Actually life keeps interfering with art these days! I spent Friday preparing for houseguests, some good friends from Winnipeg on their way home from a holiday on Vancouver Island. We had a wonderful visit. After they left on Saturday, a gorgeous sunny day, we started to prune some trees in the backyard to keep a good neighbour happy and to give more breathing space and light to our adjacent rhododendrons and camellia. It was a big job continuing into the next day, with my husband high up in the cedars and yours truly nearby chopping up branches to a manageable size to be taken to the green recycling depot. In between, I was happy to tackle the long overdue job of cutting down some perennials and doing some cleaning up. It always feels good to work outdoors.

Yesterday, I did do some art work on the computer, making some modifications to my continuing work. There was some business involved too in planning what prints to send off to an international print biennial in India and doing the paperwork for that. This morning I had to stop by the studio to pick up the mailing tube that I’d been using to carry work back and forth, and which I judged to be the most suitable one.

Since I was out with the car, I stopped at the garden centre for some spring bulbs for my garden, to plant sometime soon, I hope. I had to go a bit farther to get some birthday gifts, which I thought I could do quite quickly. But I was stalled at a train crossing by the longest and slowest freight train ever, and never before at this location – fifteen minutes of sitting there unable to go anywhere!

Birthday gifts found and bought, I passed a favourite shop that imports fair trade crafts and clothing from SouthEast Asian countries. I must confess that I’m not fond of shopping, especially when I MUST find something for a special occasion. So, I was thrilled to find a lovely two piece dress in a rusty red (colour above isn’t quite true) that feels like raw silk but is rayon and linen, a bit expensive, but very artistic and unusual, and dressy enough for the opera or Christmas parties. I’ve lost weight and have been frustrated in lacking time to sew or shop for new clothes, so this was a great bonus finding something when not looking, for a non-shopper like me.

Back home, I wrapped the prints carefully in acid free paper, put them in the tube, sealed it and labelled it. Now I must take them to the post office! (I dread finding out the cost of mailing!) I’ll let you know more about this biennial if my work is accepted.