Friday 27th February

I forgot to mention last week that I had a demo/workshop on Monday. It was for The Howick Art Group, 10 minutes up the road, and a group I hadn't worked with before.  It had been requested by one member, who is also a member of The Acklington Art Group who I demo'd for the other week. 

Howick village Hall is a nice venue but a little like something from the 50's. The walls are covered in black & white photos of old Howick and wartime Howick. The village is part of The Howick Estate, just up the road, owned by Earl and Lady Grey (as in the tea).

15 members came along, none who live in Howick, ( hardly anyone does). As usual they were a friendly, enthusiastic bunch who made me very welcome. They had requested a coastal landscape in acrylics.  It seemed appropriate to paint Dunstanburgh Castle and Embleton Bay as it is so close. This is a subject I can do with my eyes closed but I wanted to keep it lively and loose. I painted in stages like I did at Acklington and they painted along using various media including oils, acrylics and watercolour.  They all seemed to enjoy it and learned something.  I posted the group with their paintings earlier on Facebook, minus a few who had to leave early. I'm quite happy with my painting and enjoyed seeing their enthusiastic efforts. They asked me to return, which is always a good sign. As usual, it's great to be involved with these groups who are just painting for their own pleasure and sharing their enthusiasm. We did have an amusing interlude when we all smelled what we thought was electrical burning but which turned out to be one members old, cheap acrylic paint. It was hard to believe that paint could smell that bad!

On my return I still had time to work on my huge woodland painting. I continued on Tuesday and finally finished it (see pic).

Thanks to all who left kind comments regarding our house news. I promised I would provide more details and so I will. We've been looking at houses for a while now. It may seem a little strange to people who know where we live and would imagine it is an idyllic location with proximity to the beach and the sea. We have a large garden which borders onto woodland and views across Embleton Bay. It is surrounded by farmland and Embleton is a nice village a mile up the road with a garage, shop, pub and hotel and in a perfect location for exploring the Northumberland coast. 

However, having rented here for 13 years, we were getting more unhappy with the house and especially my studio, which was a major attraction of moving here originally.  The Landlord who we have not seen in 13 years, was obviously not keen to invest any significant funds into maintaining the property despite frequent requests to do so. We currently have 13 year old carpets which were cheap in the first place and had been ruined when the central heating was installed. We have water coming in again through the the front wall causing the plaster to fall off and damp to spread. We have damp across the back living room wall also. Our bedroom windows don't shut properly and I have had to tape them up to prevent the wind whistling in. None of the downstairs interior doors close. The garage door doesn't fit with an inch gap underneath letting water and wind into the garage, which we use for storage. The whole house needs totally re-rendering. The boiler is temperamental and isn't annually serviced. We have had some improvements done. Central heating was installed after a freezing first year, a new kitchen after damp, mould, doors falling off and mice drove us to demand one. A new front gate after it had fallen to pieces. Odd essential jobs like boiler repairs and leaking guttering and tiles on the roof have been done but we could never spend a lot of money on other things because we'd just be spending it for someone elses property.  We've constantly had vermin. Rats in the garden, mice in the house and studio and the weasels that killed our rabbit, guinea-pig and chickens (all part of country living perhaps). We've had to stop feeding the birds which saddened us greatly as we always had a huge variety in the gardens. Watching rats sitting in the trees eating from the feeders was a final straw!!

We've had many issues with increasing tourist traffic and parking on our narrow lane in holiday season and which with any snow and ice is lethal and impossible to get out on. Then there's my studio!! I have documented several episodes with my roof. Constant storms have damaged it regularly. Only now with my second giant tarpaulin is it watertight from above. The original structure was built of OSB not designed for exposure to all elements. It is now so rotten that you can poke your finger through it and could collapse anytime. Although we insulated it when we moved here, with the huge pitched roof it can be freezing in winter and boiling in summer (the windows can't be opened). It has mice constantly running around in the roof which I have covered in plastic to prevent mice urine and faeces falling on me and my paintings. There are gaps and I often have to clean paintings that have been "dripped" on. They also venture down onto lower surfaces and leave droppings everywhere. Because the studio is rotten, the stored paintings often get black mould on them. I have done all I can to prevent damage, my watercolour paper is now all secured in portfolios and paintings where possible wrapped and boxed but it's a constant struggle. We've talked about building a new studio but it would be a big expense and would not be ours. Natasha now refuses to go in there and despairs at my daily working environment.

Despite all this, we have been very happy here for many years. It's a wonderful place to live but Natasha had finally had enough, we both had. We needed to find somewhere no further away from her work in Berwick and no further for Dylan to get to the train station in Alnmouth. A fairly narrow field. Also we realised it would probably not be on the coast as house prices are hefty. Our new house is in a tiny village but was built in the mid 2000’s and is relatively modern and doesn’t need much internal work (some kitchen alterations, a new en-suite shower cubicle and some fitted wardrobes in our dormer bedroom). It is inland but only a little with access to Embleton,  Seahouses, Beadnell, Craster and Alnwick within a 15 minute car ride and the A1 in 2 minutes.

The house is a 3 bedroom dormer bungalow with one of the bedrooms and the bathroom downstairs. This will mean, for the first time, Alice will be able to stay with us when she visits. The downstairs bedroom will be a multi use room with a bed settee, desk for Natasha and Dylan, library for all my book shelves and even possibly have room for my indoor drawing table. It has a good sized kitchen, the largest I've ever had, a good sized living room with an open fire and attached "garden room"  which is half glass and we can use as a dining room. It has a manageable sized front garden which will need to be fenced with a rear entrance. The front of the house is currently a large driveway. We have had to compromise on our list of criteria.  There is currently no outside storage and no garage. So what about a studio? Whilst still leaving room for 3 or 4 cars there is enough space to build a studio and a large storage shed. This will be an interesting project which I will blog about later. I have already researched studios and think I can fit a 7m x3m studio which has an end workshop (for my studio storage and framing stuff). It will need electrics and insulation (the house already has outside electrics). It is roughly the same size as my current studio but without the huge pitched roof. I will need to clear some grass borders but we think there is room for a shed as well for all the garden stuff, plus other stuff. We will need a big clear out here, especially in my studio, sheds, garage and yes, the house. We hope to get all this done before we move as we can still live here until we're ready to move. I will, of course need help but I know a few handy people and I think I've already got the kitchen, wardrobes and fencing sorted.

Unfortunately we won't have room on site for "George" but we are looking at several places round here where we can store him.

Until we own the house, we, of course, can't start anything. The sale is going through the conveyancing process and so we're trying to park it until after our big Caribbean holiday. 

In order to de-clutter my life, I think I will do a "closing down sale" in my studio. I can post work I won't have room for on social media at "closing down sale" prices,  similar to the one I did a few years ago. I will advertise this well in advance, so watch this space…

This will be an big thing for us. A change of location, lifestyle and new routines. We have met a couple of the neighbours and they seem nice. We obviously won't have the same relationship as we have with Martin and Sheena (who are also moving into Embleton) but we're not far away.

Apologies for the length of this blog or if it's boring but people keep asking about "the move". I will update on developments as they happen especially the studio situation.