Say Hi to Horace

This is Horace

He lives at Stoke Rochford, a village that's a 3-4 mile drive from our home. Every couple of weeks or so, we like to walk Missy somewhere different to give her a bit of a change. This morning, we both took the morning off (oh, the joys of self-employment!) :-) I have quite alot on at the moment but nice weather doesn't come along that often at this time of year and DH persuaded me that this would make up for the umpteen bank holiday Mondays that we have simply ignored and worked through.

Horace lives by this bridge

I always take along some stale bread for him, he's named Horace after Laura Sparling's hothead torch (she has names for everything!) because he sounds a bit like a Hothead (used to make beads) whenever he hisses to let me know that I'm not dishing the bread out quick enough!

Horace shares the vicinity with these creatures:


Missy wants to chase them all (but isn't allowed to!)

There are loads of leaves, they were just dry enough to crackle when we walked over them :-)

The walk is a mixture of river, weir, mill buildings converted into business units, quiet country lanes, farmland,  a golf course and lots of old stone cottages

We pass by two war memorials which are particularly poignant at this time of year. My dad was a gunner on Lancasters in the Second World War so I find the Canadian one especially moving (look at the ages of the crew that died near here). Every year, the Canadian Air Force and RAF leave wreaths on memorial day.


Stoke Rochford Hall itself is impressive, currently home to the National Union of Teachers and you can hire the place for conferences etc. There's also an impressive monument to Newton, who was born in nearby Woolsthorpe Manor.


Over the small bridge, round the corner by the Church and we're almost back to the car


We got home just before it started to rain but we had a lovely morning.

Melted orange blossom bracelet

Here is the bracelet that I made with the encased beads that I photographed last week. It's got a mixture of two shapes of amber beads, two shapes of moonstone, three colours of 8mm swarovski crystal bicones and some swarovski pearls in the mix. Each bead has been triple wrapped with sterling silver wire onto the links inbetween the lampwork beads and so there was a lot of work involved, reflected in the price of £75.
I've been very tardy in updating my website with new jewellery, I assure you there has been quite a bit made but it's the time of year when I'm making stock like mad in readiness for the Christmas rush. When December comes, I can't make enough to keep my stall full so I like to try to get ahead of myself. In the Autumn, there will always therefore be more jewellery on my stall than on the website.

However, in the last couple of days, I have been unpacking the boxes and photographing some of the newer items and am planning on having a website updating session this afternoon (possibly the last of the year) but for the time being, I'm off out into the studio to make beads. My commute to work is such a trial .... a very short walk down the garden with cuppa in hand to my shed! :-)

Back to work

I have been away for the last week in Northumberland, we stayed in a self-catering cottage called The Haven in Bamburgh. We have stayed there before several times and it's very aptly named. The weather was amazingly good it was dry ALL week and sunny a lot of the time! Lucky, lucky us! We did lots of walking, eating and relaxing. No work, no internet connection, no mobile phones.

Missy our dog had a lovely time too - she has been in a sulk since we got back cos she isn't getting as much attention as she did when we were away! She is missing all the lovely long walks in scenery like this:
It was my birthday whilst we were there and I got loads of super presents from my family. One of which was a book on the history of Middle Eastern and Venetian glass beads. I have finished reading it and it has tons of illustrations. I have several ancient-bead-inspired ideas which I jotted down in a notebook and I'm going to get started very very soon!

I also read Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer (the third book in her Twilight series) whilst we were there and also finished off two pairs of socks! I was really pleased with the design that emerged from this Fortissimo sock yarn - isn't it jazzy?!