We’re well and truly back from our trip doing the mundane stuff like unpacking, sorting through junk mail, sorting through email, washing clothes…

And doing the far from mundane: looking at our photos.

You know, for me, one of the best parts of our travels is savoring all the photos that we’ve taken.  I really can’t imagine how I could possibly remember all our adventures if there weren’t photos.  And this year, what a great idea doing the journals.  What I didn’t manage to capture, in writing, Draw did.  Heaven help us if we had to rely on our memories.  Seriously, we could barely remember all the National Trust properties we’d visited.  We needed to drag out the journals to bring it all back.

So - journaling… I’ve learned a few things.  Don’t bother painting every last page of a watercolor journal in preparation of the trip.  I spent hours doing that, making a freaking huge mess, dragged it across the pond with me and then ended up doing nothing in it.  I couldn’t print photos to stick in it and since I’d already painted every page I couldn’t very well repaint them.  I’ll use the journal, I’m sure… eventually.  I sure hope so.  The pages are really pretty cool but they need an adventure.

Second thing I learned - make sure you take your art supplies with you.  I left everything at home and ended up spending a fortune on pens, paper, watercolors, blah blah blah.  Left most of it there since I already have the stuff here.

Third - start collecting the leaves, flowers, and whatnots to squish between the pages, from the get go.  I only started doing it about midway through, and even then only sporadically until Day 11.  I love looking at those squished bits of ivy and lavender. 

Fourth - do take a journal.  Take two.  One for writing and the other for artwork.  Most of my art will be done at home but I look at that as just another opportunity to relive the trip, along with the looking at the photos.

Okay then, on to the adventures… stay tuned!

pa