What a glorious season Spring is. It has to be my favourite season of the year, I just love seeing the trees come into blossom, the lighter evenings and the lambs in the fields with their spring loaded legs and wing nut ears.
And we are having such a treat at the moment with this June like weather in April. I was wearing cropped trousers and sandals yesterday – crazy!
Spring is also the season of renewal and rebirth and it very much ties in with a lot of what I’m feeling at the moment. Two weeks ago I spent a weekend in Amsterdam taking part in a two day workshop called “Refilling your Creative Well” with an artist I had admired from afar for a while called Lisa Sonora Beam.
I had looked longingly at Lisa’s descriptions of her retreats in Mexico and dreamed of making it to one of them someday. (I still hope to.) So when I saw that she was doing a workshop in Amsterdam I jumped at the chance as there are cheap direct flights from my local airport. It was meant to be – I spent two days in the company of some very special women, working in a journal, getting in touch with some deep truths about my own creativity and my artistic dreams and I came home feeling refreshed, renewed and refocused. Lisa helped me to get in touch with parts of myself I’d been avoiding, helped me to realise it’s ok to express grief and loss, and in the freedom of my journal, I began to define the new me that is emerging from the chrysalis.
On the way there, I heard some people getting upgraded to first class on the flight and I thought hmm, an upgrade would be nice. In reality, it’s a very short flight from Durham to Amsterdam and first class simply means a few more inches leg room. I didn’t get a flight upgrade, but boy oh boy did I get an accommodation upgrade! I had booked a B&B, but got upgraded to a penthouse suite! I had the top two floors of a typically tall Amsterdam town house with outside terrace and the most amazing views over the canal. The open plan living room/kitchen had four huge double windows overlooking the Singel canal and everything was fitted out to the highest standards. I felt like Kate Winslet’s character in ‘The Holiday’ when she got to the house in California!
So I had a very special weekend of luxury and creative introspection and it was just what I needed. I also had a healthy dose of exercise walking up and down five flights of VERY steep stairs every day – if you’ve ever stayed in Amsterdam, you will know exactly what I mean. Those seventeenth century builders couldn’t afford to waste valuable space on stairwells, the staircases are practically ladders!
So I’m feeling pretty good about life at the moment and I’m sharing some of that feel-good factor over on the Design Team blog at the moment with a blog candy giveaway. I’m also enjoying some preparation for my colouring class which starts in a couple of weeks time.
So I’m off to my craft room now, but before I go, I wanted to let you know that we now have a chat room on our ning community website (www.chocolatebaroque.ning.com) and every day next week I will be online for half an hour for a lunchtime chat between 12.30pm and 1.00pm. As well as being available to take questions, I will be using the time to let you know about some discontinued products that we only have one or two of, starting with punches on Monday. You will need to register on the site to take part in the chat.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and long may the sun continue to shine!
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