Canal trip

 I don't usually write blog posts about non-artsy things, but just this once I couldn't resist.  My husband and I are leaving in a couple of days for a month exploring the canals of northern England, and maybe a bit of Wales.   A friend and fellow jewelry artist, Lauran Sundin, ( and by the way you should check out her beautiful jewelry at lauransundin.com) owns the boat pictured here.  She and her husband spend several months on it each year, traveling the English canals. That's her in the pictures. My husband and I are long-time boat people.  We spent a year on a small sailboat (in our youth), 

bringing it down the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes.  Anyway, Lauran and her husband Steve offered us the use of the boat this summer, so we're off on another boating adventure.  As you can see from the pictures, though, this one will be really pastoral and quiet, mostly visiting small towns, and traveling the countryside and going up and down the hills ye means of teeny locks that you crank open and shut by hand.  That's one in the second picture  We'll start out near Manchester, which is where we're flying to.    I'm taking lots of silver tubes with me, and I
plan to experiment and play with designs, but

not to expect to actually produce a lot of jewelry on the boat.