Holiday adventures (first and second day)

M and I decided to take our first proper holiday for a few years and head down to Cornwall with the Uberhound and the caravan. I had pre-booked tickets to the Eden Project and we were looking forward to being away. So we got up early Monday morning and packed the caravan up and headed down to Cornwall. We sailed down easily until we got to the last twenty miles or so, and then the roads started to narrow. They got narrower and narrower, and at one stage a big Land Rover came bombing round a corner and forced us onto the wall at the side of the road which ripped part of the caravan edge off; look what a mess they made of it!

And then to make things worse, we burned the clutch out on the car trying to get the caravan freed; who knew that the roads in Cornwall were so steep! We limped the last little bit to the caravan site and sat stunned for a while. What could we do? We were in the middle of nowhere, literally. Our car didn’t work, we had the caravan, and the mobile coverage was limited. We decided to see if there was a local garage first that the farmer recommended but we couldn’t do that until the morning. So we had a glass of wine, to calm the nerves you’know, and watched the sunset while I journalled the days events in my art journal.

We spent the rest of the night stargazing. We were looking for Mars which was supposed to be huge tonight, as big as the moon, but it looked regular size to us. We had the telescope, but failed miserably to line it up with any of the stars shining above us. And there were millions! Much more than we could see at home with all the urban light pollution.

It rained all night and I’m hoping that the caravan doesn’t leak with that edge ripped off, but we can’t do anything about that at the moment. We rang the garage that the farmer recommended the next morning but they wouldn’t have the part until Thursday, so we rang Green Flag, our breakdown company, and they came and picked the car up, and M went with them to the garage where he rang me to tell me that it was going to cost around £500 to fix the car and we wouldn’t have the car for another day or two! So we’re sitting here now, in a caravan in the middle of nowhere. The view is beautiful but I’d rather be out and about.

I hope the rest of the holiday is better than this!

Fairy forty fun

So my very good friend Ally recently celebrated her fortieth birthday and to make her birthday magical, she decided to have a fairy themed fancy dress party. I made her a Pagan candle goblet for her gift, with the triple moon symbol on…

and for the party bags I made each of us a shooting star from polymer clay.

The polymer clay was a blend of glittered white, translucent and glow in the dark clay all swirled together and strung on beads with a shining tail. The stars were wishing stars, and the instructions were to make a wish and then hang it in your window, and if the wish was granted, the star would shine at night.

I ordered some new ears especially for the occasion! I think they look pretty cool and actual everyone said that they really suited me…should that be worrying?

Everyone made the effort – these were early photos, unfortunately missing a few fairies who flew in late.

Linda who is in the turquoise and purple dress made this absolutely stunning fairy cake…

The birthday fairy opened her present and we had pass the parcel and party games, and party bags to go home with!

Who says nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty?

Blogoversary winner and Barefoot Festival

*Drum roll*…..the winner of my third blogoversary giveaway is Holly B, she was carefully selected from the list of partygoers by the Halfling, aka Pippin, and the very thoughtful gifts that she bought to the party were a set of magical knitting needles and crochet hooks so that I would never have to rip back anything again. A very useful gift!  Holly, if you can send me your address, I shall be sending you a gift shortly.

So what else have I been doing? Well, I’ve finished teaching summer school! Hurray! Six long weeks but it’s over now! I really need a break now, I feel like I’ve been working non-stop all year! Anyway I finished on the Thursday night, whipped up some bunting from an old dress, some ribbon and Sergei (my new overlocker). The old dress I had was black, so I used red thread to contrast, and then I drew chakra symbols on alternating flags using dimensional fabric paint.

Then my friend Viv and I packed up her van on Friday morning and travelled to deepest Loughborough to the Goddess Camp, now known as the Barefoot Festival, a festival of dance and music.

Viv and I were volunteering for our tickets, so we pitched up (I was in a tent) and we headed to the gate to do our duty. Armed with Hi-Viz jackets and radio’s we bossed all the wanna-be Goddesses off to the appropriate camping and parking locations. 

Friday night was good fun, we joined in the Ceilidh dance night, lots of Irish and English folk dancing

There was also drumming, and a Capoeira group

We did lots of workshops including Bollywood fusion, Tai Chi, Tribal dance, African dance, Heavy metal tribal fusion, Bangra, loads of fun things.

Viv learnt to Hula hoop.

There were Morris dancers

And on Saturday night there was a big show, with lots of dancers, belly dancers, African dancers, burlesque dancers

There was also a stunning fire display with fire poi, fire hoops, fire staffs and fire breathers.

The weekend was fabulous and we made some great friends.

Happy Third Blogoversary!

*Drum roll* Samsara would like to invite you to her Third Blogoversary Party! Please make sure that your wings are liberally sprinkled with faery dust as otherwise I can't promise that you'll be able to fly after sampling some of this wonderful cake!

There are acorns full of nectar wine on the lily pads over there, faery cakes on the toadstools by the Magic Faraway Tree, and later on we'll be dancing in the moonlight to the magical music of the Forest Elves in the big faery ring by the Grotto.
There will be a special prize to one faery tonight, one very lucky faery chosen at random, in honour of this memorable occasion (three is such a lucky number!). The gift will be a surprise, selected specifically for the winning faery and all you have to do my gorgeous faery friends, is to tell me what magical gift you have brought to the party, it doesn't have to be for me, it can be for everyone at the party, or everyone in Faeryland! Please leave a way for me to get in contact with you should the Halfling pick your name out. The party will continue for for one week (till the Eleventh of August) after which Pippin will chose the winner.
Thank you my wonderful faery friends for accompanying me on my journey through life, I hope you continue to travel with me :-)

Summertime rolls

Well, the last couple of weeks have been non-stop; teaching summer school and running various entertainment for the under-sixteen's out of school hours, plus escorting minors (the under-age kind, not the underground kind!) to the airport. There has been lots of sickness though; there is a Cough circulating round the student hostels and this morning I feel a little cough-y and sore throated as though I might be coming down with it too. The Swine Flu is a big concern here in Britain, we have lots (hundreds of thousands) of diagnosed cases but no-one’s sure if that’s because people are being diagnosed by phone with medication being collected by a nominated healthy person. There have been quite a few deaths here as well, though mostly people who have lung problems like asthma or immune problems. M and I are trying to avoid it of course, as he’s asthmatic and I have Lupus, so we’d be buggered if we caught it! Suspected cases amongst the students have resulted in the potential invalid being kept in isolation! The students have been quite sweet this year, look what I received from one of the Russian students:

It’s a lovely painted and lacquered spoon and a big bar of Russian chocolate! It’s difficult to see here but the wrapper on the chocolate is all metallic bronze and gold, with beautiful little embossed ivy leaves scrolling round the edge. I don’t really want to open it, it’s so pretty! And I’ve lost a stone and a half, so I don’t really want need the temptation at the moment. It was bad enough that I discovered Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food half price in Tesco's! I met up with the girls on Wednesday; another potential diet disaster - we went out for lunch and I’d made a deal with myself that if I walked there and back, I could eat what I wanted. Needless to say the day was dreadful! Black skies and torrential rain and my route to the restaurant was a half hours walk through the fields and across the canal! But a deal is a deal, so I popped on a pair of jeans under a dress and headed down. We had the meal (lovely), popped to the local craft superstore which was conveniently near, and then into a big clothes store where we challenged each other to dress in bad taste outfits in the dressing rooms which was hilarious! By the time I got home though, the driving wind and rain (and my desire to keep my lovely craft papers dry) had resulted in me being absolutely saturated! The jeans, being naturally too long for me because I am after all a short arse, had acted like wicks and had soaked up not only all the rain falling on me, but also all the rain in the puddles!  

All this work has meant that I’ll be financially solvent for the summer though and not completely brassic! M and I have actually booked our holiday this year! It’s been over two years since we’ve been away for anything longer than a couple of nights. We’ve booked a pitch on a working farm that has five spaces for tents or caravans. It’s an idyllic spot in the Cornish countryside near Liskeard. We’re gonna visit the Eden Project, some tin mines, the Carnglaze slate caverns, Tintagel, stone circles, aquariums, we’re going to walk along the craggy Cornish coastline and explore some quaint little fishing villages! I can’t wait! Cornwall is one of my favourite places in England!

Crafting wise, I had a moment of weakness people! I blame ...ummm…..the bad weather! Yes, that’s it! The weather! It’s been dreadful here! So what have I done? I present my moment of weakness:

Tada! I bought a new overlocker! *whispers* She’s not really new but don’t tell her! She’s a Janome MyLock; old, but she works perfectly. She needed a bit of a clean up, poor old thing, she’d been left in a right old state, very grubby and full of fluff, so I’ve given her the once over, and as soon as I get some oil, I’ll give her a bit of a service too. I’ve been getting to know her and getting a few alternation jobs done, t-shirts (mostly necklines, sleeves and hemlines) and various items of clothing have been beautifully (and almost professionally looking) reconned. Oo I actually started a sort of apron top too, only I’ve run out of black thread now, so I have to wait till I’ve been shopping to finish it! I actually went to get some thread yesterday because she can’t half eat through reels of cotton, and spotted a bargain bin full of Gutterman threads at the low low low price of 25p! So of course, I just couldn’t pass up that opportunity! Forgot to get some plain thread for the overlocker though!

When I got to the tills, she charged me just £3.50 for all these! Don’t they look beautiful all lined up in a row there!

I’ve been working in my garden alot recently and I’ve actually been knitting & crocheting too! I’ve done a little more of my garden blanket, a little more of my BPT and some of this:

A secret project! More will be revealed soon! I’ve been working on some stuff for the IYP (Invite Your Partner swap on Craftster) and drawing up ideas for my partner Javede! Naughty me, I signed up for the Sealife swap too on Craftster; all those hours playing Endless Ocean on the Wii have influenced me I think! Right, time to sign off for the evening, M and I have the Grudge 3 lined up for our Sunday night viewing, and I think Pippin has reserved my lap for recuperating purposes; she got a slapping last night from one of the local bullyboy tomcats and her front leg is swelled up and sore today! I’ll leave you with last nights sunset!