We’re back. We’re home.
The trip went well. Exploration of Paris during the jet-lag recovery week was hampered somewhat by my ankle and plantar fasciitis, but we got to see some sights we might not have if we’d been more mobile, including the Musée des Arts et Métiers, which was like going back in time to one of the Great Exhibitions, or being transported to a Lilliputian steampunk world.
The work-related days in Belgium and Poland were exhausting but productive and a lot of fun.
The river cruise along the Rhine that was supposed to be our “recover from the work-related days while watching the world go by” part of the trip didn’t fulfil either expectation, as the ship travelled at night mostly and the shore trips were too rushed, but everything else about it was wonderful. We’d not done a cruise before, so I now know that I would ask a whole lot of questions that hadn’t occurred to me before if I was to consider doing one again.
The up side to my sore feet was that stopping to rest them meant I did more sketching. I took on a few subjects I’d have avoided as ‘too difficult’ or ‘too time-consuming’ and was pretty happy with the results. Pics to come.
The beetle pendant was the only craft project I finished. I’m halfway through a second pendant, but I’m not 100% sure if I like what I’ve done so far. I’ll keep going and start over if I’m not happy with the final result.
In a gallery shop in Paris I stumbled upon lots of colouring books for adults, and bought one and a set of pencils. I spent a couple of evenings with my feet on a bed of ice wrapped in a towel, filling in designs. Some of them looked like an image had been run through a program to create a vector file, but the result did not always make a design suitable for colouring. It got me thinking about what makes a good design, and wondering if I could produce my own. But colouring in isn’t all that satisfying, like art or craft is, in that I don’t produce something useful or improve my artistic skills. It’s more like doing a jigsaw puzzle.
And I don’t need another hobby.