On essential journeys, and some ways in which we are not like picket fences.

Well, I don't know about how it is where you guys are, but round here it is snowy. Driving back from work tonight, through snow-flurries lit up by my headlights, it was almost impossible to see the road properly. I took the long way home rather than cut down the tiny country roads as usual. Listening to the radio presenters debate at some length what constitutes an essential journey, I felt somehow despondent at hearing my own job listed among the long list of jobs which meant one's journey into work was "essential" - and very thankful for my winter tyres.

I still have some pictures left from that single sunny day before Christmas, so today seemed a good day for posting them. This one here is of the necklace made for my lovely middle sister, based around a purple-spots-on-white bead which reminded me of her. On either side of this are two beads that once adorned the very first handmade necklace I ever bought at a craft fair, when I was almost exactly the same age my sister is now. Recently I took that necklace apart, because so much has happened to us all since then that I almost get vertigo looking at it. But I do still like this pair of beads for their interesting shape.

Then, there's a lot of moss agate stones, and a collection of different purpley-pink glass beads of various different sizes - and different shapes, too, because a lot of them are handmade. The result has a knobbly, irregular, slightly folky feel to it, which I am coming to prefer to the pristine, machine-made look. The asymmetry in the shades of moss agate make the greens seem to shimmer, which draws the eye and gives some life to the design.

In this picture, the necklace appears longer than it really is - because people are not in fact shaped like picket fences. The perspective is a bit screwy, too: all the silver spacers in this necklace are actually the same size, so that the purple beads at the top are quite small really. I need a better mannequin than a wooden fence! Maybe I could get one of those vintage-French-style papier-mache dress-forms, if I can finally clear out the spare room (one of my New Year's resolutions that has sadly gone as yet unrealised).