I will never get paid for this...

I think people who make a living from blogging probably post more than once every other month. Although technically, since I'm squeaking this into March, it's one a month. Just.

So. Since I last posted, Spring happened. I'm sitting here looking at blossom. And readying myself for the apple tree to kapow into bloom. And wondering whether it is actually quite warm enough yet for flip flops, because my feet are kind of cold. But never mind. Because Easter is just around the corner.

We changed the name of our Sunday School at church. I, however, keep referring to them as 'Pleasure Seekers' which apparently, isn't very helpful. This is a combination of two different elements first designed by my friend and fancy artist, Grace Wallis (whose studio you can check out at the Mistley Quay Workshops, next to the Mistley Quay Cafe which is so great I can't even tell you). We sent each other about 4 million emails over this. It's pretty jaunty though, which is really what I was going for.

 I've been working on this for ages. Not that it has really taken all that long. I just kept doing things, and then not doing anything with them. However, I was hurried along by the fact that the church APCM is this Sunday, which is, yes, April 1st. I suspect this might have been a massive error in scheduling. We shall see. I do love a good twiddly bit of writing. And acorns. And, more specifically, whistling in their cups. It's a life skill, people.

This was one of those projects where my remit was both vague and yet very specific. It was a bit of a Hail Mary play from those organising it, and they asked me to do it, kind of last minute. I was sent all of the emails between the organisers, plus several text files with slightly differing versions of the above. And the fact that there was to be an image of hands. And the image at the bottom. Neither of which I had. Or was sure of. So I guessed. The hand border sort of happened on its own, coming from a combined need for the (mysterious) hand image and something to finish it off. I'm not sure that it isn't very slightly creepy. Like some of the Russian clay-animation I watched at university.

This was one of those incredibly maddening projects where it turns out, many hours in, that you didn't think it through well enough at all. This seems to happen most with me when wrangling with a particularly tricksy noticeboard that stands outside of Mistley Church.

Here. Thanks to Google Maps I have found it. It looks innocent enough. It is, however, my kryptonite. It happened once before, at Harvest. This was, at least, on the computer, so rewrangleable. But still. Maddening. I somehow forgot that the poster had to fit in this noticeboard, therefore necessitating four landscape A3 posters. Which could also be used in other places. So it also had to fit on one A3 poster. And as this noticeboard is only readable from the pavement, it had to be bright enough to make you come and look at it. And, since we're trying to promote a 'One Church, Two Locations' message, it had to include all of the services for both places. Oh, and since we're a church, I also needed to include something of the actual message of Easter, rather than my first attempt which was a very nice sunrise. It might as well have been a jolly Easter bunny. And chicks. And eggs. Anyway. I'm over it.

I do, however, really enjoy writing like this. I'm particularly pleased with the Sunday text. And the benefice name came out really nicely. I'm not so sure about Friday. It seems a bit squashed up. Given some more time, I probably would have taken another go at that one.

So. I now need to turn these into service sheet covers. Which will, no doubt, take about fifty times longer than I think it will. Oh joy. Never mind. I'm having my hair cut later. It'll give me some kind of reverse-Sampson strength. Hopefully. Enjoy the daffodils!