Sunshine

Yesterday was such a dark, wet and miserable day of endless rain that I was all set to have a good old moan about it but then I read Lesley's blog this morning where there was this lovely quote from Anthony D'Angelo - "Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine" and that combined with Lesley's wonderful upbeat humour made me think again. The rain has brought a fabulous crop of mushrooms on the field behind our garden, so this morning I picked half a dozen and fried them up with some scrambled egg for my breakfast. I rarely have a cooked breakfast so it was a real treat! They were delicious!

The second lovely thing today was a wonderful email from Anukampa in India. She had discovered my blog and sent me a lovely message titled "words of appreciation" I recently spoke about Random Acts of Kindness and this was truely a RAK of the highest order. She didn't have to take the time to email me but she did and her kind and generous words just about made my day... certainly brought me sunshine. So if you are reading Anukampa... Thank you!

After last weeks birthday celebrations we had six days free before the next family birthday... yesterday, Ben my eldest son was 25. Where do the years go??? How did he get that old when in my head I'm still only 29??

As with tradition he picked the meal last night and chose braised lamb shanks followed by a sticky toffee cake. Unfortunately although the cake tasted very good it looks quite horrid... brown cake with toffee sauce is not very photogenic! Ben didn't think he needed candles but we found him one instead of 25!

After my busy weekend I've been trying to catch up with some degree work and yesterday attempted a machine stitched line drawing on paper in the style of Maggie Hambling... it's supposed to be Oscar Wilde. It was fun watching it take shape so now I want to make lots more stitched drawings!



One of the problems I've encountered since starting the degree is finding time to read just for pleasure, rather than feeling I should be reading something relevant. However this weekend I finished reading "Burning Bright" by Tracy Chevalier. I'm a fan of all her work, especially "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Lady and the Unicorn" and her new book did not disappoint. Based on a period during the life of William Blake it is a wonderful evocative tale set in eighteenth century Lambeth. I can recommend it.

And while I'm talking about books for pleasure, this is something I've been dipping in and out of all week and it brings sunshine everytime I look at it. I've been a follower of Jane's blog, Yarnstorm, for quite a while and this book contains all the elements of her blog that make it such a joy - beautiful colours, beautiful photography and wise and witty words. Plus it contains so many things I like - baking, sewing, knitting, films, books etc. It is a delightful book and another one I can recommend.

Here's wishing you all some sunshine! : )