Category: Memories

Making fused glass

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Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

A few years ago I met a fused glass artist who showed me how to work with glass to create jewellery, bowls and other hand made craft pieces. A friend of mine helped mount the glass with wire weaving.

I wish I had learnt more about it so I could experiment more with glass. This piece was made with dichroic glass which gives it a metallic sheen. I made it into a pendant.

The trouble is that I can’t afford my own kiln so I’m limited in making things at workshops. The original glass artist moved away and it took a while to find another one, I’ve been to a couple of workshops with her and really enjoyed it.

I’m interested in doing other crafts too, like ceramics, but again there is a lot of cost involved. But I am a bit of a jack of all trades (master of none?)

I could have chosen a much more important subject to show how I have learnt from experience, but I’m not in the mood to consider a serious subject today.

floccinaucinihilipilification

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Or as I remember it “floccynoccynillylipification” which is apparently the longest non technical word.

What does it mean? I’ll tell you in a bit…

I couldn’t remember how to spell it, but it lingers in the mind. I must have found it when I was little (I also learnt the Greek Alphabet off by heart from the dictionary) (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, roh, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega) these may be wrong I just dragged them up from my memory.

By comparing these two things I don’t mean to indicate that the Greek Alphabet is useless! The root of many words can be traced back to the Greek Alphabet. And floccinaucinihilipilification is apparently made up of five Latin words strung together. No this post is about memory, in particular my silly and strange brain.

According to the Cambridge dictionary it means “the act of considering something to be not at all important or useful – used mainly as an example of a very long word”

It’s also considered to mean “worthless”. I hope you don’t think this post is?!

Not much

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How often do you walk or run?

When I was young I used to run in races, I didn’t have any training but I would get quiet good places in school sports day races. I was fit, I used to jump over my dad’s saw bench, using it as a hurdle in our back garden. I also used to love climbing up the swing and hanging off the top.

As I got older we would walk to places and I got good at cycling. I was able to cycle 40 miles up to my boyfriends house north of Manchester and down to my mom’s home near Birmingham.

Then I had an accident, my bike was damaged and we got a car. The car was useful for commuting to work. The repair shop which was fixing my bike lost it for a year! But I still walked around my patch at work, so I stayed fit. I eventually got my bike back, but never felt the same way.

I still walked a bit, but my health wasn’t good. I put on weight and my job changed so I was more sedentary. I didn’t realise how big I was getting until a health scare.

I lost about a third of my body weight and met a good friend. We started walking together and I started to get fit again. I was also going on walks with hubby.

Then the pandemic happened. I still walked but didn’t see friends as much. My health was not good and although I was trying, when my friend got a new job I stopped walking as much. At the time I pulled my calf muscle and ended up off my feet for several weeks. I slowly started to gain strength, but I wasn’t able to do as much. Other sad things happened and I got in a rut.

Now I’m slowly recovering from another injury. I must start walking again as soon as I can. Being stuck at home is very frustrating.

Almost a year

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Almost a year

Time has moved on

From when I heard

That you were gone

The Earth around the Sun

That shone

Has turned full circle

And flown on

Around the galaxy

So that now

We cannot ever

Return anon.

Still raw my thoughts

Reach back in time.

I miss you so

Hence this Bad rhyme

I hope that if you were to glance

At this mad poem

You’d laugh and prance

And tell me ‘chill!’

Take no heed

We must survive

Old life’s sad dance!

Painting

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Describe your ideal week.

I would spend time at my studio at Spode, painting, or drawing. My plan is to try and go back to it. I spent a few years there, then covid happened and I lost my nerve a bit. I started to go back, but health issues cropped up. If I don’t return soon I never will, but I’ve built a wall round things in my mind. If I can’t do things properly I seem to freeze up.

My ideal week will be less stressful, full of real art, not just quick digital drawings. I would then build on it, even if I was only in my studio a couple of days a week. I would try and produce more small paintings for craft fairs, but it’s about time I started doing some ‘proper’ paintings real fine art, not craft based. I just need to get my confidence back. I have good intentions but I keep prevaricating. Maybe I can have that ideal week. It needs to be soon….

I don’t

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Are you holding a grudge? About?

I don’t hold a grudge, it’s too painful, and it makes no sense. If you hold a grudge who are you harming? Yourself. Painful thoughts about someone else don’t harm them, they don’t know about it, but the worm of a grudge bores inside you and makes poison in your thoughts and harms your moods.

Oh I have held grudges before now, and for a long time, but I have it up as a bad idea. Don’t hold grudges, it’s not worth it.

Castle keep

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A real castle in Wales we visited last year. There are so many in the principality that we have visited over the years, this might be Carnarvon. This is in North West Wales but I’m not absolutely sure.

I posted this because it’s a substantial castle, mostly in ruins, a lot of them were built by English King’s to control Wales. This is why the English monarchy has a Prince of Wales who is usually the monarchs son. I’d love to go back.

Happy flowers

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Joy

Bees and hover flies pollenating the flowers, I don’t get out to deadhead them so they are going over (dying back) sooner than usual, but they are still joyously beautiful.

I didn’t realise how much the back yard meant to me ubtil this period of isolation. But I just have to look out of the back door and I see this glorious view. I haven’t taken any recent photos so I must get some before it’s too late. Have a lovely September.

Germany

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Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

I went on a wine tasting weekend once. I was on a coach trip and we visited some wineries in the Rhine region. I bought a few bottles of the lovely ‘qualitats wine mit pradicat’ I think that’s how it’s written.

We visited during a holiday weekend so some shops were shut, but everyone we met was friendly. I tried to ask for aspirin for my cold (which made wine tasting difficult). But I said ‘haben du asperin bitte’ and was told I should have said ‘ haben sie’ because ‘du’ is too familiar and only used with close family and friends?

We saw the Rhine and I think a statue of the Rhine maidens from a bridge over the river gorge. We visited a cuckoo clock shop. It was early autumn and the mornings were frosty. Tiny villages clung to the sides of steep hills above the river. It was lovely.