Well Hello!

 Hello friends!

I hope you are all keeping well. Winter seems to have been longer than usual this year. I think there must have been at least 273 days in January. Yet already the year seems to be flying by as we have just a week or so left in February and tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday which can mean only one thing: pancake day! How do you eat yours? My favourites are to make large crepes lightly spread with a little butter, sprinkled with a little sugar, and drenched in either lemon or orange juice.

will you be giving up anything for Lent? I am contemplating giving up chocolate which will be a huge sacrifice for me as it is my one comfort.  I tried Veganuary in the hopes that giving up cheese I would lose weight but I actually gained 4 pounds it was not meant to be that way!

Since I last wrote here all the way back in December, before Christmas, I have had a very nasty arthritis flare up. For those of you who suffer from arthritis I don't have to tell you how debilitating this is for me. I am in constant pain and cannot get comfortable in any chair or bed in the house.

Consequently almost all my activity has been curtailed, even if the weather has been kind enough to get out for walking I am barely able to put one foot in front of the other at the moment. To compound matters, two days ago I had a nasty little fall. I have no idea how it happened one minute I was standing upright the next minute I was hugging the tarmac. Thankfully no damage done a couple of tiny cuts, a grazed knee and a very bruised ego. But it just goes to show how easy you can fall over nothing more than thin air.

Parkinson's disease means that it is very difficult to hold books, and a short while ago a very kind friend sent me this. It is a wooden book stand and I can put my tablet on it with the kindle app and I'm therefore able to read without having the book shaking in my hands all the time. It has transformed my reading and I am deeply grateful to her for sending such a thoughtful gift.

Thankfully I am still able to paint, so in December of last year I signed up to the Anna Mason online art school. I have access to all sorts of instruction connected to watercolour painting and pencil drawing and all for less than the cost of a decent bar of chocolate a week. I didn't start the courses straight away, however I have started them recently and this is my first attempt. I guess you could say it is my first official watercolour painting, having used watercolour paints but never in the style of watercolour painting always used as part of my mixed media art. it is a song thrush egg, and although I have had to improvise with the colours a little, I'm very pleased with the overall results.

I have tried doing the daffodil but I am not so happy with this one the first one is all wrong. I know you will all disagree with me but trust me on this it is very wrong. I do not have the right size brushes or the correct coloured paints consequently it is turned out poorly.

This is my second attempt at it. Again having the wrong colours and wrong sized brushes is not helping even though I'm taking a different approach. As soon as I can afford the outlay for the new brushes and paints I will give it a third go.

Another dear friend sent me an Amazon gift voucher, so I treated myself to a tin of Derwent Chromaflow pencils. So I've been playing with those as well. Here's the first portrait I did using them.

And here's a little field mouse I drew using the new Chromaflow

Using mixed media, I did a couple of mandalas.

And finally a little mixed media painting of cone flowers just for fun.

my friends, as I said I hope you are keeping well this winter.

Until next time

Stay safe stay well stay warm

Debbie xo

Company's Coming!

Hello Friends!

I hope you had a blessed Easter, however you celebrate.  For some reason, it's taking me a while to get back into this week, and every day feels like Monday. 

I have a question for you.  Now, I never thought this would ever be something I would ask.  Next week, I host my first guests in over fourteen months.  The strict safety guidelines must still apply, just two guests {I can have up to six outside my Bubble} and we will be socially distanced, wrapped up warmly, outside in the garden.  No hugging, not indoors, not even sitting close, and they are even bringing their own chairs.  We are all vaccinated, but we must not let things slip now, these guidelines must continue until we kick Covid's butt.  So, here's my etiquette question.

Is it good or bad manners to place a pump of hand sanitiser on the refreshments table?  I feel, although an odd thing, it's good manners and lets your guests feel a little more secure, knowing you are doing your very best to take care of their safety.  What do you think?

So, instead of that old familiar situation of getting more cleaning done in the thirty minutes before your guests arrive, I'm mowing the garden and pulling weeds instead of vacuum cleaning and dusting malarkey!  I'm not ready to share garden photos just yet, still ashamed of the mess, and there's a long way to go. My "befores" are waiting, though, ready to go when I am ready.  It's not very nice out at the moment, cold and windy, and this is making me hold off, partly as I don't want to be out in the cold which plays havoc with my arthritis, and partly because I have nowhere that is protected enough to bring anything on by way of seeds and young plants.  It is warming up, though, next week ~ Company's Coming!

Speaking of arthritis, I feel compelled to share this with you. I have suffered with arthritis for some time, mainly in my legs and spine, but spreading.  Anyone who suffers with this knows how painful and unpredictable it can be, in my case particularly at night.  I follow a vegetarian diet, and love cheese, although I don't drink milk. I heard that milk and milk products can inflame arthritis, so although giving up cheese is my worst food nightmare, I have given it a go. Anything made with, or containing milk is out of my diet.  It didn't take long for my night time pain and discomfort to ease considerably, and I noticed I can now lead with my right leg when going up steps, something that has been painful and difficult for a long, long time now.  Then we had Easter.  I thought I could risk a little milk, milk products, just for one day.  So, I ate my milk chocolate eggs, spread unsalted butter lavishly on my Hot Cross Buns, made my richly creamy mushroom dish for Easter dinner, and treated myself to a small trifle with custard and cream.  After the following night, it turns out that may have been milk overload.  My legs burned all night, uncomfortably painful, sleep depriving pain keeping me awake.  So, that's it.  From now on, not even the smallest break from a milk free diet.  Much as I adore cheese, I dislike pain more.  I can still enjoy chocolate, just 70% dark or greater.

Having said that, there's a tad of butter to finish, and I cannot resist having a tiny amount on a slice of still warm, fresh~from~the~oven, Irish Soda bread.  If I suffer, I know what I am doing wrong.

I was recently given a couple of bags of snowdrops in the green, so have popped them into some holding pots until I know where they will go.  All of my previous snowdrops have disappeared.  Where? Why? I cannot answer.  Mice? Who knows?  I don't.  My neighbour has lost all hers too. 

Our weather, both sides of  The Pond, is bizarre.  Frankly, I'm a little fed up and more than a little disconcerted to see many on Social Media branding it as "quirky" and making jokes, when in reality it is very serious.  This is the reality of Climate Change.

Meanwhile, the garden is springing back to life.  Brambles continue to be chopped, an ongoing task, and I am frankly amazed at how much the lawn has shot up since I mowed it for the first time this year, not two weeks ago!  This year, it is actually green instead of the usual spring time yellow, and full of daisies and dandelions too.

While I watch the garden grow, from my living room, I have been painting.  I confess, I did not draw these images, but used stamps.  This first one I used some for Easter cards.

and this one is my favourite flower, a scene made using about eight or nine scene builder stamps.  I have shown it as I build it up.

Which led me to another scene, this time using stamps from two different scene builder sets, done twice on  different paper using Inktense paint pans

Easter did not go overlooked by my little helper, who was delighted with his chocolate egg

Meanwhile, back in the garden, I have discovered these, several plants that I believe are white comfrey plants.  The bees love them, so they're keepers indeed.

Before I go, I shall leave you with this quote

‘We have come as far as we have because we are the cleverest creatures to have ever lived on Earth. But if we are to continue to exist, we will require more than intelligence. We will require wisdom.’

Sir David Attenborough

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well.