Andy's Blog

The gig I mentioned on Bank Holiday Monday was eventful to say the least. My eldest son a, supreme sportsman, complained 10 mins before the gig that he felt terrible and he suddenly started fainting...Panic. Well we got him on my back and carried him down to where the car was parked.

My wife wisked him off to hospital where it turned out that he had a particularly nasty sporting injury and had to be operated on straight away! He was fine but had to have a weeks recuperation off school, which he hated because he could not play footy for a while. AND I made it back to the gig as the rest of the band were just going on stage. Bit of a sweat but all in a days work.

We were performing tracks from our new cd Our Mam in Havana and the band went down a storm. Nice to meet you El and Sam (music mad beading bloggers!!!). Check out the bands moves and even better, why not hire us, we will make your day.

http://www.myspace.com/charangadelnorte

We Have Some New Beads For You...

Lavender Cut Glass faceted crystal beads

Pink Cut Glass faceted crystal beads

Check out these great hearts with summer meadow colours.

They are in the same series as the silver foil heart beads, they have already begun selling and they have only been on the site for two hours, mad!

I thought we should put up some bigger images of some of the new beads especially the cut glass, however good the small images are you can not always get the full impact, so here is just a small selection. See more new beads here

http://www.constellationbeads.co.uk/newbeads.asp

There was a bit of a frost this morning on the dyke, I was not expecting it, in fact the old railway bridge was like a skating rink. That crow was still pecking away, how many parasites can highland cattle have? If I was to eat shortbread at the rate that crow gorges itself I would be the size of a house. Funnily enough though obesity does not seem that prevalent in crows.

What a beautiful sunny day today, the last couple of mornings have been very wet. The river was over the weir yesterday and there was a stunning double rainbow dramatically framing the castle. A little later one of Constellation Beads suppliers phoned us from Hong Kong for a chat. She told us it was so warm and humid there, if we could just transplant that humidity to the UK we would have the perfect climate. It made me nostalgic for the Star Ferry.

Got a composer from Cyprus coming up tonight so that we can work on his composition for Cello and Electronics which we are recording next week in Huddersfield. It is quite complex and will need a lot of work and time is short.

Talking of brilliance though, my 6 year old was doing words using ish the other day. Usual words like fish, wish, dish etc were coming out, then last of all he put his hand up and said accomplish! The teacher nearly fell over, when he asked my son for a context, he gave mission accomplished. The future of the world will be safe in his hands.

The worms were on the move this morning! At that time of the day, after so much rain the road to Easby was like a moving bowl of spaghetti carbonara.

Amazing what you see though, yesterday I was watching a crow picking the parasites off the back of a big butch highland bull-looked like he was enjoying it though, would not have fancied it myself.

I was surprised the Swale was not higher, there were a lot of puddles around and flooding in the fields but the river looked pretty benign, bit like a dozing croc.

Combining beads and my freelance music work can be quite challenging. Last week I thought I was all sussed out with juggling my schedule, I was halfway across Saddleworth Moor on the M62 feeling relaxed and ready for two days recording in Liverpool, when I suddenly realised I had forgotten my bow! I had had a Charanga del Norte rehearsal at the weekend and used my other cello, forgot to put my usual bow back in the usual case and bingo, stomach falls through the floor. Frantic phone calls ensue and my friends at the Phil bail me out by bringing one in. What stars! Dodgy moments.

Great Charanga del Norte gig in Scunthorpe on Saturday, the band was hot (see link below), stuck for something to do on the Bank Holiday Monday? Why not come and see us at the festival in Parliament Street in York 6.ish.

http://www.myspace.com/charangadelnorte

Got some new chain and beads going on line in the next few days, these sales we are having are making us put extra long hours in, whoever said try not to burn the candle at both ends, obviously did not work for Constellation Beads!!

We've got some great Faux Suede available here http://www.constellationbeads.co.uk/sub-category.asp?subcatid=68

There are some great colours like the turquoise


and the Rose Red