(Snowdrops in a quiet corner of Clyro churchyard).
After about a 500 mile round trip up North, I can honestly say my heart was SO gladdened by the drifts of snowdrops planted along roadsides, hedgerows, banks and woodland. Never has their appearance been so welcome. I even saw Crocuses just coming into flower, the first leaflets on a few shrubs and when I got back to around Leominster, I saw the first Daffodils in bloom! In fact, I stopped at Clyro (more of that later) to stretch my legs, and someone had left a bunch of just-picked Daffodils in a vase in the church porch.
The journey to Sheffield was to deliver the first car-full of our daughter's belongings as she and her partner have relocated. She is thinking of doing an MA, so fingers crossed she gets funding. Meanwhile she is going to get back to her old volunteer jobs with two local charities. Her sister is travelling up next week with the 2nd load . . .
I am not a city person by any means, but living where we do, I really DID appreciate being able just to have all the shops I needed within a walk of just 100 yards. What a novelty!
Before leaving, I crossed the road to the local newsagents for a newspaper, and there on the shelf was a good selection of craft magazines (a more varied one than we can get in Carmarthen anyway), including Just Cross-Stitch, which is an American publication. I can remember subscribing to this over 20 years ago, using Christmas money to pay for my subscription. How I looked forward to this arriving every couple of months, and I still have every copy. I didn't buy this copy, as there were no designs I particularly wanted to stitch, but I shall ask my daughter to buy any future copy I want once I've checked out the contents of on-line.
Later on I shall post about our visit to Birmingham Art Gallery to visit the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition of drawings . . .
