Happy Birthday Nikki!

Phew!  Caught up with all my backblips at last!  They begin on Alan's birthday if you're bored and fancy a look!  :-))

Roll out the flags, sound the horns, today the ironing finally got done!

Since I got that out of the way, I treated myself to an afternoon of painting.  

I am taking a little break from painting birds and wanted to have a go at what I call "proper" watercolour painting, just paint with no doodling on top.  

My subject was a crop of large daisies taken from a photograph of a friend's garden.  I did a very loose attempt on a small piece of paper, just to test colours (wanted a limited palette too) and shapes, before having a go on a much larger and very lovely and expensive sheet of Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper.  

Of course I made a complete hash of that!  

Sigh.  

I have put it aside in the hope that fresh eyes and hands tomorrow will be able to rescue it to some extent, although I suspect I will end up doodling on it.  

That said, I've been waiting for an opportunity to try out pastels on top of watercolour, so this might be the very piece to give it a go on.  It might end up one of my favourites yet.  You never know positive thinking.....positive thinking....


In other news, the loo in our ensuite is broken.  

We are about to re-do the entire room but will need to get a temporary toilet to see us through till the work gets done.  This means when needing to powder one's nose in the middle of the night, one has to exit the bedroom, cross the landing to the front bedroom and access the enquire loo in there.  Not easy in the dark, with one eye open and legs crossed!   

Had a nightmare on Sunday night when I got up to powder said nose, and couldn't get our bedroom door open as I'd put hand cream on when I went to bed and the handle just kept sliding through my hand!  I may have shouted called David's name a little too loudly in my desperation, as he leapt out the bed as though he'd heard FIRE!!!  

We are now sleeping in the front bedroom till the loo situation is resolved.  It's hilarious.  I feel as though I'm on holiday!  :-))

It's Nikki's 30th Birthday today.  My blip is the practice painting I did for her birthday card.  I gave her main pressie to Ele when she was here at the weekend as I knew she'd see her today but unfortunately the photos and phonebook of Esme and Andrew haven't arrived yet.  My own fault.  I was far to late in organising the photo shoot with Andrew and Esme.  Oh well, it means she still has gifts to look forward to :-))