Emotional few days

Friday saw me travelling from Sheffield to Taunton (and back) to attend the funeral of a dear family friend, Robin Bush.  Robin was a larger than life character in more ways than one and I was very honoured to be able to call him a friend.  The service was beautiful with his brother-in-law John giving the Eulogy, his daughter Catherine doing the Bible reading, his sister-in-law Linda singing Dido's lament, and his wife Hilary reading one of the amusing historical stories that he had unearthed in the records office (I don't know how she managed it).

The service really was a wonderful celebration of his life with Opera overtures being played before the service (he had sung over 25 different opera roles) and the coffin being carried out to the Overture of Yeoman of the Guard by Gilbert and Sullivan (he played numerous parts in different musicals and operettas as well).  It was a very emotional and exhausting day but I am so glad I went to help in giving him the send off he deserved. For an obituary of his professional life see The Telegraph, although this doesn't recount even half of what he achieved. Indeed, it is clear that he achieved more in his lifetime than most people would achieved in 3. For me he was a dear friend who was the life and soul of the party and who could always put a smile on my face. Robin, we love you and will miss you dearly.

On Saturday I took Alex to go and meet up with his cousin Daniel at Stowe Landscape Gardens. 

The boys had a wonderful time exploring different parts of the gardens.

I had to agree that it was very exciting to see so many wonderful and different monuments appearing from behind different trees. 

We then had a lovely picnic under a tree near the ornamental lake before walking back round

via this swan and her cygnets

to the cafe where I couldn't resist taking this photo of all the boys (including my brother!). It was lovely to see them all so although I was exhausted after driving there and back I was glad that we went.  Today has been a much needed gentle day at home with our usual trip to the park in the afternoon.  The perfect end to an emotional few days.

Crafting wise I made this card which fits with the Crafty Cardmakers 'inky fingers' challenge as the entire background was originally white card that I went over with two different shades of distress inks, then stamped with one blue (swirls) and with a darker brown shade for the sea shell corners.  The stamped image in the centre is again on a distressed ink background.  As sand castles are for me a very summery thing to make this card fits with the Kaboodle Doodles and Ooh La La 'summer' themes.

I also made this scrapbook layout following this weeks Unscripted Sketch.  The papers are cosmo cricket (background) and Basic grey.  I used some Kanban stamps as well.  The title of the page is 'too cold' and the journalling reads 'It was a bright sunshiney day in Spring when Alex decided that he wanted to paddle in the stream. however, after only a few seconds he decided it was too cold. 111th April 2010'.  This page therefore fits with this weeks Scrap it with a song challenge, as well as the SCSC 'water' and Simon Says Stamp 'checks' challenges. I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Caro
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