Well, I haven't done it for a few days, so today seems the perfect day for bead shopping!

I meet up with Suzanne Golden again and get to meet the lovely Merle Berelowitz AKA Ms Maddiesbeads. (Be sure to check out her website or contact her about her lovely flowery kits- I am now the very proud owner of 2 of them- thank you Merle!)

Our first stop was a top secret location (I have been sworn to secrecy!) which was amazing. Imagine a room filled with boxes of beads just waiting to be discovered. Imagine these boxes line the walls and are rows deep. Then imagine rooms and rooms and rooms of these.

As you can also imagine we spent hours here rumaging to see what we could find. It really was a case of searching to see what you discovered. I managed to get a mixed selection of some vintage Swarovksi, great striped and letter beads and some incredible unusual plastic beads which have set my mind whirring with ideas. In total about 20lbs of beads!

After a break we moved onto another shop where I managed to find some more beads I needed and then it was off to the cinema, dinner and back to the hotel to rest.

Not only was I still unwell but seemed to have developed a strange infection in my finger which had swollen, turned green and stopped being able to bend- not at all worrying!