What's been going on this week????

It's been another full on week in the Brown household. As well as looking after Callum, my regular Wednesday play date and going to Pilates on Thursday, we have had cavity wall insulation installed in the house and my greenhouse arrived. We were going to assemble the greenhouse today but the miserable weather has put a stop to that....hey ho.....never mind still lots of other things to fill my time. In the middle of all the chaos, I have been working on new workshop ideas. I really want to bring something fresh and new to my classes which of course means investing time in their development, so if you are interested in taking some classes with me here in Milton Keynes, watch this space, I hope to have details ready for you in the next few weeks.

Sometimes when I'm working on a class idea, I too, like everyone else hit a brick wall. It's then I know it's time to step away and do something else for a while. Recently, I had a small 4" x 4" canvas sitting on my desk that I had made, using the latest limited edition set of Fresco Finish paints. I really liked it and then promptly spilt tea on it!!! Don't you just hate it when stuff like that happens? Anyways, to try and ease the situation with my lack of inspiration, I decided to paint over it and start again. I've always been a believer in things happening for a reason and guess what......I actually like version No.2 better than the original.....so it was obviously, meant to be!

The flower is hand drawn which I sketched out in pencil over a painty background. Once the petals and centre of the flower were painted and completely dry, I kind of scribbled over the lines with a black pen and that's when it came to life........I really like it so I'll try hard not to spill tea on this one.

To finish off my busy week, Mark and I spent a fabulous day in London yesterday. We had afternoon tea at The Ritz which meant that we had to don our glad rags instead of our usual jeans and trainers. I don't very often wear a dress but it was such an amazing experience, it was definitely worth the effort.

It was all so elegant.....I loved it! 

The cake at the back was by far my favourite.......I'm probably showing my ignorance here as I have no idea what it was. It was filled with the most delicious coffee cream. I called it a Coffee Bomb, maybe one of you lovely people can tell me what it really is.

Then there was the tea. Mark has to be the biggest tea drinker I know, I dread to think how many cups he consumes every day but it has to be the regular variety like PG Tips, it has to have milk and a little sugar so I was a bit worried what he would have when I saw the list of all the beautiful, speciality teas on offer. I needn't have worried, he found something that would work for him whilst I sampled the Passion Fruit and Orange tea. Oh my word!!!!! This is the nicest tea I have ever tasted. I had two pot fulls, all to my self (that equates to six cups!!). I was in serious competition with Mark and I think I may well have won.

Mark will probably kill me for posting this but I had to prove that he was with me and that I didn't eat all those cakes myself.

In the afternoon, we took a trip up The Shard to check out the view of London from over 1,000 feet. It was a bit gloomy but we manged to figure out where some of our favourite landmarks were. You could just see Ally Pally in the distance. We worked out where the O2 is, we had a great view of the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, the building that looks like a walkie talkie but best of all for me was spotting the area where I was born and grew up. Having figured out where Battersea power station used to be, I could work out where Clapham Junction was located and that it where I spent the first ten years of my life. After that, we spotted Crystal Palace and from there, worked out the location of Tooting which is where my parents still live and I lived from the age of 10 until I left home at 17!!!! So many memories came flooding back......I'll always be a Londer at heart.

So a huge thank you to our beautiful family as our day out in London was courtesy of them....what fantastic gifts.....we had the best time.