Photo diary: Project 365, week 18

Yellow poppies, bluebells, lilac, apple blossom, and the very first white rose in the garden... the late April has the beauty of its own.

My darling husband has been away between Saturday-Thursday in the last week, and what can I say, some people are blinking lucky. He was in Paris for work, but in his free time was able to visit the retrospective exhibition of David Hockney. I am soooo envious. 

I would have loved to see this exhibition, it opened on 9 April, the day before we went back home from Paris, and there was no opportunity for me to be there for the opening. He did bring me a superb catalogue, but oh my, life is not fair.

Years ago I wrote a paper on Hockney's exhibition in my home town. I was a young teacher then, and took a primary school class to see his artwork to Brothers' Grimm fairy tales. Afterwards, I asked the kids to write what they liked the best. And my paper was all about the children's observations and experiences. I presented it at the British Council event. I must have been 25 years old then. Good old days. 

We had a really summery weather, with temperatures going up to 26-27C. I bought a new t-shirt for Sasha, and he seemed to like it, not that he knows anything about the film. It's not his genre.

It's rather tricky to take Sasha's photo, as my boy is always on the move.

While we were basking in the sun, there was a freak snowstorm in my old home town. After warm days of plus 20C, it suddenly started snowing, and it is highly unusual for the end of April. The snow was thick and deep. My niece sent me some videos and photos, including one of the cat who looks at the snow, not enthusiastic about going out to do her business.

The snow melted in a couple of days.

I was talking about the snow to my Mum, and she mentioned that she chatted to my niece earlier that day, and heard her scolding her little son Fedya (he's two and a half years old). Mum asked why he was told off. Little Fedya proudly announced that he has eaten some snow, adding that it was clean, he picked it from his boots. 

In case you have missed my Insta post, I'm running a stationery giveaway until 9 May. There is an Impressionism-inspired theme, with a selection of greetings cards, postcards, notebook, bookmark, badge etc. And if you're not interested in an ink bottle, there's an alternative choice of a chocolate bar.

One of the prompts of Penandinkchallenge was a mash-up of two animals. The prompt reminded me of an animal from the folk tales of Cambridgeshire, called a shug monkey. It has a body of a sheepdog and a monkey's face. Though it's supposed to be a horror character, I didn't want to draw anything scary. My baby shug monkey is the opposite of scary.

Love seeing wisteria blooming in town. It's like a purple cascade.

I should be reading two e-books I promised to write reviews for the next week (and I am, mostly in bed), but I also picked The House in the Woods by Yvette Fielding as a light side reading.

There are several boxes of children's/YA books in the attic, which Eddie has read and won't be reading again. Before taking them to the charity shops, I thought I might read a few, as I do enjoy YA genre, especially the horror series (Point Horror, Goosebumps, etc).

The House in the Woods has an appealing book cover, and an enticing blurb. Three young teens go to an abandoned house in the woods with an Ouija board on the night of Halloween. They think it's a bit of harmless fun, but as you can imagine, it's never too smart to play with the unknown, if you don't know how to deal with it. A distressed spirit follows them home, and the terrifying things start to happen.

It's an entertaining book, quite predictable for its genre, but the writing style is a bit on the simple side. There is also an over-use of the "farting dog" trope. It's as if writeres of the children's literature are given the same memo by their editors: one of the characters must have a dog, and insert as many fart jokes as possible. This dog in particular farts on every second page, and it becomes tedious. While I appreciate I'm not a target audience, I do remember discussing this with Eddie a couple of years ago, and he also thought that farting in books is over-rated, and becomes tiresome, when it's repeated ad nauseam.

And how was your week?

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