A Day at the Natural History Museum

Due to some health issues I haven't been out of the house much in the last couple of weeks. However I'd had a day out in London planned for a while so rather than waste the money that I had already spent I made myself go.

Spent the majority of the day at the Natural History Museum. I had my new camera with me but it's a tricky place to get pictures as lots of different lighting and reflections from the glass display cases. This is a picture of the main entrance hall, just as the museum was about to close, I love how the night sky and street lights light up the windows.

There is so much to see at the museum. There are lots of stuffed animals and birds in the historical collections, I find it pretty disturbing looking at them. This poor little chap in particular stole my heart, he looks so sad. All in all I had a fabulous day, and spent a long time giggling at various incarnations of myself in the fun mirrors.

Look forward to going back again soon.

Hailes Abbey

A few weeks ago I managed to sell my old car for scrap, I didn't get much for it but it was enough to be able to treat myself to a day out. So off I went to the beautiful Cotswold countryside for the day.

I decided to visit the beautiful ruins of Hailes Abbey, a Cistercian Abbey built in the 1240's.
As you can see from these couple of pictures it was a beautiful blue sky and sunshine day and there was hardly anyone else there, so I got to wander round in peaceful enjoyment.
I didn't actually take many pictures in the end, but from the museum I loved the medieval floor tiles.
And the beautiful vaulting bosses. Here is one which portrays Christ as a spiritual Samson rending the lion's jaw. After visiting the Abbey I went for a wonderful walk through the surrounding countryside but I'll tell you about that another day. Today the sun is shining again so I'm not going to waste another minute at the computer.....

Dorset Steam Rally 2008

The weekend just disappeared in a flash. I blinked and it was gone.

On Saturday we spend a (long) day at the Dorset Steam Rally. I just love events like this there was so much to do and see, unfortunately my camera wasn't playing nice and even though I charged it before going the battery ran down in super quick time and I only managed to get a few photos most of which weren't any good anyway!

Typical scene from the main ring where they have engines running all say creating smoke and noise.

Taking a break.

Engine at Sunset.

I was driving so no alcohol for me but Mark found the time to sample a couple of the many brands of Cider on sale!

It was a beautiful sunny day which just served to remind what a lack of summer we have had here (again) this year.

Today has been spent recovering from the rally though we did manage a walk down the local canal path too.

Not a whole of stitching has been done, though I am ploughing on with Siberian Gold and the mermaid postcards are almost done so hopefully stuff to share soon!

Sunflowers

Have I ever confessed here how much I love sunflowers?

Sadly I'm no gardener and don't really have a clue about most floral varieties but I do know that I love tulips, poppies and most of all sunflowers. Sunflowers make me smile. Imagine the size of my grin when we stumbled across a whole field full on our travels the other day.

It was one of those sunny/cloudy days which created bands of different golds across the field depending on the movement of the clouds.
And of course there were sunflowers in all the different stages... about to unfurl Reaching for the light ....... And in full bloom

There was plenty of opportunity for some close upsAnd the flowers themselves were home to plenty of insects But my favourite of the lot was Sunflower Sally, with her wilted petal fringe (bangs) and her bonnet of green.

MIA

Well my wonderful Internet friend Vi, emailed me today to say that she has been missing my blog posts (thanks Vi!) and I have to say I couldn't believe it when I logged on and realised how long it has been since I posted.

I have to admit that I haven't been feeling very creative the last few weeks. I have been too busy fretting over Dad's upcoming operation and my heart hasn't felt creative at all. Dad's op is on Monday so hopefully all will go well and things can get back to normal. Tomorrow I am off to stay with my sister for the week, so that I can visit Dad everyday until he is well enough to leave the hospital.

I have to apologise to everyone who might be waiting for swap items from me at the moment. I have started to slip behind a bit but I am planning on taking a few bit's to my sisters next week and hopefully once I start again I will hit a creative streak again. I will catch up as soon as I can and thanks for your patience.

As I don't have anything creative to share I thought I would post a picture of a wonderful gift that Terri sent me a couple of weeks ago. I have been meaning to share for a while but I couldn't find the charging lead for my digital camera luckily I found it last weekend under a pile of junk.
I am absolutely in love with all of the wonderful kitty fabrics which came tumbling out of the package from Terri, they are just beautiful. When Mark saw these he just rolled his eyes, each time I add to my cat collection he is sure there just can't be any cat fabrics that I don't have, lol! Not only did Terri send these wonderful fabrics but I also received this pretty little Terri original. I will have to come up with a special project just for me to use this on! Even though I have spent the last couple of weeks generally feeling sorry for myself a few exciting things have happened. I went to see Buckcherry in concert which was just great I haven't been to see a band in a while so that was great fun. And last weekend Mark and I spent a day over in Wales visiting a few sites, ending up in Porthcawl for the sunset. We got trapped on the beach as the tide came in but it's very rocky around the beach so we managed to climb up the cliffs otherwise we may have ended up spending the night stranded on the rocks! Mark has some lovely pictures of our day on his blog but here are a couple of my pictures from the day

It was such a lovely spring day with plenty of sun, there were some great reflections in the rock pools on the beach.

These pictures are actually taken at Rest Bay just outside the main part of Porthcawl. This picture of the end of the beach was taken just as the sun was starting to go down. There are so many interesting rock formations to look at and photograph.

There weren't many clouds around and this created some lovely pastel colours in the sky as the sunset.

Before I sign off there are a couple of other exciting things I want to share. While I was at the Exeter quilt show the other week I signed up for a new Internet based magazine. I was chatting to Margaret at the stall as she was showing me some of the articles that they have had in the magazine we got talking about postcards and I promised to send some pictures of my postcards. Well Margaret included a picture of one of my cards and a link to my blog in the latest issue which was really exciting to see. Here is a link to the site and there is a free sample of the magazine to have a look through too.

Also a little birdy has told me that a picture of one of my postcards might be featuring in a local magazine soon too, in an article about another swappers collection of fabric postcards so I will keep my eye out for that. The magazine is dedicated to the County of Wiltshire where I live so it will be fun to look out for the upcoming issues and see if a picture of one of my cards does make it in!