Today was one of those days where even as you're going along experiencing it things look normal but if you stop for a second you're hit with the strangeness of it all.

Gabriella and Jeroen have joined us and the hugely talented clay artist Allison Shock has popped over on the way to a show, so the house is getting full and the potential for unusuality was been upped.

The day started, as many do in Tucson, with Mexican food for breakfast with a delicious meal at Poco & Mom's before heading off to Sabino Canyon to take photos for the book. Even before we leave the house Gabriella is bedecked in a glorious red ballgown so I'm sure we look like a crazy tribe, up to mischevious things, as we meet up with Emma Bull and Will Shetterly for good food and conversation.

Sabino Canyon is such a beautiful environment and the surroundings, and particularly beautiful Gabriella, show the jewellery off amazingly. As she is posed, directed and snapped she veers between looking like a warrior Queen who rules the land, a displaced alien who's fallen here from another time and a siren who wanders the land charming nature.

After hundreds of photos had been taken, most of us had been 'attacked' by jumping cactus and every piece of beadwork captured we headed off to Endicott West, where Emma and Will are writers in residence, and petted horses, admired cats, drank Scotch, stared at scenery and mulled over the day until it was time to head home.