I do a weekly art class on a Tuesday night, its my saviour of the week, my two hours to empty my head of children, husband, life and go and do something that I really enjoy, its just for me, and I go come hell or high water, NOTHING gets in the way of me and my 2 hours of complete and utter creative bliss, well actually that isn’t true my husband was once late home and so i couldn’t go but trust me when I say he WONT be making that mistake again.

I am a complete novice at ‘Art’ in a formal way although for years I have dabbled in different types of painting and drawing, all pretty lame and mostly very forgettable but all equally enjoyable to me. I didnt take Art at school as one of my choices as I thought I couldnt do it, ie there was always someone better at it than me in the class so that meant it was pointless doing it if you cant be the best… a ridiculous attitude that has stopped me from doing so much that I enjoy… til now.

So I was in the butchers of all places, and i picked up a leaflet he had on the top of his fridge that was offering art classes from a prolific local artist, and I picked up my phone in the butchers and registered for it knowing full well if I went home then i would talk myself out of it. Its categorically been one of the better decisions I have made as its now so important to me.

My teacher Keith Parkinson is a archetypal artist, you would look at him and think ‘artist’ immediately, all shaggy haired and passionate about his art, as we all shuffled in the first week I realised I was a) the youngest, b) the least experienced and c) the most eager to be there, they were mainly all of pensionable age or thereabouts and mixed abilities. As we got cracking and introduced ourselves and expressed why we were there, I filled up with tears (not unusual for me) and I expressed how I wanted to do something just for me, and I finally didn’t care if I was rubbish at it, I just wanted to try, it was really liberating, accepting that I might be the most rubbish person in the room and that didn’t matter

I have learnt some amazing things from this class and whilst I will never be fantastic I am now at a stage where I can create something and appreciate it rather than just thinking its rubbish, or what I didn’t like about it, and that’s HUGE for me. I feel excited about using my skills down in Wales this coming year and out and about in general. This week was the first week of the much anticipated ‘portraits’  block of classes, something which I think is all our nemesis in the class, so he handed out pics of Twiggy, Gordon Ramsay, and John Lennon, as I foolishly thought that Gordon has such a recognisable face that I might be able to make it look like him even if it was dross…. I was wrong, Keith gave us an amazing tutorial in how and where to start, a grid pattern to work to and it should have been a piece of cake.. but it wasn’t it was my kryptonite… Gordon looked horrific and in need of Botox more than ever before, I don’t think he will be using it for his next autobiography put it that way…

Next week is self portraits, so am banking on losing 5 stone, having a face lift, time for a fake tan and new wardrobe and face in time for next week.. I told the class that next week they wont recognise me as I will have that much ‘slap’ on that I will be looking more like Ivana Trump…I cant bear to look at myself in a mirror on my better days so the thought of staring at myself for 2 hours is pretty daunting.. am thinking of going all modern art and making myself into a lemon or something else unrecognisable.

Back to real life with a bump, today the new nanny started, a truly lovely girl, who appears to have the patience I used to have 18 or so long years ago, we picked up Funny Miss from school who was proudly telling anyone who would listen that she had a ‘new person’ meaning the nanny, the teacher asked me what a ‘new person was?’ and I duly introduced Sonya.. the teacher replied Funny Miss talks about the ‘new person’ as if she is her personal slave…hmm  probably need to have a chat with Funny Miss about that… only I hold the personal slave job description methinks.

Little Miss, Funny Miss and Oldest Miss seemed to take to her straight away leaving me now free to enter the world of grown up work, actually earning a living again and not just faffing about. The extra money will be most grateful for sure, as will the satisfaction i know I can get from contributing financially to my family, self respect, not to mention the ability to have holidays again… now where is the credit card again…?

Just to finish .. a typical conversation in our house is around the central heating – our bill rivals the National Debt of a 3rd World country and so my other half is forever on a mission turning down the heating and replacing our gas fire with a wood burner, turning off lights etc etc… so today he rings up the gas company to see if his penny pinching ways have paid off.. to be rewarded with a new bill that is HALF yes HALF our last bill, he is so excited he bounces round like Tigger.. I on the other hand just remember the cold feet, the cold noses, the extra jumpers and the draft whistling through the doors, as I walk in tonight he says ‘I still cant believe that bill’… I wander upstairs to find all our children sleeping in pj’s dressing gowns, 2 pairs of socks and one of them still shivering.. surely there has to be a happy medium.. tight wad

Oh and I should probably plug the facebook group page for he blog, if you ‘join’ you will automatically get the latest blog without relying on me to upload it.. lets face it most days I cant even remember my own name let alone remember to upload a blog http://www.facebook.com/?filter=nf#/group.php?gid=247889836495&ref=search&sid=668735150.788195374..1