I was in Wales over the weekend staying with Brenda and Tonia. It was a very rich adventure for me and I came away with loads of new ideas, a ball of yarn I’d made on Brenda’s spinning tools, some drawings, and an enhanced admiration for Jane Lynch’s acting, the outstanding Radiolab podcasts, Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone monologues and The Moth Podcast. I also came away with a beautiful Norah Gaughan cardigan that Brenda gave me, but this is so amazing that it really deserves its own post.

In knitting news, I completed 2 zigzag beanies from this pattern using up old stash, and I finished the prototype for The Listen Hat. Most of the knitting for The Listen Hat was done sitting against these stones.

While we watched these lambs.

On Sunday morning we went to a carboot sale and browsed. Having just read about Hornsea pottery on Rattling On, I instantly recognised this.

We all lusted after this amazing 1950s coffee drinking set, but agreed that between us there simply wasn’t enough space to store or utilise such a grand thing.

During other moments of my stay, I drew Tonia’s beautiful spoons.

One of the things I remember from Art College and the brief time that we spent on drawing is the idea that in every good drawing, there is a visible search. As soon as you look away from what you’re drawing and start adding gratuitous shading and special effects, you are no longer searching and that is a thing I have tried to stick to in my own drawing; to always be looking for a specific thing. In this drawing what I was mostly trying to record was the depth of each spoon and the width of its edge. There is something profoundly intimate and sensual about these spoons that are so well fitted to mouths and hands and I appreciate them all the more for taking the time to try and record these specifics.

I also sat on some rocks on the beach and drew barnacles, and wrote about all the sounds I could hear.

I have come away full of sunshine, (it was so warm that I caught the sun a little on my shoulders) a little plumper, (we ate SO WELL) rested after a break from the Internet and the TV, and inspired by all the tactile/real-life pleasures of a weekend spent mostly offline and enjoying the real world.

I’m getting back to thrifting, counting my WW points and all the work that The Hub entails now I’m back in Reading, but it’s all easier when you have a bit of sunshine inside. I hope you all got some too.