Oh yes, I’m going to blog about the weather. But with good reason!

This big hailstone is one I picked up next to my front door – there were bigger ones but it was dangerous to go out and get them. I got bruises just from trying to cover my car!

In recent weeks the weather has been taking up an enormous amount of time and headspace as I clean up puddles of water inside my house, strategically place containers to collect drips also inside, deal with damage from enormous hailstones (including to my new car … excellent), deal with the real estate agents re the leaks and doors and windows that no longer open and close properly … and generally cower in fear wondering when the ceilings will collapse or the roof will fall apart!

It really has been that bad where I live. Despite being the middle of summer – and what we were warned would be a long, very dry and dangerously fire-prone season. Instead it has rained and rained and rained, stormed and stormed and stormed.

This has been going on since Christmas, but in the last fortnight has been unbelievably bad. People who have lived in this area for 30 years or more say they’ve never seen anything like it.

Nearby there have been mudslides and rock falls closing roads and train lines – there was even a train derailed. A house not far away had lightning come through a window and set curtains on fire! A gas pipe exploded after being hit by lightning as well. There have been many fallen trees, dirt roads (there are plenty of those around here) have fallen apart and sealed roads now have enormous potholes in them. Then there are all of the car accidents, power outages and other issues!

On the upside, drought conditions are suddenly looking better and our dams have had an enormous amount of desperately needed water go into them. And my garden looks greener than it did at the end of winter!

But all up it’s been very disruptive and there appears to be more to come, starting this very afternoon.

In addition I’ve been dealing with a few issues to do with my housing situation, which is currently less than happy. I’m working on sorting that out at the moment, which is also fairly disruptive.

I am getting orders out generally within the usual timeframe, unless the weather is so severe I can’t risk going out or if the power is out at the post office! However, I am a bit slow on the communications front at the moment, so please bear with me.

Today I took some photographs in my garden – part of researching for new jewellery designs, but also just because the flowers are so beautiful now that spring is in full swing. So I thought I’d share some of them.

Not sure which – if any – will make it into new handmade jewellery pieces, but you never know! The garden here is certainly inspiring, but so is the national park at the end of my street, where I go walking regularly. I’ve been taking plenty of photos of plants in there too.

You can find more on my Flickr.

One of the things I’m particularly enjoying (and planning to make use of!) about my new location is all of the little inspirations I’m finding in nature up here in the Blue Mountains.

Whether it be in my fairly densely planted cottage garden or out walking in the national park, there certainly are a lot of them. Also nature seems to constantly evolve fairly dramatically here as the year moves forward, at the moment most notably in terms of flowers, with some disappearing and new ones appearing.

At some point soon I’m hoping to start working on some handmade jewellery designs incorporating some inspiration gleaned from my new surroundings.

So I thought I’d share just a few little inspirations with you. You can find more from the area on my Flickr – including from a long (and exhausting!) walk we took last weekend through some gorgeous rainforest in a ravine not far from home.

Finally last weekend (which was a long one in Australia) I was able to get back to my jewellery bench, now set up in the studio space in my new home.

I spent the weekend completing an order for the National Portrait Gallery shop in Canberra, along with making some urgently needed jewellery for my own supplies seeing as I’ve been badly running out of the jewellery in my shops.

Above are just a few of the little silver blossoms I cut out in sterling silver on the weekend. Each of them were then soaked to remove the paper (with the shape drawn on it), sanded, filed, tumbled and then finally turned into finished jewellery which was then tumbled again.

I seem to spend half of my life making these little blossoms as they form some of the most popular jewellery pieces I sell, so it was no surprise to spend my first weekend of making since moving doing yet more of them!

As for how my new studio is working out, well so far so good! The space is almost fully set up, but there are a few loose ends to tidy up.

The only issue I found on the weekend was that the three large windows let in so much light (in spite of the room being painted so dark) that heating or soldering metal can be difficult because I can’t see what I’m doing! All I need to do is remember to pull a blind or two down before I start and it’s fine, however.

This is not going to be set up as my ‘dream studio’ seeing as I’m still renting and things like fume extraction, heavy equipment which should be bolted to the floor or heavy furniture, etc. are currently out of the question. But soon enough I hope to be working towards just that!

I have now moved in to my Blue Mountains cottage with its very pretty garden. There is still a lot of organising to do after the big move, but at least all of the boxes are unpacked and the rooms are each generally serving their intended function.

Flowers from my garden.

I feel this is a much-needed fresh start for me in a new place. It remains to be seen how it goes as I settle in and become accustomed to a very different environment to the city.

In the spirit of a time of change I’ve also taken another big step this week, which is to resign from my four day per week job with an organisation I’ve been working for in some capacity for over a decade now. I will be continuing a relationship with them by way of a limited amount of contract work, but this still means I will finally be fully self-employed: something I’ve been working towards for years now.

So it also remains to be seen how that goes! It is a risk, especially given the current economic climate. But I feel that for me the time is right. I very much needed to change how I work and ideally work for fewer hours per week while still bringing in enough income to make ends meet and build a future – something that’s hard to do when working for a tiny non-profit organisation with a huge workload and minimal resources.

As for what I’ll be doing with the freed up time, well there are so many things I could be doing. Every year a myriad of opportunities come my way in relation to my handmade jewellery business as well as the other side of my career – web design and production. Much of the time I’m so busy I struggle to find the time to even get back to people to say I can’t do the work! Hopefully from here on in that will change and I can actually make something of many of these opportunities.

Finally, if you’re interested in seeing my new abode (or at least how it was before I moved in), there are some photographs on my Flickr. Once I feel a bit more sorted out I’ll take some more photos of how it looks now.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, I’m moving home and heading for the hills.

But it’s not just my personal life that is being impacted by the move as I am also moving my studio and my office, given that I work from home.

So if you’re considering purchasing handmade jewellery from me in the near future, please be aware that currently all items listed in all of my shops are in stock. However, it may take me two to three business days to post your order, particularly between 9 and 18 May.

Also I am now in the process of packing up my studio. This means that if any items are sold out they are unlikely to be remade for several weeks – it’s better to get in quick than risking the item you want being out of stock later.

I am now also unable to undertake any custom work, beyond changing the length and colour of necklaces as indicated in some of my jewellery listings.

But the good news for customers is that when I’m finally set up in my new home I should have two much more functional working spaces, which I’m hoping will lead to being much more efficient. And I’m very much looking forward to being inspired by my beautiful new garden and surroundings!