Tommy's Christening Sept 16th

Poor little Tommy had to be woken up when he got to the church....

proud Mummy and Daddy outside the church

getting everyone organised around the font!

Anne Barge the vicar taking the service always involves the children ..

she certainly knew she had Tommy in her arms..

Shell, Graham, Kirsty, Nicky and Richard--all of the godparents.

He looked lovely in his suit...proper bobby dazzler bless him....he was good as gold-as usual.

beautiful cake...

my beautiful niece Nat and  Mum holding Tommy

he went back to sleep after being changed out of his suit...

My lovely nephew Charlie --he is very good with little Tommy-loves him to bits !

love this pic of Nat

With Uncle Rich who is also his godfather

always laughing--never known such a happy baby..

with Nicky-one of his 3 godmothers!

well my hair started off down but ended up being put up before the day was out......we all had as lovely day.. and it was over too quickly...

Becky called by with Tommy today...Grandad Bill still has the touch and Tommy went to sleep pretty quickly-followed by Grandad as well!

isn't he bloody beautiful---OK--I'm just a little biased I suppose!

could munch him to bits..and he is as good as gold too--he goes to bed every night by 8pm and sleeps right through til 8am each morning bless him,,,how  good is that? He is 16 weeks old nearly and is being christened this Sunday..We are really looking forward to it--cant wait to see him in his outfit--he will look scrummy!

OOOOOPS...

Bill cleaned out the external filter today and found these baby guppies in there...they must get sucked up from inside the tank...must be 3 or 4 weeks since the filter was cleaned before so poor little buggers could have been in the dark since then..

Break Away

After a busy workshop on Saturday it was lovely for us to be able to get away from it all on Sunday with a trip to Derby...we had a great deal from Groupon at the Smart Aston Hotel which is near enough in the centre of Derby.We had a lovely room at the back of the hotel..with a huge bed and what looked like a new bathroom.

The TV was one of the biggest we have had in a hotel room which was great--but the gap under the door made us laugh--it was big enough for the paper to be shoved under in the mornings lol...

We chose not to eat at the hotel in the evenings--when we heard there was a Harvester just across the way we decided to use that as its much cheaper! We both love the salad bars they have there..and all the meals are calorie counted and shown on the menus which is helpful

this may be the reason I gained 1lb this week though! I didn't eat the chips but we did consume quite a lot of wine!

This was the view from the landing outside our room...the hotel is very well kept, loved the staircase! The time went sooo fast there...after we left the hotel on Tuesday we went on to see where the room is that we are going to be using to do the Birthday Workshop on Nov 10th...and then on to see where the Premier Inn is from there-so we could time the journey...then on back to Cannock as we will be stopping off there on the way home so we can go to the huge Featherstone car boot sale on the Sunday---so we know where we are going and when now...am really looking forward to it--roll on Nov!

Serenity Workshop Sept 8th

Connie has been once before ,, her painting was very dramatic...

Carol was also painting for the second time..

Phil is one of my fellow market traders...he and his wife Pat were quite nervous...

Pat...was so tensed up her shoulders were hurting bless  her...both she and hubby Phil managed to create  great pictures despite the nerves!!

12 year old hope hard at work

Jane is a fellow artist and market trader...she does the most beautiful animal portrait's,,,and wanted to learn this technique in order to loosen up a bit..

Sylvia works at Church Stretton Leisure Centre and saw my work there on  display there...she couldn't wait to book in for today's workshop....hard to believe she hadn't painted before isn't it?

Karen was painting this for her Dads birthday....

lovely results by this 9 year old....

It was lovely to see my old Grammar School friend Karen-went for a great meal afterwards at The Bullring Tavern

Me and Karen..

Latest Exhibition

We went over to Church Stretton Leisure Centre this morning to set up my latest solo exhibition...its a great venue with lovely natural light.

I had the measurements of the available space and was able to map out on paper what was going where..

was very pleased with how it all looked...Bill measured everything accurately and got the pictures up quickly and neatly..

plenty of room fro all the information about me and the workshops as well..

From there we went on to The Plough at Shifnal...the landlady had asked me to do a solo exhibition there in Dec so we decided to go and suss it out..we had a lovely Sunday lunch there! But after seeing the space available and considering the distance from home Ive decided not to do it...I would have to paint smaller paintings to fit the space available as being an old black and white building there isn't any large areas to hang in and 99% of my art is on big canvas..so I will give this one a miss...I just don't have time to get enough smaller paintings done.....

The Plough---lovely place-full of old beams...

Centre

we had a visit off our Tommy with his daddy later when we got home....Tommy is growing so fast....getting chunkier by the minute love him!

Workshops..

Mellow Moods workshop on Sept 22nd is now full...new dates will be on the website soon for 2013

"Yesterday" workshop on Nov 3rd at our new venue in Eardisley is now full...but I still have a few spaces left for the workshop in Ludlow on Nov 24th

I have had a couple of cancellations for this Saturday 8th Sept for the "Serenity" workshop.This one is great fun to do--you will learn to use a variety of brushes and techniques..you will also have a choice of colour in which to paint it..suitable for all ages and abilities..contact me via the website for more details and to book..www.paintingmyway.co.uk

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