It would be quicker to build it...

I'm busy trying to create a mixed media landscape picture for submission to the Derbyshire Open Competition - its taken so long to create my 5 bar gate and dry stone wall that it would probably have been quicker to have actually built them.  This afternoon I allowed myself some time off for a run, with the excuse that I was researching viewpoints and thinking about how best to compose my picture.  Its been a lovely day for a plod around the woods, although in places it was much muddier than I anticipated and at one point I did wonder if I should retrace my steps, but decided muddy would be more fun!
The provisional results are out for the hilly 100, and as always Col did much better than he said he had - he actually did his very hilly 10mile stretch in 61minutes 49 secs - its one of the hardest legs of the race, and he was the quickest for team Ilkeston, and thats on the back of hardly any training - whereas I will train and train and wouldn't even be able to pull off a 6minute mile pace for a mile ..... not fair!
Jackie

Hilly 100

I was up at 4am and picking up another willing volunteer to run leg 2 and 3 of the hilly 100 relay around Stratford . It is as it suggests hilly and some of the runners who are making up our team I think are in for a surprise?   Well it was a little misty but not Windy like last year. I was running leg 3 the same as the previous year ,but with not much training under my belt was looking for a time of hopefully under 70 Min's . I actually managed under 72 Min's which is great .Also this year I didn't lose my support team as Mr Sharratt was made to go in the car than try and keep up on his push bike .The other bonus was that he wasn't offering cheese sandwiches on the way round (whats that all about) I now going for a cold bath to revive the legs. 

Colin

Singles night!

I'm feeling very old - a fellow freecycler has just requested some singles from the 70s and 80s because she's a teacher and her class are  going to be doing a project on "that era", and....  I'm guessing that a few of them are going to be thinking "a single what?" .  Me n Col have still got most of our old records - I threw a few away that were a bit embarrassing, and I swapped some for others, and still much regret swapping Blondie's Parallel lines, I can't even remember what for now.....  We re-invested in a record player a few years ago, its funny how records still hold their charm, even though there's the inconvience of having to change sides after only a few tracks, but even though most of my favourite stuff was on cassette, it doesn't hold the same magic....It seems a shame that we live in such a disposable era, most young people growing up today, won't even have a collection of CDs, even people of my age group seem to have chucked out their records for cds, and chucked out their cds for ipods.....  We live in an era where we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

nearly there.

The thistle design is progressing - I've substituted wool for threads and I think it looks a lot more tactile - its been interesting to see, how even in a few days, the design has progressed from a clunky somewhat childish dandilion to quite a textured thistle - the basic idea is the same, but its much more pleasing to the eye.  I've only recently started sharing my ideas that don't quite work out or go wrong in some way.  We all make mistakes and backtrack at times, whether its in something like this or something completely different, after all if it was so easy to get things right straight away, I think it would hold less value to us.....

scarey news!

Very pleased to find out that Treehuggery has been selected to have a stall at the West Hallam Well Dressing and Art Market on the 14th July - the atmosphere there is fantastic, the well dressings are beautiful, there is a really big scarecrow trail, and the sun always seems to shine.  There's a lot of things coming up for Treehuggery at the moment - its exciting, and all a bit scarey too!

Inspiring

Col dropped me off at Bramcote this morning so that I could run from there to home - listening to the radio on the way there, I really liked the Sunday morning quote "don't follow the path that everybody else takes, take a new route and leave a trail"  - obviously not a quote to take literally while running - not only would I get lost and probably be trespassing, but also the countryside would be destroyed by everybody's selfishness. but literalness to one side, I think its really inspiring.  It was well worth getting up early for my run too, as well as my usual friends of rabbits and squirrels, I had the rare an unexpected pleasure of seeing a fox.
Inspired by a lovely sunny morning, there's been far too few recently, I came home and carried on with the thistle idea, there's still room for improvement, but here's the first attempt

If at first you don't succeed.... change the colour

Try as I might I cant stop my dandilions being a: too clunky and b. looking more like thistles.... In desperation to doing something productive, I've just decided to go with it, and see what my dandilions look like if i change the colour to purple - If only all of my problems were solved by having a bit more purple in my life....