Out and About

We were supposed to go and see the Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy in London today....but we didn't! Things did not bode well when the website said to expect three hour queues to get in, but I thought we'd pop by and check just in case. As you can see from the photo above, it was a tad crowded - all those people are in a queue outside the gallery. However, on the walk up to Piccadilly, we went into the National Portrait Gallery instead and checked out their Indian Portrait exhibit which was fascinating, and also saw the work of the Singh twins who I had never heard of but am so glad to have discovered.


Someone got ideas above their station and insisted on going into Fortnum & Mason's and spending her mother's hard-earned cash on maple syrup. Seeing her being served by a gentleman in a morning suit who called her 'madam' was worth it though!


Just down the road from the Royal Academy is this wonderful shop that sells Japanese cakes and sweets. Look at those bunny boxes!


We called in at the new Japanese Centre off Piccadilly - sushi for tea tonight.


And these apple & cinnamon pancakes, if anyone can bear to cut into them!


Leaving Piccadilly Circus, we walk past my favourite statue/fountain in the whole of London.


It is jammed into a corner (which is why I couldn't photograph it all without getting run over!) but the four horses are so magnificent it deserves to have been put somewhere far more central. My back garden for instance.....

Yesterday we visited an antiques centre - full of more than antiques though. I couldn't resist this...


...now it just needs to be put in the right spot in the garden.


I rather liked this too - strangely I always seem to have a lot of new soaps that need a container, so that was a good excuse to make the purchase.

I am still painting/crafting, not just gadding about! By tomorrow I should have finished a very intricate shawl that has been taking up my time the past few weeks - watch this space.

Fun With Shells!

On Sunday, Midge from Soggibottom gave us a bag of shells she had collected from the beach in Devon - she was very self-deprecating about it and I don't think she realised just how much we love shells in our house and what a cool present it really was! Stacie and I had great fun this morning making a wind-chime out of them by hanging them on twine. Because the shells are so large, they make a really deep, rich clinking sound which is very musical. They won't be going outside though, just in case they get thrown about by the wind and broken.


While we were at it, we also re-created a shell hanging ornament that we had seen and liked in the local garden centre. I already had a load of white cockle shells, so I drilled holes in them and we strung them on lengths of twine which we then tied together to make a satisfying bundle.
Now we just have to find where we are going to hang our new treasures!

When Two Blogs Collide.....

It's always fun to make new friends through blogging, but the acid test is when you actually meet them in person and still get on like a house on fire. Today we were visited by Midge from Soggibottom, along with Tony and Amie soto blossom, all the way from Devon. Midge won the giveaway of my 101st potato painting and decided she wanted to combine a visit to her family in a nearby town with picking up her prize in person.

We had a lovely visit but it was far too short. The most exciting part of the afternoon for me was seeing my dog meet Amie in his own house.........and do nothing. Clovis is a lovely fellow but he does (did!) have one quite worrying fault and that was his unpredictability when faced with other dogs, especially new ones. In the past I have had to resort to all sorts of ruses to avoid confrontations - changing my planned walk if I saw another dog on the horizon, crossing the road while my dog growled and struggled to get at another dog, and if all else failed, getting an apology ready in case the worst happened. Trips to the vet were a nightmare if there happened to be another dog in the waiting room, and the more it happened the more worried I got - therefore making the problem even worse as Clovis sensed my anxiety.

However, at Christmas I was given Cesar Millan's book (the Dog Whisperer) which was a bit of a revelation. I've also been watching the tv programmes avidly and the more I saw and read, the more I realised that I was probably a major cause of my dog's problem. So to cut a long story short, since our other dog died after Christmas, I have been training Clovis - and myself - intensively. It has been working and this weekend has been incredible - yesterday we managed to walk in the same field as three small dogs (one of which he has had a go at in the past) and my dog just ignored them. Today he allowed a 'strange' dog into his home territory and after a brief sniff, just curled up on the sofa. I think he has definitely been 'rehabilitated' and while I will remain vigilent, I think the worst is over. Thank you Midge so much for allowing the lovely Amie to be part of an experiment!


Midge also brought us some fab presents from Devon - three baby Cornish palms, a pound (a POUND!) of clotted cream and shells fresh from the beach. Stacie and I have already planned to make a windchime thingy from the shells, and I think we'll have to get some scones in tomorrow to help that cream get eaten - yum!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of Midge & I together - they are on her camera. I'm sure they will appear on her blog this week - after she has recovered from her excursion into deepest, darkest Hampshire!

Nest Update

There will be no blackbird chicks in the nest. After a protracted battle this morning, magpies ate all the eggs.
Murderers.

St.George & Potatoes

With the sun shining, the dirt & dust show, so it's been a week of Spring cleaning here. While mucking out my bedroom (a fairly accurate description of the process involved...) I discovered hidden behind a chest of drawers a piece of embroidery I did while I was at school. It was dusty and stained and starting to come apart in places. We had obligatory needlework lessons in my school which I thoroughly enjoyed and managed to stretch working on this piece out for over a year. Even back then I was fascinated with the different stitches and effects that could be achieved with thread and beads.
So I've soaked and washed this very carefully and got the worst of the staining out. Now it needs some TLC repairing the horse and St. George's belt, as well as addressing the hole above his bicep. Then after pressing , I think it deserves to be put behind glass in a frame before it gets any more damage.


Last year when I was painting potatoes, one of my favourites both to paint and to eat was 'Truffles'. The colour was mesmerising and the flavour was the most potato-ey potato I have ever tasted. At the time, I asked the author of the book if he could get hold of some seed potatoes in order for me to grow my own....today I collected them and planted them in my modest pair of potato sacks on the patio, along with some Bonte Desiree.


I still have some left over, so I'm going to have to find a corner to squeeze in another bag. This is the first time I've attempted to grow potatoes - wish me luck! I've also planted some runner beans, one lone strawberry plant, and got some tomato plants growing nicely indoors. The spindly bush on the right is my Goji berry which amazingly survived being buried under eight inches of snow for a fortnight during the winter - perhaps it will even have berries this year.

This time of year I get very impatient with my garden - everything is just on the edge of getting started and I want it all to get going NOW. At the moment all I'm doing is proving that staring at grass seed and blossom buds on a twice daily basis does not make them grow any faster...

A Shady Pair

I finished the above watercolour painting today. It is if a pair of young lions in Namibia, using a reference photograph given to me by a good customer of mine. I love the way their poses mirror each other as they relax in the dappled shade.

As I am too late to enter this in the local exhibition, I am putting it straight onto Etsy for sale. There will be more original paintings in my Etsy shop later in the week - it's a matter of waiting for some sunshine in order to get the best possible photographs.


I'm keeping a watch on the blackbird's nest from a discreet distance. She is still keeping those eggs warm - I'm not too sure how long the incubation period for blackbirds is (must go and check the Book of British Birds) but I am assuming we can expect to wait another couple of weeks before seeing any chicks. All very exciting!

Kalo Pasxa!

...or Happy Easter to those of you who don't speak Greek!
Just finished putting the icing on our Easter cake and am on the verge of a diabetic coma after licking out the bowl (no children around, can't let it go to waste...) and some of those chocolate eggs were definitely mis-shapen and had to be disposed of.......
Yesterday I made a batch of koulourekia (Easter butter cookies) which almost taste like the authentic ones - yum!


Guess who just had to put his nose in and have a whiff of that cake as soon as I left the room? "Who me? No, never, I wouldn't dream of it...."
In the past I have found the icing nibbled carefully off the sides of a cake left out on the side.......he's very delicate in his thievery! But not this time, the cake is unscathed....better go and put it away now!