Friday 2 May 2014

Napril

So April has been a fairly nice month on the whole, but not a particularly good month visual diary wise. Lots of 'meh' days. But ho-hum, I've been doing this long enough now to be fairly optimistic that this doesn't mean it's all downhill from here, in terms of my creativity/motivation.

Without further ado...


I planted some seeds! This was very exciting and I was very optimistic but it's not gone entirely well. I planted some coriander, some basil and some giant red mustard leaves, but a month down the line, only the coriander has sprouted. I'm a bit sad, but not as sad as I would have been if NONE of them had grown, and coriander are the best of those anyway. I was very excited this morning because the coriander start off with rounded leaves, but just today they've started growing the first jaggedy coriander shaped leaves. YAY!


So excitingly, we had two wonderful dogs to stay with us for a couple of long weekends while their owner was away: Stompy and May. I love them very dearly but it was a tiring adventure. I am still dog broody but I think I am now only dog broody for ONE, SMALL dog which doesn't shed any hairs. Not too much to ask?
Anyway, I'm terrible at drawing dogs. Tried to practice. Sorry Stompy. This is really bad.


Here's what he actually looks like.


May got slightly better illustrative treatment.


Here's what May actually looks like, and OH HEY CHECK OUT THAT JAZZY OUTFIT I TOTALLY MADE FOR HER. (Well, technically made it for Jess her owner's 30th birthday present)


The second weekend we had dogs I was HOME ALONE, which I was quite stressed about beforehand, but in the end they were very good, and it was quite nice to have their company around the place.


So David has moved out, to live nearer his London job after growing grumpy with the commute. Sad to see him go, but onwards to shiny new JUSTIN! (Who hasn't actually moved in yet, he's joining us from tomorrow)
I am going to miss our late night Budgens trips and sneaky non-vegan chocolate munching.


The reason this visual diary is so rubbish and hurried is because I wasted too much time on Buzzfeed.


Look, I REALLY LIKE clean house, okay? And because of this, I actually quite enjoy a good, long, thorough clean. Unfortunately I live with someone who leaves a wake of clutter and grit in their wake, so this is a never ending mission/source of distress for me. (Maybe Alex would be grumpy with me for this description but I would draw his attention to the incident on this very day in which I had barely put away the hoover before he skipped out of the kitchen leaving a trail of floury footsteps across my freshly hoovered living room floor)


This may seem unremarkable but I'm quite pleased with this drawing because EVERYTHING IS CORRECT. I have no way of proving this, but trust me. This is how this particular corner of my room looks.


ON THE ROOF!
Rather excitingly we have some scaffolding on the side of the house at the moment, and that day we decided to climb out onto it through Alex's window and see all the houses from up high. It was great up there!


(My face went a bit weird in this one because the panorama function is a bit glitchy)

 
In the David/Justin changeover gap, we've had our friend Nat staying with us, which has been lovely. She got in on the bonus 'balcony' action.


This actually didn't end as badly as it might have done.


Ok, pardon my language, but this shit is FUCKED UP. Damn, nature.
Massive black aphid infestation. This drawing is not exaggerated.


Go on, look at that picture full size, I DARE you.
Now imagine an entire tree covered in those beasties. I started trying to hack great chunks off, whilst wearing a hat to avoid the showers of aphids, but it eventually became apparent that the tree was a write off so we BURNT IT DOWN. Well, we chopped it up and then burnt it, with the incredibly much appreciated help from our friend Anna, who deals with this stuff for a living and wasn't as spectacularly freaked out/terrified as we were.

Sadly the other elder tree in the garden now also appears to be infected, so that might have to meet a fiery death too. Which is a real pity as our garden looks a bit like an apocalyptic wasteland now.


Made these awesome leggings… More about that here!


Still terrible at drawing people but at least these people look like they're actually sitting at an actual table. Sort of.

Anyway. Onwards into May. Ridiculously busy bank holiday weekend lined up in which I try and do ALL OF THE THINGS. So wish me luck with that...