It's very quiet and peaceful here at the moment. I've just come back from Belfast. Florence and the Machine were playing last night with the Temper Trap supporting. How good does it get! So myself and my mate Jane booked some flights, waved goodbye to the responsibilites and skipped merrily down the aisle to board our lovely Ryanair flight. I think we both felt like a couple of school kids, giggly and full of excited expectation. We had a great time, hanging out, doing what we wanted when we wanted. I could get used to that life alright. And here I am now, no-one home, it's dark and wet outside and the fun has come to an end...for now, not forever. I feel so relaxed. Why don't I do this more often.

Foy's playing tomorrow night in Union Chapel in London. Three gigs in the space of a few days..how good. I find live music so inspiring. Maybe when I get back into my studio, I'll be all fired up to do some vibey, interesting work. Music and art go hand in hand for me. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people. It has the ability to totally transform my thinking and therefore my approach to my work, particularly when I'm painting. I could be mechanically going through the motions and a great song will come on and something clicks inside and I'm off like a greyhound. Paint being slapped on with speed and precision. Check it out!! Maybe I should give go-carting a try. I can just picture it now, the commentators at Brands Hatch watching on in disbelief as I roar past them. "Well, folks, this newcomer is one to watch out for. She certainly is showing great strengths here today. Just watch how she handles that go-cart, with such speed and precision".

As I was saying, music is hugely inspirational for me, so whatever works, that's what I say.

Tis the seaason to be jolly!

Fa lah lah lah lahhhhh, lah-lah lah lah. Tomorrow is the first of December and not a pick of work done in this house. Everyone is ill and I'm like Florence Nightingale, doing the rounds, checking in that they're still alive and so forth. It's depressing. I want to be in my studio working but to no avail unfortunately. It's the big count down to Christmas now. Ella's still not convinced with the idea to make our own christmas presents. I think it's a great one, a bit like Blue Peter. Make your own Wii with a cornflake box, double-sided sticky tape and some tin foil. Hey presto. It does bugger all, but the sense of achievement....priceless. I do love and hate this time of year simultaneously. I love the excitement, the buzz, the lights, the anticipation, but I despise the consumer pressure to buy this, get the next best thing, don't miss out, buy two get one free offers that stun, baffle, confuse and manipulate us. Inevitably, I end up doing a sort of Captain Caveman thing, spinning like a mini tornado from one aisle to the next in the vain hope that I'll see the perfect present for Foy, Ella and the other hopefuls in....30 seconds? Not a hope my lovelies.

What I do love is hanging out with friends, having good food, wine, conversation, not forgetting the selection of cheeses. Christmas time is the only time when I indulge my weakness for cheese. We're not talking a a few crackers worth here, I mean slabs of the stuff. Twelve months worth of it in a few days. It has to be accompanied by some chutney and a glass of vintage port. Yum, yum. I do go a bit mad it has to be said, but I just can't help myself. I do succumb to the crumb(ly blue stilton).

So all ye festive folks, I'm off to deck the halls with boughs of holly and don some gay apparel. Oooo er Mrs.

Woe is me

Never did get that bear skin, now I'm sick!! Boo-hoo.

Brrr, brr, brrrrrr

It's mighty cold in my studio today. Fingers slightly numb, nose red and on the verge of running, toes...dead I think. I may have to lop them off and chuck them, mmm, that's going to prove difficult when I head to the Loft Party in Dec for a spot of dancing. No toes, just stumps for feet. I'll never manage it. Can you purchase prosthetic toes? Anyone, anyone......nope, okay, I'll leave the toes then. Layering, now that's a key word at this time of year, especially in this house. It's too expensive to have the heat on all day, and it's too dangerous to kill and skin a bear, not that I'm into fur, but for the sake of animal rights arguments, let's just imagine that it was cool to do such a thing. How'd you go about it eh? What do the eskimos do in such times when they're absolutely baltic and feel like abandoning life and curling up in their nice cosy igloos? I could learn a thing or too about temperature extremes from those boys. At least I have a roof over my head....count your blessings as they say, one by one. I could just bore the bear to death, maybe put on a few Jim Reeves numbers or Val Doonigan, that would do the trick. He'd be driven to sleep by the sheer tedium wafting out of my ipod. I'd seize my opportunity, unzip his fur coat and do an runner. That'll learn you, you big overgrown teddy.
Ahhh..delirium is setting in now. Must work, must do something creative that involves cardiovascular activity. I need heat!

Listen to this!

If you're wanting a little light relief, listen to this....it's priceless. It's Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey performed by a school orchestra.

What are you doing?

What are you doing, right now, apart from reading this? I recommend you take about 30 seconds, stop what you're doing, and breathe in, a good deep breath. Concentrate on the beginning of the breath, the ending and most importantly, the space in between. Do that 3 times (minimum) and see if you can stretch the spaces in between, but not too much that it's uncomfortable. Now open your eyes. Has anything changed? I mean, do you feel like you're present where you are, observing your surroundings with new intensity. No love, what the hell are you spouting on about! If that's what you're thinking then I reckon your mind was all over the place and you found it almost impossible to reign those thoughts in. It is difficult, especially if you're standing on the tube, breathing into some big sweaty blokes armpit. It's takes a bloody great imagination to escape that one. Phew! But, and it is a very achievable but, it is possible and something I think we all should do occasionally, like pelvic floors, for those of you who've had kids. You're supposed to remember to do them, but days pass by and it's not until you're running about like a mad woman after your kids and you nearly wee yourself that it suddenly dawns on you, I need to do my pelvic floors! Well, I prescribe a dose of breathing, 3 times a day for the next....forever. It's all about the NOW baby, living in the present moment. I think I've gone on about this before, but I truly believe in it. We can't live in the present, we shouldn't be limited by our past, but we can fully embrace and be present in the now. As the wise Tolle said "you can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future - nor do you have to. The answer, the strength, the right action, or the source will be there when you need it, not before, not after".

I've found this very helpful when it comes to being creative. I simply follow the exercise, open my eyes and the creative ideas come spilling out of me like some sort of burst dam. No, not really, but it does help to clear the mind, focus you, and I suppose it makes sense that when the environment is right for creativity, it will flow naturally. There you go, problems solved.

Some new work

I think I promised I'd upload some of the new paintings I did for the show in Aberfeldy, so I'd better keep my work eh!

They're all based on family. The first one is called 'Portrush'. From left to right, the leg with the red and blue socks belongs to my brother, then me, my cousin Jill with the scrunched up face and the little girl in the dark blue dungarees is Jill's sister Lindsay. The mini in the background is my Mum's. I have such fond memories of those days, down at the caravan park for a couple of weeks during the summer. Those were the days when the sun shone in Northern Ireland. We'd have the run of the caravan park, making friends and buying 5p ice-pops. Then chips in the evening with half a litre of vinegar and some salt. Then getting our teeth brushed and heading off to our bunk-beds at the back of the caravan. We'd be calling out to each other in true Waltons style, "good-night John-boy","good-night Mary Ellen", "good-night Jim Bob". I mean, who calls their kid Jim Bob? And that's how we'd fall asleep, annoying the life out our parents, doing their heads in with our constant call and respond. That was when life was simple. The only tough decisions you had to make were, how many rides were you going to go on in Barry's (the highlight of Portrush), was it the hobbie horses, the cyclone, the big dipper or the helter skelter, what shell necklace were you going to buy and what flavour of 99 were you going to devour after nearly throwing up on the mini rollercoaster. Ah, those were the days alright.

The second piece is of Foy with his dog Classy. I don't know much about this, but the colours and the composition of the old photograph intrigued me. I'm doing a much larger version of this but with a more sinister twist.

The third painting is called 'Granny Dickey'. It's my cousin Lisa, me, Jon-Paul Lisa's brother and Peter my bro. We look part of the fabric of Granny's skirt, gathering all her wee hens into herself for safety. That's kind of how she was, very nuturing, caring and made the best damn soda bread I've ever tasted. We'd get up on a Saturday morning to the smell of it cooking on the griddle. It had barely time to cool down before we were grabbing the big floury triangles, slicing them open and smearing them with butter, an inch thick. Then straight into our mouths, butter and flour coating our chins, our pjs, the floor, ohh, I'm salivating at the thought. I have inherited said griddle, but as yet have not braved the soda creating. I do rustle up a good pancake or 12 on a Saturday morning, which Ella then annihilates. I look on with pride whilst eating my cracker bread, and patting my tummy, "no love, you go ahead, I'm full up". She's in right up to the elbows, maple syrup all over the place, leaving sticky traces everywhere. Ah but sure it's worth it to see their wee faces happy and their mouths so full that wee bits start falling out as they say "get me a drink"! Kids, who'd have them!