight of an interesting piece of tree root on a bank at the side of the road. we screeched to a halt at the nearest pull in, and my daughter leaped out of the car camera in hand. What a beautiful piece of wood it was too, a root we think, the tree long gone. But it had the most amazing knots and gnarls in it which made it look really mystical, and we saw faces and alsorts in it. It must have been quite an impressive tree in it's time as the root was about 4ft wide and 6ft high. How I wish it wasn't attached to the earth, as it would have looked amazing in my hallway lol.

As we trundled on, we ended up going through Betws Co-ed, and I said to my daughter we could go and have a look at a forest park I like on the outskirts. We turned into the road that leads up to it and were faced with solid snow. Throwing caution to the wind, my daughter gamely tried to get her little car up the road we got about 10ft up it, before the car started slipping and sliding all over the place lol. Defeated, she went into reverse to get us out of there, the car started sliding from side to side on the ice under the snow, it was quite scary as she had little control over where it went, and there were small gulley's on both sides of the road, that would have been a nightmare to get out of. Luck was with us and we managed to get back on the main road again, both of us laughing with relief.

Once back on Anglesey, we headed for the beach near Plas Coch, to let our dog have his run. On our way back up the road, we spotted a lane we always said we'd go and explore, so off we went. The first part of the little lane was fine, but much longer than we thought it was. We came to a fork, one way looked like it led to a couple of isolated houses so we went the other way. That was a BIG mistake !! The lane ...well maybe calling it a lane is a bit of an exaggeration, dirt track might be a better description.

Anyway this track was getting very muddy and the ridge in the middle of the road where tractors had obviously gone, was scraping the bottom of my daughters car. We had no choice but to carry on as the track was so narrow. We reached a bend, where we could just about turn around. My daughter said shall we turn round or go on, foolishly we decided to go on .... a few feet further on and there was a loud noise of metal hitting rock, fearing the worst my daughter jumped out to see if her exhaust was still attached ( not for the first time recently !! ) it was, but worried about causing some actual damage as we reversed,I offered to get out in hopes that the car wouldn't be quite so low to the ground. Once I opened the car door and saw the sea of deep mud I regretted my offer, but with a bit of help from my daughter I managed to find somewhere to stand while she reversed off whatever we'd hit and turn the car round. Once out of that little scrape, we gingerly renegotiated the track back to firmer ground, laughingly saying we were going to be a bit more select at these little lanes we keep going down in hopes of finding something really interesting to photograph !!!

Photo's of the wood can be found on my photo blog.

Bitterly cold mountains

2010-01-10T07:42:00.002Z

As my oldest daughter and her family were here for the weekend from the Midlands, a trip to the mountains was on the cards. None of us had any idea how bitterly cold it was going to be. I'm pretty good for not feeling the cold, but my hands were frozen to the bone within a couple of mins of getting out the car !! This made taking photo's quite difficult to say the least lol. But of course we persevered, and for our trouble we got some shots of the biggest icicles I've seen in my life time. They were at least 7ft tall and very thick. Amazing how quickly these icicles have formed as there was nothing like them, last week when we went past the same spot.

By the time we reached one of our favourite spots for sledging, I'd decided I wasn't going to get out the car again, as the cold was making my arthritis really play up in my hands. Two runs on the sledge, and everyone else was heading back to the car anyway lol.

On our way back home, I was keeping my eyes open for wild mountain goats that live on the mountains, and as we drove past a spot I've seen them before, I caught sight of some out of the corner of my eye. Of course we had to turn the car round and try and get some photo's of them....which we did. Sadly the quality of photo wasn't as good as some we've taken, but we think that was because the car engine wasn't turned off and also as there were 4 of us in the car it wasn't as still as it is usually. But I've still put one on my photofantaics blogs.

In the meantime, here's 3 photo's of the icicles for you.

Good little adventure

2010-01-08T11:03:00.003Z

My daughter and I had a good little adventure yesterday. We decided to go off down a little lane, hoping to get some good close ups of snowy plants. We didn't really get any of those, but I got what I think is my best photo yet of a buzzard sat on a wall just in front of us. There was no time to make sure everything was in focus etc, so I just clicked and hoped for the best. I was very lucky and it looked good even on the little lcd screen.

After that we were on the hunt for more buzzards, as my daughter also wanted to get the chance to photograph one. Sure enough we spotted another one, but it saw us before we saw him and flew away. So we inched our way along the snowy iced up lane, scanning every tree and hedgerow in sight. But no luck, word must have gone out there was a couple of nutters on the look out lol.

We'd inched out way about 1/2 mile or so when my daughter got a phone call off a mate, so she pulled up, I had the window wide open looking for things to photograph, when I realised all the exhaust fumes were coming through the window !! I told my daughter to turn the engine off, when she did smoke or steam continued to come up from around the car...that was a bit scary I can tell you. I know from my own experience that Peugeot's tend to overheat when driven slowly for any length of time, so I thought that might be it. There was also a weird noise that neither of could recognise, fearing the worst we decided we better get off this lonely little track and head for somewhere a bit more populated just incase.

The next obstacle in our way was a steepish incline, by this time the snow and ice was deeper and it was catching on the cars exhaust, which also made quite a ominous noise too, so my daughter jumped out to make sure it was still attached to the car !! It was lol, so we made our way up the slope slowly and got the top with no more mishaps. Then it was off as quick as we dare go to the nearest village. Once we'd got a bit of speed up and had the heater going full blast all the odd noises stopped ...phew lol !!!

Even though I've posted this photo on my photo blog I'm going to put it on here too because I'm so proud of it :o) lol

Snow at last

2010-01-06T05:35:00.003Z

Snow at last hit most of Anglesey, including our little village that seemed to keep just missing it, up till now. I know it's caused a lot of disruption in most of the UK, and a lot of people must be cursing the white stuff, but I love to see places transformed into a winter wonderland.

Other countries must laugh at us though, as the whole country seems to grind to halt because of it. On the news already this morning, there's been nothing but warnings about closed roads, airports, no trains etc etc. This bad weather has been on the cards for quite a while now, so why is this country so unprepared ?

The snow certainly didn't stop us from taking our dog out for his daily run though. We'd been told by his previous owners that he doesn't like snow, but he seems to love it when we take him out. I did notice last night, he was a walking a bit stiffly though, so I'll give him some of his painkillers for arthritus today I think. He forgets he's rather an elderly dog at times, and behaves more like a playful puppy, than the 14/15 yr old OAP he is lol. We couldn't resist taking loads of photo's of course, of this magical snowy weather and I'll put 3 on here but save the best for my new photo blog, and I'll put some more photo's on there later on today. So if you fancy a wander over there just click on the link above this post.

New Year New Blog

2010-01-05T07:26:00.003Z

Between Christmas and the New Year, I set up another blog, this one will be just for the photo's my daughter and myself take when we're out on our wanderings. The link is at the top of the page, and I hope you enjoy our journey into the world of DLSR photography. We're at the very beginning of this journey, and are learning as we go, how to use this camera that has so many settings.

The New Year crept quietly in for me, unlike most people I wasn't seeing in the new year the traditional way, I spent it sat outside taking photo's of the moon lol. As it struck midnight I could hear cheers going up followed by loads of fireworks echoing off the mountains, for a split second I almost wished I was out there enjoying it with everyone. Then I remembered I'm not the party animal I used to be, that went out with mates to the pub 3 or 4 times a week, so I quickly decided I preferred doing exactly what I was doing, and not waking up with a hangover !!

We've had a few trips out since Christmas, exploring the countryside in and around Anglesey, on the hunt for snow, which seems to be very elusive in our little village this year. In fact as we were taking the dog for a walk one day, we spotted loads of cars coming towards us, with inches of snow on them !! How could that be as we were only half a mile from home and not a snow flake in sight. So us being us, we decided as the snow wouldn't come to us, we'd go to the snow lol. We decided to stop when we got as far as Newborough as we were low on petrol, and as it was New Years Day there probably wasn't going to be many garages open. As we parked up in Newborough forest, the snow started coming down thick and fast, it was brilliant. Once we'd had out fill of snow we headed off home, hoping that we might have some snow in our little village now .... no chance lol.

We also took a drive deep into the mountains another day, and on our way home we got caught in a really good snow storm. We parked up and my daughter jumped out of the car to enjoy it properly, as I had slippy soled shoes on, I decided it was safer to stay in the car, not wanting to end the day in A&E. The snow was coming down really heavily, and as we weren't sure what the weather was going to be like further on, we reluctantly decided we had to go, as the roads were very quickly getting smothered in snow. As we got further on the snow slowly stopped and the roads were clear, we were gutted, we could have stayed in the storm for longer ....never mind.

Yesterday when I got up it was -3 the coldest day yet here, and I fancied trying to capture frost on leaves etc. So off we went trying to find some frost even though it was 2 in the afternoon, surprisingly it was still pretty easy to find even though the sun had been out most of the day. Using the macro setting on my camera, I started snapping away, what I didn't account for was how badly my hands would shake with the weight of the camera, due to the arthritis in my hands at the moment. Added to that the arthritis in my back made standing longer than a minute or two very painful too. So I was on to a bit of a loser before I even started. I really will have to start carrying my tripod around with me. However my daughter came to the rescue and took some photo's of things I asked her too, including a really brilliant one of a little robin.

Great Christmas

2009-12-27T06:37:00.002Z

I hope you've all had a great Christmas, I certainly did. Our Christmases tend to be slightly unconventional, as many years ago I decided I just didn't want to be one of those women that had to spend all day chained to the kitchen lol. I'm so lucky that my daughter isn't into those kind of Christmases either.

Our day started when my daughter got up and I gave her the presents I'd bought her, and within the hour we were off up into the mountains for 4 hrs. As always it was stunning up there, unfortunately it was pretty slippy in most of the places we went to, so I stayed in the car, while my daughter jumped out taking loads of photo's. It didn't take away from my pleasure of being there though. In a forest park we went to there was thick ice, which made some very loud creaking and cracking noises as we drove over it, I loved it but my daughter was glad when we managed to get away from there lol.

As we've only had one day of snow here on Anglesey, it was lovely to see snow covered mountains and frozen ponds and lakes. There is however another cold spell due to come in next week, so maybe we'll be luckier then.

A couple of busy days

2009-12-22T18:27:00.002Z

The last two days have been a bit busy. Last nite I decided to start doing a new style mirror with the much hunted for cellophane !!! One thing I found out was that it's very difficult to stick down and even harder to get the glue to dry, 24 hrs later and some of it still hasn't dried. Good job I'm in no rush for this particular mirror. First thing this morning, I started to get things organised ( don't laugh those that know me ) to do a new blog, this one is going to be just for photo's taken with my new camera.

Today saw us going off to the wonderful world of manic buying at our local Tesco store. Almost every parking spot was taken, apart from an odd one of two 1/2 mile away in the far corner.There was no way we were going to park there as it was very icy, and me falling over is not the way we intended to go !! So round and round we went until at last we spotted someone pulling out, at last we got into the supermarket. What a sight .... throngs of people everywhere you looked, trolleys piled almost up to the ceiling, kids crying, parents looking frazzled and each and every ailse was full of trolleys, it was like trying to navigate a slalem course lol. As we went round getting our usual store cupboard items, I noticied pretty quickly that almost everything has had a price hike, especially in the fresh veg department, up to 50p on some items, shame on you Tesco's don't you make enough profit out of us as it is !!!

Once the shopping was done, it was time to let the dog have his walk before we went to unload all the shopping. It was sods law that as we sat there a gorgeous fat robin, straight off a Christmas card by the look of it, sat down on a post right by us. Of course I hadn't got my brand new camera as I didn't want to risk leaving it in the car while we went shopping, so as Mr Robin posed first sideways and then a full frontal, we cursed the fact my camera was safely at home !!

Once home it was the battle to get all the veg in the fridge, mainly because of our christmas dinner a nice smoked gammon joint. No matter which way or what I tried to get everything in, the door just wouldn't shut. So out it all came, and seeing as our outhouse is probably colder than the fridge, a lot of veggies were relegated to sitting on one of my art cupboards.

After a quick egg mayo roll, it was time to start my last Christmas present, what it is will stay under wraps, just on the off chance the person it's intended for happens to pop along to my blog :o)

If I don't happen to have time to write again before Christmas, I'll take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas to my regular readers and I hope you all have a fantastic New Year.

What an amazing surprise

2009-12-16T05:43:00.003Z

Last Wednesday saw us driving off down to the Midlands, to met up with some of our family for a pre Xmas meal. When most of us met up our friend Mandys house before our meal, my son Ben presented me with a rather large present in the shape of a teapot for Xmas. Imagine my surprise when I peeled off layer after layer of packing on this odd shaped present, to find my dream camera !!! For years I've wanted a DSLR camera, but knew that I'd never be able to afford one. I was so overwhelmed I just burst into tears. Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever think I'd be lucky enough to own a camera like this. The surprises still hadn't finished, when we got back to my oldest daughters house, we exchanged presents and I found my daughter Jenny had bought me a telephoto lens for the camera, my oldest daughter Emma and her husband had got me a large sized memory card, and my two grand daughters Raggz and Lacey gave me some macro lens. How lucky am I ...everything I could possibily wish for all in one day !!! Thank you all soooooooooo much.

When we arrived back home, I turned my pc on looking forward to reading up on how to use this amazing camera, when after half an hour the internet went down !! How was that for bad timing lol, I rang up the technical support line in the morning when it still wasn't back on, only to be told there was a fault and it would be repaired in 24hrs. That time came and went and we still weren't reconnected, so I rang again and was told exactly the same flipping thing .....grrrrrr. Then on Monday nite my youngest son and his girlfriend came to visit, and after a while my son asked me if I wanted him to have a look, I said yes .... of course. Amazingly he managed to reconnect us, I'm still not sure how he did it, but he has and we're back !!!!

I'm going to set up a new blog very soon, which I'm going to put the best of my photo's on, as this blog will get swamped with mine and my daughters attempts at photography lol. This will also allow this blog to concentrate more on my arty crafty stuff. Below is a couple of mirrors that I made for Xmas presents this year, this is a new style for me and also a picture of one of Raggz one of my lovely grandkids, that I took with my new camera !!

Whatever happened to cellophane !!

2009-12-02T07:59:00.003Z

For the last few days I've been trying to find some coloured cellophane to use on a project. I've checked florist shops, craft shops, cheap shops, stationery shops and yet none of them seem to sell it any more. I can get clear cellophane with flowers, stars, father christmases, easter eggs but NO coloured plain stuff, how strange and pretty annoying too. I got so desperate I even considered buying one of those Christmas tins of chocolates that are wrapped individually in cellophane, but that seems a bit extreme, especially as me nor my daughter are particularly fond of Quality Street lol.

On the upside, some really pretty glass tiles arrived from America yesterday....my little treat to myself. Why buy glass from USA I hear you asking, well basically because it's considerably cheaper to buy them from there, than here in the UK even with the extra postage costs. Also America seems to have a huge choice of products for doing mosaics compared to the UK too, which is quite a shame really, I would far prefer to buy British but not at the inflated prices they charge.

Coming back down the island yesterday, the mountinas looked amazing, even more snow has fallen since we went up there the other day. Just our luck we went too soon lol.

Brrrrr it's turning colder

2009-12-01T06:39:00.002Z

Brrrrr after all the rain, it's started to turn colder now and we've got a sprinkling of snow on the mountains now. It looks gorgeous and makes it seem more christmassy. My daughter took me for a drive up there yesterday, and I loved it. I just wish it wasn't so expensive to turn the heating on *sigh*

Sadly the firing of the kiln never happened on Monday, because Mike at the gallery had a couple of commissions to do. So it's been rescheduled for Saturday now, but I've just remembered my daughters got a friend visiting ..so I'm not sure how we'll fit it in.

I'm on a mission today to get some bits and bobs I need for my new style mosaics. That's the one good thing about tempered glass mosaics, they are much more versatile than the stained glass ones I usually make. Also not having to cut the glass gives my hands a rest, so no pain for a few days I hope.

Here's a few photo's I took yesterday in the mountains.

Busy couple of weeks.

2009-11-29T13:23:00.003Z

I've had a couple of busy weeks, getting some pendants in the gallery ready for the Christmas rush ...we hope. Also doing another 35 pendants for stock, for when I'll be doing my website in the new year hopefully. I've also done a first for me, a tempered glass mosaic, this will be one of many I'll be doing I hope as I've got tons of idea's for mirrors and panels. This one is bright and colourful so it's been called a rainbow mirror. I've included a photo at the end of my blog for you.

Along with the pendants I've made ready to go in the kiln tomorrow, I've also made a panel for us for the front room. I'm praying this comes out ok, which there isn't any guarantee's. Glass has a mind of it's own once you put it in a kiln and heat it up, and something that looks great before it's fused, can sometimes come out looking a right mess lol. Fingers crossed this won't happen to this one, as our walls are still looking quite bare here. I've put a before photo of the panel, and good or bad I'll put an after photo up later in the week too. To add some interest to this panel, I've used, metal inclusions and also some copper collars which are usually used by plumbers. I've filled these collars up with frit, which I hope will add some more detail.

The last couple of weeks has seen us hit by torrential rain and gale force winds as has most of the country. The rivers have turned into raging torrents and I'm sure the waterfalls up in Snowdonia will huge. We went to the beach a couple of times for high tide and it was spectacular. The waves had crashed so much against walls and rocks the whole part of the top of our favourite beach was smothered in foam, which flew up and onto the path and made it look like it had been snowing. I've taken a few photo's so I'll put them up with my next post. Now its all calmed down and I've seen the first sprinkling of snow on the mountains, quite early really compared to the last few years.

My first tempered glass mosaic mirror

A close up of the mirror

The panel for my front room ...I hope

A further photo with the flash

Long time no blog

2009-11-15T05:19:00.005Z

Yet again real life took over and I've neglected my blog badly :o( However .... slowly but surely we're getting things made for the house, and it's starting to look more homely.

Last Tuesday saw us doing what we thought was going to be a flying 2 day visit, to my oldest daughter in Bromsgrove. As always the best made plans and all that fell by wayside, and we ended up staying 5 days. I have to admit I was pretty reluctant to leave our new little house, but I'm glad I did, as we had a great time and loads of laughs on the way.

On the Weds we went to see a friend of ours we hadn't seen for a quite a while, we had loads of laughs and it was great to catch up with all that's gone on in her life. We left with promises to go and visit again soon, and next time my daughter Jenny would take her tattoo stuff and do tattoo's for my friend and her fella.

From there we headed off over to Acocks Green to met up with my son Ben, and mates Martin and Mandy. Mandy had invited us for a meal and we were all looking forward to that, as Mandys well known for being a great cook !! On our way there by sheer fluke we spotted another of my sons Jed, and had a quick kiss and cuddle with him too, with promises to try and get back and see him while we visiting. The meal was gorgeous and we had lots of laughs as always when we're there.

The next day we'd arranged to go over and visit a friend of mine Vikki, that I'd met on a forum we both use. Vikki and I have similar lack of mobility problems, so I mentioned a few things that I thought I might help make her life a bit easier from day to day. So hopefully she'll get some much needed help from occupational therapists in the near future, as her house really wasn't geared up for someone that has trouble getting about. Sadly her husband Julian was away on a buying trip in France. He buys beautiful old wood burners abroad and does them up in his workshop and sells them on. Next on the visit list, was to go and see my oldest grandson Martin and his girlfriend.After his girlfriend had told us how excited he'd been about us visiting, I felt quite guilty that we hadn't got there before now :o(

Friday saw us heading for Ikea in Wednesbury, somewhere I really wanted to visit as there isn't a store anywhere near us. Even getting there was a mission in itself. We couldn't use the sat nav as my daughters lighter socket wasn't working, so what should have taken about 1/2hr actually took us more like 1 1/2hrs lol. We seemed to be going round in circles and went through the same town not once, nor twice but 3 times in the end. Luckily my oldest daughter eventually spotted something that looked familiar, and we eventually managed to get there. It was a wonder we never got kicked out, we laughed and messed around so much. I was the butt of the laughter at one point, when we needed to go down an escalator. I have a terrible phobia about going down these dammed things, and despite my daughter Jenny holding my hand like I was kid, I still couldn't step on to it, so I ended up having to use the stairs. It doesn't sound funny put into words, but trust me it had my two daughters howling with laughter !!! By the time we left, the weather had turned really nasty, torrential rain and very windy. My oldest daughter was driving, and I have to take my hat off to her, at how well she coped considering she's a learner.

Saturday morning we headed back home, and the weather hadn't improved much then either. Torrential rain, made the spray on the motorway so bad we could hardly see where we going at some points. But at last we arrived home safe and sound back to our little house. How I loved sleeping in my lovely big bed last nite !!!

Wow what a week

2009-11-03T21:09:00.003Z

Last week saw us having 12 visitors, more than we usually have in a year lol. But it was good fun and it was really good to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for quite a while. It did put pay to any work getting done around the house, but what the hell, sometimes you just have to hang up the paint brushes and enjoy the company.

One visitor had a camper van, which needed some restoration to put it mildly. It used to have a kitchen but that went flying one day while going round a corner quite quickly lol. So everything was taken out of the van and scattered all over the car park behind out house. There was a pile of keep me's, a pile of rubbish and a pile of this might be useful. Once the pile of rubbish was deposited at the local tip, it was the start of rebuilding the kitchen again. This time it was all screwed together properly, and attached to the side of the van too. On a test run we went over speed humps at some speed, lurched round corners and gave everything every chance to go flying. But it all stayed exactly in place !!

My youngest son came round last Weds, and had a tribal tattoo done on the back of his neck. Then on Saturday a friend called freaky Mark (please don't ask why lol) came round and had a pentagram on the back of his neck. My sons one needs a bit of touching up, but the one on Marks neck was pretty much perfect and he was really pleased. Considering Mark had large portion of his body already tattooed my daughter was really pleased when he said it was the least painful tattoo he'd ever had !!

Once the last visitor had left, I got out a canvas I've been itching to paint for days now. I drew on the abstract design on the first night and started doing the initial painting the 2nd day. This is the largest oil painting I've ever attempted do to at 40" x 30" but it's a challenge I'm enjoying. This painting is for above the fireplace on the feature wall, which is a deep aubergine so one of the best things about painting your own picture, is that you can incorporate a touch of the matching colour to tie everything up together. Which is exactly what I've done of course lol.

My son's tribal tattoo

Freaky Marks pentagram

Real Life !!

2009-10-28T07:16:00.005Z

Real life has again taken me away from my blog, the seemingly never ending stream of jobs to do round the house, has limited me to an hour or two on the pc.

Wallpapering the hall eventually got finished, and for now it'll have to do. It's not perfect by any means as the coating over the plaster is very uneven and shows through my wallpapering which wasn't too bad considering it's been years since I did any. I'm hoping after a while I just won't see the unevenness, as I really don't want to have to do it again. I started painting it yesterday ...with a 2.5" brush as the paint pad we'd been using up to now, seemed to have vanished into thin air !! It took me most of the afternoon to do 2/3rds of the walls, hopefully I'll get the rest finished today.

My oldest daughter and her family came to visit over the weekend. As it was very windy on the Saturday we went off to take some photo's at various beaches. We went to Newborough beach first and was appalled to see that it had gone up from £2 to £3 to visit this beach, I can't see how they justify this price rise, but we had a good time while we were there. From there, we went to a smaller beach called Cable Bay as we expected the sea was very rough and there were loads of surfers there. Next was Rhosneigr beach and we watched wind surfers doing their stuff !! Lots of photo's were taken and 4 of my favourite ones I'll put on the end of this post.

On Monday some plants were offered on my local Freecycle or Freegle as it's now known. As I want to add to my small collection I wrote asking for them and was very happy to get an email to say I could share them with another lady. We duly set off to pick them up, only to get there and have the lady say " Oh I know you !! " It turned out she followed my blog lol, and I follow hers...small world isn't it. We really enjoyed seeing this lady's garden, as it was one of those quirky ones that had lots of different corners packed full of interesting plants and weird and wonderful containers. This lady is also a fan of car boots like myself, so while we chatted about them my daughter enjoyed having a nose in a very cleverly converted summer house, which was wallpapered with old newspaper clippings. As I know Vicky will probably read this at some some point, thanks again Vicky and we loved your garden. Do pop along to Anglesey Alsorts to read Vickys blog.

Some seaweed that had lovely rainbow coloured bubbles

This is a garden we pass to go to Rhosneigr beach, it always makes me smile.

Some wind surfers at Rhosneigr beach

Surfers taking advantage of rough sea's at Cable Bay

Lovely day

2009-10-22T06:36:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and a very pleasant one too. Although my birthdays are always low key anyway, a visit from a close friend and a trip to the beach on a warm, sunny autumn day to watch the sea which was a beautiful turquoise blue, with my daughter made it a very happy day. I had numerous birthday wishes on my facebook page, some text messages and a visit from my oldest daughter this weekend to look forward as well.

Yesterday was also my 2nd day at attempting to wallpaper our hallway. Both days I've managed to do 4 lengths of wallpaper before my back gave out because of the standing. I was hoping to do some more when we got back from the beach, but a walk along the beach put pay to that lol. Today should see it finished hopefully as there is only the fiddly bits to do above doors etc, then my daughter will get stuck in painting it.

Then at last I might be able to make a start on the large abstract oil painting I'm going to do for above the fireplace. Np photo's of the fireplace yet as we still aren't happy with it. We were talking about it yesterday, and neither of us are happy with the cladding on the side of it, due to the fireplace being very uneven it's stopped the mdf from sitting neatly against it, so I think we're going to remove the sides and see what we can do instead. We're also going to change the colour of the paint to a deep chocolate brown too.

Chirk Car Boot

2009-10-19T06:23:00.006+01:00

Yesterday morning saw my daughter and I up and out at the crack of dawn. We were off to go and have a look round a car boot we'd been told was really good. An hour and half later we arrived at Chirk car boot, and sure enough there were loads of booters there. Sadly there wasn't really anything that caught our eye, so we only came away with a couple of things each, very disappointing for such a long drive. Maybe the organisers should also put the postcode of the actual car boot rather than the one that's on there, as we couldn't find it from the one on the website, and neither could another couple that we bumped into either lol.

However, the day wasn't a total waste of time, as we popped into visit Bryn a good friend of ours who'd moved recently, and we spent a couple of hours catching up with others news and helped Bryn sort out his pc so his dongle would work and he could get online.

I've definitely paid the price for walking round a big car boot, even though I left a lot of the them out. I was in agony while we were there and still am today too. But I expect I'll survive I always do lol !!

Nothing got done around the house yesterday, we were both so tired when we got home, we had to go to sleep for a couple of hours lol. But hopefully today we'll get the fireplace finished at last and some photo's taken, then I'll be moving on to the wallpapering in the hallway, maybe that won't get started until the pain in my back eases off a bit though.

Slowly but surely

2009-10-17T10:26:00.003+01:00

Slowly but surely the fireplace is coming together. I have to say it hasn't been helped by the floor being uneven and I don't think the original fireplace is level either !! Oh well these things are sent to try us.

In between waiting for paint to dry on the fireplace, and glue to dry on some mosaic balls I'm doing for a good friend of mine for his garden, my daughter and I also started to strip the wallpaper in the hallway. If this wallpaper hadn't been patched up so much I would have left it to be honest, but odd squares of paper just stuck on randomly just doesn't look good, and when these bits of paper aren't even matched to the pattern it looks even worse. So it had to go !! Re papering might take a little longer as it's not one of my daughters many talents, and I can't stand for very long.

One of my daughters talents is learning the art of tattooing though, and below is a photo of the latest tattoo she's done on herself. How she manages to contort her body enough to do a tattoo on her foot, is a mystery to me lol. I love the words of the tattoo, and think everyone should follow them.

We went off on a mission yesterday to get an off cut of carpet for the hallway, and what a bargain we got too. A nice piece of very hard wearing, good quality cream carpet 15ft long by 4ft wide for £15 from a little carpet shop in Pentreath. I've just realised as I typed this that I meant to go and pay a visit to the garden centre where I bought a slice of tree the other week, but we forgot as we were so pleased to get such a bargain with the carpet grrrrr.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2009-10-14T06:34:00.003+01:00

At long last I can see the light at the end of the tunnel where the mosaic for the fireplace is concerned. The three panels are now sporting some very colourful mosaics, which have been grouted and decorated and have had one coat of background paint. Once the 2nd coats on, there's just the rest of the fireplace to clad and the jobs done whooooo. It's been a much much longer job than I expected, I really did think the whole lot would be done in a week, I should have known that was a bit optimistic of me lol.

A trip back to the doctors to have my blood pressure checked is on the cards tomorrow :o( I had a good few days where I felt decidedly unwell I have to say. I was feeling lightheaded, dizzy and just not right. But that feeling seems to be fading slowly, so fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow.

My daughters car has now passed it's MOT ...whooooo. She had a day of having to get around on the bus yesterday, always a long drawn out affair round here as the bus has to go round all the little villages, before it gets where you're trying to go. But it's done now for the next year.

New patient check up :o(

2009-10-08T07:26:00.002+01:00

Yesterday saw me waking up feeling anxious and stressed for no apparent reason, this is quite unusual for me, as I'm quite a laid back person. I thought no more of it, apart from wondering what was causing it, and trotted off to the doctors for the usual new patient check up. To my horror my blood pressure was 195/85, although I've always been overweight my blood pressure has always been surprisingly normal. The nurse took my blood pressure 4 times in the end and it was the same each time. I'm hoping that it was just feeling anxious and stressed business that caused it, and nothing that's going to make high blood pressure a regular feature in my life. The trouble is worrying about it being high doesn't do any good, but I can't seem to help it !!

Supermarkets are getting very sneaky. I usually buy enough dog food to last a fortnight, however the last fortnight we ran out well before time, which I found very odd as my dog has a measured amount of food each day. Then I realised that this fortnights dog food was also going down very quickly too. Not wanting to run out while my daughter was away at her sisters, we went to Tesco's where I bought an extra packet, but I noticed the price had gone up by 40p. When I got home I compared the two bags of dog food and surprise surprise, Asda have reduced the size of their bags of dog food by 1/2 a kilo. How sneaky is that !!

Twilight shift again

2009-10-06T04:27:00.003+01:00

Well I woke up at 3 am this morning and try as I might, I just couldn't get back to sleep again. As I've got to be awake for an important phone call, which could be any time after 9am, I doubt I'll be able to snatch an hour to catch up later on. So it looks like I'll be having a very sleepy day today ....not good when I've got so many things to do at the moment.

Our trip to Wrexham on Sunday was a lovely. My friend has bagged herself a fantastic little stone cottage with an amazing custom built fireplace. It had lots of quirky little features and I just fell in love with it. While we were there my friend told she'd had to make a mad dash down to the Stratford Upon Avon area after a frantic call off her mother. When she arrived she found her mother in a very agitated state, my friends father in law sadly has a brain tumour and there's no cure. The reason for all the agitation, was because this poor man has suffered a catalogue of appalling treatments from the various so called "care" agencies involved with him.

A trip to the local hospice resulted in him being given a sugary cup of tea and a slice of cake when he is a diabetic two days running, despite his wife pointing out his medical condition, all because he wasn't given a wrist band indicating he was diabetic !! This amongst other things made his wife decide to care for him at home. Since then, there has been a constant stream of care workers, district nurses and respite care staff visiting their home daily. This you would think would ease the burden of watching a loved one die slowly, and make this mans time left on this earth a little more comfortable ...but oh no, there has been one medical catastrophe after another.

I would go into detail and would list the many and constant mistakes, some of them which could have serious consequences for this man, but I doubt anyone would believe me. I know the NHS is seriously under funded, but there is no excuse for the disgusting way this man has been treated. I'd like to think that the people responsible for these many errors in care, would be brought to task, but I doubt very much whether his wife will be in any fit state to take the matter any further, and people wonder why I avoid hospitals and medical staff like the plague !!

One panel finished

2009-10-04T06:33:00.008+01:00

Late last night I finished the mosaic on the first panel for the fireplace, and though I say so myself, I'm quite pleased with it. It still needs some little extra's added to it, and the background painted, but the hard bit is done now. I shall have to get my daughter to cut the rest of the panels, before she goes off down to her sisters, for a couple of days in the Midlands. I'll also have to cut a load more tiles before I start the next one, which I'm not looking forward to incase it kick starts the arthritus in my hands again, how I wish I had one of those glass cutting machines to make the job easier.

A couple of days ago on the way to Caernafon we popped into a garden centre I'd spotted previously, Treborth Garden Centre. What a great place, my daughter and I spent a very enjoyable hour there. There were some beautiful house plants (something we'd been looking all over Anglesey for, with no sucess), beautiful tubs of colourful plants even at this time of the year, and also some very unusual ornaments, at quite reasonable prices too. This place actually looked like a garden centre, unlike the Hollands Garden Centre on Anglesey, which has now turned into a glorified, over priced gift shop.... big mistake there I think !!!

We went on a mission yesterday looking for a 2nd hand double oven cooker, something we've needed for a while now. Luck was with us and we spotted a lovely one over in Colwyn Bay. This will hopefully be winging it's way to us once its had a safety check :o) We also popped into B&Q on the way home to check out their paint section, as most of the other major DIY shops seemed to have all the same coloured paints called different names. They had a great selection, metallic wall paint ( I was very tempted lol ) suede effect paint, and loads of different colours to the other shops. I've now found the paint for my bedroom ...deep purple of course, my favourite colour. So that will be got in a couple of weeks time.

Today we are having a break from all things to do with the house, and are going over to Wrexham to visit a friend in her new house. Well I say new, it's actually a listed building lol. As it's surrounded by woods I think I'll take my camera, which reminds me I need to recharge the batteries, so that's it for me today folks.

Time running away

2009-10-02T10:47:00.003+01:00

Time seems to be flying past since we've moved. No sooner have I written on here, than another week has gone by !!

Now all the unpacking is done, it's time to get down to the more enjoyable stuff. Putting up shelves to show off my ornaments etc. The mantlepiece is now in place, my daughters not totally happy with the way it's being held up, but it's ok for now. It looks amazing. I've been busy for the last two days doing the first of 3 mosaic panels to cover up the hideous 50's tiles fireplace. I wish I'd made the design a little smaller as it's using up quite a lot more of my glass tiles than I expected, but seeing as it's 3/4's done, it's a bit late to moan now lol. I keep meaning to take photo's of the mantle piece but keep forgetting....ooops.

On our fortnightly shopping trip, I spotted a gorgeous rich deep blue duvet set, I just couldn't resist it, even though it was well over priced. It's rare I treat myself so I'm trying not to feel too guilty about it. I think I'm going to have to do a different colour theme now though. I was going to do an indian themed room in deep purple and and deep red, I'm not sure if I'll be able to incorporate deep blue into as well. Maybe it'll be deep blue with deep purple and splashes of deep red now.

Wee small hours

2009-09-24T15:28:00.000+01:00

Yet again my sleep pattern is all out of sync, with the rest of the world but not to worry.

The last two days has seen the piece of wood for the mantelpiece taking shape. It's been cut to size and sanded down by my daughter, then yesterday afternoon I sat and gave it three coats of wax. It turned out even better than I hoped, so later today it will hopefully be finding its way to it's new home. My daughter also sanded down an old pine tool box which she has utilised for her tattooing stuff, that came up beautifully too.

The other piece of wood I bought was delivered and seems even bigger now it's here !! This wood is elder, and it'll be even more interesting to see the grain in this appear as it's been stood outside for quite a long time so is looking very weathered. That might have to wait for a few days though, as we have to sand outside and I don't want to annoy the neighbours too much so early on in my tenancy lol.

The house is slowly but surely starting to come together. The front room is almost presentable now, the kitchen just about passable and my bedroom is looking better than it did, but far from finished. So all in all I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far.

I was texting with my friend Ray who lives on a narrow boat yesterday, and he's planning on being around the Birmingham area from next week up until Xmas. So hopefully there's a good chance we'll be able to hook up at long last. We've been trying to met up for over a year now, but are never in the same place at the same time lol. The only problem is, now that I seem to be getting arthritis in my hand I'm not too sure whether I'll be able to manage to hold the tools to learn to make glass beads now. Time will tell I'm sure.

How time flies

2009-09-22T06:58:00.004+01:00

Wow.... already a week has passed since I wrote on here !! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun lol. The unpacking is pretty much done, but I have to admit quite a bit of the stuff unpacked, has just been put in places to sort out another day. But at least now there's a bit of space and room to breathe.

My daughter finished off laying the laminate on her own !! She's one of those girls that can't bear seeing things half done, so when my friend was too busy to come and help when he expected, she decided to have a go herself. She's done a brilliant job, and what a difference it makes, although the dog's still coming to terms with looking like Bambi, when he tries to stand up.

The front room wall now has a feature wall too, in a rich deep aubergine colour ( aren't we posh lol ) It looks amazing, as well as doing this my daughter also put up 3 floating shelves, which now have my favourite ornaments on, and the front room has started looking like home.

Saturday found us taking a trip to a car boot in Bangor that we'd never been to before. What a waste of time and petrol that was !! I can honestly say its the worst car boot I've ever been to. So Sunday we went to our usual one and came home with some cream curtains for Jen's room, a pair of matching Ikea lampshades and a couple of other bits and bobs.

Yesterday we took a trip to the recycling centre, to get rid of all the boxes we'd used to move. Then it was on a mission to find a timber merchants my friend had told me about. When we got there we found a beautiful slice of yew complete with bark. The guy told us that the tree was 600 years old, imagine that ..all those hundreds of years old, we managed to knock the guy down from £30 to £25 for it. This is going to be cut down to size, sanded and oiled and used on top of the fireplace, which I am mosaicing to cover the awful 50's tiled one that's there at the moment. Next was a trip to yet another garden centre on the hunt for a decent sized house plant. I've lost count of the number of places we've already tried. We still had no luck, but on the way out we spotted a corner of the garden centre which was a reclamation yard. There was some more slices of tree one piece in particular caught our eye, it was a beautiful shape, with loads of character. It was huge ..at least 8 ft long and 4ft wide in places. Not even thinking we might be able to afford it, we asked how much .....£30 !!! What a bargain, there was no way we could miss having that, so now we are waiting to have it delivered. That will be sanded down and made into a coffee table and at a later date we'll find something else for my clever daughter to make with the rest of it.

I'm back did you miss me ?

2009-09-16T04:29:00.002+01:00

I'm back !! The big move has happened, and we are safely in our new house ...well bungalow, and we love it !!! When we actually got inside the bungalow, we were pleasantly surprised to find, that it looked bigger than it had from the outside when we peered through the windows. Also there was more storage than we'd hope for too, including a small storage room, which has now become the new place for my mountain of glass and art stuff.

When we came to sign the lease last Weds, we were very surprised when the council guy told us that we had to hand the keys in for the old place by the Friday at 4pm or we would have to pay a weeks rent. We were expecting to hand the keys in on the following Monday, thank goodness we'd already spoken to my son in law about the possibility of moving on Thurs already, and also that the van hire place had a van available on the Thursday too. My oldest daughter text me to say that my grandson Martin couldn't help us move after all. So we were left one man short, luckily after a couple of phone calls, a friend of ours Gwyn agreed to come and help us. So thanks very much to both of you, and my daughter Jen for making a stressful time, a lot less stressful.

There were times when we looked round at the mountain of boxes and bags and wondered if we would ever manage to get them sorted out. But now 6 days later, we're getting there very slowly. There's been a constant stream of moving boxes from one room to another in order to try and get one room straight, and then having to fill that room back up again in order to get another room sorted. My constant aches and pains meant that my daughter had to do almost all the moving and rearranging of boxes and bags on her own, where she got the strength I don't know...but thanks Jen. My son Billie and his girlfriend Alisha came round on Friday and Saturday, and Billie helped move things around, and sorted out some wiring for us too. Then on Sunday Billie tried to help my daughter Jenny lay the laminate flooring...what a nightmare that stuff is, to someone that's never laid it before. No sooner was one piece laid, than it popped out again. So yet another attempt failed miserably.

Just as we were about to give up on the laminate, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine to see if we were alright, as he hadn't seen me online. After hearing our tale of woe about the laminate, he offered to come and help Jen lay the first few rows to get her started in his dinner hour. The first few rows ended up being half the room, but I have to say even though my friend had experience at laying this type of thing, it certainly didn't go smoothly. As he had to get back to work himself, we'd hoped that Jenny would be able to carry on laying it with a little bit of help from me ...wrong !! My numb fingers on one hand and raging arthritus (which has only flared up this past few weeks) on the other hand, I just didn't have the strength to pull and push the strips of flooring enough to help Jen finish the job. My friend rang again to see how we got on yesterday, and has suggested we see if we can get my son to help instead, if not he'll book a day off work and come and help Jen get it finished. Thanks a lot El.

Sunday found us heading off to our local car boot to try and get some curtains and odd and ends. We had to try and be very strict with ourselves and only buy really essential things as I'm very short of money at the moment. But I just couldn't resist a beautiful steel ornament in an art noveau style, it was only £6 and I loved it. On the same stall my daughter saw some gorgeous pictures which she fell in love with and found it very hard to walk away from. But walk away she did. On another stall we bought an ashtray and from overhearing us talking the couple selling realised we'd just moved, and asked us if we needed a washer dryer. We didn't, but luckily they had a mexican pine bed ...which I did need, after sleeping on the settee at the old house for the last 18 months, it even had an orthopedic mattress. We arranged to go and pick it up that night.This lovely couple Mel and Vikki insisted on giving us some lovely stuff for free, and even filled their car up with stuff to save us having to do 2 or even 3 trips. How Mel managed to get a double mattress in my daughters car I'll never know...but he did lol. Thank you both so much, I hope karma returns your kindness many times over.

As we collected all the various bits and bobs we returned to the stall with the pictures my daughter fell in love with. She really wanted them, and much to my surprise she actually bought 2 of them for £29. Anyone that knows my daughter, will know that she, like me is constantly short of money despite being as thrify as possible, so for her to pay out this much on two pictures, I knew they meant a lot to her..but I'm so pleased she got them.

Whooo at last

2009-09-09T05:21:00.003+01:00

Well I got an email yesterday from the housing woman, and we're going to see the new place and sign the lease today !!! So it's all systems go here.

We went and booked the hire van yesterday, but as my son in law is going to have to come up from Bromsgrove on Thurs to finalise all the details with his licence etc, we thought we might as well try and move on Thurs instead. If we can wangle this we will at least, be able to get the van in our street without the hassles we had when we moved in. Any time after 5pm and all weekend it's murder trying to get into our street, as it's very small and a dead end.

We went and bought the laminate flooring for the front room yesterday, and will be trying to lay it today, before all the furniture comes. Wish us luck as we've never done this before. I don't know if I'm going to be a help or a hindrance, I had so many things going round in my head last night I couldn't sleep, and then I woke at 4.30am and couldn't get back to sleep again...hey ho, I should have expected this to happen. Hopefully adrenalin will kick in.

Passing time

2009-09-07T07:27:00.004+01:00

As I'm not very motivated with my latest project, my mind has wandered towards making a few things for the new house. I'm going to paint some stones to put in a bowl, this shouldn't take long and my box of acrylic paints is one of the few arty things that hasn't been packed yet. It's amazing how many times this week, I've needed something that's been sat there for months untouched .... sods law I guess eh.

I've also been thinking of colour schemes for the new place too. As always it'll be a riot of colour as I'm just not the type of person to follow the norm and go for safe colours. Various rooms will probably have some kind of theme, the front room will be a mystical theme, the bedroom will be Indian style and the kitchen Mexican, all of which will allow me to fulfill my love of rich colours. It'll probably be a long job, but worth it now that this is our home. The bathroom has eluded me so far, I think that's maybe as it looked very white from what we could tell through the patterned glass. As it's got a walk in shower there's possibly going to be floor to ceiling white tiles in some part. These will probably be way too expensive to re tile in something that would be my taste. I know there's tile transfers, but I expect these are all pretty much middle of the road style ...so no good to me lol. I've also read that tile paint isn't very good either, so I shall have to put my thinking cap on.

One of the people interested in the kiln, decided to have it, and that got paid for and is being picked up and taken to Derbyshire, this week. My daughters bandsaw also sold and went yesterday. So that will be two heavy items not to have to be moved thank goodness.

Getting there ...

2009-09-06T06:00:00.003+01:00

My blog has definitely been suffering since I got the news a move is on the cards. This week unlike last week, has been a flurry of activity. Boxes have been packed and all moved to one room, and everywhere has been cleaned and hoovered to within an inch of it's life. A load has gone to the tip, and surplus goodies put on Freecycle. Stuff too good to give away, has been put on my regular forum uk hippy and also the realsellwales forum too. Sadly my lovely kiln has had to go, and I've got a couple of people really interested in that, my daughter has also decided to part with her band saw. It's of those handy to have things, which hardly ever gets used though, so because of the size of it, it has to go I'm afraid.

There hasn't been much time to do any work on the mannequin, and also I've hit a problem. Because I couldn't get the lid off my pva glue. I thought I'd use wood glue to do another layer on top of the glass. BIG mistake it's dried opaque and ruined days of work. The only way to get it off, appears to be to pick it off each individual teeny piece of glass and there's thousands of them. So this has demotivated me hugely and the mannequin has sat there for days mocking me now.

I had an email off the housing lady to say, that there are now heating engineers needing to sort something out in the new place :o( More delays ... our time in limbo land is now dragging and it seems like we'll never get moved. I know we will, but I wish it would just hurry up and happen, so we can start our new life in a home of our own.

Oh dear

2009-08-28T06:48:00.003+01:00

Oh dear, this is a week where I should be packing and cleaning with gusto. Instead, my sleep pattern has gone out the window and I'm waking up at 3am all the time. This is leaving me tired, low and demotivated, all the time even when I do manage to grab an hours sleep during the day.

My daughter and I had one day where we attacked the house with hot soapy water and cloths, and this has made me realise what lousy housewifey skills I've really got. How the hell did all those spiders webs appear without me even noticing, was there really that much dust on the skirting boards, how did everything I wipe clean manage to get so many stray dog hairs on it. We've vowed that in the next house we'll really make an effort (yes I can hear you laughing, those of you that know me offline !!)

I haven't even managed to do much of my latest mosaic either, which is annoying. I also need to put hanging loops on some angels as the gallery has run out of them. On the upside, I had a phone call off Mike at the gallery this week to say the last guitar had just sold at the gallery. Perfect timing, hopefully that will cover the cost of laminate flooring in the front room at the new house. My daughters been watching " how to lay laminate flooring" video's online in hopes that we'll be able to manage to do it ourselves.

For some reason my slideshow on here has stopped working which is very annoying. I've tried redoing it, using a different photo hosting site, in fact everything I can possibly think of, but it just won't work :o(

I had an email off the housing lady this week, saying she hadn't received the keys back off the maintenance men yet. That was a bit of a blow as we'd hoped we could have moved in this weekend. Oh well ...never mind.

I'm back !!!

2009-08-24T20:20:00.003+01:00

I'm back ...has anyone missed me lol. The last few weeks have been busy busy busy with one thing and another. As soon as the guitar was finished I started on a brand new project, which is coming along very nicely.

Then it was off to my oldest daughters for a few days, before all the family travelled down to Falmouth for my son Dans wedding, and a very posh one it was too. Although I have to say the hotel it was held at could have been a bit better organised. It was so hot there and someone had to ask for the air conditioning to be turned on, and even then one of the wedding cakes a beautiful white chocolate affair, melted at the back in the heat !! The food for wedding meal could have been better too, the starter I had was goats cheese on red onion relish was delicious but the bread it was served on was so hard I couldn't get a knife through it. The main meal was a medley of mediterranean vegetables in filo pastry, the pastry was so hard I couldn't cut that either !! The sweet was luckily ice cream and they couldn't mess that up. Despite this we had a good time and it was great that 7 out of my 8 kids were all together for the first time in years.

After the wedding it was back to my daughters house in Bromsgrove to wait to met up with the son who was missing from the wedding.While we were there I got an email off the housing officer here in Anglesey to say that they'd got a bungalow for us at long last !!! Was I happy about that, I spent the rest of the time at my daughters in a happy bubble of excitement. When we got back home my daughter and I couldn't resist going to have a peep through the windows of our new home. I was very pleased it had bigger rooms than I'd hoped for and small gardens back and front. So that's it ...our time in this temporary accommodation is at last coming to an end, and we'll have a secure home of our own. We're both over the moon.

Presenting my latest commission !!!

2009-07-28T05:44:00.004+01:00

Finally ..... my latest project. As some of you might know, I was given a free hand with the design for this. The only thing requested was that I cover the guitar entirely.

Now this is off on it's journey to its new owner, I've started something new. A completely different type of mosaic this time. I'll be using tempered glass this time, a first for me, so an interesting project.

Pretty much finished at last

2009-07-23T06:57:00.003+01:00

Well yesterday saw me finish the guitar at long last. This was the most challenging thing I've ever done, but looking at the end result, it was worth it. I shan't post any photo's of it, until after its in the hands of the new owner though.

I also got a good way on to finishing two mirrors I started just before the guitar commission arrived. Once these are finished I will be posting photo's of them lol. I worked on mosaics from 5am till about 8 ish last nite and now I'm paying for it, my right hand has swollen up due to arthritus....never mind.

My brain is already buzzing about the next project I want to do. In fact I've got several projects in mind. But to start any of them I need to source some tempered glass, so I've put a wanted post on my local Freecycle. Hopefully someone will be glad to get rid of a cracked windscreen or a replaced patio door. Tempered glass mosaics is something I've wanted to try for ages, it's a totally different way of mosaicing than the sort I've been doing up till now, so I can wait to have a change.

Dyserth Waterfall, Rhuddlan castle and St Bridgets churchyard

2009-07-20T14:16:00.005+01:00

After working on the guitar most of the morning, my daughter and I set off to Denbighshire to see a waterfall I'd found online. It was in the small village of Dyserth, only a small waterfall compared to some in North Wales it was still alovely one to go and see. Steps alongside the waterfall lead up to where you can see it from the top.

After the waterfall we moved next door to St Bridgets churchyard where I'd read about a couple of unusual tombstones which I thought would be worth a look. I'd have liked to have seen the stained glass windows inside the church, but as most churches they hve to be on their guard from theft and vandalism so the doors were locked. We soon found the two tombstones we were looking for, and sure enough under the arch of both of them carved in the stone was two skull and crossbones.... not often you see those in a churchyard lol. Apparently the tombstones belonged to the Hughes family, and in 1638 one of the members of this family was accused of witchcraft in the Court of Arches in London.

Finally on the way home we popped to have a look at the remains of Rhuddlan castle. This castle was built between 1277 and 1282, by King Edward of England who was trying to conquer Wales, and a new town was built for English settlers. In 1400 Owain Glyn Dwr and his troops rebelled againts the English rule and attacked the town of Rhuddlan but didn't manage to capture the castle. The castle eventually belonged to King Charles, but when he lost power the Sherriff of Flintshire was told to make it unstable and since 1648 the castle has been in ruins. Luckily in 1947 the state took over the care of the castle and it is now conserved and is open to the public.

Light at the end of the tunnel !!

2009-07-16T06:26:00.005+01:00

I seem to have turned the corner with the guitar now, and things are starting to come together. I did the first layer of varnish on the back and neck of the guitar yesterday, and as I type it's drying off nicely. Hopefully later today I'll be able to flip it over and do the front. Then just the task of threading hundreds and hundreds of tiny seed beads to redo the neck part of it. Not something I'm looking forward to doing , but at least I'll know the end is in sight then :o)

While I've been waiting for the varnish to dry, I've been cleaning the grout off a mirror I've been making for another gallery. I've used clear textured glass on this one, which at the time I thought was a good idea...on hind sight ...no it wasn't lol. The grout has stuck to every part of the glass and it being textured has made it a very long job, to pick off all the dried grout. Why don't I think these idea's out properly before I do them lol ? I've also got a 2nd mirror I've done, this one is a sort of sunburst style and has loads of beads in the design ...once again when I've managed to clean the grout off it, it'll look pretty stunning I think. Although I can't decide what colour wash to do on the grout yet. I also need to assemble some more pendants as the gallery on the island is getting low on them.So much to do, so little time to do it in sigh !!!

A real battle

2009-07-15T06:47:00.004+01:00

This guitar and I are having a real battle !! This last few days it's pushed my patience to the very limit. But at the moment I'm beginning to win the battle ...thank god for that. It's all been grouted now, and the once pure white tacky grout has been washed with a nice charcoal grey colour, which is making the colours really stand out. One more coat of the wash today and it'll be ready to varnish. Once that's done I'll have to start the very time consuming job of replacing all the beads on the neck of it. I'd done this once, but the sealer I'd used to hold the beads in place, had gone dull in the cleaning up process. So they all had to come off, no point in spoiling it for the sake of re threading hundreds of seed beads is there now !!

I had a visit from the enviromental health people the other day. They'd come to check out the damp in the kitchen, which the council had insisted was condensation. Wrong ...it's rising damp, they've confirmed it, which is what I've been saying since I moved into this house 17 months ago !! So I have now been awarded another 10 points, for the damp and for the fact I can't store food in the kitchen...yippeeee. The envoiromental officer was the one that had come to visit me, in my last house, where the landlady wouldn't do any repairs. She told me, that she uses the photo's of the disrepair there when she teaches students, as it's STILL the worst house they've ever seen. Am I unlucky with my houses or what lol ? I also heard from Shelter that they have recieved a report from the spinal specialist and will be forwarding that on to the council too and asking for more medical points. So hopefully this means we'll get somewhere permenant sooner rather than later. :o)

Grouting and grout dust

2009-07-11T15:31:00.013+01:00

Grouting and grout dust are rapidly becoming the bane of my life !!! Despite putting a sheet on the floor, the dust has got everywhere and I mean everywhere. It's becoming a real battle between me and this grout, and I SHALL win come what may. After cleaning off the latest lot of surplus grout on the guitar, I ended up covered in the dammed stuff. A quick look in the mirror as I went to the loo revealed it had made my already greying hair look even greyer, in fact I resembled a badger there was so much of the stuff !!

Never ever again, will I do a mosaic guitar with tiles on the head and back of the neck of it. I don't care how much money I'm offered, it's just not worth it. At a rough estimate I think I will be earning approximately 20p an hour (if that) for this commission and the guitar isn't even finished yet !!

My daughter and I unpacked, sorted out and repacked 7 boxes today, in between me working on the guitar. We're now down to 5 boxes and quite a bit of stuff to put on Freecycle when we've finished sorting boxes out. Only the attic to go now, I dread to think whats up there, as I've never been up there. But once it's done, they'll only be the stuff that's out on display to be packed up...when the council finally does the business and allocates me a permanent bungalow at long last !!

My friend Cathy has started writing a blog, it is going to be partly therapy for her and also a warning to other women that are thinking of bringing a Nigerian guy over here to live. Let me assure you I am by no means racist, but the way my friend has been treated by this guy is just disgusting and has reduced her to shadow of her former self. http:/cathyslivinghell.blogspot.com

Not very good news

2009-07-10T05:38:00.002+01:00

I heard yesterday that the bungalow the council were considering me for, has been allocated to someone else :o( Not the news I was hoping for obviously, especially as recently the stairs are becoming very painful for me to get down. Oh well I guess these things happen for a reason, hopefully it might be because there's something better round the corner... that's what I've been trying to tell myself since yesterday afternoon anyway.

The guitar also decided now would be a good time to throw a spanner in the works too !! I grouted the back and front of the neck of the guitar the day before yesterday, but after cleaning off the surplus, I'm not happy with the way it looks. The grout is wide and bulky looking, so I'm not happy with it. So yesterday, I took the last row of glass off the curved side and repositioned it. A messy and time consuming job, and I had to be very careful not to pull any other tiles off with it too. Today I'll re grout it and see if I'm happy with it then.

Feeling a bit low

2009-07-08T06:13:00.002+01:00

For the last couple of days I've not felt my usual happy self. At first I thought it was my continuous early mornings. But after a lot of sleep on Sunday/ Monday I woke up yesterday feeling decidedly out of sorts.

I'm not sure what's up with me, I feel extremely tired even though I've had about 5 times more sleep than I usually have, since Sunday.Apart from my knee's being very painful for the last 10 days or so and my hands being very shaky yesterday I seem to be ok physically. Maybe I've just got a bout of the blue's.

Time will tell I guess.......