Rocks n shells

Foot better, now fully self employed making delightful things and I have finally turned to the wonderful box of rocks and shells sent to me by my good friend Clym. Wow. I can't wait to work with them. I think some of the shells will become part of a mirror, along with some glitter, and the rocks have holes! Natural beach beads how exciting. They will go really well with my enormo collection of pebbley semi precious beads. Ooh *claps


hands*


From my mobile ;)

Post-op Bunion operation picture (look away if squeamish!)

I thought I'd put this up because I completely failed to find any pictures on the internet of the exact operation I had. So- here is before, and of 3 days after and a picture of my cyber-boot. Its a lapidus bunion surgery operation, or base procedure, more "serious" than the scarf osteotomy (when you can walk a week later) and involving screws and a plate and 6 weeks on crutches. I thought it would be clever to take a picture of my foot with the dressings off in hospital, and promptly almost faintedl. Feeling faint on crutches is NOT wise. I felt most embarrassed! Anyway, here are the gruesome pics in case you are about to have surgery and wondering what it will be like. The answer is- you won't feel very much because modern nerve blocker injections and pain pills are excellent. But not being able to go anywhere without crutches and stonking great cyber-boot is frustrating in the extreme. So there you are. Today I am mainly missing the codeine, it was ever so floaty and nice!!

Happy Feet

I've just had a bunion on my right foot straightened- indeed, removed. General anaesthetic was fun and I'm now zonked on codeine and writing this in a bit of a haze. It hurts but not much. See pic. I'm very excited to to see the foot itself when the bandages come off briefly tomorrow. Meanwhile its a somewhat epic journey up and down the stairs to the bathroom. Everything seems to be an effort......can't wait to wear normal shoes though....zzzzzzz

It must be May

It's pouring with rain today but yesterday it was perfect Mayday Garland weather


From my mobile ;)

New hair!

New dreads and cyberlox for Hastings!


From my mobile ;)

Blue skies without aeroplane trails. Suddenly it's peaceful.


From my mobile ;)

Clocks from my earlier years

I used to go down to Covent Garden with my grandmother to see the water clock and I had forgotten it was there. I looked upwards and it's still there, but alas not working. This picture of it was taken with my phone and treated to a "Lolo" effect using an app called Camera Bag. Why is it not working? One of the metal characters used to randomly water passers-by. Surely it's a public work of art and therefore worth maintaining? It looks sad, still and quiet, even in the sunshine.

From my mobile ;)

Spring! The grass is riz.

Wow the sunshine is really cheering me up today. Tree blossom and warmth- East London seems unusually inviting. I have even got a new whizzy blog thing for my (ahem) iPhone. I have lost 10lb of blubber and I am looking forward to summer without a wedding to plan! In other blog news I really ought to update Grilla Styling. Thing is, I got so fat I didn't like my pictures, oops! Perhaps summer will lend all my projects a new lease of life. Ah, that must mean I need a new notebook ....


-- Post From My iPhone

telephonic joy and sadness in rice

Last week I returned a phone that I had found on the ground to its grateful owner. She is from Taiwan and she gave me these gorgeous little biscuits with my name in Kanji on them. She told me I was a wonderful person. I always think that any person would try to return a 'phone that they found, but obviously the real world doesn't work like that. It was a charming little ivory and gold Sony Ericsson phone and I searched her texts to find numbers of friends who may know her, tracked down her lecturer and found out her email address. I felt very nosey! Yesterday I put my (purple) mobile through the washing machine by mistake. Its sad little wet oblong face is blank and black. Placing it in a bowl of raw rice (thanks Google) for 12 hours at first appeared to partially revive it but it is now once more defunct. I'm lucky to have isync and a memory card so I've lost no data but it feels, in a small way, as if I've lost a friend, and found one. To have been able to give the gift of someone's phone back with all its precious pictures, numbers and messages from family is of far more value than losing my own phone which is just a lump of purple plastic/metal without its data. The biscuits are probably made of rice, too. Isn't it strange how the funniest things are linked. As luck would have it I'm due an upgrade so It'll be hello HTC Hero. I wonder if I can write applications for it in Python? hmmmmm

New year (again)

Well here is another year, and more importantly another decade. I feel like I've left the last ten years behind...officially! I find all the conversations about when the date "actually" is, whether there is a Year Zero, etc, tedious. I find this particular date handy to hang a feeling of closure on, and it feels good to me. The picture is from Udevalla in Sweden where I finally went to visit Paul.... at minus 15! Snow boots minimised the#uksnow disruption for me and worked perfectly in Sweden too. Thank goodness.

The best thing that has happened to me lately is getting a brilliant new job. 2009 was a whirlwind- moving house (of course- I do it every year don't I? did I? hmm can't remember) purple wedding, my job at BAC ending, and I'm now working and training at the same time in Flash animation and various bits of code. This is probably the first job I've ever had thats a perfect fit for my capabilities- I'd always thought I'd left it too late when I stopped programming in Basic in 1980-whatever at primary school to catch up- it appears not. I've always somehow regretted not going down the Computer Studies route... thought as my friend Paul pointed out, he likes to think of me as his friend the jeweller...not his friend the computer programmer! I suppose I'll always be a metalworking girl and aspiring gemmologist at heart, but the pure detail and predictability of code, plus of course its visual manifestation in Flash, is right up my street and I've never been happier...in fact I actually look forward to Mondays! I bet there are not many people who can say that.