Home sweet home

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

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

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

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

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

Two of the four tattoo's my daughter did.





My lovely friend Jo



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



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



My son Rich and his girlfriend Georgie



and finally me and my mate Al.

So much to do ...so little time

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

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

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

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

Fantastic festival !!!

After working flat out on the guitar for a week, I thought I deserved a treat, so Friday found us driving the familar route down to my oldest daughter in Bromsgrove, in preparation to go to a festival for the weekend.

The Peace Festival was held in my old home town of Leamington Spa, and was somewhere I used to go on regular basis for many years when we lived there. The plan was to met up with old friends, some new ones off a forum I use, and met some new random people. For once the plan went perfectly lol.

The weather was amazing for the whole weekend, so long as you enjoy hot sunny weather ...which we do. For a small sized festival, this one packs in a huge amount of things to do. One main area for bands, a smaller area for bands where there was also poetry, and talks about various global issues, loads of workshop tents, display area's for dancing, alternative therapy tents and loads of very reasonably priced stalls.

It was brilliant to met up with some old friends that I hadn't seen for years, and catch up with all their news and to do the same in return. A little more nerve wracking for me was meeting up with some people from a forum I go on daily, but I needn't have worried they were all lovely !!

Some pics of old friends to start with















Friends off a forum













And a couple of new random friends.