Days out

I've had a couple of lovely days out this past week. The first was to meet up with a couple of friends in Salisbury. We were blessed with a fabulous day of sunshine and Salisbury looked at its best. We had a coffee sitting out in the sunshine at Fisherton Mill before wandering on to the Cathedral where we had lunch in the Refectory there.

This is the Close in front of the cathedral where many people were taking advantage of the sunshine.

The Cloisters - so peaceful

Noticed this plaque on the wall in the cloisters and thought "That's obviously where I've gone wrong"! Since I am neither quiet nor confident! I suspect my chattering is simply to cover my lack of confidence.

As we strolled towards the river after lunch we were assailed by a fabulous perfume and on turning a corner we came upon this bed of hyacinths!

We sat for a bit enjoying the perfume and watching some ducks with one tiny duckling.


It was a lovely day out and we wandered slowly back to the station, after having a cup of tea sitting in the sunshine outside a pretty cafe, for our separate trains which left within 2 minutes of each other - how well organised was that!

Then on Friday I went to the Stitching and Creative Crafts exhibition at the Bath and West Showground at Shepton Mallet. As I drove along through stunning scenery with Classic fm playing on the radio I felt my heart sing (sounds naff but it's true). I obviously couldn't take any pictures for you as I was driving! But the countryside was England at its green and pleasant best. The distant views were delicately veiled in a faint blue mist which foretold of a beautiful day to come and the hedgerows were all soft green leaves and buds with here and there white blossom like so much washing spread out to dry! The banks had carpets of primroses and clumps of cowslips and the odd bluebell too. How I wished I could write poetry or paint or something as I so badly wanted to capture it all. If only it were possible to press Pause and to stop for a while right in this moment of springtime before it all rushes headlong into summer!

The show was a bit of a disappointment unless one was keen on card making - but I did enjoy my day out - I did a short workshop on machine embroidery - see my efforts above!

and learned how to make this little gift package which came with a couple of chocolates - I wonder where they went?!

And what I was most interested to discover was how to print digital images on fabric so I had booked a workshop where I produced this chap. It worked well and I have since washed the sample and find it is in fact colourfast so I am well pleased as for some years I have been wanting to incorporate my photos into my textile work but didn't like the horrible rubbery T-shirt transfer method and when I tried printing directly onto the fabric it wasn't washfast. Only problem now is that I need a printer which uses pigment inks rather than dye inks and needless to say our printer is the latter! New printer on my birthday list perhaps?!

As I said above I go on too much don't I and must print out that plaque and remind myself that less is more if I want to become strong!!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

PS Have just discovered how to straighten up photos since the spire in the first photo was somewhat leaning (it isn't actually perfectly perpendiucular but the lean I had made it look as if I had had too much to drink!) The photo of the clock tower by the river is also slightly askew but I won't bother with it as I find Blogger a bit of a B****er when you alter anything it throws everything out of correct spacing!