I haven’t been to the beach for a while, but I could do with getting out of the house.  Work that had become a haven for me has become the inevitable chore that I feared it would become.  Though I still work, and at times I still love it, with the oppressive heat of Summer comes the oppressive feeling of work.  This 6 day a week thing has to come to an end sooner or later.

It thundered here the other day.  Big bolts of lightning knocked out part of our electricity at work and we were plunged into gloom for an hour or so.  I loved hearing it rumble overhead.

I think the reason that work is stifling me at the moment is because I am not sure I’m heading in the direction that I should be heading in.  The Company I Work For doesn’t seem to be keeping it’s promises.

I took a couple of days off this weekend, 3 1/2 days off in total, and having a whole day to myself to do nothing but mundane things like housework has been bliss.  Yesterday I did what I used to do – I tore the living room to shreds and cleaned every single surface.  I dusted, vacuumed, mopped and burnt incense.  I watched a DVD and played with the cats, before cooking dinner and doing some sewing.

This morning I decided that we were going to hunt bastles, castles and pele towers in the depths of Northumberland.  So Mr. VP and myself did just that.  We found castles, ruined and occupied, we saw parts of Northumberland so breathtakingly beautiful we had forgotten such beauty was on our doorstep.  We picnicked beside ancient ruins of Harbottle castle and sat inside the Solar wing of another, much more stunning castle.

What else have I been upto?  I’ve been making some of my own clothes.  It’s liberating being able to make the things you wear, and whilst I haven’t quite got onto jeans yet, I’ve made 1 top (in the most amazing Amy Butler fabric) and am making a skirt as we speak.  My secret is John Lewis.  If you have one near you, you’ll never be without wonderful sewing equipment.

We had our 3rd wedding anniversary in the middle of June, on the solstice, and it was a rather magical event.  Simply being together 3 years and realising that it has been all that time, yet no time at all, all at once.

There are lots of other things I still have to tell, but for now this will have to do.  Better late than never, eh?