The nice thing about being self employed is having the freedom to make last minute executive decisions to take the day off. Yesterday was such a day, work was as up to date as could be, weather looked reasonable and Bob was all spruced up with a new bow tie!
Off we go, destination Dalby Forest, this is the visitor centre.
Plants and trees just starting to bud, found some lovely dried teazles but Bob got stuck to them and I had to prize him free.
After a little walk it was time for a snack, we went into the cafe and had a rather nice caramel slice with a pot of tea as the coffee is nasty tasting over frothed, dark roasted stuff.
I had taken a craft magazine to browse whilst Bob looked out of the window.
Now I don't normally do toilet shots on my blog but the toilet doors at Dalby were rather interesting, the visitor centre is quite eco friendly and a lot of the gifts in the shop are recycled. So it came as no big surprise to find the toilet doors were made from recycled cartons and things, as you can see they are rather groovy.
That was a nice half day spent in the forest, the weather dulled up a bit so not a huge amount of photos.
Late afternoon and we finished the day with a trip to York to partake in some delicious coffee from this year's Northern Barista champ, Gordon, who has The Attic at Harlequin. Here's the view out of the Attic window, there was a a girl perched reading on a window ledge across the street!
The coffee arrived, a flat white.
Bob gave the latte art a good look....
Done to perfection and good to go, Bob say's drink and enjoy. I certainly did, it's always good to have a natter with Gordon over an excellent coffee.
A lovely end to the day.
What a frustrating day yesterday, the router went funny and so I lost the internet for most of the day.
Never mind, it was a good excuse to tear myself away from the keyboard and do some crafting.
I was reading some graphic design blog recently which talked about how creative people mainly use the right side of the brain. This guy talked about how sometimes when you start to feel creative burn out, the best thing to do is try to stop thinking creatively, rest the right side and go off and use the left side of the brain. What he said made a lot of sense to me, right side thinkers are often impatient, they skim read, they stay away from numbers and logic, all that kind of thing. He recommended trying things like soduko, puzzles, crosswords, proper reading rather than skimming, writing, origami, etc. All these activities will help the left side and will complement your thought process when you go back to the creative work.
Interestingly enough, I bought 2 new craft books when I was in the Lakes, and one is Origami Jewellery. I decided I'd give it a go after lunch.
Settled down to a snack at lunchtime and popped the telly on ready for the news as I wanted to see the Steve Jobs stories. Well how spooky this was, on a programme before the news (Lets Do Lunch with Gino & Mel) I thought I know that face and voice... it was Youri who I did my barista training with. He was showing them how to do some latte art and he did great considering it must have been quite scary getting your milk texture perfect under pressure in front of the cameras. After I'd seen Youri I felt quite frustrated that my latte art isn't brilliant so I popped the machine on, texturised some milk and indulged in a couple of cappuccinos. I was quite pleased with my latte art hearts, I think it's probably the best I've done to date.
Back to the origami. I spent ages chopping and folding an old map, I thought I was soon to be at the stage of assembling all these little pieces but having folded them, I now need to unfold and add some blobs of glue. That's where I'm currently at so I haven't got a result yet, and as you can see the internet is back so might be a few days before I reveal the brooch I'm making.
I hope the weather improves for the bank holiday as it is the Hornsea Pottery Nostalgia weekend which I'm visiting tomorrow. Followed by a new crafty market I'm also hoping to see over the weekend.
Hope everyone has a good few days off. And to leave with one final scary thought, this is the last bank holiday before Christmas!!!
