My weekly sketch ...Daydreaming

My weekly sketch, of things I love, this week is...Daydreaming. I love to have a little time to myself to have a little daydream. I think about what life will be like when my little boy is older. I dream of owning a small tea rooms, with a craft shop attached, in North Yorkshire. More than all of this though, I truly believe that you need to daydream and take a little time to recharge your mind. We live in a world full of technology to entertain us, which is wonderful, but it can come at a cost of our sanity. We appear to be living in a more stressed society than our grandparents, which bearing mind they lived through two World Wars and a depression, seems a ridiculous notion. When we do have a spare moment, we check our emails or texts or Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest etc or we watch telly or surf the net. This week I have made a conscientious effort to dedicate time to my imagination and creativity or just to simply sitting doing nothing and its been reinvigorating. I asked my husband to give me an hour of craft on Wednesday night and I sat with no music or TV just  melodious silence. I implore you to give your mind a well earned reprise from the hectic life of 2013.

My weekly sketch ...Photography

My weekly sketch of things I love this week is.....Photography. This is a very recent passion, spurred on in the large part by a desire to document my little family. My sister has always had a keen eye for photography, and takes some really beautiful pictures. She owns the food blog Bilberry Tart, and as you can see the photography on the site is stunning. (The recipes are pretty yummy too!) My husband bought me a Canon SLR camera for my birthday, and my sister has been introducing me to a world of ISO and apertures (well I took some of it in). My husband and I have always had little photography competitions when we go out, so I'm hoping with my new camera to be reigning champion. 

For my birthday, I also received The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby, which I'm really enjoying reading. He delivers his expertise in a chatty and humorous fashion. Some of the advice is more technical than I'm willing to go and more money than I'm willing to spend, but he also has really simple tips. One of my favourite tips is sure to stop one thing I am always guilty of on photos; having my eyes closed. He says when you are taking group shots ask the people you are photographing to close their eyes and to open them on the count of three. You then take the photo a second after you say three and everyone should have their eyes open. 

I'm also starting to drive all my family mad with instagram and what's app. They are getting a constant barrage of pictures of my baby boy. Sometimes I take so many that it becomes a flicker book of his every move. I was intending to learn how to manually alter images in an instagram type fashion on my computer using GIMP, but then I found the free to download program Perfect Effects 4. This has many of the masks that you can get on instagram, plus some excellent retouching features to smooth out wrinkles and imperfections. (Post to follow on free and easy ways to improve your pics in post production.)

If you enjoy taking pictures please take a look at the Yorkshire Bloggers Photography Competition. More importantly don't forget to SMILE!

Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

When the sun is shining across the sweeping lake at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, it is definitely one of those days where I feel extremely blessed to live with this gem on my doorstep. My husband does not always agree that living in Yorkshire is a pleasant experience, but he has definitely been won over by Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The park is so vast, spanning 500 acres, that every time we visit, we spot something new. I often wonder how I have managed to miss things the first time. 

It is the perfect place to visit in the Spring when the Daffodils are blooming and lambs are roaming. Admission to the park is free, but you have to pay for parking. With pieces from artists such as Anthony Gormley, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore , there are works in both indoor galleries and outdoor spaces. Modern art is not to everyone's taste, but I find it thought provoking and we usually get into quite a debate about each piece's merits. 

The park has a variety of different spaces with lakeside paths, vast grassy areas, woodland walks and plenty of picnic areas.William has already enjoyed several walks in the park. Our pram has come out of some of the off-road  treks around the park relatively unscathed. His Mummy is already quite used to cleaning sheep poo off the wheels. (Ah the joys of the countryside!) We've recently enjoyed picnics, bathed in mottled sunlight, under the shade of the huge trees. I'm hoping for more nice weather as I've asked for a pretty picnic basket for my birthday, and I'm already planning recipes!