Little starfish

I'm going with better late than never on this one. He was drawn whilst listening to jazz and relaxing on my sofa! A very calming draw which turned out far better than expected.



(Sorry about the photo quality it was really far too dark!)

Lindy xxx

Edinburgh

Unfortunately drawing time has been a little restricted in the last few days, but hopefully I should have something to post later this evening.

One of the reasons that I've been a little lax is that James and I took a short trip to Edinburgh this week which was amazing! It was one of those days where everything just went right. Hands down the best place we visited was defiantly the Royal Botanic Gardens. The outside areas were free to wander about in, and the Glass houses were very reasonably priced to enter. I took hundreds of photos as you can see below! All in all it was an amazing day and the perfect antidote to a grey start to the week down here.

























Hope everyone is having as equally good middle of the week!

Lindy xxx

A fish called Wanda...

Todays drawing offering...



I had a bonus day off of work today. I had some spare holiday to book and had completely forgotten that I had booked it for this week. Bonus!

Happy Sunday

Lindy xxx

Saturday Steals Vol 18

So I was thinking about what I could tell you about this week. I considered this beautiful glass butter dish that was given to James and I by his grandmother.



But then I thought about all the other things that might be worth more than a butter dish. You see I have a lot of 'stuff', and sometimes I wonder whether it is too much. Now its not that I don't value the butter dish, and its not that I'm not very grateful for the gift. Its just that I've been thinking recently about all the things that we get for free that might be worth more.

Like this morning. The first thing that James told me as I woke up was that I was beautiful. The first thing that I told him was that I loved him.

He downloaded this music for me because he knows that its my favourite song.


Its the little things that we do in out everyday lives that add up to the really big happiness.

Here is the picture I managed to draw for today. For some reason she looks really really worried!


Hope everyone has a love filled weekend!

Lindy xxxx

That Friday feeling...

Last night for dinner James made me this...


Its true I am a very lucky girl! Steak and garlic potatoes. I very much enjoyed this!

Today, amongst other things, I watched an awful lot of House and drew these little cuties!





I tried for a second time because I ran out of room at the top on the first one!

I also decided to buy some new sketching pencils. Over the years I have had loads of different sets, but seem to have ended up with a glut of 4H's and 3B's and not a lot in between! Thus a new set was required. I managed to get this tin from W H Smiths for half price at only £2.74- a pretty good deal I thought. But that aside the thing that amused me about these was the warning on the back.



What I was trying to show, through my poor photography skills was the warning which said 'Recommended for age 14 years & above'! I mean really. They are only pencils, those below 14 don't have the right to draw?! Madness, I tell you. Madness.

Lindy xxx

Things I'm Thinking About Thursday Vol 2

I've been a little remiss in keeping this up, but here is the second instalment of things I've been thinking about this week.

Birds. These are the birds that live on the river outside of my flat. Since I've had a pretty sedentary week at home I've been watching them quite a lot.




This Jumper. I love it. And I want it. But its £45. And thats a lot of money in my world for a jumper!

http://www.fatface.com/knits/bella-jumper/invt/27769/&bklist=icat,4,shop,womenswear,womensknits

Stephen Fry's new book. I really want to read it but its £12.99 for the e-book and I just haven't got round to justifying that much money on an e-book to myself yet!


Credit

Pictures. I really want to do something like this in our bedroom, but need to find some cool frames first.


Credit

Lion

My paltry offering for today on the drawing front...






I enjoyed this one. For the first time in ages I'm drawing things which look like actual things!

Happy Thursday xxxx

Drawings

I've decided that I wanted to take a bit more time to work on my drawing. I did art up to GCSE level but didn't take it any further. I haven't drawn for many many years and I decided to look on the net for a bit more instruction. I found this site called 'Drawspace' which gives loads of really detailed lessons on how to draw lots of different animals and things. Below is my first attempt!



I think I'm really going to enjoy this new challenge. I want to bring more creative things in to my life and I'm going to try and do one of these lessons every day for a month. I'll try to post what I manage to create!

Happy Wednesday! xxx

Tuesday

When I went to see my doctor yesterday, he put me on a mixture of Diazepam and Diclofenac for my whiplash. Which is good, but it does rather make writing a coherent blog post problematic. (As an interesting side note for my American readers, Diazepam is otherwise known as Vicodin and is the drug to which Dr House is addicted to on a well known Fox drama! If only I could muster such witty one liners!)

So instead I thought I would show you some of the photos I took over the weekend. This is only a small selection as I am still getting used to my new camera and seem to be out of focus more than I am in.







Ros xxx

Food, food, glorious food!

Last night was a very good night. Ignoring the fact that I have whiplash, and thus probably shouldn’t have been drinking (shhh don’t tell anyone), James cooked me another amazing meal.



We had Bobotie (which is a kind of spiced South African meatloaf) and salad. I think it was the eating by candle light which made it so romantic. That and the music of Billy Joel in the background. (Don’t laugh, I love Billy Joel, there is nothing like a little social commentary with dinner!)





After which we had strawberries and cream whilst watching Food Inc. Now I know I’m a little behind here in watching this film, but it was a really eye opener. Now I know i don’t live in the states, but still. It was horrifying to see some of the scenes in the slaughterhouses. Now I know that as a former vegetarian the film was preaching to the converted, but I was still shocked. If I ever manage to make it to the States (which i would love to one day), I might not be eating!

I hope every one has a happy Sunday, I am off to visit my Gran and go out for lunch! See you all next week.

Ros xxxx

(ps. Please excuse the slightly blurry photos, I'm still getting to grips with my new camera!)

Saturday Steals Vol 17

Well I promised myself this week that I would make it back for Saturday Steals. I thought about my post during the week. Decided what I would ‘steal’. My organisation was going to be superb, nay enviable this week. You would have been blown away by the sophistication and thought which was going to have gone in to my post. It was going to be awesome.

Unfortunately yesterday I was in a minor car crash and I have ended up with whiplash. About the best description I can come up with of what this feels like, is that my back is clicking like an unholy xylophone, being played by an over enthusiastic ghoul. This has rather stymied the grand plans I had for my Saturday Steals extravaganza of a post since I’m not really in the position to take the *amazing* photos I had planned.

So this leaves me to tell you about another steal I managed this week. Unsurprisingly I am back on the bandwagon of buying books. But as my daily Notes From The Universe tell me, an amazing collection of books is something to strive for, and who am I to argue! (Honestly if you’ve never heard or read these little notes they are a fantastic way to start your day.)

This book cost me the grand total of 25p from a bargain bucket of books that was outside an independent book retailer on my way to work. Hannah Hauxwell is a woman from the Yorkshire Dales who came to fame in the 1970’s for her solitary lifestyle without modern conveniences (such as say, running water or electricity). A couple of TV programs were made about her and this is one of the accompanying books.



(As you can see my photography is not going any further afield than my sofa!)

Whilst you might be quite rightly wondering why on earth I was attracted to this particular tatty paperback, it is a quite convoluted tale. When I was a kid, my parents had one of the other books from the series, and it sat on our bookshelf for years. I never read this book. I just remember noticing it a lot. It was called ‘Hannah in Yorkshire’, had a black dust jacket, and a very large photo of the aforementioned Hannah on the front. I have no idea why I did not read this book. My parents were very liberal in what they let me read. I read plenty of other things off of their bookshelves. Except this one book. Yet it must have made enough of an impression that I remember it all these years later and then go out of my way to buy a similar book. Perhaps the world is telling me that after all these years I should simply borrow that book off of my Dad, as I should have done about a decade ago!

After all these years this is a pretty good book. Simple but affecting. Not a long or a difficult read, but Hannah herself is a very likable woman, who has lead a most extraordinary life. Maybe I would not have appreciated her story at 5 or at 10. Maybe I would have fixated on the fact that she didn’t have TV, or that she couldn’t wash her hair every day and I would have not really understood what I glean from this tale now. Maybe the world wanted me to wait before meeting Hannah in the pages of a tatty paper back, aged 21. But whatever age I am, I’m glad to have met Hannah in the pages of this book, finally, and she strikes me as the kind of woman who would mind that I turned up a little late for our meeting.

Discrepancies...

I have come to a conclusion that will be of little shock to those who know me well. If left to my own devises I might continue to live the life of a student forever. A case in point would seem to be my eating habits.

When James makes dinner for us I receive offerings such as that below.



Excusing my poor photography skills, what you have before you is a delicious thai green curry made from scratch. And when I say from scratch I really do mean it. It took him hours. We had special fragrant thai rice to go with it. It was garnished. Side dishes were involved. All in all it was a culinary sensation. And this from a man who had never had thai green curry before that day, when I had happened to say that I fancied it when he asked me what I wanted for dinner. It was heaven.

Now I hear you ask, how do I repay him for such culinary genius?



Yes. When it was my turn I managed bake potatoes with grated cheese. And I managed to undercook the potatoes. I think he's defiantly winning here! Yet since I get to eat all of this delicious food without putting the effort in to cooking it, does this actually mean that I'm winning?...

Yes, yes I think it might!

A day out...

I was let out of my office today and set free in to the big wide world. To be fair to my employers, they simply sent me to another office, but still, a day out!!! And a day by the seaside at that!







Pretty flowers, beach huts and sun. All good.

Then the weather turned and we got this



Beautiful, but in a different, more elemental way.

Happy Monday!

Ros xxx

Weekend

I think I'm of the opinion that no weekend can be a bad weekend (no matter how many hours are spent at work), when you Dad shows up with a basket full of cactuses he has grown for you.






I really like cacti, mostly because they seem to be the only plants that I can't kill! Plus, do you see the tiny little yellow flowers?!! I think I might be in love!

I hope everyone else is having such a love filled weekend!

Ros xxx