Thankfully we haven't had the snow that had been forecast which has meant I've been able to get out and about this week. It has been cloudy, but at least dry. I was glad about that as I had made a date to meet a friend for a catch-up chat over coffee and cake in one of the cafés in the city centre.
I was interested to see this huge Winter flowering shrub (a viburnum) in one of the small gardens at the side of a city square called Barker's Pool. There were fresh bedding plants (daisies) in the garden and in other planters dotted around the city centre. A climbing rose is also doing very well in the shelter of this garden space.
Catkins are out too.
Before meeting my friend I went into the Winter Garden. The information boards are often set up
exhibiting the work of local art and photography groups. I shall return there soon as there are one or two exhibitions in the actual art gallery rooms that look very interesting such as Christopher Dresser: Pioneer of Modern Product Design and Leonardo Da Vinci: A Life in Drawing.
Meeting up with my friend in the café area of a bookshop we enjoyed our time together. The cappuccino was good and the polenta and orange cake was a different choice from normal, very moist and tasty. Whilst I was in the bookshop I ordered a book which caught my eye on a blog dedicated to historical fiction and non fiction. I've read a series of novels written by Nancy Bilyeau set in Tudor England. The Blue, however, is set in the 18th century and I'm hoping that I will enjoy this book which is not available to reserve at the library yet - the place where I usually get most of my reading material.
In the 18th century London, porcelain is the most seductive of commodities: fortunes are made and lost upon it. For Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of Huguenot refugees, porcelain holds far less allure; she wants to be an artist, a painter of international repute, but nobody takes the idea of a female artist seriously in London. If only she could reach Venice. When Genevieve meets the charming Sir Gabriel Courtenay he offers her an opportunity she can't refuse; if she learns the secrets of porcelain he will send her to Venice. But, in particular she must learn the secrets of the colour blue... The ensuing events take Genevieve deep into England's emerging industrial heartland...
(information on Nancy Bilyeau's website)
