Chris and I have made an installation for the Pigeon Hole in Leominster, a little space owned and curated by artist Anna Falcini. There are 2 windows facing each other. In one will be the castle and in the other will be a mountainous landscape complete with house and bulldozer! See above and below! Officially it is examining tensions between urban and rural environments, however it also looks really cool! There are loads of tiny people on it too. We will be having an opening but not sure when yet, keep an eye out as all are welcome, at the moment we are planning perhaps some sort of cream tea!

sock knitting

The other day I went to a sock knitting workshop. My knitting skills thus far are almost non existent which did mean it took an hour to get started. Now I have though, I can't stop! I'm so excited that I may end up with a sock (even if it is not the right shape), or even two socks if I haven't got bored! So far I have knitted about 2 cm round the top of the sock, which is purple, blue, red and orange stripy wool.

Also this week Chris and I went for a walk to buy some solder, we decided to buy a smoothie and walk home past the ducks and along the river. We saw some ducks asleep by the Castle Pool but we could only see one of their legs poking out, I was worried that they may only have one leg! So we called at them and quacked until they woke up and poked their other leg out. What a relief! They all did have two legs!

Guinness Cake

On Sunday I held a tea party for some friends. I made Grantham gingerbread, a Victoria sponge and a Fruit cake with Guinness in it. Unfortunately the recipe only required half a pint which resulted in me having to drink the other half bringing back unpleasant memories of New Years Eve. I heard that if you try food or drink you don't like 12 times then you begin to like it. I'm sure I must be nearing that number with Guinness by now. The cake, however, is delicious. Very dense. We also played Escape from Atlantis, if you have never played it then you should.

Freezing!

The weather is ridiculously cold at the moment, so much so that part of the river has frozen over, there were ducks waddling around on it this morning. We decided to make an ice sculpture of an arch, made by pouring water into a mould made of bricks and tarpaulins. I'm still not convinced it'll be totally successful... but if it is then it should stand up and look amazing! The aim is for something like andy goldsworthy's but perhaps that's too optimistic..

Yesterday I received a parcel from Canada. I took part in a Craft Swap organised by the free people website so got partnered with someone and sent each other presents. She made me some cool little fabric dangly things which had the letters LOVE on them, I have strung them on a ribbon and clipped them on a wire in my room. I made an apron for her out of pretty pillowcase fabric which hopefully she'll wear!

Happy New Year!

Well. It is the New Year. And now I don't know what to do.

Just before Christmas I did some Christmassy workshops and made a fireplace out of cardboard and papier maché..and red and gold paint. On the way to the workshops we took some photos of it in the underpass which I love- the pictures not the underpass- very edgy... I was dressed as an elf and got some excellent funny looks from the townsfolk!

Chris and I also went to a fancy dress Christmas party in Cardiff. I made both our costumes, Chris was a star with battery operated flashing lights and I was a candy cane with a silly headpiece that meant I couldn't hear, walk through doors or stand in low ceilinged areas. Not very well thought out but of course we looked really cool.

As promised...

As promised here is a lovely picture of me appearing to pinch my car at Raglan Castle after our holiday to Caerleon last year. Sadly the Rover Metro is no longer with us (but lets not think about that, it's still a bit painful) this is just one example of the many happy times we had together, in fact I think only earlier that day a car picnic had been held! ahh the memories..

post number one

Since mr site's blog is so terribly unpredictable I have decided to begin one elsewhere which will hopefully be less offputting and encourage more frequent posts.

In no particular order, here are some things that I have done lately:

Read a biography of the 80's athlete and Record Breakers presenter Kriss Akabusi. Very interesting and many an amusing anecdote. A good example of which would be: Once, his dog mistook a man with a bicycle pump for Kriss, the dog attacked the man who was unharmed but badly shaken.

Made salt dough Christmas decorations of birds. They are very pretty, a consequence of which was that Poppy ate my favourite one - the white one with gold wings - thinking it was a biscuit. Silly dog.

Had a map I drew put on the Hand Drawn Map Association's website which is here. I was very excited especially when they sent me a badge all the way from America.

Painted the pantomime shop for the Courtyard theatre - it's for Jack and the Beanstalk. My friend Becci and I cut out some paper leaves the day before whilst watching An Officer and a Gentleman starring Richard Gere. A truly terrible film, I urge you not to watch it. The picture is of my favourite photographic technique utilising the power of perspective - specifically here to make it look like the giant is pinching my head- but that can be also used to make your car or other things look very small when you are far away from them. Simple but brilliant. Maybe I'll include a photo of that too..

I'm sure there are other things worth mentioning but now I'm going to join Chris in reading a book (I am reading Supernature and he is reading Supernature 2), very cool.