Enjoying the Garden

I don't know about you, but although I'm loving the sunshine, the heat makes it hard for me to concentrate on any of my projects.

The best thing? To just sit in the hammock that 'im outdoors has hung for me, and read.

But the Catalpa Bignonioides "Aurea", or Golden Indian Bean Tree seems to be loving the sunshine. I love its gold coloured leaves against a brilliant blue sky.

Curtain Bird

With no assignments to write, I’ve had to keep myself busy with other projects.
While perusing the internet and following random links between sites I found the lovely Spool. Based in Philadelphia they are sadly a little far away to visit, although I’d love to if the fabric on their website is anything to go on. But they do have a few free patterns, so I downloaded myself a blue bird and had a go. I’m not a great at sewing, (yes I know I made a blind, but some of the lines are very wonky!) so this was a good starting project.
The only fabric I have is off cuts from our bedroom curtains, which I think actually worked really well.
So having had success with the bird I shall now try a slightly harder project – a lunch bag. I just need some appropriate material first – I feel a shopping trip coming on.

A House on an Island

It’s the last week of semester and I am totally run off my feet with Level 3 project marks and getting ready for exam boards amongst other things. But today I made the effort to attend the writers groups – seeing as we only meet once a month.
Last months homework was to write about a house. The Chair had provided pictures of houses cut out of magazines and newspapers and we had our pick.
Having chosen a small cottage I actually managed to find some time to write about it, although I didn’t get a change to edit it before the meeting.

My rough draft:

We didn’t see the house that first night. The fog was too thick; all we could see was the path leading to the door and our feet. I’ve always thought of fog as going from the ground up, so maybe this was very low cloud.
Frank had spent most of the journey moaning about the weather, and I hoped it would get better, but I didn’t really mind. At least we were away from work and the City and not stuck in some hot sticky place full of chavs.
That first night was so welcoming. Dinner left warming in the oven, a big fireplace ready for us, the bed turned down, the water hot. No people.
But that first night that was just fine, we didn’t want to see anyone either.

I was up early the next day, eager to explore the island. Frank was still asleep and I didn’t expect him to be up before lunch, we were on holiday after all.
The fog has gone leaving behind a damp island surrounded by blue sea and blue sky. In the distance I could see the mountains of Scotland, but the mainland felt miles away. In the early morning light everything seemed beautiful.
The island was unbelievably small; at one point I could see the sea surrounding us on all sides. This I had been expecting, but the fact there were no other houses I hadn’t. I didn’t think that Frank would like that, but the cottage seemed to have everything we needed so I didn’t mind.
I took my time getting back, looking at everything and thinking about what to make for lunch.
Frank wasn’t there when I got back. He must have gone on a walk of his own, although the island is small enough that I probably would have seen him.
I didn’t worry, just started to prepare lunch. He’d be hungry when he got back.

It is starting to get dark now and Frank’s still not back. I don’t know what to do. I’ve walked round the island again but seen no sign of him. He won’t have gone swimming, he hates water. Where can he be? I want this to be some elaborate joke, but Frank’s not the type. He can’t have left without me, I’d have seen the boat and all his stuffs still here…

I was trying to see if I could change the mood of a piece of writing which I think worked. The group seemed to like it. The big question; What happened to Frank?

Homework for next month: either write a poem about somewhere you are going to visit in the next month or write a story designed for a commuters journey.

Surrey Artists Open Studios

This weekend kicks off the Surrey Artist Open Studios event. This is a two week period to visit artist in Surrey - to look at their work, buy their work and in some cases see demonstrations of how they work. Some are even running workshops.
They’ve got about 440 artists across Surrey participating and all will be open on Sunday 13th June.
How amazing is that? A chance to go round and have a nose in other people’s workshops, but also to see a huge amount of art in every media possible. Just looking through the brochure I picked up at work I’m quite jealous of the work space some of these people have. Of course if I put in a few hours and cleared up the study of all the rubbish I bought back from my parents I too would have a pretty good space to work in. A task for this afternoon I fear.