Probably the most cultural week we have ever done.It started on Tuesday when we visited Walsall (free using our bus passes on the train!) to see the Jacob Epstein Collection. There are some wonderful drawings and paintings from various artists as well as sculptures.
Then on Thursday we saw Caberet in the REP. I love going to the REP Theatre as it is so close to the boat that you can come home to go to the loo in the interval and not have to queue up!
Cabaret was fantastic (and lots of scenes of nudity!). Anything to do with Berlin for us is always interesting (that's where we met 37 years ago!) and I once visited a nightclub there where there were telephones on every table.
Then it was the ArtsFest Weekend with performances going on all over the city. Friday night we were at the Cathedral waiting for the Burne-Jones window to be illuminated (we waited 1/2 an hour in damp clothes (it had been raining again) and nothing happened so we came back home disappointed.
Saturday we were back in Centenary Square to see the CBSO, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Birmingham Opera Company performing various works with a glorious finale of The Ride of the Valkyries" and "Starwars" accompanied by fireworks. And to top it all we were back on the boat before the last notes had hardly finished. Who would want to live anywhere else?
These are the cards that I made to welcome our two incom
ing moorers. The first one was for Calum. He has an old Springer boat adapting and it has a lift-up roof like some camper vans. For some reason he has covered it in camouflage netting. I told him about the boat in Devizes which is also covered in camouflage and so I made the card using a picture of it.I found some camouflage tissue paper which I tore up and stuck onto the card and then matted the
photograph a couple of times. I then covered the picture in some green netting stuff, fixing it to one side so that it can be removed. It looks a bit like more camouflage and I was well pleased with myself for thinking of it. The sentiment was printed in an army type stencil font and matted onto more camouflage tissue.
The second card is for Hugh and Ivy on their new Liverpool boat which they named after Ivy. It has lovely signwriting with wreaths of ivy on the sides and bow flare. David took a picture and I made two copies, cutting out the ivy swirl and the word from one which I stuck over the other with sticky fixers. I then matted it a couple of times before fixing it over yellow ribbon. Again I made the sentiment on the computer and matted that up too.
I am quite willing to do a card like this for your boat if you send me a picture in jpeg form. They make lovely thank you notelets and will cost you just £2 each plus postage.
