WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER!

It's been one of those summers! First of all, I spent a week in hospital just when the weather was at its nicest. The medication I'm on for severe arthritis also lowers my immune system, so unfortunately, I'm prone to infections and have to watch out for any little symptoms. On this occasion the NHS came up trumps, my GP came out to the house, the ambulance arrived within half an hour and I was admitted to our local hospital with a raging fever and a lot of other symptoms too nasty to go into here! I had intravenous antibiotics for a week and - eventually - was on the mend. But it took me a while to get back to work after that.

I came back home to the realisation that our house needed some serious building work, focused on the bathroom - and that, almost completed now, took up many more weeks of disruption while people tore the place apart. So - it's quite surprising that I've managed to do some work in the shape of some new painting, but I have. I've also very slowly but surely restored an old Victorian rocking horse - an Ayres horse - and these were the best rocking horses around. Photos to follow very soon.