I’m at an age when a birthday cake creates a major fire hazard. I suppose one of those Asda caterpillar birthday logs might be safer than a speciality Dundee with brandy, but perhaps neither is worth the risk. So it’s no candles for me day.

On top of this I haven’t drawn anything for well over a week, which is a bit bothersome, so am delving into the archives for suitable images for this week. Delving, lovely word. Reason for no drawings is that everything has been in cardboard boxes whilst we move just a mile or more up the road to our new house. We’ve been here for a few days now and I have painters shoulder from the initial decorating.

I’ve painted a lot of houses over the years and this is another to add to the ‘painted house portfolio’, but these paintings don’t appear in a frame.

Amazingly strong but small removal men ( more like boys really ) moved everything for us. The sight of them lifting a large plans chest full of paper was really something but even they could not manage our tree on the day. Potted two houses ago, it sat at the front of the last house and had grown a tad in the 14 months that we’d been there. They came back with a special truck to move it to us a few days later, two new removal people and this time one of them a woman/girl! Strongest girl I’ve met for many a year, and the first ever removal woman I’ve ever met.

So I have big plans now to get back to drawing. Starting tomorrow. I’m also looking to add to my artists group of prints right here and as we head to Christmas I’m getting together a few pieces of work for an exhibition in Manchester in January with fellow former students of Manchester College of Art and Design as it was then in the 1960s! There you have it: the real reason why my birthday candles present such a hazard.

Anyone still awake out there?

Did you know that cows sleep standing up? This drawing posted some time ago, is one of my most visited posts! Search me why.