happy halloween

Not sure how many more years of trick or treating I'll get. The eldest has already dumped us. So have two of my sister's kids. Might be just me and the dog next year....

naked spider

It's been a busy old week. I'm doing the Lilla Rogers 'Illustrating Children's Books' course (To give myself a kick up the arse.) (And life would be boring without piling on more stuff to do wouldn't it?) So on top of normal work and half term I've had to fit in a double page spread for a book that doesn't even exist. (I'll do a post at the end to show and tell...no time now...)
Anyway. One of the proper jobs I had to do in the real world was to draw a spider in a pumpkin suit. As you do. Not this one though. This one is naked. As nature intended. 

half term happiness

I'm far too busy-busy-busy to have the week off for half term. (So what's new, I bore myself sometimes 🙄)
But I did manage a full day off yesterday. The kiddos and I jetted off to the East Coast to meet my sis and her boys, who are holidaying in a rather special caravan for the week. We had a brill day. Particularly notable was the hour we hired a 2-seater and a 4-seater bike and raced around the caravan site. We used up a full week's laughs in just 60 minutes.
Also rather exciting is the fact that next time we see the sea it will be considerably warmer and viewed from the decks of a fancy cruise ship. 8 weeks + 6 days and counting......

all is well in the hood....

....Of course it's all very well having new tops and new boots to wear....but I work from home and don't see anyone apart from the kids and the other half all day. And frankly they wouldn't notice if I wore a carrier bag. So this morning when it was a choice of new clothes or the grey hoodie and yoga pants guess which won?
As it happened the other half obviously clocks more than I realised cos he got home and said, "I thought yoga was cancelled tonight?"

Hmm. Maybe I'll wear a frock tomorrow...

yellow

I went for my annual eye test on Friday. The optician's is in a shopping centre. There are other shops there. Nice shops. Selling clothes and stuff. 
I went for an eye test and came home with some new boots, two new tops, loads of fab halloween merch from Sainsers (designed by my design bestie Lizzie,) and a new coat. A YELLOW coat! A yellow puffa to be exact. I look like Little Miss Sunshine. Or a member of the RNLI.....

hello love

Two giraffes. 
In love. 
Just because.

I needed to draw something that didn't matter.
This was it.

Good night.

bedtime stress

Why do kids always leave it till the very last minute to sort stuff out? The youngest has had this homework report thing to do since last Tuesday. To be handed in on Monday morning. He finally did it on Sunday afternoon. It needed printing out. He decided that bedtime Sunday night would be the ideal time to do this. Just as Louis Theroux was coming on the telly. But the printer had other ideas. The printer decided to throw a diva strop. No amount of swearing, kicking, re-installing printer drivers, rebooting the wifi or plugging the damned thing in with an actual real life wire would convince the sodding thing that it was indeed connected. We had tears. We had book throwing. We had total googling meltdown. But it wouldn't print. And I missed most of Louis Theroux. 
He'll probably get expelled today 😐.

autumn grumpiness

It's now dark on a morning when my alarm goes off. So that's me moaning all the way through to April. Apologies in advance. Roll on half term for a lie in....

fetch

Our dog NEVER gets bored of fetching a ball. Sometimes I get a bit bored of chucking it though. Just saying.

autumn v spring

I like Autumn. But it's getting very flipping chilly and dark here in Yorkshire. We are on a one way road to Winter. That can only mean one thing: time to move to Australia for 6 months. I like Autumn. But I prefer Spring...

walkies

The eldest's friend, Alice, volunteers for the RSPCA. She roped us into a little dog walk to raise funds yesterday. We had to walk around the lake at Roundhay Park with a zillion other people and their canine friends. It's not far. About 4km. We've done it loads of times as a Sunday stroll. But the way the lovely volunteers clapped and cheered when we got  back to the finish line made us feel like we'd just won the London Marathon.
So that was nice.