Partly Sunny

Today started out sunny and that was good. I needed to wake up to sunshine today and I'm going to a Renaissance Christmas concert tonight at a nearby church. One of my knitting acquaintances is playing in it and I want to hear her play. Yesterday was a hard day and a long one. AJ and I scattered at the cemetery, the real estate appraiser came so I had to tour her around answering questions, I got my nails done, drove 100 miles to the tip of Door County, sprinkled, shopped, and drove home, all before 4:30 when I went to DS & DIL1's to take their Christmas card photo for them in front of their new house with their new dog. They did not want Henny & Penny in the picture too; I'm just as glad, those chickens are nuts and not partial to being held. From their house I went straight to Friday Night Knitting where Telaine sat with her 4 month old daughter Clara. I got to hold her and talk to her and even take her shopping with me to Goodwill next door. Having a babe on my shoulder was balm after my day/week/month. At The Clearing they had apple cider and cookies, which I was careful to sample, then I did a little shopping because they were having their annual "snowflake" sale. I pulled out a 25% off one and saved nearly $25. Ahh. The sun was going down on my drive home and by the time I got to Dykesville, 15 miles north of Green Bay, all that was left were pretty colors. (Ignore the blurry, it's the colors I took pictures of) I love living near big water and love that I can drive less than 10 miles from my driveway to see it whenever I want to.

December 9--John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds. "It looked nothing like that when we were there," said the iron-gray-haired woman planted in front of the big Constable in the gallery. From my view of her she looked to be over seventy years old. Julian leaned down so that his lips brushed my ear. "Was Elizabeth queen yet, I wonder?" I squelched a giggle and edged away from the grande dame and her entourage. I loved the painting that she objected to and was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to sink into it today. I loved every one of the cows, especially the one standing in the water. I dreamed of being one of the women in their bonnets being squired around by a man in a frock coat and carrying a cane. My visit today was marred by verse and chorus of "it was better when we were there." God save us from tour-group tourists.

I could go back to London any day. We missed seeing the Magna Carta, you know, and it's free to visit the British Museum. That's where it is. We saw the Rosetta Stone and some mummies and the Elgin Marbles although I don't know that I'd be that proud of sculpture one of my ancestors stole from Greece. Mind boggling.
--Barbara