HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

WINTER BLUES

Woke up this morning to a dark, dull wet day. Ping went my phone - another email coming in - opened it and saw lovely summer scenes beside a blue sparkling lake - sigh. The photos were of friends of ours who live in New Zealand and of course it is summer there - oh how I wish to have some sunshine.

Footwork

I bought myself a pair of shoes yesterday, they didn't cost me very much but I think they are lovely!

"Hoggy"

"Hoggy" will be for sale, along with my other craft items at The Glebe Craft Fair, Wicklow in The Grand Hotel tomorrow.

Calendar for 2013

This calendar has local scenes of Wicklow Town all from my original watercolours

The Mall, Wicklow Town

Return visitors

Its the start of the winter and we have started to feed the birds again. This year there are a lot more birds and this morning they were flitting to and fro across the garden. Its really lovely to watch them. A bluetit was having a ball burrowing into the ivy on the wall, feeding on grubs in there and having to scare off other birds. "Our" robin is back and of course trying to assert his presence!

April Showers

Driving down to Wicklow this morning my car was showered with leaves of many colours, like giant confetti! I love the autumn colours on the trees but with the wind today it looks like the leaves won't last much longer.

I'm bored

clumsy!

Geoffrey spent the day today on the lot of "Fair City". Today was wet and cold so he came in cold and wet and left his HUGE golf umbrella open in the hall and I keep forgetting that it is there - I must have tripped over at least three times - grrr

BLOOMING WICKLOW

MEET AND GREET

Spent yesterday afternoon doing my voluntary duty in the gallery and met lots of interesting people. My work is featured in the window this week and it is interesting (and revealing) to see what people make of my work. At home I have a very critical audience so it was nice to have some compliments for a change! The town is full of visitors and the weather is lovely - long may it last!

I WISH!

SNOOZY TIME!

SUMMER !!!!!!!!

Did somebody say it was summer !!!!!! It was so cold last night, we thought about putting the heating on, instead I was a good girl and just put an extra jumper on, I wonder what the winter will be like.

CHEEKY!

Adam gave me a belated birthday gift of an iphone. We went out shopping and I had forgotten I had the phone in the back pocket of my jeans. I mentioned this and his reply was "oh it won't come to any harm, it has elephant glass" I just looked at him and laughed, well what else could I do!

A LITTLE DRILL?!

Adam bought himself a drill yesterday but when we opened the box and looked at it, we found it was huge, so big that it weighed so much it was difficult to lift! We had a good laugh and brought it back to the shop and they exchanged it for a smaller one.

A GOOD SHOWER

Yesterday Adam and I went to Sligo via Galway! We stopped to visit a friend of Adam's and then as the Volvo Yacht Race was in full swing with all the sailors and yachts in harbour we thought we would like to see what was going on. Well, we had just got out of the car when the heavens opened so we sheltered under the canopy of a stall for a while,then thinking that it had eased we moved on but it startd to rain even heavier so we sheltered in a shopping centre but as it was after 6 the shops were closed, but along with a lot of other people we thought a coffee shop might be open where we could shelter. Suddenly the security guards came and started to shout and asked us to leave, they shut all the doors and we all had to leave. We wandered through some of the nearby streets and every coffee shop was closed - WELCOME TO GALWAY - WE ARE CLOSED! When I rang Geoffrey that night he said it was warm and sunny there - grrrrrrrr

MEMORIES

The house is full of the perfume of sweetpea from our garden. The perfume from the lovely flowers always reminds me of the home I grew up in. My father always planted a "wall" of sweetpea beside a path that led to the other side of the garden and I loved to walk over there at dusk when the perfume was at its strongest and stand and smell and listen to the sound of the night jars singing in the trees. Memories.

I LOVE SWEETPEA

EEEEEEEK!

Geoffrey opened the compost bin today to put some more organic material on it and found to his horror an ant colony. We just could not leave it and had to kill off the ants as it is right up against everything. I have never seen so many ants before and am still itchy thinking about it!

COMMUNICATION

Went out today and forgot my phone, I felt unsettled and out of touch, funny how you get used to some things. Came home and sat down at the computer and "chatted" to my sister in Lanzarote on line, then exchanged texts with Adam who is in Chicago on his way to Arizona, is'nt life interesting and all without moving out of my chair!

SUMMER IN WICKLOW HARBOUR

I love painting the harbour.

SUNSHINE!

The sun shone today for a short while! When the sun broke out I went out to the garden just to take the rays and enjoy the visitors to the garden. We let out herbs and some veg grown wild and flower as we found that the bees love them - so when the sun broke out today a lot of bees landed on our flowers and I went to have a look. I found that there were four types of bees buzzing on the flowers on the sage. There was one huge black bee, another two normal size bees, one with two stripes and another with one stripe but then I suddenly saw this tiny bee, I have never seen such a small bee before, when "he" came to a flower he disappeared completely into the petals!

ON THE COAT TAILS OF FAME!

Called into my local chemist today and was greeted by "saw Geoffrey on television last night"! by the staff, it made Geofffrey's day when I told him.

TASTE

What goes with a good red wine? Cold chicken, spuds and tinned beans of course! No! Well it does in our house!!

WICKLOW ARTS FESTIVAL

Spent Saturday on the railings in Wicklow surrounded by fellow artists. It was a lovely day. Bright warm sunshine and lots of people around. Wicklow town was buzzing with lots of events on, unfortunately I could not explore as I had to stay with my items. I had lots of interest and met a lot of very interesting people, it is great to get feedback from customers and this keeps me in touch. I came home at the end of a very tiring day, sunburnt and happy. Geoffrey came home later, dirty and tired from his day acting!

TOASTED

I have to admit - I miss my toaster. We are still without a toaster as we have not had the time to go to the shops and pick out one, preferably one that does not take 10 minutes to toast! Toast done under the griller is just not the same.

TOAST!

Woke up this morning and turned to look at the clock as usual - nothing - blank face - nuts, the electricity had gone during the night. We lay there for a while contemplating not getting up. Have you ever thought how much we rely on electricity - almost everything, it is times like that when I would have liked to have a gas cooker. Anyway Geoffrey finally got up and I followed more slowly. I wandered around upstairs while I cleaned my teeth and flicked the landing switch and lo and behold it worked! I flew down to Geoffrey (sitting in front of the blank tv) and told him about the lights working. He rang the electricity company (having previously rung them to say we had no electricity), they suggested that we unplug everything and then gradually plug them in, one at a time. I suggested that we start with the toaster as it had been taking a long time to toast. I got that look husbands give wives! Plugged it in and BANG it blew the fuse! I hated that toaster and am very glad that it can now be recycled!

SWEPT OFF MY FEET!

Today is very windy in Wicklow so I decided to go down to the harbour to take some photographs as I knew the waves would be very high. After taking some photos down at the harbour I went up over the town where you can see the whole bay but when I got out of the car I realised that it was just too windy. I was nearly swept off my feet and had great difficulty getting back into the car, I won't do that again!

A STORMY WICKLOW HARBOUR

HOMELESS

We had a pair very distressed blackbirds in our front garden.

During the recent stormy weather our lilac tree blew down. We knew that the blackbirds had a nest in that tree as there was a lot of activity around it, especially first thing in the morning.

Both birds have been calling to each other for the last few days but today when I looked out they had gone. I hope they have been able to find another suitable nest site and will raise a family in time.

MOTHER'S DAY PRESENT

Today is mother's Day - most mothers receive flowers, chocolates etc - I received the best present though!

Simon is home for the weekend and of course came bearing presents, gratefully received. Later he disappeared and when I went looking for him I found him outside washing my car and was told that this was my extra present, I think that this must be the best and most unusual present I have received - yet!

LITTLE ANGEL

IT'S A GIRL!

SNUGGLES!

Guess what I got for Valentine's Day! - To be fair I also got flowers and chocolates.

CUPY CAT

AHH

I loved stitching this, you will find it in the gallery window in Bridge Street

SPOTTED!

Geoffrey is chasing birds again! - am I worried? No! Because they are the feathered kind!

We have lots of different species of birds feeding in our garden but the starlings bully the smaller birds and Geoffrey can't stand watching the little ones sitting miserable and hungry so he rushes out to the garden to chase off the starlings!