I'm Blathering Now...

Ha ha ha...do you like what I did there?! Tom Burke is both an avid supporter of Operation Smile, a charity which helps children born with a cleft lip/palate as well as being a supporter of Box Clever Theatre. Toms fans, or Burketeers, have been showing their immense support for both of these charities, and on 17th September 2016, they're holding a tea party in London in aid of Operation Smile. To coincide with the tea party, I'm reading what will be the theme of the party for my August reading challenge...Alice In Wonderland. (So I'm kind of hoping that Alice will be raising some money for both charities...hint hint!) https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Susan-rogers3  Alice in Wonderland, a well loved children's classic, and even more so for me, because the writer Lewis Carroll was born and lived in the village of Daresbury, Cheshire...about 5 miles from where I grew up. There's a church in Daresbury where the stained glass windows show Carroll's famous

Whilst I was in Bath, my friends Julie and Nikki told me that they had booked to see a play called Yerma by Frederico Garcia Lorca. I showed my ignorance by admitting I'd never heard of him, and so Julie kindly lent me a copy of her book so that I could acquaint myself with his work. Lorca has a distinctive way of writing, and he has managed to encapsulate drama with poetry and song in his works. Tragically his life was cut short (he was assassinated in 1936) and so we don't know what further greatness he could have achieved in later life. Having read his plays, I thought it was only fair that I should enlighten others with his work too, and it seemed a befitting set of works for July's Box Clever Theatre challenge, as this is where theatre, literature, music and poetry all combine!   In the book Three Plays, we enter the world of three different women who are disenchanted with what life has brought to them. They yearn for a life of equality, they crave freedom from

No, not THE Mr B; but I was commissioned to draw a dog as a present for someone, and I got very excited about it. People say I should be more confident about my abilities, so when I was asked if I could draw animals (or can I only draw Tom Burke?!) I said yes I could...rather confidently. (I was thinking about how I spent my teenage years drawing horses, and therefore a dog would be fine...wouldn't it?) I was given a few pictures of the dog, but one in particular really stood out. It was cheeky and quirky and would make for an unusual drawing, and I thought it really showed off the character of the animal. A few weeks later and I was at a rural retreat in the Lake District looking after my friends dogs. It was the perfect place to hide away in peace and quiet and start on the drawing. At home I would have my cat parking himself on my art pad...he hates being ignored, and I knew this was one picture I had to be stress free about. (I potentially was about to ruin some poor person

I heard the designer Hayler Nebayer (BBCs The Musketeers) refer to a dress she had designed for the character Constance; as the "Frocketeer". I rather loved that term, so I'm stealing it for the title of this entry! Some people have asked me why I'm not around on Twitter or Facebook anymore. Well the honest answer is I've been too busy (let's face it, even the blog posts are few and far between!) I'm not one to sit around much, I like to be busy, and since going back to work I've found that I've been having difficulty in keeping up with all of my various commitments. Somethings had to give and I'm afraid unless I'm tagged in a post, then I'm missing a lot of Twitter and Facebook. Now, some people when they see something, they feel inspired but they never give it a go. I'm not sure why. Fear of failure, too bone idle... I'm not like that! I see something and if I'm inspired and I can, I will give it a go. Well that was ho