BTW

No, not by the way, which is what I thought it meant when it started appearing on some of the other jewellery blogs I read. It's Bead Table Wednesday! There's a Flickr group full of photos that jewellery designers, bead makers and the like have taken, well, of their workdesk every Wednesday - and I thought that now I'm finding a bit of time to get out into the workshop that I'd jump on the band wagon.

My desk is it's usual messy self as you can see. I do tidy it up every now and then, honest, but then I start working on four projects at once (so I can sand one while the others are cleaning in the pickle pot etc) and organised chaos rules again! If you look closely though you'll be able to see a couple of magazine projects in the making and a pendant waiting for it's stone to be set.

Reasons to be cheerful

In no particular order....

• The sun has been shining beautifully for nearly a week now - and I find it very difficult to be anything other than cheerful when the sun is shining!
• We had a lovely afternoon today walking through part of Southampton Common taking part in a treasure hunt raising money for the Wessex Cancer Trust.
• Jamie is sleeping for longer between feeds at night now - thank God! I'm sure that my memory of the first few months of Ben's life was sanitised somehow - otherwise I may have had second thoughts if I'd remembered how little sleep we got at first!
• I've been able to spend a little time in my workshop over the last few days, mainly finishing off a couple of pendants and a magazine project. It was so good getting out there again! Very theraputic!
• The potted miniature rose bush that Ben gave me for Christmas has one beautiful deep red rose in full bloom.
• I finally managed to get to back to the craft group that I first went to last November - I went to one morning and then couldn't make any more until last Friday as T needed the car, then it was Christmas, then Jamie was born and then, well, I was slightly busy with other things! I had a lovely morning, even if I did spend far more time feeding Jamie than knitting!
• And last but definitely not least...

They got all of the cancer!

All the tests carried out after my surgery last month show that the cancer hasn't spread.

It hadn't even spread to the lymph nodes that they took out as a precaution.

This means that I don't need to have radiotherapy, but I will (like all cancer patients) have to go back to the hospital for regular check ups for the next five years or so.

Thank you all of you for all of the good wishes that you have sent - and to those of you who emailed to double check that I'm ok as I hadn't posted for so long! I've been doing well, just busy juggling having a new baby with hospital appointments for physio and speech therapy. I'm getting tired easily, but that's only to be expected. My speech is coming on really well, and I'm hoping that it will be good enough to teach again sooner rather than later. So watch this space for a couple of workshops in May and June!