Sunshine, stained glass and struggles with Copperplate.

What fantastic weather we've had these last few days! It's so good to be reminded what it feels like to be warm enough to go out in t-shirt and shorts. I realise that that probably was summer, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

On Friday I took a little trip up to Lincoln for the day to meet my Big Sis. Lincoln happens to be about halfway between the two of us, and as neither of us had been there before we decided it would be a nice place to explore. The weather obliged with wall-to-wall sunshine and we spent a lovely day pootling round the old part of the town looking in all the interesting shops and going round the Cathedral. The Imperial Tea shop on Steep Hill is well worth a visit (although the lady behind the counter gave the distinct impression she'd never made a cup of tea before), as is Pimento's tea room where we had lunch.
Lincoln is, of course, dominated by the Cathedral which is impressively large. So large in fact that it's impossible to get a decent picture of it without wide-angle lens. Unfortunately I only have a little compact camera and this is the best I could do:

 Aside from being quite big, it also boasts some lovely stained glass, which looked spectacular in the cool darkness of the cathedral, backlit by the bright sunshine outside.
A lovely day was had all round - maybe next time we'll catch an Evensong or go on the roof-top tour.

Despite the blue sky and sunshine I did manage to persuade myself to stay indoors long enough to do a bit of calligraphy over the weekend. Yet more copperplate I'm afraid, but this time I've been having fun with the capitals, whilst still keeping the minuscules ticking along. Majascules, I have discovered, are simultaneously fun and frustrating; there's a lot more freedom in their creation, but it does mean you have to use your judgement with the flourishes - how much/where/how big etc. and this takes time to get an eye for.

(this page was done with an EF Princiapl and Higgins Eternal ink)

 This is one of my practice pages for the A-H group, including some names and some animals. I was reliably informed that a Dubong was a real animal, but in fact it turns out that I'm slightly deaf and it is in fact a Dugong. So apologies to all you Dugongs out there reading this. Heffalumps are of course entirely real and not at all made up.


After another couple of pages along similar lines (if you'll excuse the pun) I thought I'd bite off more than I can chew and write out one of my favourite passages from Winnie the Pooh. I've been working on this for a couple of days and have to admit that I was finding it rather frustrating. The tines of my nib kept catching on the paper, my letters wobbly and inconsistent and I was generally struggling and finding it quite hard work. HOWEVER, yesterday evening I had a bit of an epiphany: I've been gripping my pen far too tight in an effort to control it, and have consequently worn the tines unevenly. Now, when I relaxed my grip and moved my hand further down the pen I found that not only did it stop catching on the paper, but my flow and control had come back! Magic! Here is the first section:

Lesson 1: Relaxation = Control.

The rest of the story is on it's way (in a much more relaxed fashion, naturally). More next time on 'other useful things I've learnt by trying to run before I can walk' :-) ttfn.