Stop and Smell the Roses by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello folks, how are you today? I have scheduled this post for Friday morning having pre written it, as I will be at the Art Gallery and Museum, Leamington Spa. I have been there since Thursday, and will be until 4pm on Sunday the 30th, so if any of you fancy a little trek up into Leamington, do come and take a look at Caprilicious and spend some time with me.
Leamington is an old Victorian spa town, where gentlefolk came to partake of the sulfurous waters as a cure for various ailments in the 18th century. The spa waters had been known since Roman times, and were rediscovered in the late 1700s. ​
In 1814, the Royal Pump Rooms and Baths, where Caprilicious will be exhibiting, were opened close to the River Leam. It is a grand structure  and included the world's first gravity fed piped hot water system in modern times.
Leamington became a popular spa resort attracting the wealthy and famous, and construction began of numerous Georgian townhouses to accommodate visitors, and they still exist, all painted in Regency cream with black ironwork and white paned windows.

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The function of the Royal Pump Rooms changed several times over the following years. While retaining its assembly rooms and medical facilities, around 1863 it was extended to include a Turkish bath and swimming pool. Spa water can still be sampled outside the building. The gardens are beautiful, there are plenty of shops and restaurants and the little town has a thriving cafe culture. We are looking forward to great weather over the next few days, so do try to make the trip, it will be worth it.

I spent a couple of days over the weekend in London, learning how to make extremely realistic flowers from air dry clay. I found Marianna on Facebook, her page is called Peony by Marianna. She is a Deco CLay instructor and we arranged that I should have a couple of days at her place learning to make flowers which hopefully I might be able to translate into polymer clay, and perhaps even metal clay. I learned how to make a variety of flowers in her penthouse flat overlooking the Thames in the Isle of Dogs. I've never been to that part of London before and couldn't believe how few people there were on the roads, and the fabulous views, stretching  all the way to the Greenwich observatory from one window, and the Thames flood barriers from the next.

Marianna is a great teacher, patient and soft spoken, in spite of watching my cack handed attempts to roll out the flowers that she deftly produced as if by magic in what seemed like the blink of an eyelid. 
Alas, being comfortable with one type of clay does not translate into being easy with another, I should have known that having used polymer and metal clay. I plodded on, tongue between my teeth, grimacing with concentration and made a few fairly creditable attempts, mainly on the second day.

I was quite pleased with the little white flowers, they seemed to have the fragility of jasmine when the flowers fall off the creeper, slightly bruised, but still gorgeous to look at. However, Marianna smiled quietly and said I should preserve them as a reminder of how not to do it - I still love them, though. They have a vulnerability about them that pleases me, so I shall indeed keep them, albeit for a different reason.

That's me for this week, folks. I was laid low with sinusitis which I took ages to diagnose - my excuse is that it was at the wrong end of the body as far as my expertise as a doctor was concerned. I thought it was variously a headache, toothache, a problem with my glasses, eye strain, and finally, the neighbours cooking fish! It was only when I started to smell fish everywhere and had pain when I pressed my sinuses that I realised where the problem lay and got some antibiotics, which finally cured me. I try not to go to the GP if I can help it - and anyway, who goes to a doctor for all those trivial problems I enumerated earlier? 
Have a fabulous week and enjoy the sunshine, I shall catch you on Friday, same time, same place 
Until then
​xx