Happy , Healthy 2015

Well its that time of year again--does not seem 5 mins since I was doing this for 2014..a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.....We have met more lovely people than ever--and welcomed them into the world of painting...old friends have been back to paint more paintings, and we  have had so much pleasure from seeing the nervous ,convinced they cant ever paint , grow in self confidence and huge smiles adorn their faces in just a few hours when they see their paintings develop. We  will never tire of that happening I can assure you!    2014 was our busiest year to date with this years diary already filling up.I will adding more dates over the next week or so..

It does not start to even feel like Christmas until the Santa's and snowmen come out and the tree goes up....this year we have a huge 7ft tree that fills one end of the room! Its a beauty and even better its a £170 tree reduced to £30 and then bought using £15 worth of Tesco vouchers that were doubled up! So a free tree really! I love a bargain!

I had an Ipad off  Bill as well as loads of other things--have not had time to set it all up yet,,,

This little munchkin has been a blessing this Christmas, Cant believe he is coming 3 years old..he loved his Peppa Pig train and other stuff he had off Nanny Di

Not a great photo---but Bill loved his main pressie off me-- I commissioned a model of our Sparky cat from a very talented lady I met on the craft market in Ludlow.She worked from photos I sent her, and did him begging as he always did--complete with his one fang showing  and the nick in his ear..He came complete with a black rabbit as he always caught the black bunnies and bought them home from the field behind the house!

Table set for dinner....

I love this photo of Tommy and his Daddy taken on Christmas day...the look on that little face says it all I think!  Loved to bits

Dinner cooked by Bill was delish as usual...

The Christmas Elf!

A lesson to be learned here---do not make the custard for the custard for the boxing day trifle when you have had too much to drink! It was solid next day lol-- a slice of custard on the trifle wouldn't have been right!

Usually the star of Christmas food is the turkey--however this year it was this beautiful whole leg of ham..

It was really lovely--and there was so much meat on there-- a bit like parma ham--Bill soon had the knack of cutting it wafer thin! I tried it dry fried yesterday and it was really scrummy xx

We had al the family around on Boxing day...did far too much food as usual !

The ham seemed to get more tasty the more we cut off it!!

Now this pressie from my friend made us laugh a bit....but is also very apt.....while I have been making light of things-this Christmas has had a very sad side..my lovely son Jim has been poorly for a while now on and off... well 2 weeks before Christmas he had blood tests and its all been happening very quickly from there... We  have been told he will be needing some chemotherapy.....its been a bit manic with trips to Shrewsbury Hospital to see the lovely specialist Dr O'Connor who is the very best in his field...bone marrow tests, an op on Christmas Eve to remove Lymph nodes from his neck, and now awaiting a special scan at Stoke On Trent next Tuesday.. We will see Dr O'Connor on Monday for an update..and possibly he will start his treatment too... Trust my Jim to be different--specialist thinks he has Hodgkin's Lymphoma and also he has a very very rare condition that has actually started to go into remission on its own which he has never seen before called haemophagocytic syndrome...but Jim has been feeling loads better the past 10 days or so and his latest results at the hospital show its nearly gone away..which is great news! So hopefully he will start his chemo on Monday and we will go from there...
So on that note we will wish all friends, family, students and students to be a very Happy, Healthy, 2015..