I think they're breeding....

They are certainly turning up all over the place... Horatio has been helping himself to our toast!

Delilah van Razzchoc and Blinky have been caught reading in bed...


Tallulah has been hogging the paper over breakfast....

Ferraro has been trying to use the shower...
but fortunately hasn't worked out how to turn it on.

Lydia has been flower arranging.

Spotty Spice!

Keep away from my sewing machine...

Okay Millie Boggle.... gone too far...

Hands off my wine!

I do believe they are all distance relatives of Miss Choc a Spots and they have all turned up ready for this weekend (12/13 July) and next (19/20July) when I'm opening my house for Cambridge Open Studios. This annual event takes place every July when artists all over Cambridgeshire open their studios to the public. As well as my "grown up" work I like to have smaller items for sale - hence the sock creatures! Meanwhile I'd better get back to the task of hanging pictures and attempting to make my house look presentable to the public...

This comes with a warning....

... and those with a sensitive disposition may wish to avert their eyes.

But I'm not entirely responsible.

Several of you did request to see this.

And because it is my birthday.

And because I've reached the grand age of 51.

For this one day only...

I give you me in the orange dress!!!

I even put on the tarty shoes!

But that's enough of that nonsense.

Back to the serious business of cake.

Nothing sophisticated for me.

No cheesecake or strawberries and cream.

Good old chocolate cake with Maltesers.

This is the last of the birthdays for a few months.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

Might even get some sewing done.

Look out for the spiders!

Nature Watch

We have beautiful giant poppies growing up against our garage wall.

My purple podded peas that I got from Celia have finally flowered...

and have started to produce purple pods!

There is a family of kestrels on our village conservation area with three young birds


All around the field behind our house are cherry trees which are laden with almost ripe cherries

And in my handbag...
there are spiders!

An explanation...
Yesterday I had a wonderful day in London - visits to Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the Royal Academy. I then met my friend Jude (author of many a wry and cryptic comment on this blog!) and we went to the Opus degree show before heading off to our favourite restaurant for dinner. During our meal Jude presented me with a package containing my birthday present of some rather lovely leaf shaped beads... and some spider shaped beads... completely oblivious to my pathalogical fear of spiders!!!!

I remained remarkably calm under the circumstances but made Stewart empty my bag when I got home!

Run spiders... run!

I'm after you....

Actually they are quite cute... and apparently were selected for the superior quality of their eyes. Any suggestions how I might use them????

****

On a completely different note ... Vicious Chicken is doing something fantastic which involves walking around Bristol in her underwear and WorkingMomKnits is doing something fantastic to support her... so do stop by and take a look if you haven't already done so!

A Twinning of Traditions

Today has been another day working with the Vital Communities project as part of the summer programme of events. We were in a school in Peterborough where I was running workshops with years 1, 3 and 6. As it was the start of their "International Week" I was given Australia as my theme so decided to base the workshops on traditional Aboriginal dot paintings. The children used traditional earth colours and made pictures and patterns made entirely from painted dots...

...But as it was also a Summer celebration we painted on flags and made more bunting which of course is a very British tradition!

These year 1 children had great fun painting with cotton buds on their flags.

As the paint dried we attached the flags together onto lengths of string which were hung in the hall ready for a final celebration of music, dance and painting at the end of the day.

Australian art on British bunting!

I loved this snake.

Talking about Australia, Joe is still in Sydney until the end of this week before moving on to Thailand. But today we received a DVD of a something he did when he was in New Zealand... a bungee jump! Fortunately I didn't find out about this until after he did it! I'm not sure he looks convinced about this.

Oh heck... that's a long way down

(134 m jump!)

The white dot is Joe!

Oh to be young and foolish!

A celebration.

Yesterday our friend Alastair celebrated his 60th birthday.

His socks were finished in the nick of time!

The morning was spent preparing lunch.

The afternoon (and evening) was spent eating and drinking and generally enjoying the company of good friends. Needless to say this afternoon has involved some sleeping!

Happy Birthday Ally!

Mad mad week

I've had a crazy week full of workshops. It started on Monday in a school in Ely where I was running a series of bunting workshops with classes of year 3 children. The theme was "Summer" and there were some fabulous flags. In the short breaks between the individual classes I was frantically sewing the flags together to make the bunting which was hung in the hall for a final celebration of dance and poetry. This is part of a project in Cambridgeshire called Vital Communities. If you follow the link you can read more about this exciting project.

I love the dragonfly above

And this beautiful beach.

There were lots more but my camera battery ran out!

On Wednesday I was back with my ZigZag group. The following is a collage of some of the work done since last time, some ideas for a logo for our forthcoming website (watch this space!) and some cards and boxes made for sale for an Open Gardens Day that we are supporting.

I thought you might like to see a close up of this wonderful wall hanging by Bernice, beautiful spirals stitched on layers of sheer fabrics and cut out with a soldering iron.


The final workshop was yesterday afternoon where I spent a manic four hours in a Cambridge school back with Vital Communities running family workshops. Again it was a summer theme and we were making tissue and fabric flowers.

The idea was to wind them all around this trellis to make an indoor wall of flowers to stay in school.

But most of the children had other ideas and only about eight ended up on the trellis - the other forty odd that were made were taken home. And one even ended up as a hair decoration!

I finally got home about 8pm to find Ben had made dinner and Stewart had a bottle of fizz chilling to celebrate our anniversary. Thank you all for your wonderful kind wishes.

Now... I really must come off this computer and attempt to tidy up my house!!!

Four Years

Forgive me a little self indulgence today... but it's our fourth wedding anniversary. We were fortunate enough to be married in our village church which meant we got to walk down the road from home to the church. We made a procession, stopping the traffic (we don't get that much in the village) with my Dad and me, followed by four bridesmaids and my four boys. People came out and cheered us on the way which made us feel like Royalty! I was telling my Dad to get his hands out of his pockets here...

Leading the procession was this fabulous piper

I made my dress and the bridesmaids' dresses and my Mum did all the flowers.

(That's the "craft" bit in this post)

And this is us with our combined six children!

After the service, a few close family and friends joined us for lunch in a local restaurant. Because we didn't want to go off in a separate wedding car we hired a London bus so we could travel together... it was brilliant!

After lunch we came back home to a marquee in the garden where we were joined by lots more family and friends for a fabulous party. We danced all night, starting off to Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight".

And when I could dance no more,

the gold shoes were finally abandoned!

I haven't made a cake today but I did make our wedding cake and as I promised six weeks of cakes... here it is. Four tiers of pure chocolate which was cut up and shared with strawberies at the party.

It was a wonderful day filled with so much fun and laughter (and men in kilts!)... and it's been a pretty wonderful four years too.