Update not from Portugal

Phew, back in sunny old England. Well, partly cloudy old England.

I never did find any shops selling fabric, which was a slight disappointment in an otherwise fabulous holiday. We went to a couple art stores, though, where I bought various pens (I left my waterproof drawing pen at work, I think — who only has one favourite drawing pen?) and the above notepads. Hooray recycled materials!
I had to stop myself from buying up the store’s entire stock of the Sodica notepads. The largest one is coloured paper, perhaps for a project in the planning stages. The two A4 are ruled — one with lines and the other with grid (I love graph paper). The smallest is a lined notebook. The orange thing is made (I think) of recycled rubber; it has pockets for business cards and notes and holds a notepad inside (with graph paper!).

I did a bit of drawing in Portugal, and the sketches above and below are my favourites. (Click the dog to see entire drawing.)

And one last thing — a funny bird we spotted outside the kitchen window a couple of times. It’s a Hoopoe — in the same order as Kingfishers, but not as cute and blue. An interesting change from river birds, though.