A bit of a mishmash of things this week with no particular theme. On Saturday we went to the National Theatre in London to see 'The Light Princess' a new musical. The sets were absolutely amazing and the choreography stunning. The music however was pedestrian, sounding like pretty much any other modern musical and certainly no tune you came away humming. However I would recommend it as a stunning visual performance and the lead Rosalie Craig was superb.

Another of the leading actors was Clive Rowe who my son and I met at a restaurant in The Cut about 10 or more years ago. The tables were very close together and both Clive and my son were reading Terry Pratchet and struck up a conversation. Turned out we had seen him in Peter Pan when my son was four and that he was currently in rehearsal at the Young Vic. He was absolutely charming and we have followed his career ever since!

Sunday saw the start of the Brene Brown e-course Gifts of Imperfection. It combines the material from the book with art journalling. Three key words from this week's intention are 'courage, compassion and connection'

One of the first exercises was to take the perfection pledge - the idea was to write it on your hand and then take a selfie but this went a bit wrong in my case and I ended up with a rather messy hand so I made this heart instead!

Another course I am taking is Sebastian Michael's photoshop artistry. This week he challenged the group to make something special for Kim Klassen and her husband John who is seriously ill with leukaemia. It was Kim that introduced me to both Photoshop and Lightroom and guided my first faltering steps in her classes, so it was a pleasure to work on this piece which I also dedicate to a dear friend I have learned this week is fighting cancer.

I do realise of course that I am in grave danger of over-using the Scarlet angel - but I can't resist!

Finally we have been starting to think seriously about where we might move to when we retire in a couple of years. At the moment the top hit is Salisbury which we visited last weekend, but watch this space!

I think I have mentioned previously that I am currently taking a photoshop grunge e-course and am really loving it - the problem is how to stop myself getting completely carried away and adding grunge to absolutely every picture I take.

Yesterday I popped out to a local stately home I haven't visited in a while. Its a National Trust property the Vyne near Basingstoke. The building has a fascinating history which you can find out more about by reading this article.

True to form I don't have any grand pictures of the facade but here you can just see it peeking out between the trees across the lake

Something different to see on this visit were a number of art installations around the house and garden - unfortunately there are no details on the website nor was there info to pick up so I can't tell you mud about the artists or their concepts, and I have to say that some of the NT volunteers were clearly not smitten by the whole thing!

One of the main pieces was a fabric tree with birds and flowers situated in the tapestry room with roots descending into the room below via the fireplace, seen here together with some lovely wooden pomegranates, a symbol of Catherine of Aragorn who apparently visited with her husband Henry viii

This picture only shows a small branch of the tree against he background of the room but the tree in its entirety was huge!

My favourite installation however was in the library

I loved all the little cut out figures and of course really couldn't resist grunging up this one

Out in the grounds the most impressive feature was the summerhouse which also had an installation of birds partying - they were really spread about the space so didn't lend itself to photography, but this might give you an idea of the summerhouse, the birds and the beautiful garden around it

Inspired by the installations I decided to try my own artistic concept by merging the summerhouse with the fabric tree and one of the birds - I'd love to know whether you think it works.

One final ungrunged picture from the way back to the car park - the green on these willows and their reflections was just stunning

Hmm only two with grunge, not bad at all considering my current obsession, see you soon and keep sharing the sparking moments!

Pot Pourri

Carried Away With Grunge?