No Title

No title for this post as the things in it bear little relation to each other apart from they have all been photoshopped. I was going to call it 'Photoshopping Life' but that sounds as if I am going to write something enlightening or clever which I am not. I was also going to call it 'Island Graffiti' as there is some, but that is not all there is.  

 This little bird and lots of others like it were running around the beach. It is a Turnstone. I had not heard of these before. It is called this as it turns stones over looking for food. Nice literal name!

 The bins along the sea wall have been decorated. 

 The green weed growing on the wooden groyne is a similar colour to the bins. 

 This is the still life for my next doll picture. This is a very small doll, which I think came from Linda Sue. He is very smart in his black suit and bow tie, just ready for dinner with all the white china characters. All from charity shops apart from the cat jug which was a present from Jenny, my sister in law. The rabbit teapot's parts do not seem to match. The china looks different and the head is very loose, so somewhere there must be another body and another head. I hope they are together too.

 On the left are the four Amineko cats I have just finished making for my friend Sarah in Holland. Two, purple and pink for the daughters of her friend. One, variegated pink and white, for another friend's baby, and the brown one for her mother in law. I hope they like them. The other two are mine. They had to come out of hibernation to remind me about the positions of limbs and features, so deserved to be in the photo.  I love making these cats as they always turn out so cute. I am making another one from variegated 'fairisle' effect yarn for me. I think I will take it on our trip to Amsterdam in September, to help with photos. We are meeting Linda Sue and Stella there. I can't wait! The book I have just finished reading is partly set there although I do not want to have any similar experiences to the character in it. It is 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt and I absolutely loved it. I don't read reviews before I read a book or watch a film as they are likely to spoil it and I like to be surprised and make up my own mind. I have read a few of this book this evening, and people seem to love it or hate it, not much in between. It is 781 pages long, and a book that big would normally take me a long time to read, but I have finished it in about a week and a half as I couldn't stop. I have not been so concerned to find out what happened to a character since reading 'David Copperfield' I am going to go back to the book I abandoned halfway through to start 'The Goldfinch' which I was enjoying, although not in the same feverish way! It is about Katherine Routledge, who, with her husband, organised an expedition to Easter Island in 1910, to investigate and document the history of the island, statues and people. I read a book about her (Among Stone Giants by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, and wanted to read about it all in her own words. I read this book because it was one of the influences mentioned by Jeannette Winterson on her novel The Stone Gods, another book I really enjoyed. I often go off on book chases like this, where one thing leads to another, and they all lead to yet more books in the house!)

I think the thing that makes these cats work so well as the cutest things, is the way they are asleep. Sleeping kittens, puppies, babies, all unbearably sweet!