At last!!!

For some horrible reason I have been unable to publish new posts on my blog over the last few days, so that coupled with the fact that I haven't been too well - again - has been the reason for my absence. I've been able to edit old posts (not that I needed to, but I wanted to see if I could or if I was locked out completely), moderate comments and draft posts, but not actually publish them. VERY frustrating!! But this evening the problem seems (touch wood!) to have gone, just as mysteriously as it appeared.

I had written several posts about what I've been up to over the last week, both in the garden (the sun reactivated my usually dormant gardening gene) and in the workshed, and with my boys, but it seems a bit daft now to publish them as they're out of date, so instead here are a few random thoughts covering the last week or so!

• I am ridiculously proud of of having finally planted the empty flower bed in the back garden! B helped - well, when I say help, his contribution was to help choose the plants, play with his cars in the soil and play on the swing. But his company made the job far more enjoyable! There are quite a few clusters of summer bulbs hidden under the earth as well, and I'll add more as time goes on. Next on the list to tackle - a vegetable bed!

• I am also ridiculously proud of the latest Beads and Beyond issue! It's been a while since one of my pieces has been the main feature on the front cover, and this month my Fiesta necklace not only is the main feature but also has inspired the magazine cover colours! I've got another project in there this month as well as Fiesta. Spiced Honey is a 5 page project at the front of the magazine. I didn't (surprise surprise) have time to photograph it before sending everything off, but the magazine's main photo is much better than any I could have taken so here you are!

• This last week has also been really busy for teaching - college classes Wednesday and Thursday evenings, very successful Keum Boo Taster Workshop on Saturday (the feedback tells me it was successful so I'm not blowing my own trumpet!). Didn't have time to take photos of what the students made, though, so I'm going to borrow a couple of pieces back to take photos of them!
  

• Had a great trip up to London last Monday with my City and Guilds college class to have a tour of the Assay Office to see how the hallmarking and assaying is done. It was really fascinating to see everything in real life, and fun to spend more time with my class. I've taught them for over a year now - in some ways the time has gone really quickly but in many ways it seems as though I've known them for years. I will be very sad when the course finishes in May. I just hope that we can find a way of continuing classes somehow. If only I had a bigger workshop then I could teach them all here!

• Had just as much fun with the class today - we spent the whole day enamelling! I took some awful pictures with my iphone (took my camera, forgot the memory stick - dumb!) that I'll sort out for later in the week, probably for after our Thursday evening class as we'll be enamelling again then. Poor girls - they've spent two evenings and two whole days with me in the last 9 days!

• T and B went to a Science Week event at the Oceanography centre today while I was working and had a fantastic time. B has come home with a few souvenirs including a penguin shaped magnet that he loves so much that he's taken it to bed with him!
• T is out having a curry with a friend so I've just watched Twilight - it's been sitting on the shelf for a week since arriving from Lovefilm, waiting for me to have an evening to myself so I could see what all the fuss is about. Let's just say that I now definitely understand all the fuss and am now off to Amazon to see how quickly I can get the books delivered!
  

Night all! Back with some photos and workshop news tomorrow!