“Excuse me! Excuse me!” is what my neighbours would have heard from outside their windows at 9am Friday morning.
And if they looked out they would have been treated to a view of me running down the middle of the street with a rucksack hanging off one arm and two excited dogs pulling on the other. I was doing my best to catch up with the bin lorry that was about 200 yards from our house but unfortunately it took about 42 ‘Excuse me!’s before I was finally close enough for them to hear me over the noise of the engine by which time I’m sure the entire street had been woken up.
I wouldn’t say we’ve had the best luck when meeting our new neighbours this week (thanks to Spud which you’ll find out about in the pupdate section!) Luckily for us they are all dog lovers and super nice people so we are just about getting away with it! You’ll find out when you read on…
Obviously there’s tons of renovation sneak peaks in the life section and some exciting art workshops (a new online one and a pop-up one in South Queensferry - my in-studio workshops have paused for the summer)
Right let's get this show on the road! I’ve done the typing, now you do the scrolling…
Break the Mould
It’s been 7 days, 4 take-outs and miraculously only one argument. Blood sweat and tears have gone into the first week of our move while we slowly dismantled what could only be described as a ‘Takeshis castle’ of cardboard boxes and began the process of deep cleaning and renovating our new house. The kitchen needed to be sanitised, the bugs had to be hoovered and the false teeth in the bathroom cabinet… yeah, I’m still working up the courage for that one.
We’ve cleaned mould, stripped wallpaper and done so many visits to B&Q that I could probably don an orange apron and start helping out the customers. Stripping wallpaper is something I actually enjoy. It’s sweaty work but fun, at least until you drop one of your tiny white earpods into a mountain of beige wallpaper strips...
However, it’s the polystyrene ceiling tiles that are really getting to me. Much like taking of a sports bra, they're a relief to finally remove but boy does it hurt your shoulders doing so. And the remnants litter the floor below in what can only be described as an environmental catastrophe… and what makes it worse is they’re nearly in every room! The ones in our bedroom are especially awful as they look like an optical illusion… I swear I get seasick just looking at them.
And of course the dogs. They’re forever omnipresent, hanging around like a couple of unwanted project managers sipping tea and judging you whilst you sweat over removing a particularly stubborn tile and try figure out how much water to mix in with your plaster. You kick them out the room but somehow they worm their way back in. I’m constantly pulling bits of paper off their feet or picking polystyrene out their paws because with all that long fur they’re basically just giant, walking lint rollers.
Pictures speak a thousand words so you can take a deep breath and scroll down to explore the absolute chaos that has unfolded in our new home over the past 7 days…
This is the before, showing you some of the decor… (living room and Juans office)
Ollie project managing…aka getting in the way
The worst of the mould in the living room and then in the spare room/my office
Stripping wallpaper in the living room
The removal of the ceiling tiles in the spare room (also my office) begins… and the aftermath on the floor.
Progress!
The spare room (and my office space) before…
And…. currently! I know, it looks like a nightmare… but hopefully by the end of this weekend we will have something almost finished. You’ll have to wait for the next newsletter to see how we get on!
It’s all a bit topsy turvy at the moment…
Just a giant thank you to everyone who has given me so much patience and understanding over the last month or so first with my grandma being ill and passing away and then with the move… orders have been delayed, workshop dates moved and I’ve not been able to get as much work done in the studio as I had anticipated. However, I have a few new greeting cards on the easel (extra motivation since I just received my first greeting card trade order from the US!!) So there will be some fun reveals in the next newsletter! And I may even give you a glimpse of my latest acrylic if I manage to get it finished in time…
Anyway thanks for all just continuing to be… awesome <3
Win an A3 Pet Portrait (worth £600) for just £10 with the Wild at Heart Foundation
Just a reminder that I’ve donated an A3 pet portrait to the Wild at Heart Foundation’s Spring Raffle! They’re a very deserving charity who work to rescue dogs and give them new homes… they are an excellent choice if you’re looking to adopt! However you can also support them by grabbing a ticket to try win one of their fabulous raffle prizes including my A3 pet portrait donation…
Honeypot Ceramics ‘On location’ Watercolour Workshop… with Prosecco!
The puffin is back! Due to popular demand… and this time he’s headed to Honeypot Ceramics in South Queensferry. Honeypot Ceramics are a gorgeous cafe right on the seafront and I think that the location will just be perfect for getting in the mood to paint a puffin! Especially in May if we are lucky enough to get some good weather.
The workshop is on a Friday night so it feels apt to be offering prosecco (or a cosy herbal tea) along with it! In addition I hope the location of South Queensferry will make the event easier to get to for those of you who live over the bridge in fife/stirling etc…
There’s only 8 tickets available! This is also my only in-person workshop until the Autumn except for the ones at Gartur Stitch Farm (still tickets left if you’re tempted!)
Online Workshop Raising Funds for World Central Kitchen
One of my most popular workshops is now going to be available online and with 100% of the proceeds getting donated to World Central Kitchen! They are a Spanish charity who managed to successfully deliver aid via sea to the citizens of Gaza. It’s important now more than ever to help fund their work since the Palestinian people are on the brink of famine…
But we can come together through art! Painting is an activity known to be meditative so it does wonders for your mental health and even more so knowing your ticket fee has been donated to help fellow humans in need. You can donate any amount although the suggested donation would be somewhere around £15-20 so that we can hopefully raise around £500 like we did at Christmas when the online stag workshop raised funds for Doctors Without Borders.
You can grab a ticket below… why not bring a friend on board to double the donation! It’s a lovely way to spend time together by “meeting up” online…
Spudtastic Mr Fox
We met our first neighbours the other day not long after we moved into the new house. It turns out that not being able to find out how to shut the water off when trying to install a new tap can be the perfect conversation starter to break the ice.
Upon meeting the retired couple across the road and hearing that they liked dogs, I decided to release Spud and Ollie from behind our gate so they could hopscotch across the road and help us make a good first impression (because, what’s the worst that can happen, right?) An impression they made, but I’m not sure I would say it was good. They ran across the street like they were late for a mad hatters tea party, completely bypassing our neighbours without even a cursory glance and disappearing into their garden…
“Spud! Ollie!” I called whilst smiling politely through gritted teeth. No sign. It was like waiting for the Von Trapps to come back onto stage. Knowing how quickly my dogs can get into trouble when given the chance, I nipped around into the neighbour’s garden to find… just Ollie. Alone. Stood next to a spud-shaped hole in the back hedge like something out of a Tom & Jerry cartoon…
We lost Spud for 15 minutes. Where was he? I have eye-witness accounts that he was chasing a fox through several of the neighbours gardens... After taking his sweet-ass time, he eventually magically reappeared back at our feet with a huge bone hanging out of his mouth that he'd clearly picked up along the way. He had a big grin in his face and the satisfied devil-may-care attitude of a rockstar who’s just done an all-nighter. I wrestled the disgusting bone out of his mouth only for my kind neighbour to say “I’ll take it don’t worry…” God bless them, they are a couple of really good eggs and I don’t think our mad dog antics have put them off thank god!
Spud proud of punch after his chase…
Well, we have thankfully had no more unruly dog antics and several of our neighbours have finally had a relaxed introduction to the dogs. So unless there’s another bin incident that has me running up the street again, we might have just about convinced them we’re normal…
On that merry note, time to bid each other goodbye for another two weeks. I hope you enjoyed this read and we will catch up again soon with more unruly updates… for now enjoy your nap pawsition of the week. It's almost cute enough to make me forget about the fox… almost.
Tata! xx
Now I didn’t expect Spud to be the little spoon…