Do your cockles measure up?

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, how did we end up eating cockles on Hunstanton promenade on a cold, windy day in February?

In the run up to Christmas, we kind of went into hibernation concerning working on the house renovations. Last summer and autumn was all about the vegetable garden and the greenhouse. This week we have started gearing up to do some more work getting our house the way we want it. Our goals for the Spring are to finish the dining room and sort out the old bathroom and adjacent room which we call the skullery,

Here's MTM measuring the fireplace hole in order to install a new electric fire.

As part of the work we want to do in the skullery, we came across the Rustic Warehouse in West Lynn in Norfolk. They manufacture units for Belfast sinks, we wanted to see what one looks like so today we headed out to their retail shop.

The Rustic Warehouse does exactly what it says on the tin, it's a completely authentic local business without any of the national chain razzmatazz and market-speak mumbo jumbo. You meet the owner and his adorable staffy, Murdoch, in their showroom which is more of a stockpile of wonderfulness than a retail experience. My kind of business!

Whilst I fed Murdoch treats, MTM explained what we needed, the owner is going to talk to the workshop guys to see what's coming through production-wise that might meet our needs and there'll be a phone call next week about delivery times.

The thing about West Lynn is that it"s quite close to the coast, only 33 mins to Hunstanton according to the Sat Nav. I can never resist a visit to the seaside if it's close, we had Missy with us so we decided to extend the trip by half an hour and go check out the beach and give us all a bit of a treat.

Boy o boy, the wind was so cold, it made our eyes water and my ears were raw after only a few minutes! We stopped long enough to have our cockles. We then went on an ice cream hunt. You can't go to the seaside and not have an ice cream even if it is bleedin' freezing ...  sadly, we had to abandon this idea as many places were shut for the close season.

The sun came out as if to mock our no ice cream status, I'm just grateful the cockle stall was open!

How do you like the seaside in winter? 

New look and a Blogger question

I have had a bit of a tidy up and smartened up the blog, what do you think? Feels roomier and looks fresher IMHO. Website needs a revamp next! I haven't updated it for ages.

I have a query that I'm hoping other Blogger users can answer. Is there a direct route to the Dashboard from the public face of one's blog? I always click "New Post" and then "Dashboard" to see whether there are any comments needing moderation, is that how everyone else does it? I keep thinking I must be missing something as it seems daft to have to click twice to get to the most useful part of Blogger.

My visualisation strategy hasn't worked for bug preventation, I'm afraid I have succumbed to DH's cold. I have had better weekends, it has to be said! I missed the market as I was feeling too bunged up and poorly, and then my mum had to go into hospital because she dislocated her hip. I can't go see her in case I pass it on to her, it's the last thing she (or anyone else in hospital) needs. We're having a family bar-b-q round sister, Sandy's house on Sunday so we're hoping she'll be well enough for that. Get well soon, mum! xxx

Frozzed tootsies

My feet got really cold this morning. I was only out there in my converted shed for three hours, it has polystyrene and chipboard underneath the new vinyl but as I hadn't used it for 2 days, any heat from Friday's activities had long since dissipated through the insulation. Two pairs of socks and my heavy walking boots were no defence.

Here's me with my feet on my tiger hotwater bottle whilst I ate my lunch waiting for my poor frozzed toes to thaw out! Normally I would go back out there after lunch but I have retreated to the warmth of the house and am going to package up some parcels for commissions, a couple of alterations from Saturday and maybe make a necklace or two indoors for the rest of the day!

The spell I cast on 1 December has worked - Cambridge was still very green on Saturday and felt positively warm compared with Lincolnshire! There were fewer than normal Christmas shoppers around for a December Saturday - I'm hoping that next week everyone will realise there are only two shopping Saturdays before Christmas day. :-)

Back to the jewellery

I have photographed the jewellery that I made with the crocodile and marine walzer beads which I featured in the blog a few days ago. Nice to see some sunshine which enables me to get better photographs but brrrr - it's so cold again!This is just one of six new product pictures added to the Lampwork page of my website.

I didn't set up my stall yesterday at the craft market. We travelled to Cambridge but it was so icy, the roads in the town centre were treacherous, no salting at all and you could actually see the shine where the small sprinkling of snow had been compressed by tyres and feet.

It was a cocktail of things that made me decided not to stay and set up, we got diverted around some roadworks which made us late, a van nearly slid right into us at the end of Jesus Lane which although it was slow motion, that was kind of scarey, my neck was hurting and I'd forgotten to bring any more painkillers with me. It was really difficult to get out of the car, I had my big hiking boots on, they have tread on them that comes up to my armpits but it still took ages to get any traction so I could haul myself out of the passenger seat!

We saw numerous people falling over, bicycles seemed particularly vulnerable to going over (fortunately, they all got up and seemed none the worse for wear), Sharon, my sister who has the Arcturus Jewellery stall stayed and said she also saw two cars having minor accidents. It just didn't feel right and I wasn't in the frame of mind to be my usual charming and pleasant self. Half of me knows that it was the wrong decision because Sharon sold lots of jewellery and had a really great afternoon! Having said that, I'm certain she was jealous when I texted her from my other sister's home where I was warm, dry, eating bacon bagels and petting her two lovely cats, Georgie and Darcy! :-)