Hello friends

According to WordPress, I have just passed my second anniversary of blogging, who’d have thought that I could keep something up for so long?  Not me that’s for sure, but I do like blogging and sharing my art.

I had most of last week off work but I didn’t have a restful time.  On Monday I went to work, on Tuesday I spent most of the morning at the dentist’s having a root canal filling then in the afternoon I set things up for my workshop for my friends making Family History Shrines.  On Wednesday I did a whole day workshop, it was fun.  On Thursday it took me most of the day to unpack and put away all the stuff we had used at the workshop and I also had to prepare some more things for my Matchbox Momento workshop with the young people at the Foyer.  We actually had a good session at the Foyer this week and achieved some good work.  Friday was a nice day so I took Mum and Dad out for a drive and a cup of tea and cake at Quarr Abbey, it was lovely sitting in the garden at the Abbey in the sunshine.  Unfortunately we couldn’t feed the pigs (which was my main reason for going – if you have read my blog for a long time you may remember I am a lover of pigs) because they had sold out of Pig Nuts.  When we feed the pigs they get animated and excited but on Friday afternoon they were just laying and sleeping in the sunshine and to be honest they smelt pretty awful.

Saturday was not such a nice day but I did a session in the cemetery with a couple of friends recording the inscriptions from grave stones to add to our website www.rshg.org.uk.  This is a project I started 11 years ago and there is still no end in sight and I am beginning to lose my mojo for carrying on it’s taking such a long time.  The thought that keeps me going out there to do a few more is that it would be shame not to finish the whole project.  But if I ever have a bright idea like that again, please just shoot me (just kidding) 😉

Yesterday (Saturday) evening we went to the Isle of Wight Festival, I didn’t really want to go by T was DJing in one of the small tents and needed me to drive him.  We used to go to festivals all the time when we were younger, but there is something about the Isle of Wight Festival I really don’t like, it’s very ‘corporate’ and big.  Fortunately we were able to drive to and park in the back stage area so didn’t have far to walk to Bohemia Woods the area where T was working.  We arrived about 7:30pm and had a cup of tea in the back stage area and then went for a walk around the site before he had to get ready for his set at 9pm.  Walking around the site I was aware of lots of really harsh noises coming from the various fair ground rides and small stages and also from people shouting at each other.  Many people appeared to be drunk.  As a non-drinker I always find drunks a bit scary.  I am sure when we used to go to festivals most people were stoned and non-threatening.  As we walked around it just seemed like some great big shopping mall full of weird people, loud noises and horrible smells coming from the various food outlets.  I realised that modern day large festivals are definitely not for me.   It didn’t look like the place was full to capacity so at least it wasn’t too crowded.  I think it would have been a total nightmare if there had been 90,000 people there!

After a while we made our way back to the nice quiet area that was Bohemia Woods.  T was playing in a small Moroccan style tent that would probably hold, at most, 100 people.  When he started playing a lovely friend of ours, Gina, performed her hoola-hoop dancing with LED hoops, she looked fantastic and was a great accompaniment to T’s music.  She has a company called Star Mystique check it out here.  Afterwards T and I had another cup of tea and then headed home at about 11:30, most other people were still partying 🙂

Today has been a quiet day with a little bit of housework, a little bit of art, a few emails and a visit to see parents.

Tomorrow back to work 😦

Above is another page from my Circles of Wisdom book.

That’s all folks see you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂

We have had a whole weekend of sunshine, it makes such a difference, I hung my washing outside to dry this morning for the first time in months and I even did a bit or gardening this weekend.  When I say gardening that’s not really what I mean, I am not much good with plants.  But if you have a patch of ground that needs clearing of everything, then I’m your (wo)man ;-).  I also mowed the weed patch and I am still of the opinion that we need to get rid of the grassy areas.  T is only interested in growing vegetables, fruit and flowers so the grass gets neglected and more and more weeds grow there.  Paving or something that doesn’t grow seem much appealing .

I’ve been practicing faces because I need to have a face I’ve drawn for the next stage of the Mermaid Circus.  Having drawn the face we then copy it, cut it out and collage it onto a page of our book to create another mermaid.  So far my faces are not up to much, although I can see some improvement on my first attempt.  Several artists have told me that to learn a new skill, you just have to keep doing the work.  Like maybe if you do it 100 times at the end of that you will be creating some good work.  I don’t think I have time to do 100 faces but I am trying to do one a day.  I don’t feel ready to share them just yet.

Here is another mandala from my Circles of Wisdom book.  Sometimes words are not necessary.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

Hello friends

I hope your week is going well, I am feeling really great.  Yesterday we had a sunny and WARM day!!!!!  It was fabulous!  Today it’s been overcast and dull (but dry) and this evening it started to rain again.  But that doesn’t matter because we had a whole day of sunshine yesterday.

Normally in February the small pond in our garden fills up with frogs for their mating season.  I mean it really fills up so there is barely room for them to move and the croaking sounds they make are fantastic, but this year there haven’t been so many, probably because it has been so cold.   However T reported today that while he was in the garden he saw three frogs and a toad making their way from the hedge to the pond.  If this carries on we will have to put the mesh cover over the pond again to protect the frogs from the cats.  Jack and Bill like nothing better than fishing the frogs out of the pond and playing with them.  The frogs of course don’t enjoy the game one bit.

I’ve just ordered some more pens (like I haven’t got enough already) and I can’t wait to try them out.  I’ll let you know when they arrive 🙂  These are supposed to be the last pens I buy before the workshop in April, that’s what I’m telling myself anyway.  Some people have already signed up for the workshop 🙂  It’s still 7 weeks away and I’m already getting excited!

The page above is page 3 of my Circles of Wisdom journal.

See you soon

Big love

AJ 🙂