Weekend Progress Report #29 & 30

I've been away from my computer for two weeks, so will be combining these two reports.

While vacationing on Maryland's Western Shore, I spent a lot of time doing touristy things:

**a boat trip out of Anapolis Harbor to the Bay Bridge.

**a trolley tour of Anapolis.

**a very lovely three course tea at the Reynolds Tavern, a beautifully restored inn from colonial times, now a restaurant with B&B accomodations on the third floor and a pub in the basement. Highly recommended. Marvelous location at the Church circle in downtown Anapolis, cozy period interior, nicely decorated with plants and antiques and reproductions.

**a four course tea at Royal Tea in LaPlatta. Even more highly recommended. The location is rather unprepossessing, but once inside the 19th century building, the environment is superb. We were unfortunate enough to be seated in a small room with a large and somewhat loud multi-generational group of women who seemed intent on trashing my native NYC when they weren't bragging about their own accomplishments ... a bit annoying and distracting. Why can't people use their "indoor" voices when out in public places. It's a skill set mastered by most kindergarteners ... a pity it doesn't survive into adulthood for so many. Still, the service and the food were wonderful and things improved when the group left halfway through our own meal.

** a daily morning walk along the Herrington Harbor Beach looking for and finding a good bit of beach glass.

**a self-guided two mile nature walk round the Herrington Harbor marina where I say my very first red-winged blackbirds [ a real high] and my first muskrat [not so much].

**shopping in the antique stores and specialty shops and dining in North Beach and Cheasapeake.

**buying fresh sweet corn and cooking and eating it the same day ... and enjoying the local melons and peaches.

**rocking on my front patio enjoying the gardens and watching the butterflies and birds at the end of the day. The highlight one night was watching a parent bird play a complicated game of hide-and-seek with its fledgling in an effort to coax it into flying. I should have brought my Field Guide so I could have identified all the birds I saw in the gardens and on the nature walk.

Even so, I managed to squeeze in some stitching on TW's Autumn Faerie. When last seen [left photo], the border was only half-stitched and section one was barely begun. But after the vacation stitching [right photo], the border is finished except for the beading and section one is filling in nicely with most of the left wing filled in, the apple and leaves in the lower left of the section done. I still need to fill in the left wing completely, start on the right wing and stitch the faerie's skirt before moving onto section two. I tend to backstitch as I finish a section or motif within a section because I like the immediate gratification of seeing parts of the picture become distinct as I go along. So I'll have some back-stitching to do as well before moving onto to section two.