People ask me why I take so many photographs, I know they get fed up with me constantly clicking away with my camera or my phone but the reality is that they are my memory rather than my inspiration.

Nowadays without the discipline of work or maybe with the advancing of years my memory is rubbish so the photographs act as a reminder for when I write my blog.  I do not always record the events of a day on the actual day - I do try to sit down in the evening and do it but god forbid if there is some sport on as John insists that my laptop and the blog 'sucks the life out of the bandwidth' - I am not convinced but he always feels vindicated when I switch off and any buffering ceases.  My view is that there is too much sport on television and just at the time I want to sit down and record my diary!!

Anyway in terms of the blog if all else fails I can fill it with cute pictures of the cats.  Our cats are in love with the Christmas blinkies which we bought for ourselves (not them) and today Chivers got himself all wrapped up and cosy and stayed there all day.  This is most unusual for him so it must have been exceptionally cold in the conservatory because normally he likes to be out there keeping cool.  Fatso and Boo snuggled up together although if Fatso had stretch out Boo would have been in danger of falling over the edge of the sofa.  Fatso has got enormous - I cannot believe I was worried about him in the summer because he lost so much weight but he is eating constantly with no sign of having worms and his coat has doubled in size.

So at art today I have finally finished my picture of the hydrangea heads in a glass vase.  I haven't done a picture of flowers since the first couple of pictures I did with Sheila when I first started all those years ago.

My style has changed and I think my technique has improved but if I look closely at the clematis picture which I did without really knowing anything about pastel pencils I didn't do a bad job for a beginner.

Both Sheila and I finished our respective pictures this morning.  Sheila has chosen to do a picture of an owl for her next project and I want to do another picture of flowers in a glass vase so that I have two new pictures for the lounge wall to replace the clematis and the morning glory which are currently there.

This is my start - the background around the flowers which are in a glass vase sitting on some magazines.  This time the flowers are predominantly peonies in shades of pink so that should look nice on our lounge wall again no rush for this one as it is going to be for me.  I shall post updates of the progress - or lack of it!!!

Good to see Sheila and Klaus today and a nice lunch to warm me up after my hard work and gassing!!!!

John picked me up so we could go and do some food shopping - apart from Ladies Lunch on Wednesday we are in all week at the moment - I have invited Diana, Susan, Sonia and Elaine for tea on Thursday - I will need to be more precise in future as Sonia thought I meant a cuppa and a sticky as did Diana!  I shall have to refer to it as supper in future to avoid any confusion but as we are eating early supper to me always seems like a meal you would eat much later!

Not sure yet what we will be having but it will be a voyage of discovery over three courses - I hope they enjoy!