33 years

We’ve been married longer than we were apart.  Oh my.

So here we are.  Enjoying a couple of days in one of our favourite cities (I know, there are a few!)  A slight delay on our flight and a long queue at immigration meant that the afternoon was cut a little short, so we simply headed out to do what we love to do here:

Eat.

Union Square Cafe has never failed to delight and this was no exception!  My hero’s Black Sea Bass with chiccerones, bacon and ramp mash was excellent, he told me, and I’m afraid I’d eaten my roast duck and black rice before I thought to take a picture! 

33 years ago, we were spending our wedding night in the Durham Post House Hotel, watching the episode of Dallas and hoping to learn who shot JR.  Priorities, eh?

161 miles, 2h 39min

I’ve been away, having fun whilst working.  One of those times when I feel very lucky indeed to have a great job which involves working with the most interesting and talented women, even if it does involve 161 miles and 2 hours 39 minutes on the M5/M6 in each direction.

Fortunately there wasn’t a single traffic jam to hold me up.

And Shirley’s chocolate pot was an added bonus ;-)

Surprises

Jordi and I had been chatting about these

I know, I have watercolours in all kinds of forms – Inktense pencils, Neocolour crayons, Gelati sticks, in tubes, in pans and some in bottles too.  But the idea of having papers with concentrated colour on them which will neither spill nor take up any room in my travel art kit appealed no end.

And of course, Jordi had not only tried them herself but had some to share.  How kind!

 

Imagine my delight yesterday, then, when I came home to find a little package on the mat. 

In the envelope was a quaint old package which was rather interesting, regardless of the watercolours inside.  Beware of imitations indeed – these are genuine “Peerless” colours!

Cheek Pink brings to mind pictures of a bygone age, don’t you think?

Of course, I couldn't wait to try them out for myself and went in search of a small pad of watercolour paper.

The next surprise was inside.

Looks like I’d been using this to scribble some ideas down for a village show or something.  But better things were on the next page…

Someone’s drawings! 

and

Yes!  Edward’s drawings from a holiday in Switzerland, aged around five, I guess.  Can you tell what they are?  (A dark green train, a cablecar and funicular railway going up a mountain and a paddle steamer on the lake with the Swiss flag flying) 

How cute are they?!

I LOVE finding such things in surprising places and it quite made my day!

Oh, and the Peerless Transparent Watercolours were rather lovely too, once I’d worked out which side of the paper held the colour.

Yes, I can hear Jordi laughing about that from here!

At last

Signs of Spring have appeared in this corner of the Cotswolds.  We’ve had blue skies for a couple of days now and though there was still a heavy frost this morning and we passed a fair bit of lying snow on the way into Cheltenham, there was a little more warmth in the sun than of late and we have the first daffodils out in the garden.

About time, too.

We spent the morning in town with nothing special in mind.  A leisurely browse in the Cheltenham Waterstones confirmed my opinion that these bookshops have taken a distinct turn for the better of late.  No more tables piled high with the same bestselling paperbacks as everywhere else and no more bored staff standing behind cash registers.  Instead, how much more appealing to find interesting and imaginative offerings of rather more unusual titles which demand to be picked up and perused at length (and bought, for heaven’s sake!)

The day got better still, though, because having dropped in on friends for coffee late morning, we tempted them out to sample the fish and chips at Simpsons.  Looks like civilisation in the form of a reliable chippy has arrived in Gloucestershire at last.

Hooray!

(The photograph is of The Minotaur and the Hare, who sit on the Promenade in Cheltenham, right outside Waterstones bookshop)

Tuesday morning

after a four day weekend.  My hero has a meeting of his choir committee at 10 o’clock.  I have some of my WI chums coming round this afternoon to fiddle about with needle and thread whilst we gossip (we think of ourselves as a craft group), Ian the painter is working on a few small projects during the next couple of days and Edward’s heading back to London.

Better make some biscuits then.