I wish I could say that I could see this view right now, but I can't. However, summer has really arrived and it's hot for the U.K. There's a haze over the valley this morning and the sun is hot on your skin when you go out .Out in the garden there is a stillness which we haven't seen before. There's very little wind and although the birds are singing and the bees are buzzing around, things seem very quiet. The stream has quieted down too - we haven't had any rain for a couple of weeks.
Our blue tit family are coming on in their house on our patio. They moved in almost as soon as we put it up. It's a bird house that my Dad put up originally at Ladycroft Walk, and it's really old. But it must be comfortable for blue tits because it's been used by many, many families over the years. It's now covered in Virginia creeper and totally invisible, but we can hear little squeaks from the house and the two adults are busy bringing food. This is good as there are a lot of insects and caterpillars that I need removed from my flowers!
We have a splendid show of rhododendrons right now - one of them must be 20 feet high and almost as wide. It looks like a huge waterfall of mauve blossom.
The lawn is a mass of buttercups (yes, I know that means that the grass is suffering and we'll pay for it later, but it's so pretty!). And there are yellow punctuation marks throughout the garden from buttercups and Welsh poppies. The overall color scheme uses the bronze, purple and pink pallette, so the yellow of these "weeds" really makes it pop!
In another couple of weeks we'll have a crop of gooseberries (if the birds don't get to them first). They're big and plump, but they are still hard so we have to wait a bit longer. We may also get a few strawberries to mix with the last of our rhubarb if we're lucky.
Last week we paid a visit to my old school chum Georgie and her husband Peter. They live in an updated row of quarrymen's cottages about 2 hours north of here. Their house is lovely, with a smashing garden and a view of almost the whole Cheshire plain. We had a lovely visit with some reminiscence, lots of walking, eating and drinking. We're hoping they can join us for a bit of walking and visiting in the fall, but they have busy lives and so do we, so it is sometimes quite hard to get our calendars to match up!
Joy came over this weekend. John was working on a paper so we two "girls" took advantage of the hot and sunny weather and rode off in her open topped car to visit one of our local stately homes - Attingham. It was good fun. We took the tours and learned about riches, corruption and bankruptcy in the Regency era!
To return to the picture of the palm trees. This is something I painted last night at art class. We're really just practicing with watercolor washes, but once I had the orange and yellow "sky" I couldn't resist putting in the palm trees!
The art class has been fun. We're learning techniques at present. First it was using pencils. It's amazing! We've all used pencils since we were little, but you actually have to learn how to use them to draw and shade things.
Now we're learning how to use watercolors. I'm actually quite exited about this and hope to be able to produce a competant piece of work at the end of it. I've never thought of myself as much of an artist, but I do think I'm a craftsman and I should be able to master the craft of drawing and painting.
The hard part is getting the creative ideas and putting them into a drawing, painting or sculpture. I've been hard pressed to have any creative ideas, let alone realise them in the last couple of years.
I did sit down with a pepper mill a few weeks ago and spent several hours working on this drawing. I'm quite pleased with the shading even though the shape is a little off. >
