Through the Looking Glass

We have had such a wonderful day. She woke at her currently-customary-5.30am. She snuggled on me and had a sleep for another half hour. As I was beginning to fall asleep, she of course woke up. I sent her off to play and snoozed a bit longer. She came and told me she was hungry & wanted to finish her movie. I snoozed some more. She grew tired of that by 7.30 and demanded proper wakefulness from me. 

We cooked a late breakfast together then made a start on some gardening in the beautiful sunshine. By 9.45 we had decided we were going to abandon the previously considered jammie day. Instead we headed firstly to the library. We then went to the art gallery. There was a British neo-romantic exhibition. She wasnt very impressed and declared it pretty much all strange. There was also an exhibition of 1900 illustrator Edith Farniloe. Her work Katie very much liked. Theres a beautiful beautiful book that she published in 1898 that we are in fact now trying to source through a book collecting family friend! We made a quick stop to the museum (they're all in the same complex) before we walked to the Minster. 

We had come to see the exhibition of 16th century illustrated manuscripts by Petrus Alamire. She was fascinated by the different music notation and the beautiful decoration. She has decided she's going to try doing her own of the same style. The blip is her following the line of the titles of Alamire's pieces carefully. We took a tea break as we left that main part of the exhibition. As part of the exhibition, there is also a wonderful media installation. Its essential a giant black circular tent playing a modern recording of the beautiful choral music. Each part is played individually. From the centre you hear them all. From the edges you can hear each part as a singular strain, standing out from the others. It was quite captivating. Katie sat and listened for ages. Then danced in the middle for ages. 


When we left, we made a stop at the market and bought a few plants for the garden. We got home and did a lot more gardening! We decided we needed a new, bigger watering can and I wanted to get us a few more plants. We walked over to the shopping centre and bought the things on the list Katie had carefully written. She had a play in the play area before we left, stopping again at the market. We worked hard in the garden - she's very delighted with it - but we discovered our new watering can has a giant crack in it. So we went to get a different one. I let her talk me into a beautiful enamel floral one. We got back and finished off the final bits of the garden, for today anyway. She has spent a lot of time going to the window and smiling at how it looks and the promise of the exciting things that (we hope) will grow. She's already said how excited she is to take some of what we grow to B, who always shares her tasty produce with us. 


Hunger struck her and she wanted the quickest possible tea so ate the remains of the stew we've had the last two nights while watching a bit of a movie. After tea, she did a bit of music. She's got some new clarinet books that she's loving, her first Gershwin. I then insisted she have a bath. "But mama, I had one on Thursday and two yesterday...." which was true. However she was a fabulous shade of brown. A little sunkissed, but mainly just glorious mud! 


Such a good day!