New artistic endeavours ...

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Starting with squares :-)

In progress - Dom's, Sharon's. mine and Nathan's

 We went along to another Painty Party last week at Portofino. This time

Mine and N's finished works.

my brother Dom and sister-in-law Sharon came along to have a go. They haven't painted anything since they were at school (I won't embarrass them by revealing how long ago that was exactly!)

Craig had asked us via Facebook what we'd like to paint this time - and I'd suggested a cat. So I was very happy to learn that we were going to paint a cat this time! He had taken a classic Art Nouveau poster called Le Chat Noir and simplified it for us to have a go at.

It was quite a step up from previous weeks - as we had to start by dividing our canvas into 16 squares in order to get the proportions of the cat just right. Then we filled it in in brown, put in the background and then filled the cat in again with black this time. The highlights were done in white. I was so pleased with the results! It was amazing - everyone's cats were different - but they all had their own character :-)

I think this is my favourite one so far - looking forward to next month's adventure in art :-) It will be on October 7th if you fancy coming along. It's great fun and the food isn't bad either! It's quite funny as right outside the restaurant a graffiti artist was decorating the wall with a huge dog. We all went out afterwards to have a look at what he'd done. It seems The Sugarmill had asked him to do it. It certainly brightened the street up a lot!



Looks like a normal cake on the outside...

What else have we been up to? Well we had another belated Christmas Party as my other brother, Damian came down from Yorkshire with his family. He's had a serous operation on his back and hasn't been able to get out and about for a while - so it was lovely to see him and Jan and Zoe and give them their rather late Christmas presents!

Surprise! It's full of sweeties :-)

Sarah had made a cake - with a surprise inside - which was every bit as delicious as it looks :-) We didn't go for the turkey and trimmings though - we had pizzas delivered! Much easier for all - and very tasty! They do a very nice chicken tikka pizza in Cheadle - it's a family favourite now!

Damian and mum open their xmas presents

Ooh - you shouldn't have! :-)


We also played our new game Dixit - which is very different from any we've played before. Basically it involves describing pictures in a word, or song title or phrase - and other trying to guess which picture you are referring to.

Everyone we get to play it seems to like it.

Jigsaw makes herself at home but Boodle's not impressed!

At home we still have the two ginger twins hanging around. Jigsaw likes to come in and stay for a while and Grumbles, her shyer little sis will launch herself through the cat flap if she hears food being put out - but goes again afterwards. She does sit with you in the garden if you are out there though. She's even been known to sit on the sun lounger. She'll probably come I more as it gets colder.

It been pretty busy at work. We had the consultation session at the library and I was pleased with the turnout.. Some very angry people defending the library - and we've had lots of completed forms back too. We'll have to wait and see if it makes any difference to the proposals the council has put forward.

We have a new group - the Coffee Tots. You can't move for prams and pushchairs when they are in. It is certainly proving very popular!

The Coffee Tots are in town!

In other news we are busy organising our annual pilgrimage to the Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court. There's great excitement now that all the developer sessions have been announced - and there is even talk of some of the party going in costumes.

Check out the next blog to see all!