Sights and signs from today:

On the side of a truck (and good to know lol) :

Funny sign:

Birds waiting at the railway station:

And on the train itself - do you think they ALL have a ticket???  :

The way we are...

They say it's because of the fumes from these and the gazillion other chimneys in our area, that the people in our County are more than a little odd ;)  

I don't think anyone has been born with three heads quite yet though....

Today the wind was blowing in the other direction....  :)

Asian style postcard...

This is a postcard I made for an Asian themed swap I'm taking part in...it has to be mailed as is and can't be put in an envelope, so it actually gets stamped...

This is a Ruby Slippers ATC I made for a swap...

Lunch at the garden centre...

The local Garden Centre had an art exhibition this weekend, displaying work of up and coming local artists.  I was really looking forward to going to it, so today Lloyd and I went and had lunch there in their lovely indoor garden!

It was nice sitting and chatting over lunch, strolling around looking at all the plants and art as well as having a good nosey around the gift shop!!  I did see a couple of handbags I really liked but yet again none of them had the long shoulder strap that I really want - I was almost tempted to buy one of them....but I decided against it as I just know i'll regret it without a long shoulder strap - so I am still without a new bag!

It was a lovely lunch out despite my sadness over the Witches house :(

Piccies above were all snapped with the iphone so apologies for quality ;)

Goodbye Witches House :(

Firstly you should read about this house HERE so you know that I loved this house.  I loved driving by it - and why we called it the 'Witches House'.  It is a house that we drive by almost daily, on our drive into town.  It is a house that signifies which road to turn onto to head in to Sherwood Park.  

I have often thought about the history of this little house - the memories it holds.....the Christmases it has seen - what the surrounding land looked like when it was built - how it came to be left so empty.  How it came to be painted such a colour!!  I wanted to walk around it and take photographs - see inside and see what era the wallpaper was from - in fact we had talked about doing exactly that once the snow had gone later this Spring.  I knew it would be dangerous inside so we were just going to peer in through the door....I loved this little house with it's funky Wicked Witch colour.  Now it's gone.  A little bit of local history is gone.  I understand they can't leave derelict buildings around - for safety's sake, but it's sad when old houses are left to collapse and all those memories are gone.  

I wonder who lived there and why they moved out and left it like that.....I wonder what the story is....

Anyway, we could smell smoke this morning - even though we live quite a long way from this house really.  Lloyd and I were heading out and we could see thick black smoke but it looked as though it was coming from the other side of the highway......then I felt this sickening feeling in my stomach and I said I wonder if it's my witches house.......then Lloyd said it was!!!!  :(  

It was a controlled burn by the local fire brigade - obviously done while the ground was still nice and wet from the thaw.  I was devastated to see my lovely little house up in flames :(  

We drove back a few hours later and Lloyd drove by a few times for me so I could snap some pictures of the house gone - only one truck was still there and a few firemen burning the last few bits and pieces.  So sad to see my lovely little house just GONE :(    They have left the barns and out buildings so I'm assuming it was because of the dangers of the derelict house - we had noticed that over recent months the house had looked vandalised in places....I hope it was done because of that and NOT so someone can come along and build some ugly modern house on top of it :(