A nothingy but somethingy month

Twenty-eight days into June I finally get round to writing a blog post. That's rubbish, isn't it? I do have a couple of reasons for not having had much to say or show, though.

First reason is the weather. Due to the high temperatures not many beads have been forged. The shed gets unbearable by lunchtime on a hot day. When it's about 24 or 25°C outside my shed is about 29 to 30°C inside. Anything more than about 31°C in there and it's like my brain switches off and I start making daft beadmaking errors. I just do not get on with hot weather at all, never have.

On a cooler day I got a bit obsessed with making double encased beads. I wanted to make beads with an opaque cylindrical core encased with a coloured transparent and then encased again with clear but so that you could clearly see the demarcation between the coloured transparent and the clear. I managed it eventually and I worked out how to do it so that the opaque core doesn’t bleed onto the encasing layer whilst also making sure that the encasing doesn’t overshoot the core, all while keeping the opaque core cylindrical.

The effect is one of those things that easily goes unnoticed, after all, it’s just a little bead, right? I mean most people wouldn’t look twice at one of these and consider all the things that I just told you about. It’s not a fancy floral, it hasn’t got any inclusions, it’s got no silver glass – it’s a basic fat donut-shaped bead. So why bother? I think I just enjoy setting myself a bead challenge and completing it, really. Normally those challenges involve making the most simple-looking beads but simple-looking isn’t always simple to achieve and getting it right is where I get my glassy kicks.

I've made a few more of these and I'm hoping to grab some shed time this weekend to make more, weather permitting.

The other reason for my lack of anything much this month was a medical one. Half of June was taken up with worry and stress because at the start of the month I found a lump in my left boob. It wasn't there the month before and it was pretty large but totally painless. My GP's exact words were "It's bloody big!" and she recorded it as about 5cm across. Due to my naturally ‘lumpy’ boobs I had to do the whole referral to the breast clinic thing again. Long term readers may recall I did this about eleven years ago for a much smaller lump that turned out to be a tiny cyst.

Two weeks later I was at the hospital having checks, mammograms and an ultrasound. I was delighted and relieved when the doctor said it was a big cyst and there was another slightly smaller one behind it. She showed me the ultrasound screen and my boobs were just full of cysts; some really tiny, others a bit bigger. It's just these two were particulary large. I mean, you could see the bigger one through my sideboob, like an actual hilly lump. She recommended that I have the two cysts drained which I opted for. She put a needle in and drew out more fluid than I could believe. At least two eggcups' worth! Watching the cysts shrink on the ultrasound screen was like magic and the procedure didn't really hurt, it was just a tad uncomfy. I was a bit bruised and sore afterwards but it was nothing a few paracetamol couldn't handle. Now I'm left with a yellowy-green bruise but that'll be gone soon.

It turns out I have fibrocystic breasts which are caused by hormonal fluctuations. I've had them for years (they had it on my records from that last clinic appointment eleven years ago but nobody actually told me this) but my age and the nearing of menopause is making them play up now. The nurse (who, like all the staff that day, was just so lovely and caring) said there's a very strong chance that my cysts might refill and I'll almost definitely develop more. She said I'll more than likely be back to the clinic in the future for the same thing but she told me exactly what to look and feel for and how long to wait before kicking off the whole referral process again. I left with leaflets and instructions to tell my sisters that they may well be in line for this too because medical people think fibrocystic breasts can be hereditary.

Again, like last time, I cannot speak highly enough of the care and attention I received. Ladies, make sure you do your monthly breast checks and make sure to see a GP if there's something you are concerned about. My cyst grew that big within one month (apparently they can develop very fast) so know your boobs and get any anomaly checked out if and when you discover it.

More socks have joined the finished sock pile and I still haven't photographed any! I'm still working my way through The X Files (I'm halfway through season six) because honestly, getting lost in 1998 is oftentimes preferable to actually being in 2025.

That's all for this one. The laptop is making my lap hot. This weekend and start of next week look to be very warm so I hope you can stay cool wherever you are and if you're a sun-loving type, enjoy it.

See you later!