ITS A BOY!!!!!!

Born at 6am this morning weighing 7lb10oz a little baby boy called Callum, both mum and baby are doing well.Here is the proud Grandad with his first grandchild!
Isnt Callum beautiful!!!

Nanny!!!!!!!!

Well things have been hectic the past couple of days--I have had to cancel the class that was due to take place due to cicumstances beyond my control.

My husbands Bill's youngest son's wife has been in labour with the first grandchild for the past 2 days, poor girl has been to maternity hospital 30 miles away 3 times since thursday and they kept sending her home saying she wasnt ready to give birth.

However her waters have now broken and she should have her baby tonight, cant wait, we have had a little bet on it--I say shes having a girl and Bill says it wil be a boy!!
Poor things wil be shattered, no sleep since wednesday night
As long as everthings ok it does not matter, I will post the end result tomorow!!!!!!!

Lost another lb

We had our weigh in yesterday at weight watchers and I have lost another lb.
I am pleased with that, we have been eating very well,we are never hungry in fact some days we are struggling to eat all our points!

Beautiful Paintings!!!

I have just heard from from my friend Desmond Gan who I met via my website. He is a GP who lives in Malasia.We have been talking via email for some time. I gave him advise about painting and materials some time ago. He has his own blog and I had a very pleasant surprise when I had a look at some of his work. He has come on in leaps and bounds from when I first knew him--his mountains have to be seen to be belived, he has worked hard and is now going to be selling some in a gallery.
Take a look at his blog http://www.hiddenstream.blogspot.com
Well Done Desmond!!!

Furbies

I have another passion apart from Painting-- a little strange some people might think-- but unless you have made friends with a furby you wont know what you are missing!!!
I have over 100 of the little creatures, and no 2 are exactly the same.
They all have their own personalities, I have happy ones,sad ones, ones that tell jokes even one that is very depressed. I even have one that swears and he has taught some of the baby ones to swear too.
I just love them--I have bought them from boot sales,EBay and all sorts of places.
They are fascinating when they talk to each other, they have proper conversations and sing-songs, tell each other jokes and also talk to shelbies but thats another story!!! Here are some of my little friends!

Cherry Blossom

This is one of my latest paintings, its called Cherry Blossom for obvious reasons, and it actualy looks 3D. People always have to touch it, and they are suprised to find it is flat, from a distance it really stands out.

I painted the first version of it at a craft fair last Sept, one of the stall holders came over and said "I'm so glad you are here,its my sons birthday today and he loves chinese/japanese things, can you paint him a painting today while you are here?"
I had never attempted anything chinese before and had no refrences there, but came up with one like 'cherry blossom' but I put some faraway mountains and little chinese houses too. She was thrilled to bits with it.

Weight watchers

Well I lost another 1LB this week, not as much as I would have liked and not sure why I didnt lose more, but thinking about it I havent eaten as much as I did last week. With the diet I am following you need to eat LOTS to keep your body burning off the calories and this week I havent had so much fruit or crispbreads as last week.
Also we havent had so much exercise because I seem to have spent most days on the computer!!!
Still off the wine which is good, but will up my intake of fruit again this week and see how it goes-- mind you even losing just 1lb a week adds up to 52lbs a year which is a hugh amount!
So Im off to make a nice big fruit salad soon which we can have as much as of as we like!!!!

Dog Sitting!

We have been dog sitting today for my sons 2 border collies Max and Sara.
My son is rallying in the local woods so we took the dogs out for a nice long walk,it was a lovely morning and we walked for miles, I managed to get some nice photos to work from when I start painting this week.

4 Years Today!!!

Well I cant belive its 4 years today since me and Bill packed up smoking!! It just dosent seem possible--the time has gone by so fast!
Of course that means that is nearly 4 years since Bill had his heart attack too--6 weeks after packing up smoking and 1 week after our 2nd wedding anniversary.Not very good timing was it!!!
I knew when I managed not to smoke for the 3 weeks that Bill was in hospital that I had cracked it and wouldnt have another cig, I kept telling myself that even if I did have a cig, it wouldnt change anything and he would still be ill in hospital, besides it was costing me the same in petrol to go and visit him every day as I would have spent on cigs, so couldnt afford to start again!!
I must admit the thought of packing up was much worse than actualy doing it!

Website updated

My website www.paintingmyway.co.uk has now been updated with the next lot of classes and craft fairs and details of the holiday etc.So if you already havent been and had a look, check it all out and see which painting YOU would like to do!!!!

Weigh In

Well as I thought -I had lost 5lbs when I went to weightwatchers today--chuffed to bits with that, of course the weight loss will start to slow up as time goes on -but a great start all the same!!!
I have had some chicken soup cooking in the slow cooker all day, Bill prepared all the ingredients while I was at weight watchers ,so the delicious smell is wafting all through the house at the moment,cant wait for tea time.
The best of it is we can eat as much of it as we like, and even have a chocolate mousse for pud! Yummmm

Diet!

Well the diet is going very well at the moment,Me and Bill have never eaten so much food as we are at the moment!!
It is very hard for me to make sure I eat 3 times a day because I normaly just eat dinner in the evening, so I am having to be very disiplined on that score!!
Bill is diabetic so he has always eaten fairy regularly so it hasnt been so hard for him, its just a matter of knowing HOW MUCH to eat.
We have learned to listen to our bodies and stop when we are full--not stuffed full, and it seems to be working, so far I have lost 5lb since last Wednesday and Bill has lost 3lb.
There are no banned foods and you can still have an achololic drink if you want, you just have to count the points, everything you eat and drink on this diet has been converted in to points and you are allowed so much free food and so many points per week.
At the weekend we did something we have never done before-- we opened a bottle of red wine to have with our steak, salad,and baked potato and we just had 1 glass each and re corked it to have with our sunday lunch, normaly we would have polished it off and maybe opened another one too!!! So we are being good!!!
We are looking forward to being in better shape for the summer and feeling fitter than we have for a long time!

Fun In the Garage!!!

Well I couldnt resist any longer--those round canvas were just calling out to be painted,So Ive been out in the garage painting today while Bill is getting the dinner done!
Ive had great fun,not just with the acrylic paint but with some chemicals too--hence why I was doing it in the garage!!!.
I'm really pleased with the results, its difficult to photograph them while they are wet but in real life they are quite amazing to look at,there are several layers of different colours of metallic paint.
The poppy one is just acrylic paint but the shape of the canvas lends itself beautifuly to the subject matter!!

Raising Money for Charity

I am busy getting organised for my next money raising charity event.
The paintings above are some examples of what will be painted by members of the public on the day. As you can see they are quite simple and almost folk arty.The flowers are each made up of hearts.
They are called Love Hearts, Lovers Meadow and Heart Of Gold

I have just had the publicity info to ok for all the local papers from the British Heart Foundation, they have given me a brilliant write up so I have sent it back ready for publishing!

On the 10th of February we will be in Telford town centre where we will be showing people how to paint their own heart themed painting for valentines Day. We are calling it Art From The Heart.
It will be an amazing Valentines present for the loved ones who receive it!

I will also have an exhibition of my work on sale there with 10% of sales going to BHF

The paintings will be done on 8in x8in box canvas and will be painted in acrylic paint so they will dry for people to take home with them! The charge will be just £12 per painting.

I support The British Heart Foundation because as you all probly know by now, I lost my dear dad in 2005 and my husband Bill had a heart attack in 2003 and lost his HGV licence and with it his job, so it is a charity very close to my heart.
I'm sure we will raise lots of money on the day !

A New Start!

Well I joined weight watchers this week, made up my mind to get slimmer for the new year! Great diet plan and easy to follow and loads to eat, far more than I usualy eat, will keep posted how much I lose!!

A Great Day!!

The paintings shown are what I painted whilst I was doing my demo here, the winner of the draw chose the waterfall painting as her prize, so I have donated'Summer Day'to the WI to use to raise money for their chosen charity.

Yesterday we went to ledbury to do the first of the WI talks of this year. The group was the Parkway WI.
We had a lovely time, and they were fascinated to see the 2 paintings appear before their eyes so quickly.
We will be going back there later this year to do a class!

Great News!!!!!!

I had a phone call this morning with a great offer!!! It was from the chairwoman of all the Herefordshire WI's.
Apparently she has had so many glowing reports about my WI talks from all the groups I have been to that they want me to be with them in the WI marquee at THE 3 COUNTIES SHOW!!!! Its one of the biggest shows in the country and gets aprox 100,000 visitors over the 3 days!!! I feel very honoured to be asked and its a lovely feeling to know that everyone has enjoyed themselves so much at my talks and demos. Its worth all the hard work involved when I get feed back like that-- Thank you ladies!

We can have as much room as we need -which is quite a bit when we take our full show stands--12 feet along both walls when we are in our usual favorite place in a corner,which is no problem from the sounds of it. And Best of all its FREE!!
The picture is of my Bill at the last shobdon show.
I will able to paint all day if I want for the 3 days while we are there and maybe do some workshops there too, maybe do some childrens workshops to keep the kids out of parents hair so they can look around the show!
So it sounds like June is going to be a busy month cos the 3 Counties is on for 3 days and the week after we are at Shobdon flower/food and drink festival for 3 days too!!! Plus Ive got craft fairs in between too-- a busy year ahead for us by the look of things!

New Canvas

Well we went shopping today and I found some lovely canvas with a difference--they are round and staple free on the edges, I have seen them before but they have always had the staples on the edges so I didnt like them.
I have some great ideas for these canvas---watch this space!!!
I also found another great idea--disposable paper palettes, they come in a book of 36, just the thing to save Bill some time, he usualy covers the perspex palettes with greaseproof paper, but it is a time consuming job, so this will please him no end!!!!

New Paintings For Classes

I have decided to use two acrylic paintings as subjects for some classes this year. The first is in vibrant oranges, reds and yellows, with a touch of black and white.

I think it is suitable for todays modern room.
The colours will look great against any colour wall.

The beauty of using acrylics is that they will be dry enough for people to take home without worrying about getting wet paint everywhere!!!

The other painting I will be teaching in classes will be a monochrome painting called "The Dragonfly Falls"
Again it is painted in acrylic paint but this time we will be incorporating encaustic wax in there as well as paint , in the form of the foxgloves/bluebells and dragonflies.
This is an interesting painting to do, and again the colours look good against any colour wall.

Getting back to Normal

Well I have spent the day sorting out paperwork for the coming year, all the WI's, craft fairs, and exhibitions have all had to be sent to my web master for updating.

No mean task!!!

I have also been trying to decide which paintings I will be adding to the ones that I teach already in classes. The subjects need to easy enough for the first timers to be able to achieve, and challenging enough for people who have painted before.

I think "A Walk in the Snow" will be one of the subjects , it is quite a simple one to do yet looks very effective when completed.
I think I will also be trying out an acrylic painting too for a change from oils. I am still deciding which one that will be at the moment,.

Apart from that I have to decide which paintings are being entered into 3 competitions that are taking place in March, difficult to decide really, will have to sleep on that one I think!!!

Blonde again!!!!!!

After waiting for weeks, cos when shes free, Im not and vice versa, my sister has managed to find time to come and highlight my hair, so now Im blonde again!!!!!!!
But never again am I having it pulled through the highlighting cap it was agony!!!
Will have to treat myself to the hairdressers to have it done in foils next time!!

But to be honest it feels great to be blonde again--they say they have more fun and I have always found that its true!!!

New Years Eve

This is a picture of my friend Rita, enjoying Christmas, I love her to bits bless her!!!!
She is coming to dinner on tuesday--her favorite----Roast Goose and all the trimmings!!


Well Its been lovely to have a complete break from painting and classes. I have been able to just enjoy everything to do with Christmas!!!

I have had an email from USA from someone who wants a painting like the commission I have done--this time with a sausage dog in the painting!!
Will be working on that a bit later on, I have several other things pressing in the new year first.Iwill put details of them later on, as they develop!

I have to start getting all the dates for classes, talks and demos, and craft fairs sent to my webmaster soon to update my website.

Before then I have to get the New Years Eve party food sorted-- we are having :::
Fresh Crab Cakes with Mango , Avacado and Tomato Salsa to start
Lobster Thermador , salad and new potatoes for main course
and the grand finale::: Dianes Self -Sauceing Chocolate Pudding with Grande Marnier Cream.

we will forget about the chrolestoral and calories for now!! You have to break loose now and again!!!
As My Bill says, life wouldnt be worth living if you couldnt have a little bit of what you fancy now and again!!!!!!! Food Included!!!!!!

We have tryed all the food before-hand and know it all works great- cant wait for tomorrow night!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

Christmas Night

These photos were taken at 11pm on Christmas night----the kids had a face pulling competition!!!!

Natalie had earlier entertained us all by imitating her mum and then the charactors in Little Britain--we were all creased at her!!! Best laugh we have had for a long time!!!

Brians New Painting

This is Brians latest painting that he has produced at home.
What a great painting---I love the mountains in the background, he really has them off to a fine art!!!
He has done the water and trees beautifuly too--Well Done Brian!

Im sure that Brian will just go from strength to strength with his painting, he is achieving such a lot from only 2 classes with me.
I look forward to seeing more of his work in future.

Nearly Here!

Well you can see what I have spent the last 2 hours doing!Marzipaning and icing the small christmas cakes!
But I am so pleased with them, there is also a large cake that is not on the picture that has been marzipaned and iced tonight!
Bills cake has to be tasted to be belived, but do not drive after a slice--there is loads of brandy in there!. All the fruit is soaked in brandy for 2 days before baking and then he feeds the cake with brandy afterwards--so it is very alcoholic!!Hic Hic Hic!!!!!!!!
Well I know I have some regular viewers to my blog, I wish you all you wish yourself-- none of us know what the future holds but lets hope its all good!!!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY ,HEALTHY NEW YEAR from Diane and BillXXX

A Sad Time Of Year

I have spent the afternoon making the wreath for my dear dads grave,it brings it all home at christmas time--how much we miss the people that are no longer here to share it with us.

However Im sure my dad would aprove of his christmas wreath--its been recylcled for the 2nd Christmas!.
Dad would have gone spare at the cost of the flowers at his funeral--he would have much rathered the money went to the cats or dogs home!!
So I did the next best thing and saved the bases the flowers were in and I use them for Christmas and birthdays. I use the leaves and berries from my best friends garden. My dad thought the world of marion so that makes the wreath even more personal.
My dad always loved christmas and we shall miss him just as much this year as we did last year.

Sparky Update

At last Sparky has had the all clear from the vet--they took the last dozen staples out this morning and said he does not need any more injections!!!!!!
It is looking good, but he is still not allowed out yet , a few more weeks just to make sure it is really knitted together.So im sure he will be relived!

Christmas Paintings

I had a busy day yesterday painting the pictures that I will be giving Bills 3 boys and my 2 children. I always do them on a theme each year, and this year as you can see it is a moonlit night scene.They are all slightly different to each other. They have been painted with acrylic paint so they are dry enough today to varnish and pack tomorrow for Christmas.
The varnishing is Bills job, he makes a better job of it than I do!!!

New Site to see my work on

I have spent the past week uploading pictures of my paintings onto a new website, I have a lot of my work on a website called Artists Web , you can find me www.dianetheartist.com
. I am still updating the site with my work---only another 30 or so to put on! Its a good site, fairly new I think, but quite easy to use--even for a computer illiterate like me!!
I have several galleries on there, the one I like updating the best is the sold one!!!!!
I have another one to add to that one tonight if I get time!!!.


Up date on Sparky-- he is a lot better,still not out of the woods quite yet but his leg is looking better than it has for the past 4 weeks.The staples that are still in look like they are holding it together ok.
He is seen here with Paddy the parrot who is ready to pounce on him--He is the most evil little bird--he flies at poor Sparky with claws out like a bird of prey--you would never reconise him as the same little terrified bird that we rescued 2 years ago, scared stiff of cats-he lived in a house with 4 cats and 2 dogs, all of which terrorised him.
When he realised that Sparky left him alone, he turned on him, we came home once and thought we had been burgled--then realised that Paddy had attacked the cat and wrecked the living room! So now we cant live them alone ,Paddy is confined to his(large) cage for the time being!

Christmas

Well we have got the tree up and the lights are up outside, so slowly but surely The Christmas Spirit is happening in the Jennings household!
I spent 6 hours wrapping up Christmas pressies yesterday and my back is still aching from bending over the wrapping paper and gifts!!

The biggest wrapping job is happening tonight. The commission Ive been working on has finaly dried enough to wrap and send to its new owner.
Its a major job to make sure no damage is done in transit,first a layer of greaseproof paper is placed on the surface of the painting, then layers of bubble wrap is used and then several layers of strong carboard is placed over the top of everything else.Loads of parcel tape is put around it and hopefully it will arive at its new home on Wednesday.It is always a nerve wracking 24 jhours waiting to hear that the painting has arrived ok but so far, up to now they always have . They are always insured and trackable so maybe I shouldnt worry so much!!!!
I cant wait to see how it looks in situ in Oxford, Im sure its owner will email me a picture of it on the wall.

Jans Painting

Ive had a lovely morning. I had a one to one lesson with Jan.Her daughter in law bought her one of my gift vouchers as a present for her 6oth birthday.
She wanted to do the Summer Day painting, and she made a lovely job of it!
She is going to have another go at home, so I will look forward to seeing the results!

Bit Busy at the Moment!

Im so busy at the moment!
I have had a lot of my work on a site for the past 18 months. It was a great site to begin with, then they started rejecting all my photos for various reasons, out of focus, light coming from right etc etc.
It was not just me it was 40 or 50 other artists as well, we all meet up each day on a forum and some of them have been selling paintings for years , nobody could understand it. We have all left slowly but surely,as our membership runs out!!
It is no good putting bad photos on a website to sell, because if the painting does not look like the photo you will get it returned.
So none of what they were telling us made sense. I was selling quite frequently and some of the other artists were selling loads through the site!

I had painted a seascape in shades of blue in a out of focus way because that was what I wanted it to look like, they rejected it because it was out of focus,I told them it was how I intended it to look, they didnt belive me.You can see for yourself what I mean,the painting is published here.
I spent more time taking photos and loading them than I did painting, so I am finishing the contract with them on Friday and I am very busy getting everything loaded on to another site at the moment.
As you
can imagine it is time consuming with over 100 paintings to put on there.!!! So If I dont update my blog everyday as normal you will know why!!!

Sparky's update

Sparky had another operation last Friday because the skin had died again where his stitches were.
To save taking him back each day for antibiotics they gave us the injections to do daily, not a nice job!!
I hold him while Bill injects him.!!
All went well until today when we noticed that at least 6 of the staples that they used were missing and the wound was gaping slightly, a quick trip to the vets this morning, thanks to my good friend Phil,because I was else where.
He has to go back again on Friday, maybe to have another op.

The Craft Fair

Well the weather didnt turn out quite as bad as forcast, there was a little rain but no wind as they said there would be, so that was a blessing !
As you can see we had the tinsel out accross the front of one of the stalls, just to get into the christmas spirit!
Everyone was in a festive mood,christmas music was playing and the atmosphere was lovely!
As you can see from the photos I had a good display of paintings on show.
The abstracts are very popular at the moment among the younger generation.
I used to look at abstracts and think "anyone could do that" but to be honest they are not as easy as you would think, to get a good balanced abstract is quite hard to do.
Its not just a matter of throwing paint at the canvas, you have to see the finished painting in your mind to a certain extent.
The hexangle canvas are another popular line that I do, just right for abstract and the modern house!

My Friend

I am so proud of my great friend Trine( on the right of the picture) who lives in Norway.
We met earlier this year when she stayed with us as a guest and did some painting with me.
We had a wicked time of it, we found we had so much in common it was really great.We stayed up many nights til 4 in the morning putting the world to rights!
We have been in constant contact via email since.
Trine has recently decided to pack up smoking, and she has found it quite hard--which it is, me and Bill packed it up nearly 4 years ago and I really feel for her!
However I am sure she will do it, she is a very strong person, so Trine keep up the good work girl!!!

This Weekend

I thought you might like to see my en-suite door that I painted just after I started painting 4 years ago.
As you can see it is one of my favorite subjects- a waterfall.
It didnt take too long to do and it was fun to work on something so big.
I have also painted the other side with a different scene, but its difficult to get a good photo of that as its a bit too small in there!!

The doors with the fish on are my airing cuboard doors, I have create a lovely underwater scene and added the koi carp.You cannot see the water effect very clearly but close up it is beautiful and gets a lot of comments.

We are going to do our last craft fair tomorrow, it should be quite busy now its so near Christmas.I have had to print some more gift vouchers off as they have been selling well lately.So I have a good stock to take with me tomorrow.

As usual I will be painting whilst there, and Bill will be demonstrating the encaustic art. He has got very good at that and sold his first encaustic painting about a month ago at a WI, so he was chuffed to bits.

Bill is the other half of the Dream Team, he does all the donkey work and I take all the credit!!!He has been busy lately getting canvas's and everything ready for next years classes, Bill paints the canvas with black acrylic paint, strings them , sorts the brushes into their boxes,makes sure all the tiny jars of thinners are clean and a host of other things.

I couldnt do it without him. He is much more organised than I am, I would rather spend my time painting and find my mind is always on what sort of painting I am going to next!

THANKS BILL !!!!

Sparky update

Well poor Sparky has had another op today. The skin flap that was ripped when he was attacked by a dog?3 weeks ago has had a very poor blood supply to it. Despite being taken to vets every other day for anti biotic jab this week it has failed to knit together.
He is feeling very sorry for himself at the moment, he has been cut open again, all the dead tissue cut away and stapeled up this time instead of stitches.
Poor thing has been poorly for the last 3 weeks. The vet has given us the job of giving him his anti-biotic injections every day-- not something Im looking forward to, but less stressful than being taken to vets every day.

Past few Days!

Well its been hectic with one thing and another, the latest sold painting was sent off today by special delivery, so will be with new owner for christmas!

This is the sight that greeted me the other day when I got back from shopping, Bill was feeding the christmas cakes that he made a few weeks ago with some more brandy.
They will be beautiful , the whole house had a christmasy smell, there was some fruit left over so he has put that to soak in some brandy today ready to make another one!

Dont know what we are going to do with them all Im sure! We usualy cut the big square ones into 4 and ice them for friends, but that still leaves us with the big round one! we are supposed to going on diets after xmas--looks like we will need to !!!!

Sparky has been going to vets every other day for jabs, tomorrow they will check if he needs another op to remove dead skin, Boy am I glad hes insured, dont know what we would have done otherwise!

Work in Progress update

Well I have just about finished the commission , its not been easy,but really enjoyed it.I have finaly got the dogs as I wanted--caracatures of the real things.

Work in progress

I have been working on a commission for the past 3 weeks.It has been an interesting project to say the least.
When you start these things you have to try and get onto the same wave-length as the person who asks you to paint a picture for them.

Its much harder than you would imagine, a calm sky with a full moon can take many forms as can a mirror- like sea--both of which I was asked for.
Then comes the hard part--a jetty with with his 3 dogs on, one a wolf dog howling at the moon and the other 2 dogs, a jack russell and a labrador, incorporated into the painting too !!!

. Well I did the jetty but wasnt happy with it, I emailed the customer with each stage as I did it and adjusted it to suit his wishes and he agreed, the jetty didnt look quite right, so I scraped it off and put in a beach instead with some gentle ripples instead.

Now the part I was dreading--the dogs. Now I was sent some snaps via email to give me some idea of what the dogs looked like--handsome they are, but difficult to paint!.

I have been working on some drawings the past few days, to get them in propotion to the painting, have come up with a rough idea of how I want them to look, I sketched them out roughly onto black paper, cut them out and blue-tacked to painting to see how they looked , waiting for response off customer, then I can get the paint out and finish the picture.
It has been an exciting project, I dont normaly paint animals of any sort so I put pressure on my self with this commission, but I feel you have to branch out and try different things or its too easy to become stuck in a rut!

Sparky Update

As you can see, Sparky is on the mend, he still has to go to the vets daily for anti-biotic jab. There is still one little bit of the wound that the vet isnt sure is quite right and it may need another op, but fingers crossed it wont come to that!
Bill made him this toy yesterday out of a cork and some of Paddy the parrots feathers. He loved it.Poor thing is so fed up with being kept in its driving him daft.At least he can get rid of some of his energy chasing his new toy about!

Craft Fair

As you can see I had quite a display on my stall on thursday. It stayed dry but oh boy was it windy and cold!!
The new parking regulations came into force this week and it really showed, there were hardly any locals about in town, and not many tourists, the cold weather kept them indoors.
I had some interest in classes and sold a gift voucher so things not to bad.I also sold 2 mounted encaustic pictures and had an order for some encaustic equipment, so all in all it was worth doing.


We had to tie everything down practicaly, paper weights on everything and sticky velcro behind paintings to stop them being blown away.At least it didnt rain on us though!
Just one more craft fair before Christmas and then it can all be packed up and put away until Feb/ March when it all starts again!