Been a week now

Would that be a good title for a country music song? Been busy playing with CorelDraw and fancying up my MISI shop. Adding the stuff I had made and working on my mad scientist project of home electroforming which has had me ordering chemicals over the interweb.

TS is expecting a visit from MI5 anytime now to find out just what I am up to.

The electroforming is still at the waiting for stuff to be delivered stage but you will be able to keep up with it on the jewellery blog.

I really need to get out of jewellery land and sort things out for our trip to France. The lovely Debra has offered food for our first night there so I'm fairly laid back about the whole thing that side of the channel. We may have to rethink the cat holiday plans though as Uncle Oscar has now been joined by Zena a fiesty princess who is not altogether sure she will tolerate Oscar and hasn't had the pleasure of meeting our pair yet .

I'd tell you more but The Project beckons waha waha wahaha (that was my creepy mad scientist laugh by the way)

Is Today a Funny Day or What?

Catchy title - you like?

Well its the 29th February, only comes round once every four years but does it mean anything? Because do you know although nothing that I could really absolutely positively put my finger on has gone wrong somehow it's been a f**** awful day.

Of course there is an extra day this year and I *son't see an extra days pay anywhere and I'm a firm believer in a fair days pay for a fair days work which might be why despite my best efforts ( I got out of bed and went there) it would be difficult to slip a fag paper between what I actually got done and bugger all.

Roll on a proper day thats what I say, a day you can rely on to turn up every year.

Yes thats it short and bitter. Move along now . . . . nothing to see.

* typo but I think I'll keep it as a new word sont = so don't

Blending in

We bought a food processor/blender type thing the other week because we were going to eat healthy soups and smoothies and things well drink healthy soups and smoothies and things.

First Saturday big mistake we started the day off with a breakfast smoothie, lunch was a wholesome veggie soup this had the unsurpring effect that by teatime we were both  . . . well lets say we had to open the windows. OK lets tell it like it is we were farting like vikings. (apologies to any vikings out there but it is a turn of phrase that amuses us both greatly that we probably heard on some comedy somewhere apologies also to whoever's turn of phrase it was before we nicked it and used it and probably constantly misquoted it )

So we quickly cut back on the vegetation to the breakfast smoothie while our ancient digestive systems adapt. It might not seem like much vegetation to you but TS semi seriously told me tonight that he'd read somewhere that you could overdose on nuts so you get an idea of the baseline we are starting from here. This was incidently while he was eating a bun that had some of the flour replaced by ground hazelnuts which brings me to my next point.

Obviously the odd smoothie is not really a good return on our investment in the food smashing up/spinning round machine so in addition to smoothies it's moonlighting on cakes and scones and we are telling ourselves that they are bound to be healthier than shop bought ones.

Roll on the light mornings and nights so we can start cycling to work. Did I tell you we'd started cycling? Yes well that's another story. I did make a start on fitness by walking to work last Monday but I fell and had to go to A&E and get my ankle x-rayed it wasn't broken just soft tissue damage which I think is A&E code for what are you bothering us for. They did give me a nice leaflet with ankle strengthening excercises in though.

Oh and TS has confessed he had two smoothies this morning and by lunchtime he was letting rip with such ferocity he was startling the cats

Walking backwards to Christmas

Sunrise Robin Hoods Bay

So you've had the turquoise hair. You lucky people now for the pre-Christmas break.

Which you can guess by the photo was at Robin Hoods Bay. Bliss. Walks on the beach (I really like the seaside in Winter it's definitely at it's best). Despite TS buying a pick fossils for the extracting of, there was a complete absence of fossil finds not so much as a T-rex nor bugger all to be had.

I did see a seal swimming about under the sea wall which was nice and we walked along the cliffs to Boggle Hole and lets face it with a name like that it was practically compulsory. In the evenings we sat in front of an open fire and watched the Horror Channel, well it was that or the god botherers or teleshopping.

We got back to reality with only two shopping days to Christmas and I got the food and gifts in a mad two hour whirlwind tour of the White Rose Shopping Centre.

What it's nearly March already?

Well I was going to stop but then Aims . . . .

I have been too busy to blog, honest.
There was the craft fair at Christmas and I've got another one 1st March so all in all I don't seem to be finding time. Then Aims put some of her posts together as a short story and I thought about when I first found her blog and how much reading about the exploits of my imaginary friends cheered me up. Then I thought about how bloody miserable reading the Guardian makes me (but that's another blog post entitled I voted Lib Dem what the fuck was I thinking) . So I thought (yes lots of thinking but bear with me I'm out of practice) I could mostly give that up especially when TS could give me the edited highlights which he does anyway even when I'm reading the same article at the same time.
I could also stop watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory and Dr Who or even blog while watching them being that I know them off by heart. Well not quite, the old grey cells ain't what they used to be but they are still up for a bit of multi-tasking. So come here and give us a hug

 

No it;'s OK you don't really have to. It's an excuse for this picture of walking on the beach in Winter and gives me the chance to mention that we went to Robin Hoods Bay just before Christmas and in other news I got my fringe died turquoise. Now you're intrigued go on admit it

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?

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?

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

Bells and whistles

I went shopping yesterday for a birthday present for my great nephew (how old does that make me sound?). For his first birthday. Ah bless!

I ran round to the Early Learning Centre in my lunch hour and I had so much fun pressing buttons and having toys sing me nursery rhymes or flash lights or do funny sound effects. Obviously if I had any shame I would have been embarrassed.

Now before I set out I had it in mind to find something sort of sturdy and traditional you know a painted wood kind of thing. Tasteful. So what did I get?

A plastic book that sings nursery rhymes and giggles. It is pink but the giggles more than make up for that. To counteract the girlyness of the book a toy work bench with a drill that makes drill noises and has flashing red lights, a circular saw that makes circular saw noises and hammers and nails that make boing noises.

Fortunately he is not old enough yet to be totally underwhelmed by gifts from aged aunt and uncle so there is non of the usual buying for children anxiety I suppose I'd better make the most of it.

Just pottering

I'm having a slow start today. With no need to charge off and do anything in particular I'm having a quick wander round everyone's blogs seeing what they've all been up to. Moonroot has been talking about creativity and how the Summer brings it out in her and also about the battery hens she has rescued. Read their stories I guarantee it will bring a tear to your eye.

Last year I so wanted to get everything just right and do everything that I had read about or seen on tv about self sufficiency. I spent lots of time running round in circles and I used up loads of energy worrying about how to do things instead of just getting on with it. This year I've calmed down a bit I'm the new chilled out me. I stay chilled out for oh hours at a time. With only slight episodes of veg plot envy and wishing for a finished house.

And low and behold

We have a wider range of potential food in the garden.

I'm using the food because it gets picked and I get on and make something with it.

I'm using up all the groceries I buy because I just get on and do something with them.

I have made

Redcurrant jelly - and used it with duck and in desserts

Apricot jam - with just enough apricots to make three jars instead of a boat load that put me under pressure to use them all.

Roast Aubergine and Tomato Quiche and Roast Aubergine and Tomato Soup I didn't think I liked aubergines

Beetroot Soup - a delicious surprise, who would of thought that would taste great?

oh and many curries and cornish pasties to fill up the freezer and make quick meals for working days and lots of other stuff.

Today I'm going to work in the garden till lunchtime when it gets too hot. Then cook up yesterday's shopping and whatever I get out of the garden this morning.

So sorry but I just have to get on now because next door has far more stuff growing than me.

Change it's as good as a rest

I've nothing much to say so I thought I'd add an award and change my background colour in the hopes of making you all think there was something happening here.

I could do Wooly's meme I suppose. Should I do you think? These are the rules

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So . . . 7 facts

1 My evening viewing is currently dominated by Scrubs and Monkey Business neither of which I watched till I've been staying with my brother (who I really should thank for the free lodgings without him our imminent return home would not be possible). Which leads to two questions

a)How will I cope without knowing what is happening to JD and all those primates even though it all happened years ago?
b)Is anyone actually making NEW telly programmes?

2 I got a bronze medal for disco dancing in the dim and distant eighties I was even wearing leg warmers at the time. Come to think of it you probably only had to turn up in the leg warmers to get the medal

3 I am really jealous of the students at the Geography Dept where I am working at the moment when I see the titles of their dissertations (god how nerdy is that?). So I have learnt that geography is in fact not just ox bow lakes. Although I still maintain that it is that ox bow lake nonsense that is taking up the brain cells that would otherwise enable me to learn French.

4 I'm scared of geese and they know it

5 Leading on from 4 I have a very strong instinct for self preservation and will always ensure that TS is between me and any geese. In the same way as I will also check that I could trample anyone between me and the emergency exit on the plane and quite unconsciously stepped just out of reach when TS was about to grab me for support when he was slipping in mud. It's not pretty but there you are I can't be relied on to sacrifice myself in a crisis.

6 I have a craving for liquorice tea and I absolutely have to buy some before we go back to France. I'll then have one or two cups and leave it to moulder in the back of a cupboard.

7 I'm not really material or into gadgets (except for those little magazines with the big slippers in) but I long for one of those Mac Air Books. You know the advert where they are slipping it out of the A4 envelope. It is just so so perfect.

That's my 7 then and you have no idea how long it took me to come up with them. TS suggested I included my special trying on clothes face but I don't think you need to know about that surely the leg warmers are bad enough.

Feel free to come up with your seven or even one or two. I nominate everyone on my side bar.

Holiday holiday holiday time

Ah the Easter break.

So why did I still wake up at 6.30? At first I felt deprived but do you know I could get to like this getting up before the rest of the house. Especially on a bright sunny morning when I don't have to dash about doing anything.

It's a long bank holiday for me I'm not working till Wednesday now. I feel the call of the garden centre already. The question is should I do the shopping, cleaning, washing chores today or rush off and buy seeds.

It's a giddy exciting whirl of a life folks no wonder I couldn't sleep.

Sunday Blogger

Do you think it's a bit like a Sunday driver? Whatever I've no time to dawdle about on the leafy less travelled bits there's a queue forming behind me.

One PC and internet connection between three adults does lead to the tiniest bit of tension. My brother is looking at something to do with Leeds United or cheap holidays, TS is looking out for a bargain on e bay, I want to flit about and see what my imaginary friends in the blog world are up to. We all think the others are rubbish drivers hogging the middle lane of the information superhighway.

Anyway enough of the driving analogy already. It's not like I even like driving. It's just all padding because I can't think of anything to blog about. The times I can I'm at work, or walking the dog, or shopping or at the back of the PC queue.

I quite like getting the bus though especially if I can get a seat next to the window. Then I sit and day dream or notice that everyone outside is wearing black or everyone is looking miserable and walking really fast. Actually I notice quite a lot of other things about people but I don't want you to know what I bitch I really am.

But I will say

Boys - baggy jeans showing your undies - not a good look when you have a fat bum, even less so if you (or was it your Mum?) have tucked your vest in your undies

Just don't get me started on the girls