A Good Monday

A little cooler on the Island today, at least in the morning it was.  I managed to get the plums picked and some jam made, did some gardening, studying and painting.  I enjoyed a lovely walk in the later afternoon and was delighted to spot some dolphins out in the bay - about four or five, it was difficult to tell, and unfortunately a bit far out for  my little pocket camera.

In the garden today:

Beautiful roses.

All a bit too high for me to prune  and dead head roses unfortunately.

Fabulous dragonfly

It was very high up so I had to zoom in to capture it on film.

Someone's cat visited the garden.

In the kitchen:

Picked plums.

Cutting the plums open - quite a lot had yukky creepy crawlies in them, so they ended up in the compost, that was partly why I prepared the plums outside.

A 'double plum'.  

I'm not sure what type of plums they are - either Cambridge Gage or Pershore apparently.

Chop them up. (1307 g of plums)

Add 120 mls of water with 1 tbsp of lemon juice.

Boil and then simmer until plums are soft, add sugar - I added about 1200 g of sugar,  boil until reach setting point.  Pour into sterilised jars.

On my walk...

A bit a sea mist/haze this afternoon, I took this from the seat I sit on most times I come down to the bay.

The fields are so very dry.

A couple of crows.  There was quite  a few of them at one point and there was a kestrel (?) trying to dive bomb them - normally it is the other way round, but it must have been after something.  In the end it did fly away.

The highlight of my walk, as mentioned at the beginning of the blog, was seeing the dolphins.

Art today:  

I'm finding it a bit frustrating that I don't have any of my easel boards anymore, (no thanks to the removal company who lost them!), as I have nothing to prepare and tape the watercolour paper to.  I tried out some of the other papers I have... one was really for acrylic paints, and it definitely wasn't as good for doing water colours on.

This is just a mess!  Free style, is definitely not my style! Ha ha.

I tried an elephant.  Room for improvement, but pleased with my first attempt, using only one colour.

A VERY HOT Weekend.

I can't believe how HOT it has been this weekend.  It is still 28 degrees outside in the shade this evening and almost 8.30 pm...  I am absolutely dripping - I can't move without breaking out into a sweat.  Okay so that is probably a bit of a gross way to start a post, but it is what it is. HOT.  Definitely a heatwave for sure.

I think it was even hotter today than it was yesterday as yesterday morning I managed to get some gardening done by mid morning - today I have barely done anything - it has just been far too hot for me.  Gosh never thought I would say that!

So here we have Saturday morning in the garden:

Before:

After:

Much tidier.

Before:

After:

Tomato plants also staked up.

I also weeded the above bed, but more difficult to tell in this photo.

I dug up some more potatoes in the orchard garden as well as beetroot, a couple of onions, radish (which I had for lunch yesterday) and picked a load of beans which I prepared and froze.

In the afternoon I did a little bit of art, but the paper wasn't so good for what I was trying to achieve.

I think I much prefer to paint things on smaller pieces of paper, than the larger sizes!

I am so out of practice, having not painted for several years now, I think it is going to take me a while to get back into it.

No photos for Sunday - as I say just too hot to do anything really.

Art on Friday

Gosh the last two days have been absolutely scorching!  Needless to say not a lot has been done in the garden.  I haven't gone for a walk either.  I was going to go this afternoon and then I remembered I was expecting my grocery delivery sometime between 2 pm and 10 pm and hadn't received a time (as don't often get a signal for the text to come through) and although it will probably arrive late this evening, I thought knowing my luck if I did go out for a walk, then it would arrive while I'm out!

I ordered an art book the other day to encourage me to get back into painting again.  I haven't got a book on how to paint leaves and flowers and saw this one, read the reviews and decided to get it. I am quite pleased with my rose picture, although not so much with the picture of the fern.

Day Twenty Five

Photo of the Day:

'Rhapsody in Blue' 

It has been a really lovely day today, although I don't feel I have appreciated it quite like I should have done.

Something upset me last night, I didn't sleep well and it seemed to spin over into today despite my best intentions not to let it.

I did bake a lovely lemon cake for my elderly friends (both in their nineties!) and went to visit them this afternoon.  They are always pleased to see me and I was able to bring smiles to their faces, so that was good.  I forgot to take a photo of the cake before I took it to them!

The dogs went for their daily walk, in the sunshine today which was nice.

The leaves of the Maple tree in the sunshine looked so lovely.  I should have zoomed in!

Some yellow brightness in the garden.  Lovely to still have some roses flowering.

Tonight  for dinner we have got left over Pumpkin, Cheese & Onion Flan that I made yesterday.  It is very tasty!

Now if only I dispel this feeling in my stomach!  Clearly I let things bother me too much.

Tomorrow I have the second of my acupuncture visits - I am hoping that the positive effects last a bit longer than eleven hours this time.    On Friday I start my Physiotherapy sessions - that should be interesting.  I hope the Rheumatologist is right and that this guy is really good and CAN help me as I am paying a fortune for the sessions!

Art Prompt:  Hot Air Balloon

Another painting done completely freehand without drawing it out first.  Not especially happy with this either.

Watercolour books

A couple of new art books arrived for me on Sunday thanks to my lovely husband who is keen to indulge my new found hobby.  We saw them in a book shop in Oxford on Saturday and he ordered them for me from Amazon to arrive the following day.

They both look like they will be really helpful/.

This book has idea, tips and techniques from four different artists and looks great - I have spent one evening looking through it and hope for some more time to spend reading it.

This one has a series of exercises in it which is great.  I am looking forward to working though this book.  I have already learnt a bit about perspective which I think will help a lot.

I tried a few this afternoon.

I then painted a small postcard size painting from one of the ideas in the book.  There is actually a template for this, but as this was much smaller I sketched it myself.

Lastly I thought I would try my hand at some painting 'plein air' on Sunday while at Wrest Park

This is the result.