Beads beads beads, it's always about the beads

The last time I was here was last September and so much has happened since then. Last September I was made redundant from my really crappy delivery job and we all shouted hurrah! and then we realised how much money we were losing and sobered up fairly sharpish.

Then both of my children left for university, one local but living on campus, the other over 250 miles away! The first term was weird and quiet, no arguing over the washing up after dinner, no doors slamming, no-one still in their pyjamas eating breakfast at 4 in the afternoon, I didn’t much like it…for a while. Then I got used to it and then… there they were back for Christmas.

Then, out of nowhere, my older brother, who had struggled with a lifelong battle with alcohol, died at 9 oclock on a Monday morning, two weeks before Christmas, in my mothers arms from a ruptured oesophagus, which was just, well, weird!  So we spent the next few months sorting his stuff out and trying to come to terms with it, my mother, naturally,  found it extremely difficult but he was a deeply troubled man and I would like to think he is at peace now.

So we are heading up to Easter and BG and I are really getting used to the peace and not having to cater in bulk, we went on a diet and started walking along the promenade in the evenings, basically life started to grow back around the gaps. The kids come home for Easter…Easter comes Easter goes, we spend most of the holidays trying to persuade N-J and the boy that revision is important and that they need to get on with it, but they don’t.

For a while everything was calm and quiet and in the calm and quiet we began to really think about our situation. We don’t really have a plan, we have never really had a plan except to get the kids through school with some degree of sucess. This has been acheived and they both seem to be happy and settled and really I couldn’t have asked for more.

My mum, however, is by herself in a 4 bedroom house, it is just too big for her. She suffered a stroke some years ago and it really is quite exraordinary how well she has coped with everything that has been thrown at her since. BG and I think she could do with some help and she agrees but I can’t help from here. A pooling of resources seems to be in order so we are going to sell  our house and move in with her. We can help her manage the house and garden, run her about and just be there for her and by letting us move in she is relieving us of the mortgage noose around our necks which is getting tighter every month. None of us know how well it will work but we are all willing to give it a shot and if not then we will think again but for now it seems a reasonable solution to a number of problems.

So there we have it, the kids are back for the longest summer break in the world. N-J is doing her research placement up at the university for the next 8 weeks and soon she will move into the house she is sharing with her friends and Rob is upstairs playing his guitar and on his computer until the wee small hours of the morning. Once again there is arguing over the dishes after dinner, doors are slamming and breakfast is being eaten in pyjamas at 4 in the afternoon. Too soon though it will end and we will all move on and while I know that we are absolutely doing the right thing I will be so very sad.

Woohoo, It took me two days but I finally managed to list something on Ebay.  Why do these things take me so long? it was the simplest of listings and yet, it took for-evah! Anyways if you fancy a look  (I’m practically giving it away) you can find it

here

Meanwhile back at the ranch I’m fighting on with my website which is becoming more and more like quicksand, the deeper I go the more stuck I get.

Think I will get back to the sock knitting now,  at least I know where I am with that.

I have spent the last few days desperately trying to take some high quality photographs of my beads, I have a deadline, I don’t know when that is yet but I know there is one and it is coming – fast!  The sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view but my pictures are blurry, blurry to the max! It has taken me until today to realise that I keep trying to take the photos fast, without lots of faffing about because the charge goes quickly and it takes so long to re-charge…

Could it possibly be I need a new battery being as this one is over 6 years old, so I say again – well duh!. …. the race is on, which will get here first the battery or the deadline?

My plan, whilst waiting for the battery, is to actually tidy up and organise all my beads/stuff and try and bring some sort of order to it all. Then when I send out beads or photograph them or do any of the other bead related things I do every single day I just reach into a neat, labelled orderly drawers of beads, packing materials and other miscellany and take what I need.

Par Example: I just packed up a box of beads for a customer, it took over two hours and my living room looks like the four horsemen just galloped through…Surely that’s not right? Surely, by now (and at my age) I should be able to do any number of bead business related activities without creating mayhem and madness? Seriously it looks like Beadageddon in here, if Gog and Magog turn up I’m in deep trouble. I would take photograph to prove it but I’m waiting for a new camera battery.

Ooh look sneaked a Dolly-mix picture in.

I spent Tuesday in Arundel with two lovely ladies: Jean Power and Liz Thornton judging the competition for Bead Magazine, which was utterly fab. You can read Jeans blog entry here

Although no-one told me I was going to have to appear on camera (for bead tv) at any point, I would have at least brushed my hair -  lol! After my last humiliating experience on camera demonstrating at 2008 flame-off (if you don’t know about it you’re just going to have to ask Martin Tuffnell, I’m still traumatised) I decided my best bet was to sit quietly and just nod in agreement with Jean and Liz whilst attempting not to jiggle my double chin too ferociously! I’m sure I will still look like a tub bucket/pillock but what can you do? some people (i.e. me) are just are not meant to be recorded.
I agree completely with what Jean said in her blog, it was truly a privilege to be able to see and handle the final entries, there was so much creativity and skill, it was awe inspiring and so hard to choose the winners.  In the end it took all day, but what a way to spend a day.
If you want to see who won get on down to the Big Bead Show at Sandown Park on October 17th where the winners will be announced or check out Bead Magazine.

Other News

It’s all slowly starting to come together on the university front this week. N-J and the boy have been allocated their accomodations which makes it so much more real and scary and soon….Mercifully neither of them ended up with a room that was horribly expensive, which is nice, because they’re both going to have to do it on pretty much no money at all. Also to further complicate matters their student loans won’t be coming any time soon owing to us being somewhat crap! So we have spent the last week of BG’s holiday filling in online forms, telephoning various H.E. departments, trying to get shot of the van and in between just panicking!

I really need to find a way to jolly up this space but I’m still working on my website and it really is a case of not enough hours in the day! I will get round to it soon.

Here is a bead picture to start with

We had a great week, first in Stourbridge at the Bead Fair then in Liverpool with my m-i-l.
It was great to see lots of old friends and make some new ones at the bead fair. I am always blown away by the lovely things people say about my beads and I come away really buzzed up and ready to fire up the torch.

We drove straight from the bead fair to my m-i-ls house in Liverpool, we always have a fantastic time but this time we actually managed to do some stuff as opposed to lying comatose and only stirring to take in more food or drink.
It was my birthday on Tuesday and apart from being given some fab presents we went to Port Sunlight (of the soap fame) had a pub lunch (yum) then on to the Lady Lever Art Gallery to see some etchings by Whistler, some Pre-Paphaelite paintings and a fine collection of Chinese Art amongst other things. It was kind of fun to see how bored the boy can actually get when faced with culture of any kind but I am a huge fan of Pre-Raphaelite art and had a great time.

We also managed to get up to Lancaster and visit my aunties, whom I haven’t seen for far too many years now, sadly we could only stay long enough for a cup of tea but they were an absolute hoot and the the kids loved them. We did tons of other stuff too, really too much to write about but I had such a good time. I feel more relaxed than I have done for months, maybe years and I’m really looking forward to getting back on the bead-making train.

We got back late yesterday and this morning George had booked me in for a birthday Indian head massage at the local acupuncture clinic, it was totally fabulous. I felt so energised afterwards I came home and de-forested the garden. I can’t help thinking my neighbour is going to look out into the back gardens see the devastation we have wrought and have a little weep…. I had to do it though, I need the light to take bead photos!

Bead of the day