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!!).
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