Happy Birthday, Dr Sketchy Birmingham!!!

Yep, yesterday, Dr Sketchy in the UK's Second City saw its first birthday. Here are some of the drorins what I dun:

This is Miss Suzie Sequin, who, amazingly, managed to hold this pose for ten minutes without that top arm move significantly. Short break, then arm goes back to the same place. Miraculous. Anyway, I won a prize for this one. And this one (Miss Sherry Trifle):

Another really amazing model, who didn't even seem to blink! With the most amazingly beautifully sculptural face. No prizes for this one, but WHAT a costume, modelled here by Miss Willow Blue:

The final pose actually featured three models, but I got so interested in Matt (aka The Decadent Gent) that the other two didn't really get a look-in! Here he is:

By the way, that was a birthday hat, not a dunce's one.

I really think I ought to mention Alex Hughes here. The last time I went to Birmingham Sketchy's he gave me a brush pen to try. It won me two prizes. Yesterday I couldn't find it; he lent me two more. It was these implements which were responsible for the above drawings. He didn't let me keep them this time. I don't blame him. I promise, faithfully, to order my own brush pens for the next one, Alex, and will have them surgically attached to my person so I can't possibly lose them between now and then! xxx

I actually get paid for this ...!

This has just been published in 'Health Focus', on behalf of Wolverhampton City PCT:

and just in case anyone was interested, here are some more shots of 'Muriel':

I must get some pics of the wall painting mentioned on Juniper Ward - it's designed by the patients and it's absolutely WONDERFUL!!!

Rats!

These critters are Arthur and Mehitabel; my wonderful partner-in-crime, Ray, was going to a fancy dress party dressed as a ratcatcher, and he made them to adorn his person. Arthur was perched on one shoulder and Mehitabel was halfway up one thigh.

I was so enchanted to see what Ray does with his old socks that I asked if I could keep one of them; relectant to be parted at first, Arthur soon took up his usual place in my car. He was pining without Mehitabel, and Ray was finally persuaded to part with her a couple of weeks back. He's moved on to making horses' heads with bits of cardboard box, in any case, so that rats are old hat now.

Here is a picture of my new hamster

Well, she's stopped swearing and weeing on people. And, as any fule kno, removing their own droppings and showering the results around is one of their favourite pastimes, and Tootsie does not disappoint on this front. She also has a penchant for piling up woodshavings at one end of her cage so she can burrow into the resulting pile, most of which ends up on the kitchen floor on account of falling out through the cage bars.

Looks like she'll be going into the storage crate where my previous hamsters have lived sooner rather than later.

Illustration Friday - Fast!

Stuck fast!

I've been and gone and chosen my new hamster

This isn't the new hamster, exactly, though she will probably end up looking like this. At the moment she's much younger and smaller. I've reserved one that's been bred by a breeder and am therefore confident (whoops, nearly put 'continent' there; though I am that, too) that she will be the gender they say she is. So far, Herbert, sold as a male, rather disconcertingly had two neat rows of nipples and no male apparatus; Falafel, sold as a female, didn't actually surprise me by sitting there licking her scrotum shortly after purchase. By that time I had lost all confidence in the ability of pet shop staff to tell the difference between boys and girls (though looking round at the staff - I'm not sure I'd have been able to either).

So I will be picking up the new hamster, who will probably be called Tootsie but I'm not 100% sure, on Sunday evening. She has very neat spectacles and has a similar paint job to Falafel, just very neat. Mind you, he didn't start growing his rather spectacular plumes until he was a couple of months old ...

Dear Agony Auntie,

My girlfriend's behaving strangely.

The other day I suggested we had sex, and she came up with some crap excuse like 'Well this is a hospital and I'm swathed from head to foot in bandages and one of my legs is strapped up and I can't move it'. Actually it did look as though she might be able to move it a bit if she really wanted to, so another crap excuse there, too.

Yes, there did seem to be a few people around including a couple of very bossy nurses who were trying to tell me to get lost as the doctor needed to see her, but she was also using this as an excuse not to have a bit of rumpy-pumpy with me.

I think I should try and get another girlfriend. What do you think? There was someone in the next bed who was also swathed from head to foot in bandages, with one leg strapped up to a contraption, so I probably wouldn't know the difference anyway. And the one in the next bed might be less inhibited.

What shall I do?