Drawing @ St Agnes

Yesterday Ispent the most delightful day with my sister here...

...at the stables at St Agnes Homestead in Kyneton...

Learning to do this...

...that is, I was learning how to draw with pencil and inks.  The above images are of the beautiful, nature-filled artwork by the very talented, very lovely, and very inspiring artist Sarah Gabriel. I cannot remember the last time I have felt so totally immersed in what I was doing - the hours just flew by! Such a lovely way to spend a Monday.

Not only was Sarah very inspiring, so were our lovely surrounds. Here's a few more images of St Agnes Homestead:

I very stupidly forgot to take my camera and so have to use these images from St Agnes and Lauriston Press for this post - my sister did however take many lovely photos. I'll repost or link to her post when her photos are up, in the meantime these will have to suffice. Note to self: Keep your camera in your handbag at all times! Now that's a good new year's resolution.

[Images: 1 & 5-9 - St Agnes Homestead; 2-4 -Lauriston Press]

My kind of bookshop

The Whistling Fish Bookshop and Cafe in Robe, South Australia is my kind of book store. It's the antithesis of the hulking great chain store - it's in a small seaside town and it's quirky, individual and rustic...

There's even a 'review table' where the hand picked books are "honestly and lovingly critiqued" - you can see the review tags tied sweetly around the books:

And of course there's a cafe to while away the hours...

Now if I could just find something similar in Melbourne I'd definitely become a 'regular'!

[Images: The Whistling Fish Bookshop and Cafe]

P.S. Apologies for going AWOL - December and January are usually the busiest time of year for me work-wise and so the blogging had to take a back seat.  I'm definitely looking forward to doing much more blogging in 2012. So, belated Christmas wishes and happy new year to the very few readers I have left!