Jubilee, folk music and headstones.

 For the Jubilee weekend we went to visit the in-laws across in the Lakes and went to the Ireby folk festival. Our time there was very refreshing and a fantastic break away, although the weather could have been better. The folk festival was great and we thoroughly enjoyed "Time gentlemen please featuring the Demon barber road show", full of street and Irish dancing, it got the feet tapping. Another highlight for me was "Rob Heron and the tea pad orchestra" whose performance kept you dancing and singing with an eclectic mix of 30's swing, blues and gypsy jazz, I'll be putting "She don't like fish" on my ipod!

On the best day weather wise we went for a gorgeous walk up St John's in the vale, a walk that had a bit of everything a gently flowing river, a wood, a climb up to a fantastic view and an old church at the end. I spotted this lovely fern still all curled up tight and thought it had beautiful form almost heart shaped, with a little crown snuggled inside.

At the end of the walk we got to a lovely old church with a higgledy piggledy grave yard, I know it sounds a bit strange but I quite like looking at the inscriptions on headstones and marvelling at the care that has been taken to carve the names of loved ones. Some of the fonts are beautiful, I liked this one in particular in St John's in the vale. The coat of arms was intricate and gave the sense that this was an important member of the community at one time. There was a beautiful lace hydrangea growing round the church door too that I took a snap of before the camera battery ran out!

So lots of things to inform and inspire and I have realised I have an ever growing fascination with old handwriting and fonts and I'm introducing them into my work more and more.