Blackpool Break

We had a lovely 4 night break in Blackpool last week,,,a bargain price too--just £78 Wowcher deal  for both of us for 4 nights B+B ...the reviews on Tripadvisor were all brilliant-except for someone complaining that there was orange squash on the table instead of fresh orange! Our room was large--and spotless clean--had 2 double beds and a single one in it! Lovely huge shower all newly refurbished-couldn't fault it!

It doesn't take us long to make the place untidy! The weather forecast had been awful so we packed loads of cold weather clothes--and didn't need any of them in the end! It rained a couple of nights but not when we were out and about--it was lovely and sunny!

I used £7 worth of Tesco vouchers in exchange for 2 tickets to the Tower circus-- we went last year and it was brilliant, but quite expensive--so this was a real bargain! Some fantastic acts-- no animals, breath-taking trapeze acts etc...well worth a visit!

Bill admiring the view of the pier..

Most of the scaffolding is down from round the tower now..

As we had a such a good deal with the digs and circus I thought we could splash out on a visit to see Michael Jacksons Thriller show that was on for just  5 days in the Grand Theatre --it was good but didn't feel it was worth the £60 compared to all the other things we did..

We don't normally have fish and chips-- but fancied some as we walked back down the prom...they looked OK but didn't taste great--the fish was thin and a bit greasy--as were the chips-so we ended up leaving most of it...

The breakfast at the LLanryn Guest house was lovely-- no complaints at all..Choice of cereals, toast and a full English--not a trace of grease to be found...

View from the Tower

If you do nothing else when you go to Blackpool, you must take a visit to The Funny Girls Show-- we laughed all night !!! Zoe and her 'girls are just brilliant! 7pm -12pm and only £12.50 each what great value!

There are so many different bits to it-always different!

Their version of Abba lol

We were crying at The Sound Of Music!!

PMSL at this!

Brulee was our 'waitress' for the night

Even Amy Whinhouse made an appearance!

This act hanging on the ribbons made my eyes water at times...

amazing!

The finale...well done ladies--we will be back to see you again next year!  And we came back to some wonderful news about my son Jim...he is in remmission with just a few residual cells left--they have also found a perfect match bone marrow donor ! He is having another weeks chemo to clear up the cells left and seeing the specialists in Birmingham later today to sort out the donation.Its by no means going to be a walk in the park for him but things are looking far more hopeful than they were..somewhere out there is a selfless lady who made the desion to be a donor--I thank her with all my heart for that xxx

Ludlow Art Market

Well we were up at the crack of dawn (well 6.30am) it was freezing cold and dark-but we were well wrapped up and by the time we had set up the stall the sun was shining well and it warmed up a bit.
There was a spare stall as someone hadn't turned up-so I put some extra paintings out on there--it looks far better to have a full market than empty stalls! There were lots of enquiries about the workshops and paintings.A couple came along and loved the new Silver Birches that were hung outside on the stall-they went away to think about it-came back with their friends for another look, then came back for them--as they came into the stall to pay-they spotted the triptych of Brown Birches-and decided to have those instead as they would match their front room.
The monochrome ones were to hang in their kitchen! So the birches are off to Cheltenham to live.

I managed to paint a small oil in between chatting to folk--and it sat on my easel with a note saying "please don't touch -wet paint" .Along came a couple from Manchester who loved it-and wanted to buy it--I explained it was wet--but I hadn't got another small one with the same colours in-it match another painting they already had at home, so Bill found a box to put it in and keep it safe on its journey to Manchester tomorrow! Hope they keep the box up the right way!

We met another artist there called Dan-who painted the most beautiful paintings of cows--I couldn't believe that he hadn't got his own website yet, and this was his first market.
I pointed him in the direction of one of the best websites around for showcasing your work www.affordablebritishart.co.uk  I have sold lots of my paintings through there.Its easy to use even if you are not very computer illiterate like Dan! I am artist of the week on there this week so must try and get some new paintings on there! So Im looking forward to seeing Dans website soon--we are staying in touch with each other--Ive also pointed in the direction of the SAA -the society of all artists-they are excellent for art materials, a great magazine "Paint" every other month and also you get your public liability insurence included free when you join as a gold member, so well worth doing if you are going to do craft markets etc.
Im looking forward to hearing from Dan soon to see how hes got on with everything!

Sunday Workshops

I have come to the conclusion that I need to start looking at adding a few extra workshops into my diary--Janet who came to yesterdays workshop along with her 2 daughters rang today while I was at the private class.She wanted to join the Mellow Moods class on Nov 20th with her daughters-but I'm full--so she has booked them all into the Jan class. They have also booked into the Sunshine After The rain class on Oct 30th  so I'm now fully booked on that one too.
I am fully booked on the rest of this years classes except the Sunflowers Nov 6th and the Birches on Dec 4th.
I have also had quite a few people tell me that they work on Saturdays so a Sunday workshop will be ideal for those.

I am going to see if the room at Helena Lane is available for use on a Sunday-if it is I will be offering a Sunday workshop occasionally --probably once a month--I will update here when I know the situation about the room.
Watch this space!

Meet 'Bunty'

Well we have finally got the van for "Painting My Way".
Meet 'Bunty' she got her name from the letters in her registration number!
She will make life a lot easier for us-loads of room in there for all the easels, paintings and everything else we need for the classes and craft fairs.
Next step is getting the sign writing done--have got some ideas for how it will look, but have to get it worked out properly now we have her here!

Expanding!

We have decided that its time to expand a little more with Painting My Way and we are now looking for a large van to carry the ever increasing amount of paintings,easels and stands etc that we carry to the various craft fairs and shows.
The car we have at the moment is a bit of as tardis and carries a huge amount of stuff when required--but its just not quite big enough any more!
It will also be nice not to have to take the back seats in and out all the time as well!
So we are looking for a large Transit/Renault or something like it that can be sign written -my son knows someone who does all that-the chap does his rally car signwriting for him--I'm getting quite excited looking at all the different options and weighing them up.
I hope it wont be too long til we find what we want!

WOW !

I had a phone call yesterday from Barbra who owns a shop in Ludlow.
The tenants have moved on to a larger premises and the shop is up for let again.
Barbra asked if I wanted to put some paintings in the empty shop until new tenants could be found!
So today we went down with a load of paintings and some posters about the classes and got it all set up.
The shop is in a prime position on the Bullring, just a few yards from the most photographed hotel in the UK--The Feathers Hotel-a beautiful black and white building.
It was amazing just how many people were looking at the windows when we setting up-so hopefully we will get some sales/ students from it.
The shop has 3 windows on 2 sides so great for display purposes.
It was lovely of Barbra to think of us and offer this opportunity.

Two Years Today

I cant believe that its 2 years today since we had our Jake.
We have had such fun with him.
The house is always filled with laughter as the little monster copies and makes things up all day long!
We have been entertained for the past couple of days with Jake singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, laughing like the pet sitter Jeannie, making sounds like playing the drums that our friend Phil has taught him and making farting noises ( don't know where hes got that from!)
As soon as he gets a reaction from us he remembers and keeps doing it-sometimes he changes a bit-but it always makes sense.
They are complex creatures-African greys- they defiantly cant be called bird brain at all !
Jake also has the most incredible hearing-I can pick up the phone in the kitchen and start to dial the number and he is shouting "Hello" "Hello".And as soon as Bill mentions going into town he says "Bye-see you later"
Its so funny when one of us comes into the front room first thing in the morning to uncover the birds and open the curtains you hear a little voice say "Who's come?"
When he spots Sparky cat outside the patio window he shouts "come on Sparky, come on , quick quick" Poor Sparky has got used to it now but at first you could see the puzzlement on his face when he realised the bird was calling him!
Jake copies all the wild birds songs-and when he is outside on the patio he starts coo cooing like the doves when they land on the birdtable.
Our other bird Paddy who is an Orange tipped amazon dosent talk as such but he does respond back to us using the same noises-sometimes it sounds likes he is trying to talk but he will never be a as good a talker as our Jake.We dont love him any less though!

Stormy Skies Class May 29th

Its always quite amazing to watch how everyone tackles the same subject in class.
We had a good range today--Sybilla and John have both been once before-Sybilla was quite subtle with the paint and John quite bold! Sally who is usually very subtle tryed hard to be much bolder and it worked lovely.Karen did prefer using acrylics but I think has now changed her mind!
Lyndsey had forgotten about the class until a quick text from me reminded her and we hung on until she arrived!
This class is good as it uses a lot of different brushes and techniques-including knife work-which everyone excepy Sally and Karen found a bit hard!
However once they got the pressure and angle right it all fell into place and the waves all happened beautifuly!

We had some stunning results-as you can see!

Places Left In This Saturdays Class"Stormy Skies"

There are still a few places left in this saturdays class ''Stormy Skies''.

We will use oil paint on a 16in x 20in canvas.

There is a choice of painting this atmospheric painting in either shades of grey, blue or brown-the painting looks just as effective in all of these colours.

Its a lovely easy one to do--even if you have never painted before!

My step by step instruction will guide you through loading the paint onto the brush and how to apply the brush to the canvas.
The class is suitable fgor all ages and abilities even first timers-if you would like to join me for this class please contact me vis my website

www.paintingmyway.co.uk and please remember to include your phone number so I can get in touch with you!

Bluestone Park

We are having a lovely relaxing time here at Bluestone Park--we can recommend it to anyone who wants peace and tranquility.
Its also the first time that the actual place has been as good as its website and the pictures of the place!
It really is 5 * accommodation here.
Everything is immaculate and everything has been thought of -even the dishwasher tablets etc are supplied.
You cannot fault the place at all--
we have both slept like logs-in fact we cant remember when we have both slept as much as we have here!
I expect its all the clean fresh air we are having.
We hired a golf buggy for our stay--and are glad we did-the site covers over 500 acres and its quite hilly--up and down to the village.
The pubs and restaurants are all down in the village so its a godsend coming back up on it!
When we arrived here we went out on the buggy to suss things out and we realised that we had no mobile phone signal in our allocated chalet--when we went back to the check in and explained I needed to have mobile contact as I run my own business they quickly found us another chalet in better area to get the signal.

The weather isn't so good today so we are chilling out in the chalet--catching up on some reading, tv and a bit of computing.
Its being packed away after Ive finished this though!
The time is flying by--it was Bills birthday yesterday and we had a lovely day.

All the livestock at home seem to be enjoying the spoiling they are getting by my friend Jeannie--she says Sparky is sleeping on the bed with her every night, and Paddy and Jake are chatting away 9 to the dozen.
I expepect they are having some extra biscuits and fruit from here as well--she loves spoiling them.
She will miss them when she goes home on Sunday!

Class of May 15th "Birches"

Well this is just a quickie as we are away on holiday and Ive just realised I hadn't put Saturdays class on here!

We had 14 in class- 7 who had been before and 7 newbies.
My 13 year old niece came along to help as we wanted to get away asap after the class.
Nat a tat as shes known was an absolute gem--she washed sponges, brushes changed water and held paint pots when needed.

Most students used a huge 36in x 14in canvas to create their masterpieces on, and we knew the class would take a bit longer than the usual 4 hours.
We had great fun as usual--the newbies were all quite nervous as is normal-- but soon settled down to it and all the nerves quickly vanished!

Sue found it easier to turn her painting upside down to put branches and grasses in, which made us laugh!

The venue at Helena lane has a cafe which proves popular with the students--we have a menu in class which the students can choose from and order, Bill takes the orders down and the cafe has it ready for 12pm when we stop for dinner.Its one less thing for people to worry about before leaving home to come to class.

Everyone was astounded with their paintings--and wants to come back again!
Kaitlyn received her artists brooch for attending 6 classes.
She loves a challenge bless her and is very quick at learning the new techniques each time.