A wandering I did go

I am rested and renewed after a splendid two-centre holiday in this second half of the Easter holidays.The first half was spent in the company of two of my oldest friends and their families in Lancashire, where we whiled away the time reminiscing, eating, laughing, eating, singing along to Grease, eating and doing a little life coaching for each other – you’ll be pleased to know I fitted in a little creativity with a veritable pop up nail salon going on one morning. I painted six sets of nails with different designs.

‘zebra’ aka siberian tiger…

tiger stripe

owl’s head and feather nails

music inspired

spring daisies

pretty pearls on scarlet

There was also a Bake Off but you’ll have to see my daughters cake blog for that!

We stayed in Hornby and took a day trip to Morecombe. We posed alongside Eric and danced down the steps singing ‘Bring me Sunshine’ in true tourist fashion. The statue to him is really lovely and so much more appropriate than many memorials. In front there is an ever decreasing circle of quotes from the shows – my favourite: ‘Tea, Ern?’ – and lists of show guests. Too cool.

I took some photos and my favourite is this view of the bay – I love the series of S shapes in it, created by this insert in the boardwalk.

the sweep of the bay

inspired by nature

Another day we walked the Ingleton Waterfall trail – absolutely stunning. You travel through the sound of water and woods to the whipping of the wind over the tops and then back through the trees. It batters the senses and challenges your knees with it’s steep ups and downs but it’s worth it. Amongst the trees are trunks embedded with coins. Pennies, twopences, fivepences banged in on their sides, creating an extra bark so subtle that you double take as you get close enough to recognise it. The first one seems like a deliberate art piece but there are several more spontaneous looking additions scattered throughout the walk. I love to come across art like that. To be taken by surprise. Art is everywhere and everything; subtle intervention is a joy.

I was too busy walking to photograph this myself but this image is from http://www.mywainwrights.co.uk. Gorgeous.

We also went to Norfolk. It’s so open there. The sky goes on forever and it still feels wild. I spent my time looking at the art that it inspires and trying to relate that to my own home town and my own work. It would be interesting to create some work based on where I live. Perhaps that will be a challenge for the next long holiday period…