So I'll be honest. Not a completely new thing for me, but the technique is something I haven't done for many years. I remember going to one of my mum's friend's houses for a pottery painting party and painstaking painting (wow try saying all those p's after a glass of wine) a VW Beetle in the middle of a cereal bowl.
With Kate Bassett
Kate is one of my girl crushes. She is Features Editor at Management Today, a talented writer and an effortlessly beautiful and genuinely lovely human to boot. Kate and I met when MT booked me as a speaker at one of their Inspiring Women In Business events and she's really been a cheerleader for me ever since, sneaking me onto the speakers list again and again and giving me the ultimate honour of naming me one of MT's 35 Women Under 35 in 2017.
This time I plumped for something a little more abstract and tremor friendly, nice big, loose brush strokes. Kate screwed herself over with tiny, but gorgeous, yellow stripey bees that are going to look adorable when it's glazed and fired but meant she had a slightly more fraught 2 hours than I did.
Our teacher Jo from Laugh and Craft was soothingly calm about the whole process and as jovial as her company name suggests, dashing off from time to time to fix our smudged strokes and sand down our sponged mishaps.
I haven't seen Kate for a while so it was a good job we met slightly earlier to catch up on each other's news because once we started painting we both fell into the zone hard, barely speaking, our bodies tense with concentration. We were really pleased with the outcomes and hopefully they'll look even better when we go back to collect the finished pieces.
The event was organised by The Little Surprises Company who have created the perfect gift, three surprise experiences in Central London, for two people, delivered to a friend of your choice over one year. It's like my dream!
It was held at Oasis Farm in Waterloo which lives up to its name, a gorgeous little piece of heaven sandwiched between high-rise flats and a major road. I bothered the goats for a bit after our painting session. Crafts and farm animals = my sort of day.
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