This is where I left you last time, with the buttercream hedgehog cake image.  This cake has been baked and tested on 3 occasions, all that needs to be done now is for me to illustrate it!

As this blog is about how a creative life can also hamper the writing of a book, here is today's reason.
For the first time since July, I have spent time today in my shed actually painting one of my own pictures.  It has been so long since this had happened that when I went to put on my working clogs, I had to remove a spider from the outside of one of them, and the inside of another.

Why the long gap?  Well in June I was asked to paint a mural for a cafe.  This was a very exciting proposition, made a little less so when I saw the cafe.  It was a large transport cafe in a lay-by, on the way to Bognor Regis.  And, the mural was to be on the outside. (More about inside cafe murals another time)

As the summer holidays are always a busy time, I planned to start painting in September.  So, since then, on the days when I am not washing spinach and pots and pans and other small jobs, whenever the weather has been fine I have been driving the 9.8 miles to the 'Oasis Cafe'. Arriving there with the aim of transforming it into more of an Oasis.  So today, as the job is nearing completion, I was somewhat pleased to see that rain stopped one kind of play, but also let me do the play I love best (but again not creating any book illustrations, just a dragon painting for Sam)

Pictured above is the cafe before any painting.  Not a very cheery prospect, but wait to see what happens!