The pitter-patter of tiny beads

Can you hear it? There it goes again the pitter-patter of tiny beads. I make beaded jewellery and I drop a lot of beads. I drop teeny tiny seed beads on the wooden floor of the study at 88. Actually I exaggerate.....it's cheap laminate flooring but I can dream. When a bead falls it goes pitter....usually closely followed by another bead...patter. It pisses me off. The wood ('bear with'....are you a Miranda fan?) is littered with beads. I am fast approaching crunch time. Crunch crunch crunch (ooh what a lovely word..'crunch') as I then squash said seed beads underfoot.

Can you hear it? There it goes again thud and then a slightly lighter thud. I drop big beads too, usually followed by a bounce and then a long roll as the bead disappears never to be seen again under the drawers. It annoys me.

Of course it's my own fault. It's all down to lack of preparation you see. If I got out the beads I needed to begin with; if I cleared my tray and laid out its special velvet cloth (to prevent bouncing and rolling); if I gave the whole process some forethought and was much more methodical I wouldn't have bead spillage.

The other day I looked at the perspex box, full of thousands and thousands of pale blue, lime green, pillar box red, bright orange and canary yellow seed beads, teetering on the edge of the window sill, with its lid half on, half off. I thought I really must move that box to safer ground as wouldn't it be awful if the box were to hop off its precarious perch and drop to its laminated death. Lots of pitter-pattering would ensue I mused. And then I forgot about it. Actually I couldn't be bothered to move it. I couldn't be arsed to find another safer place for it.

My little girl and boy rather like the fact that the floor is covered in beads. They regard any little jewels found as their own glimmering booty and secrete them away into their own little treasure boxes. Plastic red shiney beads become precious rubies and cheap metal charms transform into gold and silver. I have nice classy beads too I promise! My husband is very patient. Occasionally he loses that calm acceptance and vacuums the whole lot up......hundreds of beads all lost forever.

Still I suppose I'll never change. I'm impatient and impetuous. The jewellery always does get made in the end. As long as there are more beads in their little storage boxes  than on the floor, that's the important thing.........

I got up clumsily from my desk the other day. The swivel chair I guess just swivelled that bit too much. My elbow caught the perspex box full of blue, green, orange, red and yellow seed beads. Lots of pitter-pattering, pitter-pattering, pitter-pattering did indeed ensue. I closed the study door and went downstairs.

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