No tricks, just treats

We were lucky enough to have a quick trip to Giverny this week. C found out he still had seven days annual leave which he didn't know he was entitled to, and with the luxury of being able to take a day off midweek we were able to check the upcoming weather forecast and  get super-cheap flights to Beauvais, from where it's only a little over an hour's drive. It was a wonderful sunny day, and we had a little mini-holiday. Since the option was a day-trip to Clare/Galway to look for more sloes which we don't really need, and blackberries which it's probably already too late for as it was an early season this year, I think we made a good choice.

Here are a very few of the photos - I have  culled my two-hundred and fifty or so photos into an album with just seventy-two  HERE if you would like to see some more.

This plant fascinated me. They look like something from a fairy garden. These open up onto a white flower, and then when the flower fades leaving a star-shaped seed head, it almost closes back up into a pod again. I think I took at least a dozen photos just of this one plant.

Botanic Gardens - floral

I'm so glad we got our visit in on Saturday. Sunday morning dawned (well, I can't say dawned, we weren't up that early) grey and dreary, and I'm pretty sure I heard rain at some stage too though it did brighten a little later in the afternoon.

Here are the garden, as opposed to sculpture, photos.

This month's blog header is a photo of a diver taken in Greystones last October.

September Favourites

Hmm - it seems to have been a pretty blaah month as far as card-making goes!  I did really enjoy trying Anita's book fold, which turned out to be far less complicated than I was expecting. Her pdf tutorial is found at the bottom of THIS post. I think the only things I did differently were to sponge the edges of the "pages" before assembly, and to cut a frame to use to neaten the top layer when the card is open.   The card with the reading owl on the front went to my book-loving niece along with an Amazon voucher. The Once Upon a Time card  - well, you know who you are! I couldn't find any suitable digital images to download for the front, so I ended up designing my own in GIMP - I've never used so many layers in my life before. The Irish Blessing card I made to give to Anita when I got to meet her - a memory of Ireland to take back to France.

Botanic Gardens - sculpture

Today was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies, so we took a trip to the Botanic Gardens in the morning. Not having checked first, we weren't sure if the Sculpture in Context exhibition was already open, and were delighted to discover that it was.  We didn't get the list of sculptures, so I am sure we missed some but we really enjoyed our time out.

Here are some of the best pictures of the sculptures - there are more in a Google Photos album HERE if you are interested.

My favourite was definitely the costume-jewellery bird, I took at least ten photos. And the felted wool hanging in the Alpine House was really beautiful too, but hard to get a good photograph of. The wicker people and the deer both melt into the background but were very effective.

I'll be back with some photos of the flowers in the next couple of days...