It started with the hanging of my show. After moving things round a little on my 2 big white boards in the illustration studio, things looked good. They were all straight to my eye, and I was happy with it, had cleaned up my area, and so went home. I was later told that my show was infact very wonky... well, all the pieces were straight to each other, but they were wonky on the boards! Oh no! But I think I have given up caring and just wanted to get to Lands End YHA! HOLIDAY PLEASE!
Thankfully eventually Silje appeared back home, and she hurriedly packed & we drove off into the sun (the sun certainly did occur, I could barely see the road at times and so had to use both the sun shield AND my shiny new prescription sunglasses to be able to even remotely see! It was that time of day).
An hour and a little later, we arrived at Lands End YHA to a very flustered Chris in the kitchen (I don't think the kitchen is Chris's favourite place!!). James soon got off shift and we marched off to The Star pub in St Just (a little walk away, we also took along a couple of James' mates & their girl & doggalump).
We nattered about things of a dubious nature, part of the conversation being something along the lines of:
Silje: "Yeah, Bex's mind is insanely in the gutter..."
James: "No, I can't believe that..."
Silje: "Bex, isn't your mind just pure filth?"
Bex: "Huh? What? Sorry, I was just talking about cum"
But yes. The night was good, and at closing time we all staggered our way back down into the valley to the hostel (a slightly elongated route, due to James's curiosity which could have taken us plunging off a bridge with no sides and into water), where Silje & I climbed into our bunkbeds as quietly as possible as to not wake the other sleeping women in there (1am...). At some point in the early hours we were woken by a lot of shouting & swearing (the woman who had come to the pub with us was yelling at one of her fellow campers, which was all a bit crap as folks were TRYING TO SLEEP!). James was not impressed.
The next morning we got up, breakfasted, and started on attacking the garden much to Chris's delight. We "shaved" some overgrown leafy stuff so it was out of the path, cut back a slightly overgrown pathway, and pretty much DEMOLISHED an entire patch of overgrown hedge / stuff which you were meant to be able to walk through. Safe to say, you can definately now walk through there, infact you could probably dance madly through there whilst throwing about every limb on your body, into every direction possible. Of course there was also a 30 or so min snooze in the sun on the grass...
That night we went off to the pub again where we met a chap we know from Falmouth called Ben who is now working in St Just. Small world. Admittedly we met him there last time we visited Lands End too, but... yes.
The next day we woke up again (unsurprisingly) and set about attacking the pile of stuff we'd chopped down the day before, putting it in another pile between a trio of trees. We also nattered (again) to women in the members kitchen (one who was also staying in our dorn).
After all this, Chris was very lovely and gave us a pear Rattler each (mmmmhmm!) before we said our goodbyes & set off up coast (but eastwards) to Perranporth, making sure to drive at snails pace along some parts of the road so Silje could get some photos. Such a lovely stretch between St Just & St Ives...
Upon arriving in Perranporth we parked up Hector in a good spot on the cliff overlooking the sea, and wetsuited up in the van after a brief lunch of Silje's dad's pate on dark Ryvita (we found that the wetsuiting up in the back of a van in hot sunlight was a rather sweaty affair).
Soon after, we skipped our way down to the sea where we promptly jumped into the waves and splashed about amoungst the throng of too many other people, mostly holiday makers who were wearing rather unsuitable swimwear for their shape...
Walking back up the hill in our wetsuits from our dunk in the sea we met the lovely surfbum warden/manager Phil, who let us in. He himself had just come from a speedy hours surf before he started work again too. Good stuff!
After a supper of stirfry, we nattered to some other folks staying at the hostel before going on a wine run into town/village.
Coming back up the hill again, we then all went and sat on a bench on a cliff which had a big "dangerous cliffs" sign on it; here we sat with an excellent group of people:
-Myself (of course)
-Silje (my travelling partner in crime and hacker down of poor un-knowing plants).
-Phil (manager/warden of Perranporth YHA, lovely indeed)
-Woman from New Zealand (met her at Lands End YHA)
-Man from New Zealand (also met him at Lands End YHA...)
-60ish lesbian women (again, Lands End YHA...)
-Phil's friend (guitar strummer, the most inebriated)
-Phil's friend's other half female (confusing black hair, looked like a Spanish doll)
-Old man (used to sail on real boats singing real shanties)
-50something year old man who was a bit of a pig (but nice enough, looking for love?!)
As you can see, I've managed to not remember ANYONE'S names, but you get the vague idea of who we were with.
Some photos were taken of us all, and we sang shanties - some the old man sung on his own which were so great, listened to Mr Guitar man play his guitar, we nattered about many things all of which seemed interesting, we drank wine, ate biscuits, munched on mussels which were fresh from the beach and cooked in a white wine and garlic creamy sauce, glorified in how super life is and wondered how we can ever think otherwise, and watched the sun go down.
LIFE IS TOP NOTCH.
That night I slept most excellently - my head was next to the slightly open window, and I could hear waves crashing about at the bottom of the cliff (since the hostel is perched right ON TOP of said cliff...).
In the morning we tidied our stuff away, said our goodbyes to everyone, pranced about the hostel in our wetsuits, the NZ woman took a photo of us, and we borrowed some body boards to leap in the sea with.
Sea sea sea, lovely leaping. Catching a few waves in to shore, and then finishing it off just without the boards. We had a lunch of pasty (for me) and fish&chips (for Silje) before heading off to Falmouth (driving in my wetsuit) where we re-jumped into the sea and felt a little odd for doing so as Falmouth is on the south coast and so waves don't really exist and so most people were just wearing bikinis & such! Oh my. We looked all very gothic, but it helped us stay in for longer, and we floated about to our hearts delight... ahhhh...
The fabulous time was finished off by heading off to Shipwrights for a post-Brittany gathering with many other folky sorts, I had me some whiskey & coke, stood over looking the harbour, and listened and nattered. At some point Mr Arnold turned up too, it was most excellent to see him again, and then Phil & the older bloke & the Phil's friends turned up too, so I stood with Phil for ages & nattered to him - he was really enjoying the music, turns out he used to work at Pendennis YHA when it still existed.
And to top ALL of that off, I had double scotch marmalade on toast for breakfast, with a little butter. What can be much better!
Ohhhh....
Right! Things on my to do list:
-Design new website
-Tidy my rooms
-Start taking stuff out of my rooms which I'll want to send back to Reigate when my folks come to visit
-Finish off those 3 other "3 things" illustrations
-Make some bread (maybe?) to eat with more marmalade
-Stop my eyes from feeling like pickled testicles (salty sea water + sunshine + whiskey + probably not enough sleep...).
-ETC!!!
I created this little thing - the character (sort of me) is standing behind my business cards in my show. If all the business cards are taken, you can read the words "OH NO!" and see the underwear & hairy legs. If they don't all go, you won't. The photo is one of mine from Brittany, I just fancied putting that there...
The first of 4 "3 things" illustrations, taken from things Mr Arnold noticed up in Och Aye land the past week. This one: blue bells, just in bloom, row upon row of pine trees, steep sided hills/mountains.
An image of my good friend Matt, I didn't take the photo - my other good friend Tanzee did. Sadly I don't get to see either of them very much any more due to my wish to remain in Cornwall... I just rather enjoyed this photo. Usually he's behind the drums, but I 'spose he's doing something else here...Thats all. I should go do something on my to do list now.
Ciao for now!
