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. 

Playing With Dragons

   Like most bead makers I guess I often have periods of time when I become a little addicted to a certain style or type of bead, usually when I'm either working with a new idea or as with the case now when I'm trying new colours with a favourite design. A lot of my customers will by now realise how much I enjoy producing my "Dragon Scale" beads and other the last week or two it's these that I've been playing with, no design changes but I have experimented with different colours. I've always made the green and blue dragons but until now have never really given other colours a chance and now I'm just trying nearly every colour I have, so far only a few living up to expectations but those which have I'll introduce into the Etsy shop every few days, so keep an eye out if you enjoy using beads with a difference.

   I'm having great feedback from customers who are enjoying the frit and wave sets I'm listing, to be honest, I never really listed these beads much in past years but after having several requests for them I thought it was a good idea to place them in the shop and boy was that the right decision. So many sets have sold and I must admit they really add a great amount of colour at a time when a lot of designers are making jewellery for spring and summer.
   Some of the sets are made up of different sized beads allowing the customers to use them in many more different situations. Other sets are made up of a number of beads all measuring the same, which is the common way of selling sets and most are sold in sets of odd numbers.

   So the Etsy shop is fast growing into a very nice selection of beads with a wide range of beads being added most weeks, More trio sets and earring pairs will be listed this coming week and of course yet more spacer sets in many different colours.

Storms, Gales and Damp Days.

   It's been a while since I posted here on the blog, the main reason being my lack of inspiration, for here in the fens of East Anglia we seem to have travelled the last three months taking cover from high winds, persistent rain and some rather severe storms. In such weather I really find it difficult to raise my levels of enthusiasm, in fact, many days were spent in the safety of my home and workshop, trying my best to ignore any worries of either being damaged.

   Now, although the temperatures have fallen and talk of snow is rife I'm starting to once more enjoy my little bead world and to be very honest the thought of looking out at the snow-covered fens while working my warm glass is one I'm looking forward to.

   On the bead side of things I've been receiving some great feedback on the new photographs I'm taking and the more colourful glass selection, I guess while witnessing such a grey damp winter I was longing for spring and summer and this showed in the choice of colours I've been using.

   A good mixture of bead types are now sitting upon the shelves of my Etsy shop, both stone effects and many new brighter beads are pleasing the customers and sales continue to do well. I've been working hard on the Snakeskin and Dragon Scale beads with new colours being produced most weeks and of course the "Turquoise Mine" beads seen above are fast becoming a great favourite with customers, I just hope I get to see how they are being used. So now I'm back up and running I'm sure you'll soon be getting fed up with all the bead pictures I'll be posting.

   Enjoy the snow everyone and keep safe an warm this coming week. 

Quiet Drove, Bulrushes and Pumping Stations

   This week I chose Tuesday as my long cycle day and another first for me as I headed off towards the small village of Pymoor. The village is around 16 miles from us so a half decent all round trip of 30 ish miles, not the longest of journeys but another fen village I had yet to visit.
   Like most trips I found myself passing through some wonderful fenland countryside, those long straight drains that seem to stretch for mile after mile and of course the water meadows that ease the risk of flooding every winter and all lit by the low morning sun. Heading along "Hundred Foot Bank" which follows the "New Bedford River" was as ever a feast of virgin sights for me, one such sight was a stunning old pumping station with some really interesting stone plaques upon it's wall.

   Uncovering these small hidden treasures of fen history is fast becoming a great pleasure for me and the miles seem to pass with far less effort. It was soon after passing this old station that I noticed the great sight of bulrushes, without fail seeing these reeds always brings memories of my mum flooding back, she used them in many autumn flower arrangements, sometimes in high glass vase with dried seed heads, willow and thistles and at times just alone in bunches. I remember watching her cut the stems to length and the way the bulrush heads (pokers as we kids called them), would over the weeks start to turn into fluff as if shedding their skin.
   So into the small village of Pymoor I rode, very quiet little parish, I never saw a soul walking the streets, I guess the lack of shops etc is gradually turning these small settlements into "commuter villages" rather than the once self-sufficient communities of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. 

 
    All in all a very enjoyable trip and yet another small fen village crossed off my list, now trying to decide where to go next but until then the same 20 mile cycle each morning. 

All In Just Five Days

   Once more the pumpkin harvest ruled the fens for the last few weeks, there are two main signs here in the flat lands that winter is arriving, firstly the pumpkin fields are alive with action and secondly the sugar beet crop is being lifted and indeed both have been prominent.
   Every year I'm amazed at the efficiency of the pumpkin harvest, being out cycling every day I note how the fens change and the pumpkin fields are by far the quickest to change, the three pictures below were taken within five days of each other and show just how fast the wonderful orange crop can go from field to shop.

   Now with the mornings a little cooler and the low sun, the fens are a very different place than they were a couple of months ago, the green hedgerows are now wearing that beautiful jewellery of autumn with the golds and rusty reds replacing those bright fresh greens of summer and the many miles of open land have a real feel of a harsh few months heading our way.