Since the UK

I've been back in Singapore since July 14, over a month now since our trip to the UK. And altho I've been slow to post my blog, I haven't been just sitting around. Here's some of what I've been doing:

I don't think I posted a final picture of Release.  Here it is, all ready to upload to my website.  More on that later.

I've also been working on a series of smaller quilts that are fast and easy to make and very fun.

...now I can see that this picture doesn't have the quilting in it.  Oh well.  Look for it on the website.

More on that later.

Detail.

It's difficult to say which picture inspired which here.  Never mind.

I made english muffins for back to school breakfasts.  I got the recipe from Joy of Cooking, and was pleased that it wasn't nearly as fiddly as I was expecting.  Store bought english muffins can't compete with home made.  I'm drooling just writing this.  Unfortunately, we finished them on Monday.  But I will be making them again.

Of course, when I said series, I meant that I was going to make more than one.  You can see the quilting on this one.

And I had to have some cute injected here.  This is Little Orange Hen.  She has a special purpose, which I will write about later.

For those who are still waiting, let me 'splain about the website.

My husband and I are currently working on building my website.  We actually have just one more quilt to photograph, and then we will begin to upload the pages and then I have to commit to prices (urggh) and all that technical stuff.  Naturally I will announce when it is ready here in the blog, and will put a link and encourage readers to go see!  But things are in the works.  Stay tuned.

Finishing Up the English Trip

Sorry about the delay. School started last week and where did the time go? Busy, busy, busy. But enough about that.
So, where were we?  Didn't I just astound all of you with pictures from Chatsworth House? That was truly the highlight of the whole trip for me, I'm sure you can tell.

That was Thursday.  We flew out Sunday morning.  So there's just a few more days to blog about.

Friday we woke up in Uttoxeter and climbed into our little car to make the trip back to London.  This would be the last drive I took in England, and naturally, we had a huge traffic jam.  We actually had to turn the car off for about 20 minutes.  My husband snapped a photo, but who wants to look at that?!

 Here are some other things we saw on our drive back:

We had seen this field of mustard (correction: probably not mustard. Probably rape - for making rapeseed oil.)on the drive out and wanted to make sure we stopped to take a picture of it on the way back.  It was just yellow for as far as the eye could see.

The English countryside, so different from Singapore.  Just breathtaking, really.

So, we finally arrived back at our host's home in London on Friday evening. We had to return the rental car, unfortunately. Saturday we headed back into downtown to do some final sightseeing. First on the list: The Tate Modern Museum. No pictures, naturally. I only recall seeing a Matisse that gave me some pleasure. I'm not a huge fan of modern art. Here's some other noteworthy things we saw:

This is The Globe Theatre.

This is a replica of the boat Sir Francis Drake sailed to the new world in.

This is just a funny picture.

Next we found our way to St. Paul's Cathedral.  And the weather cleared up.

It's hard to get the scope of this building in a teeny picture on a blog.  It's really startling to stand next to it.

Ah, the glorious sunshine.  I hadn't really missed it that much during the trip, but this day really felt like July should feel.

And of course, no trip to London would be complete without a visit to

Buckingham Palace.  

Bit of a let down after Chatsworth.  And they weren't allowing the public in when we were there.  Oh well.  How much of that stuff can you look at?

My husband is so creative with his pictures.

I know you were wondering when you might see these guys.  I felt so sorry for them, constantly bothered by the tourists.  Poor guys.  Funny hats, too.

Next we walked down to the Gardens attached to the Palace.  There were so many interesting and beautiful things to look at and enjoy, but I only had eyes for the birds.

Look at those feet!  And since they are so used to people, we could get quite close.

This Canada goose wanted his picture taken just like the coot in the former shot.

Just like shooting ducks in a barrel, or something along those lines.

Well, that's the end of the interesting pictures.  We ate dinner in a pub that night.   Terry's meal was most memorable: pumpkin and spinach lasagna with goat's cheese.  We left the next morning and arrived in Singapore a long, long time later.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.