new years day

will is doing an uber shift today so i'm by myself. i decided to get some air and went for a walk round old hatfield. it was cold and pretty.

now i need to decide what to do with the chicken i got out for dinner.
we might just be having plain chicken at this rate.

i'm trying to decide whether it'd be alright to put a bird table on our front garden. i don't see why it wouldn't be alright but there is someone about that has decided we aren't allowed to hang washing outside and who knows how a mind like that works?
maybe i'll just do it and see if anyone says anything. the lady next door has plant pots outside her front door so i can't see why anyone would have a problem with it.

new years eve

will is working new years eve and new years day so i've had to mostly amuse myself. the tights and slippers featured in this photo are both presents from mum and dad. they are brilliant.

on new years eve i wrote out my new years resolutions and made them pretty. then will came home and i struggled to stay awake for midnight and we ate chocolates and watched big ben and the fireworks then i went to bed and will read me some aesop's fables while i fell asleep. and if you think that i sound old or boring don't be silly, i don't start the year with a hangover and actually had a good night.

looking forward to a good, happy, art filled year.

christmas at mum and dad's

on boxing day will went to norfolk for a couple of days to see his family and i went and stayed with mum and dad for a night that turned into 2 nights.

at mum and dad's house there was festiveness and really nice food. i also stole dad's chair. he doesn't mind. his are the feet that appear in this picture.

their house was so festive that even the phone had a bow on it. which i loved.
this is curious hugh. he was my present to mum and dad. he has joined the menagerie that is growing around their house.

brian the gnome.

norman the duck.

keith the giraffe.

all with added festive-ness.

the day after boxing day we went to nan and grandad's house and on the way home we got bagels and then mum cooked up some bacon and egg and look how perfect it was. it was runny enough that you could squeeze it through the bagel hole but cooked enough that it didn't pop. mum has skills.

mum and dad have a new bathroom. i love it. it has old fashioned taps.

and i'm going to steal these jars next time i stay.

christmas at home

there was a massive roast.

there were candles.

there were homemade mince pies.

and home made truffles.

and there were more candles with added wine.


will and i had christmas day at home just us and it was lovely. we both got some awesome presents and ate some awesome food and generally had an awesome time.

jingle bell rock

the other day we went to stevenage and then st albans to get some christmas bits and we were properly frozen when we got to st albans so we headed straight for starbucks and their massive mugs of hot goodness. it took a while before i could feel my toes again but eventually i was heated up thanks to the huge amount of hot chocolate and the toasties and the cakes which weren't warm but were awesome and we headed out for the shopping. seriously, only the hardcore can have a motorbike as their main mode of transport in this weather, it's a painfully cold way to travel.


i'd got up early that morning coz we had loads to do and it's the first time i've seen the sun come up from the flat. and it was pretty. we have a good view.

on thursday we put up our tree. it is the best tree ever. this is me in a bauble.

we bought a plastic green fir type ring base for our wreath then will got in the holly bush outside and attached holly all round it and i made a bow from some christmasy ribbon and attached it at the bottom and within a few hours of it going on the door it snowed and added to it's beauty.

this is will painting our salt dough decorations. we made some for the tree because we're like children. but better. and it was really fun. i definately recommend it. they have been attached to the tree with red and green ribbon and look brilliant.

i'm feeling really christmasy now. mum's coming down tomorrow to take us to the supermarket to get all our food and even though i know everyone in the shop will make me angry i'm still looking forward to getting all the christmas food.

in other news, i've got my first card design ready for my shop and once i get paid i'm going to order the envelopes and put it, along with more designs, on my website so keep an eye out.

i'm going to go wrap will's presents and eat soup.

bargains galore

will's nan and grandad came down last week and came with homemade gifts. jams, pickled onions and pickled cabbage. i would like to point out that the jam pots are a normal jam pot size. the onions and cabbage pots are quite a bit bigger (the cabbage pot is shockingly huge). i haven't tried the jams yet but we had some of the onions and cabbage with lunch today and they're scrummy.
homemade rules.

this bag is awesome.

we went round the charity shops yesterday and found this bowl. i think it's meant to be a fruit bowl, it's big, made of clay, lovely and only one pound. bargain. and will be perfect in the middle of the table with holly round it once we've decorated for christmas.

will saved some flowers from the reduced bucket yesterday while i was at work. they're really pretty and really nice to come home to.

in the same trip as the bowl finding i also found myself a little skecthbook covered in velvet. it's so cute...

...and only 75p!

i love cheap things.

wisdom teeth are stupid. fact.

the past couple of weeks have been a bit confusing. on the one hand a load of good stuff happened and on the other i've been in awful pain.
firstly i found this photo of will and i at dr sketchy's. we look like we're concentrating so hard.

will decided that for his birthday he wanted to go to the national gallery the day before and then have a film day on his actual birthday. so we headed of to trafalgar square for some culture.
i did this drawing.

while we were looking at this painting there was a school group being taught about a painting of the execution of lady jane gray. afterward there was a little girl near us with a teacher and she said 'has her head already been chopped off?' and the teacher pointed at the painting and said 'no, look' and the little girl said 'no, but in real life'. haha. child logic, what year does she think is being shown in the painting?

trafalgar square is pretty at night.

the next day was will's birthday. i woke up with a sore mouth but tried to mostly ignore it.
the card will got from his mum had a bit to tear off and make into a plane. it didn't fly very well but it was amazing.

she also got him some boots which he was very pleased with as you can tell.

we went to the pub for lunch. we shared a greek salad, nachos and some onion rings. this is the last nacho covered in everything. how nachos should be.


the next day i woke up in even more pain and actually phoned the doctor. this shows the pain because i always give stuff as long as possible to go away on its own before i go to the doctor so to make an emergency appointment the day i wake up in actual agony shows it was agony not just me whinging.
anyway, i went to the doctor and she said my gum was infected and put me on antibiotics. bye bye bottle of wine i brought yesterday but only had one glass of. and bye bye solid food. it hurt so much i could barely eat. whenever my tongue moved and touched my gum, it hurt and i couldn't put my teeth together without biting the swollen gum anyway.
9 days of mushy food and emotions followed.

then it was sunday, time to go and see alice cooper courtesy of mum and dad. ain't they good.

it was awesome. alice cooper was amazing as always and it was being recorded for a dvd which is quite exciting. and they were magic, on your way out you could buy a usb stick with a sound recording of the show on it. mum and dad got one. i'll have to borrow it and listen to its brilliance.

when i have less of a headache i'm going to go through the alice photos and crop the good ones so you can actually see them. i don't like to use the zoom too much coz i'm so shakey it tends to ruin the photo but i have some that look promising.

then the day after (yesterday) i had to go to the dentist. remember all that pain i mentioned? not so bad that its waking me up all night anymore but there's something wrong with it enough that i can't eat properley.

the dentist robbed me.
and shoved a syringe (pointy metal thing that she had to point out wasn't an injection because otherwise you wouldn't have known) into my swollen gum gap to wash out the infection.
it hurt.
and she's put me back on antibiotics.
and i have to go back for a 20min cleaning. which is where most of the robbery came from.
£50 to have my teeth cleaned. that amount of money would feed us for 2 weeks. bye bye food.(or anything else for that matter)
she also x-rayed my teeth which wasn't pleasant but at least it didn't hurt.
my mouth is feeling a lot better now though. still can't quite put my teeth together without biting my gum but it almost doesn't hurt at all now.

i have done a painting of a cute thing. it's going to be a card available on my shop once i've found the right paper to print them on and got myself all the envelopes and packaging stuff.

hopefully from now on my life can have so much going on without any of the pain and dentistry.
at least for a while.
and some more funding would be nice.