Birthday Cups and Saucers

It was my birthday this week, and Jon bought me these adorable little mugs which he knows I have wanted for ages! They are by Alice Garland, and he bought them in Verandah, which is a lovely little shop in Norwich, and now there is one in Holt too.

Actually, Verandah is one of the buildings in the engraving Jon did of Upper St Giles Street - its the shop on the far right of this detail... I'm not sure that'll be much help if you're ever in Norwich, but it is worth a visit!

This week I went to the British Library to do some research. Even though I got there before it opened there was still a long queue waiting to get in, but the library is so vast it swallowed them all up and seemed really empty. It was a very dull day, and it does look a bit monolithic from the outside, but inside is very swish!

I enjoyed looking round the exhibitions - Taking Liberties and the permanent display of the Treasures of the British Library. I kept squealing out loud when I saw interesting things, like the Gutenberg Bible and Jane Austen's manuscript of Persuasion - go and have a look if you're in London, it's free! And there's a nice shop and cafe (always important).

Anyway, here are some lovely ornamental cabbages. I love the colours, and the patterns on the leaves, and I've been plotting how to turn them into a print...

A new photograph of an old print

This week I have been slowly re-scanning some of our prints and taking some nice new photographs of them to add to our Etsy listings. It's a slow process, and the only one I've done so far has been the green TLR camera print, which I think looks rather nice on top of our new bookshelf. The new improved listing is here, and more will follow in the next few days!

We had a jolly day out in London on Monday - Jon had a work meeting, and the office is right next to St James' Park, we followed the sound of the band up to Buckingham Palace and watched the Changing of the Guard (from behind a very large crowd of eager tourists).

Whilst I'm beavering away on jazzing up our Etsy shop Jon has been busy working on a new wood engraving. At the moment he's still sketching the design onto the block - more photos to follow before he starts cutting!