Mr C took part in a webinar on Sunday morning so I spent my time colouring a page in one of Johanna Basford’s books. I started colouring the picture a couple of weeks ago and was keen to finish it before my colouring ideas faded into memory.

The webinar finished on time which meant that after Mr C’s late lunch we were able to go out for the afternoon as planned. Mr C suggested Hodnet Hall which was a perfect choice, it is local and open till 5pm. On arrival, the teashop was calling and on entering I was tempted to a slice of Elderflower and Gooseberry cake. Alas, Mr C, after his late lunch was in a sharing mood rather than a cake of his own!

Following our refreshments and cake sharing I decided that we should walk to the kitchen garden rather than a lake walk. I thought the garden would be full of flowers at this time of year. I wasn’t disappointed the kitchen garden was spectacular.

PS: I will photograph my colouring creation to share with you soon.

We set off for Wells just after 10am, considering it was bank holiday Friday we had a good journey with the SatNav recalculating better routes if it detected a delay. We arrived at the Book Barn just outside Bristol in time for lunch as we had planned. Mum didn’t know our destination and as we approached the Book Barn she saw a sign advertising a place with 1 million books and exclaimed ‘look Mr C, this is just the place for you’. We said nothing and as we turned the corner she was amused to find that that was our lunch destination. The vegetarian menu is all home cooked. I chose pea, feta and herb pate which was delicious. After browsing around the books all of which cost £1 we continued on our way to Wells.

When we arrived in Wells Mr C dropped mum and I off outside the Cathedral and went to park the car at Stoberry House where we were staying for the weekend. Mum and I could hear music coming from within the Cathedral which meant that the Good Friday Easter Vigil hadn’t quite finished. We made our way to the Cathedral shop where we waited for Mr C to catch us up. When he arrived we went into the Cathedral and as we made our way around we were treated to beautiful music performed by Bath Camerata who were practicing  for a concert that that evening.

When we had finished in the Cathedral mum and I waited nearby whilst Mr C went to fetch the car. In that time two men fell over in the street near to us, luckily neither of them were hurt unlike mum who had fallen over a couple of days before we went away and given herself a black eye!!  We made our way to Stoberry House where Frances welcomed us, showed us to our rooms and provided afternoon tea and cakes. By strange co-incidence the room that Mr C had booked for mum was right next to ours. Whilst we were chatting to Frances she told us that her delightful cat Monty who showed us round the garden on our last visit had been very ill. He had had stones in his urethra and it was touch and go for a time. Luckily he made it but he is still recovering from the ordeal.

Whilst we were in our room getting ready for dinner I checked out the colouring book and the picture that I had started to colour last time we stayed in the room. To my (pleasant) surprise I found the picture was almost but not quite completed!

We dined in Liberty where the service was rather quirky but the food was good. The town was quiet for a Friday evening so we made our way back to Stoberry House for a chat and a glass of wine from the honesty bar before it was time to make our way to bed. As we drove up the road from the bottom of the property we were delayed by sheep lying across the road.

My first attempt at colouring with waxy pencils, in this case Staedtler colouring pencils. I enjoyed the way I could layer up the colours

There has been a bit of a technical hitch with my blog hosts causing my site along with many others to be offline for several hours. The tech guys have been working flat out to get it resolved and here I am with a little bit of colouring that that I did last year. I used watercolor pencils but did not apply water to blend.

A colouring book and pencils in the room was just too hard to resist

For Christmas my mum asked for some adult colouring books which are currently popular in the UK. Whilst I was choosing which books to buy for her I was inspired to have a go at colouring too. I ordered a book and some felt pens. The pens arrived quickly but the book was not due to arrive for a few days. So when I was out at Attingham Park I picked up a different colouring book to try out whilst I waited for the one I had ordered to arrive. When I arrived home I was amused to find that my order that wasn’t due for several days had been delivered whilst I was out

Here is my first experiment at colouring for the first time for many years. I chose an image in the book that I bought at Attingham Park. For colouring I used Staedtler triplus fineliners and Staedtler triplus color. I was tempted to use coloured pencils to obtain a pastel contrast from the vibrant colours, but I resisted the urge and left some parts white instead.

My photograph has dulled the colours which are very bright (and beautiful) on paper.