Boy was it cold this month at, RHS Harlow Carr Gardens, I went for the full 8 layers of clothing and still ended up having to run around and jump up and down. A friend of mine said that when he went out painting in the winter he used to light a fire, don't think that that would have made me very popular with the gardeners , having my own little Bear Grylls moment in the woods! 

I ended up walking around a lot of the parts of the garden I hadn't yet visited, just in order to keep warm initially, and because it began to rain. I ended up in the bird hide that I had visited when the kids were little and had always wanted to visit again. I am a bit of a secret twitcher I think as I once did the RSPB bird count in our garden. I think on the video I call myself a 'secret tweeter', which is something entirely different, but I was so cold. I'm not sure secretly tweeting is actually 'a thing' as by nature it's public, unless of course I do it undercover of a pseudonym, which I don't. There is something very calming about sitting in a bird hide, all on your own, watching more and more birds fly in, oblivious to you looking at them. I can hear some people groaning and thinking of far more exotic things to be doing on a freezing afternoon. But hey that's me. 

I've always been a bit of an outdoor girl, even back to the heady days of first boyfriends and waiting one saturday for my first real boyfriend to turn up for a promised picnic. It was pouring with rain and I waited and waited getting more and more fed up, until my Dad said trying to be reassuring that " not everyones idea of a nice afternoon out is going for a picnic in the rain!" Needless to say the fact that I couldn't see why that was a problem, at all, meant that that relationship didn't last.

So I am wondering if it is going to get colder and colder as I go into the December of my residency . I think I am going to have to up my game on the pocket warmer  and inflatable duvet coat, front. Also I took far too much stuff wth me and so will be scaling that back too. It's hard carrying an easel , boards and pastels with blue hands. I wonder if I might do pocket sized paintings and stuff a hot water bottle down my trousers. Sorry I am obsessing about heat. Suffice to say that actually feeling cold has a huge impact on my painting, not necessarily in a bad way, as to being able to paint anything of worth, you have to really feel it. Naturally there are limits to that if you are painting a great white shark or termites getting up close and personal is non essential. Anyway I digress and really must paint this afternoon and continue to move my tiny office into my nice new big one at the end of the day. So here are a few more pics of my November visit I hope you enjoy them. And if you do read this let me know as sometimes it feels as though I am rambling on for only my own entertainment!