28th March 2007

At least I think it's the 28th. I've been confused as to what the date is all week, ever since my Monday was actually Tuesday if you see what I mean - bank holidays eh?

Well, my new craft oven has arrived. It fits on the shelf in the kitchen by the window perfectly, so I can have the window open whilst I bake the stuff, and hopefully all of the nasty fumes will go straight out - however, I have since heard that Fimo only produces toxic fumes if you bake it at above 200 degrees. There's some dispute about this, but basically if you stick to the instructions you shouldn't have too many problems.
Of course having gone to all this trouble, my first attempt at image transfer failed dismally - I used the wrong sort of paper. At least I hope that this is what was actually the problem. I'm about to have another go, having reprinted my images on photo paper. In fact, printing out a contact sheet actually results in the photo's being exactly the right size. Size was something else I had to experiment with - had to resize every single one! Still fingers crossed eh? If it works, I'll put a tutorial/how to up on here, and you could all have a go if you fancy it!

Anyhow, it having been payday recently, I've also bought myself a little treat off Amazon - Justine Picardies' Daphne. It arrived today. It looks like a most interesting novel - it's about Daphne Du Maurier, at the time of her husbands' breakdown (I think they eventually separated, but I can't really remember), when she was attempting to write a biography of Branwell Bronte. She had some correspondence with various members of the Bronte Society, including one who's supposed to have been involved in some sort of literary forgery - of course, I haven't a clue as to whether any of this has any kind of foundation in reality, but it's an amusing conceit. I'll let you know whether the book's any good or not when I've read a bit of it!

Wednesday 19th March 2008

Oh Woe is me.... I feel like a little old woman as I type this, I've just finished two night shifts, and for some reason - probably sitting more or less still for a night, my back feels like it's been put on a rack. I staggered off to the Post Office - thinking the exercise will soon get rid of this - and then round Sainsbury's, and I feel even worse. Struggling home with two bags worth of Easter Eggs (and I'll get round to the price of those in a minute!) I felt like I was 90. I think I'm going to have to have a good twenty to thirty minute hot shower before bed tonight, and see how it goes. I'm hoping to go to stay over in Winsley for the weekend - fingers crossed. But if this keeps up this way, I'm going to be stuck at home, exercising. I have a whole range of physio exercises which are supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but I must have got stuck in an unfortunate position or something.
Anyhow, the eggs. I quite fancied something fancier than your average Cadbury whatever style egg, but when I got to the shop and saw the prices - forget it. For basically a very small amount of chocolate, and an overly inflated idea of what constitutes decoration, I'll stick with the bog standard. I bought my friends' little girl two lovely little squishy toys - I tend not to buy her chocolate, because once you've got that sweet tooth - well it's like the old saw at Xmas and dogs isn't it? A sweet tooth isn't just for Easter, it's for life. Having one myself I can well testify to this! Anyhow, I got her just the cutest little chicken in an egg - velour of course, with a zip you open and out comes the cutest little chick. And all little girls love soft fluffy toys, I think, for a good wee while!

I don't know about you, but I've been watching the tv reports of what's been going on over in Tibet. Emotionally, one hopes that the Tibetans will be able to free themselves of Chinese rule, but at the same time, one fears the Chinese reactions. And above all, I don't want to see the Dalai Lama resign - although I admit, I wouldn't have thought that he could. I suppose he can resign his political role - it seems so unfair that this good man is so constantly blamed by the Chinese for any and all problems with Tibet. He's always struck me as one of the few world leaders that you look at, and instinctively know, is a good man. But the Chinese don't seem to be given to negotiation - historically, they don't seem to have had much experience of it. God knows, as a Brit, we've got enough history with the Chinese to feel thoroughly ashamed of ourselves - but one can only hope for a peaceful settlement in this situation. I've always found the Chinese to be a fascinating and interesting people, in whatever phase of their history they're in, and I'd like to see them take more part in the world after such an incredible period of isolationism. But I think their government really has to accept that indigenous peoples deserve autonomy. Oh well, enough pontificating from me, God knows what right I've got to go sounding off about it!

Saturday extra!

I listed the necklace on Etsy, so you could scoot on over there to look at it - and some spring reductions too!!

Check out the necklace -

Fifteen dollars on Etsy!

Saturday 8th March

I feel I've been very busy recently, although if you pushed me, I'd be hard pressed to say what I've actually done. Do you ever have that feeling? I think it was exacerbated by the time it took me to get to Mum's yesterday, when the traffic was heavy, there were roadworks, and then to top it all, some poor person had become ill (or had been run down) on the busiest part of the one way system in Bath. All in all, I set off at about ten, and didn't get to Winsley until coming up to one - about an hour longer than normal.
So today - yep I braved the weather and shot off down to Sainsbury's, lugged a chicken and some veg back home and cooked it whilst I watched Barnsley V Chelsea. 1 -0, go Barnsley! What a wonderful match! It was edge of the seat stuff, especially at the end. Just wonderful, and I can only hope that Bristol do as well tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the gasheads. Villa got knocked out, so it'd be nice to see little old Bristol do well. And if they fail, well there's always Barnsley!
Then after this, I had a nice surprise when I logged on to Ebay, some lovely person's bought a bagcharm and a keyring - I don't think I'll ever get over the little thrill of people buying the things I make.
So as you can see, I've been sort of busy. I've also managed to make a couple of new bagcharms, and a necklace - I'm not sure about this. When I put necklaces onto Ebay they just don't sell, I guess craft made necklaces just aren't an Ebay thing. So I think I'll put it onto Etsy. I haven't put anything new onto Etsy for a good while now, and it's an Etsy style of necklace, I think, so we'll see. I'll put a photo up when I do, so you can click on the link and shoot over there to have a look.

What else have I been up to? Well frankly, I'm getting a big yen to paint. Time to get the old easel out I think, and indulge. Not that I'll be doing much of that this upcoming week, as it's a heavily rota'd one. But it would be nice to come home and pick up the brush and add a few strokes. I've also got a couple of new projects on the go too - I've bought some liquid Fimo bake able transfer medium. For those of you who've never heard of this, it's a liquid you can use to transfer an image from a picture to the surface of a piece of Fimo. It hasn't arrived yet, and I've never used it before, so it's going to be one long experiment from start to finish, but I may well blog it, with photo's (if you're very unlucky!) so you can have a good long laugh.
My other project comes off a craft site that I visit occasionally, where someone had put up a blog on a knitted recycled bag. I need a little shopping bag I can stuff in the old backpack and get out at the appropriate time in Tesco or wherever, and I liked the look of this very much, so I'm giving it a go and making my own. It sounds pretty normal doesn't it, but it's actually knitted from cut up lengths of old plastic bags, the type you stuff your loaf and box of teabags into. Cut them into a long spiral strip, and get out the old knitting needles and off you go. Right now it's in no fit state to be photographed, and frankly if it continues in this fashion, it may well go into the other recycled plastic bags I have - the one's that line my rubbish basket! But I'm not quite ready to give up yet. It's the tension that's doing it, it's proving quite a physical strain to knit in plastic!!!

Monday 3rd March

Well happily I've got the weekend's night shifts out of the way - only to be left with a stinking cold. It started on Saturday night, one of those tickly sore throats, and then, come Sunday night, it was a full blown stinker. So instead of going over to see Mum, I'm stuck at home nursing it. You should see my kitchen worktop - it's a scattering of Ibuprofen and Echinacea. I seem to have done nothing but drink cups of tea...

Still I did make it up to my local post office. It's actually a treat to go there instead of the Galleries, have a bit of a chat with the staff, who are nice and friendly, instead of the blank faces and nervous stares of the one's in town. Actually I do feel sorry for them, it's not their fault they got stuck with that system. It was something of an exciting trip - my little packets were making their way to Oslo, and to the Channel Islands rather than say Slough or Midlothian!

Anyhow after that, I popped in to the local store on Sandy Park Road rather than trek down to Sainsbury's - I got a small pack of mince, and I thought I'd do a mini spag bol for supper. It's cold out, and a bit of spag bol always makes you feel a bit better doesn't it?  Got myself a big bottle of Lucozade too. It'll save on trips to the kettle, and it's something I've been drinking since the year dot. Mum used to buy it when we were kids, and back then, we called it Granny's beer.  Jo and I didn't have grandparents when we were growing up, they had died before we were born. But we had substitute grannies - Mrs Knight who lived over in Moseley, I remember trips to see her very vividly. She was a sweet old lady who did the most wonderful knitting and crochet work, she taught Jo how to knit and I'm pretty sure she probably had two or three goes if not more with me, but I didn't have the patience for it at that time.

Anyhow, we had another sort of pseudo grandparent.  This was old Mrs Knight, who lived with other relatives. Now this old lady was so incredibly old (and ok, I'm remembering this through the eyes of a child) she was too old to get out of bed.  I seem to remember being taken to see her every time we visited, and it was like stepping back in time. Now this is the 60's, and she must have been 90 or so (and on that point I'm not kidding, she genuinely was in her 90s) and I think she must have been the woman we knew as Granny Knight's mother in law. Or possibly her sister's mother in law? It was very complex! Anyhow, it was this, very elderly granny, who drank granny's beer, and she would give us little glass fulls when we visited! Tiny little glassfuls of Lucozade, which of course back then, almost had a medicinal nature. Mother fed it to us when we were in bed with our chicken pox, and measles.

 

Old Mrs Knight lived in a miraculous room. It was full of lace, and flowered wallpaper, and she reigned from a large bed, under a big bay window.  I seem to remember it being full of photographs,  and she had nurses fluttering around her. She wasn't sick you understand, she was just very very old. She was so old, she wore a lace bedcap and jacket,  and as far as I was concerned, she was a Victorian. Somehow, at six or seven years old, I knew that this old woman was a Victorian, someone must have told me that when she was born, Queen Vic was still on the phone.  You had to be terribly terribly quiet when you went to see her, and if she was asleep, you had to creep out. And there was absolutely no running about, or playing of any kind in Old  Granny Knights room.  I've got no idea when she died, I don't even remember being told that she had died, or even noticing very much when we no longer visited, but that probably had more to do with my father, who was prone to arguing with his family, and probably stopped speaking to them, consequently we no longer visited.  But Granny Knight became the older woman who lived in Moseley, and was more like a real grandmother anyway, because although she was old, she was mobile and live and taught us stuff!  It'd be quite interesting to be able to sort all of these memories out with someone who knew more about it all - have to see if I can remember the next time I see Nick. He's my older brother and he was quite a bit older, so he'll probably know all about it!

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