Every experience in your life – whether positive or negative – makes you grow, builds resilience, and gives you the opportunity to reinvent yourself.
Every experience makes you grow – the joyful ones, the painful ones, the uncertain ones, the ordinary ones.
Each moment in time leaves you a little wiser, braver, and stronger.
Peace and Love
Gill x
Sometimes, I have an idea of what I want to paint, but I don’t know where to start. This pink daisy is the result of that. I started and finished with added green borders which I didn’t initially plan!
A couple of years ago, my friend and I visited the British Ironworks Centre in Oswestry, Shropshire. The centre says:
Each sculpture has its own unique message and aims to educate our visitors on global issues and spread our motto:
Art With Conscience
It’s a cool motto I think and such a great way to get the message across.
It’s a great place to visit – there’s lots to see and do from a sculpture park and grounds to explore to shopping and creative workshops. The first thing I explored was the ladies toilets where I met this fellow taking up one of the cubicles – could have shut the door!
There is a garden full of scrap metal sculptures you can buy.
In the grounds, there are all sorts of sculptures.
You can walk around the Extinction Trail which features endangered wildlife.
This close up photo of a Komodo Dragon sculpture shows the individual components of the whole piece.
There are some interesting figures as well as mythological and well-known pieces.
And ones that make you want to look closer.
All of the sculptures have more information about the individual pieces, but better yet, go and see for yourself! I thoroughly recommend it.
You can find out more on the website:
I love doodling and creating shapes with lots of lovely colours. I get inspiration from other artists and sometimes I just let my pen flow!
Check out my art shop for more..
This mandala was created using a stencil with green and yellow paint and dotting tools to complete it.
Visit my shop for more arty stuff!
Since I took a break from writing for talkingthailand, I haven’t been sitting idly staring out of the window in my free time. I’ve been busy with other projects and one of those was a second book in my Flying Solo series. It didn’t start out as a series, but I wrote Still Flying Solo and I’m currently working on Only Flying Solo. Who knows if there will be more – how much flying solo can I do? My mind is full of ideas bouncing around at all times!
I sometimes wonder how I have come to be living in my hometown again after spending so many years living in Thailand. I sometimes think I was living my best life, especially when I returned to Thailand in 2014 and made Bangkok my home.
But, we make choices in life and my choice was to return to the UK. Everything happens for a reason, right? And my reason was I wanted to be closer to family and friends because living halfway across the world from those you love means I missed out on so many things.
My life in Bangkok was great and I never thought I would see the day that I started to think of leaving, but a conversation with my best friend, Chris, was what set the ball rolling for my move. If we had never started talking about it, both of us wonder whether it would have actually happened – me moving back home and him moving to Rotterdam. Who knows, but we must accept the choices we’ve made.
I’ve been home since 2019 and I feel settled. I have a job I love, I get to see my family and friends as often as I like, but I often think about Bangkok and all the special times I had there.
My new book is a compilation of memories and stories of the wonderful years I spent in the city I called home for 4 years.
Flying Solo. A Woman on the Wings of Life is available to buy on Amazon and Amazon Kindle.
I hope that you enjoy my memories!
Gill x
It’s been 2 years since I wrote about my Tales of 2022 and one of the last thing I posted on here before I took a break, so in the spirt of picking up where I left things, here’s my Tales of 2023!
I took a trip to London with my mum and sister to see Cirque Du Soleil’s Kurios at the Royal Albert Hall which, as a venue, is simply stunning. The show was thrilling with crazy acrobatics and contortionists, great costumes and fabulous music. I could have sat and watched it all over again.
Celebrating Valentine’s Day with some gorgeous flowers. I love the different variety and colours – I often buy myself a bunch so I can enjoy them. When I walk passed and smell their fragrance it makes me smile.
In March, the snow came. Never underestimate the British weather! It always gets colder before it gets warmer.
I took the Eurostar to Rotterdam to spend a few days with my best friend, Chris, to celebrate my birthday. We always have so much fun together, but I had to get this money shot (if only) of the signs at the train station!
I’m always on the look out for flowers to photograph, but this was an added bonus because I spotted a bee as well and I managed to capture it without it flying off!
I finished this colourful painting by numbers of a Spanish Dancer. I can’t get enough of doing these kind of paintings. For me, I find it very relaxing and it’s a great way to take care of mental wellbeing.
A trip to Nottingham to meet up with a couple of friends who I used to teach with in Bangkok. We found a fantastic Thai street-food restaurant called Zaap. The food is delicious and it brought back some good memories. We loved it so much, we have since gone there again.
I tried open water swimming for the second time in the lake at Castle Ashby. The water temperature was 19 degrees which sounds warm, but it isn’t. The cold water took my breath away and once my body had calmed down, I managed to swim round twice. It is such a great feeling and really blows the cobwebs away!
My friend and I had a day out at Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings – a fabulous outdoor space with beautiful buildings, re-enactments, and a cute coffee shop. If you like history and architecture and learning about the past, it’s worth a visit. We had a great time exploring the grounds.
I love spending Saturday afternoon’s crafting with my friend – we do it a lot. In October, we carved pumpkins for Halloween.
When the Christmas lights go up in our town centre, it looks almost magical (almost!) They make Northampton look pretty!
All suited and booted for Christmas Day with my family. If Northampton looks magical with its Christmas lights (see November), the day spent with my nearest and dearest is even more magical.
I can’t believe this was 3 years ago. A lot has happened since then, but more on that later.
Peace and Love, Gill
This is a painting I did from a photograph when I was travelling around New Zealand. A bit messy, but I like the colours and the impression of the lake and hills.
My art is available on different products, check out my shop on Redbubble:
My photography project – Autumn in Northampton – is available as posters, prints, canvas or cards. Enjoy the beauty of this time of year every day!
Head over to my shop to get more details:
