Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Country Walking

A big hello to you if you are visiting via Country Walking magazine.  I had no idea my blog address would be published so to save you wading through lots of my inconsequential waffle the post you are looking for is here.  Thanks for visiting :)

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Solitude

Is the weather amazing where you are? It really is lovely here. I was hoping to have gone away to the coast this weekend, but things didn't work out as planned, but there is no point in worrying about what might have been.  Instead I've been out enjoying the sunshine ..... a quick walk to the park and there were sheep as far as the eye could see :)
Sunshine and blue skies the perfect weather to sit and enjoy some outside crochet, look at that concentration on my face, lol
Don't get me wrong I love being with family and friends, but I also love being on my own especially on days like this when I can get outside and just enjoy a slower pace of life than I can during the busy work week.  Just me, sunshine, the sights and sounds of mother nature and doing things that I love.

Hope you all have an amazing weekend.  X

Friday, March 23, 2012

Castle Combe

We've had such a mild winter this year, and with some lovely blue sky days at the beginning of the month it really feels as though spring is coming in fast.  A couple of weekends ago, on one such glorious sunny day, I went walking round and about Castle Combe.
Such a picturesque village, and some of you might recognise it from the big screen.  Quite a few movies have been filmed using Castle Combe as location, most recently Warhorse.
My walk took me through the village and out in to the countryside were I found a field full of donkeys :)

There were lots of majestic looking trees to wonder at
but it wasn't just big that was beautiful on this day.  Look at the fabulous vibrant green of this moss lit up by the sun.
Any good walk works up an appetite, so some scrummy fish fingers sandwiches and a pint at this lovely pub and I was ready to head back to Castle Combe
Hey no one asked me for permission to use my likeness on the side of the church!! :)
Check out the blue sky .... not bad for March!!
This young lady had a pretty captivating stare ..... but eventually I did tear myself away and made it back home.
Here's hoping for lots of fine weather and fine walking to come this year

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Museums and Parks

This is another catch up post, this time a few pictures from my day trip to London back at the beginning of February.  The pictures have uploaded in a bit of a funny order and I'm feeling far too lazy to mess around sorting them out so this is going to be a bit higgeldy piggeldy I'm afraid.

A shot of the pedestrian tunnel which leads to such fabulous places as the Natural History and Victoria and Albert museums.
Some textiles from the British Museum ...... all wrapping from mummified beings.  The first one with the writing apparently shows the name Diogenes, and tells us that this person made his living mending textiles, which I loved.



Some fabulous buildings from the streets near The Royal Albert Hall
I loved that this puffed out pigeon had found such a picturesque place to perch, seemed to be made for him!!
The Princess Diana Memorial
There were lots of gulls walking on the frozen water of The Serpentine.
A rather tame squirrel, eating his lunch
The Royal Albert Hall
This one of early sunlight and shadows was taken while I was hanging around on the street waiting for the Natural History Museum to open.
I really loved some of the opulent religious artifacts in the silver collection at The Victoria and Albert Museum.
I had a really lovely day all in all.  I'm hoping to be able to make another visit to the capital early next month.... my sister and her family need to borrow my car for a weekend and they live a 30 min train ride from London so while I'm there it would be silly not to :)

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Myth and Magic

The dragon in the last post and my recent trip to Glastonbury, have set me on the path of myth and magic again. I've always loved the idea of fantasy world's full of dragons, wizards, faeries and other creatures of myth.

After my trip to Glastonbury the other weekend I was reminded of a cross stitch picture that I made years and years ago, that has been languishing in the cupboard. I decided that it was high time that it came out of the cupboard and put on display again.
It's quite tricky to take a good photo as it's behind glass and that means lots of reflection.  I would have made this sometime in my late teens or early twenties so getting on for 15 years or so ago now.
I've really enjoyed looking at it again, revisiting all of the lovely detail in the picture and remembering the happy hours that went in to its stitching.  I'd love to be able to tell you who designed this piece, but I'm afraid I wasn't very good at keeping records of my stitching back then.  I have in mind to maybe take it out of the frame someday and make it the centrepiece for a larger hanging, but we'll see.
Also on my trip to Glastonbury I had to treat myself to a little gift.  My sister got me on the path of collecting these nemesis faeries as she has bought me a couple for birthday gifts these last years, so when I saw this beautiful creature holding out her clockwork heart she just had to come home with me.
Although I said at the start of the post that I seem to have be drawn back to myth and magic again, actually I think that it's something that is always in the background somewhere and I noticed that I've been burning these for quite a few weeks now .... more dragons :)
And finally just before I go I think I've decided on the project that I'm going to be making for the next Self 'pay it forward' recipient.  I picked this book up a couple of years ago from a discount book store but have never stitched anything from it, but I think I've found just what I'm looking for in it's pages.  I just need to check I have all of the cotton I need and I can get cracking :)
Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Winter at the beach

I love the beach any time of year.   So back a few weeks ago when I really felt in need of some sea air, I took myself and one of my friends off to Brean beach for a lovely walk along the sand.
As you can see it was a pretty bleak day, but we wrapped up warm against the sea breeze and had a wonderful time anyway.
The rocks in the picture above were totally covered in all this lovely seaweed.
My friend's dog, Gypsy, had a whale of a time getting soggy in the little pools of water that had collected around the rocks.  She kept trying to dig holes in these sandy puddles but couldn't quite understand why the holes were filling back in as fast as she was digging :)
This was quite a few weeks ago now and a craving for the beach is starting to build again, I have a week off work coming up next month but I'm not sure I can hold out until then ..... we'll see.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Self Pay It Forward - Part One

Now that I know it's arrived at its new home safe and sound I can finally tell you about the little picture that I recently finished, the first gift for one of the people that were kind enough to comment on my 'Self' post back in January.

I have this lovely little dragon box (a gift many years ago from someone who was very special to be but now sadly in my past)
Well the dragon is safe guarding the names of the people who commented on the post (and provided me with their address details, there are still a couple of people who I tried to contact but never got details from so if you think that's you then please get in touch it's not too late)
I randomly pulled the first piece of paper......
After a bit of blog stalking I found that there is a house move in the future for 16 Muddy Feet, and it immediately bought to mind this little sketch that I did ages ago while I was sat in my car waiting for something or other.
I really enjoyed the little bison in the buttercups picture that I finished off last month so figured I would try this one using the same technique.  And voila  'The yellow house on the hill' came in to being.
I again used a canvas board to mount the picture and added a little message handwritten on the bottom.
The picture didn't turn out exactly as I imagined in my head, but I think it's still quite cute anyway.
It's nice to have another finished project as things seem to be slow going round here at the moment. I seem to spend way too much time procrastinating ..... I really must do something to address that, lol.

The dragon has given up the next name, so it's time to put my thinking cap on and come up with something for the next gift recipient :)

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Canal Walk

Last weekend the weather was beautiful, what a great excuse to get outside (not that I ever need one). Decided to take an easy stroll along a local canal way from Seend to Devizes. I had to pick something easy, as last Friday I took a new class at the gym which left me with aches where I didn't know it was possible to get aches, let me tell you I was as stiff as a board and even this easy walking was tough but the blue skies, sunshine and signs of spring made it all worth it.

It was such a lovely spring like day, it was very peaceful and there were such amazing and beautiful reflections in the still waters of the canal.
I've always found the workings of canals intriguing.  I was hoping to get some interesting photos of the locks, the engineering is wonderful, but I didn't manage to capture anything that I found particularly pleasing with the camera this time, something to try again another day.
There were lots of ducks around, it seemed they all had their own little stretches of canal that they kept patrolling, swimming up and down, up and down.
This fellow got quite friendly and decided to float around in front of me for a while posing to have his picture taken.
Also spotted this rather exotic looking bird, swimming by. 
Have since looked him up and he's apparently a red breasted goose and they are an endangered species.  A beautiful looking creature it was lovely to see him.

There were also plenty of signs of spring in the trees and hedges lining the tow path.  If I could have gotten the butterfly in focus in this shot I would have been happy but he was flitting around so fast.  I still like it though it's a scene which says that spring is really on its way.
My final shot is of the fabulous Caen Hill locks stretching up the hill, at the top is a lovely cafe which sells amongst other things delicious banoffee icecream - not that I know it's delicious of course, I'm just guess ;-)
Only a couple more days until we get to the weekend again, I'm excited to find out where it will take me ..............