Now that Orynthia’s mum and brother are safely ensconced in their new homes, we seem to have a bit more time to do some spur of the moment things, so yesterday morning whilst finishing off a leisurely breakfast, I noticed a small piece in The Guardian describing a new exhibition in Cheltenham featuring art from the private collection of Osbert Sitwell, it seamed like to good a chance to miss. The exhibition included work by many of our favourite artists – William Roberts, C R W Nevinson, Paul Nash and Wyndham Lewis, so an hour later we were in the car and starting the 40 odd mile journey up the M5. How lucky we were to be heading north rather than south, at the this time of year the holiday makers heading south to Devon and Cornwall often turn the M5 around Bristol into a huge car park and yesterday was no exception, fortunately the northward traffic was light.

As well as enjoying the small (approx 30 pieces) exhibition and the rest of the gallery, we had a lovely time in this very grand town. We both managed to pick up some bargains in the sales and had a lovely relaxed walk around the place, stopping briefly in a small café where I had a huge and delicious piece of home made egg custard tart.

After heading home we had an hour or so to relax before taking the short walk to Geoff and Emma’s for the now traditional summer barbecue. Once again they provided us with lots of lovely food and company, even if the pleasant summer day turned into a rather nippy evening, luckily we could all gather around their recently acquired Chimera, which was throwing out copious amount of heat.

Today we adopted our traditional roles in the garden, Orynthia the cultivator, me the destroyer. I had great fun hacking away at a massively overgrown winter jasmine plant, whilst Orynthia planted a purchase from yesterdays trip to “Nam”. It’s been great to have the chance to spend some time doing things on the spur of the moment rather than constantly having to dash off around Bristol.