Skip to main content

summertime passing - update on life

Very busy week entertaining friends, grand children, neighbors and in between this I've been sewing another quilt panel.
There's a sense of summer definitely ending... an almost autumnal bite to the air first thing in the morning and while weather forecasts suggest slight improvement in temperatures later this week it will not be as it was before... I've got some up and coming plans to fit in before I start college.. a London jaunt, a joint birthday party with my eldest grandchild... and a few days of cafe culture in Rome with Dr Fred.

I've been busy though flitting about home and Leeds, entertaining, slow stitching, quick sketching, and generally getting on with things.


I made a  fleeting visit to Leeds and took the grandchildren to Kirkstall Abbey for a little outing - Its a very peaceful place even at the height of summer and while I have been visiting the Abbey for over 50 years, to me, the ruins remain very grand with some amazing stonework.  I think the children were more interested in ice cream but we had fun anyway... in the evening I caught up with some old pals who I only manage to see twice a year - lovely meal out at Jinos thai place - worth a visit...

Then the little angels/terrors came to stay at Nanas, on their own, giving mummy a well earned break and we had loads of fun - it was usual chaos, baking - den building and visit to the llamas..


This week we also had a very successful house warming party - we invited all the village and discovered that we don't actually live in an unfriendly place after all!!! The girls were drafted in as slaves for the night tempting guests with home made buns, profiteroles, tortilla, flan and other delectable party grub and it worked - we had a very pleasant evening and made quite a number of new friends!

Old friends also dropped by and all in all it was a busy cake fueled week... and eventually the house emptied and I set about the task of trying to put together my summer sketch book ready for college.... I haven't done as much sketching or making this summer its been an odd one -  I have collected some sparse work and dug deep for inspiration.  I have some drawings, but not much, I've had a play with the dog heads and I look forward to doing more in the not too far future.


Little play with pen and 5 minutes (ink) continuous line drawing and a paper collage, I'd like to put this into machine embroidery if I find time...

I also almost finished another Row by Row panel - this one from Casper Wyoming - very close to where we saw the eclipse a little over a year ago - this piece needs a little more detail but I felt I needed to get on with sketch book first so its on the back burner for now.


Busy busy busy... not really any time for summertime sadness 😊😊

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein.  We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows.  It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland,  it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers!  The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout.   It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers....  The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town.  Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now.  The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art....  Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

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 b...