With the growth and improvements in graphic production by the various AIs, I've decided to open a portrait gallery here in the Village, where you can post your favourite portrait. The prompt I used to create this is, I think one I came across in Gemini, and is this: Here is a selfie of me. Turn the image into a vibrant thick-textured oil painting. Have me sitting in a sun-drenched cafe with a steaming cup of coffee. Uses a warm, golden hour color palette with lots of oranges, yellows and deep blues to make it feel like post impressionist art. And because I've been intrigued by the differences in the AIs and what they produce I also gave the same selfie and prompt to some other AIs. These are the results: 1. The first example is from ChatGPT, closest to original 2. The second is from Gemini, I feel this is closest to the 'artistic' direction, ie; 'vibrant thick-tetured oil painting' from 'post impressionist art' era following the colour directives, 3. The final AI was Claude who said it doesn't do images and referred me to use Canva AI! So I did, and this is the result. So to open our Gallery I offer you the above prompt, or if you use another one do share it! Or if you already have a portrait painted, it would be great to see it added to our walls!

A quick update as promised: arrived in Sydney, Australia, and mid-winter! Lots still to arrange, things to sort and stuff to do! Only definite is being in Melbourne next week for 6 weeks. Meanwhile, good luck to all the teams through to Quarter finals of the Men's Football World Cup: Norway v England, France v Morocco, Spain v Belgium, and either Argentina or Egypt, Switzerland v Columbia who are still to play their Round of 16! And a Travelling Tidbit – if you are going through Heathrow Airport Security you now don't have to take anything out of your bag, including laptops etc, and can even take water through in clear plastic bottles, but you must empty any metal water bottles.

I love alliteration, in case you hadn't already guessed. So I suggest we remove the 'hump day' moniker from Wednesdays and instead christen them our day of being whimsical! And what does whimsical mean? Here's what 'the AI dictionary' says: Whimsical is an adjective that describes something or someone as playful, fanciful, or imaginatively quirky. It often refers to unconventional, lighthearted, and spontaneous ideas or behaviours that are charming and slightly unpredictable. Key Meanings and Contexts - Playful and Imaginative: Things like art, fashion, or stories are whimsical when they are delightfully unconventional and full of fun. For example, a children's book with talking animals and colourful, twisting trees has a whimsical style. - Erratic and Impulsive: In a more literal sense, "whimsical" stems from the word whim — meaning a sudden, odd, or unreasoned impulse. A person described as whimsical might make spontaneous, unpredictable decisions rather than purely logical ones. To honour this, I now pronounce we hold 'Whimsical Wednesday' here in the Village! And to celebrate it I offer you the space to dream, allow your imagination to run wild, or to simply give yourself permission to post your idea of your most amazing day - either past or future, or even imaginary! The stage is yours!

I've always felt that our pets are such an important ingredient to a child's upbringing, and as important a family member as any other. For the last 18 months I've been catching up on having fur babies to enjoy and look after by taking care of them for anything from 2 weeks to months. So this thread is going to be where we can share the joys of our canine companions! To get us started I'll share some of the pooches I've had the fun of caring for over the last couple of years down below in the comments. I look forward to seeing yours too. And if you don't have one, feel free to share your favourite GIF of one, or more, they're all welcome!

Hi @Cate Evatt-Davey for whenever you get a chance thought I'd share the cat pictures we were talking about see what you think :)