Imagine Gallery

This is just a quick post as I know the rest of the week will run away with me, or the time will.

I have lots to get on with and there really just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Well I know for a fact that there isn't as today I will go home with a list on my mind of the people I should have contacted, the things I should have ordered and the emails that should be replied to.

So, "how have you time to write a blog", many people will ask

[only the one's that I should have called actually, I realise nobody else cares].

"I haven't got the time to blog", but I just need to.

I have just returned from my travels 'up North', and although I don't feel refreshed I do have lots of beautiful new objects for the gallery, some of which I do hope to get photographed and onto the web site before too much time has passed.

Apart from the many hours of driving the trip was mainly memorable for having an over night stay at the Green Dragon in North Yorkshire.

It's strange how somewhere so far from home can feel so like home when I arrive.

I walked through the door at about 10.00pm to be greeted immediately by a call of

"Hello John how are you"? From Yvonne.

Followed by "Let me get you a pint, you must be tired", from Mark.

The owners of this wonderful place. I felt that I was visiting friends and I think that many other travellers feel the same when they arrive.

After a quick chat I was taken up to my rooms.

'Rooms'?

Yes, they had reserved the 'Wordsworth' [he stayed there in the past] suite for me.

So beautiful was it that after relaxing for a while I found it hard to muster the energy to re-visit the bar to join my hosts.

But it had to be done, and I was the man for the job.

After several pints and many hours talking into the night I was wondering why I ever bothered going to my rooms.

But eventually we "talked ourselves out" and bed beckoned.

I will say no more but will urge you to visit and to sleep where I slept, in beautiful surroundings, and to awake with the soft sunlight of the mist covered Dales showing through the curtain cracks.

It is little point in trying to describe the place, you must stay there, drink beside the light of the old range in the evening, and have breakfast on a table in front of the coal fire.

It really is a visit back into the English past.

I feel so lucky to have discovered this place, and even more so to be made so welcome and accepted as part of the local scene. Mark has promised to take me to some of the hidden

[almost lost] treasures of the Dales so I know that I must return again, and again, very soon.

After a wonderful breakfast [the smell of coal burning made me feel so young] by the fire I set off to collect the last of my art which was being delivered to me at a pre-arranged destination.

I do tend to be a very pessimistic/unhappy person but even I have to admit that standing in light rain in the Dales of Yorkshire as I transferred beautiful pieces of art from one vehicle to another wasn't the worst way to spend a morning.

It made me think back to what I had said to Mark the night before [ as we traded our various troubles], "there are times that I forget just how lucky I am".

There is no time to tell more, although there is a lot more to tell.

My visit to the castle [really] that Mark and Yvonne are restoring will have to wait for another

day, so I will leave you with a few memento's of my journey, the scenery, the Green Dragon, my bedroom and just a little peek of the bronze dish that I collected from Fidelma Massey.

Oh! So much to tell and so little time.