Train travel

The other day I took a train journey.  Since the trip would be about an hour and a half, and rather than sitting looking at the view and fellow passengers, I decided to sketch to pass the time.  Glad I did...

Oh, and by the way, I did pencil sketches with all of these and then painted them later...

But when it came to the view, I had to do a lot of recall....one thing this teaches you, is to Observe...the view went by so quick...

Yes, there really were Yellow fields....they are Oil seed rape, look so bright and colourful against the green fields and blue skies...

Barns and the line follows the river...

Stopping once for the train driver to get out, go to a box and set the railway crossing to stop cars whilst the train went by!....I know, very old fashioned but it happens ....nothing straightforward in deepest darkest Devon....as we had stopped for this I had time to sketch the station building..

That turned out to be a great journey rather than a boring one.

Walk at Tyntesfield

Like I said in a previous post here - William was taken for his walk around the woodland at Tyntesfield when we visited there last week.  

Got some pix....

so that's what I'll do in this post

and leave the photos to do the talking...

Monsters!

An Award and an update on Awards from my perspective.

I guess everyone who Blogs has come across AWARDS, those given by other bloggers.

All very nice, but it got a bit too much at one time.  Every time I turned around there was an Award (lovely as they are). The time consuming part being that you find 10 other bloggers to forward to and add 7 facts about yourself. Hence, I then added an AWARD FREE ZONE notice on my blog.

So it came as a surprise when I received a Versatile Blogger Award today and then an email from the Giver of the Award to apologise as it hadn't been realised that I was in fact an Award Free Zone!  

The thing is I am really pleased that Judy over at dedraadaquaellen took the trouble to stop by and send me an Award.  Her comment to me was it: 'showed her appreciation' for my blog and how she enjoys it.   How can any blogger Not be delighted to receive that comment.  Accordingly we have emailed each other about these Awards and I have seen that if someone wants to thank us then that is a huge compliment. Although, if the whole Award thing gets out of hand then my notice might well resurface...

...so it is for now I say THANKS JUDY I'm really pleased you like reading my blogs.

Our visit to Tyntesfield

Another National Trust property on our agenda for our recent trip. 

Link:  TYNTESFIELD

This house very different from the one in the previous post - we could see it for one thing - What no scaffolding!!

A lovely approach to the building, but in fact the main entrance was

on the other side, which I'll get to showing you later.

First, and as you approach the building there's this little

summer house on the left. You can just see it in the above photo

The house has it's own Chapel...

here's a close-up of the detailing on the building...

and finally made my way round to the main entrance...

Although there was a lot to see inside, I didn't take much in the way of

photos.  For one thing photos are restricted to non-flash photography but

there is always another visit - meanwhile I did like the hallway and staircase in the photo above and 

this gorgeous window in the photos below...

After all this, it was good to stop and

do some sketching of the outbuildings...

then back to the car...through this unusual gate...

You might have wondered where was William during all this....

Dogs aren't allowed around the formal gardens, so he was

taken for his walk around the parkland on the estate....

yes, you guessed it, that will be another post!

Sketching time

Here's a link to Dyrham Park Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/DyrhamPark

 ***

I had some spare time during our recent visit to Dyrham Park (see previous post)

and sat in the shade of some trees on a very nice picnic seat

whilst having a cup of coffee....

didn't draw anything significant, just relaxed and drew what was

in front of me, which happened to be my camera case

and over a two page spread, some cars nearby

I like how this goes across the wire ringbinder

Next post

will be

another National Trust property....so watch out for that tomorrow!

Another trip away...

I know - we have been away - AGAIN!....and to keep to tradition here, I'm going to share the trip with you.  We went to some National Trust properties, so I think this post, and probably another, will be based on these visits.

I'm going to start with DYRHAM PARK ...I've heard about it and as we were in the area we stopped off there.  Now, it has to be said that if you were in need of scaffolding, in this area, at this time, you would probably and most likely be totally out of luck, as I think Dyrham has nabbed it all...I kid you not....take a look

They get the prize for the largest amount of

scaffolding that COMPLETELY covers the building

to the point they had to put a 'picture'  on the front

to remind people there is a building hidden there!

To be honest the scaffolding was well thought out (probably the best I have ever seen and I have seen a lot in my time)...even from the photo above you can see it is well 'designed'

The whole of the roof is being replaced, so all the slates and lead are coming off.  It will take over a year to complete this job costing in excess of 3 million pounds!

the picture above and below here of the side of the building. This does show that the scaffolding went far higher than the actual building
and there are glass lifts on it!

I thought the picture below looked like a 'set' from the Ideal Home Exhibition, but it isn't - this is the real thing.

It was difficult to get photos without the metal work ...

but I did achieve a couple...

I didn't take photos inside the house, although photographs are allowed providing you don't use the flash.  The strange thing is, all this ongoing works didn't spoil the visit at all, in fact it made it even more interesting.  Saying that there is also more to see in the grounds but we will revisit when the scaffolding has gone and that will give me the opportunity for another blog post about this gorgeous place.

Oh...and in case anyone has wondered how to pronounce the name,

Link: DYRHAM

 

it does have an odd spelling after all....

it's

'deer um'