Purple Podded Peas

Have you heard the chorus of birdsong in the morning and evening? Maybe it's because we've all been huddled indoors waiting for the rain to stop, but now the sun is shining the birds seem to be singing their socks off!!! This is my new linocut 'When birds do sing', it's inspired by our beautiful

Over the past couple of years I've got to know Liverpool a little better; the reason for our frequent visits was not a happy one  . . . Cliff's aunt suffered a serious stroke and we were helping her to move to a nursing home; eventually we had to clear her house and sell it. Although the visits were

I'm writing this little blog post to test out the Blogger iPhone app . . . fingers crossed! This evening I cut asparagus for our supper, I used the asparagus knife that's been in our family for three generations. It's cut a lot of asparagus! I think a number of crowns are missing from our asparag

Fa-la la-la-la . . . If you're about to go a-skipping round a May-pole this Bank Holiday weekend in England, you'd better wear your wellies! I won't go on about it, but if you live here in the UK you will already know that it's been the wettest April on record, May has so far been a del

When Dinahmow planned her trip back to revisit the country she left many years ago, I suspect she had in mind – like Robert Browning – blossom and a chaffinch singing on a bough. Unfortunately the jet-stream has delivered England's much needed rain, and lots and lots of it! Today's plan was a rende

Well, I'm no longer a member of the RHS (the stack of un-read copies of The Garden and unused membership card just didn't warrant the sub) and I only rarely watch Gardeners' World (sorry all you Monty fans but he just doesn't inspire me to garden) BUT apparently it's National Gardening Week, so why

Yesterday afternoon I took break from carving a woodcut and glanced across to my computer screen, I spotted a Tweet from @CambridgeNewsUK "Works of art stolen after break-in at Fitzwilliam Museum in #Cambridge - more details soon" – I felt a lump in my throat . . . if it's 'my' little buffal

It's hard to miss the coverage in the media about the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, and most of the documentaries and dramas have been anti-climatic to say the least. Here are some memories – some recent, some that bobbed to the surface after being submerged for decades . . . •  • 

On Easter Monday evening I painted my Easter Rhea egg . . . I used acrylic paints and the egg shell was a beautiful textured surface which took the paint perfectly. I didn't draw a design to follow or use a pencil to draw the shapes first – I just had an idea and dived in with my paints. This morni

Happy Easter!  The Under-Gardeners, Spice Girls and Pearl supply us with so many beautiful eggs! Friends who call in, know that they will be offered a box of eggs :-) The eggs are in a lovely assortment of colours, each hen has her unique egg-shell tint and I can tell which has laid