Sometimes it is amusing when you look back across your week of phone photos and find what intrigued you in the past fourteen days…

I visited my friend Amy with her four gorgeous children. This is baby Alysha who had just eaten her dinner!

This is Ollie

En route to a meeting near Crawley we diverted to Westcott and passed my old house! This is where I lived between the ages of 2 and 4.

A trip to the pub with the boys

I managed to sleep on a PJ button!

Somebody left a flower on our car on Saturday night.  It would be a wonderfully romantic gesture if it wasn’t one of the ones that you are handed as you leave the Indus curry house on Bath Road.

Last Sunday I took Indi for a girly day out at Greenbelt, where you find curious things, such as people dressed as giant chocolate bars?!

We both bought some crazy festival shades. Love it!

My friend “English” came to visit! English has never (in his entire life) spent more than one year in any single country, so I only get to see him about once a year.  We were friends at school (for a few months a year!)  He is a fantastic photographer and a world-class wakeboarder.  For this reason he has very big muscles, so every time we meet up, we pose for the same photograph (it is a long story!)

English also visited the office and photographed the door stop using the force!

I went for a coffee at Pepper Crescent with George and Annabelle (this is Annabelle enjoying her babycino!)

This month’s Facebook profile pic was not so serious…!  I also had my ears pierced randomly on bank holiday Monday! You can just about see…

Mark bought me a cupcake which was almost too beautiful to eat because I had been working very hard!

This is a man in a skirt…?

I started a painting and ended up going to bed at around midnight!

I love my walk to work so much! It is very easy to thank God for beautiful things when you do this walk…

I then walk through the beautiful Montpellier shops

There is a little stall that sells fruit and juice at St Andrew’s Church

Approaching Pink Sky…  Can you see the flash of pink in the basement?

Last night I sat in Montpellier Gardens whilst JT was out sailing, catching the last of the evening sun. Very pretty evening!

One of the best music videos ever…  Very clever and so true.

So it was back to work on Monday with a bang.  Various stresses to overcome, such as the UK cider market requiring a smaller bottle than the one we have.  We sourced a good 50cl bottle and found that the pourer (an essential part of this venture) does not fit in the neck of a 50cl bottle. I fear there may be some translation issues ahead of us…  In the meantime I really must learn Spanish!!  All I can do is start and end an email, formally or informally.  Not good…

Wednesday was a VERY long day.  We had a meeting near Crawley over a steak ‘light lunch’ and then a meeting at 5pm (which we only just got to in time) in central London.  I almost didn’t make it in to the meeting as I was highly distracted by the Steinway shop directly opposite!

This is me all set to go…

This is Mark being silly in the board room when the meeting man slipped off to request coffee! Haha.

Anyway, I spent a very long day yesterday preparing a special proposal document (25 pages later and 9:30pm by the time I had finished…!)  We are up against four agencies but two have already gone so please pray for us that we get the contract as it would be very good for our little business now and in the future.

I have been waiting for this book since March, when I heard about its release.  There was an exhibition in Milan called The Hand of the Designer.  It exhibited conceptual sketches from many designers from all around the world. I love this kind of thing.  After the exhibition the prints were auctioned off and Moleskine produced a rather special book and sketchpad. I finally got hold of my long-awaited copy today and it is wonderful…

We have returned!  After a nice break, I am glad to be home with a good shower and mattress!  We had a lovely time despite the variable weather (we did get 2 nice days) and did lots of inexpensive activities such as fossil hunting, crabbing, visiting the aquarium, having the odd ice-cream or cream tea, paddling….etc.  We also visited the beautiful Bicton Park Botanical Gardens.

The accommodation was….Interesting.  I felt that the website perhaps could have been a little more honest about a few points.  The studio does not overlook the sea, but the cottage that the owners live in.  We were asked not to use too much electricity because it is solar power backed up by a generator. I therefore didn’t feel I could really use my hairdryer all week.  The shower was not good and I have ended up with a bad back from the mattress.  Also, they failed to mention the 15 minute off-road drive down a cliff to access the place and the fact that the ‘access to private beach’ meant walking down a very hairy steep pathway (often having to hold onto ropes) culminating in climbing down a ladder to get to it!  Other than that, the chalet itself was very clean and comfortable. It had everything we needed once we were in.

The holiday in pictures……..

The studio

On the beach whilst the sun was out!

The Beer Heights Light Railway

Waiting for crabs to swim by

Luckily this was a practice!

Feeding fish at the aquarium! A very funny feeling

Hello!

Bicton Park

relaxing

There is a man who actually makes a living by balancing these stones on top of each other!?

…And then we decided to come home!

If Ellie Duncan is reading this post I know she will appreciate it…

For our holiday this year, we are going to Lyme Regis! I used to go there for weekends with Ellie and her family when I was at school and really loved it.  Many a giggle was to be had in the Jacksons’ cottage and around the beach.

This time, JT and I have found a little gem of a place (we hope!) called Undercliff Studio. We are going from Monday to Friday and I am personally hoping to do some exploring of rockpools, hunting for fossils, photography and general relaxation. I am easily pleased…

See you in a week!

Would you mind all just… Having a bit of a wash please?

I have recently had discussions with my Mum about craft. We rue the fact that people with very logical brains have to ask questions like “What are you making it for?” “What are you going to do with it?” What they have missed, is the point of the exercise, which is the pleasure that comes from actually making things.

The fact is, that everybody likes making things. I love making lists and writing things down in notebooks (or cutting and sticking!)  I also love making just about any craft item going. Some people enjoy making software, or music, or models, or food, or decorating.  I think I love all of these things.

I find it very sad that children spend so long in front of the TV, or the games console when they could be given pens and paper (yes and be allowed to get a bit messy!) or craft. I find it sad that they are made to play on the Nintendo Wii instead of learning to bake fairy cakes, or plant a sunflower.

I had a very privileged upbringing in that I was always making things. From little paper boxes, to drawing, to music, to lino cuts, to papier mache, to having a little patch of garden to plant my own thing in… You name it, I probably had a go at it. Is it any wonder that I have ended up in the creative industries?

Humans are made in the image of God and it got me thinking. God is the ultimate creative. I get most of my inspiration for my work or things I make from looking at His creation because it is just incredible. I wonder, whether anyone sat at his side when he was making the universe and said “Sorry, why are you doing that? Where is it going to go? Why make a wasp? Do you really have to spend so much on that iridescent paint for that particular fish? Is a snail shell really necessary when you already have a slug?” Or I wonder if he just made things that way because he loved it?

Creation is the ultimate painting. The ultimate sculpture. The ultimate photograph. I am looking at my little cat curled up on the sofa… He is so perfect. His magnificent stripes, his little pink nose and smiling mouth, the way his paws are curled around his head…  What must it take to have that kind of inspiration??

I wonder if Jesus liked making stuff? He was a carpenter (and fully God as well as fully man) so I would imagine so. What would his carpentry pieces have looked like? I mean, imagine if you had an original ‘Christ’, it’d be worth a fortune!

I’d love to know about Jesus’ childhood…  Did he kick a ball about in the street? Did he argue about who was friends with who? Did Joseph had to run the dads’ race on sports day? I wonder if he had to potty train or wear nappies?  Did he break wind?!  Who knows? These are the kind of details you never get in books, but the things I like to know about.

I might be thinking aloud, but that is just the way my brain works….  In the meantime, keep being creative!

I have had an unfortunate 24 hours. Instead of moaning about it, I thought I would do a mini photo series highlighting unfortunate situations on a micro-scale… More specifically, on the short walk from Sainsbury’s Local (Bath Road) to my house. When you look around you, quite a lot of unfortunate things are occurring. Suddenly your own circumstances are not so bad! So here goes…  It is always unfortunate when:

Your nice charity shop gets a traffic cone on top of it after a student night out.

You lose the sleeve of your umbrella

A ‘no ball games’ sign gets hit by a car/you hit a ‘no ball games’ sign with your car.

A man is chatting up a lady who is a good foot taller than him (not so obvious in this pic)

Some kid writes “I love weed and ganja it’s lush” on a can recycling bank

A man wears black shoes without socks

Everyone parks by a ‘no parking’ sign

When someone parks touching a ‘no parking’ sign

When a house named after an architectural epicentre of the world stands (much like the city) in a state of severe disrepair

When you see a retirement property for sale – it usually means someone has pegged it

When you see a garage in “constant use” not being used

When you see a very strange sign like this

When you see an ‘alcohol free zone’ by a pub

When the local shop makes the street look like a tip

When the neighbours AND the local shop make the street look like a tip

When the keys for your meter boxes go missing

When a beautifully ornate pot has dead flowers in it

When some chav burns your door sign.