The start of our year has been dominated by the freezing conditions and large snow falls across the country. We have had 9” of snow on our second day back which made travelling to the stained glass studio an adventure. Carl, one of our craftsmen, who lives about 5 miles away could not get his car out of the snow so walked it in to work through the drifts. Now that is what I call dedication above and beyond! Several of our jobs have been delayed. We were due to start work on site in Leeds to remove and repair some domestic stained glass before encapsulating them into argon filled double or triple glazed units. Our planned route across the Pennines was blocked by the snow, so we hope to start next week instead.
We have been able to complete work in the studio to restore a beautiful Victorian Stained glass window to fit into a door and have made a good start on a deep carved sandblasted commission with a Traditional Japanese style design. As a stained glass designer, the enforced time away from site work has also given me chance the think about some new stained glass designs and church stained glass window protection projects for this year. We have large projects coming up in Wales, Nottingham and Manchester as well as schools art projects to look forward to.
We are NOT planning to cancel to basic stained glass making courses planned for this month, which are almost full. I just hope we don’t get more snow the day before the courses that will prevent the students travelling. So, keeping going despite the ice. Happy New Year!
