Feeling blue...?

So it's now nearing the end of week two and I've still not been back to work which is rubbish and to be perfectly honest I'm getting bored and lonely and fed up.
I had a physio appointment the other day and got some sport tape on my ankle to help support it a bit as I ended up twisting it (which was quite sore and didn't help the healing process) because the muscles/tendons/ligaments are still weak. It's great because it means I feel a little bit steadier so can start to put a bit of weight on it and it covers up all the bruising which is still gathering at my heel!

So that's been making me feel a bit blue, however a couple of things have cheered me up. First off I've been doing a little bit of sketching for the next project I'll be helping with. Hopefully I'll get in to work next week and me and Jim can do a bit of designing together and come up with something that incorporates the clients ideas. I'm pretty excited for that because it's been a while since I've done any proper sketching and will be good to get feedback from another artist.

Secondly, I found something today which has pretty much made my day. I haven't been able to do much (in fact I haven't even been outside today...) so I was having a sort through my sketchbooks and paperwork and found a gift my Summer boss gave me last year. It's a lovely printed copy of 'The Great Book of Gaelic'. Now, when I got it I didn't want to crease the pages so stored it away in a plastic folder and haven't taken it out until now.

Inside I found this...

Which contained this...

Which may have brought a tear to my eye.

I can't put into words how guilty I feel for not finding this last year, or how thankful I am that I found it when I was feeling so low. It's lovely to read such kind words and to know that I worked hard enough to deserve this note of thanks (and a rather large bonus!).

Anyway, so that's my news so far. Not a lot about blacksmithing, but hopefully I will be back to the workshop soon with pictures of the piece I wanted to share with you. I was really sad not to have seen its return from the galvanisers, or help with cleaning it up before painting...but I hope to see it soon and do what I can to help get this piece installed!

Here's some photographs of a few parts of the piece...

As you can see, there's some stamps involved and they were made by Jim specifically for this project. I thought it was going to be pretty tricky getting them to stamp nice and clearly, but they turned out beautifully!

So that's all for now and I promise the next post will reveal the whole thing!

Take care, be careful and bye for now.