It's in the bag!

It's corny I know and any men who follow this blog will already have tuned out, but here is a picture of my lovely Cath bag together with my friend's new Cath bag at our recent church retreat! A beautiful sight! (Both the retreat and the bags!)

Another beautiful sight would be my order from Cath Kidston arriving some time soon. For heaven's sake! I placed that order on February 19th and today is March 11th and nairy a sign of this order. I ADORE this product and am impressed by their kind and polite customer service but I think I must have become impatient in my old age. I think 3 weeks is a long time to wait for an order to arrive!

Out of a sense of sheet altruism and knowing that this product has to be shipped from England which apparently takes an annoyingly long time, I offered the nice people at Cath Kidston the use of my 2000 square foot barn as a warehouse here in the States so that their customer base over here doesn't have to wait so flaming long for an order. Funnily enough I have heard nothing from them in this regard!

Grhhhh. Rant over. I still love Cath and will place another order soon so if you want to order anything  (link to website is at top of blog) let me know and we can split the shipping. It might get here before Easter..........

On a less shallow note, I heard the birds singing today and it made me think of England. Not that birds don't sing here but I spend so much of my day in a building or a car with all the associated white noise that I guess I rarely hear the birdies. I used to love the birds in my back garden in England. Black birds, thrushes, robins (real English robins - check picture), sparrows, chaffinches - they all make such beautiful music. In England you can hear birds either from the inside of your house with the windows open (without fear of letting the air conditioning out or some nasty flying and stinging insect in) or while you are walking (yes, walking!) around town instead of having to drive everywhere! I miss bird song!

Robert Browning says it best in Home Thoughts from Abroad - and yes I know it's not April yet!

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recaptureThe first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower

Have a great Spring Break all of you! 9 days of not having to get up at 4:45 sounds good to me! Hope to see some of you soon!