happy birthday, mrs phoenix!

I’d been pestering Woodrow Phoenix for ages about meeting his mum, ever since I heard about all the amazing stuff she gets up to. I swear, this woman is probably one of the most remarkable people on the planet, fostering over 200 kids, setting up a house for homeless girls and doing about a zillion other things. She’s played a part in almost every bit of our local history I’ve ever heard about.

So I got a phonecall from Woodrow mid-Saturday, saying, if I wanted to meet his mum, she was having an 83rd birthday party, and right then would be a good time to come over. So my little neighbour friend and I trundled up the road and got to meet this remarkable woman. Hooray!

A snazzy hat, modelled by an obliging family friend

My neighbour friend asked Woodrow to draw her getting thrown off a horse, so here’s what he drew.

Woodrow, Bridget and neighbour friend

We drew on a map in my neighbour friend’s sketchbook, showing Mrs Phoenix’s birth country of Guyana, and a few other places we talked about, including Seldovia, Alaska. Seldovia’s where I am going with my family, to stay at my uncle’s house. So I’ll be off the blog for awhile because there isn’t any internet there. In fact, there aren’t any roads there, it’s just bears and whales and halibut. I’m stopping by Seattle first to see my sister and Mike and meet up with some of the lovely comickers there, including dlasky, inkboy and mr_sadhead. Hopefully I’ll have lots of sketchbook items to post when I get back!