The Abbaye at St-Jean D'angely Happy New New to you all, I hope you had a relaxing time over the Festive Season??? I expect a lot of you will be returning to work for a rest! I am in the  middle of my annual New Year trip away to visit friends either France or Spain. This year it is France. We arrived in France at Bordeaux airport on New Years Eve and had to wait for a couple of hours for my friends to collect us so we took a train into Bordeaux for a poodle about. We didn't see a lot of the city but what we did see was very beautiful. There were several Art Deco buildings in the street next to the station. The Cafe Du Levant had a very splendid frontage with lots of gold tile work and Art Deco statuary.    A beautiful Art Deco building. We had flown quite early and were getting hungry so we succumbed to an early lunch of Moules et Fritte. Heaven!  Heaven on a dish.   We had a reasonably riotous News Year Eve with my friend John playing in a local band

. . . we are working really . . This a shot of the Light Craft Room where I am teaching, it is very well equipped and Hope, Technical Support, is always so helpful and makes sure we tutors have everything we could possibly need for our teaching. We are all having a great time and I will post the work the students are developing in the next two days but now to what else is happening at Denman this week.  Apart from my course there are beading, photography and flower arranging classes going on. These are some of the beautiful displays that are being created But onto something closer to my heart . . the PUDDINGS! Teaching residential courses can be quite intense so I only teach at two colleges four to five times a year. One of the bonuses is the food and how well everyone is looked after. No washing up, no phone calls just teaching FAB students, making new friends and catching up with old ones. It' s a tough job . . . Apple Strudel or - chocolate brownies or - chocolate mouss

  Independent Open House 29   - Pink Birdhouse 29 Southdown Avenue Brighton, BN1 6EH 1273 541589 clarerose.designs@ntlworld.com www.clarerosedesigns.co.uk The house is packed with lovely affordable things.  Clare Rose: Beautiful and sometimes humorous textile and felt pictures  Chrissy Smith: One-off fabric bags made from vintage and recycled materials  Jenny Sutler: Jewellery  Shirley Rose: Plants  Tina Clarke-Sheward: Victorian preserves and magnificent cakes  Colin Rose: Organic honey  Lisa Pilling: Mosaics  Kim Thittichai: Wonderful voluptuous cushions Well the first day was amazingly busy and several large pieces of work were sold as well as many smaller items, what an amazing start. I think people have realised that if they collect someones work they need to arrive early. We opened at 11am and the first rather large sale was at 11.05!!!! Boy were they keen.  The house was open and we were just about ready - Me on the left and an exhausted Clare on the right. She and