Rain, rain and wind !!

What terrible weather it's been !! Here in Lancaster we've had nothing but wind or rain, or a combination of the two for the last 3 days. I was particularly gutted as I was supposed to do a summer fair on Saturday, with my friend Di. But on looking out of the window, I just had to admit to myself it wouldn't be a good idea to go off on my scooter to the other end of town, pushing my battery levels to their limits and getting soaked into the bargain. I'd had a sore throat for a few days and also the arthritis in my knee's has been particularly painful since last weekend. So I decided I had to be sensible ( not like me at all lol ) and not go.

The day wasn't wasted though, and I've been beavering away doing another new line, some pretty little stained glass and bead suncatchers. Luckily they just need some light and not sunshine, to show them off nicely. I'm very pleased with them, and once I've cleaned off any residue flux off them, I'll be showing off my latest idea. I also started restocking my little stained glass angels, as I was getting very low on them. I have to admit I don't enjoy doing them, they're very fiddly and also as they are so small I constantly burn my fingers when I solder them, but they are always popular no matter what time of the year, so I shall suffer lol, and probably curse a few choice words in the process lol.

Having got up yesterday morning at 5am, by 4pm I was starting to feel tired. Even though I was going to cook a time consuming roast dinner, I said to Jim I'll just have a little snooze for an hour........ two hours later I woke up !! Through bleary eyes I asked Jim to turn the oven on for me. It's already on he said ...what a sweetheart he'd already started the dinner. Lovely smells were soon wafting  in from the kitchen and my mouth started to water. Three quarters of an hour later, the yummiest dinner I've had for quite a while was put in front of me. Marinated chicken, shredded cabbage, roasted garlic, gravy and the most gorgeous roast potatoes I've EVER had. I do love  living with a man that just gets on with things, without huffing and puffing and making fuss because he cooked the dinner !!!

Busy busy busy

For the last two days I've really knuckled down, and got on with finishing copper foiling the stained glass angels and also have started cutting out the glass for making some colourful suncatchers which were very popular last time I did them. I now have 30 of the little angels ready to solder and 9 suncatchers ready to copper foil, so far.

Yesterday morning I went downstairs to my art room where all my glass etc is stored to look for a particular thing I needed. I started to tidy up the said room and came across something I'd forgotten about, I also found some dichcroic pendants I'd mislaid too, along with some much needed solder. Carrying on my search I realised that I'd completely forgotten what it was I was looking for originally, and still can't remember now 24 hrs later ....how annoying !!!

I am following with interest Gordon Browns plans to overhaul mp's expenses. This is long overdue to my mind. I find it disgusting when almost every normal person is having to tighten their belts due to the recession, and people on benefits, are now living well below the breadline with the cost of food and utility bills constantly rising, these mp's have been allowed ridiculous amounts of money to furnish their 2nd homes, which supposedly allow them to represent us in parliment, and also studidly high day to day expenses. I've put a photo of the current allowances for furnishing a 2nd home, the prices of most of the items allowed is ridiculously high, whoever decided these allowances has obviously never heard of Argos !!!

My time in the garden yesterday, was drastically reduced due to my search in the art room. But when I did get out there, despite all the weather forcasts saying it wouldn't be sunny , it was very sunny although whispy clouds occasionally slide across the sun. Today there is a heavy fog outside hopefully the wrmth of the sun with quickly burn this away.

More waffling on

I wasn't going to write on here today, because although we had a great day yesterday meeting up with family and friends, it was nothing I thought would be of much interest to anyone reading my blog.

But then I changed my mind and decided to ramble on for a bit anyway. I don't usually make any New Year resolutions but I think I'm going to make one at least this year. It's to find more outlets for mine and my daughters glass work and also to fire up our own little kiln and see how much this would cost. At present we pay to use a huge kiln that belongs to someone else, this is all good in theory but in practise it can be annoying to have to wait till it's convienent and not being used by it's owner. Also it doesn't give us chance to do test pieces either.

At present our stuff is sold on a commission basis through a gallery, the gallery owner adds 40% on top for selling through his gallery and then a further 15% is added for vat. Which in laymans terms means roughly if I want £6 for my little stained glass angels then they have to sell in the gallery for £12, which is one heck of a mark up on the price. With the credit crunch hitting as it is, I really can't see people paying that much for a little 4" high angel, no matter how posh the shop is and no matter how pretty the angel is either !! So I need to put my business head and think of new ways to sell our stuff without it having loads of commission on the top !!