'A Festive Update!'

 Hi Everyone!

So, how is your Christmas shopping going? I'm doing pretty well with mine but there are always those 'hard to know what to get sorts' that seem to be the eternal puzzle!

I have been busy preparing for my appearance on the Jeff Belton Full English Breakfast Christmas Show on C.H. R. (Conquest Hospital Radio) and have found lots of fun and Christmassy records to play you on the 23rd! A side from the music, Jeff and I are also planning to perform during a 'Stritctly Cum Christmas' section, organise a Christmas yo-yoing competition and to battle it out live on the air playing a simple little game I have invented called 'Santa's Pop-A-Pod' game! Whatever happens it is going to be fun and the nearest thing you will get to the 'office party' this year so make sure you tune in between 9AM and12 midday on Dec 23rd!

A Daft Festive Painting Of Mine!

My reputation as a 'Christmas person' (or 'nutter') also got me an invite recently to put together a short, fun Christmas Quiz for Artsonprescriptions online Christmas zoom party on the 18th of December.  I had a lot of fun yesterday doing the research and compiling the quiz and am now looking forward to being 'Honourary Quizmaster'. With 20 multiple choice questions of mirth and madness to challenge and entertain my 'subjects' I hope to put plenty of smiles upon faces AND help teach everyone a few fun facts about Christmas in the bargain! I will most likely post these quiz questions here nearer to Christmas so that you can 'all have a go at home' -as dear old 'Brucie' used to say on the Generation Game! So keep your eyes peeled for that!

For all of the frivolity to come this Christmas isn't going to be the same as normal. My Christmas perpetually starts with the St Clements Church Christmas Fair in Hastings Old Town but that like many other seasonal events had to be cancelled this year. Still, all we can do this time around is try and think of the current restrictions as a 'challenge'. 

If there is indeed more than one way to skin a cat (though I've never understood why anyone would want to skin a cat in the first place? Maybe this folk lore comes from the time of witches and witchcraft?) then there HAS to be a plethora of new ways we can get into the festive spirit, hasn't there? I have certainly found one by joining up with the Artsonprescription team and getting creative! I am never going to be 'Picasso' but drawing and painting are relaxing and fun ways to pass the time when 'Mr Johnson' says that you have to 'Stay In, Wash Your Hands, Wear A Batman Mask and an inflatable Kermit Suit and Save Lives' (or something like that!). I have even 'taken the plunge' and bought a little wooden Christmas house I intend to paint from 'The Works' (£10 - a bit overpriced but HUGE Fun) so inspired I've been by learning all about 'the colour wheel' and 'impressionism'. I'm getting better at painting and can do a half decent Baron Greenback (from 'Dangermouse') impression as well though how Rory Bremner and his cohorts helped some of the greatest impressionistic painters I don't know? I suppose Henri Matisse did have a passing resemblance to Spike Milligan...

Look, enough of this drivel, keep smiling, keep Christmas in your heart, get creative and HAVE FUN this year -whatever! x