Walking with Betty: The Love was there but Valentine's Night Turned into a Bit of a Disaster

Hope you're having a good weekend.

We haven't done too much but did have a nice walk last night and took some photographs of the sunset. Also saw two barn owls, which seem to be doing really well here in Norfolk. I've had numerous sightings of them in the last few weeks and their ghostly forms slicing through the air are always magical to see.

Thursday evening (Valentine's) turned into bit of a disaster. We had planned to go to Cinema City in Norwich to see Breakfast at Tiffany's-see previous post. We settled down to one of those Waitrose meal deals first, Paul having just taken Betty and Flossie on an evening walk. As we settled down to our starter we suddenly realised that Flossie was bleeding profusely all over the kitchen floor. On inspection we discovered a 3-4" gash on the inside of her ear which nearly went the entire way through. The vet was called and our evening promptly cancelled. Very disappointing. I ended up taken my eldest to the theatre as she had been offered a last minute ticket to see Woman in Black at the Theatre Royal. At least she had a great evening! The joys of being the owner of a very unlucky and accident prone spaniel. It would help if farmers didn't insist on putting barbed wire everywhere.

During the day on Thursday I experimented with some ideas I have for the illustrations for a children's story I'm working on with my cousin, Susie Flashman Jarvis. The story is about a little girl called Debbie who feels her life would be much happier if she were someone else. Over the coming weeks I will be tweaking the thumbnails for the story and completing some spreads to take to publishers. Fingers and toes crossed.

At the end of next week-which is half term for us, I will be heading to my old home of Market Lavington in Wiltshire. As well as catching up with some good friends, I'll be collecting some work from Red Flag Studio and bringing it back here for my Etsy shop and a gallery I'll be visiting the week after next. I'm looking forward to finding some of the work I wasn't able to bring here when we moved and to collecting other paints and materials so I can really crack on with producing some new paintings and drawings. The instructions for my fisheye camera are there too and I so want to get out and about with it...

Lastly, after reading an article on the illustrator Emily Sutton in Country Living magazine, I found an interactive app for a story she has illustrated called Clara Button and the Magical Hat Day. The app is loads of fun and, although it is an easy read for my seven year old, she loved playing with the hats, buttons and bus on this app. Emily's illustrations are lovely and reminiscent of the work of illustrators in the fifties. Her work closely resembles Judith Kerr's in The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

Plans for this week:

Go to The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich for a crafting session with my younger two children.

Get to grips further with the workings of my camera.

Think about My Name is Debbie, even if I don't get much actual work done.

Embroider-Biddy's Stitch Group on Tuesday evening, go there with big daughter.

Have a fab time in gorgeous Wiltshire with my friends and pick up more of the materials that help me to be me.

Have a good Sunday. xx