Semi-autobiographical, his car features prominently in the book as he drives around the country performing. So Andy wanted to do a Drive-esque photoshoot, complete with moody urban streets, and that famous jacket (worn less well by Ryan Gosling).

From the back cover:

Surrounded on all sides by hapless promoters, random audiences and the ever-unhelpful Victor Smithers, will Andy complete Carlos the agent’s challenge of performing in every English county? Can he prove to future wife, Betty, that he can be a suitable bread winner? Or will the two loves of his life prove mutually exclusive?

It’s available on Kindle now, (and out in print in the next month or two). I was lucky enough to get a reading from the author himself, which was SO good, I’ve actually gone and bought a Kindle. I can’t wait for the print version. It was THAT good!

Speaking of which, my Kindle has literally arrived in the post today, so excuse me whilst I go off for a read!

We played in the garden, swung on the swing, and then the boys showed me just how high they could jump on their bed! VERY high! Look out for the cute pictures hanging above each of their beds – gorgeous portraits drawn for them!

I’m so excited for their wedding – it’s going to be in a farmer’s field, with teepee tents (…there may be tractors and animals as well).

AND there will be an awesome couple!

So, when I arrived on Shetland a couple of weeks ago for a holiday, it was nearly the first thing my friend and travel companion, Alex, asked me: had I seen the advert with the moonwalking Shetland pony in it?

Well, no I hadn’t, so we youtube-ed, and quickly decided, yes, we were both childish enough to see if we could track down the famous pony star by driving all around the islands in search of the one that looked as fabulous.

However, there are quite a lot of Shetland ponies in Shetland (who’d have thought?!), and my driving was becoming increasingly erratic as I spent more time studying the markings on all the animals in the fields we drove past, and less on the road in front. Luckily before I steered us into a ditch, we stumbled across an article in the magazine, i’i Shetland, that gave us vital clues: the pony we were looking for had a name, Socks, and our search was narrowed to the area of Nesting.

Now, if you know anything at all about Shetland (apart from the fact that it has a lot of Shetland ponies), it’s that everything and everybody is interconnected. Six degrees of separation? It’s usually far less! My parents live on the isles, and when I mentioned our unsuccessful attempts to track down the celebrity pony, my mum said she was sure one of her piano pupil’s mothers was related to a pony trainer who would likely know who owned Socks.

So began some phone research.

I think it was about three phonecalls later, that Socks’ owner was identified, and she warmly invited us to go and meet them in a field later that morning. Meeting place, time, and directions all sorted, we packed carrots (and some tiffin for his owner) and set out.

When we saw his iconic flowing mane, and feet clearly made for dancing, we knew we had our pony!

Socks loved his carrot. And I got to shake my hair with him!

Mission accomplished.

#DancePonyDance

ps. Thank you Mari for taking the time to indulge our inner children!

pps. I don’t believe for a moment that the advert was ‘faked’ the with  CGI… what crazy conspiracy theories people come up with.

ppps. Thanks to Alex for the superb photographs of me! (You must have had a good tutor )

There were also crazy shafts of light streaming through my windows that kept distracting me from my editing. I love crazy shafts of light. I couldn’t resist.

Was nice to see it there on the website of the post-grad section today!

Nordoff Robbins do brilliant work using music therapy and other music services to help transform the lives of vulnerable children and adults, and you can see the full story of my shoot here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/05/vocational-postgrads-put-career-changers-on-course-for-a-new-job

I think we need a break.

It’s just, the thing is, you’re both a little hyper! I need some time out to recollect my (own) thoughts. You must have noticed it yourself. We’re not really paying each other proper attention, are we? We’re just broadcasting.

Twitter, spending time with you is a little like eavesdropping on a million conversations simultaneously! Has no-one ever told you that before? It’s quite tiring.

And Facebook, I think I just use you. Too much. You deserve more than that. You’re a great social media site. But you do let people use you. You’re wonderful for keeping me connected to clients and friends, for messaging, seeing their photos and sharing mine. And Twitter, you provide me with brilliant, inspiring content, ‘shareable’ links, banter during the quiet days editing on my own and great music suggestions.

It’s just all got a bit much and I can’t hear myself think anymore.

I love you and I will be back, I promise. This is not a break up; it’s just a mini break.

A break of 40 days. I’ll be spending Lent (starting Wednesday 13th February until Easter) away from Twitter and Facebook.

40 days … you can cope, right?

Hopefully during that time, I will draw and write more. I will think on my journeys, and notice my surroundings. While everyone else is tapping into their smartphones, I’ll be scribbling in a moleskine sketchbook. In short, I will be more creative.

All this may even encourage me to blog more. So I’ll try and set up some sort of auto-notifier thing to ‘ghost tweet’/'ghost update-my-facebook-status’ to let you know when I’ve blogged. (That way, you’ll know I’m still alive too.)

So, until Easter, adieu my friend!

Dear Clients,

Please don’t be alarmed by the above message. I will still be fully online and contactable by good old fashioned email and phone. (I will even get email notifications if you forget and send me a facebook message by accident.)

To all my fabulous Tweeting Magpies,

…who search the interwebs for lovely shiny nuggets of brilliance – please save any wonderful/hilarious/inspiring links you find and think I would be interested in, until I return!

Dear Facebook friends,

Hopefully you’re my facebook friend, because you’re my real friend too, and hopefully, I’ll have more time for you in Real Life! Please keep in touch!

Today I went out to see some beautiful paintings by Elizabeth Kwant, artist in residence at the Boaz Trust – a Manchester based charity that works with destitute asylum seekers. With an estimated 2,000 individuals facing utter destitution in Manchester, because they have been refused asylum but have not been deported, it is a vital work that Boaz do, providing accommodation, basic essentials and support.

The portraits of ten women, painted over the past year, give a very tangible presence and dignity to these lives whilst hinting at the traumas the women have faced. For those who are denied any kind of ‘living’ existence in the country where they are, it must be such a debilitating thing and a constant challenge. You can read a certain amount from these women’s faces, their strength, and I love the light that shines from their eyes, and small smiles, but I longed to hear more of their stories.

I was fascinated by the chairs present in each picture. Each woman is posed behind a different chair, which, despite their inviting faces, adds such a guarded feel. Are they resting their hands on the chairs, or holding them, for stability or support? Are they hiding behind them, or do they long to just sit down?

Boaz are situated in Mustard Tree‘s building – another fantastic Manchester charity – so whilst there, we were able to look around some of the art studios and facilities they had, guided by Graham who runs the art department. It’s a charity I’ve known about for a while, but had no idea just how large they are! Both in terms of space and capacity and also the number of projects going on and people they work with. Mustard Tree as a whole, supports 10,000 people who may be homeless, ex-offenders, struggling with drug or alchohol problems, suffering domestic abuse, or simply those who find themselves in need of some extra help or someone to talk to.

These five studios Graham showed us, have recently been set up and Mustard Tree are hoping to house a mixture of artists there, as well as generate some much needed income from them. Just last week, this article reported on how the charity is struggling to stay afloat with additional financial burdens and more people being referred their way from job centres at the same time. They are working on a month to month basis currently, not sure if they will be able to stay open or, even if they are, if they will be able to continue the same level of service or help the same number of people they do.

If you are interested in renting studio space, get in touch with Graham on 0161 228 7331 or if you feel you could become a regular donor, donate here.

On the way back to Piccadilly Gardens, we stumbled across the infamous No Fly Posters wall. I tweeted about this story last week – it is an interesting dialogue between the council and a lot of creative Manchester types. The council just seem to keep saying the same thing though … Read the full fun story here! And the ongoing call for artworks here.

The Tracing Presence exhibition only continues until 7th Feb 2013 (this Thursday, so get your skates on!).

Opening hours: 9- 5pm Mon- Fri.
Location: The Boaz Trust, 110 Oldham Road, Manchester M4 6AG (1st floor of the Mustard Tree, entry via red door off Bengal St.)

www.elizabethkwant.com
www.boaztrust.org.uk
www.mustardtree.org.uk

We were spending the Christmas week in Oxfordshire, in a beautiful house with so many beautiful period features, it was quite the location to get into a proper Downton mood. (In fact, we were only just down the road from the village where they do a lot of the filming!)

I got a bit snap happy with the interior and features:

Floods at Christmas is becoming a bit of theme for me.

Last year I was in Tanzania when floods hit Dar es Salaam claiming 20 lives and many hundreds of people’s homes. This year in Oxfordshire had a very different ending, thankfully. Perhaps to an extent because of flood control systems, diverting it away from the towns and villages? Or just because we had less water? I’m not sure, but happy to say that homes were kept dry, despite all the surrounding fields being filled to breaking point, like this:

Our attempts at walking through any of this failed, so we amused ourselves with food, fires and Miranda’s new book instead. Which has a great moral behind the silliness by the way! No, I’m not going to tell you – go read it yourself.