We have just returned from a wonderful weeks holiday in the lake District with friends. We had an absolutely wonderful and relaxing time – apart from being tired walking up hills and down dales, it was really lovely to take a break from the studio for a week.

I have added a selection of photos from our trip at the link below, just click on the photos below and it will take you to a more detailed page of what we did and some lovely photos. Sit back and admire the views as they are stunning. Its definitely somewhere I will return to, I felt an affinity with Cumbria, more than I ever have with anywhere else we have visited. It is no wonder Beatrix Potter held it so dearly to her heart.

I have finally got around to updating Toms webpage and have added some lovely video clips of him and updated the text. I also wanted to blog about a wonderful illustrated poem Jon and Moon wrote for us all about Tom, and the illustration is wonderful. GO and have a look at this page here – Toms Webpage as it really is lovely. Thank you Jon and Moon : )  As you can see form the photo below Tom is very happy and is certainly enjoying life now. I hope you enjoy the updates I have made to his page and I will add more photos and videos as soon as I can.

We have taken a week off of work and travelled 800 miles on a bit of a tour to visit family around the UK. The last stop was to visit our little niece and nephew who were staying in Cornwall. We had a lovely time, took them to the cinema to watch the animated film ‘How to tame your Dragon‘ which was fantastic, the kids loved it and I think we enjoyed it as much as they did. The animation was superb. We also took them for an afternoon on the beach in the rock pools which was lovely, the sunshine was warm and they enjoyed themselves loads.

Toms getting on well, he’s been with us three weeks today and is much more settled and happy, and we are happier too, as we are getting to understand him, finding out what he understands and what he needs to be taught.

He has learnt a lot already and I have moved on from getting him to sit and wait when I put food down, to sit, lay down, wait and I can now put the bowl on the floor and move away before giving the command to eat. When I give the command he skids across the kitchen floor! We have him on a new food now too which has been recommended to us, Nature Diet which is full of goodness and protein, no nasties in it whatsoever, and I think its filling him up a little more. He is still having some biscuits along with it and I think he’s put on a little weight this week which is good news and he doesn’t seem as ravenously hungry as when he first arrived. I have added a few more photos in his slideshow, just click on the picture below : )

Just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know why its been quiet on the blog these last few days. I have had a bug and have been unwell over the weekend, and just getting back on my feet. The bug seems to be sweeping the UK fortunately Nick didn’t get it but we know so many people who have so I hope you are all keeping well. I have started blocking in the cat portraits and will post them hopefully tomorrow.

Id like to introduce you to our new rescue dog Called Tom! He is a one year old Sheltie x  (collie we think) and is just over a year old. We have had him six days so far and they have been pretty eventful for both him and us.  He is an angel in the house, he is very gentle and polite and I have added a page on our about us section of the website which you can get to by clicking the images below. There you can read about where we rescued him and how he ended up with us.

We are pretty tired at the moment as we are getting up in the night with toilet training but hopefully he will gradually get into a routine. He has settled in well, and at this precise moment while writing, he is laying in the studio chewing his rawhide chew very happily – one of the many new things we have taught him. We have introduced him to toys – he didn’t know how to play, we took him to the beach and we don’t think he has been to a beach before and now absolutely loves the water…and he knows what a hose is in the garden and we have some great footage of him chasing the water from the hose.

We hope that he will develop into a lovely dog, he has a superb nature already and so its wonderful to work with him, he needs a lot of training but we  have a superb trainer friend in Scotland at the end of the phone k9  harmony who will be helping us through the difficult areas.

I will add more updates of Toms progress as the weeks go by and will add more photos to his page too.

Having lost our cat last week, plus working a lot since January we felt that we needed a short break to recharge our batteries. We got a late deal at a lovely cottage in mid Wales called Rhiwson Uchaf and you can read all about it and see some photos by clicking on the pictures below.

We have had to say our final goodbyes to Amram, the time came for us to make the decision to let him go, we think he was about 13. It was a very difficult and we know that we were so lucky to have him this long as we thought we were going to loose him last year. You can read in this blog post last April, he had quite a few trips to the vet and came very close to not being with us, but he pulled through unexpectedly. He was a strong little thing. The illness took its toll though and he had difficulty breathing towards the end, he slowed down an awful lot, although we did see him catch his last mouse at Christmas!

You can see him in the picture below, we spoilt him at Christmas and he enjoyed his treats and toys, our neighbour bought the ones you can see in the photo and he loved them. He was always an opportunist, he was always on the look out for what else he could have…particularly while our backs were turned! The photo below shows him at Christmas keeping a watchful eye over the turkey on the worktop! We have so many funny stories of his antics and so many things that make us smile. Many times we grumbled his name under our breath, he’s got into a lot of mischief over the years, but we always smile about it as he was a clever little cat, he never missed a trick!

He was the prettiest cat we have ever owned, many people thought he was a little girl he was so pretty…particularly as I gave him a nice pink collar and tag with mice on : ) We feel privileged to have been able to share our lives with him for the last 5 years and he is now resting underneath the fruit trees at the bottom of the garden. We will never forget our Amram.

This is just a quick post to show you the drifts of snow. Our road has actually been dug out with big digger / snow ploughs – one of which got stuck and had to be pulled out by a jcb! These photos are the two lanes going off of our road, you can see one has been dug out as there are two farms down there but the other has just been left. I would imagine there’s at least 3 to 4 foot of snow in places on the road itself where its drifted.

Happy Halloween to Everyone! We have carved pumkins this year as usual, its one of my favourite things to do this time of year and I never seem to grow out of it, im a big kid at heart! I love to roast the pumpkin seeds too. Its something that we don’t take too seriously and have a bit of fun, along with some food and wine. Chocolate fondue always goes down a treat! Heres some photos of our pumpkins and fire. Cosy!