Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Pandora’s Treasures…

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I’ve opened Pandora’s box of treasures!

Gorgeous beads to create individual jewellery, I handpicked all the beads for my Christmas gift this year and I love them!
I hasten to add though that I don’t actually have Pandora beads…they cost a small fortune, or at least far more than I can afford, I have a Pandora style leather bracelet to which I added my own chosen beads.
It all came about a few months ago when I began Christmas shopping. I was searching ebay for charms for Bekah’s charm bracelet and ebay was saturated with beads to fit a Pandora bracelet, so I asked Bekah if she’d heard of them. Then we googled Pandora and discovered a whole new world of jewellery!
We spent hours looking at ebay’s vast choice of silver charms and glass beads, and slowly built up a collection. The Postman wondered what was being delivered with regularity in tiny bubble wrap envelopes!
At first I bought a Pandora style necklace for the beads and a black Pandora style bracelet for my spare beads, but I soon realised, that as the wearer, you want to look at them, they’re so pretty, so I transferred the necklace beads to my bracelet. The necklace is even better now as I can choose whichever beads I want to work with my outfit!
I discovered Yummy Beads on ebay: http://www.yummybeads.com/
and loved the quality of the murano glass beads they supply, less than a quarter of Pandora’s price, but just as good if not better. Then I found Lion’s Paw Jewelry:
http://www.lionspawjewelry.com/
with the most exquisite glass beads, every one handmade and sold on ebay. More expensive, but gorgeous!
Plenty of other sellers offer prices from £1 a bead or charm, and I found some real beauties.
What I love most though, is the opportunity to create a piece of jewellery that is completely unique. My bracelet is full of beads that have a specific meaning to me…
An aqua bead flecked with gold to represent the beach, a narrow silver charm for Christmas (My favourite time of year), a lime green bead with turquoise foil for swimming, a silver book as I love to read and have written my own novels, peridot green bead to represent a gem found in one of my stories and a silver lizard from the same book, a green bead with white flowers to show jasmine my favourite scent, a silver leaf as I love autumn, red/pink flowers like roses for my mother’s love of gardening, silver paws for my dog Roxy, and cats Raven, Misty and Rusty, a red bead that looks as if it contains arum lilies one of my favourite flowers, silver ‘Love’ charm for Vince, my husband, a lilac/silver/pink triple colour glass bead for my three children, silver ‘family’ bead, brown swirl bead to represent chocolate and profiteroles! a silver snowball bead, an indigo murano glass bead flecked with silver glitter with three zircona jewels encased called ‘Orion’ this bead is for my father who gave me my love of the stars and orion was the first constellation he ever showed me, a silver and gold ‘Dream’ bead because I am a dreamer, a deep purple bead is for ‘integrity’ my strongest value and links to my faith, silver ‘Live Love Laugh’ for my beloved leather jacket and a purple flower bead for bluebells another favourite flower…

and thus I have a piece of jewellery that defines it’s wearer…
my Pandora’s treasures…

Snail Mail versus email…

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Photo by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)

So which type of post is the best?
Post that comes in the mail and drops through your letter box, or posts that appear on your social network profile?
I’m not sure I can decide…I love receiving letters…ones that land on my doormat. When you see envelopes scattered by your door a smile develops. Sometimes brown envelopes don’t have the same effect, and of course, when you open the said letters and find bills or invoices…the smile can fade just that little bit, but generally, who doesn’t like getting post through their letterbox?
I love buying from online sites, it’s easier than braving the crowds in the High Street, and has the added incentive of waiting patiently for parcels to arrive in the mail. Those little padded bags just popping through the door full of lovely surprises from ebay….just thrill me, it doesn’t take much these days!
So I love getting letters and my Postman is always cheerful!
The variety is good too, parcels, cards, letters, special offers…bills…erm, and junk mail…

So, the alternative…email and social network posting.
I’m a convert to Facebook, the first time my birthday came around after joining Facebook, I was surprised at the prolific birthday messages and they certainly put a smile on my face!
Posts online are quick, funny, short and interesting…and you don’t have to wait, they also hold the surprise element as anyone can post and say whatever they want!
Emails, again quick and easy, if perhaps a little haphazard. People don’t seem to think as much when they write online or in emails…I’m a stickler for spelling and grammer, and struggle sometimes with people’s lack of attention to these such details, especially on Facebook!
I love posting statuses online, and having the ease of writing and posting immediately.
Variety is there too…emails, posts, status updates, letters, notes, attachments, photos…and erm, spam…

But, which is best?
That is something I still cannot decide…

The Lord of the Rings as told by a Systems Administrator…

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Management: The Ring MUST be destroyed.

Sysadmin: How do you want me to destroy the Ring?

Management: It must be dropped into the fires whence it was forged. Can you do it?

Sysadmin: Yes, but…

Management: Spare me the details, talk to the Project Officer.

Project Officer (unfolding plan): The Ring is currently in the possession of the Ringbearer, in The Shire, here. We need it dropped in Orodruin, here.

Sysadmin (glances at plan): That’s easy, give me the Eagle King, I’ll have him pick up the Ringbearer in the Shire, fly across Middle Earth, and drop Frodo straight into the fires of Mount Doom.

Project Officer: You can’t do that!

Sysadmin: But it’s the most elegant solution with the least overhead and minimal downtime.

Project Officer: Well, Marketing feel it would be a better epic struggle of Good vs. Evil if you did it as some sort of land-based quest.

Sysadmin (rolls eyes, thinks for a moment): OK then, give me an army of dwarves, they’ll tunnel under Mount Doom, diverting its lava flow right up to the mines of Moria. Then Frodo can have an Elvish escort to the Misty Mountains, meet the lava half way, and drop the Ring in.

Project Officer: Mmmm, no. Budget won’t allow such an extravagant solution. We’re not made of money you know.

Sysadmin (thinks for a longer moment): OK, I can do it with just an army of Elves, but it’ll be a close call.

Project Officer: Sorry, but that’s out of the question. HR need us to represent all the races of Middle-Earth in the solution or it will conflict with our Equal Employment policy.

Sysadmin (thinks for a l-o-n-g, sullen, moment): RIGHT! Give me a dwarf, an elf, a wizard, two men and four hobbits. But first I’ll have to re-route the Fellowship via the mines of Moria, as there’s too much traffic in the gap of Rohan. Also, the firewall at Mordor means we’ll need a consultant to hack another way in – and he’ll probably turn out to be flaky. And it’ll take until half way through the Fourth Age to do it.

Project Officer: That’s too long! It has to be done by the end of the Third Age!

Sysadmin (smoke pouring out of ears): WHAT! OK, but we’ll have to do it on practically no sleep, run hundreds of leagues barefoot without rest, eating nothing but lembas to keep awake. By the time the Fellowship get anywhere near Mordor, Sauron’s army will have hacked into Gondor, and most of Fangorn will have crashed to the ground. And there’ll be a massive bottlenecks at Helm’s Deep because there’s not enough resources to handle the increased load. You can also expect the Shire to be scoured but then that’s probably outside your terms of reference.

Project Officer: But can it be done?

Sysadmin: Yes, but…

Project Officer: Right then! Excellent! You could have just told me that at the start instead of being so difficult about it…

Big, Red Telephone Boxes…

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I miss red telephone boxes…strange really, as they got me into no end of trouble… The one pictured caused offense when a passing police car noticed I was sitting atop it!
Another crushed my finger.
And do you remember the rush when a public phone box rang? Not just the literal rush of who got there first to answer it, but the feeling of sponteneity and curiosity as to who was on the other end… more often than not a wrong number, but every now and then the caller would be for one of your friends!
I was very disappointed when red boxes got replaced by grey metal ones…no soul. The red British telephone box was, and still is in the odd far flung, long forgotten, rural spot, an icon. Not so now in a world dominated by 21st century mobile phones…How times have changed!
And, ah look, a red pillar box, just behind Dave’s head, we still have them!
It was this phone box, standing innocently in the snow, that claimed my finger, not in its entirety, but crushed it nonetheless…
A happy game of 44 Save All, remember that? and I chose to hide in the phone box…not the best place, I agree, but there I was. All was fine until I decided to come out and was obstructed by two lads, no idea who they were…not our usual group. They pushed on the door and my finger slipped between the door and the hinges…just recall how heavy those old doors were! Amazingly though, the boys let the door go after I deafened them with ear-piercing screams, and after a bus trip to A&E, my finger recovered and is still useful now, though it does crack when I use it!
So I miss the old icons of our childhood…green lampposts, haven’t seen one of them for years, ZX Spectrum games (that take half an hour to load then crash just as you hit the curser keys), half-penny sweets, space-hoppers, home phones with dials, video recorders (that don’t corrupt recordings but do screw up your tapes), Grange Hill, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop (before you had to resort to ebay!), Mastermind (the game not the programme, you know, the one where you had to guess the coloured pegs), Kentucky fried Chicken before it became known as KFC…and Red Telephone Boxes…

Sinking…

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‘one of the more notable facts about our coastline is that it is sinking at great speed…true of this land for at least a thousand years. In contrast, the opposite coast in Wales is rising, which suggests that all of England is slowly tipping into the sea. Once the eastern coast sinks low enough and the western rises high enough, the entire country will slip gently under water in a flurry of bubbles and formal protests fom the House of Lords. I greatly look forward to this gentle slipping into oblivion and believe it will do our nation no end of good.’

I love this quote from Meg Rosoff’s ‘What I Was’ for two reasons…first I love the pathos and the skill of writing, and second because I often feel like that…
The idea of gently slipping into oblivion in a flurry of bubbles and not much more is so inviting!

Sometimes we need to take time out and relieve the stresses we are under. My notion of slipping underwater is not as pessimistic as it sounds…not usually anyway…I’m not talking about drowning, but I love escaping by swimming and that moment when you launch through the water and surge underwater is wonderful. Nothing else exits for that moment, just you, submerged, and I love it!

Do what you need to, but escape, even if just for a few mere moments…

‘I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.’ (Leo Buscaglia)

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Back in 2005 I wrote a list of 60 things I wanted to do… I’m a ‘list writer’ and with all good intentions I wanted to see how much I could do and tick off… The list included things such as: learn sign language, paint a dragon, eat a box of chocs on my own, spend an entire day just listening to my favourite music, sleep outside, fly in a helicopter, build a big sandcastle, kick autum leaves, bike ride, build a snowman, get soaked standing in heavy rain, get pampered, fly in an aeroplane, write a letter to myself to be opened in ten years, take a maths GCSE, parachute, and much more… looking back, that year I ticked of seven things, and that did not include a maths GCSE…there are much more exciting things to do in life than maths!

‘List’ people are generally not spontaneous people… I overthink everything, but last year I learned about spontanaeity!
I think the first thing was getting a dog! Vince always wanted one, but weighing up the pros and cons was my speciality and the cons would almost certainly outweigh the pros. Then Delia, who owns Roxy’s sister Sheba, offered us Roxy… and would you be able to say no to something that looked so cute and cuddly?
So in a very unusual move I said ‘yes’ and we became Roxy’s proud owners!
It snowballed from there… during Bekah’s study leave in early summer we dropped off the younger children at school and drove out, on a whim, to Aberieddy, to the Blue Lagoon. 300ft of water and the feeling of swimming and diving into this quarry pool was unbelievable and totally life affirming!
After that we took a helicopter ride over Carmarthen, arranged by Vince. I went on two youth camps, in the rain… and we planned a mystery day out for the children. Edinburgh for the day! The children’s first plane trip, and an amazing experience!

But anything can be fun and create an experience, a memory… we got caught by the tide on Llansteffan beach and had to wade through the incoming sea to safety, well, our wellies were waterproof, they didn’t leak out once they were filled with sea water!

We queued for Five hours to see a Banksy exhibit at Bristol Museum… five hours in a crowded queue with three children, you either bond or you end up wanting to strangle each other, thankfully it was the former this time!
So there are still things I want to do: parachute jump, sleep beneath the stars, eat a box of chocs on my own, build a huge sandcastle… and the message is to do it… don’t wait for the right time, the dog I put off for years is my constant companion, and she has opened up so much for our family, fun walks in the snow, autumn leaves, sand etc…
After all, life is meant to be fun…and I’m planning some more spontanaeity!
‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention
of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand,
wine in the other, body thoroughly used up,
totally worn out and screaming
WOO HOO! What a ride!!’
(anon)