There’s a beading accident waiting to happen on every trip! In this sorry tale of bead and travelling woes, names have been changed to protect the foolish…

Guilty Pleasures

Now I for one have taken guilty pleasure from hanging a bauble from every dangly bit and draping myself from head to foot in jewels but there is a time and a place – weddings, bar mitzvahs etc. However, sometimes minimalism is the only way to go. Actually, it’s not so much about the wearing but more specifically the packing and transporting of beads and the glorious creations we make with them.

Two glaring examples of beads and their part in our downfall spring to mind. Both involve the annual pilgrimage of my friends and I to Glastonbury Festival and the frankly ridiculous things that we do!

A Sharp Intake of Breath

Not a little black dress in sight!

The first comes from someone I’ve been mates with for thirty four years. Sal and I have been to Glastonbury together every year it’s been on since 1989, so it’s fair to say she is a veteran of the festival. You can translate this as ’someone who really should know better’.

A couple of years ago Sal travelled all the way from the West of Ireland to my house in Brighton to prepare for our trip. God alone knows how she managed to come that far as the weight allowance on the flight is equivalent to a bag of feathers! Anyway, she arrived on my doorstep cussing about the enormous weight she was carrying and how she was never going to make it through the weekend, blah blah blah.

“Empty your rucksack, there must be something non-essential” I said, trying to take control of the situation as I had visions of me giving a back-strained Sal piggybacks around the site. Out it all came, sleeping bag, tent, and loo roll – fair enough, all items relatively essential! Three pairs of jeans (questionable), then fourteen vest tops. I hope you are all taking a sharp intake of breath out there in cyber-land.

“When on earth are you going to find use for fourteen vest tops in five days in a field?” I squeaked slightly hysterically. Sal conceded that this was in fact a tad excessive and we pared them down to five – one for each day.

This, however, was only the beginning. The main culprit was yet to be released from the bulging tardis. Out came a bag the size of a small baby containing enough necklaces, bracelets and other bodily adornments to stock a branch of Claires Accessories several times over. In a field in Somerset where you’re more likely to be sporting a cagoule and wellies than a little black dress and strappy sandals, there really isn’t much opportunity to wear more than one or two items of jewellery let alone a bagful.

Added to this, the dismantling of your attire late at night or in the early hours in a cramped two-man tent is arduous enough without adding to the torture. Potential Glastonbury virgins, read and learn. Sal had as much of a pain free festival as anyone can have, when traipsing across fields for five days, after realising her folly and taking only the essentials.

The Beaded-Trousered Philanthropist

I bought this at Glastonbury!

Unlike my next companion, who actually made it on to site with near disastrous consequences. Chloe had visited the festival several times but not for a while due to work commitments and lack of money. However, this particular year she had scraped together both the readies and a cunning plan. She decided she would make loads of jewellery to take onsite to flog and supplement her good time.

I had my reservations. The main one being that I’d rather starve for the duration to save money than waste a second of precious time on anything close to resembling work. Chloe, ever the optimist, said it would be fun and help contribute to the vibe! Just lay your blanket and your wares on the ground in a nice spot. Chat to the revellers, spread some more good cheer and offload the odd pendant while you’re at it. When she put it that way it didn’t sound too bad really.

Nevertheless, any sway in my opinion was halted when I met Chloe at the festival gates and she was armed with none other than a shopping trolley filled to the brim with handmade jewellery. Not the sort you trail round the supermarket with, although that would have been hard enough. I’m talking about the ones you used to see many a shopper dragging behind them in the 1970’s. The handy carriers were usually made of canvas, generally in some sort of lurid tartan design, with a handle to pull, all perched on two flimsy, plastic wheels. Perfectly adequate for a trip to the Co-op but not to the Somme!

Listen Up Non-Believers!

A note here to the doubters before I continue. Contrary to modern folklore, torrential downpours don’t happen every time. Ask anybody who’s been more than once (or twice!)

However, this was one of the unfortunate rainy years and many of you will know that the festival is held on a dairy farm. Therefore, with approximately one hundred and fifty thousand people trampling on the already soft ground it takes precisely five minutes to turn into a quagmire.

On this particular year the heavens opened as we took our first steps over the threshold. A few feet in, the aforementioned trolley was caked in sticky mud. Yards in, one of the overworked wheels left itself behind in the sticky mess. We ended up carrying the trolley between us, the mile or so away to our regular camping spot. All of this was, of course, done in the famous Glastonbury spirit helped by the odd alcoholic beverage on the way.

Happily, after that first day the weather did clear and the sun shone for the rest of the festival. Funnily enough though, Chloe decided that she’d rather starve than waste a second of precious time on anything resembling work! Thus proving the point that minimalist packing and bijoux jewellery is the way to go. I rest my ever so small case.

The ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ and ‘wow, you really made that?’ are all very gratifying. It’s the men that are so difficult. I can see all your heads nodding in agreement as I write!

It’s almost that time of year again and, already, I’m having my own ‘nightmare before Christmas’, wracking my brains for original gift ideas. The girls are easy but the men can cause many a sleepless night.

Rock on

A couple of years ago my brother built himself a bar in his house extension. I’m not talking a Del Boy, circa 1970’s style bar with compulsory soda siphon. I mean an all singing, all dancing room with optics, a wine rack and all. My brother loves his rock music and he loves his bar. Problem solved for a while. You can never have too many ACDC coasters right? The bar is looking a bit full now though, as the whole family went mad on pub paraphernalia, so it’s back to square one with him.

Merry Christmas darling

My other half isn’t too bad to sort out. He usually wears his clothes until they’re practically falling off, so a new supply of shirts and socks are always welcome. It’s not the most exciting gift in the world but nevertheless it’s a safe bet. He even likes the odd bit of jewellery in the form of a bootlace tie!

Oh brother!

My brother-in-law is the most difficult. He loves wine but they live part-time in France, so their house in England has the greatest stock of Beaujolais this side of Calais! He loves the Blues too, but has usually downloaded the lost back catalogue of Old Blind Fred or Wild Willie No Shoes before you’ve even heard of them. Dad always likes a diary, but multiple copies have been known to happen and there are only so many anecdotes you can write about your day to day goings on (apparently)!

Why can’t a man be more like a woman?

Unfortunately, none of my nearest and dearest are really jewellery men either. I honestly can’t see any of them emulating Leonardo Di Caprio in The Beach with a bit of hemp twine and shell or bone around their necks! Actually my brother-in-law did try to sport a ‘man necklace’ once and was greeted with screams of ‘get it off!’ by my sister and her friend. Trust me, they weren’t re-enacting a scene from The Full Monty.

So with all this said, I tend to stick my head in the sand and digress from thinking of gift ideas until the last minute. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love Christmas. I love baking mince pies just for the festive smell, even though I don’t particularly like the taste. I love decorating the tree with all the old favourite baubles and topping it off with the ‘loo roll’ angel my nephew (now twenty eight) made about twenty years ago. I love having the gang round for a mulled wine evening and foisting the aforementioned mince pies on them. I just wish the men could be a bit more, well, womanly!

A Bone of Contention

Gift vouchers all round!

The Bead Barmy and Beads Unlimited Christmas staff do is usually entertaining too. Last year we had a pub quiz, for which I helped write the questions. We decided to make it Brighton-based with it being our hometown and all. We threw in the odd, random question as well just to pad it out and add to the jollity. I could, however, have skipped the entire quiz bar one teaser to fill the evening with.

The question that proved to be such a bone of contention was ‘Which part of your body can’t you lick?’. The official answer is, apparently, your elbow. However, after a couple of glasses of wine, this sparked plenty of debate. One bright spark piped up with ‘there are loads of parts you can’t lick. What about your eyeballs?’ Contradictory evidence is out there somewhere on YouTube I’m sure! Then, another talented individual disproved the answer altogether by actually licking their elbow. Needless to say, their team won.

Anyway, as I said, I do tend to digress. Oh dear, is that the time already? Gift tokens all round then?

A day of blood, beads and mayhem on the South coast of England.

On Halloween 2009 outside Brighton train station, at 3pm precisely, several hundred, blood soaked, entrail trailing, wailing figures grouped together for the annual zombie march, now in its third year. The website had warned to keep small children away as ‘they don’t know the difference’ but my almost three year old son loved it.

A gaggle of zombie Grannies

Brighton being the city it is (full of hip young and old things) made the event look more like a warped fashion parade than the Night of the Living Dead. There really were some marvellous costumes from a group of zombie Grannies to a couple of road workers impaled by a “Give Way” sign. There was even a man dressed, quite randomly, as a giant tomato.

Dawn of the Dead

White shows cosmetically applied blood and ketchup up perfectly!

It all became rather farcical when a steward mistakenly sent fifty stragglers the wrong way through Churchill Square – the main shopping centre. Messy creatures wandered aimlessly amongst bemused shoppers until the steward realised his mistake. The bloody hordes converged and continued their journey to the seafront. I overheard one irate shopper, trying to squeeze past, say “It’s no good Martin, we’ll have to go the other way. This is horrendous!” Horrendous yes, but done with such style!

Please read on if you fancy a laugh at our expense as we dip into the world of fashion and come out bloodied but unbowed.

Our yarn begins in the Summer of 2007 when we were asked to take part in a fashion show raising funds for local charities. Although the event was a lot of work for what amounted to two minutes of catwalk exposure, the end result was well worth it. We came out of it with a few marvellous, if impractical, beaded items, some hilarious anecdotes and a warm glow inside from giving a little bit of help where it’s needed. The main problem, when trying to show off beads, is that they’re generally small, even the big ones! Therefore some extravagant and larger than life creations were needed. We set our crack designer team (consisting of one at the time) on the case. The results included a two and a half foot high tiara, a hat befitting a day at Ascot and a bag so heavy with beads it needed to come with a health warning!

Problems became apparent on the day of the dress rehearsal. We had decided that the only way the tiara would stay put was by pinning it to our models’ hair with about seventy five hairgrips. What we’d failed to take into consideration was the thirty second costume change, which included a different dress and swapping the tiara for the aforementioned uber bag! So there the three of us were, trying desperately to remove the tiara from the poor models’ head without scalping her. To add to the chaos was the shows director who was flapping around and bellowing orders as if we were on the catwalks of Milan. I have to give it to her, our model was made of tougher stuff than I. As we gingerly removed the grips she just hung on to her hair and ordered us to pull, pull, pull! Anyway, learning from our mistakes, we decided that the way forward was for our stalwart model to simply hold the tiara in place, which she did with grace, ease and good humour.

The red hat has actually come in very handy since the event. Apart from being used in the odd window display at The Brighton Bead Shop, I decided to have a hat themed party. With my heavily encrusted headpiece how could I fail not to be the star of my own show? Actually, successful as it was, I did have to swap it for something more modest during the course of the evening. After not too long, my head started to resemble a giant tomato due to the heat of wearing it. Plus, I thought it may be a tad embarrassing to turn up in A & E with a heavy hat related neck injury!