91. Catch a small plum

(a doodle I fancied doing, the word is rather satisfying. Looks a tad like dragons eggs).

Bonjour!

Another week at YHA Golant has passed, and it’s actually been a rather good one on the whole – apart from a few customers who decided to attempt to make my morning hell one of the days (“Is there any more bread? Toast?” “I’m afraid not, it’s all gone now!” “But that’s just not good enough! What are my children to eat?!” or “But we’re going on a long journey today! What are we to eat?!”
Here let me point out that for breakfasts (between 7:30am & 9:00am) we serve tea, coffee (including milk & sugar), croissants and bread rolls (both white & brown often), 3 different types of cereal, cheese portions (when they’re in), sliced meats, an array of fruit, fruit juice stuff, 2 different types of butter / spread to put on bread stuffs – as well as different jams, and then a full English breakfast which is bacon, sausage (sometimes veggie sausage too, if we have any), mushrooms, scrambled egg, cooked tomatoes, hash browns (sometimes fried potatoes), and baked beans. That’s a fair load of food, yes? We will always put out enough for everyone, and often have to restock on things like the eggs, beans, and sausages… if you’re really worried that you won’t be able to get enough bread to shove in your mouth, then try coming down earlier than right at the last minute (nearing 9am). I’m sure your children will be able to eat everything else – like any other normal child they may just want a simple bowl of cereal, and don’t tell me that the service isn’t good enough because I know I NEVER said to you that the female dorm only had 10 beds rather than 20! I very well know (due to cleaning the said dorm on most days) that it does not have only 10 beds so why would I say such a thing… pah! Apologies for the rant, however some folks really should learn that us working people are not aliens, we do have hearts, and we do not appreciate being treated like shit just because you yourself are in a grump. If we have no more bread, we have no more bread. We are not magic, we can not just create some from scratch in a matter of seconds – if we DO have some left, it’ll still be frozen and so yes! It will take a little bit of time to defrost and be cooked!
THANKFULLY there are also a wonderful Dutch couple staying, the chap is apparently a musician and enjoys winking, and the lady enjoys grinning at me and holding my arm / patting pretty much my bum. They’re relatively old (well… 50’s?), she calls him her friend, he calls her his girlfriend. They’re camping at the end of the garden. On that morning of demanding bread munchers, the Dutch couple were the only people who were really genuinely nice to me – due to this I made it my mission to often be the one to serve their meals to them, ask them how their day was, exchange good natterings, and make them a small picture painting briefly mentioning “thank you for being such wonderful guests, especially on a day when everyone else seemed to fail to be so”. Correct, I may be a suck up, but if you’re going to be such pleasant people then you may as well be rewarded for being so – maybe more people will start being nicer.

Nice happy thoughts!!!

Currently in the countryside about the hostel the baby cows are all growing up, and so the field below my window is full of really weird cow noises (more like dinosaur noises if we’re to be honest), there’s swallows darting about all over the place – the other evening I almost knocked one off of it’s perch in the hostel courtyard whilst wielding the mop to empty a bucket of kitchen floor water! It was so very close! Apparently their legs are really weak and so once they’re “down” they’ll stay down for quite a while until they really want to fly (information gathered from Mr Arnold).
I also had a run in with a bat that same day, broad daylight! I went into the cleaning supplies etc room and their was a bat just flapping about! It landed in a few places, and I was quiet enough to be able to get 2 hastily drawn pencil sketches of it. THEY’RE SOOOO CYOOOOT! Fluffsome fluffers. A few other folks came and watched it with me for a while, including the Dutch couple and my manager Paul.

The fields of oats and barley and wheat etc are in the process of being munched up by tractors, and hay bales rolled and so the hills are a fantastic array of patchwork colours in multiple different textures and patterns. Black blackberrys are slowly but surely arriving (especially outside my kitchen window), and I’ve been pointed to a crop of chestnuts right next to where I park my van. I’ve been continuing to steal the eggs from the chickens, and occasionally forgetting to wear proper foot coverage and so ending up having chickens pecking my feet.

The weather? Well… Cornwall! Today it is mostly bright grey cloud with the occasional patch of blue sky; it is relatively still (only the odd breeze here and there) and really rather stuffy – sweaty! It’s been a bit like this for days now, I’m hoping that soon (perhaps on my next weekend?) the actual summer decides to appear! But this will do for now, at least it is not cold like it was last week.

Yesterday on my “Saturday” I went to the Luxulyan valley which is a beautiful area a short drive from here. It was once really rather industrial – you can see the remains of a huge water wheel, an aqueduct (it still works on the whole – you can walk across it! I never really quite worked out how they work before… once I was shown that I could see water under my feet beneath the stones I suddenly felt a little as if I was walking on the sugar crust of a crème brulee, and that it could crack at any minute and myself and the tonnes of rock would go smashing through to the valley floor). The weather was indeed pleasant yesturday, the sun shone for the simple picnic of a “French stick”, salted butter, parma ham, and orange juice (with juicy bits), and splashing about water in the stream was really rather nice. I clambered from rock to rock in the stream (riverish stream), and ended up on a good round one which was coated in a carpet of fluffy moss.

In the evening, I caught the bus to Fowey where I ate with Mr Arnold at Sams restaurant (there is also one in Polkerris). After a 50 minute wait of drinking apple Rattler (whoops! Goes straight to my blood!!), I chomped upon 4 yummy yummy scallops with garlic butter drizzle and added lemon, salad, a chunk of French stick with plenty of butter, and then for mains I had the ¼ pound beef burger with blue cheese bacon and salad, as well as skinny fries and a good selection of dips. As much as I enjoy burgers, I always forget that I shouldn’t order them when there are other tastier options as they always make me turn into a GIANT BALL OF BLOATED GAS!!! Catching a late bus home, walked down from Castledore to the YHA in minimal light (about 10:15pm). Stars were out in part, and on the hill in the distance a person was lamping for rabbits.

Today I am just getting a few little things done, I hope to saw up the mattress for my van (I’ve been meaning to do it for AGES now).

So that’s that! Next Monday, Rachel & I are having a GIRLS DAY and shall go to St Austell to finally watch the new Harry Potter mooooovie. Otherwise, from what I can tell, the next week is just another week of scrubbing toilets, cooking food, and invading the chickens. Almost ¼ of the time through my stay at Golant YHA, though!

Ahhh… oh! Sunshine!!

Some sketches of some pieces I hope to make, based on "eco" stuff. There may be more, I just thought I'd show the sketches for now...

90. Swallow a bee

Hello again...

I've currently CROSSED MY FINGERS A LOT (although I originally wrote "crossed my gingers"), as I'm being considered for The Artworks Illustration agency's "Startworks" programme. I really hope they'll take me on, REALLY REALLY! If they don't? Well... I guess I'll just have to carry on life, keep drawing whenever I can (it doesn't seem like often at the moment :( ) and hope for something else to come along.
Working with the YHA is alright, the pay is good, the people are lovely (mostly), the accomodation is pretty dandy (well... mostly!!), and the location is superb (apart from lack of sea within a short dawdle from my room); but it is starting to drag - even after only 3ish weeks. I'm fully aware that I can't be too fussy with what I do - after all I am insisting on remaining living in Cornwall, and I have only just graduated - I don't have much money (shh!) and I'm not exactly a high up illustrator (sadly). But even so, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be hoovering and scrubbing toilets and cleaning pots for the rest of my life! It'd be GREAT to get an agent and the like, really really great, and I'm still fully aware that even when I do that I won't be able to earn a full living from it... but enough so that I don't have to clean up un-flushed poop?! PLEEEASE!
It doesn't help that I'm currently looking through photos of the Easter of events in Brittany, in hot sunshine, wonderful singing music dancing etc, lazing about (when not being yelled at to get up and dance...!!!). Alas! It's not even SUNNY at the moment! Last night I almost fully shut my window, put an extra blanket on the bed, and a hot water bottle on my feet! What it is all coming to...
In short, I'm better than scrubbing toilets. Sorry, but I am.
End of rant.

I had another nice "weekend", went on a visit to Falmouth (it was SUPER DUPER weird driving there in the evening, I drove past my house (old house) and got a little emotional feeling). One day of lazing & walking the highstreet, and then a day of driving out to Church Cove to re-visit the church which is half buried by a sand dune. In the church I met a mouse, it was NOT being quiet!! Also walked a little bit of cliff there and admired the rock formations, before going down onto one of the beaches to jump over ever widening (due to rising tide) rivers, get my knees wet, and run away from fake creatures (it ended up in a shoe).
Events also included meeting an escaped cow on the road, and being SUPER HAPPY that the Helston Sainsburys fuel area does FREE AIR!! Most fuel stops now make you pay. FOR AIR! This makes me love Helston Sainsburys even more than I already did.

Today at the hostel it has only been Rachel & I working all day, we somehow managed to get everything done, and I even cooked hake & such to perfection! It amused me when a woman (hake woman) was praising my service & whatnot to another guest, before noticing that I was sitting right near her & she got all embarrased - ahhh, ego widening. Delicious!!

Once again, it does not want to let me add images, so for now, go to my Flickr account for any updates of the artwork variety!

89. I drank red wine

Ahhhhh this is the life… sort of…
Today is essentially Monday morning for me, despite it actually being Wednesday morning. Funny YHA shifts. But I have freedom until 2pm (then I work until 11pm) so I shall fill these next 3 hours with being lazy if possible. I think thats allowed - Lisa is being lazy, but that makes sense as she's rather ill (water poisoned)… it's a bit of a shame really! She came up to see me and finds she is very kaput! But these things happen, and we still managed to get in a delightfully lazy afternoon yesterday (my "Sunday") as I drove to a local couple of beaches called Polridmouth where we lay on the sand and snoozed and watched ducks and the passers by, I ate boiled eggs (taken from the chickens in the YHA garden) and other such cold picnic items, skimmed a few stones, paddled my toes in the sea… the down points of the day would be Lisa being ill (sadface), myself somehow managing to lose the copper feather which Dan made me which I always wear round my neck (I noticed it was falling off, so I restrung it & all - perhaps I managed to weaken the metal of the link too much?! It's all very sad! I loved that feather! P'raps he'll make me a new one…? Won't be the same, but still! Why can't I have lost the dodgy leaf that I made (and burnt…..) instead. Hmpf! The final annoyance occurred when driving up the hill out of Polkerris - it's a small relatively steep climb, and on the way up I met a couple of cars coming down. From what I could see of their contents (grinning old couples in little cars) they were tourists. Now, I don't REALLY have a problem with tourists, I am one myself sometimes, aren't we all? However these were the sort who had no ability to reverse up a small winding Cornish lane to a passing place. I know there was one, as the car behind the first one usefully went back into it for me, but the first car just grinned at me, and so I had to reverse down this hill… there's some sort of rule (written or not) that the vehicle going UP the hill had right of way? Maybe? Who knows.
ANYWAY, to cut my rambling and ranting sort of short, I ended up reversing the back left corner of Hector (my van) into a rock filled wall, this resulting in a horrible crunch and me swearing a lot. Having done this, and letting the twatty and still grinning tourist past, managing to almost stall etc, I drove off home to Golant where on inspection of the back left corner I found I hadn't done so much damage as I had imagined - the glass (plastic) from the lights is gone, and there is a noticeable dent, but otherwise it's ALL OK. Phew. I'll still have to take Hector to a garage though… p'raps I'll get a couple of other little things fixed up too. Hmm.
Reversing down a hill = not so hard. Reversing down a hill in a van with blind spots = harder. BUT THESE THINGS HAPPEN, right?! Yes. I should not let it taint my day too much.

My "Saturday" was lovely also. I woke up and the weather was warm, and did a little painting. I've been craving painting. I still need a desk. Maybe I'll see if theres one on Freecycle in this area. After this, Rachel & I climb into Hector with a young (almost 19) year old chap who was going the same way as us and had been staying at Golant YHA that night. Handy! Off we drive to Boswinger YHA! Parking up in the YHA car park, and promising that we'd remove the van before 5pm when the rest of the hostel guests were arriving we wandered off down the hill in the sun, myself and Rachel taking the short cut through a field or two of young male cows (bullocks!), I was proving to her that cows won't ALWAYS chase her, and then spending a little time on the beach at the bottom. Summer indeed was there. Having cravings for ice-cream & public conveniences and the like, the three of us stomped off along the coast path (more meetings with cows, they still didn't chase us) just under two miles to Caerhays / Porthluney beach; this is where Vera got her foot stung by a weever fish two years back.
The coast path there was delightful, there was that hot summery clifftop smell in the air (no gorse wafts though), we looked down the cliff to the sea which was see-through and turquoise, and kept an eye out for slow worms (saw none). On arrival at the beach we acquired ice-creams and went to sit on the sand where we ate our picnic lunches and snoozed in the sun again (myself being my normal childish self deciding to attempt to undermine the sand Rachel was sitting on). Keeping a wary eye on the time, as if we didn't get back to Boswinger YHA to remove Hector from the car park before 5pm then Victoria may have decapitated us, we lazed and nattered before getting up the guts to jump in the sea. The tide was not very low and so it was relatively shallow for a fair while, but upon remembering about weever fish I dunked myself in pretty quick. The sea was delightfully calm apart from the occasional up-down corrugation of a wave, and there were warm patches to linger in (I'm telling myself that these were due to the small spring/river which runs down the beach from the lake above it rather than excessive amounts of human piss). It was one of the best relaxing sea swims I've had in a while… I'll have to go there again soon. Upon getting out and attempting to dry off (myself being the only person to have bought my swimwear) we acquired another ice-cream & stomped off in the opposite direction along the coast path, getting to the YHA with a little time to spare, with pinker browner skin, and larger grins on our faces. We said our goodbyes to the chap who's name still fails me, and drove back to Golant via Tescos to pick up essentials (red wine… ingredients for the ultimate spag bog). Arriving back at Golant we found Lisa had beaten us there, had to break into our house as someone had locked the front door again, and after making the spag bog we sat out on the grass at the back on a rug, eating drinking and talking, eventually wrapping ourselves in blankets until the mosquito attacks got too hard to avoid.

What else has happened?
Mr Arnold came up from Falmouth to visit me for a couple of nights - although company here at Golant YHA is fine enough, it really is nice to see a few other faces. Unfortunately it was not my weekend when he came up, so I was still required to work but in my spare time we did more lazing (it's essential! Especially when you still haven't adjusted from the life of being a full time art student into that of someone who runs about for 8.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, cooking, cleaning, and generally looking after guests!). In one split we walked down to the hostels 14 aches of woodland and then trespassed (tsk tsk!) across the china clay works railway to get to the boathouse area where the hostel boat is kept. That place was also once used by one of the Royal Charles' who used to take his females down there for canoodling and affairs. It is a fine place to go, we watched water traffic (kayaks and small boats) go by, I got stalked by his camera, and found I could make a nice colour metallic paint by crushing up some of the rocks down there.
Thankfully Mr Arnold is a local to this area, and so was able to amuse himself when I could not.

I've been hearing about people getting offers from New Designers, it's all very exciting. Sadly I have not really had anything (but this does not surprise me, as I do not reckon my work was up to a good enough standard, and I did not go along the the London ND show or anything anyway). I did however pick up an e-mail yesterday from a company called Mudpie; the name rings a bell, but not much of one.


"Hello,

My name is Louise Fenner and I am contacting you from a company called Mudpie. Based in Hampshire we are an international fashion trend forecasting company who produce 7 leading trend books covering the Male, Female, Children's, Sports and Print and Pattern markets. For more information about Mudpie please click on the following link: http://www.mudpie.co.uk/aboutus-company_overview.html

The reason for my email is that whilst at New Designers last week my colleague picked up your business card as they were very impressed with your portfolio. We are currently looking to recruit both garment and graphic designers and I wanted to invite you to send through some printable samples of your work along with your CV."


Thats all very nice, isn't it? It was ended with details to the company and such like… but I didn't feel the need to copy them on to here.
Nice indeed… however upon closer inspection I noticed a few things which bugged me a little.
-Did they really like my work as "trendy" stuff? Really? Although I'm sure everyone is vaguely affected by what is "hip and cool", but me? Hmm! Amused me slightly.
-Obviously a mass saved e-mail, as I fully know that the only thing I had on show at New Designers was my large foam board covered with my work. There was no portfolio, there were no business cards. I'm aware that mass sent e-mails are quick and speedy, but people really should notice the little details. It looks un-caring, and really rather unprofessional (in my eyes).
-The jobs were all in Romsey, that is far too far away from Cornwall for my liking (though closer than Reigate is).
I still appreciate the thought, however, and so have sent them an e-mail explaining that I would like to remain in Cornwall (I DO already have a job here…) however if they have any commission work they would like to run past me, I'm happily willing to give it a look.
I'm still not sure if I fit in with trend stuff, though!
I have also sent another e-mail through to The Artworks Inc agency, asking again whether they would like to see me (again) since it is now after ND.
Lets hope something comes of it… and once I've adjusted to the amount of energy I have to put in to "real life work", I can get on with some more drawing.
For now, go look on my Flickr I've recently created which are a little experimental for me, I tried a few new things, some have worked out better than others.
(No images posted on here today, as they refuse to behave!!).

88. Eat a date.

Helleuuu!
I have just sneezed (once - that means I'm ill. Apparently twice means that it's just something tickly, but any other number is being ill appart from those freaky deaky folk who sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeeeeze for ages, even when not ill).
I am infact, ill. With a cold. From Silje to Vera to me. A fair load of snot and a runny nose despite the fact that my nose is mostly blocked, and my eyes are watering - especially the right one, and my head feels funny, and my throat is a bit sore. All in all, it's annoying as I'm meant to be clearing up and out of my home of 2 years in Falmouth, as well as being cheery with everyone else as I'm going to leave their lovely company for that of Golant YHA... instead I have been flopping on my bed, attacking the garden, and throwing hard bread at Silje because I got pissy (thankfully she seemed to forgive me and brought me some honey and a knife and a mug of peppermint infusion... I hope it wasn't poisoned :) ).
At least when I get to Golant I will make sure to totally and utterly SORT OUT all my stuff, and get rid of a lot of it. I have far too much crap... I can not carry this all round in a van in the winter months. Toooo much...

So what has happened since my update on 6th June? Well, Mr Dan O'Shea arrived, and then disappeared rather quickly (to The Royal Cornwall Show). Us three girls went there on the Saturday also, after stopping off at Golant YHA for Friday night to keep Rachel company with some wine.
Although Royal Cornwall is pricey to get in to (£15!!) it's so very worth it (though I shall try get in free next year with the blacksmiths...!). We set off on a mission across from the main entrance to the blacksmiths tent, on the way meeting my Golant manager Paul (who was off to see the tiny little horses), met lots of huuuge bulls, pretty cows, oinking sleepy lazy pigs, and sheep - some of which looked like rabbits (I saw a sheeps erect knob - this amused me greatly). The blacksmiths were vocally abusing each other as per usual, and hungover. As per usual again, it seems!! I acquired myself a nice lightweight wax jacket, we bought Dan a hat (leather folk singer style sort o' thing, which we later embellished with pheasant feathers).
After Royal Cornwall we went in convoy with TRISTAN KESSELL! to Keveral farm (near Looe in Cornwall). I went there last year too for their annual all night folk event, this year however was much wetter. Although I had my van, we took a tent and all three of us slept in it. This would have been fine, as it was very warm and comfy, however it seems that someone had removed all the tent pegs from it and so it was only really held down with some makeshift pegs which Dan cleverly made. Again, this would have been fine if the wind hadn't been madly howling and at times the rain hadn't been lashing a little... but I was awoken at various times in the night with the slight worry that the top sheet would blow off (Dan helpfully came about a few times in the night silently thwacking the "pegs" into the ground more with his elbow). The morning came, and we soggily packed up and drove back to Falmouth in the fog (we got a little lost).

As well as being all folky and farmery, I've taken Mr Norris briefly looking for a van before we went to Lisa's secret beach and leapt in the sea (he swap like a crazy beast about the place, where as I had a sudden feeling of impending doom from the seabed and after a while decided to sit on a rock like a mermaid clad in tight black and blue neoprene).
I have also been on a few little adventures with Mr Arnold to various places, the most recent being to Perranporth where we walked along the cliff in the direction of St Agnes and ate a tasty picnic of simple baguette with butter and pate and double creme Oreos (mmmm!!!) and orange juice. Good stuff, says I. I may have been a tad grumpy at the start, but at the end all was fine and we looked at shags on Shag rock, and snooped about caves made from mines, and such like. We ALSO went to The Wheelhouse in Falmouth, had to book it in advance as it's a very small restaurant place. The interior is great - theres fun old hats on hooks on the walls that you can try on, and the only things on the menu are: lobster, crab, spider crab, prawns, scallops, and mussels. We had scallops in lemony butter sauce for starter (after stickmeat, they were the best thing I have EVER tasted, I had to eat some with my eyes shut). For mains we got the last big spider crab with special sauce, and mussels in white wine cream sauce as well as some skinny cut chips. The mussels were not the best ones I have ever tasted, perhaps because I ate them AFTER the scallops which were amazing. The crab was crazy to eat, having never eaten one before, and we were STUFFED after that feast!! Not cheap, but great food.

For a few nights my parents and grandmother were also down for my final show, they seemed to like it (admittedly my dad and grandmother didn't seem as impressed as my mum - perhaps thats a Bourne trait - not showing impressedness!!). I went driving with them round the north coast for a day (driving as le grandmere doth not walke so well nowadays), and also went to Greenbanks Hotel (other end of Falmouth to me) for supper. My supper was YUMMY!

UPDATE!!! It is now the 5th of July and I am at Golant! It is essentially my Sunday (2nd day off in my "weekend") and I now have the interwebs, so I'm sitting in reception grinning at Rachel working whilst eating a bar of Galaxy and drinking a hot chocolate... I don't often eat this badly, however I decided this occasional slobbiness called for it.
It was so terrible to leave Falmouth... the tidying up was left far too late in the end, and I have far too much stuff. In the end I got insanely tired and very emotional (I was the first to cry... oh dear...) and had to get Dan (who was still staying with us) to drive with me to Golant as otherwise I may have crashed. A LOT. Oh dear...
I miss my Norwegian's terribly, I didn't get enough time to sob all over them, and to dribble snot all over the place... they had better come to graduation in September, AND to Lowender Peran festie in October, and then I'll go to Norway in December for Christmas! I can't wait. I hope it happens.
In a way it feels good to be away from Falmouth, especially away from some things... you can only put up with stuff for a certain amount of time!!

Yesturday I walked in to Fowey with Rachel, my legs got bitten by flies on the way there. We they sat and watched life go by on the wall, before she went off to meet her new chap (ooer!) and I went and hunted down a printing company - I'm gonna see if I can get cards and postcards printed up which I'll then sell at YHA's & little shops in Fowey. Yes yes yes.

Ahhh... I'm not sure what else to write for now, I reckon I'll try update more often and such.
I'm thinking of moving my website onto something like Wordpress - I know it's not crazy profesional or anything, but it's so tricky to update my own website at the moment - mostly due to the fact I don't own Dreamweaver. We'll see. I hope no one from New Designers look at my website, it's blimmin' awful!

But for now, go read this blog (Mr Lukas Drinkwater) as it never fails to make me happy. Also, on the mention of the chap, here is a link or something to a new music video for 3 Daft Mokeys (the band he is currently in). He's the bassist chappo with the top hat, top notch!
http://youtu.be/RXS4DmjKskg video

And now, some imagery...
From the BawkBawk blog, I love all the colours and patterns in it...
My old classmate Eddie (Carl-Edvin Aslaksen) took this... not sure how, but however it was make I like it. Yes indeed.
I don't know who took it, who to give credit to... but it's a photo from space of the night lights in Europe. I like how patchy the light is down in Cornwall, and that you can see where capital / main cities are, and really built up places. In general I like it as it's geographically GOOD.
Sally Ross, I do like the textures, it reminds me a little of my own stuff.

I made a duck for Lisa's dad's birthday! In less than 10 minutes! (Ok, maybe 10...). I like the speedy style, but don't reckon I'll stick with it for ever!

These wandering guys are AMAZING.

Rude comic! Curvy! Thank you Vera!

This old - new photo thing appealed.

Ponced up Russian rich kids!

Ciao for now!