Tinkering....

We had a wonderful day at the park yesterday with the girls. The sun was shining, it was a very warm 18 degrees and the day had "park" written all over it. Daisy and Ruby were climbing trees (unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but when grandpa downloads his pictures I'll add one to this post) and there is also an athletics section to the park and I showed Daisy and Ruby "how to do" the long jump. It was so warm, I was wearing knee length trousers... Hadn't realised how abrasive sand can be!! After a few hours at the park, we had a short drive to our main shopping complex which houses a Haagen Dazs cafe, so the girls had an ice-cream and chocolate brownie, and James and I were very good sticking with our diet and had a water and orange juice respecively :-D We had a great time, and Daisy and Ruby were asleep within minutes of their heads hitting the pillow. They were awake very early this morning though, so we're having a quite day doing jigsaw puzzles and crayon-ing.

James has gone into Luxembourg today for a lunch with someone who may have some work for him. Here's hoping!! It has been a long time since we had a regular income and funds are now running very low.

When James is out, I can't make any beads, but I can upload photo's so I've been updating the albums on Flickr (and I'd hoped Facebook, but I keep getting an error message :-( ). Here's one set I made from a bunch of beads last week. I love the classic reaction of turquoise and ivory and rather predictably, have called them Classico...



I don't know if maybe I need to move away from dotty beads again for a spell and re-visit the sculpted focals I so enjoyed making at the end of last year...



To be honest, it seems the case that when I sit at the torch, I'm subconciously driven to making a set of dotty beads, or a tree bead, or a sculpted focal before my conciousness engages and even realises it. I find I can't "force" myself into making a specific type of bead, I can't sit down and say "Right, I'm making this kind of bead today" because I usually end up with a jar full of water and frit. Maybe that's lack of discipline, I'm not sure. It is interesting though. I stand in front of my rack of glass, pulling out colours not knowing what is to become of them... Maybe that's all part of this glassy madness!