Monday 30 September 2013

Hello from Belfast!

Well, I feel a little embarrassed stopping back in here....every post of late seems to begin with an apology about not having blogged for an absolute age, and here I am, beginning another post with the same apology! Ah well. That's what happens when you move house, city and country after a manic summer of work and (a little!) play. 

Rather than try and catch you up on every single thing that has happened since I last stopped in here, I thought I'd share a few highlights of the past few weeks.


  • Moved over to Belfast, driving from England, through Wales, onto a ferry to Ireland, driving up to Northern Ireland. 
  • Moved into our very large, rented, furniture-free house with 4 bedrooms. 
  • Slept on an air mattress for 4 nights.
  • Ordered some furniture. Discovered that things take a lot longer to reach N Ireland than England or central-belt Scotland. 
  • Discovered that running a handmade jewellery business and supplies shop is particularly challenging without a surface (other than the floor) to work on.
  • Celebrated when a real mattress and sofa turned up.
  • Celebrated even more when we discovered a charity furniture shop down our road.
  • Wondered why it takes 2 weeks to get internet in a new house. 
  • Discovered that thankfully our new street has many cafes with WiFi.
  • Found some nice places to go out for food or drink.
  • Got puzzled by the new (to us) licensing laws. I don't always want to have to have a meal when I just want to go out for a quiet glass of wine.
  • Went back to Manchester and did my last day of school teaching...
  • After singing my last BBC Daily Service....
  • Won a pub quiz with my friends back in Manchester....
  • ....and cried a lot at leaving them all again. A lot.
  • Flew back to Belfast and discovered that lovely Helen had bought me a big desk and comfy chair to work at.
  • Celebrated when WiFi arrived at our house and I could stay at home to work during the day. 
  • Discovered that, introverted as I am, it's quite challenging living in a city where you don't know anyone apart from your partner, especially when you work at home all day.
  • Resolved to get out and about more. 
So, in a nutshell, that's 'my Belfast' for you! I have decided I need to go out for lunch/a cup of tea by myself a few times a week, and also am going to try and find a class or two to join - Yoga, or maybe even an Irish literature class or such like - if I can find one! Nothing with too much homework, but it would be nice to meet some new folk. I think because we know that this is most likely just for a year, it's hard to push ourselves to be too sociable, as we know that we aren't putting down permanent roots....but still, it would be good to have people to meet up with every now and again!


As for Curious and Songbead...well, after my extremely busy Songbead Summer, it was time to pour my efforts into The Curious Bead Shop for a bit! A new order of beads arrived last Monday (always thrillingly exciting for me!) and I spent last week photographing, editing, listing....followed by packing, packing and more packing! Here are some of the yummy new glassy goodness that's currently and freshly available in The Curious Bead Shop:


Finally, this weekend I was able to sit down and do a little designing and creating....it genuinely felt like it had been a long time! I have had various commissions and magazine projects to work on (including one for this Wednesday - eek! They always come around so quickly!), but nothing just for me, so to speak. Here's what I came up with:





Cute, huh? I love Heather Millican's new word pebbles. They are such lovely colours and textures, and I always love the phrases she stamps her beads and pendants with. 

The lower two (red Lucky and Love Bravely) have both sold, but at the moment teal Lucky and Free Bird are still available, and I will be listing them in my etsy shop shortly.

Anyway, it's one of my new week's resolutions to blog more often. Short and sweet is the way to go, I reckon! I hope you are all well and you haven't given up on me.....I'm still here and cheered to be back blogging!

x x x


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