My boys are back!

My boys came home yesterday afternoon! T phoned me when they were about 30 minutes away and so I was sitting in the bay window waiting for them to arrive. I managed to get lots of work done while they were gone and they had a lovely time with our friends in Wales and with Grandma and Grandad (they called in on the journey), but 5 nights is far far far too long. Heavens, what on earth am I going to be like when he leaves home?!

I did take a bit of a break from working while they were away and took the opportunity to do some stencilling in B's new bedroom too - something I'd been wanting to do since I first painted it. I've stencilled cars, trains, bicycles, tractors, boats and aeroplanes around his room and he had great fun trying to find them all. They're not quite as neat as I'd have liked (horrible bumpy woodchip wallpaper) but he likes them, that's the main thing. Ummm - I really must improve my indoor photos! Outside in sunshine ones are good, but my indoor ones look too harsh or washed out and my very simple camera won't let me change any settings. Maybe I should drop a few hints for Christmas?! Anyway, the cars do look a lot better in real life, honest!




And they brought me back a present too - a hot pot for heating my pickle! I asked T's mum if she'd be able to look out for one for me at the car boot sales she goes to, and she got one really quickly. Pickle is essential when you're soldering sterling silver as it's the only real way to get rid of the fire scale that appears after the silver is heated. Pickle works alot faster if it's warm and so far I've been using a tealight food warmer to do the job. This will be far more efficient, and look, I've been able to use it already!