With the wind howling and a blizzard settling in this afternoon, I sat happily ensconced in our city’s little-known plant conservatory. My watercolour teacher decided it was the perfect place to hold a painting workshop this weekend.
Why I have never discovered the City of Regina’s Plant Conservatory is beyond me. This is certainly one sure-fire way of beating back the winter blues with the added bonus of hydrating my skin.
The Conservatory has an incredible collection of Orchids, Palm trees, Succulents and other flowering plants. Today there were numerous massive Amaryllises in bloom.
Then I discovered a Scarlet Sage and suddenly all was perfect with the 
world. (pic above)
Our class is small and fit into the Conservatory’s atmosphere perfectly. While we were there, a kindergarten class arrived for a tour, story-time and planting seeds. Before they started their tour, the kids all gathered around our teacher and were mesmerised watching her paint.
The class had just left, when suddenly we heard the words, “Will you marry me?” We all turned to see a young guy on one knee proposing to a woman. Would she or wouldn’t she? We watched as she burst into tears and yelled, “Yes, finally”.
Whew … we went back to our
paintings and were soon lost in mixing our paints and working on our watercolour washes.
I took lots of photographs and am pretty certain these are the two Orchids (pictured above) I will work on tomorrow.
It was a good day – starting with my weekly fiddle lesson. I’m wanting to learn more tunes by ear and rely less on music. My teacher gave me some good tips which will help. 
I am also wanting to get more fiddling and painting in and spend less time on the computer.
One of these days, perhaps I’ll be able to figure out a way to play my fiddle among the incredible plant specimens at the Conservatory. In any event, I know with certainty, that I will be making frequent forays back to this ‘little house of exotica on the prairies’.
Kate smudges in earth, paint and life 
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