A long break...

Hello! We are still here, and only realised this week that we haven't blogged since December - eek!

Our not-entirely-intentional break from blogging has been mostly down to my new job, which is going very well, but has been pretty relentless and has meant that we've had to take some time out from printmaking for a few months.

We've just come back from a very relaxing, restorative holiday in Snowdonia. We stayed in Rhiwddolion (pronounced Ruth-0-leon), which is a semi-abandoned village in the hills above Betws-y-coed. The Landmark Trust own three properties there, and we stayed in the oldest, Ty Uchaf, built in 1685.


The house was a fifteen minute walk from the car along a very pretty (and muddy!) path, and the fields around the house are full of interesting ruined old cottages and farmhouses.

We enjoyed exploring Snowdonia and there are a lot more photos on Flickr.

But now we're back, refreshed and ready to embark on some new prints!

Lock Cottage

We have just got home from a lovely week spent at Lock Cottage, an early 19th century lock keeper's cottage owned by the Landmark Trust on the Birmingham and Worcester canal. We did lots of walking, eating, drinking, reading and sketching - but not a great deal else! Lots of lovely walks up and down the towpath and across the fields, then back to the cottage for tea and a bun in front of a roaring log fire.

We only saw one boat go through the locks outside the cottage, but we did see a fox and lots of ducks, moorhens, fieldfares and redwings.

Who would have thought a holiday near Bromsgrove would be so lovely?

Back from our holidays

We spent a lovely and mostly sunny week in north Devon. We stayed at the Library, another Landmark Trust property - plenty more photos here.

It was Jon's birthday whilst we were away, and for a surprise I gave him a linocut of our house that I have been secretly working on for several weeks - I'll post some photos of the finished print, and some 'in progress' shots this week.

Now we are back we are busy working again, but I have been working on the flower project mentioned in our last post. I've spent a couple of evenings cutting out lots of different shapes in various colours ready to make up into finished flowers.


Not all of these flower shapes are going to end up being sent off for the project, but I have a plan for the leftovers!