I have been attending a weekly watercolour painting class for the past 4 weeks, with a brilliant tutor whose work I first admired via the John Lewis website. Clicking through to the website of Elizabeth Baldin, I spotted that she lived locally, AND she was offering art classes. So, having not picked up a paint brush in over 30 years, I called her for a chat. Would I be able to do this course? Long story short, yes, and having told some of my cycling buddies about it, 3 of them wanted to come too.😂
Today was the first day of Elizabeth's "open studio", and so I suggested the cycling group ride to visit. Shame that Gill and Jeanette, who are doing the course, are on holiday atm, but hopefully they might get the chance to pop in some other day. They missed yesterday's class on flowers, which Louise and I attended, so will try to pass on our knowledge (limited!) to them, and vice versa for the classes I will now sadly miss for the next two weeks, since I will be in Scotland. (Claire's wedding included.)
Here are my efforts from yesterday, which I finished at home last night, since we ran out of time in class.
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Room for improvement, but learned a lot,
and will try again to correct a few mistakes. |
Andrea got in touch yesterday with the fantastic news that she is ready to rejoin the group! It's been several months since she joined us, following her broken pelvis, and also because naturally she lost confidence. But she is back, and did really well today. Well done Andrea.
Party because Andrea was joining us, I planned today's route with hardly any bits of main road, and it was a lovely leisurely ride. We left at 9.15, in the knowledge that Elizabeth had requested that we not arrive before 11.30, so no rush.😉
Route
Crossing Woosehill, and meeting with Louise on Blagrove Lane, we crossed to pass Luckley School, then took the track to Gorrick Woods.
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| Ludgrove track to Gorrick Woods. Loved this tree. |
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| The lane to Gorrick Woods, before the track deteriorates. |
Some new scalpings had been put down on the track, which made it hard work for a hundred yards or so, until we joined the older track... which was also hard work! Eventually we joined Heathlands Road, just a short distance before the traffic lights at the junction of Nine Mile Ride, then straight across into Ravenswood Village and the golf course, to Crowthorne.
Wellingtonia Avenue is still closed after about a year since the landslip at the other end, so the ideal time to ride along it, with almost NO traffic.😊 The Rhododendrons were looking pretty, as we stopped at the top of the climb.
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| 3 ladies in pink today. |
We sneaked through the ROAD CLOSED area, then joined Church Lane Finchampstead, to climb to the church, and then enjoyed the downhill of White Horse Lane. Joining Nine Mile Ride, which was also pretty quiet, we used the new cycle path at the junction of Park Lane. (this only opened in the last 2 weeks after months of being closed). Wiggling our way to Sheerlands Road, we climbed over Farley Hill via Church Lane, then dropped down on Sandpit Lane, which changes name to Nutbean Lane, joining the road into Swallowfield.
From there, we cut through to Charlton Lane, doglegging over the Basingstoke Road, and down to cross the green bridge on Kingsbridge Hill.
We were made very welcome, including tea and biscuits, and enjoyed our time looking at the beautiful art work. I have just taken delivery of two beautiful prints of Elizabeth's as a wedding gift for my niece, and she kindly wrote a personalised note for me to include with the wedding gifts.
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| This card is called "Blue Arran" |
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| Wish I could write like that! Beautiful handwriting. |
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| Photo with Elizabeth, taken by another visitor, who is also doing the watercolour course. |
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| I bought a few more cards. I love them all. |
We continued to the end of Appletree Close, and wiggled our way through the Shinfield new housing development. We have never done this the same way twice! But we found our way to pick up Cutbush Lane to Lower Earley, then the new Hatch Gate Way cyclepaths to Winnersh.
The new northern distribution road opened a couple of days ago, so we continued using those cycle paths, and were disappointed to come to some "temporary" lights!! We managed to squeeze through the gate we needed to reach to connect to the pathway to Emmbrook.
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The new gate to Emmbrook , with road barriers set up already!
It only opened a few days ago for goodness sake.
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| Cycle path to Emmbrook. |
Since I got home, John has been putting together my Ikea delivery which arrived yesterday.... my "ART TABLE". It's taken hours, but it's now in my study, and looks like it's meant to be there. Will be nice to just abandon my art projects part way through without him moaning about needing the dining table. So Elizabeth, if you are reading this, this is all your fault.... thank you! And I look forward to the next workshop day, when you get time. Best wishes, and enjoy your new kitchen.
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| My ART table😏 |
Nice to see everyone this morning, and once again a big welcome back to Andrea. See you ladies in 2 weeks time. Enjoy your ride next week.
