Christmas Eve

What do you do to cheer your lounge up when its ready to decorate, but still has only its bare plaster walls.
Well you get out the scrap paper, and start snipping, cover the walls in Paper snowflakes.


Count your blessings




Dress the tree, and remember what a joy those handmade decorations were to make

When its all finished, turn off the main lights and admire the twinkling tree,

whilst sipping your glass of sloe gin.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmastide, Happy Holidays, Yule, Winter Solstice, or for the tardy Scots Hogmany.

Vines turn to Art

In the past I painted a lot of ceramics in ' Clarice Cliff' style, I couldn't help but think that these vines as they gradually shed their leaves, were very reminiscent of the Art Deco stylised trees of that era, more often depicted on china wares.

Cowes Revisted

Sunday last we thought we would take a little jaunt over to Cowes, the other side of the river medina we have to take the 'Bridge', as we locals call it, which is confusing to non locals as its actually a chain ferry that draws itself across the river on very heavy chains with much clanking and grinding noises. We thought the trip would be a good education for our young labrador 'Prince'.

The base of the bridge is now all metal but when it was tarred wood we would ride our ponies on the ferry to cross over the river. I have done the crossing twice with my mare, on the newer version. She is rock steady, but I made slip on overshoes in a rubberised fabric, as the metal on metal would have been dangerous.

As you can see there have been earlier versions crossing with horse and carriages, The wooden bridge crossings were much less noisey, the chains made an almost pleasant clinking compared to the modern version.

Prince took the chain ferry in his stride, the noise must be quite horrendous for a dog's ears.

Cowes and East Cowes being hubs of marine building and Ports of call and industry were literally full of public Houses, many have closed nowadays, but many of the old favourites survive, The Anchor being one of them.

The church is one of many nested between all the buildings, I thought it a shame all the windows on churches have to be covered in mesh to prevent vandals smasing the windows and in many cases priceless stained glass.

There is a nice little view looking back to East Cowes through a gap in the buildings, by one of the many sailing Clubs. At the top of the picture you can see the fields those green spaces between the tree lines where my horse is kept.

Click on the pictures for a better look.. :)

Saving Wildlife Habitats

World Land Trust are the inspiration behind perserving habitats and living space for endangered species, perserving rare ecological habitats and putting the land forever beyond the reach of potential developers.
I was first alerted to this wonderful project , supported by their patron David Attenborough, through a group of artists in an Ebay Aceo art group, they banded together and raised enough to buy over 50 acres.
As I wasnt selling on Ebay, I bought One acre for our family,which is proudly displayed in the kitchen. Drinking my Tea and gazing up at the certificate, I wondered how the fund was progressing.
Good News; Since its foundation in 1989 supporters of the World Land Trust (WLT) have helped fund the purchase and protection of over 400,000 acres of threatened wildlife habitats, working through their overseas project partners.

But as you can imagine there is still so much more to try and Save.

You can help Save even more by supporting World Land Trusts further land purchase & protection projects.
http://www.worldlandtrust.org/projects/index.htm
You can make a donation or Purchase a half an acre for £25 or one acre for £50

Our London Ice Bear

See The magnificent life-size Ice Bear in Trafalgar Square.
It’ll be there from Today Friday 11th December, gradually melting as a symbol of the threat of climate change and the plight of the Arctic in particular.
slowly melting over that time to reveal a bronze skeleton.
Inspired by the Arctic landscape, it’s a life-sized ice sculpture of a male polar bear in hunting pose.
The public will be invited to touch the ice sculpture. Artist Mark Coreth hopes that by touching this sculpture audiences can become sculptors themselves and make a direct connection with the bear and its icy Arctic kingdom, now under threat from man-made climate change.

to see videos,how it was made, more info, check out, and see the finished Bear in the Square
http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/tackling_climate_change/the_london_ice_bear.cfm