Cuisine?

Does Chilli with Yorkshire Pudding count as fusion food?

It was nice ......... honest

Some days shopping is just too much trouble

Anyone want to come for their tea?

Missing you already

The kittens are going away for the weekend to stay with Oscar. They have been for visits before but this is their first time of staying over. These are all practice runs for mutual cat sitting for holidays and such to make sure everyone can get along.

Whilst I will miss the little darlings and I have insisted that they are delivered home first thing Sunday morning (I can't be without them for the WHOLE weekend) I have to admit the thought of leaving out my jewellery making gear without danger of interferance is rather pleasant. Not to mention not having to go into total lockdown when I want to use the kiln.

Usually I set my stall out then Dora appears on the table. It all starts innocently enough with her sitting there front paws together tail curled neatly around looking politely interested but it can't last

" These little bits are good that you have put in this tray. Look I can hook them out and spread them all over the table for you"

"Look you dropped a bead I'll get it! oh,  I've accidently pushed it under the fridge"

"Those saw blades are quite fine aren't they. Are they crunchy too?"
" If I push this hammer off the table will it bounce do you think?"

"This box of scrap metal is actually comfier than it looks you know"

Eventually she gets sent to "help" TS with his studies

"Wow these are notes are they?  Don't they slide well you can get them under the sofa and everything. Were they in any particular order?"

So where was I

Oh yes medical moans. To cut a long story short turned up for work half the week, Tuesday went for my annual  poke in the eyes at the hospital (high pressure plus extreme short sightedness plus funny shaped optic nerves = glaucoma risk) Wednesday went for my bosoms squeezed (oh the joys of being 50 and being invited along for a mammogram) Thursday gave up on the dying swan act and went to the doctors and got antibiotics now feel well enough to get the kiln out. Yippee! Back to work tomorrow but another trip to the hospital for blood tests to see why my joints ache (what do you want to bet that that is also something to do with being 50) and I can't shift a cold for four weeks. The blood test thing should have been taken care of Friday at the doctors but I have veins that hide at the sight of a needle. Anyway I don't care now cos with the aid of my trusty kiln and inspired by the bit of Spring sunshine, I made this and I'm feeling just a little bit pleased with myself nay quite smug really.If I can keep my energy levels up I feel a matching necklace and earrings coming on. Oh and I digressed into kittens on the last post because they have been to the vets to be neutered and are making considerably less fuss about things than I am.

Daisy chain bracelet

Enamel and copper

I was going to moan but here's some kittens

I realise that I have not introduced two new characters in our lives this comes as I was going to tell you about my highly medical related week.

Max

Max loves Jasper

 We have Max nominally TS's Christmas present from my Mum and Brother. He is a norwegian forest cat on his mother's side and a black and white moggie on his dad's. He has inherited mum's shape but has his own unique just a bit longer than short incredible silky coat which is black and white but with grey tabby markings in the black. This was a more than generous present on my brother's behalf as he doesn't really "get" cats. In the way of cats Max "gets" this and delights in using my brother as a climbing frame he also loves to hang out with my brother's dog Jasper. Well every cool dude needs a big daft mate.

Dora

Dora my birthday and Christmas pressie from TS and my brother is a british shorthair she is supposed to be growing into an Isadora but somehow it turned into Dizzy Dora and she now prefers to be called Dizz. She's the one who gets away with murder thanks to those big kitten eyes.I've even heard my brother saying "hello little girl" when he thinks no-ones listening. We are all her willing slaves we know we are being manipulated but we can't help ourselves she's just so sweet!

So how did you get up there then?

So I now feel I've gone on a bit and I've quite lost the thread on all the medical stuff. Never mind have a quite unseasonal picture of the kittens at Christmas

No I'm not napping I'm random

Beach Necklace - Sold

I'm finally officially over my cold and this is what I've been doing with my new found lack of napping. I wasn't quite up for full on metalwork so I've been making polymer clay beads.

This particular kind I love making, it has a kind of randomness as you put your various shades of polymer clay into the extruder and create string that blends them all together then wrap your string around the beads. I find it endlessly absorbing watching the colour blends emerge.

"Maybe you should get out more" I hear you say but colours look at the pretty colours plus Breezys love random.

Random Green Ncklace - Sold

My jewellery making has kept me sane since I got back or at least I can pass in a crowd. I did get an allottment initially (no this is not random) but as well as constantly being reminded by the cold, heavy, wet clay that I wasn't in my own lovely garden with my own lovely light, warm, fertile with things living it it soil I felt overlooked. My allotment wasn't the peaceful sanctuary my garden was there were rules, gates to be locked and stuff that might get pinched and the possibility of vandals and all the lovely poppies that sprang up were weeds and a war was being fought all around me. The only butterflies had come to scoff the cabages and the birds to dig up the peas and of course not a chicken in sight.  About the only thing I got out of it were some onions. It wasn't that the other allotmenteers were horrible but I wasn't going there to socialise I was going to get away from feeling crowded and being surrounded by concrete. It was just not the escape and fulfillment I was looking for.

Now then what was I saying about naps? It is a grey Saturday afternoon after all what else are you going to do?

Colour me purple

I've been meaning to post some more this week but all my PC type stuff has been taken up with messing about with pictures and a fab email correspondance with Aims my new official jewellery buddy. Now poor old TS gets a break from being forced to hear about my jewellery problems and look at work in progress.  Somehow she is also managing to be really productive you should check out the stuff she makes on her blog I love it especially her copper bangles.

On the non jewellery front I have purple hair now. At least that's what I told TS I was going to get because it doesn't do for him to be all complacent about what vision of loveliness is going to greet him as he walks through the door. For an added frisson of excitement my niece was doing it as part of her hairdressing course. Such was his relief when he saw the final outcome that he was incredibly taken by the new hair colour which is kind of a deep wine, a cheeky little bordeaux to go with my full bodied burgandyness. Purple in all it's guises from dove greys and lavenders through to blackberry is my favourite colour. It's going to be my new black. More than likely the high street will pick an entirely different colour for their new black especially with it being spring probably their new black will be pink I shall however go my own way probably via Oxfam.

Mmm other than that not much really I am still getting over my cold so need a nap at the drop of a hat or the merest mention of housework. Anyway got to go it's Buffy time. Then maybe another nap.

Oscar and MISI

Oscar comes to us for his holidays or along for the ride when Oscar Mum and Oscar Dad come visiting. You should never judge a book by it's cover nor an Oscar Cat by his appearance. Inside there is the sweetest little fellow who does nothing more terrible than swear at birds through the window or tease the dogs with a flick of his tail across the nose.

He has that certain something and I had to have a go at making an Oscar so I drew him on a piece of copper then cut out something that barely followed my drawing,  since for some reason stuff looks different as you cut it out to when it's lines, or maybe I shouldn't of bought my glasses online from Hong Kong. Anyway enamelled him white, painted on his eyes with orange and black and was really rather pleased with him and myself. Oscar Mum liked the pressie too. So I have picked Oscar Dude as the first thing to go in my MISI shop. It's a shame really that my photos are quite dire but I am sure I will get better.

I was going to list several things but do you know it is all quite draining what with the fifty zillion pictures that are all rubbish even with the cropping and adjusting and the flash on and the flash off and the flash on auto and the light on and the light off and the lamp on and the lamp off and near the window and away from the window. Have you tried taking a picture of a brooch on a jacket you are wearing in a mirror without showing the camera and your double chins and the rather fetching cold sores that have appeared to get in on the act. Not to mention the uploading and writing descriptions and deciding how much to charge and feeling a bit cheeky really for selling stuff you've made even though your jewellery teacher says that she will pay real money for one. Do you know I started this yesterday tea time and now it's two o'clock the following afternoon? And me with the cold/flu and stuff and TS off at the University telling people that they too can be mature students and do degrees. I may have to go lie down.

Update

OK so I said I'd almost finished sulking and I had but I was busy too so I didn't actually post anything but I meant to and my gosh doesn't time fly er um.

Since we last got together I have a job (and for quite a while blumin heck) which I am not doing today, or indeed any day this week so far, due to having a very nasty cold/flu and not having the kind of dedication that it takes to work myself to death. This level of dedication to not working myself to death is probably how I got where I am today.

TS is a full time (very) mature student which he is doing today despite having a nasty cold/flu because he is dedicated plus it is something that can be done from your sickbed. Anyway he appears to be good at it and enjoying it so there you go then yes indeed. It certainly beats being a greeter at ASDA which seems to be the only other geriatric role available round here that doesn't involve being labelled some kind of benefit scrounger and root of all the country's ills.

We still have the house in France which Debs & her other half have been kindly keeping an eye on and doing stuff to and we are clinging on to it although it allmost went on the market but we discovered that there wasn't actually a market for it to go on to. It's a long long time since we went though and sometimes I think we'll not see it again and sometimes I don't care as it still all feels a bit bittersweet.

Anyway moving on. I don't actually know what I'm going to write about now but I have been going to a jewellery class so I may just make you admire my creations it would certainly give TS a break

One enamel & copper pendant for the admiring of

Back in less than a year I hope

x Breezy