Brimfield WI

We had a good crowd at Brimfield last night.....it was lovely to have such a short journey--we can travel up to 1 1/2 hours sometimes to get to the venues---so 10 minutes was a nice change!

The members were surprised to see the paintings develop before them in around 45 mins-first of all the Waterfall painting on the black canvas.....after passing it around to the members to have a closer look I got on and started the second painting "Summer Day" The ladies loved this one......and Stephanie who won the raffle chose that painting as her prize in the raffle.I have donated the Waterfall painting to the WI to do what ever they want to with it--they have a social day coming up so sounds like it will be raffled or something then!

Stephanie with her painting won in the raffle--

Hollie

We have got Hollie staying with us overnight- shes so funny. In to everything bless her.She loved having pretty clips in her hair nd trying on Nanna's necklaces and bracelets-she likes playing with the phone too! She went to bed at 7pm as good as gold along with Pooh bear!

Craft market

We have been on the Book And Craft fair today on the Castle Square in Ludlow-the weather was a real mixture-pouring down one minute and sun burning bright the next.

It was unusually busy for a change, despite the weather! I didn't even get chance to take any photos, as Bill pointed out as we were packing up at 5pm!

It was a constant stream of people most of the day. Jill a lady Ive been talking to on the Internet for a while came by, she wanted to try out the encaustic art and had ordered the complete set off me.
I gave her a demo of how to do it, and then she had a go, so I could be sure that she knew exactly how much pressure to apply to the iron. She did a lovely pink and purple pic in just a few seconds!
She is a really keen artist and I had to send Bill home to collect some black and white blank canvas as I had forgotten she had told me she wanted some!
Good job we are only 1 mile away!
I managed to get 2 paintings done--2 class subjects that I wanted to get done on the size canvas we use in class.
At the moment they are on much bigger canvas and it was confusing people when I said they were class subjects-the size put them off!!

Anyway I managed to finish them, in between all the chatting and demonstrating, I hope they dry before the weekend so I can take them to the Tern Valley Vintage show .

New Kittens.

First of all a big thank you for all the emails , private messages , phone calls and hugs sent to us since yesterday.It means such a lot to know that so many people understand.

As you can no doubt see from the photos above there are some new additions to the family.

It has turned out to be good timing-my daughter Becki knew she was having these two bundles of fun several weeks ago. They have certainly helped heal the pain of losing Smokey and Gizmo yesterday.

Becki had grown up with the old ladies -as they were known-since she was just 3 years old, and although she had moved out from her brothers house where they lived 3 years ago, she still saw them.

I got a text from her this afternoon asking what I thought about the new kittens being called Smokey and Gizmo---I think its a fitting tribute to two wonderful little cats,so the dark one is being called Smokey and the black and white one is Gizmo.

We went around to see them this afternoon-- they are just gorgeous-full of mischief.

Smokey hasnt got the hang of pulling her claws in when walking on the carpet , and Gizmo has decided the best place to sleep is on top of the sky box!

They will be spoiled rotten with Becki and Wayne, and if they turn half as good as their namesakes they will be lovely little cats.

Sad Day

We have had a such a sad day today.

My two old ladies have been put to sleep at the vets this morning.

Smokey and Gizmo were 20 years old and have been the most faithful and loving of pets anyone could wish for.

We knew we couldn't keep them going for long last year.We took them to the vets to ask his opinion 12 months ago as they had both started to lose weight, he said they would have all sorts going wrong at their age (97 in human years) but if they were his cats he would leave them a bit longer-his words were "you will know when the time is right"

Well the time was right today. Gizmo's back end went a couple of days ago, looked like she had injured herself somehow-she had no muscle tone in her thighs so she could have just tryed to jump onto something -we just don't know.

Smokeys eyes were not good and they were both as deaf as posts, Smokey had been chased by a dog the day before, and only just escaped so a decision had to be made.I couldnt face going through it twice so we decided they would go together.

Its the hardest thing Ive ever done.

They had a tin of tuna before we took them down the vets, and snuggled up together in the basket. The vet was brilliant-so compassionate. She sedated them first and they didnt know a thing about the final injection.

We are having them cremated together and placed in the same box.

We are going to miss them so much-they were such gentle little cats-they had never scratched or bitten anyone.

Gizmo and Smokey- Bath Time!

My two old ladies Gizmo and Smokey are over 20 years old now- considering they live on quite a busy road they have done very well to make it so far!

They live with my son at my old house--I flew the nest instead of the kids when I married my Bill!

Well last week I realised they had got fleas-so after getting them a new flea collar each and spraying the whole house with flea killer I thought the problem was solved. They hadnt been scratching at all and their coats are so thick you couldnt see the fleas.

I thought I would bath them to get the flea dirt out of their coats as they don't seem able to keep themselves as well groomed as they did.

So off we went to bath them--loaded with baby bath and some towels.

When we got Gizmo into the water we realised the problem was not completely solved, there were still some live fleas on her. So much for flea collars!

I quickly sent Bill to vets to get some frontline drops to put on them both .

They seemed to quite enjoy the bath and also the dryer afterwards-I was worried it would stress them out, but they are very laid back cats!

We dried them both with the hairdryer to make sure they were completely dry and then used the drops.

I sprayed the house again for good measure and checked the cats tonight and the remaining fleas were all dead or dying thank goodness.

I dont want that palaver again in a hurry!

Sparky

Heres Sparky pretending to be a stone cat like the one on the left!

He seems to approve of the new garden-the slabs get very warm in the sun and he spends a lot of time lying on them!!

Hasnt he got a hard life?

Im coming back as a cat next time!

Can You See----?????

I painted this abstract a couple of weeks ago, using a canvas that I had used during the advanced class to show students different ways of doing things.I used up some of the green paint left over from the class and created this painting that I called "Woodland Green"

Yesterday my friend Jan called to say she had been looking at the pic on my blog and she could see some eyes in the painting--when I looked I realised that there is in fact a cats face.If you look at the darker part of the painting it is quite clear! Very odd!

The painting has now been re-named "Woodland Green Cat"

New Bathroom

Its been a busy week for us-my son has had to get a new bathroom suite because the old plastic bath had started leaking.

Of course they had to call on Bill to help, so we have been round there most of the week-hence not much happening on the blog!

My 2 old girls -Smoky and Gizmo my 20 year old burmese cats have loved having us there-they have have bucket loads of fuss-and extra food treats! You would never belive they were 2o years old to see then running around.

Gizmo is at the front of this pic and Smoky behind her.

They are tiny little things compared to our Sparky and they are very vocal and talk a lot in their own way!