Granny's little helper ....and the things bloggers will do...

OK, time to lighten up after the sombre posts of the last couple of days!

And what could be cuter or cheer one up more than having the little tiger over for the weekend? He spent the night on Friday, and all day Saturday, as there was hectic building going on at home that would have triggered his asthma. We had a lot of fun, including a water fight, and he was a great help with cleaning up.

We tidied my office/studio, and I immediately felt refreshed and inspired to get stuck into some new paintings. It is so strange how it works with me. I am a total dirtbag, really untidy, but when it reaches a certain pitch, I just can't stand it. If my workspace, pallette or desk are too cluttered, my creativity just seems to dry up, and I have to get my life back in order. Then a fresh flood of inspiration and creative energy gets triggered and off I go again, leaving another trail of chaos and snowdrifts of papers, until the next tidying blitz!

This morning, Max wanted to take pictures for his next couple of ABC Wednesday posts, so we trundled off to the old historic city centre. The things bloggers will endure .... here he runs the gauntlet of the building operations, and a nasty open sewerage manhole to get his shots of the library!

This part of town has that typical inner city vibe,

Urban decay being replaced by urban renewal, (as you can see, major work is in progress, the market square in fron of city hall is being remodelled, and the old main street is being turned into a pedestrian walkway.

delightful old buildings hemmed in by modern monsters,

I just love the details on those old buildings .....

In fact the main library was proudly wearing its badge from the architects, in honour of international architecture month in October, proclaiming "this is a good building". (I featured the building in some detail in a previous post.)

And as a bonus, it got darker and darker while we were there, and I got some cool shots for Skywatch Friday this week. The heavens opened as we got back to the car, so I also got this shot of Richmond Hill from the old Central area, enhanced by the lovely reflections on the wet roads, in fact, this one might well translate into a painting ...... cheers, off to prepare some canvasses!