I think we`d missed the sunshine by a day, so when we arrived in Loch Lomond the weather was rainy and grey! The Loch still managed to look beautiful though….

One of my favourite things about Scotland is the lovely quaint villages…these houses in Luss were so cute..

Glasgow has the most beautiful Cathadral…

I love Charles Rennie Mackintosh, so when we decided to go for a weekend in Glasgow it was the architecture I was most looking forward to seeing. I`d been told Glasgow School of Art was worth a visit and it really was! Still used as an Art School it was so inspiring…with examples of Mackintosh furniture and a Mackintosh library that`s only open to the students on Wednesday with close supervision!

I popped into my new Glasgow stockist; The shop of interest, who now stock my new Ille de Re collection.

The corridors know as the hen run!……the male and female students would have been separated and this was the corridor the female students used to use.

A detail from the Mackintosh Library…

I had a lovely inspiring weekend in London..with a long list of stately homes I wanted to go to… we ended up going to one of the ones I was most excited about; Leighton House near Holland Park- the colours in the house were so beautiful…

The walls were covered with green silk….

We were near the V & A, so popped in for some more inspiration. I spent most of my time in the iron work section!

The wind was rattling last wednesday, but I still managed to hear most of what the lovely Donna Wilson had to say.(She was giving a talk at the Harris Gallery in Preston.) Hearing her chat about her work and how much of an influence the countryside is to her work rung true with me. She also spoke about how her Grandma`s encouragement inspired her and gave her confidence, which made me think how little things are such big things for children and can shape their whole life!

Donna`s journey sounded so straight forward, I`m sure it hasn`t been, but I would have liked to hear more about her struggles, but I do like a journey to be winding!

It felt like Sunday was the first bit of sunshine in months, so we headed to the Cheshire countryside to soak it up…We saw snow drops! and a robin…the first signs of spring. I felt so refreshed after my little walk and the hope of spring!  We stopped off in a cosy cheshire pub on the way home- the perfect sunday!