Meaningful Pastimes subtitled Procrastination.

Amble pier and The forth Bridge patterns

We're just about to have the last of our lovely family visits for a while, and then Hotel Ash Cottage will defo be shut for a while... its been a great summer and I personally feel like the sun has shone all the time... apart from the two days it mattered the sunflower party and another time which lurks in the back of my mind but it cant be too important cos I can't quite remember. So another summer - another birthday - the car has had its yearly wash, christmas is looming and we are back to college next week and I am looking forward to it.

I need the routine back as my days are starting to seriously slip...I've always been good at procrastination but also conscious of trying to use precious time meaningfully - not being in a 50 hour plus a week employment anymore means I have more time to do those meaningful tasks and enjoy considering what I do more carefully. Weekends used to be full of chores (ha ha ) recovery time and trying to fit some enjoyable activity in before hitting the rat race again .. now I wonder how did I ever have time to hold down a full time job and have a life... I really REALLY used to value my weekend lie ins.. and I've never been very good at getting out of bed so I am known for wasting the mornings but when employed I had to be in bed early as well as up with the rooks and now I quite happily stay up very late!!! (and sometimes get up late)

So technically my days are much longer and I have so much more energy - mainly because I do things I love to do... Don't get me wrong it was only towards the end of my working life I lost my drive or even will to work...., up to then I was fortunate to work in a job I loved - possibly making a difference along the way, having fab colleagues, meeting really interesting people and generally having a productive if tiring life. However situations change -as do circumstances I suddenly got older and wiser and a lot of variables led me to deciding to pack in regular employment escape a very unpleasant working environment and follow my instinct and ultimately my dream....

Sounds grand doesn't it? Well at first my dream was to not be in the rush hour every day but soon I was able to realise my lifelong ambition of being an art student study textiles so here I am... procrastinating as I should be putting the finishing touches to my summer sketch book... could be worse I could be watching Dexter - my latest box set addiction... (possibly not meaningful)

Of course meaningful pastimes are extremely subjective.. I personally think lying in bed reading educational material even if it is in the form of a scandi crime novel is very meaningful.. proper relaxation, almost as good as sleeping... walking on the beach another of my time consuming habits - also very necessary- I do pick up firewood and other interesting meaningful items... occasionally I do do even more meaningful things - coffee with friends, sewing, baking, cooking, gardening, drawing all things I used to do in a frantic rushed way as I never had that much time in my past life....

Its all rather splendid - and doing my course is the icing on the cake and who knows it may lead me back into employment - now the government have managed to delay any hope of a pension for a number of years... To be honest I thought I'd miss the income that comes with regular daily slaving but that hasn't really happened -its unlikely I'll starve, that would take a few weeks anyway, we still get to do all the things we love especially travelling which brings me to my current procrastination trick at the moment, planning a big adventure for next summer - so basically no time in the foreseeable future to take on the added burden of work!!!!

Just to show my day isn't completely wasted I've included a photo of todays page of the sketch book - patterns inspired by bridges and piers...

ps.. winter is coming - I've still got the last Game of Thrones series to watch but any book recommendations would be very welcome to fill those winter nights just leave them in the comments section

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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