What I wish I hadn't done was to put such a dark undercoat. I think with the pits in the watercolour paper it is causing me all kinds of problems. Not apparent perhaps from this scan but I am having to add lots of white to try to get it anywhere near my skin colour. I was layering it with a darker undercoat as I would with oil and I'm paying the price for it now. Even with chalk pastel it would blend well but with oil its creating dark smudges under my work. I have tried scraping back the left hand cheek but need to keep redoing it to get anywhere near. Worked on the nose quite a bit yesterday and made the classic mistake of not stepping back to look at my work. When I did the nose was completely crooked so have had to reposition that. Started work on the eyes which is going well but still more to do. The eyebrows look too dark really but am hoping that when the eyes are completed they won't. Its good to draw lines for hair in the oil pastel and am looking forward to trying it when I move onto my hair. Had to walk to work again today, but the other schools were open so my children begrudgingly went back. This cold snap is teaching them to remember to put on hats, gloves etc and I actually saw the gloves lined up on the radiator to dry yesterday. When I started back home I passed a couple peering into Help the Aged charity shop. The couple were middle aged, with nothing particular to note about them, except that he had a bright pink cowboy hat on with sequins around the edge....it made me smile - only in England. Supermarket snobbery coming up - when I used shop in Waitrose each week I used to glide around the shop politely moving out of people's way, apologising if I got in anyone elses and receiving the same treatment back. Now shopping in Tesco or Asda people seem to walk straight at me, they cut me up, stand around chatting and don't let you by unless you ask or push past them - total snobbery I know but the difference is quite stark.