Winter woolies

The local llama's came over for a cuddle on Saturday.
They have the MOST gorgeous big eyes, and lashes that most women would envy. They were having a good old sniff of my red scarf but I thought their winter woolies were far nicer than my own.

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The sun set on large cloud of smoke that came over the hill on Saturday. It looked very dramatic to have this deep orange against the blue sky with trees and hedges silhouetted against it.

I still can't see my blog properly (or comments) but I hope these posts are visible to some of you.

At the mercy of hormones

I laughed when I passed this sign yesterday, with the setting sun lighting it up in red tones.
So appropriate for a girl at the mercy of her hormones (which is why I'm not posting much last few days). The full sign says Danger, field liable to collapse, enter at your own risk.

Decisions decisions, what road should I take?

Can I get my house at least semi workable so that I can work from home. Can I handle the stresses and strains of self employment again, except this time without even having someone do it with me that understands tax forms. I'm not the best at such things, I know it's all just numbers and common sense, but it beffuddles my creative mind and stops me from doing the making type of work.

But then the making, so much pleasure to be had. I've been looking through my textiles, my lighting, my collages, my not-yet-made-but-been-saving-the-bits-for-three-years wall works and more sculptural pieces, my ceramics, my glass, my mixed media, my prints. Then there are the old favourites that are more suitable for posting- jewellery, cards, wedding invitations etc. Am I ready to do it all again? A lot of brain whirring and creaking going on round here just now.

Blogger gone crazy

I make piles of stones wherever I go.

Scary. My blog was GONE today. Than it came back, but lots of posts missing. Then gone, then back with some posts duplicated. Apologies, they made me switch to new blogger, I couldn't post anymore if I didn't agree.
I hope it will be normal soon, and I will keep posting in hopes that someone can see it. Till then Camilla posted this about TODAY...

The 1st of February 2007: Please mark your calendar: People are Participating in the biggest mobilization of Citizens Against Global Warming The Alliance for the Planet [a group of environmental associations] is calling on all citizens to create 5 minutes of electrical rest for the planet. http://www.lalliance.fr

They are asking that people all over the world turn off their lights and electrical appliances on the first of February 2007,

between 10.55am and 11:00am in Vancouver and on the Pacific Coast of North America,

1.55 pm in New York,

1.55pm in Ottawa,

18.55 for London (and i guess UK)

19.55 for Paris, Bruxelles, and Italy

Red on the road

Marley was very excited to come across the coal man delivering his black gold on our way home. I was more excited by his red truck! Love the steps up to the cab. Even the road he was on co-ordinated with his lorry.

Happy February everyone. (ps, not able to check comments just now, blogger behaving oddly, and also forced me to move to new blogger, and 2 weeks of posts disappeared, but I got them back)

Red things

Cute kitty! This is Mo, one of my little 'charges' as they used to say. He's still a kitten and very full of beans. Also pictured a red door that I saw when out with Daphne and the tail light of that VW I saw last week.

Had Marley at vet for final injection today. He was SO well behaved. We've only done his training for 5 days and already the difference is amazing. The receptionist was very impressed, but the patronising vet just couldn't be nice about it and said "he seems to be under control, for now". Pah. He's just jealous cause his tip to copntrol him was to stand on the lead so he couldn't move, whereas we want him to stay calm without having to restrain him. We win.

Camilla Halvorsen

Look what Imelda found. Great candle holder by Camilla Halvorsen from Oslo.

Silver Lining

First up, Kate, sorry, I dropped my moby and broke it! Simm is in another phone but it's so old and crap I can't text on it, but glad you got my Happy Anniversary email, and your celebration sounded wonderful!

Ok, now to the gritty stuff. I had 'the meeting' today. It was less bad than I expected in that it involved everyone that works the same shift as me, so it felt less personal when I was told I'd be out of a job as of 26th Feb. I guess I won't be having a fancy dress party for Chinese New Year after all, although things have been so hectic I may not have done it in the end anyway.

Sigh.

The up-side is that legally they have to make us redundant so there will be some sort of financial buffer, but I am scared. I already live on less money that most people would think possible. My health makes it really hard for me to get any sort of normal job anymore. I could handle it for a short time but the energy needed to sustain it would run out very quickly and the old problems would rear their ugly heads again so, long term, it would be very bad news. I need to find something that is a bit physical, stress free, part time and most importantly flexible to fit my unusual hours. And hey, creative would be good too, though nothing with deadlines as I'd just stress myself sick.

I had a fantasy about making stuff for mirrormirror but the whole self employment thing is so problematic (did it for 6 years) and Mr Tax Man never believes I'm living on as little as I amApart from anything else I have taken on Marley based on being available to look after him when L is at work.

But... despite having PMS just now I am still able to see a silver lining, I don't need to worry about getting the day off on my birthday the weekend after, yipeee! If the weather was dry I could go to the beach, I'd love that, not been this year yet and it'd be great for Marley. I can't wait to see him on the beach, he'll match the sand.

Expect to see a lot of posts in bursts, I like to blog to distract my mind from money worries. And talking of distraction Kirsty had this great cartoon here on her blog about avoiding doing your tax return.

Tagged 6 odd things

sky over the North Sea at Gullane

Finally a response to the tag by Susan at Art Esprit to tell 6 odd things about myself. It was quite hard cause most of them are written on my blog already but here are a few I may have missed...

1. I can fit my entire fist in my mouth.
My hands are not small, so this was a good party piece in my teens and early 20's. Not done it for years now. Someone once saw me pop an entire Belgian honey waffle in my mouth (you know, the big round hard ones with the honey centres, mmmmm). He said I looked like Joni Mitchell and got me to sing the 'Parking Lot' song with the waffle intact.

2. I have an area on my leg, near the ankle called a Maureen.
It's named after a neighbour* I had years ago. Long silly story, but it will be forever called my Maureen. It is a very tender spot that seems to trigger some sort of emotional trauma and I sometimes instantly and uncontrollably wail if anyone presses it, like for a massage (as I discovered during some Shiatsu).

3. I used to shut myself inside a hospital cupboard.
It was the cupboard at the Eye hospital where they kept the stick on eye patches, I loved the smell of them (similar to plasters/band aids) and so, to keep me happy during checkups or before operations they LOVELY lady Doctor used to let me get in the cupboard. This was doubley nice for me as I was super shy and liked to hide under tables so no-one would notice me. I also had a Pirate patch for a short time. It was just another example of my loving all things Piratey. I didn't know then that I'd actually been named after a Pirate Radio station (Cally is only my nickname).

4. I have 4 finger tips like an amazonian tree frog.
They are kind of spatulate, you know, like little pads. I rather like them but it is only on the 2 middle fingers of each hand. I doubt if it is in anyway connected to the fact that as a baby I spent 2 years in Navy wives housing which, it transpired, had been built over toxic land. Luckily we'd moved before I was of an age to play about on the land around the housing blocks.

5. I have 3 kinds of dried animal/bird poo in my spare room.
I have sheep, cow and owl. I know this sounds strange but the cow and sheep poo's are really just grass and are amazing colours. I;d actually like to make a necklace from the sheep poo 'beads' to hang in a frame with an illustration of the area I found it. Owl poo is interesting because when you open them up they often have dozens of tiny tiny bones inside them. Not had time to look yet.

6. I often dream in Turkish.
I learned to speak basic Turkish, in part, from daily trips into the mountains in the South of Turkey with my boyfriend's mother when I was 24. We would take the goats up to graze on prickly bushes each day when he was at work. She spoke no English so we communicated with signs, gestures and doodles in my sketchbook.

We had a lot of laughs and I massively widened my vocabulary. Books and the boyfriend (biggest love of my life) helped with the actual grammar. and though I can't recall much in waking life, it is all still there when I have Turkish dreams and I wake up remember lots of words for a few hours.

* that neighbour, Maureen, was appropriately called 'HOVIS' at school. HOVIS is a brand of sliced bread which used to be small, brown and firm - just like her (she is a big fan of putting on too much fake tan on her already olivey skin).