Sunday 24 April 2011

The joy of long weekends

I'm really settling in to this lovely long weekend -- and there's still another day of it to come. I'm long past the must-do stage, past the might-as-well-do stage as well and am bedding down into the why-not-try level.
So I've done a little doodle to experiment with sealing things onto paper with gel medium. Everyone else in the immediate family has reacted with exaggerated horror at my picking up feathers on our walk today, as if I was going to be bringing bubonic plague into the house. I've always picked up feathers and don't think of them as particularly dirty or bacteria-laden -- perhaps they know otherwise.
     For our walk we went to the Sundon Hills, which for somewhere so close to Luton is absolutely gorgeous (nothing against Luton, but you know what I mean -- it's surprisingly unspoilt). This field was absolutely full of cowslips and clumps of speedwell. If anyone from my area (some of my Postman's Knock friends) should have happened to see a hunched hobbling figure this afternoon, it could well have been me, as the walk found all my weak places (legion) and nobbled them. I was rather pathetic and only got through the last third or so by imagining I was on one of those Red Nose Day celebrity challenges across the Kalahari or some such ("Fearne Cotton is plodding up behind me, Gary Barlow is just up ahead...").

6 comments:

Joanna said...

You made it to the finishing line, well done! I always pick up feathers too and seem to have survived unscathed.

Happy Easter to you.

xx

Makeminemidcentury said...

I'm on the team which argues feathers carry all manner of germs. There was a suspicious feather on the dining room floor yesterday, and I had to enclose it in plastic wrap before I'd pick it up. Needless to say, I'M STILL ALIVE only because of that plastic sheath!

Glad you made it home from your walk! You could have collapsed and all sorts of things could have landed on you.

menopausalmusing said...

I would bring the feathers back too.... (without a thought to the germs they might be carrying ;O). Love the look of what you are doing with them.........

LAC EMP 2020 said...

I adore feathers and have a huge box of them. One of my friends works at a local zoo and is always bringing me lovely ones. If there were any germs I think I'd be long gone by now so pick them up and be damned! Like Cathy, I'm intrigued with what you're doing with them. Share more when the experiment is over please? Lesley

Kitsch and Curious said...

I feel I must declare which side I stand on the feather debate.... I pick them up of course. Everything has got 'germs' - cut flowers, pot plants, pets, vegetables, etc, etc. They won't hurt you!

Chrissie said...

Jane - we could have been mistaken for TWO hunched and hobbling things in Bedfordshire this weekend - I'm walking like a half-shut knife at the moment with agonising lower back pain! 'Feather germs' would have been the least of my problems....