Juggling

I have four jobs to finish - two by Monday, two by next week. Three are professional jobs, so I can't be specific. Let's just call them - cartoon stationary, little girl's giftbook and woodland creatures. They are all individually great projects...and I've been waiting for weeks for the go-ahead on them. Now, in the time honored fashion of buses that all arrive together when you've been waiting in the rain for hours, the briefs are piled on my table, needing attention. Furthermore, I must paint 'the Lost Balloon', as someone wishes to buy it from the sketches I posted earlier. This is, of course, the one I really want to get on with...So I face two days of juggling styles, and mild panic. Added to which this morning I had a mercy call from a dear, dear friend, who was like a mother to me in my unhappy teenage years, when mine had been called to a better place. She still lives on the grim estate which I fled, as soon as I was sixteen. Her daughter was and is my best friend. She is at her wits end with stress and the noise from dogs/kids/bulldozers/the general hell that is Leigh Park. So she acted entirely out of character and wrote asking if she could come and stay for a couple of days next week - as she is in desperate need of green, peaceful sanctuary. I haven't seen her for 22 years. But I can still recall the cakes and hugs she gave a miserable fourteen year old. I am grateful for the chance to be able to pay back some of her generosity - and somehow fit the other work around it. It's going to be a fun week!