fields

What an amazing number of people can pack into a house when there is a band, eh? Especially when there are violins, a mandolin, guitar, whistles and a bodhrán (that last is essential). One of the violinists was 12 years old, a 78-year-old sang two solos. Of course towards the end of the evening the songs of separation and rebel tunes came out. Athenry was summoned, and a song that started with an Irish boy losing his leg in the American civil war ended with Bush and his Iraq war. Predictable, but perfect.

prod your gondola on over

If you are in Southern California, please visit the fabulous Miss Ph tonight as she and these other talented artists show their work. Surrounded by art, a glass of wine in hand and interesting people to chat with, it will be a good evening.

verdigris

lost

I love this fragment, it went inside the lid of The Egypt Box (one of the story boxes I made a while back).

beams

In all the excitement of the Eglu, I forgot my bag of electronics up north and cannot charge my camera or load any photos of my work. Very frustrating. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks till it gets here.

not snow!

Since I last wrote in January I’ve been 1,000 miles north and back. Like many migrating creatures I do this yearly, usually in late spring and early fall, but ended up going for a midwinter break also. I imagined I would spend my time listening to the cold wind whistling outside while I curled up with a pile of books in front of the woodstove, with occasional trips to a comfy chair in front of the library’s fireplace, or to meet up with friends in a café for a chat, my hands warmed by a mug of caffeine.

Not so much.

Instead, there was relentless sunshine (outside two brief snowfalls) provoking me out into the garden. So, I planted these lovely hellebores, a peach tree, an Italian prune, and one of those fancy cherry trees with four varieties grafted onto the trunk. I’m not normally in favour of multi-grafted trees, I did it for efficiency since I also had serial disasters keeping me from my books, including a truck falling through my bridge.

The return drive found the fiendish hounds crammed into the little bit of space not occupied by the new (used) Eglu. The family selling it needed a bigger coop, and before I left the daughter played a few beautiful tunes on the harp then demonstrated how she could balance a (live) mauve chicken upside-down on her head. Such talent!

waves

I didn't expect to go so long with out posting, but I was off in the wilderness and internet-less. Apologies to commenters whose comments have gone unanswered, and double to Mike whose comment somehow got sent to the spam bin. I'll write more tomorrow, then it's back to work.