I was recently covered by a very lovely lady called Shang Ting, she saw my work on a Leeds Museum's bag and posted it on her fanpage which is a UK fashion and lifestyle platform for Far East audience, here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150737914729923&set=a.122698919922.125643.121274699922&type=1&theater

and you can follow her on twitter at: 

@shangtingpeng

My work colleague read me a poem and I loved it so I thought I'd share it with you:

Golo the Gloomy Goalkeeper
by Adrian Mitchell,
from Blue Coffee,Bloodaxe, 1996.

Golo plays for the greatest soccerteam in the Universe.
They are so mighty that their opponents never venture out of their own penalty area.
They are so all-conquering that Golo never touches the ball during a match, and very seldom sees it.
Every game seems to last a lifetime to Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper.
Golo scratches white paint off the goalposts' surface to reveal the silver shining underneath.
He kisses the silver of the goalpost.
It does not respond.

Golo counts the small stones in the penalty area.
There are three hundred and seventy eight, which is not his luckynumber.
Golo pretends to have the hiccups, then says to himself, imitating his sister's voice:
Don't breathe, and just die basically.

Golo breaks eight small sticks in half.
Then he has sixteen very small sticks.
He plants geranium seeds along the goal-line.
He paints a picture of a banana and sells it to the referee at half-time.

Golo finds, among the boot marks in the dust, the print of one stiletto heel.
He crawls around on all fours doing lion imitations.
He tries to read his future in the palm of his hand, but forgets to take his glove off.
He writes a great poem about butterflies but tears it up because he can't think of a rhyme for Wednesday.
He knits a sweater for the camel in the Zoo.

Golo suddenly realises he can't remember if he is a man or a woman.
He takes a quick look, but still can't decide.
Golo makes up his mind that grass is his favourite colour.
He puts on boots, track-suit, gloves and hat all the same colour as grass.
He paints his face a gentle shade of green.

Golo lies down on the pitch and becomes invisible.
The grass tickles the back of his neck.
At last Golo is happy.
He has fallen in love with the grass.
And the grass has fallen in love with Golo, the Gloomy Goalkeeper.

I recently received an email from a lady called Liz in New Zealand, she was in Manchester over Christmas and bought one of my England-Upon-Sea mugs and she sent me a picture in it's new home, she said, "The other morning I was sitting in my favourite spot in the garden having a cup of coffee (in my most favourite of mugs!) and thought: oh I wonder if its creator would like to see a picture of it in its new home!"

Thank you Liz, happy tea drinking!

One of my teapots was featured in an article called "Hand Drawn Illustration: Inspiration" by Tori Murphy at WGSN, it's a massive honour as WGSN is big time and a lot of important people listen to what they have to say!

For those of you who don't know WGSN, it's a trend forecasting website, they cover every aspect of fashion and have a fantastic home-ware department as well. It's membership only so unfortunately you can't take a sneaky peek!

My first 5 colour print. Whoop!

When God Was A Rabbit is an excellent book, I've just finished reading it and completely loved it. It's left me with the feeling of loss that you get from a book that plays on you're mind when you're not reading and when you are, you can't put it down. There's nothing better than finding a book like that so I wanted to share my insight incase you're on the look out for a good read.

I've recently done a commission for Oxford University which of course is a huge honour, it's a small but lovely range and is sold online and at the university's high street shop.