These 'Fruity' beads and more will be for sale over on my website tonight at 9.00pm (UK time) tonight.
Cor blimey it's hot in my shed today! The last few days have been nice - not too sunny and a little overcast which makes for good beadmaking conditions. This enabled me to work from about 9am to 4pm but not today. I gave in about half an hour ago when the hotness and mugginess became pretty much unbearable. So now here I am talking to you while sitting on our brand new sofa. We ordered it a few days after we moved in and a week or so later we were informed that there was a delay but it finally arrived today! I can't say I'm sorry to say goodbye to Chris's old sofa - the thing was beyond dead and it was more comfortable to sit on the floor.
Going back to the subject of the shed, I had a couple of visitors today. Not human visitors but small, squeaky types. I was sat making beads when I heard a rustling noise and then a squeak. I turned around to see Martha and Jemima at the shed door.
Jemima was nosing around the bag of guinea pig hay that I use to prop the door open and Martha came into the shed, looked at me and uttered a few 'Mweeps!' as if to say "Oh! It's YOU in here! Fancy you being in our garden!"
As you can see from the photos I am literally working in a bare, no frills garden shed. Outside the door are a Laurel bush and two massive evergreen-type trees (I don't know exactly what they are yet but I will find out) that are around about the forty year old mark. When Dad was visiting the other day we measured the circumference of one of the trunks and with some mathematical jiggery pokery Dad calculated the tree age using some complex formula that he found online. The trees mean we have a whole host of birds in the garden which is wonderful. We have a couple of very tame collared doves, some sparrows, blackbirds, pigeons, thrushes and also a massive amount of starlings. I know that some people think of starlings as pesky birds but I like them. There was about thirty of them in the garden the other day eating some food that I'd put out for them.
Tomorrow Chris and I are going to tackle the front 'garden'. This is a gravelled area that is full of weeds. It looks a right old state so we're going to just pull the weeds up which should improve it no end and then we'll work out what we're going to eventually do with the area. So it'll be yet another trip to Homebase tomorrow morning to get some gardening gloves and some kind of magical anti-weed product. I'll let you know how Project De-Weed goes .....
I have just come inside to take refuge from a hot shed as well. This is not the time to be soldering! Those beads are drop dead grogeous.
ReplyDeleteNot comfortable, is it?! It gets to the point where you're breathing in hot, muggy air which is just horrid and you have to give in.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the bead compliments!
Laura x
Lovely colours, lovely beads!
ReplyDeleteI have a similar area, gravel and kind of paved too, very old, quite higglety piggeltry but it looks goes with the cottage. I spray it with Roundup and that keeps it tidy for ages. Path Clear says that it works for up to 3 years (it doesn't!) Roundup kills the weeds right down to the roots but it's over a week before they begin to die but they don't come back. New seeds get into the gravel and cracks making it weedy again but if you keep on top of it and pick them off when they're small, you may not need to spray again. You need to keep grazing animals (guinea pigs for you, tortoise for me) away for 6 months, other pets are OK when the spray is dry. (In my old life, I worked for 5 years for a herbicide/insecticide manufacturer and so I feel I have to say this ... always read the label). Good luck!
stunning beads as always Laura and good luck with the weeding I'm winning against mine but only just!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the fab advice, Sue. I shall get some Roundup tomorrow! And I promise I will read and heed the label advice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your bead compliments, Niky!
Laura x