Jewellery

This is one of my businesses that I'm setting up.  I really don't feel like a business person, but nevertheless...
I heard someone say once that people should find out what they love doing and get someone to pay them for doing it.  Well I find it very relaxing at least, and I shall live in hope for people to pay for it!  Actually I did quite well over Christmas and am just about to go live with my website.  So there I am... sometimes I surprise myself!

Sarah, Julia, Elizabeth (and Peter if you fancy it!)... any constructive criticisms would be very much appreciated!  Or suggestions as to other designs you think would work well.

Cup-caking

This year also saw my first stab at running creative workshops.  (Bit of trouble with photos, so you may have seen these ones, hope not tho!)

I've been teaching students how to do various icing-y things on cupcakes in a tea shop on Warwick University campus.

I made a bit of money and had lots of fun.

Little bit cupcaked out by now, but that's fine as I'm sure that the craze won't last long anyhow.

Brrr!

On the subject of cold, we happened to go away for the weekend at a time when a record low was set 20 miles away from us in the Brecon Beacons.

It was really cold.

And we broke down on the way there, and had to get towed by a passing gritter (VERY lucky he was there!)
And we didn't actually get to the cottage the first night - had to hole up in a hotel
We couldn't even drive right there when we did get close - had to park up and trawl through a mile of snow with our bags
When we got there, there were dead animals in the house and it SMELLED.
Then the pipes froze, so no running water
Then the car got stuck so we had to spend hours gritting the way out by hand!


We really felt we'd 'got away' for the weekend....

Friend-ys

And here are some of the people I spend time with!  I hope you agree that I've managed to find some really flattering, sophisticated pictures to give you a really good idea.

Mike loves Google

Canley Cool (or cold..)

So here are a few pictures of where I live....
The second one is really the house next door.  But I'm close.

VERY COLD this winter.  BRRRRR!!!!!!!

AND we had our radiators set accidentally on the lowest setting.  OUCH!

There are lots of us living round about, and we do various things in the community, which is fun.  We like Canley.

Brevity

Brevity - 42 footer

On the sailing theme, then, this is Brevity, our uncle's boat (the photo's of Cowes week, from Flickr).  I went on as a passenger in the Summer, but James has done some races.  Ruth took a load of friends out from Southampton, too.  It all gets quite serious when you talk to Mark, the self-termed Sea Captain - no beard or pipe yet, but I'm sure they're coming.  He's hoping to win some races; my uncle just seems to want to get the crew as soaking as possible!

In your footsteps Sarah!

Beginnings...

Hello everyone!

I've been super-busy setting up businesses and being away, so apologies for having been out of contact for ages :-/

So I thought I'd create a mini-blog for you all to say hi and to catch up a bit, and to let you know a bit of what I've been up to.

Thanks for the bracelet, too - I love it!  Very sailing-y.