Sitting Elephant, Dangling Monkey

Here's a typical scene when I am out and about with the buggy :D 

In addition to the sitting elephant and the dangling fidgety monkey, the buggy is usually weighed down by the heaviest fruit and veg I can find at the market, e.g. half a watermelon, 10 oranges, 10 apples, a cabbage, etc. 

To enhance the whole pleasurable experience, the elephant and monkey take it in turns to make sure I am never bored or idle by constantly letting me know how they are doing.

Library Love

Bedford Library rocks! Whoever is in charge of the children's books department, I thank you! We've come across some real gems which both kids and grown ups have loved and enjoyed. 

From my latest visit:

"Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise" by Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien and "All Mine!" by Zehra Hicks had us all laughing. Both featuring comical birds, the graphic simplicity conveys the humour really well.

"Albert's Tree" by Jenni Desmond. I'm a big fan of Jenni Desmond's work and in this book, I love how she balances realistic observations with her own style of illustration. Beautiful!

"Ossiri and the Bala Mengro" by Richard O'Neill & Katharine Quarmby and Hannah Tolson is a charmingly illustrated tale about a Traveller girl and an ogre. A fascinating introduction to Romani culture.

The last book is "Pierre The Maze Detective" by Chihiro Maruyama, Hiro Kamigaki and IC4DESIGN. We actually ended up buying this book after coming across it at the library a while back. It's AMAZING!! Visually stunning, with a narrative and a maze challenge on each spread, it works on many levels. We love it :)

So between the library and Rogan's Books, Bedford kids (and me) have got it pretty good, yay!

A River

It's been over a month since my last post, oops.

With 2 little boys to look after throughout the summer, I've had very little time or space in my head for much else, but now that the new school year has begun I can start thinking about arty things for me again, yippeeee!

It's so nice to feel those parts of my brain starting to work again.

It's taking a while to switch it all back on though. I want to be productive but end up in a bit of a flap and a panic not knowing where to start and feel like I've wasted my precious hour or so of free time. Today I actually managed to cut and stick down some bits of paper (it's only taken me close to 2 weeks!) so am feeling much better. Hopefully I will have something new to show soon :)

In the meantime, here is a beautiful book I treated myself to. I've been eyeing it up for ages and finally it is MINE! I spotted "A River" by Marc Martin at Rogan's Books a while ago and have been waiting waiting waiting till I got paid to go and get it. Each page is a thing of beauty! I love the colour palette, the detail, the variety, the mood...very inspiring indeed!