Back home

I am back home from the States and finally back to normal and up to date and that includes 'the ironing' too.

We left Florida with the temperature at 94degrees. It was warming up after being one of their wettest and coolest spring/early summers. Having said that - it may have been one of their wettest but it was still very hot for us and now that it is warming up - too hot for us. We did have plenty of dry weather but a lot of thunder storms and some spectacular lightning flashes.

We stayed at our daughters villa and how nice is this at the bottom of the garden?

We were able to sit in the hot spa and watch the wild life especially in the evening when the fish were jumping and the birds catching the fish.

On the day after we arrived we went to Discovery Cove so that the family - not me - could swim with the dolphins. I stayed on land and took the photos. A very expensive place BUT fabulous. The gardens were full of exotic flowers and plants which was great for me. I took lots of macro images.

Look at the colours of these leaves.

And these huge flowers in pink and scarlet. I took lots of images for future inspiration. It has taken days to process them all but all done now.

They had lots of showers around the park for cooling off but how colourful they were.

We are not theme park goers but we did take our grandson to Sea World - his favourite place. He goes there many times when he is in Florida so he was able to show us around. We were glad of the shows to get out of the heat and rest the feet. He loves killer whales and we were able to see his favourite whale in the huge observation tank close up. The glass walls are very thick so the photo isn't too good.

This is Tilicum and he is a huge whale.

It was my husband's birthday while we were out there and we went to Kennedy Space centre on that day. We had been before but we lost all our photos when our computer crashed a few years ago. We went back there to take all those photos again. The shuttle was on the launch pad as it was due to be launched a couple of days after our return to the UK. I looked for unusual shots as well as memory shots.

I went to JoAnn's to see what they had but they had nothing in the range of materials I usually buy - very traditional and card making. They did have Jacquard Lumiere paints cheaper than here so I did buy some of them. Walmart has reduced its range of craft and embroidery goods etc so this time I spent hardly anything. Prices over there this time were not that much cheaper than here - increased prices and exchange rate. Pity.

I did buy two small sets of storage drawers which I have been looking for. I was able to get them into one of our cases by filling all the drawers to save space. Wish I could have bought more. They had lots of different sizes but I couldn't get them home.

The flight home is best forgotten. Needless to say we will not be using that airline again.

While we were waiting for the transfer bus to pick us up at the airport we saw this thrush scavenging inside an empty crisp packet for the crumbs!!! It wasn't bothered by us being there.

While I was over there I did manage to do some hand stitching and did as much as I could but as I tend to work on a 'go with the flow' basis and make my decisions as I go along it wasn't easy to work without my stash. When I arrived home - within hours - I had painted some background fabric with gesso ready for new pieces. I quickly finished a mobile and today finished this texture piece.

It represents the colours and textures of the rocks and pools of the Northumberland coastline at Craster. It is a layered piece using numerous techniques.

My grandson came for tea today and to make his mum's birthday card so while he was doing that I was on the other side of the table and started working on a new piece. It is beginning to grow and hopefully I can continue with it tomorrow and will have something to blog soon.

Until then

Cheers everyone.