We've been in Florida for five days now and unfortunately we've both caught some sort of bug. For the last two days it"s been hacking coughs and sneezes and generally feeing wiped out and weak. Hopefully things will improve tomorrow as we've bought tickets for Sea World and the following day to Universal Island of Adventure. The temperature has dropped by over ten degrees today. However we did spend a sunny morning walking down Clearwater Beach. It has to be the whitest and finest sand I've ever seen.
And these cheeky chappies signal that you can shower there.
One of the reasons we came to Florida was to attend the Miniature Artists of Florida annual exhibition. With over 800 miniatures on display I was lucky to win 2nd prize overall for my painting of Kevin Giddings - the Royal Flueologist (or chimney sweep). Here I am giving a little talk about chimney sweeps.
For the first five days of our holiday we stayed at a very classy resort called Innisbrook Golf Centre quite near the Leepa Ratner Museum where the exhibition is being held. This is a view of part of Innisbrook .
On Sunday afternoon we paid a visit to Honeymoon Island. I was intrigued to come across this 'Bill's Bench' on the seashore.
Yesterday, even though we were feeling a bit croaky, my young friend drove us down south to Sarasota - about a couple of hours. There we visited the home of the Ringling circus family. Part of the exhibit was a stupendous scale model of the complete circus. What a sight it must have been when the circus came to town with its tigers, elephants, horses and hundreds of other performers.
Then on to the massive building where you can see a number of the original carriages.
Here is the beautiful train that the Ringling family moved around in.
I'm feeling a bit tired now so I'll just show a few of the characters inhabiting the circus building.
Hope we feel better tomorrow.
