Well I have started a new little diptych based on a sketch made from our holiday flat in Dieppe France. I have made two little bespoke stretchers with a little help it has to be said! Then I stretched the very last of the canvas from dad over them and dyed the canvas in Pebeo dye before beginning to stitch. I will then size the canvas and add oil-bar to selected areas. I’m really excited that I can make bespoke stretchers with the clamps I was given as part of my Christmas pressie! Watch this space for progress. My last little diptych has been selected for a show in Halifax in March under the title ‘Landscape and Seascape’ . I will let you know more in future blog posts!,

I went to this little cafe in Didsbury Manchester the other day. I made a little fine liner sketch whilst I was waiting for my order. The cafe has been there for a long while I think, but I have only just found it now that my son and his wife and baby have moved near there. It has a great atmosphere and I love all the books and wood. You can sense all the conversations that have happened and feel all those going on around you. It is the first time I’ve wanted to draw over the Christmas period. I find it all such a strange holiday and feel almost in suspended animation with regard to my own work. That feeling is receding now, which I am grateful for! I have stretched up a little dyp-tych with canvas and now have the right dyes to begin. So onward and upward again!