A Trip Through Welney

   This morning was a warmer, brighter and calmer one, so this old bead maker enjoyed his normal morning cycle without the hand warmers stuffed into his gloves or extra socks. The trip included a few more fen villages one of which was the village of Welney, a village I often cycle through on my longer journeys. Welney is an interesting village situated immediately west of The Old Bedford river with the well-known Wildfowl and Wetland Trust reserve just a mile or two from the centre of the village.

The parish has the perfect stop for cyclists with the village pub (The Lamb and Flag), serving hot and cold food. St Marys church stands proudly on the main street leading through the village and the bridge spanning the river is an ideal spot to stop for lunch on a summer day.
   Welney was once famous for it's Ice-Skating bosting a world champion and many British champions and still have a skating club to this day.

   All in all this wonderful little fen village is well worth adding to your cycle route and the locals, of course, have that great fen humour which is always matched with a smile.

The Village of Christchurch

   I promised to tell of the villages I cycle to or through while putting the miles in for exercise and I thought I would start with one of the closer villages to my home, the lovely quiet parish of Christchurch. The village is not the biggest you'll find here in the fens but it seems to have a great community spirit and I find the parishioners are really friendly. The village boasts a wonderful brick built Victorian church (The Church of Christ) which was my stopping point on the first months of my cycling.

   The village has a nice modern village hall/community centre at which a coffee shop is held every Monday morning, run by some of the residents and selling home baked cakes as well as coffee and tea.

   There is one public house in the village called the Dun Cow which sells beer from the famous Elgood's Brewery. It also has I'm told a very friendly atmosphere and is the landmark for a locally run Fish and Chip service on Friday evenings. The village has its own primary school and preschool, but sadly the one village store as now closed.
   All in all a very nice fen village and one I enjoy cycling through on my way back home from my many trips.

Back At My Flame

   It was so nice to be back working my flame today, after two days off it felt good to be there beside my kiln while a wonderful winter world lay outside, at times I could stop looking out the window. There is something very special about snow as kids it always excited us and still when adults there is a tiny piece of that excitement inside us all, even on a grey cold looking day like today.

   It was a spacer day for me, I need lots more sets to place in the shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/pebbledreams after spacer beads sales were so high last month, I've always said I want one of the best selections of spacer beads on Etsy and boy that's what I'm going to have. At the moment I sell sets of both twenty beads and ten beads but now I'm really thinking of selling smaller sets of say six beads, some customers don't always need ten or more spacers so this would give them the option of buying more different colours without breaking the bank.

   While on the subject of spacer beads I still hear customers moan about the ridiculous prices some bead makers charge for spacers, some even charging around £1 per bead. Now I don't care who you are, how famous you think you are or how stunning your main beads may be, to charge customers £1 for a plain colour spacer bead is not right, it's unreasonable and just unacceptable. I guess some bead makers are just out to make money or are what some of us call bead snobs but hey, come on, spacers can take literally seconds to make so behave and sell them for a reasonable price.

Snow and Snow Dragons

   The last few days have been rather cold, freezing cold winds and snow have kept temperatures well below freezing here in the flatlands. I decided to take two days off work, it was mighty cold in the workshop, nice to look out upon the snow but bloody cold and I had been working long hours for the last few weeks so well earned if I do say so myself.
   With the white cold world around me, the thoughts of snow dragon beads came to mind and I think it took all of two minutes to select the glass and start experimenting, the results seen below and now listed in my Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/pebbledreams I'm pleased with the way they look and will I'm sure be making more in the future.

   The shop is now once again at the 500 item mark and as I've stated in the past the target for 2018 is to reach 700, it will mean a lot of work but I'll give it my best.
   On the cycling side of things, I have decided to start placing a post here telling of the different villages I visit this year, starting with the more local ones while the colder weather is still hanging around. This week I have missed four days cycling because of the snow, wind and ice but I hope to get out again this weekend, fingers crossed.