Words, Hawks and Sunshine - Sunday 8th March 2015

Hello Friends,

Apologies for a wordy post and no craft today, I think the sun got to me yesterday!

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend! The weather here has been amazing since Thursday (though it came to a bit of a soggy end today). I don't generally do a lot of crafting at the weekend, maybe the occasional hour or two and this weekend was no different. Yesterday we went into Bristol, I've been feeling so rotten, that I hadn't wanted to do much for the past few weeks, but who could resist such lovely spring weather?

We parked near the university and walked to a favourite coffee shop. I love people watching in these places...the man in the corner having a lesson in Mandarin, another student busy on his laptop. This place brings back memories for me, because I studied at Bristol as a mature student and I too used to come in there before lectures and work on my laptop, or read from a  study book.

We walked down the hill looking in the shops on the way. The main shop we were aiming for was a new art shop - it's actually been there since November (we visited it before Christmas), but was having it's official opening yesterday with lots of offers. It's a very big shop and all the staff are either artists in their own right or art students and all very friendly and knowledgeable. As it's my birthday in a few weeks, Tom got me a few pressies in there, including some promarkers in colours I needed to replace or new colours, which were on offer yesterday for less than £1 each!

I also got a goody bag with my purchases (a nice bag too) filled with paints,  a watercolour pencil set, charcoal pencils, watercolour pads, erasers, notebooks -  all worth about £40, fabulous! 

We then popped across the road to a shop called Bristol Guild where we ate a very healthy lunch in their orangery.

The weather was so beautiful yesterday that we didn't need coats and doesn't it feel good, how much of a difference does this light that we have missed seeing for what seems so long make to our feeling of wellbeing.

When we got home, mid-afternoon Tom washed the car, it's his weekend 'workout' ritual, he's not happy if he hasn't had the chance to spend a few hours at the weekend making the car sparkle and shine and I get that, he's in the car or his office all week, it's good exercise. Normally I would take myself to the craft room for a few hours and goodness knows with an anniversary card, Mothers Day card, birthday card and 21st birthday card to make, it's what I should have done, but to be honest I didn't have the inclination and the sun was so welcoming that I took my book, a cuppa and myself on to the bench outside the summerhouse and kept the hens company for a few hours. I need to bond more with Tilda anyway, you don't spend so much time with them in the winter and she is still a little 'suspicious', especially living with the force of nature that it Cara, but she's coming around and had a nice cuddle yesterday. Here they are enjoying the sun...

I'm reading 'H is for Hawk', have any of you read it? Thoroughly recommended. I love birds and am mesmerised by birds of Prey. Back in 2008 I had a birthday gift of some falconry lessons and it was just amazing. I felt quite humbled to have this incredible bird fly to my outstretched arm time and time again, to quickly gain its trust. The bird I worked with was a Harris Hawk, very boringly named Harry and he was just the most beautiful creature ever. I found some photos of me below, with Harry and also an Eagle owl that I had the chance to handle. I would do it again in an instant.

After that tale of my weekend, one final nod to crafts...two of Thursday night's crafters, Sue and Jane with their decorated bags...I'll be back tomorrow, less words, more crafts!

Thanks for stopping by,
Love and Hugs
Carole X

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