Forget the big fuss about Obama, here's the real news:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/4303450/Stig-mystery-reignited-amid-claims-he-is-played-by-four-actors.html



The garden desperately needs weeding, and several shurbs need cutting back before spring starts. Otherwise the place will be a jungle even before summer inevitably makes this garden grow inches by the day... the ground's so wet, though, and Incy Wincy (pic above) and his/her buddies don't make it any easier. Those pesky things bite.





Here's a couple of Richard's recent creations; the last one was done on two brothers were were heading off to Iraq to fight.

Some of Richard's recent work:-




Writing

Yesterday saw me in a meeting to make preliminary plans for Riverside Writers’ contribution to the Wirral Bookfest 2009. Last April I only managed to book Words from Wordsmiths at the last minute—quite literally, too; the information was waiting to be dispatched to the printer’s as I was speaking to the organiser. This time around, we’re booked in from the very start which should mean our event won’t clash with any similar event elsewhere.

Provisionally:-

Tuesday, April 21st; Hoylake Library, 11am-12.30.
"Kill Your Darlings!"
A free writers' workshop on developing fictional characters, led by yours truly.

Thursday, April 23rd; West Kirby Library, 7pm-9pm.
"New Tales for Old Byways"
Wirral life explored through original poetry and prose created by Riverside Writers. Horror, humour and beauty - sustained with cheese and wine! Visit their website: http://www.myspace.com/riversidewriters.

Gardening

The storms damaged our robinia tree, splitting a “y” shaped branch down the centre, right down to the main trunk. Richard sawed off the loose section before he headed off to the studio, but this weekend we’ll have to remove the entire branch. The robinia, or false acacia, is one of my favourite trees. It has pretty round leaves which turn bright gold in autumn.

Lurking in the bottom of our vegetable rack were twelve potatoes which had grown long sprouts. Rather than simply throw them out, I planted them in six deep pots. The pots were housing nothing but cobwebs, and I wanted to open up one of the compost bins anyway so I could move it. Whether the potatoes will grown many…well, potatoes (amazingly enough), time alone will tell, but it took little enough effort. Emily helped by burying her new squeaky, fluffy football in the freshly-opened up compost heap.

Earlier this year, Richard had planted climbing roses along one stretch of the trellis fence. These aren’t supposed to be pruned at all in their first year, but they’d grown the odd straggly stem so I tied these up with twine to stop them flapping around in the autumnal storms.

These photos show recent tattoos created by Richard. If you wish to see others, simply click on either image and you'll be whisked away to my Flickr photo hosting site, where oodles more can be seen in the Tattoo Studio set.

We spent part of the morning at Carr Lane Garden Centre, in Meols, where we bought six climbing roses of various sorts, plus one shrub rose to be planted on Poppy's grave. The climbers are for the long stretch of trellis fencing along the bottom of our garden. I fancied a large wind chime which had lovely deep boooiing! sounds - but wind chimes rapidly become wind clangs when the oceanic wind picks up around here!

Right - back to work for me... Toodle-pip!

Here are three of Richard's recent pieces. You can see more of the tattos which he's created at http://www.myspace.com/richie_tattoo_artist or in my photo site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/__adele__

Oow, the update box has changed shape. Why? The old one worked just fine...

Having spent quite some time painting the tattoo studio walls a rather contemporary shade of purple, Richard has now put shiny new floor tiles in the clinic area. The waiting area of the studio has been given new carpet, too. The results are very black and purple. Actually, it looks rather good. What do you think?

For more photos of the studio and of Richard's work, visit:- http://www.myspace.com/richie_tattoo_artist

This first photo was taken while standing in the waiting area, looking towards the clinic area.


This shows the waiting area.