new obsessions, new challenges

So here we are in Autumn, a time for new beginnings and I have a new addiction... to beads. For a long time I have wanted to have a go at making a few pieces for myself and I'm so pleased with my first attempt. It's so much fun and sooo relaxing, plus you can do it while you're watching the tv. So now I've ordered some more things because I have some gorgeous crystals that deserve some silver findings.

I think it's all subconsciously to reward myself for something that has happened. Something that I have found incredibly tough to start with but thanks to my sister who took me in hand and showed me the way despite having no experience with it herself, is now starting to get easier. It's the biggest challenge I have faced in a long while. I have been put on a gluten and lactose free diet. That means anything with wheat or similar in such as pasta, bread, cakes, biscuits, anything with a small amount of wheat flour such as spicy coatings, breadcrumbs, soy sauce(!), even sausages are off limits unless they're specially made. Then there's the lactose, or anything dairy, that has had to be replaced with soya milk or rice milk products. This is the toughest thing because I miss cheese SO MUCH people! The vegan cheese that is made from tofu is just no compensation. I also miss proper creamy sauces, butter and ice cream. Bad times.

Actually, the worst thing about it right now is going out to eat or being in a social situation where there's food because I feel like a freak and so awkward that people have to cater specially for me. I've never liked being centre of attention. There has been one occasion at a family party where I've just burst into tears because of the massive spread of food that I couldn't touch. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's a weird, lonely feeling of being different to everyone else. People are being so nice though and really going out of their way to help me but I feel so awful that I'm making extra work for people. It's hard to pick up food to eat when you're out and about, shopping or something. It takes some planning ahead. I've yet to go into a restaurant and ask if they can cater for me. That makes me want the floor to open up and swallow me.

I'm sorry for moaning on and feeling sorry for myself because the truth is that it is starting to get easier, at home anyway. I'm not starving like some people in this world. I can still eat fruit, veg, meat, fish, corn, rice and potatoes. Most of the supermarkets sell 'free from' ranges which include things like pasta made from rice and even naan bread which is lovely. I have found some gluten and dairy free jaffa cakes so it's not all bad. The plus side of all this is that I'm feeling a lot better because of the change in diet. I don't want to go into too many details but let's just say the horrendous pain every month is gone and I would have done anything for that so this is a small price to pay. Plus my skin is clearer, I'm not bloated anymore and I think I might have lost a bit of weight. Good times! If you're still reading and stuck with me through this post then thanks. I try to stay away from writing posts like this but this has been so life changing for me. If there's anyone out there who has a similar diet I would LOVE to hear from you.

Now to end on a lighter note I made some Jedi costumes recently for a Star Wars party we were invited to. They took me ages and I thought I was never going to finish them but luckily half an hour before the party I finally switched the sewing machine off! It wasn't long before P was having to feel the force when he was confronted by a mini Darth Vader who was blimmin' scary. Those light sabres are fun though. They make a noise when you hit something.

Right, I'm off to play with some beads! Have a good week and thanks for reading.

**Edit** Remember those tomato plants I grew... those are some of the results on my plate! They are called Sungold and are lovely and sweet. I heartily recommend them!

**Edit again!** I've turned the comment validation off so anybody can leave their thoughts on this post. Thanks.

Isles of Scilly... part two!

Ok, so it did rain a lot when we were there but I quite like drifting off to sleep listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the tent.

The weather changes sooo fast in Scilly. You could see the rain coming most of the time when it was sunny. It made for some dramatic views.

I fulfilled a dream while we were in Scilly. I rode a horse through the water and across the beach on St. Mary's, then through the bracken on the clifftop. That was exciting!

We also went on a RIB when a force 8 was brewing. That I will never forget. I don't think I have ever screamed so much. I really feared for my life at one point as we headed out to sea and the waves were almost knocking me out of the boat. I had full wet weather gear on and was still soaked to the skin when we finished. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life. We were supposed to be wildlife watching but we didn't see much, just a couple of seals and a few puffins. I think the fella who owned it had a wicked streak and just liked to scare people!


Sparrows are very naughty on Scilly.

This one was particularly amusing. It definitely had a love of lemon cheesecake. It actually LICKED the plate!!! It wasn't at all interested in my toasted teacake.

We escaped another few hours of torrential rain in this gorgeous vintage bus called Katie and went on a guided tour of the island. It had been a bit of a crappy day and for some reason I started laughing hysterically to myself when the driver struggled to get the bus into 2nd gear and we chugged up the hill at probably no more than 5 miles an hour.

P couldn't understand why I had tears rolling down my cheeks. I think at this point the whole camping in the rain and being constantly cold and wet was really getting to me and the hilarity of being packed like sardines into an old bus with the windows all steamed up so nobody could see anything anyway struck me as the funniest thing since I don't know what.

Finally the sun came out again and we took a boat to St. Agnes where the best pub, well ok, the only pub, is called The Turks Head and it is a lovely place with great food and one of the best views ever from the beer garden.


St. Agnes has a wild feel about it compared to the other islands and we were really surprised when we stumbled upon this beach that was just one mass of pebble stacks. I couldn't help but giggle when I spotted that someone had even built one on a rock out in the water. They covered the entire shore! It reminded me of Andy Goldsworthy (Nà - I thought of you and how you would have loved it). We couldn't resist building our own stacks and found that it's harder than it looks to make them balance. Bet they won't be there after the winter storms!


Ironically it was the day after we got the ferry back to the mainland that I found the best turquoise colour I'd been hunting for!

This is my favourite beach of all time... Porthcurno near Lands End. In the winter you can pick up exquisite miniature shells here and you can often spot seals here too. Also there's the famous Minack Theatre which is carved into the rock in the clifftop near where I'm sitting in this photo. It's an unforgettable experience wrapping up all warm and cosy and watching a play while the sun's setting over the sea behind the stage.

I think this will be the last of my posts about Scilly but we are off to Cornwall again soon. I haven't been around much this summer with one thing and another but things will get back to normal around here in a month or so. I still have a lot of posts to catch up on.

Have a good day whatever you're up to.

Isles of Scilly... part one!

Well I really don't know where to start with this post so I'm starting with the birds. On the campsite where we stayed we quickly made friends with the local birds who were very bold indeed. They even ventured inside the tent! At one point we had at least 30 sparrows around us waiting for us to finish cooking! Very cute watching them feed the babies. Birds in general are a lot tamer on Scilly than the mainland. They will take food from your hand.

I did have a bad bird experience in the first 5 minutes of arriving. We were starving so bought ourselves a couple of pasties and sat on the beach. The seagulls started circling and I swear one aimed right at my pasty and dropped a bomb. It missed and hit me on the arm. Now, some people would say that was lucky.

The isles of scilly are about 30 miles off the coast of Cornwall but they have such a different feel to them. For a start, there are hardly any cars there. If you want to visit you have to leave your car on the mainland and either get the ferry which takes 3 hours or the helicopter or skybus which take something like 15 minutes. We got the ferry and were very lucky to have a smooth crossing. The week afterwards we were told that a man had to take his little girl out on the deck to be sick and then proceeded to throw up himself over his child. Even the dogs were being sick! The ferry isn't nicknamed the great white stomach pump for no reason!!
The inter-island boats are much more fun! You can spend each day on a different island if you want to and they all have very different characters.

You see lots of semi tropical plants growing in the warm climate on the islands. These were in the famous abbey gardens on Tresco which I loved. So many beautiful views there.


It's safe to safe that we didn't have the best of weather and survived a couple of force 8 gales in our tent. You don't get much sleep when that's going on! We became masters at making guy ropes out of parcel string but the tent still rocked from side to side in a very alarming way. I realised after a few nights that earplugs were the answer. Ignorance is bliss!

The whole time we were there I was on the look out for turquoise water. I have an obsession! The beaches were really beautiful with sparkling white sand. When it was hot (a couple of times) it seemed like we were far, far away from the uk.

You have to be extra careful with the sun lotion. The man in the campsite shop told us that because there's no pollution the uv light is 10 times stronger so you can burn even when it's cloudy. I spent the whole time wearing factor 20 and still looked pink. Can I just say that Johnson's lotion for kids is lovely! The smell of peaches will forever remind me of Scilly now.


The only way to get around after you've got off the boat is by walking. We must have clocked up a few miles. There is a bus service on St. Mary's but the girl in the tourist info centre told us the bus driver had been done for drink driving and when someone had tried to fill in for him, he'd ran them off the road!

You see that light on the top of the hill? That's the star castle hotel. Our campsite was beyond there. We saw a couple of great sunsets walking up the very steep hill but they're for another post I think.

Come back summer!!

Summer seems to have gone downhill here. It's all grey clouds and rain. I'm sure you've heard about the awful flooding there's been recently. We escaped luckily but reading the headlines while we were away was really shocking. Those poor people.

I've given up sun dancing and have decided to get on with my latest lino print, hoping it will inject a bit of summer back into my life. Not sure if I've made it a bit too intricate but I'll soon find out when I start carving. It's one of the old fashioned ice cream vans. A Bedford van I think.

My blog break was... mmm... refreshing? ...different? ... definitely a challenge. We had a break from life in general and went to the Isles of Scilly for a couple of weeks. In a tent. Not the best choice in this weather.
:-o
But that's a whole separate post!

Hope the sun's shining on you wherever you are.

The Little Blue Potting Shed

This place is so beautiful. It's a magical hotch potch of veggie plot, greenhouse, ducks, a shed, baskets, bathtubs, wine boxes, tea cups and cottagey type things all put together in a really imaginative way. The owners have used all sorts of interesting old things as containers for plants and flowers. It gave me so many great ideas. They have a lovely honesty stall in the lane at the front and I often see people stopped there buying their veg and eggs. Everything is labelled in chalk with little pieces of slate. It's so idyllic! Even better, I've discovered that they deliver veg boxes so I'm currently investigating further.



For the next couple of weeks I'm going dark (in the words of Jack Bauer!). I'm going to be taking a short break from the blog but will hopefully be back with lots to tell you.

Happy summer solstice everyone!

Tagged!

I've been tagged! Thanks Nà. Now I'm sitting here with my nice hot drink I'll make a start...

Three jobs I’ve had:

1. Chamber maid

2. Graphic artist

3. Graphic designer

Three places I’ve lived:

1. Cheshire

2. Exeter, Devon

3. Back to Cheshire again!

Three places I’d like to visit which I’ve never been:
1. Isles of Scilly.... soon to be rectified!!

2. Brittany, France

3. West coast of Scotland with it's islands.

Three most unforgettable places I’ve been on holiday:

1. That's easy... Pembrokeshire, Wales!!

2. Paris

3. Rome

Can I have 2 more??!!
4. Prague
5. Cornwall, England

Three things that bring me comfort:

1. My family and friends

2. Peace and quiet

3. Nature

Three of the most memorable books I read last year:

1. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2. The Food of Love by Antoni Capella

3. She's come undone by Wally Lamb

Three books that I started because I felt I ought to, but didn’t finish:
(I second Nà when when she says in honesty she's never read a book because she feels she ought to, but always because she feels she wants to.)

1. The God of Small Things... just couldn't get into this one. Was it good?

2. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemmingway... still might finish this one.

3. The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart... Really didn't like this book. Found it disturbing!

Three songs that give me goosebumps:

1. Little Red Corvette by Prince

2. Find My Love by Fairground Attraction

3. Aidia by Sarah Mclachlan... I could list so many more!

Three loved films from my childhood:

1. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
2. Stand by Me
3. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (watched this again a few months ago and it's still good!)

The last three films I saw are:

1. American Splendor (was really enjoying this until the DVD decided to stop halfway through)

2. Angel-A

3. Walk the Line

Three things I didn’t do as a child that I wish I had:

1. Realised that you really can be whoever you want to be

2. Been nicer to my parents!!

3. Joined the rowing club at an earlier age

Three things I’d like to do that I haven’t done yet:

1. Travel round the world

2. Make a fantastic veggie garden

3. Live by the sea with a lovely studio to work in.

The three people I’m going to tag with this meme:

I'm not going to tag anyone this time but please feel free to join in and leave me a message to let me know.

Pembrokeshire...

I hope you're not getting bored of my Pembrokeshire ramblings.

I never feel like I've been on holiday properly unless I've been on a boat trip. We took an evening trip around Ramsey Island to see the manx shearwaters returning home after a day's fishing, little puffins (oh so cute!), seals, kittiwakes, fulmars, black backed gulls, ravens and even some choughs which are rare in the British Isles.

Apparently I was 'made' near St. Justinian's. Thanks Mum for that information!!! I'm not sure I wanted to know that. This is the lifeboat station from the boat as we were heading out to sea. The water can get very choppy around the island and it's incredibly bracing. I could really taste the salt on my lips.

Later on we went into St. David's. Look... petals on my plate!! I think they were marigold petals, orange and yellow. So pretty! This was my starter at Morgan's - a Caerfai cheese souffle. I love it when restaurants source all their ingredients locally. I ate the petals too.

The next day we went to the very wild and romantic beach at Marloes. It has lots of little sheltered spots amongst the rocks when the tide's halfway in. Could have been some smuggling here in the past... what do you think Nà?

It's usually me who has to be rescued but for the first time ever P got stuck. There wasn't a thing I could do so I just took photos! Wicked aren't I? Don't worry, he did come down eventually.

P.s. On a completely different note I just want to say hello to my cousin, Mo. Hope you're reading. xx