End of the holidays

Well, we've got nine little chicks now, five black, three yellow and one brown. Zoe has three eggs left to hatch, and one sadly died. We do lose some along the way, but that's nature for you. We have another hen, Dizzy Lizzy, a Frizzle, sitting on twelve eggs as well, and they're due to start hatching possibly next week. Frizzles look like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards as their feathers stick up the wrong way. The chicks are bound to look funny when their feathers come in.

Some of our chicken have funny names, I confess, all the family take part in helping to choose them. Occasionally I have to take a chicken to the vets, and I always pray that it's not going to be Tinky Winky, or Ziggy Stardust, or Pagani Zonda, that the vet calls out for while I'm sitting there pretending to be someone else! We do have Betty, Jeanie lola, and Niall who are slightly more normal, but can you imagine the fun my teenagers are going to have with this new batch!!!! At least they keep it clean.

This week has been hectic again, I've been making cards, but haven't got any onto the computer yet. I also demonstrated at our Art Club, which was a little daunting as I don't class myself as one of the experts. However, I just did a demo for the kids and some of the adults joined in. I bought some distress inks this week, inspired by Kim Piggott's work, (she's on my blog list). Her work is so good, it's really worth looking at her blog. Also, if you look at Marlene's blog http://mar1ene.wordpress.com/ she has a great tutorial on distress inks if you are a novice. I use lots of other mediums such as H2o's, Adirondack inks, Lyra Aquatones, etc, and the concept is all very similar, but her tutorial is excellent. Marlene also has some gorgeous cards on her blog if you like that style of card making. Me, I like all sorts!

I'm off to Blickling Hall in Norfolk tomorrow with my hubbie to a bead fair, but then we're going to Holt for a drive. He wouldn't come if it was just to go to a bead fair, bless him! Holt is a lovely place, full of art galleries, gift shops, and a great restaurant/deli/hotel called Byfords where we go for lunch. We don't go out as a couple much, so we have a bit of 'us' time.

We're preparing for an extension on the house, it's a slow process. We have planning permission, but our architect is slow preparing the drawings to get building regs. Our builder wants to get going, he built the house originally, and we bought the house from him and his wife. We want to get going, because the room we are planning is a lovely garden room, with a vaulted ceiling, oak beams, oak floor, cream walls, etc. It would be nice to have it done and enjoy it through the summer, but time is marching on. I have to empty my craft room when the building work starts. This is somewhat of a nightmare for me, where will everything go? I feel like a displaced person, and am worrying about my things. They'll get dusty in the garage, moved around by the kids in the spare room, frowned at and grumbled about anywhere else in the house. They won't be available 24/7 in the loft. Life just won't be normal for a while. However, I will be forced to have a sort out, and to reorganise, to put things back in a tidy fashion, and maybe I can get some new storage!!! Thats all for now folks, Judith x