We have just returned home from a long awaited and much needed cruise to the Mediterranean aboard P&O’s Aurora (best ship in the fleet).

There was a new activity available as a company called Creative Waves had deployed two artists who created a daily programme of arts and crafts, and we really threw ourselves into it! The photo on the left is a selection of what we produced, and it became a key part of the holiday for us. Watercolours, acrylics, clay modelling, life drawing and more were on the agenda and we have returned home buzzing with creativity.

Thanks to Elise and Sarah of Creative Waves for their support and creative talent, and to all our fellow creators we met in the Crows Nest, Vanderbilts, the Uganda Room and more.

I have had the pleasure of working with many wonderful people in my life, including this marvellous team here.

As my role in this company comes to an end I feel proud and privileged to have worked with the three colleagues in this photo. They will continue to do great things, and I hope they are recognised for it and are appreciated as much by the company going forwards as I always have.

Next? A very different venture as I aim to become my own boss for a bit.

Exciting and sad at the same time.

A friend of mine is the editor of this local newsletter and recently asked for a cartoon.

I was given a few suggestions based on articles within the publication, and produced a cartoon. I was quite proud of the houses.

i used the fee to buy the latest game from Stonemaier games - Wyrmspan. Cool game. Crayons pay for board games.

I am continuing to support the superb Wild At Heart horse sanctuary in Lancaster, California with my digital crayons. Here is a recent selection of the cartoons I have produced in the Cartoons From The Horses Mouth style.

Why not check them out and help their wonderful cause by donating or sponsoring a horse? You can find them here.

For our Christmas party this year my firm hired a superb caricaturist to entertain people. You can check out his website here.

Unfortunately I had to leave early so I missed him, which was very disappointing as the rest of my team had their caricatures done, and they were very good. Like most cartoonists I draw myself often, so to complete our team caricature set I drew myself in Etim’s style. Sort of (I’m a cartoonist Jim not a caricaturist!).

A chance encounter through a colleague at work who spotted one of my cartoons on Instagram has led to a collaboration with this organisation https://wildathearthorserescue.org/ 

Cartoons From The Horses Mouth is out of print now but this could mark a revival as we will be using the cartoons plus new ones to support this wonderful group of people in Lancaster, California.

The cartoon here was drawn on request and donated to a fundraising event which is happening there this weekend. It will be printed onto t-shirts and sold to raise money.

Vicky and I always wanted to use CFTHM to support an equine charity some day, and now it is happening and we are really pleased!

Wow I haven’t been here for a while, but then again I haven’t really had my crayons out too much for quite a while either although I am reusing old cartoons a lot in work. 

This terrible photo is of the thank you cards for Neil and Dan, who have just transformed our garage into the most beautiful space for Vicky to practice and train in. These two heroes led a team of professionals who restored our faith in heir respective trades and produced a stunning transformation, the result of which will follow as apparently I can only upload one photo to this post. Sigh.

What is a good day for you? 

Today as Vicky rested to see her cold off we decided not to go out. So I spent the day in my red and white striped pyjama bottoms, drew some illustrations for a work article and played Horrified.

One of the three illustrations is shown here, I will save you the social awkwardness of sharing the pyjamas. 

Horrified was great, and I am shamed it has sat unopened for some time on my shelf. A cooperative board game (which I played solo as Vicky was studying) you control a team of heroes battling some classic movie monsters who have invaded a village. Today as an Investigator I barely managed to save the village from a dual attack from Dracula and the creature from the black lagoon. It didn’t help that the villagers kept showing up right next to one of them so got killed. Idiots. In the second game the mayoress joined the team and we wiped the floor with Dracula (again) and a Mummy.

i really enjoyed it and I look forward to playing with a group.

Today we fried leftover rice for lunch and listened to what iTunes considered my top 25 tunes which included a lot of Journey, some Muppet tunes and the Teen Titans theme tune.

A good day.