Cap'n Bex

105. Honey from the hive

2012-01-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hmm... well, this post WAS going to be about my 2 weeks in Norway over the festive filled bit of the year, but I think instead I shall do a vague sort of round up about the past year...

January.
The year was kicked in with a New Years Day walk with Lisa, Dave, Jennie, and some others around the Zennor area - I had a good natter with one about vans, and eventually after lying down / measuring myself against various vans around the Falmouth area I bought one!Hector... ohhh my 3 seated love. You're almost 1 year old, and you're still behaving, I hope you continue to behave for a long few years yet!!
Now having a vehicle certainly meant a lot more freedom, and also a LOT more to learn...

February.
February was the month of DIY, with 2 lots of voluntary work at YHA's (Treyarnon Bay with Elk, and Lands End with Squidget), tie dying my bedding, and - much to the disgust of the vegetarians - inhouse plucking and gutting of a couple of pheasants as some sort of celebration for getting our dissertations printed and bound up all proper (I still wonder what on earth mine was about...).Theres Squidget and Chris tending to the fire, was he to know that a year from that point he'd have a little baby? (It's due to be popped out by his lovely Katie at some point in February this year, 2012).

March.
In March I started to notice change, and that we really didn't have long left in the lovely Falmouth house. My cousin Dan visited for a week, and with the help of Lisa I begun work on the insides of the back of Hector (creating a bed). After my birthday near the end of the month (25th March - take note!!), I went to live in Golant for 3 weeks to work.Here's Vera, Silje, cousin Dan, and sister Elk rampaging about the living room as beasts. This month certainly was an odd time, noticing change.

April.
ABERFEST. Well, THAT was certainly a fantastic middle-start to the month! The sun came out and shone brightly and hotly at us, and we went on a trip across the sea to Brittany, to sing dance and be merry. According to my sources (including my memory) nothing much else happened in April... Aberfest was just THAT eclipsing! AH! Yes, the most wonderful Peoples String Foundation gig at The Poly in Falmouth... but in some ways, that was just like the afterparty of Aberfest.I do so hope that this years Aberfest (Falmouth based), will have such good luck with the weather as last years.

May.
Eep, the month of proper realisation that my university life was surely coming to an end... it really didn't feel so long ago since I was dropped off in my room in halls and was pretty scared shitless (but quite excited) about being left purely to my own devices!! And now it was all nearly over. The majority of my illustration class went off to New York, where as I was stubborn (due to my slight hatred of cities) and decided to try London instead, which basically meant driving Hector from Cornwall to Surrey to deliver a vanload of my furniture. I stayed with Nina for a couple of nights, and then sprinted back to the adopted home county and breathed a sigh of relief! I really am born to be a country bumpkin.
This month was also that in which shenanegans with Mr William Arnold began, after we went on a drinking date to Jacobs Ladder pub and then he was drunk enough to put his arm round me on our walk back home. The start of a few months...Here's Nina outside her old Kingston home, she's certainly gone a lot further with her illustration than I have!

June.
End of degree exhibition, packing up my uni career, sleeping on my floor mattress for the whole month, a very short holiday to mark the end, packing up house. The month of an end, the real end - it seemed. Time to go into the "real world". We partied enough - The Star Inn in St Just, Royal Cornwall Show, the Pentorr boys house, Pentorr gig, etc etc etc... but it was terrifying, non the less, and I became much miserable that evening I had to leave my Norwegians in Falmouth to go start my job in Golant. I may never live with them again.
I went on a real proper fancy date with Arnold, to a place which HAD to be booked in advance, and generally ate out all fancy a whole lot due to leaving & family being down etc...Goodbye, Falmouth study... you are still missed, despite your constant seagull poop splattered window, cold & draughtyness in the chillier months, and constant smell of fart... and I hope you, dear desk, are still being well looked after, and that possibly one day I'll come collect you.

July.
Golant. Month one of four. My original excitement wore off pretty quickly when I noticed that the time I could have been spending outside in the occasional sunshine (wet summer) was actually generally taken up by lying in bed and groaning after a long mornings work of making peoples breakfasts and cleaning their rooms...
Most weekends were spent with Arnold, infact due t0 the large lack of photos on Farcebook of me between June and September, most of my time was indeed Arnold related. I also saw Lisa, who was sadly rather ill for much of the time, and almost got a place on The Artworks "Startworks" programme...I was tempted to be very mean and evil here and post up an image of Mr playing the harmonica starkers amongst a lot of tie dye... but I guess I shouldn't make things worse!! So here's a rather pretty meadow scene... we had a good picnic. The normal.

August.
Finally got a new digital camera (not that I wasn't enjoying using cheap colour film!!) after my old one dying back in late March / early April. More adventures with that chap, and I got to sleep in Hector (by then having a proper made bed) a few times. I was making sure to make the most of my Monday/Tuesday weekends - getting out whenever possible to places I hadn't been in a while, doing some exploring, trying to catch some sun before it disappeared for the summer.Near Treyarnon Bay, an evenings stroll with some of his homemade elderflower wine. Evenings were getting noticeably darker.

September.
Malewise, things have been going pretty tits up and argumentative... thankfully there was much to distract me as I had visitations from Imy, then the Norwegians (for GRADUATION!!); not that there weren't good times - sometimes it felt like it was going right, we visited National Trust areas, went on walks and found apple trees and giant puffballs to eat... but no. Obvious turbulence. I notice I'm writing about Arnold a fair load in this years thoughts... but I guess he was a pretty big part, for a while.Theres Silje, Andy, and Rarr being all graduational... fun in it's own way, I'm glad I did it - even if it wasn't really my cup of tea!!

October.
A bit of a mental countdown going on this month... every spare day / day off I had I'd disappear off to Perranporth to hang out and be a fellow cool duuude to Phil (friend, and manager of YHA Perranporth - my boss to be!!). Rescuing dead robins at work, taking part in a YHA team challenge with Phil, Paul, and Chris, meeting new (Belgian) mates, and singing in a Perranporth based Celtic fest. All in all, Perranporth based despite still working at Golant. And then... the time came! I packed up, and left Golant.An end to many things, including Arnold (he didn't die, I just treated him like crap and so it ended. I've learnt lessons!).

November.
Starting with a very short week in Perranporth, I then went on travelling my chunks of Cornwall and ended up at a WWOOFing place Tregoss Barton on The Lizard (an ex-leper colony, don't you know! The Lizard in general, that is...). Most fabulous to be outside so much, except for when the weather got the better of me... a visit from the sister broke it up nicely, but I decided that I would leave in mid December rather than the end of February as it just wasn't the place for me.
A couple of little arguments here and there, a rather strange breakdown, and two gigs.An average evening scene at T.B. Abba, dogs, crafting. Admittedly the shown dog (Ruby) was not the normal dog... (that was Dogga).

December.
Wow, this last half of the year sped past so fast...
2 weeks WWOOFing, being highly excited about the latter half of December, leaving, thinking of what was to come, definately getting the Perranporth hostel job for this coming season, oh excitement! I felt as mad as Dogga the dog. The majority of the second half was spent in Norway (on this subject I shall write later, as I really should do a write up about it), and the first half was taken up with half hearted weeding and getting bitten a lot of times by bugs around my ankles.
Apart from Norway, not much of significance happened...
The month of rainbows.

So thats it really... will I post again, copy what many others seem to have done - things I want to do in 2012? Who knows...
I'm not too sure as to what I want to do, maybe it could be a good idea.

Good night.

104. Damn that door...

2011-12-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

9^th December

Well… here we are… back at Perranporth! This time it’s just a 2 night stay though, making Phil keep to his word of helping me in-shoo-late my van. Mmhmm. It’s been a quiet night after a busy afternoon and evening, after decorating Jonathon’s house for x-mas (he has almost appalling taste in decorations! Although managed to find the best, and I reckon they look pretty good now) (if you’re reading this Jonathon, I mean appalling in the nicest way possible!!). Drove to Falmouth under a dramatic sky – behind me on the Lizard (apparently an old leper colony! Hence “Lizard” after scaly people…) the clouds were pitch black and looming, in front of me there was the low winter sun, catching on a rich variety of fluff, bulge, and wisp… all interwoven.
Arriving in Falmouth and parking up on my old road to collect my post, no one in; I’m told they’ll be back in a short hour, so I skip off to The Front for a “cheeky” half pint of Heligan Honey, and to steal the free WIFI.

It was strange, in The Front… it’s so the same but so different. Like the conversation I had with Mr Daniel John O’Shea “Falmouth hasn’t changed, but the people have left”. Not all the people have left, there’s still the regulars at the bar – the balding long haired chap in the plaid shirt, guy with a 1970’s haircut who brings his own tankard, and a bald chap who Dan tells me, plays bouzouki and is loud (if you’re wondering, it was a cyber version of O’Shea as he was on the MSN).
No Brian, though. The chap who always had one eyebrow raised over his chunky black frames. Perhaps he’s remained overseas for good. There was still Matt and whatshisfaceotherbarmanager behind the bar, still my drawing on the wall, still “Juggling Boy” and a few other long haired hippy sorts (and dog) wandering in, still the festive mulled cider for £2.50 a mug. But no loud (and getting louder when drunker) Norwegians, no blacksmiths breaking into song, no old men winking at us and joining in or making us dance (I guess it is a Friday, not a Monday), and no fellow classmates coming in and then being avoided or greeted depending on mood and inclination. The world (Falmouth) is a funny place, when all good is gone. So I did a Lisa, and had my drink and used my internet in the corner, on my own.

Things got even weirder when I went and knocked on my own front door! Of course, it’s not my front door anymore… for I don’t live there. Yeeeess I could have let myself in… I may or may not still have the key (for nostalgia purposes, perhaps?) but knocking seemed appropriate. The girls answered – they’re creatures of the party. The no singing/dancing/swearing owl & his frame had gone from the wall by the front door, the shoe rack was an actual real shoe rack rather than a bookcase, and my “please leave post at so and so” sign was still on the door! But it was a bit greener and furrier than before. Ahh the damp of 4 Marine Crescent. Nice girls, though. I was invited in briefly and we had a quick natter – the girl who has my old rooms likes my desk, and wants to add to the scribbles and pictures on it, they really liked the painting work I’d done in the downstairs bathroom & the antlers in the living room (they’ve become a great photo opportunity of anyone and everyone who appears, I may try find these girls on Facebook to see what our house looks like with other folks parties), and best of all, THEY HAD MY POST! Phew, panic over.
Back in the van, driving off to Perranporth. And so that’s where I am now.

This evening, with lack of Phil to talk due as his new woman is down from London (LONDON!!) I’ve drawn stuff, and nattered to a volunteer. Oh how we judge people on their looks… he looks pretty average – short hair, Super Dry t-shirt, hoody, jeans, trainers of sorts… but then he’s very much into things such as ley lines, the moon, and even witchcraft! Perhaps he was a Goth type back in the 80’s, he’s certainly got some appropriate tattoos on his arm for that.

Our rather good conversation trailed off slowly as the “bedtime” tea that Phil gave me set in, and so now I’m in bed (in the hostel!!! On a bunk!! Van has to stay condensation free for tomorrows in-shoo-lating) and soon to sleep. I do enjoy a good conversation.

Will I jump in the sea tomorrow? Maybe. I am in company of Phil, and that tends to end in the sea (the volunteer jumped in wearing just his summer suit yesterday, and he survived!). Currently I’m also fancying going down the hill into town to buy a pasty from the butchers, and acquiring some veg for the evening meal of pheasant. Hom nom nom.

Zzz… and now, to sleep… with the sound of windswept waves bashing about at the bottom of the cliff. Mmm…

10^th December.
My! How the days fly! Isn’t that just such a fogeyish thing to say? It’s true, though.
I’m not going to give a complete rundown of what I’ve done today, I’m sure no one wants of needs to know everything… not even me if reading back in the future… however it mostly consisted of scrambling down a cliff path, hiking across a beach, a rainbow, splashing through (and half sinking) through the “Great River Perranporth” which runs across the beach (…soggy feet…), arting & crafting, insulating the roof of my van, eating a scrummy yummy pheasant with Phil (followed by ice-cream & brandy filled dark chocolates), and an evening half taken up with talking about much and many. Mostly Phil’s new giiirlfriend Clare, the website Plenty Of Fish, reincarnation, and me coming to work here. Eee! I’ve warned him that the hostel at some point may become totally over run with potato wedges in various flavours (Ally demands them, if she comes to visit us. In bulk. Wedges in bulk, that is… not Ally… although after all the wedges she could also be in bulk).

And now to finish it up, I’m in bed with a mug of “bedtime” tea, so if I start typing a bunch of bollocks then you can tell it’s set in…

Shit, and now I’ve actually forgotten what I was going to write in the first place… is this bedtime tea or memory loss tea?

I’m pretty damn excited about coming to work here starting March! Of course it’ll only be 20ish hours a week… so that’s roughly £6500 a year (before tax & all that stuff), but there is the potential to get a second job – I’ve been considering bar work at The Watering Hole down on the beach. Phil has also mentioned that Ben Attwell has mentioned the possibility of me getting into the whole “come stay at YHA’s in Cornwall!” sort of thing, not quite advertising but near enough, in my spare time (of course… there should be a budget for that!). And not forgetting getting my head down & cracking on with some ARRRT.

I can’t wait to have a few more shared meals with Phil (when we fancy being jointly sociable), and actually being able to talk to guests rather than have polite short conversation before cracking on with cleaning/cooking. AND BEING ON A CLIFF. And putting my input into the place (I’ve suggested Mooncup adverts for the back of toilet doors, as Phil would like it to be a green beacon hostel, and he’s into Surfers Against Sewage and Mooncup is waste free apart from the cardboard box & booklet which it comes with (which can be recycled!). Of course you can’t tell everyone to convert to Mooncup’s and the like, but I think the word of them should become far more widespread) (wow, long bracketed area).
Maybe I’ll get to paint some fun little things on walls, I reckon that it’s good to make guests smile, and hostels should NOT all look the same, and they should NOT all be magnolia in colour (this one isn’t magnolia… it is however a dodgy peach colour in most of the rooms… but not magnolia!). Yes of course there will also be downsides, I could get bored of spending all my nights in my van (but there’s ways around that), and there’s no definite chance of me being able to find elsewhere to store some of my stuff (I hope I do find some studio space), but… not many downsides. If I was anyone else, I don’t think I’d survive 10 months in my van. But I’m not anyone else. I am definitely Bex. Rebecca A.something Bourne. Funny, that.

Here’s to hoping that I won’t get fed up with Perranporth as I did Golant! Cheers! (with the rest of my almost cold bedtime tea).
And with that, I bid you bonne nuite.

11th December.
Insulation - DONE. Well, roof & majority of the sides, anyway. The important bits, certainly. Now all I have to do is make the roof look all pretty (bring on the hippy drapes!), and paint patterns (but not too many of them) on the wood panelled sides - the wood must still be able to breathe, though! And then... entertain company! My own little house. Very crowded house, it will be... with all my stuff... argh...

Does anyone ever read this? If you’re reading this, then please do leave a comment! It doesn’t have to be anything interesting, or clever, or even good… I’d just like to know who does, out of interest. Not that it really matters.

There have been loads of rainbows recently. Heres one Tregoss Barton (here) on The Lizard, and one from Perranporth beach.

Stuff I've done, finished or not!

First up! Thought from an image from "Girls Skate Fal". I do indeed with I could skateboard, though... but then, I wish I could do a lot of things. Am I down with the kids for making this piece?

Potential final logo for Aberfest, slightly changed from the last one. (UNFINISHED!)

Miss Scriven asked me to create an image of Dave and herself adventuring... whether she really meant it or not, who knows! Here is the basic starts (UNFINISHED!!!)

Other folks work!

Amber Cassidy. This piece is a wrap round cover for a compilation CD on “For Folks Sake”. Although looking at other pieces of her work I can see huge space for improvement this piece is really lovely! Especially the silver birches.

Hanna Konola. Very very simple, in some ways a bit TOO simple, but effective non the less.

From the shop of “Hole in my pocket” on Folksy, a pretty fun card! I’ve got this on here more for the quote which I do certainly mean to use… (reminds me of an event years back, of my family sitting at the base of a large cross on the Cornish coast near Boswinger, singing “I’m a Scruffy bear and I don’t care, I look up peoples underwear!” – most of you won’t understand this, as it’s a song about my sisters bear, Scruffy) (it was really fun).

I found this via my friend and ex-classmate, Michaela Meadow. Although it's pretty - like her stuff, I don't think it is... I could be wrong! Who ever it is created by, I think it's GREAT.

Rebekka Seale. I’m not sure if she’s been doing the entire alphabet like I have (well, HAD), but this is laaavly. Nice wing jumpers.

Zander Olsen. I’ve seen a couple of bits of his work floating about the sea of interwebs recently, so I’m guessing they’re a bit “cool and hip”? But anyway. I like scenery. And arted up scenery.

Last but not least… William Arnold. Perhaps I’ve chosen this bit for a different reason to the others… I’m not too sure if this is one of his pinholes or not, but we went here in the summer. I remember we stood right here by the manmade waterfall and the spray wafted over us, which was rather refreshing as it was a pretty hot day. Previously we’d sat and had out normal weekend picnic lunch (which if you’ve read my posts from over the summer, you’ll be fully aware of) in a meadow. Everything was bright blue skied, and green leaved – full of colour, and we were very happy! Where as this photo seems dramatically bleak, with water which has turned to a deep flowing pool of black ink. Not sure if any of that made sense. It did to me. Talented chap, that Arnold. I wonder if he’s found out anything more about the big competition.

103. A view of the sea

2011-12-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

Zzz... tonight is a night for being cozy and eating chocolate and watching a costume drama with Forest (we've decided on Wives and Daughters... BBC series! 300 or so minutes of silly frilly dresses? Yeeeah).
It's a strange evening... Anthony and Dogga left just before lunch, back to London, and so now it's just Forest, Johnathon and myself. Quiet, and far less excitable (due to Dogga's absence, I shall miss the morning excitement of "OHHHH! MORE PEOPLE! OHHH! THIS IS SO EXCITING!" which Dogga seemed to always get.

Life here at Tregoss Barton, Tregaminion, is otherwise continuing as per usual. There are always more hedges to plant, more earth to move, more weeding to do, as well as other shorter jobs.
The weather has got a fair load colder over this past week, and it looks like it's to get rather speedily even colder over the weekend (annoyingly I may be in my van at that point, with no hot water getter! Brrr...). Funny to think though, that this time last year it had snowed at least once.
Earlier I looked through a few photos of late November / early December from 2010 and got reminded of the good time Silje & I had when we invaded Lisa's forge when it was snowy, how we pulled each other about on the knocked together metal sledge, cooked sausages over the forge fire. At some other point Silje, Vera, & I got on the minibus for BTCV, rather unsure of where we were going... turned out we were going to Exeter. In snow. From Cornwall. Cornwall + snow = a lot of people going "AAAARGH! WHAT DO I DOOOO!" and Norwegian's constantly doing something halfway between laughing and rolling their eyes "HAHAHAHA... suckers".
Ahhh... how time flies.

On the mention of time, MAKE IT FLY FASTER! Not that here at Tregoss Barton isn't nice, but I really can't wait to see my HOMIES in Reigate area, and then off to Norway for 2 weeks of happiness and getting fat! Silje keeps reminding me how many days it is until I get to Norway. I hope the weather acts the same as the time I was there for x-mas in 2009... cold the night I arrive, and then snowing a little overnight, before we went into town (Stavanger) to go x-mas shopping and then it started to SNOW AND SNOW AND SNOW AND SNOW AND SNOW. I wasn't wearing terribly appropriate shoes.

Last weekend I had a good time. On the Friday we had a half day, and so Forest & I drove up to Gwithian where we went for an afternoon walk along Godrevey & then up to watch seals off of the point (somehow managing to walk AROUND a big rain cloud, and only get vaguely dampened). (Watching the sun collapse on Godrevey)
It got dark and I drove to Camborne station (getting a tad lost) to pick up my sister Elk. That night we have fun playing in the barn on the trapeze, a wobble board thing, and with the weighted hula-hoop before Elk settled down in Gypsy wagon Ellie, and sleep was had. The next day we headed off towards St Just, going via Penzance for me to pick up a few things from Archie Brown's health food shop ("dirty hippy" toothpaste, deodorant, and some Yogi "Men's tea". Interesting, yes?). There were Morris Dancers about and it seemed to be some sort of mini town festival going on, lots of well dressed people out.
Driving on, we got to St Just & snooped about, briefly snoozed in the back of Hector (afternoon-itis set in after our lunchtime pasties!) and then before it got dark drove off down the hill into the Cot Valley, right to the end of the road/track to the small carparking area. Sat and watched the sea for a while, I was half soaked by a rogue wave, supper and some cider in the back of Hector and then a 25 min walk back up the hill to St Just to have a couple of Rattlers and a rum & Shrub in The Star Inn - there was an old chap there, playing and singing cover songs. Bad, but good.
That evening we slept in Hector, it was pretty windy and rainy, lots of seaspray ending up on the windscreen, and the morning came along nice and blue skied. A lazy morning, and then driving the scenic way back to Camborne along the coastal road between St Just & St Ives, stopping to look at mines and cliffs and rocks on hills as we went, briefly stopping in at Perranporth to see if Phil was in (he wasn't... probably surfing). (Cliffs near Pendeen lighthouse / a load of mines)(Cowpat splat style rocks near St Ives)(Playing about on the rocks near St Ives)
Then I dropped her back at Camborne, she managed to just about catch the train.

Otherwise I haven't really done much of note... this week has been relatively crafty, creating some x-mas cards, a couple of presents, etc...

So now some links:

I mostly like the front page of this website, although not ALL the work...

This looks like an exciting event to go to!

And some work by other folks (none from me this time, the work which I HAVE created is all to be kept secret for a little while!).

Alan Brown... watercolours, I presume? Block shapes & pattern appealed.

Caitlin Keegan. A rather attractive 2012 calender...

Carmen Segovia. Like the way things have been shaded, really.

Helen Musselwhite. Cut out patches of pattern / texture... mmm.

Lotta Nieminen. Mmmmm shapes! Simple!

Tartaruga Feliz. Nice idea of cards... they each have bits of stories on the backs of them.

Yalena Bryksenkova. Simply lovely.

Smalladventure (Etsy). Oh gouache.

Via Suckmydog (Tumblr). It jusy appealed...

Via Magnolia-Bats (Tumblr). Can't go wrong with a good moon.

Via Allegorys (Tumblr). Psychedelic goodness!

By Steven Meisel. Don't have a clue who the woman is, but that hair? Delightfully scruffy!
Mourning ring via even*cleveland. Appeals to my pirate side o'thangsss. Please?

102. And the sky was blue

2011-11-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

Ahhh so here we are again…

I’ve been here at Tregoss Barton for just short of two weeks now, still un-sure what to make of it. It’s definitely NOT what I expected, but what was I to expect, really? The only other WWOOFing place I’ve ever really visited would be Culdess, and that was more of a holiday that a place to live & work.
As I’ve told various people, in fact pretty much aired to the world, it’s luxury (to an extent). For the majority of the time I have a KING SIZED (not the afore mentioned double) bed with a down duvet, an en-suite with shower, and 2 windows both with a good view (although tonight I’m in my van as Johnathon’s daughter is coming down). Daily food is good, starting with a breakfast of porridge, honey, juice, and tea (herbal, none of that nasty brown stuff!) before working for an hour and a half up until 10:30am for “tea break”. Most of the time this will consist of fresh bakes bread toasted (2 slices each), spread with whatever we can ever imagine – I generally opt for butter and Marmite for the first, and whatever takes my fancy for the second… “patchwork” seems to be the current favourite, with one quarter just butter, another butter and Marmite, another peanut butter & Nutella (like those Reeses peanut butter cups), and the fourth could be cherry conserve. Oh, and more tea (a whole little teapot for meee!). Another 2.5 hours of working before lunch at 1:30pm (yes, it’s pretty regimented!) which either Johnathon, Forest or I will cook. Johnathon likes creating pretty much anything (my favourite so far being the vegetable coconut green curry), Forest seems to lean towards stews, and on the one occasion so far that I’ve cooked it’s been pasta bake with olives & sundried tomatoes… I need to find some pescatarian recipes which aren’t too spicey (sadly the majority of my recipes include meat or spice… eep). After lunch there will be another 2 hours of working before ending at 4:30 and having the rest of the evening off to fend for ourselves.
Work for me mostly consists of digging small trenches to plant hedges in, landscaping the top field, digging turf, etc. Recently found that the compost toilet is a pretty good place to briefly hibernate when the wind gets too cold, and that the horse box (we have no horses) has a shower in it. Work also includes constantly throwing a stick for Dogga the dog (if he gets his own way and I don’t chuck it up a tree).

Who do I work with? Currently here, there is myself, Johnathon the chap who owns the place, Anthony who’s been here a while but soon to leave – in his spare time he makes surfboards out of wood and hopes that they float, Forest who I met a few years back in Bristol, and Dogga the dog (Anthony’s). We all seem to get along pretty well.
Me... with a found toad on my head, outside gypsy wagon "Ellie".
Beans I got out of the other beans. Pretty pretty!
Dogga & gypsy wagon Rosie, up in the top field (my field)
A lovely lichen coated stick.

So have I had any life out of WWOOFing? Yes I have! My first Monday night Lisa came along and we went to a nearbyish pub called The Five Pilchards where we drank, ate, and were merry… then last Friday, Forest & I drove to Falmouth after “work” and met up with Lisa and Phil to see Peoples String Foundation playing at The Poly; they were really good as per usual (though not as fantastic as that time back in late April / early May) although it was very odd seeing them for the first time without Lukas on double bass (since he abandoned ship to go to 3 Daft Monkeys a while back…). Everyone seemed to enjoy things and that night I slept in my van just up the road from my old house. Good nights sleep, surprisingly! Except for the small moment of slight worry when someone decided to shake the van...
On the Saturday I ran a couple of jobs for myself about Falmouth then drove off in the lovely sunshine up to Gwithian on the north coast, there I parked up next to Anthony & Dogga and found Phil. All was good, I sat in the sun on the cliff for a while watching people out for the day on the beach and in the sea, drawing up sketches for pictures and pondering life. Later that day I drove to Lands End YHA to meet up with a few folks & went to a strange but good (better if I wasn’t so tired & slightly grumpy) gig at St Just town/village hall. Blue grass band called… oh I can’t remember. Blue something? Sunday morning I woke & drove back to here on the Lizard; to get to anywhere from here it’s a pretty long trip as we’re stuck right down on the pointy bit of Cornwall! Can see Falmouth from the top field, but it takes an hour or so to drive as the Helford river gets in the way.
The bluegrass band...

Evening activites here have included playing Boggle, watching a DVD, and scribbling.
A rarer activity happened yesturday (I’m guessing by the time this is posted it’ll be more than yesturday, but the day really isn’t important in this tale). I was just digging turf up by compost bog, when a strange techno trance track came on on my iPod! I’d been singing along to previous tracks and so thought “gyerggh! What is this?!” but for some reason decided to give it a chance – perhaps because it was 24 minutes long.
Soon enough, I actually got really in to it and decided to have a bit of mental dance time – carefully tucking myself out of sight behind afore mentioned compost toilet so that if any fellow co-workers were to come along they should not think I was doing a ritual towards the toast God, or something (toast God is a VERY good God). Part way through my manic dancing, I noticed two things:
1) pretty much all of my “groovy moves” (is that what we call things to do with trance / techno music? Probably not…) were somehow related to more agricultural tasks such as, well, digging ditches and waving pitchforks. Trying to correct this and look a wee bit cooler in case any dog walkers passed in the field behind I soon noticed that
2) it was far too soon after lunch, and this strange dancing really wasn’t doing much for my digestion. Never the less I continued for a short while longer until it just got too much, and then stopped.
I had fun, though. I do miss the feeling you get when you step into Cyberdog in Camden and feel all the strange electronic bass penetrating you in a way which feels almost dirty.

Apart from the deranged dancing, and tonight watching Dogga frantically humping his doggy bed for a good hour (mixed up with a quick lap around the kitchen table every 5-10 thrusts), not much has occurred. Tomorrow Forest & I are off to Porthleven in search of wool & good meaty pasties, and maybe I’ll even get out again – sadly I can’t get hold of anyone via their tellingphones.
What a shame the strange (and un-repeatable on this here public blog) dream I had the other night cannot come true in some ways.

Over & out for now, as I’m getting REALLY COLD and need to curl up UNDER my duvet!

Saturday 19^th November, I’m the size of a whale (Forest & I drove to Porthleven to rape & pillage the wool shop, so I made use of the fact I was there and bought me a flakey steak pasty from Horse & Jockey, then watched the waves. Mmm).
Wool acquired, we’ve now made camp in the conservatory to make use of the wool. Yesss.

My van bed this morning (9am)
Watching waves in Porthleven.
Porthleven lichen. Delicious.

Work wise I've been mostly doing a "30 day drawing challenge" in the evenings, pretty much just doodles... as well as a couple of wave based things.
30 day samples:
(myself)

(my current favourite animal... hares)

(my favourite friends!)

Wave observations:

And now for other folks creations!

Levi Feldt. Please.
Ellen Rogers photography.

Cassandra Smith.

And Rima Staines... I've been following her (online only, sadly!) for a while now, her work never ceases to impress.

Some websites which caught my eye:

Pompom bunting, I shall make this... maybe for my van...

Re-imagined childhood drawings

I'll have this really expensive skirt, please

101. Say something dumb

2011-11-13T07:07:00.000-08:00

A post, almost entirely devoted to the innards of one of my (recently re-found) sketchbooks from over the past while!
Hurrah!

Front cover, mostly used as a portable cutting mat.

Page one. Bus/train numbers for hopping about the Peak District. And squashed plants 2010.

Playing Boggle with Squidget... and poppies from Dorset 2010.

Squidget in Peak District 2010.

Hills in Peak District 2010.

The girl now in third year illustration with REALLY LONG HAIR 2011.

Imy likes beards 2010.

Musicians from an all night folk night at Keveral Farm 2010.

Dogs in Dorset 2010.

Working out what instruments look like, plus squashed stuff 2011.

Drawing our own heads with hats 2010.

Dan bashing metal concentration face at Holifair 2010.

Crazy Dave gesturing and apparently talking a lot about Lurk Dink's head 2010.

Dave & Lisa playing 2010.

The parental sorts X-mas in Tenerife 2010.

Waiting to talk to ex-manager Paul at Golant, waiting for ages... 2011.

Drawing Peoples String Foundation at Gyll beach cafe (Lukas) 2011.

That creepy fake merman 2011.

PSF again, Harry 2011.

Pondering bits of Tintagel old church 2011.

Ben PSF (sorry Ben...) 2011.

Squidget smoking outside, and Lukas' bass playing feet 2011.

Zaid PSF 2011.

Clare PSF 2011.

At a get together in Brandivy, Brittany, (Matt, Luke, Nely) 2011.

Rarr in Jacobs Ladder for a gig 2011.

The house we stayed in in Brandivy, Brittany, 2011.

Sam & Cally & co playing at Jacobs Ladder 2011.

Crazy Dave playing his tea chest bass in Brandivy, 2011.

A doodle 2011.

A view to Glastonbury Tor from near Street YHA 2011.

Another doodle woman. 2011.

Pre-doodle for a picture for Arnold 2011.

Another odd doodle woman 2011.

And another one... miserable 2011.

Glastonbury tor 2011.

Small child on Readymoney beach 2011.

Some character 2011.

Sketch for a gouache piece I meant to do 2011.

Silly boring pencil sketches when unsure of what else to do 2011.

That chap who sits under an umbrella on Falmouth street corners 2011.

Royal Cornwall show speedy sketches 2011.

Dan YO'Shea, 2011.

Some silly sickly looking person + dead butterfly 2011.

View from Arnold's balcony 2011.

The view from the back of the room at the gig in the town hall, St Just 2011.

My map to show Lisa the geography of Cornwall (there abouts) 2010.

So there we have it...

100. I'm not dead!

2011-11-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

Saturday 29^th October.

I think cats can tell when people are soon to leave… Bruiser won’t leave me alone (not that I mind). Had a good cuddle with him on the floor for 25 minutes earlier (I got a very wet bum) and he got very comfy with my green corduroys & thick brown Icelandic sweater. Lots of dribble and lots of purring.
I do so hope that there’s a cat at Tregoss Barton farm… and a wood burner in my caravan. The combination of those two things would be top notch. Ohh it all seems so scarily close now! Going to go do something I’ve not done before! Well, not REALLY done!

I’m still having my nightly slumps, but I hope they’ll be sorted soon. I hope. For relief of any sort of stress I have, I got to skin & gut 4 pheasants earlier to prevent them from just getting chucked away; I saved their heart and lungs (to mash and add to red wine onion gravy) and packaged them up with them before putting them in the freezer like 4 small chickens. One for Rachel, one for Paul (since they were originally his!)? one for Phil, and… we’ll see what happens to the last one. Perhaps I’ll take two instead of one to Perranporth and keep one in the freezer for later use. Yes, maybe maybe.
Listening to Amy Macdonald (amongst other artists)… her songs have a habit of strengthening feelings, not necessarily of making sad SADDER but of making the sad a more concentrated sort of sad. Of course she also works the other way – making happy happier.

8.5 hours of paid work left.

Very almost Thursday 3^rd November.
Well, here I am again… back up on my (yes, I like to think of it as MY now) cliff top next to Perranporth YHA. Finished Golant (yay!) and everything I own which is in Cornwall is now right under my bed. And next to it. Fair load of stuff, really! But not as much as I had feared (it all still fits in, which is a plus!).

31^st October (Halloweeeen!) I managed to finally leave after packing everything up & Tetrising it in. Earlier that day I had driven over to Polperro (listening to Spice Girls on the car ferry over to Bodinnick) and picked up Lisa’s work from the gallery – although I’m pretty sure the chap there had met Lisa before, he seemed to think that I was actually Lisa! Not bad, I wouldn’t mind being able to create beautiful pictures of Cornish (and Lundy Island-ish) scenery out of rust and chemically rusted copper (makes the lovely turquoise green colour). Odd chap though, kept telling me right from the beginning to “STOP FLAPPING!”. It seemed to amuse him to tell me this… was I really flapping? I don’t think I was!

Lisa’s work can be found by looking for “Smythick Forge” on Goooogle to find her website (illustrations by yours truly).

Driving back to Falmouth was marginally worrying since there was a combination of:
-It was dark
-It was most definitely raining
-My van was rather very muchly laden
-There were HUGE PUDDLES across the roads in places

-Verging on rush hour.
But it was all fine in the end… the most challenging bit actually came when I drove up in to Lisa’s field to find that the rain had turned the entrance to a bit of a quagmire and made my wheels spin and spin and spin and me to stall… and stall… and stall. Thankfully I eventually got un-stuck and parked up in a slightly friendlier patch of grass before having to drag out Dave Wisdom to help me battle with Lisa’s water bloated front door. What a nice and friendly chap, is Dave Wisdom… shame he doesn’t eat meat, I could have supplied him with one of the skinned gutted frozen pheasants. But each to their own.

A night spent in Lisa’s field, slightly worried about her landlady Wendy coming out to tell me off (it got a little too late for me to go knock on the door and be honest), though had a good conversation with my old friend (etc) Red and watched some of “The Science of Sleep”. Phone battery ran out and so it was quite a miracle when I woke up on my own accord at just before 7am and made my escape from the field before anyone found me out…

Brief stop off at Sainsbury’s to buy the essential Lindt chilli chocolate and use their piss pots, then another brief stop off at B&Q to acquire some simple insulation (thankfully all these places are actually open at mental-o-clock) and then onwards! Onwards on the wonderful sunny morning, with loud semi-cheesy music blasting out and windows down (got to air the van out when it’s not raining). “Million Miles Away” by The Offspring was playing when I got my first sight of the sea at Perranporth, through a gap between two buildings; it was white and rolling, biggun’s too! I got that fantastic feeling where you grin and squeal and experience a perfect swell of happiness bubble up inside of you. Parking up, I watched the pure white foamy mess of the sea (not good for surfing, as there was so much froth that it looked like a foam party / snow) and studied the waves as the froth died off (sketching, of course). Phil popped up at some point, I helped with the hostel clean up (can’t get away from it! But only did the Hoovering…) before posting a couple of packages and then driving off to first Newquay harbour, then Gwithian, then the far end of Gwithian by Hawks Point to look at the surf. Hawks Point it was, we parked up.
I heard a yell.
I turned round.
Lukas Drinkwater!
What a nice surprise!

His van had broken down so he and his brother had gone for a surf and were then just hanging out in the back of the brother (Dan’s) van with Lukas’ girlfriend; she seems nice. We had a long brief natter and a good old Lukas hug, Luke seeming to already know Phil as “Mr Perranporth” and being apparently impressed by his McTavish longboard.

Wetsuits on, scamper off down the hill (not the comfiest experience ever with bare feet) and onto the sand before noticing that my glasses were still intact with my face and having to hide them safely on a rock.

The sea was good, the waves seemed big and powerful some of the time, the rest was just fun to bob up and down on so I got a decent amount of swimming in too (had to as there was a fair big current running this way then the next). Some kayakers were out in the waves too, they kindly tried mowing me down a couple of times but I managed to survive.
Sun still shining but I decided it was time to get out, so scurried back up the hill to warm up and eat a sneaky pack of white chocolate Maltesers (I wish they came in “multi race” packs, some milk and some white).

That evening I made a bolognaise and we ate it with Laura who also came round and nattered her feet off as per usual – we nodded and ahh’ed as usual.

A long day.
Today was far lazier, although not getting up terribly early I still managed to feel tired and have done so for the entire day, not done much (but done SOME stuff), supper was one of the pheasants – roasted with rosemary on the inside, butternut squash, parsnips, and potatoes. And some odd gravy invention made from the lungs and heart (not great, avoided most of it). For pudding I made an apple and rhubarb crumble, then we watched more Game of Thrones and I nodded off. And now I am in bed, and now it is twenty to one in the morn on the 3^rd November. Good night.

6^th November… well, I’m here now! At my new home for 3 months (ignoring the month away from it in the middle). A WWOOFing place called Tregoss Barton near St Keverne on The Lizard in Cornwall (bit of a mouthful of an explanation there!). Not too hard to find at all, and the drive down from Perranporth (where I watched dolphins) was beautiful as the weather has been gloriously blue all day, with the only cloud to be seen being the small cloud bank on the horizon over the sea. So yes… blinding, but beautiful sunset drive with the John Butler Trio as ear food. Am now here waiting for a chap called Anthony to appear, arrived just in time to get photos of a gypsy caravan and tree house with the bright red-orange sun behind it (it almost feels like a summers evening, but a fair bit chillier). As per usual with my current places to stay, all I can here is: …a plane somewhere in the far distance and a couple of birds. Wonderful…

So what have I been doing with myself these past few days up at Perranporth? Well, mostly getting in Phil’s way probably (helping to clean the hostel up after groups), but yesterday was really good. Woke up at 6:30am when Phil banged on my van and was in his van and leaving by 7am – of course, it’s still mostly dark at this point. Banana for breakfast. Arrive on the south coast just round the corner from St Michael’s Mount (Perranuthnoe) at roughly 7:30am, wetsuits on and in the sea by 35. The sun has just come up over a headland so whilst Phil surfs (theres a few others in the sea too, including Phil’s mate Su who had been in since 7am as she vanned in the car park overnight to allow time for a surf before work in the morning!). I drifted about in the water and had a good swim, the waves kept lifting me up high and dumping me down the other side so that my stomach flew out of my head and made me grin like a maniac, although I couldn’t body surf much as the water was a tad (rather very) “soupy” (seaweedy) in the depth that I’d need to be in… so I stayed out a little deeper. After about half an hour of floating and enjoying life and the rising sun I decided that I’d have to battle my slightly irrational fear of the seaweed and beat my way back to shore before the seaweed was in deeper water (more dangerous). It would have been fine if it was the see-through green seaweed which looks like soggy lettuce but it was the thick kelpy stuff which wraps round your ankles. Almost got dragged down in it when I tried to wallow over it, so had to give in and put my feet on the floor and tread through it. Yeeuuurgh! Dried off and sat in the sun eating breakfast of cereal & orange juice, grinning at a chap collecting driftwood, and briefly nattering to Su when she got out.

At about 10am Phil gets out and we drive to Lands End YHA via Tescos for some yummy things; there we meet manager Chris who’s first words were something along the lines of “Phil! I’m naked! Let me just put some clothes on…” and his other half Katie who is now noticeably pregnant. Sat in the sun for a while more, then took a stroll in to St Just to browse a couple of gallery shops and stretch our legs. The walk back was good, went to the top of a little hill and the weather was so clear that we could see all the way across the sea to the Isles of Scilly; get back and the four of us have a picnic lunch on the benches outside – fried Halloumi cheese, black olive bread sticks, Kalamata olives, rye bread, spicy soups, baby sweet corn, local brie, smoked cheddar, and houmus. And chilli chocolate for pudding. Having had this late lunch it is time for us to depart again, swooping back past the beach to see if Phil would surf again (too crowded by this time) and then back to Perranporth for a supper of spicy salmon cream cheese pasta with various vegetables, followed by the crumble of a few nights before with proper vanilla ice-cream (and two more episodes of Game of Thrones…).
(the evening at Perran)

A good day indeed!

(the sea at Perranporth earlier today. Isn't November lovely?)

And now, I hope I have a few good days also… lets see what is to come…
(this evening as I arrived, there is the treehouse & a rather SPOOKY looking rope)

UPDATE:
I’m now inside my WWOOFing place. I can sleep in the warm tree house or old Romany gypsy caravan if I like, but y’know… for now I might just sleep in my double bed with en-suite heated enough but not too much room with a view to the sea. Just for a little while… and a drawer full of chocolate? And a dog called Dogga? And friendly company? Well… I guess life is JUST ABOUT ok!!!

Other folks work:

Danielle Kroll

Melissa Castrillon

Anne Benjamin

Anna Aden

Amelia Bauer

Delicious food porn

Someone knit me these please? But different colours?

Beautiful beautiful beautiful jewellery... when I get a little more money...

99. Beer and wine, makes you feel... fine.

2011-10-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well… that was a most excellent long weekend away… just got back… half annoyed at myself for going to bed so late so wasn’t able to fit in a surf before I came back (admittedly I still could have, but due to spring tides the water was still really low on the beach).

Friday night- get pretty pissed off when I’m told I should do writing on a big map I’m painting in YHA typeface (no way is that going to happen, it’s all serif!). So I still haven’t done that writing. I’ll do it when I can do it how I want to do it, since it is my project…

Get to Perranporth for roughly 9:20pm, it’s so very odd driving up there in the dark as you’re fully aware that there’s a very steep cliff one side of the track. There is a small group in, so I go “chillax” (sit in a pile being rather dazed) in Phil’s little staff house/room with the voluntary photographer Ally who has been skipping about the SW YHA’s these past few weeks – it was great to actually get to chat to her when not in work time, when I’m not constantly being reminded that I should be working and not talking to customers (or anyone else).

Saturday… wake up in the back of my van, the bed is a well and truly cosy bed now I’ve got a duvet on top AND underneath me, and then a hot water bottle to act as a cat… mmm. But yes, wake up, clothes on, open back doors… WHAT A VIEW. Right along the cliffs with the sea below, along in the direction of St Agnes. Yesss. A rap on the wall and Phil’s little surf bum face peers round the door – QUARRYATHON TIME!

The view out from position number 1 of my van on the cliff at Perranporth... mmmorning!

We make sure to stock our stomachs up with breakfast, black our faces up (with miners dust, of course…?!) and then the three of us drive off to near Falmouth (and very VERY near Lisa’s forge) to Bishops Forum / BF Adventure. There we met with two more YHA managers (Chris from Lands End and Paul from Penzance), blacked them up too, and marched to the start line pasties in hand (team name: YHA Dump Hole Demons, Cornish miners, of course!).
The course was fun, we had a go on a zip wire, canoes, archery… and a lot of running. Hauling Henry Hoover up and down two flights of YHA Golant stairs does NOT prepare you for the running I did, running up hills is tricky.
The weather was nice enough to hold out for the majority of the day, and after we finished running about like loons we drove off to the Helford to visit Phil’s friend Laura. Laura and doggalump Patch in tow, we go off for a walk along the river making a stop at the Ferryboat Inn for a drink and some chips (Phil and I getting a fair few strange looks due to our boiler suit garb & blackened skin). Rattler cider was drank, followed by a further walk to Trebah gardens where we (once again, for me) climbed up over the wall and onto the beach. More sea swimming was had (myself using the excuse of getting wet to scrub the black paint off of my face and arms) and I stayed in a good while longer than the others… apparently it was really rather cold? It seems I’m becoming immune!

Onwards walking, and we finish the circle and get back to Phil’s van where we say our goodbyes to Laura and Patch and returned to BF Adventure to find out where we came in the competition (4^th out of 16 or 17, I reckon it was 17. Not bad!). Driving back in a dazed silence, it had been a long day. Chicken korma for supper.

The next few days we most relaxing, Sunday was certainly the day of rest – we all lazed about the hostel for hours reading our books, only myself leaving to go down the hill/cliff in to town to pick up some fish fingers for Ally (her favourite food! I’m still not terribly sure what mine is… Norwegian “stick meat” (sheep ribs prepared and cooked in a certain way) is the only one which has ever made me pretty much cry with happiness, but then I do enjoy most other foods under the sun, too…).

The two days after this I went with Phil to Newquay to go surfing down by the harbour (nice clean waves). Since I’ve never ever actually SURFED (only windsurfed and body boarded) I decided not to take any board at all, just my black neoprene clad self, and leap up, down, and around through waves… it’s great feeling that freedom and not having to have anything attached to your arm or leg; and I caught some great waves in by putting my arms out in front of me and head down (face screwed up in the most attractive way ever) and going whoosh. I’d like to get more in to body surfing, maybe even get some flippers (sorry webbed feet, you DO help but you don’t quite get up to speed!).

Wednesday was a sad day, I said my goodbyes to Ally who was travelling up coast to Tintagel & Boscastle then slowly onwards back to her Brighton home, bye to Phil (though no doubt to see him again within the next week or so), and also to James (previously known as Mr Purple Pants, due to his purple trousers which I have been told had a sad death of ripping at the crotch and revealing man-hood). Back home to Golant I drove, although the drive itself was most pleasant indeed, and arrived back for my 2pm shift to find that I was to clean pretty much the entire hostel (94 beds… 12 toilets… 12 showers… 3 floors of hoovering…) by myself, and the group who had left that morning were REALLY DISGUSTING and even smeared blood on the walls of their dorm rooms. Bit of an extreme change, from wonderfully chilled out to madly stressed (poor fake Henry Hoover for the brunt of it).

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday passed easily enough – hardly any guests in the hostel which lead to us doing oh so fun and exciting things such as deep cleaning (and finding out that you can get really good internet connection in one of the rooms)… funny how in mid-season when it’s really busy you wish to have nothing to do with any guests, but when it comes to the time of no guests you just wish for something to do which isn’t scrubbing black marks off of walls.

It is now Tuesday 18^th October and I’m sitting in my van at the forge where Dan and Lisa are doing blacksmith stuff.

Last night Mr Arnold cooked me a yummy rabbit stew, and this morning I sat on his balcony in sunshine eating toasted potato cakes (with plenty of salted butter!) and some salt beef, over looking Falmouth Harbour.

Once here at the forge I went clambering and exploring over rocks round the quarry pit pool, sunned myself on a large lump of granite, and found a secret path which I had never found before. Lunch was a brown bread sandwich with mature cheddar and some of Arnold’s chilli and garlic jam, followed by some apple & elderflower juice and yoghurt coated ginger. Nom nom nom.
Dan has just gone off to piss in a hedge.
Yup.

Sometimes it can be utterly wonderful doing nothing… I find that since I’m a “working person” (working 5 days a week for the YHA) I try to make sure that my 2 days off a week are filled with things – got to draw, got to explore, got to tidy my room… but I’d always forgotten to do the nothings. Sit around reading a book – haven’t read so much in ages except for last week at Perranporth, perching on a lump of granite in the sun just contemplating life… these times of effortless nothingness are much needed.

So that’s that for now, no doubt there will be more added to this entry before I post it up online (since I doubt I’ll have internet for a while). I can hear Dan bashing away at metal, Lisa listening to Fleet Foxes, the forge fire fan blowing, and someone with a chainsaw up on the hill. I can see gorse bushes with yellow flowers, 2 different colours of ivy growing up the sides of the forge, and sunshine coming in through my van window. I can smell… cow poo.

Ahh, Wednesday 19^th October, and guess what… I’m in Perranporth again! After shanty practise in Dave Wisdom’s shed last night I drove over here in time to go for a pint (and a half) at the cool and hip young persons bar/pub with Purple Pants James (because we are DEFINITELY cool and hip?). It felt like a very much needed pint and a half.
The night was pretty stormy – wind and rain battering my little van on the cliff, but waking up in the morning to cloud scattered blue sky and the sun catching on the top of waves. Phil waving very enthusiastically through a window, I went inside and had my breakfast and morning “bright mood” tea (happy tea). I swear I never used to drink this much tea, not even up until last week – I entirely blame Phil & Ally for the constant consumption of hot beverages. Had a morning natter whilst James tidied the hostel, then when he left a chap called Nik appeared – he used to work here. Happy tea number 2 was had (along with some chilli chocolate, nom nom nom) before a brief lunch and Nik & I drove off to Newquay to go leap in the sea.

The sea looked pretty nice, sadly it was far from as nice as it was last week as the cold wind made me cold if I were to be above water, and the frequent little splashy waves prevented me from being able to stay down in the water for long. Thankfully I caught a good few waves in on my front (still body surfing!) and stayed in for an hour and a half.

I’ve been nattering to Phil a little more about body surfing, I may look in to getting something like a hand board (a very small wooden board for holding on your hands as it keeps you skimming the waves better) and also some fins (to some they’d be called flippers, but they aren’t quite flippers as they’re more rubbery and smaller…). It’d help when the currents and such are stronger, and for when I want to go faster and better. Yes indeed. We shall see…
Good news is that I may be able to get a job here at PERRANPORTH next season if Coverack doesn’t want me, or if I just generally would prefer to be here in Perranporth (I would, even if it means far less hours… so long as I get enough hours to keep my stomach and van in order then I’m happy! Yay!).
But yes, we shall see. And Linda might not definitely be leaving anyway. Hum hum. We’ll see how the cookie crumbles…

Monday 24^th October, 11:28pm. Lying in bed in my van on the cliff at Perranporth, have been watching “The Hangover” whilst eating quadruple chocolate cookies… it is well and truly PISSING it down outside, so much so that I can’t actually hear the moooovie, so I’m writing this instead. My side doors are well and truly leaking… thankfully the bed is staying dry… that’s how much it is raining, I feel that I’m going to be a busy person for a few days, weather proofing this thing (that includes insulating it, as currently the roof is just the one sheet of metal which means that:
a) when it rains it’s MADLY LOUD.
b) when I sleep in here condensation forms on the ceiling, this then drips on me in the morning and makes me imagine that I’m outside and it’s raining).

So what on earth have I been doing for the past few days?!
Last time I wrote it was Wednesday and I’d jumped in the sea at Newquay with Nik and got very cold. That night I drank cider and such and watched stars and a boat out at sea, had the hostel all to myself as there were no guests and Phil had gone to some staff meeting… quite strange, really.

Thursday I felt a little worse for wear and so upon finally emerging from my van, I did mostly nothing until the evening when I drove back to Fal for another shanty practise – this one was far better! We were joined also by “Crazy Dave” Hart and a chap called Phil (another Phil) and so we sounded far better; not wanting a repeat of Tuesday nights one and a half pint requiring worries I drove back up to Perran again, always a friendly place.

Friday… what did happen Friday? Ah! Yes, walked along the cliff path to St Agnes with Nik; I’ve never actually bothered walking the entire way before, despite the fact that it’s only 4 miles… it’s a really rather nice walk (except for the hill at the end), and when we got there we tipped back a pint and a half at a place called Driftwood Spars (pub). Although this pint and a half made the 4 mile walk back far easier (though maybe not quicker) it did mean that we forgot that we could have just walked AROUND the first big hill on the beach, rather than climb up it then down it then up another… but oh well. 8 mile walk in the end, it’s good to do things, even if they’re just small things (it IS my holiday! I’m allowed to be a slob!).

Half way between Perranporth & St Agnes... colourful cliffs due to iron, tin, copper, and sulpher.

Showed Phil “Game of Thrones” in the eve, may have got another 2 people hooked (come on next series! PLEASE!).

Saturday? Again, not much. In fact, pretty much nothing! Felt rather in “100% hibernation mode” so just interwebbed it up a little and felt pretty crap.

Sunday? Gig at 3:25-45, then one in the evening also. How were they? I’m going to be completely honest and say that I think they were crap… our singing was good enough, but I felt that our band wasn’t our band – line up:
Dan O’Shea, Lisa Harrison, Martin Coote, Dave Hart, Dave Wisdom, the Phil chap, and myself.
Wisdom & Phil were having their first time with the band, they can both sing perfectly enough but perhaps didn’t know the lyrics 100% (this is a little off-putting when I’m sharing a mic with the two of them!). But yes, it didn’t seem like it should. Maybe this was because I’m judging everything on the fun we had at Aberfest back in April in Brittany? Maybe. And maybe it also wasn’t helped by the fact that I’ve been feeling pretty emotionally shoddy, but still.

And I missed my Norweg’s. Singing definitely isn’t the same without them.

After it all the Dave’s played a game of Pool (or was it Snooker? Same thing, different coloured balls) before we went up to the bar to drink some beverages and natter and what not (rum & Shrubs! Mmmm). Lots of Celtic people around in their national Celtic outfits, it was pleasant enough. It’s pretty funny how those who try the hardest to be Cornish and proper are generally the ones who are NOT Cornish, from Berkshire or something but fancied going the whole hog.

Walked back up the hill in the pissing rain (it hasn’t stopped since, it’s about 24 hours now… flood warnings in parts of Cornwall, even!).

Monday. That’s today. Yet another late wake up, a day filled with helping Phil clean and tidy the hostel after the group left, then nattering to him and… oh, her name still fails me… but she’s a nice girl woman. Surfs a lot.
With all this talk of surfing I really would like to try my hand (or foot, or other surf related part of body) at it… though it seems like it gets pricey (like any hobby I guess!).

Hum hum.

Anyway, I should probably now take a piddle out the side of my van (delightful) and go to sleep as I’ve asked Phil if he’ll kindly hammer on my van in the morning when he gets up.

But first, I shall listen to Dan’s first CD, with it’s 5 tracks. “Songs I Sing”. Good luck to Mr O’Shea on his travels round Europe! I wish he’d take a camera so I could see what he gets up to… or at least lives to tell me the tales.
Which he had better do, as he tells good stories.

G’night for now.

Hello again.

Friday 28^th October, yesturday my schwester Elk turned a whole 20! No longer a teenager. Quite strange, really.

Am counting down the days till there is no more Golant, I’ll miss aspects of it though.

The last few days have been… hmm, well the Perranporth ones were nice (got back to Golant Wednesday early afternoon ready for 2pm shift, nice sunny drive); sadly since getting back here my days have been rather miserable feeling – especially in the deep dark evenings – and I’m just hoping and would be praying if I was religious for some happier emotions.
Despite the fact that I’ve got Sam and Rachel to talk to at work (and Rachel at home, too… Duncan has left now) I’ve a horrible feeling of loneliness which can’t be shaken. It’s quite odd… you’re at uni for a few years with the same friends, they’re always there, you get really close… and then uni ends and everyone disburses. Of course there are still a few folks down here – there’s Lisa, Phil, sometimes Carl for a brief pint or hello, Rachel (good when we’re not in work), and there was Mr Arnold… I hope there still will be. But there’s no one quite like my Norwegian’s. With most folks I’ve just been feeling generally in the way, probably just me being silly though. Maybe it’s just the time of years fault as to why I’m feeling so awful and lonesome!

It’ll be fantabulous to get to Reigate in December and see all my old lot (in their non-old ages), and then to Norway for the Norweg’s.
I suppose this is the life I’ll have to get used to, being a wandering South Wester! Lack of permanence.

In the split between shifts today, Sam Rachel & I drove to St Austell so I could get a few things printed (I WILL miss those printers…), and for me to pick up some stuff for Hector (which Sam kindly later helped me with, phew! Hector will now remain alive again for a MUCH longer time as he’s got a big drink of oil. Om nom nom?!). Rachel & I cooked a late afternoon lunch for us all, a pork roast dinner with apple & plum sauce & all!

Tomorrow I will dedicate to getting more of my room sorted out ready to move, and get a few things done. Hurrah…

Over and out, and hopefully next time I’ll be a fair bit chirpier.

Things I’ve been listening to:
-Dan O’Shea’s new (and first) CD “Songs I Sing”
-John Butler Trio
-Bob Marley

98. All the yummy food I ate

2011-10-05T05:47:00.000-07:00

I drew me a pheasant! Actually I drew it for mon grandmere... her geburtstag.

Ahh another week… admittedly in whole it went rather speedily, but day by day it dragged by sooo slooow… probably wasn’t helped by the fact that on one day I did too many sit ups from an odd angle, and too many hula-hoopings, and then got dead tired and run down so felt utterly caput (on a couple of days Sam had to keep prodding me to make sure I was alive). Thankfully there were a few days of the most superb weather! Indian summer, the radio said; so naturally we (myself, Duncan, Rachel, and Rachel’s Paul) drove off to Polridmouth beach and leapt in the sea. We floated about in the oddly shallow and muddy depths, giggling and staring up at the blue sky…

Interruption – a yellow ochre coloured moth has just landed next to me on the bed, the nosy parker…

…before chowing down on a lunch of Eden Project bread (really yummy) which had been left behind by someone, with salted butter, Marmite, and honey (not mixed together). That night we all sat in the living room eating a rather marvellous lasagne which was made from loads of random leftovers so every mouthful tasted different to the last; we drank drinks and played Uno. Mr Arnold appeared later that eve and more was drunk, more Uno was played, and sure enough I got a hangover the next day. This seems to be happening a fair load recently (more than usual, anyway). End of season “madness”, I guess… we’re all getting twitchy. The middle of the day was filled mostly with laying outside on the grass in the rather hot sunshine and having Dan & Kelsie comment on how I looked dead (I DID stay laying there for a fair long time in the end).

Sunday evening I drove with Mr Arnold back to Fal and on the Monday we had a relatively lazy day, brief trip in to Trago Mills (where I met Carl) to buy MANLY! things for Hector, then on to a green little tucked away valley near Lanner (the name of which fails me). I had been in a pretty grumpy mood all morning, but the woods certainly calmed me down, especially with the busy stream rushing down the centre of it.

That eve we ate a scrummy yummy beef roast cooked by Arnold (‘cept the Yorkshire puds, which I created), accompanied by red wine and followed up by lemon sorbet with frozen raspberries in bed with an eyeful of Downton Abbey and one hell of a lot of arse gas. Sometimes it’s good to have lazy days when not so much is done.

Today (this was written Tuesday eve) was a little less lazy, waking up at a reasonable time (8:30am) and driving off to Lisa’s field where I ate my breakfast in her little gypsy caravan and grinned at Dan when he woke up as he always looks like a boiled owl. We lazed and nattered for a while, Dave Wisdom emerged from his caravan across the field and came in for coffee (fresh & proper mint tea for me) and then at around 11 the three of us climbed in to Hector and drove off (the scenic way) to the Ferryboat Inn in North Helford.

The sun came out just in time for lunch, so we sat outside overlooking the river and drank our drinks (just a half of Rattler for me!) and got pestered by a drunken wasp. Lisa & I shared a big pot of garlic & white wine mussels, some bread, some proper hand cut (skins still on) chips, and a bowl of pan fried whole large prawns. This was followed up by a walk along the footpath, collecting sloe’s from the hedges for sloe gin, and breaking in over the wall to Trebah garden beach where upon Lisa & I leapt in to the clear, calm sea and swam in our underwear; naturally I stayed in longer than Lisa (a fair long while indeed, infact!) and floated and floated and floated. And swam. And helped Dan’s oyster shell boat with a ballast of flat stones to get out to sea… but then it was dragged under by a Kraken hidden in the depths of the seaweed jungle under a little rocky area. I went to dive for it, but seaweed Kraken’s really don’t appeal.

Getting back to Lisa’s caravan we sat on the sofa and warmed ourselves by the log burner (Dan dried & toasted my socks) before I drove back “home” to Golant.

All in all, a nice relaxed weekend.

This coming week is supposed to be a quiet one which will be nice, and on one of the days I may be joining the YHA team (myself, Penzance Paul, Lands End Chris, and Perranporth Phil) in a Quarryathon! It sounds exciting, if I do partake then I hope the weather remains good enough (though it seems the Indian Summer is over, and we’re returning to normal October weather).

I hope the gallery in Brighton get in contact with me again, they sent me an e-mail saying they’d like to feature some of my work there if I was interested – naturally I was and they seem like a really good place. BRIGHTON!

I must remember to continue eating food from out of my cupboards, I have rather a large amount to eat before I go, and to do things like make / finish a few peoples crocheted arm warmers and send some letters and cards and play with clay. Yes yes yes.

I hope I get everything done.

There you go! SLIGHTLY less lengthy update than per usual in recent times!

And here is a lovely piece by Anna Emma Laitinen...

97. I'll live near Porthleven

2011-09-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

I'll start things off differently... here's some work I've done!

I've sent 3 new originals to the Relegacy Gallery in Barbican, Plymouth (since the Love Bunny was so popular). Indian ink, watercolour, and gouache... plus a lot of GIRLINESS.

Some experimental doodling, to go with this piece of writing which I did when half awake:

"A fair distance away from that which we call “civilisation” was a cave – perhaps more like the burrow of a furred creature than a cave, as it was a collection of tunnels which to an outsider would be most baffling; to she, however, it was a safe quiet place to live until any great disruption came along.
She was one of many years but apparently not much age, she had become at one with the earth and so was at par with its rhythms and ways; she would return to ground when the days became too dark and chill then restore herself to above when the snowdrops weaned their way upwards over the icy crunch… and so she would be renewed, refreshed, ready to restart the year like a new green shoot.
Life went on, as it had done for many a moon.
Of course, this had not always been the way – she had once been like you or I, a soul brought up amongst others whether it be in the terrifying automated rattle of a bustling city, or to the slow lull of village life; she had been born a babe, grown a girl, and formed a woman."

I LIKE IT. Though the picture isn't quite right, it seems.
A weird freaky owl bird, who would like to propose to you with some leaves.

Mmm… well, that was a nice Monday! After a lazy morning we passed by the Tywardreath butchers to grab a pasty and an egg & bacon pie before driving down to catch the car ferry over the river to Bodinnick; Hector had never been on a car ferry before! And he’s not being driven on to many more if they all cost £3.50 for a 2 minute/SECOND journey…! From Bodinnick we drove to Lansallos where I found some sheep under the trees next to the car park – the sort of sheep which look a little like angry dogs in the face department. After a look about the old gravestones in the churchyard and a snoop about the church (it’s a really rather nice one, the pews are really old and carved and they’ve recycled some headstones and are using them as the floor), we met a bat in the church porch and then a big 4 inch long bright green caterpillar with purple flashes on it’s back and a big black spike on it’s bum… naturally we disturbed it’s peaceful existence by picking it up on a stick to get a better look. Onwards! Down to the beach! But not before stopping in the woods to wee behind a tree, and then in a field overlooking the sea to eat our lunch (shock horror, not French bread and salted butter) and then FAINT! I had some odd sort of hiccup which was really rather painful and then lead on to me feeling dizzy from the pain, leaning sideways to stay vaguely upright, and blacking out! It’s never happened before, ever… it was pretty nasty really. Didn’t feel right for a short time afterwards. But I’m still alive now, so it’s all good because I really rather like life!

Anyway, away from talk of almost dying. Down on the beach the swell was rather mighty due to the significant breeze, and the sun couldn’t decide whether it was out or not. Sitting on a flat rock part way up the cliff was nice, and then wandering along the beach avoiding being washed away, picking up tiny green bits of sea glass. Sit on the cliff again (it’s my weekend, I’m allowed to sit down and be lazy!) before climbing the cliff hill where at the top we found an apple tree which had the most deliciously sweet apples – naturally the tree was climbed and some of the better apples were picked and put ironically into a plastic Tesco’s carrier bag. On we walked, through the fields and down a lane; lanes always make me want to sing, quite often in a ridiculous voice. Leaving the lane we went into the fields again where the footpath lead past a small rock post in the middle; on approach we saw a big white thing next to it which Will exclaimed to be a total whopper (we’re talking mushrooms, here – if you ever walk with the chap you will find the majority of conversation leads to “Oh! Another apple tree!” or “Ahh! Is it a field mushroom?”). Getting closer he reckoned that it was not actually a whopper of a mushroom, but actually just a white rock… on tapping this rock with his toe, he found that it was actually a giant puffball. Conversation then lead on to whether puffballs were edible or not, which we thought not but after managing not to throw it and see if it’d explode (it wouldn’t, it wasn’t old and saggy enough) we brought it along for the rest of the walk back up to the church by Lansallos. This whopper was roughly the side of someone’s brain and even had the brain stem area, and became Rock Bottom Owl’s dashboard buddy for the drive home. Getting home we did research in a couple of books (“Food For Free” pocket book, and hardback covered “A Greener Life”) and found that these giant puffballs were indeed edible in the pure white skinned state such as we had found it in; this caused great excitement and so I then sliced the beast into centimetre thick slices before removing unsavoury yellow areas (not many) and covering with whisked egg and bread crumbs then frying them in sausage fat and butter. Supper was green beans from the garden, the afore mentioned bread crumbed puffball slices, some of Will’s homemade apple chutney (yum!) and 3 rather tasty mustard and honey pork sausages… all in all, it was a blimmin’ great meal and I can’t wait for the next time I find a puffball in such good condition (I read that they can grow to about 4 foot wide in diameter, BLIMEY).

(The puffball & Mr Arnold).
I should now be well and truly asleep as I’m up at 6am to pick the Norwegian’s up from the station at 6:30ish, eeek! VERY VERY EXCITED! Good night for now.
Update: it is now 12:10 (midday). THE NORWEGIAN’S ARE HERE. They are resting their little Norwegian heads on my beds.

Wow… so today is now Wednesday 21^st September… where is the time going! I’ll write about the Norwegian’s stay after I have written how to make what I am currently eating, coz it is REALLY REALLY GOOD!!!

How to make Bex’s really good yummy stew which she is eating right this second:

Feeds an average of 4, depending on how hungry you are

Ingredients
A little oil (of the edible sort, any kind will do – I used extra virgin olive oil as that’s all I had)
2 onions (I used 1 red, 1 white – its what I had!)
Pork mince (big pack, the sort which might feed 4 people in a spag bog)
8 slices sliced up bacon (or there about, I used un-smoked but smoked could work too)

2 apples (any size, variety, the bigger the better I say)

1 tin sliced pineapple in juice

1 carrot (this should be roughly gratered)

1 tin chickpeas (drained)

Enough veggie stock (bouillon) to taste, 1 or 2 tbsp perhaps (with water, to mush)

1 tbsp turmeric powder (not too much, just enough to colour & slightly taste)

1 tbsp cumin (again, shouldn’t be overbearing taste wise)

1 tbsp dark or light brown sugar

A handful of chunkily chopped green beans (broad beans?)

50-100g blended / mushed / generally pummelled raisins

2 tbsp carob powder

3 tbsp ground nuts (brazils / cashews / almonds…)

1. Heat the oil in a relatively big metal pan, add roughly chopped onion and when it has started to soften add the pork mince.

2. Once mince had almost fully cooked (not many pink bits left to see) add in chunks of apple (whatever size you like) along with the tin of pineapple and all of it’s juice.

3. Throw in the rest of the ingredients along with enough water to let it all go a bit mushy. KEEP AN EYE ON THE BACON! Watch the bacon until you can see it is fully cooked, we don’t want any ill people on our hands (but don’t pre-cook it, we don’t want to be losing any of the juices!!).

4. The last 3 ingredients are to add a final bit of sweetness – I added them in the form of an experiment as I had some previously made “raw food cookies”. If you’d like to make the batch of raw food cookies and then eat some, add some to this stew mixture the recipe is:

¾ cup of nuts (I used mostly cashews and brazils)
¼ cup raw carob powder (looks a little like cocoa, find in “hippy” food shops)
1 cup raisins

Blend the above ingredients together, using one of those scary whooshing chopping blendy machines, add water until it forms together to make a sort of dough rather than a crumble. Make in to balls about the size of ping pong balls (although sometimes you’ll only want to eat an amount half the size of a ping pong ball, depending on how raisin friendly you are). They’re also quite nice when rolled in chopped / powdered almonds.

5. Leave the mush to contemplate life for a while, eat whenever you like. I didn’t eat any form of carbohydrate with my stew mush as I decided that amongst all those ingredients there was probably something carby anyway, and I was pretty full in the end anyway.

Enjoy!

Right… now TODAY is Monday 26^th September! I have 17 or 18 more working days at Golant YHA… holy shitcakes.

Anyway, I shall now update fully with my past two or three? Weeks happenings…
So the Norwegian’s got here, and after a morning (and early afternoon) of sleeping, snoozing, and being lazy around St Austell we decided to go off in the early evening to Fowey where we went for the second time to The Boathouse.
The Boathouse, as I may have mentioned before, is an Italian restaurant almost right on the estuary. Since the Norwegian’s decided it was too cold to sit outside (though it’s much colder in Norway) we sat inside, and ordered pizza’s and pasta; this time round I chose a seafood pizza which was topped with king prawns, squid, mussels, lemon, and possibly something else but I’m not too sure. After copious amounts of food we decided to nurse our food babies and watch the water go by – a friendly lady approached us and mentioned that we made a most excellent picture, and so I got her to take a photo (it IS nice).

Wednesday! Off to Boscastle I drive, again. Arrived roughly lunchtime to we wandered in to The Cobweb Inn for some face stuffing. The Cobweb is an age old place although the food is not terribly amazing – mostly just average pub grub (I had sweet chilli pork balls)… thankfully the aesthetics of the place make up for it’s food (and the pint of Stowfords Press helped too – I didn’t have to drive for another 4 hours!). The ceiling is covered with hanging bottles, tankards, mugs, and other container related items along with a thick layer of dust – if the YHA health and safety inspector chap (CMI) ever visited there, he might have a few hundred children. Admittedly the tables and actual “public” areas were all clean, it was just the characterful dusty ceiling. On the mention of characters, there was one sitting at the bar – long grey hair tied back in a ponytail, beard, baseball cap, black and white sports style jacket with world flags on it, flowery surf style shorts, and luminous pink knee high socks with neon green blue and yellow spots. And trainers. I love these sorts of people, they show me that not all people over a certain age are destined to wear purely only Marks & Spencers items.

Staggering on once again with food babies and a tad giggly due to the alcohol intake we wandered along the tourist avoiding cobbled street and a brief look in to the little gallery; onwards again I took them along the harbour wall which said “not a footpath, slippery when wet” which I had found with Mr Arnold. The tide was well and truly out this time but you could hear an impressive booming sound when the waves outside the harbour went in to the cliff walls. I went off, as I do, and lone scrambled up the cliff on to a footpath which took me on to the large lump of rock which blocks and protects Boscastle village from the outside sea, for some reason or another I hadn’t gone up there last time, but I’m glad I did. From the top it felt like I had an aerial view of the whole place and the Norwegian’s were just little specks sitting down on the jetty below; on the other side the sun shone on the sea, turning it’s colour a vivid turquoise.
(View from the top of the Boscastle bit).
I scampered down the hill again to try persuade the other two to come see, but failed and so after a brief leap in to the National Trust toilets (I forgot pints did that) we went to the Museum of Witchcraft (again!); this time I was armed with sketchbook & pencil.

Things I drew / wrote down:
-A chap called John William Waterhouse does nice paintings of witches and the like.

-A witch in some part of Britain used to display a clay hand in her window; if it was turned to face outwards with the red heart showing in it’s palm then she was open for business, if the heart was not on show then she was not open.
-Little wooden / stone carved charms of a ladies arm and hand with her thumb sandwiched between her fore and middle finger; protection from the evil eye and a powerful sign of feminism.

-The hand of Fatima (another charm) also protects from the evil eye.

-If your wife is out with “Mr Wonderful” and you’re a tad jealous and aren’t sure what her intentions are, then prick a needle in to the toe of one of her shoes; this will prick her conscious and make sure she doesn’t do anything “bad”. Apparently.

-Black Doris; can’t quite remember what she had to do, but she owned a red ladies shoe in which she had encased a dead (frozen naturally) sparrow in bee’s wax.

-Harm (and care) can be done with the use of “poppets”. These are human shaped dolls / similar which are personal to that person in some way (they may look like them, and the spell accuracy can be improved by knitting their hair in to the poppet or something similar) (pubes seem popular it seems!). Basically, voodoo dolls.

-It was traditionally an Easter HARE, not rabbit.

-Witches often change in to the form of a hare, so legend has it (on this note – I do like to believe some aspects of all this witchcraft stuff but I don’t quite believe that a being can change shape and turn in to a hare or any other creature for that matter).

-The staffs / sticks that witches often carry are called “stangs”. They must have V ends (not just straight). If nothing else, the V place is a good thumb rest.

-Dew is very good for healing, back in the day many folk could be seen collecting it carefully in the mornings. This could be done by placing a clean piece of fabric over a patch of grass and then squeezing the moisture out of it (that’d be the dew, unless it had rained – then it’d be rain).

-“No pisky could hurt a man if his coat was inside out”. Good to know.

-There is witchcraft used in Christianity; votive body parts made out of wax are left in front of saints and shrines and such, like if you have a broken arm perhaps you’d leave a wax arm there.

-I learnt how to properly draw labyrinths, they can put you in to a trance and are often found in south west England (I remember finding one on the Isles of Scilly).

-Rowan berry charms should be on a red thread and made in a circle, then worn or hung above the door.

-To curse someone, one way is to get a black lemon (gone off?) and to tie it up with black thread and stick pins in to it. This should be hidden in the curse victims home.

-If you tie a hag stone (stone with a natural hole in it) to your keys then you will never lose them and your home will remain safe when locked.

-Serpents / dragons drawn / made in a circle are a sign of eternity and the cyclic nature of existence.

-Black or dark mirrors help to see and / or contact spirits. This is called scrying.

-People originally put horse brasses on their horses to deflect bad luck and evil spirits. Some used to have pentacles and such like on them although these days they are mostly less spiritual images it seems.

-Mounted horse tails (not attached to the horse, but detached from a hopefully dead horse) bring long life, strength, and health to horses.

-Old Nick is a funny half-human half-goat creature…

-I took a 2p tarot card reading thing (I doubt it’s accurate!) and I got the card “temperance” (Naín). Although their reading said something different with that card, my cards say “The spirit of the mother of Sichen gave him comfort and help during his trip: care”.

-I’d like to do some research in to a character called Cernunnos… I remember Imy painting him on to the side of Alasdair’s van up in Scotland.

-Some charms: an anchor = hope, a cross = faith, a heart = charity. Rabbit’s feet and cats (especially black ones) are also good.

-When wearing coral, one cannot be cursed or “overlooked”.

-If you wear a bag of moles feet round your neck you will be cured from toothache & cramp.

Wasn’t that interesting? Heh. To ME it was! Anyhoo, on from there we did as I did before and went via the lovely local ice-cream place (lavender & honey… as before) and then tootled off home to Golant where I found my parents who had travelled down from Reigate for my graduation.
That night we all (myself, the Norwegians & parents) went off to Fowey to eat out again! It was most odd being driven about, for one I wasn’t the one driving, for two I was on the passenger side, and for three I was in the back. WEIRD. So I sat up like a Meer cat the entire journey trying to see where we were going. We ate at a place two doors down from The Boathouse, Food For Thought. From the outside it seems like a fairly normal place, it’s nothing showy, looks very harbour side… but I’d heard good reviews, and since the (one and only) vegetarian option was halloumi cheese rather than something crap like a veggie burger or the normal – feta cheese parcels, it must be good.
IT WAS.
We walked in and instantly felt a little under dressed as I had underestimated the dress code (well, I say code… there wasn’t really one but everyone else was more dressed up) and then were seated where we at once had napkins placed OVER our laps, not just left for us to do with what we pleased.

Menus were given out – my dad last, ladies go first! And a wine list was given to us… since I drink most wines if they don’t taste of acid I let the Norwegians choose. The wine was brought to us and offered to my dad, since he was paying (how they knew that who knows). He doesn’t drink really so he said no and they poured a little in to my glass. Just a little. A while after, after they had been hovering over me Silje decided to remind me that I was meant to be TRYING the wine before anyone else could have some! I can safely say that has NEVER happened to me before. So I tried it and pretty much said it was fine before it touched my lips, it’s wine! It’ll be fine! Especially if it’s of THAT price!! Perhaps when I get older I’ll get a proper taste for things.

My meal was most delicious, and if it had been half the size and half the price it would have been PERFECT as I (sadly) was unable to finish my main course.
We were given warm rolls and butter as the pre-starter bits, and then for starters I had raw, yes, RAW scallops with a very artistic pile of salad on top and some mango goo and some sweet chilli sauce (spread artistically around the plate). I was a little concerned by the fact that the scallops were raw, I’ve only ever had them cooked but I supposed that since they were raw it’d mean that they were well and truly FRESH. They tasted delicious. Not as good as the cooked ones in The Wheelhouse in Falmouth but still really rather tasty, and the texture was surprisingly pleasant! For mains we all shared a bowl of petite pois and some buttery green beans, and I chose a beef steak -

27^th September, 1:02am HOLY SHIT I JUST SAW A RATHER LARGE BAT FLY INTO MY ROOM, never seem them come IN before, just go out… its funny to think that they can’t see us, just hear us… a blind thing flying about!! Interlude over…

Which came with an artful pile of the chunkiest chips on earth (about 6 of them) a big mushroom, and a big half tomato. I tried and I tried to finish my meal, and even swapped chunks of meat with Silje (she had a huge bit of pork with crackling all along the back… mmm!) but no… I physically couldn’t fit any more in my belly even though the puddings looked REALLY yummy.

I hope to go back there some day. Maybe at the end of Golant. Back home we then went, and I went to bed in my van again (where I slept as the Norweg’s had my room).

Next day. Graduation! As per usual, I looked like a scruff bag compared to everyone else, but that is fine. Drove down to Falmouth with the parents in convoy behind and walked in to town for a pasty on the quay, and a couple of photos (upon where my mother pinched my bum. She is not meant to do this).
(Rarr, Squidget & I looking special on the quay).
To Princess Pavilions we went where we were all dressed up in our silly hats and mad gowns, fun was had with these and photos were taken of us in funny poses (not a single hat throwing photo!). Students led into the hall and ceremony done – I got to sit next to Mr Will Bovill which was nice as he’s a good chap and I’ve never really spoken to him much due to my habit of being an unsociable sod. I reckon we could natter for a fair while. I felt like I was on stage shaking hands and the like for literally a second, it was funny to think that on that same stage I’ve watched good bands play and walked on at a Spiritual and Mystic fayre. The resulting photo of me being an ill at ease person in front of large amounts of other people is that my official hand-shaking photo actually looks like I’m about to Dosie Doe with the woman (who was she?). The motherly one, finding this rather amusing, decided to buy the photo. Forcing myself to be sociable rather than run off to my van and drive to the forge to see Lisa I stood about sort of talking to fellow classmates before a small group of us went to the beach to eat ice-cream (orange & mascarpone Roskillys) and then go back in to town to The Front to drink (Pepsi for me… hmpf!) and eat Balti Curries curry. Om nom nom.

Official graduation stuff over, the Friday I (grumpily) drove the Norweg’s to their storage unit near Perranporth, and then (less grumpily) drove all the way to Perranporth where I parked up on the cliff by the hostel and showed the Norweg’s the mining caves, had a brief natter to Phil, and ran off down the cliff to the beach where we made a pact to all jump into the sea (the weather was most pleasant).
I’m so glad I jumped in the sea, even if it was in my underwear. So good rolling about in the waves, it makes you feel more alive; it amused me to see everyone else garbed in tight black neoprene. Drove back to Golant just in time to get back on shift for the evening, all nice and salt water encrusted.

The Norweg’s left on Sunday, and then my next Monday Tuesday were just lazy and monging about in Falmouth for a slight change in scenery. It is nice having lazy weekends, though I did need to pick up a couple of things such as proper squishy ear plugs for the next time I’m sleeping in my van and it starts raining… it’s thunderous.

The past week has been mostly uneventful except for a meeting with a lovely lass from a hostel in the North York’s for which name I can’t remember. She being staff, I invited her to the staff house for the evening for a drink or two… between herself, Duncan & I we finished off a bottle of red wine, one of rose, a fair chunk of ginger wine, a little amount of Duncan’s homemade mead, and some 8.3% cider… I can safely say that the next day I was NOT feeling top notch.

Today, or rather as it is now YESTURDAY, I woke up nice and late due to a 2:30am disruption of a fire alarm and then spent the day round about Lanhydrock National Trust property with Mr Arnold.

Parking up a short distance away from the big house, we snaked our way through the woods next to the river at the bottom of the hill; the trees there are brilliant, many covered with a coat of moss and throwing their limbs across the path. As per usual, Arnold was on the look out for fish (trout, mostly) in the river, after a while of looking and finally sitting down by the river we finally saw one! It leapt right out of the water! It was most exciting, and probably a rainbow trout rather than a brown one. We also saw a couple of flashes of golden yellow as a Goldfinch flew about, but apparently the fish was way more amazing.
The leaves on the trees haven’t yet got to the point of which they look as if they’re created from rust, however it’s soon approaching. Field which have been harvested are now full of almost fully grown pheasants and it’s almost to the season of shooting… contemplating a few ways of acquiring a pheasant or two for myself without having to shoot (due to lack of gun…). Heavily alcoholic raisins? Could work. Get ‘em drunk, then pounce and snap their necks! Sorry, but I’d rather kill my own meat (although due to lack of knowledge of how and other reasons, I eat shop brought).

(This is how close I got to the pheasants... no zoom on this one!).
Unable to get in to Lanhydrock house in the end as it turned out it’s not open on Mondays, we wandered about the gardens and found huge leaves, black leaves with bright yellow flowers, and some more very tame pheasants which I turned to stalking through the bushes.

Today (Tuesday 27^th) has been a lazy day, I’ve eaten far too much, and am now making up for that by sitting outside in the back garden (even though the sunlight has all gone from this area, and the ground is damp). The weather is still warm for the time of night due to the Indian summer which has decided to appear, and I’m listening to Bonobo with a bottle of Weston’s Vintage 8.2%. Mmm. I’m glad it’s still on offer in Co-Op.

A wood pigeon has just flown past and I heard the brief cry of seagulls, and the swoosh of a breeze in the trees. Somewhere a little distance away cows are making their mooing noises and in the field below me a pheasant has just started to make it’s racket. There goes a couple of seagulls flying through the cloud dotted blue evening sky and a wood pigeon cooing in a tree. I should finish this soon, it’s over 4000 words long… I guess it IS an update for a few weeks of failing to do so…

Conkers on the tree,
Swallows all gone,

Yellowing clouds.

5632 words.

P.S. Do I really look older than 22?? Phil asked if I was over 26, and Duncan thought I was around 24!

96. A Mars and a Twix

2011-09-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is my desktop background wot I did make, yeah.

Aggggh… so busy! Though perhaps by the time I have finished typing this up the busy spell will be over with.
Leaves have definitely started falling off of trees (and into our courtyard), and swallows and such are starting to disappear off to their warmer winter homes abroad… but this does not mean that summer is not still here! After a month of autumn in August, summer has returned for the past two days with lovely foggy mornings to start it.
It is a warm night here in Golant (9pm), just like it was a warm day. Duncan, Rachel & I sat outside on the grass and ate BLT’s with slightly past it beans (resulting in GAS!!!) and jalapeño peppers. Mmm. Hula hooping was done, nattering was had, and some most excellent clouds were watched (the clouds which look like tigers with elephantitis of the leg, and skeletons reading books).

Now it is the 10^th September, which means I haven’t updated this blarg in a while… the weather has definitely changed since I wrote the bit above, it feels like autumn. Yesterday it was white fog all day with that moist stuff coming out of the sky; today the mist has cleared however there is a breeze and a certain chill to the air. There is only the occasional swallow who still nests by the catering kitchen door now, and due to the darker mornings I often pass it when going in at 6:55am on the breakfast shift (I insist on talking to it, and calling it a lazy bones as it is usually still there at 7:30am). I think Bruiser the cat has a bit of a cold – I hope it’s nothing worse! He’s been coming up to me on the path a fair lot recently, probably hoping I have some food on me (fat chance Bruiser, I’m opt out now!!) and demanding attention; I’ve then been stroking and tickling him and he’s been purring like a steam engine – prrrrrr prrrrrrrr prrrrr… but then afterwards he can’t seem to calm his purring down properly, and so ends up sneeze / coughing loads! Oh dear. Maybe he’s just got a rogue fur ball.

On my latest weekends I’ve been going away and sleeping in my van Hector. The “weekend” before last we took advantage of the sun and the fact that Treyarnon Bay YHA have a big camping field; co-worker & fellow lunatic Rachel and her bloke Paul were also there, but we didn’t see much of them. The now traditional weekend lunch of crusty (preferably sesame seed encased) French stick was eaten, complete with salted butter (naturally), yummy peppery rocket, and cold chicken breast… it was a relatively speedy lunch as we noticed that the tide was coming in at a rate of knots and our barnacle and mussel caked big lump of rock was most definitely turning into an island which would at some point be covered over by the big blue. As the sun set later than day we slurped on some of Mr Arnolds homemade elderflower wine and afterwards filled our bellies with asparagus, 3 bean salad with a minty dressing, tomato salsa and olive pork sausages, and some spinach; a most excellent meal indeed.

After a full nights undisturbed sleep, breakfast, and then a nap (I’m allowed to be lazy on my weekends!) Hector departed his pretty hedge side spot and skipped of to near Bedruthan Steps and went for a walk along the cliff and down the many rather steep steps to the beach where, yet again, we were almost consumed by the sea. Walking back up we giggled at large penises which people had drawn on the sand before the waves washed them away (the penises, that is… I don’t recall any screams of folks being dragged under by the Kraken) and passed by an island rock which looked very much indeed like the bust of a vaguely elderly gentleman with a bent nose. Almost back at the van we passed a field of cows that included a well-endowed bull that reminded me of further back in the year (all the way back in June!) when I had the most excellent time at the Royal Cornwall Show with Silje & Vera (as well as visiting the smelly blacksmiths).

In the week I made a speedy trip to Plymouth and back in-between shifts; although definitely a possible thing to do if only wishing to spend a short time in the “big southwest smoke”, it was made rather terrifying by the fact that A) it’s a city. I don’t like cities at the best of times, especially not when I have become accustomed to living in the middle of nowhere in Golant. B) I arrived by train as I decided this was the cheapest mode of travel (couldn’t find my broomstick). The train journey was pleasant enough, I’m pretty sure I snoozed most of it… upon getting OFF the train however I felt lost and worried by the things of the city, thankfully despite my concerns I managed to find the Relegacy gallery pretty easily on New Street (my sister tells me this is a very good place to have my work!) in the Barbican area (the only nice area in Plymouth, probably). The girl running the place (and her mum) were lovely though in a bit of a rush (probably my fault, for not sending much warning) and I’m happy to have my work up there… apparently I’ve sold a couple of pieces already and the opening night was only a couple of days ago on the 8^th September, blimey! I’ll send through the postcards I’ve just got printed soon, and I MUST remember to redo my website!

The “weekend” after that of the north coast my good friend Imy came down to visit. On the Monday we bundled into Hector again and drove off down to Penzance where there was a little sunshine and again a breeze. We had a pretty much spontaneous (only slightly planned spontaneity!) to the piercing shop DV8 (highly recommended to anyone wanting more piercings with not much pain) and got more metal shoved through ourselves. The piercing chap there is really good, he tells you to leave for half an hour whilst he sterilizes the specially picked jewellery, makes sure you sign forms properly, talks you through everything, and makes you feel entirely safe and comfortable. After Penzance we trawled a short distance along the coast, past the aesthetically pleasing Newlyn harbour (dozens and dozens of little fishing boats and such bundled together in one place, with flashes of bright coral where there were buoys) to Mousehole. I told Imy all about the tale of the Mousehole Cat – a wonderfully illustrated children’s book, and we meandered along the harbour beach (for once not getting eaten up by the sea) finding crabs heads and small fragments of pottery in pleasing colours. I loved seeing stacks of lobster pots lined up on the harbour wall, and of course the beautiful colours of yellow lichen and red rusted metal work.
Arriving at Lands End YHA later that evening – we took the scenic route – we said our hello’s to Richard and Chris and then walked out into the darkening evening to St Just… the Star Inn, of course! Folk night was in full swing and it seemed busier than usual (I wouldn’t have noticed myself, but I heard a bunch of locals “where’s all these people come from! Arr, yup! Arr! Righton!”. I am glad it was folk night, I enjoyed showing Imy the sort of music I prefer to indulge in down here in the nutty toe of Britain, she seemed to enjoy it enough and so we sat outside on the benches where it was less crowded, drinking our pints of apple Rattler (cider). Finished off the night with a rum and shrub, to which an old man with a red pimpled nose said “I ‘ent seen nobody order one o’ those in 20 years! And I ‘ent had one since I was jus’ 21 years old! Drank too much, see… ‘ere, lemme have a sniff, tha’s not rum and shrub!” It was indeed rum and shrub, the silly fool, perhaps his senses had failed him in his old age… locals are excellent, sometimes, do you not agree? We walked back down the hill to the hostel in the dark (only really needing the torch for the footpath which has a rock in the middle of it – it hurts to walk into that), and then climbed into Hector for a good nights sleep (only really disturbed by the 5am thunderous heavy rain on the metal van roof, it got LOUD).

Come the REAL morning we climbed out of the van, breakfasted ourselves and set out on a tour of half of the north coast starting with St Just again (getting in the pasties for the lunch! Om nom). From St Just I took the normal road – the beautiful one which goes from St Just to St Ives, first stop being Pendeen lighthouse. The cliffs by the beacon of light are most wonderful, you can stand back from them and not hear a thing but the wind, then just by moving forwards a few metres you’ll hear the noisy crash of waves on the rocks below and see oodles of white spray swooshing about. It was still quite misty at this point, so the view along the coast towards Lands End was very dramatic, and it felt really rather daring to even stand up on the rocks on the cliff due to the wind!
On from the lighthouse we passed the roadside decrepit engine houses where we walked down to the coast to see the jagged rocks; two buzzards called and circled above us as we walked.
Onwards! Zennor! Quick look at the church (Imy makes a GREAT preacher), and then a walk down to the sea to eat our pasties on a rock (on the bench a couple of bee’s took too much of an interest in us).
After a delightful pasty and a meeting with a cute little field mouse we then zoomed off, past St Ives, got caught in REALLY BORING traffic jams in Hayle, and then on to Perranporth where we vaguely “explored” the mining hole caves before having tea and biscuits with Phil (Perranporth YHA manager). Fennell and peppermint tea – nom. Good natter about Iceland and such. Driving back to Golant, and home. Ahhh… that was a lot of driving… but it was good, as LISA HARRISON appeared! It was lovely to have both her and Imy there… after they left the house felt very quiet.

Anyhoo, since then we have just had a fair load of rain. I’ve heard that I’ve already sold stuff at the gallery, and I’m VERY MUCH looking forwards to the arrival of my beloved Norwegians Silje & Vera on Tuesday morning. WAHOOOOOO!!
As you can see, the quality of this blog post has deteriorated as I am super duper tired and still got 25 minutes left here. Ahh… bonne nuite!

Have some pictures:
I love that Peter Rabbit's bum looks so saggy, like a beanbag. Ahhhh Beatrix Potter...

By Vienna Textiles, it just took my liking...

LolaGC on Flickr. Looks a tad like Eva Green. Mmmmm.

Joe Waldron, you are most excellent. Especially your subtle colour difference for the mountain vs sky.

As much as I love bark, I also love crocheted trees (keeps them cozy!). DMC blog.

Andrea Kalfas, your colours clash so terribly! I rather like it! And look at that hair... mmm.

Katie Harnett. I will look as happy as that when I am in SNOWY SNOWY NORWAY at x-mas.

P.S. Oh dear, I'm grinding my teeth again :(

95. How will I survive

2011-08-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Currently sat in reception at the hostel, using up the internet on my Sunday evening... I'm surrounded by blokes in shirt & bow tie, and girls in dresses & heels. I think they're a rather posh orchestra sort of group since I heard music earlier.
Today the weather is that heavy sweaty grey sort, dotted with small rainish showers... the sort of weather which makes you feel as if you have a very cotton wool filled hangover. Yesturday was much nice!

Drove to Boswinger & then down the hill to Hemmick beach where we wriggled into a parking space before staring at the sea and going "I WANT TO JUMP IN...". The weather was host & sunny, see. We (Mr Arnold & I) then proceded to stomp up the coast path towards Dodman point (big stone cross... although I swear it was FAR bigger all those years ago when my family (Scruffy the bear included) walked & whinged our ways up there * to eat a Cornish Pasty lunch and sang a Scruffy bear song "I'm a Scruffy bear and I don't care, I look up peoples underwear!").
After a lunch of, guess what... white French bread with salted butter, some sliced pork, orange juice with juicy bits, and mini cheesecakes (passion fruit!) from reduced price jackpot. Wandered about on top of the hill for a while, watched the sea, spied on some shags / cormorants on a rock, and listened to a conversation between a young girl and her aunt "Aunt, I think I'm going to fart". Who on earth announces that?! Just fart! Nothing can go wrong! Much...
Deciding to go back to Hemmick beach rather than to go any further, I happily noticed that the underwear I was wearing was covering and decent enough to leap in the sea in, and did so. The sea is good. I floated about on my back for a while as it was mostly calm, staring at the blue cloud spotted sky, and feeling warm early evening sunshine on my face. Yes yes yes.

Today as I said before, the weather has not been so great. I did however manage to sit outside on the grass with Duncan for lunch (he made some speedy mackerel pate stuff which we spread on some of his homemade bread with some fancy butter we got from the kitchen. Etc etc. And some jalapaeno peppers. Mmm.
On the mention of food, I'm hungry.

Hmm, I reckon that's everything. The rest of the week has been relatively un-eventful, and I haven't any work to show you.

Au revouir!

*Around this point my manager Paul handed a bunch of white grapes to me, they come from the glass house which we're not allowed in due to the fact that a) the roof is collapsing, and b) it's highly dirty floored due to a drain exploding around new years time. One grape is about to drip mouldy liquid however, and a woodlouse just crawled off of them...

EDIT:
How good does this place look?? Oh to have a hostel like that! I wonder what can be arranged with Perranporth Phil...

Becca Stadtlander did this. Noice!

94. Punched through the door

2011-08-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

This was all written Tuesday.

Mmm… egg custard tart from the reduced price jackpot (4 in total, all for me since Miss Lisa Harrison thinks they’re minging!). Currently sat at “Lisa’s end” of the forge, even though she now uses “Dan’s end” since he’s no longer here (though I’m using his anvil as a foot rest). It’s all silent apart from the sounds of birds (buzzards), a stream, Lisa’s music from the big shed, and Lisa sanding wood. This is all written on paper, I’ll type it up later (obviously I’ve now typed it up!). The forge is strewn with various off cuts of wood and metal, and at one end there is a part (almost) finished traditionally made iron gate (no dodgy looking welds! No angle grinding!) with curls and all. This end (the jewellery making end), there are a couple of brambles which have squeezed in through a gap in the window. The rest of the egg custard tarts are looking at me (as are four little baby tiny anvils – they just want to be cuddled!). I have come here for the day to draw* and then later on I shall drive back “north” to Golant YHA to natter to Duncan (he got the job in the end instead of Carl).
The weather is mostly grey with the odd peeking patch of blue sky, when I woke up (in my van! In Lisa’s field!) it was lovely to open up the back doors and lie in bed with the fresh air and soggy mist coming in. Last night we sat in Lisa’s caravan & made beef stew into which went green beans, multiple fresh herbs, red and yellow chard – all from the Golant garden. Mmm… (not the beef of course, though there ARE some noisy cows close by…). Had a good natter, admittedly mostly myself talking about work as it’s playing big on my mind right now. Poor Lisa! Having to hear about all that. She has decided that I shouldn’t be working for the YHA, but instead on a farm.

I reckon Miss Harrison is correct – I love the thought of being something to do with the YHA, but is this just because it’s what I’m used to? It’s what I already know? Because the pay and accommodation is good? Money doesn’t necessarily equal happiness…
I like what hostels used to be, not these new fangled “hotel” hostels. I like hostels where you can only check in at 5pm earliest, and supper was 2 choices – veggie or non veggie. I like hostels where you have to be gone (even if you’re staying for another night or two) by 10am – having guests about all day is really getting to me, especially when those guests are expecting to check in at 11:30am before we’ve even had a chance to clean the rooms (I swear not even hotels allow guests to do this!). I like it when guests clean up after themselves, if you’re asked to remove your used linen from the beds before you leave and deposit it in the baskets at the bottom of the stairs, do so! It’s not so hard! Leave your rooms as you found them, check behind beds for your copious amounts of rubbish and dirty pants! And do NOT, if you’re camping, drive across and park your car on the lawn right next to your tent… your vehicle really will be ok 10-20 metres away in the proper car park. Ok so it’s a tad extreme to say that I’d like to go as far back into YHA history (beyond my years) and say that cars shouldn’t be anywhere near hostels, but I do agree with the old rule that guests are not allowed in the hostel between 10am & 5pm… I DO remember those days, and they make sense. Why stay milling about the house when you can go out and see places, do things? If you’ve arrived before 5pm and it starts to rain, then hide in the outdoors toilet. It’s a roof. Guests should stop being so slobbish and pay more respect to the hostel (and it’s staff!!)… being on holiday does not mean that you have to act like a delinquent monkey.
Yes, we are hosting people so there should be some good level of hygiene and cleanliness throughout the hostel, but the current health and safety laws really do take the piss a bit too much. We live in a time where we’re constantly terrified that the H&S man (or woman) may do a surprise visit and find, god forbid, a rogue chopped mushroom under the shiny stainless steel kitchen counter! Oh no!

Sorry about this rant, but it really has been bugging me. As I said, I want to be part of the YHA – the old YHA… this current one perhaps isn’t for me. But oh well, just 10 or so more weeks at Golant before I get to be a dirty hippy for a few months, then maybe next year I’ll get to work at Coverack for the summer (nicer location on the Lizard, overlooking the sea, smaller hostel too… no longer wish to work at Treyarnon Bay as they now have an “open all day” café which has resulted in way too much work and added stress which lead to two members of staff leaving recently. I’m not meant to know that yet though).
Wow, I’m writing a lot. I’m writing it in one of my old first year “colour and composition” sketchbooks, the work in it is AWFUL. And the gouache… so thick and lumpy. Blegh!

Earlier Lisa said that we should put our savings together and buy a patch of land to live on and have a small farm on. Who knows if she meant it or not, but wouldn’t that be nice…

The music she’s listening to is possibly Romanian gypsy music, delightful! It’s funny how tastes change… if the me of 5-7 years ago could see my current self they’d likely think I was a RIGHT WEIRDO. World/folk music would be replaced by rock / metal music (of course old habits die hard and I still enjoy listening to Planet Rock & a good old bit of Ozzy!). Why am I wearing scroggy brown boots with leather laces when I could be wearing black ones with red laces? My jumper is A) brown, and B) knitted by my mum (both of these things would have made me PROPER “SAD”), and my trousers are super saggy in the crotch and in at the ankle instead of flaring out and dragging along the in the dirt behind me for non-literal metres.

Teenagers are REALLY WEIRD.

This coming week I need to remember to pay more attention to the plants in the polytunnel as they need a jolly good water or else the cucumbers will go hard and woody and only suitable for consumption by chickens. I must get off my arse and work out what to get printed for the gallery in Plymouth (send them some samples of my work first, they also mentioned they may see about getting some of my patterns printed on material! How exciting).
On a less exciting note (in fact a dreadfully saddening note), I just dropped half of number 2 of 4 egg custard tart on the floor. VERY SAD TIMES. My normal opinion of “pick it up, dust it off, eat it” has been trumped by A) egg custard + a lot of dirt = un-dustable. B) Possible asbestos dust mixed in with the equation… bugger. Oh well, some small animal will be able to enjoy it from out of a hedge.
Zzzz… I am feeling sleep.
Ahh, the sun is coming out a little more! Just in time for a possibly early lunch (ALMOST 12 midday).

*I did draw a LITTLE bit… but after listening to The Archers on the radio I promptly fell asleep to the lullaby of Lisa bashing bits of metal to make a tripod and the afternoon story on Radio 4. Yes, I can sleep through blacksmithery…

All new pieces of work (theres a few...) can be found on my Facebook/Flickr/Society6. Today, uploading onto blogger does not seem to be my internets favourite thing to do.

93. Not stung by a bee

2011-08-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

The third and final piece for Petra's homework things... and now on with looooads of writing:

Zzzz… my eyes are all sleepy like a dozy wasp. Wasps are very dozy at the moment, it is August and they have all done what they had to do and so are now spending time buzzing about and irritating / stinging people; annoyingly, yesterday I was a victim of a wasp sting. I was just driving through Bodmin, minding my own business; I had stopped briefly in the Morrison’s car park to tell my TomTom where to go, and had just driven out and approached a roundabout when suddenly OHHHH OWWW WTF OUCH BUGGERMENT POO GRRR! (Admittedly the words I said were far more harsh than any of those listed, however I felt I should at least attempt to censor what was said in reality). IT REALLY HURT, basically. What made it worse was that the sting was on the top of my boob (just below the top bit of my top) and the pain spread up to my throat & made me feel very sick, and then the wasp (I’m pretty sure it was a wasp as it felt crispy when I yanked it out of my bra) fell down UNDER my boob… so I had to swear & feel sick & dig out the wasp all whilst town driving, and that is tricky at the best of times in Bodmin in tourist season. So yes… that sting hurt all day, sometimes in waves of ouchy stingyness. At least the wasp / whatever it was was crushed to death when I yanked it out of my upper under crackers and flung it across the front of my van (I couldn’t find it later, perhaps the wind whooshed it out of the window).
My boob is still swollen (my right hand side one).

Eventually I arrived in Boscastle where I eventually found a parking space (people must have thought I was an idiot to attempt parking there on
a- In the summer holidays
b- On a rainy sunny rainy day, where the beach isn’t the right answer for tourists

c- I have Cornwall/Kernow stickers on both ends of my van, making me essentially a local so I REALLY should have known better). But anyway. Parking was finally found, and then we walked down a pretty side lane (off the beaten tourist track) to a small galley filled with the work of a woman called Helen Setterington. I’ve never heard of her before, but her work was pretty nice, all acrylic paintings of Cornish landscapes; she managed to get the turquoise transparency of the sea just right, and the yellow of the lichen (my favourite) and the blues of the sky… none of those silly wishy washy pieces which were so favoured round these parts some years back. I REMEMBER THEM. Stripe of one blue on top, stripe of a second blue on the bottom, maybe some variation in opacity with those colours – perhaps put in a bright ball of white for the sun, and maybe a couple of gull of boat silhouettes. Do you know the sort? Nice and simple, yes, but FAR over done.
But yes. Helen Setterington – not a wishy washy painter. I wonder if she was the woman I bought the 2 postcards off of, I’m guessing so. I had a brief natter with her about where she got her cards & postcards printed (www.monkeypuzzleart.co.uk). I liked the quality of the prints, although they are slightly contrasted compared to the original (I should have asked if she had created the contrast or if the printing company had).

After that we walked down a quay side path which had a notice saying “This is not a footpath, slippery when wet”. Again it was away from the beaten tourist track so that’s good. At the end we sat and ate the seemingly weekly lunch of crusty bread with salted butter & other filling (brie this time, from the reduced price jackpot… still not as good as the Petite Brie from Brittany!). It rained on us, but that was nice in a way. 3 young boys were leaping off the end of the quay area into the sea, and whenever they passed us they’d be all “Did you see my 360 yeeeeah?” and acting all ‘cool’. It was funny. Rain stopped and clambering on rocks was to be had, as when as a ridiculous amount of photos being taken of me (it’s flattering, really). The rock shapes round there are amazing, and the colours are pretty good too. Some rocks are really stained with iron rust and then dotted with patches of my afore mentioned favourite bright yellow lichen. The rock had formed in layers although not sedimentary but had then been crumpled and bent so that the straight lines became more like than of a drunken ant trying to walk in a straight line (really wiggly) and in places it was like two sides of a zip trying to fit together. I stole the camera at this point and clambered higher to get a couple of pieces of photographical evidence of this rock. I’m turning into my parents… I’m drooling over rock shapes. Next I’ll be packing my rucksack full of them and having airport security stop me (motherly sort!!!).

Come the end of lunch & other such ponderings we noticed that we’d taken way longer than we’d originally thought, so had to go top up the car park money before we then went to the Boscastle museum of Witchcraft. On entry and paying of £4 to a very witchy looking woman behind the desk (amid a cloud of incense) we wandered about attempting to read everything (it was impossible, so much of interest and so little ability to stop and concentrate and read things!!). Found a rather very slightly racist poster from ye olde times which pictured a witch and was advertising soap. The other picture was a face one half which was black, and the other looked like an albino black person!! The saying was “this soap works like magic, turning black to white!”. If they’d only have used less obvious facial features it would have seemed more like a “dirty people coming from the mines” poster rather than a “black people should be white!” poster. DEARY ME! Of course not all the museum was like that, that was just the “witches in advertising” section.

Things that came to my attention:
-Mass witch burning in Germany? (I think). So many witches were burnt that liquid human fat ran the streets. The fat got so hot that it eventually caught fire and the whole town set alight… ha haaa, suckers! Teaches you to be twats to those who are possibly slightly different.

-A lump of knobbly flint stone which was shaped like a penis and aptly names “cock rock”. It was given to the museum by a witch who no longer had a need for it as no one in her town believed in it’s powers any more (I can’t remember which town this was). The use of this stone was for a woman trying to conceive to put it under her pillow, it would help within 9 months (there was also a “vagina stone” although it’s use fails to be remembered).

-A human head which had been dipped in tar immediately after it’s execution but then rescued by someone… due to the tar covering there were still lots of details such as the closure of the eyelids. It had a sign up next to it with the words “Please do not laugh at this head. It once smiled and laughed, just like you or I. Please spare a minute to good thought for this head”. I can’t quite remember the meaning of all this, but none the less… interesting!

I shan’t tell of any more of this museum as I don’t wish to spoil it for anyone who visits it in the future (you should, £4 really isn’t that much for what the museum is!). I now have big urges to:
a- Draw some witches, stereotypical variety or no.
b- Buy a book of witchcraft history / facts, so I can read more about it.
c- Get some little charms and such. Even if they don’t manage to have the desired affect of what they’re meant to do (ward off evil, etc etc), they sure do look pretty and appeal to my aesthetical likes.

One the way back to the car we bought ice creams. Yum yum yum! They were (and still are) organically made from Helsett Farm (local to there), I chose the honey and lavender flavour as I’d never eaten lavender before and I love honey; glad I chose this! It was super tasty.

I shall indeed visit Boscastle again, perhaps next time not in main tourist weeks. Maybe I’ll stay at the YHA there, it’s a lovely little one – not sure if I’ve stayed there before?
Driving back home I made a quick detour to Advent Church as despite not being religious, I do like to see churches and this one seemed in the middle of no where (churches are generally old buildings and so nicely carved, but unlike most old buildings which are now owned by National Trust or English Heritage etc, they’re free to get in to! Although I was thinking of getting a National Trust membership).

So that was my “Saturday”. Today is more lazy, and I feel tired. I am sitting once again at the desk area with the windows open. Sunny intervals, a small breeze (much different to the fast winds which have been with us these past few days) and I can hear a plane going overhead – to me, that sound sounds like summer. Of course I can also here all the birds (as per usual). The air is not stuffy as it has been as we had a thunderstorm the other day (at the same time as I was standing in the middle of the chicken coop, feeding them watermelon).

In a week or 2 my old classmate (from illustration) Carl Norris is coming to work here. Have I already mentioned that? I don’t think so…? Hmm. But yes, he is. That’ll be good, a second chap in the staff house to balance out the 2 girls to 1 guy thing, plus he’s COOL. And has a spare surfboard… cackle. Ohh I miss the sea! I need to be forced to go jump in it again! I’ll go help him move his stuff out of Falmouth, and see Miss Harrison too. I hope the entire town isn’t still full of scary zombies! (Brad Pitt is filming his new zombie film on a big boat in the Falmouth Harbour area?!).

Apart from this weekend, not much has happened this week. The normal traumas of not being able to do cash up correctly, a few (but not too many) pissy customers, and the boredom of cleaning.

I’ve just had said to me “I wish I could write” (jealousy of me writing roughly 1800 words in 30-45 minutes). It reminded me of what I used to do “back in the day”, which was to write bad fan fics (the original ones were written with my good old friends Tanzee and Jennie, of whom I really do not see enough of…) these stories would consist of ourselves being something a bit better than we already were (possibly like the us of the future, who had money to buy expensive gothy corsets and own a house etc). We’d have flings with people such as Marilyn Manson, Ville Valo, and Billie Jo Armstrong as well as do multiple lots of drugs and drink at the same time as each other (of course back then we’d only really be drinking Alco-pops, stolen little bits of parents booze, and eventually in my case straight vodka). Tanzee would be the one who would get it on with Marilyn “Mazza” Manson, before end up getting pregnant much to the dislike of her fellow “housemates”, before getting very upset and having an overdose on something (not fatal) and falling down a flight of stairs (also not fatal). Jennie would be leaping on Billie Jo Armstrong and making a bit of a public spectacle of it, and I would be having my kink on in a darkened room with Ville Valo (and sometimes Dani Filth (CoF)). I wish I still had a copy of these awfully great stories – Tanzee, if you read this, do you?!

As well as these works of literary shit, I had a bad habit of regularly updating a ever deepening pile of angsty blog. Updates generally consisted of girls and guys who I had decided I really rather loved, but alas – the love was generally unrequited, and the blog entries eventually got me in a fair chunk of trouble someone… whoops! Agh well. TEENAGE YEARS, EH?? Chuckle (I’m currently listening to The Offspring – Conspiracy of One, for nostalgia reasons… I do actually still like them though).

William Arnold: “You’re not writing about me with cucumbers on my face are you?” “I am now” “Nooo…” (He’s lying down with cucumber on his barely there eye bags, and one on his forehead which I decided to take a chunk out of (the cucumber, not the forehead). He’s now just made mooing noises like the loud cows outside.

Anyhoo, for now, I shall stop writing this. I may do some gardening, or I may not. We shall see! Hum hum!

The third and final piece for Petra's homework things...

92. Nibble my shoe

2011-08-04T07:08:00.001-07:00

Ahhh!
A blog!
Aaaahh!
What has even happened this past week?!
The joyous Dutch couple left, but not before we sat down and had a good natter and Joseph was super duper amazed by Google Earth - I let him know it was free and downloadable, and he was excited. We looked up their house in Holland & their second house in France. He then went to bed & I continued to talk to Petra (finally found out her name!). She comissioned me (in the "free" sort of way) to create a homework based picture for her - I'll create 3. Here's the first two:
Maybe she will send me something in return, maybe not. She said we were most welcome to stay with her (and Joseph? And her 16 year old daughter?).
Before she left we made sure to do lots more gardening together, during which I found a small toad (a year or 2 old), and picked plenty of blackberries (LOADS here! And really early! I hope the blackberry GLUT (new word I learnt!) continues, and there isn't soon to be a DEARTH (other new word!).
I shall make some more blackberry & cinnamon job (almost out from last year! Oh no!) and they won't even be picked in a graveyard, so no accidental cannibalism will occur this time.
Another lovely guest was a girl/woman/lady called Charlotte, she works in a screen printing company in Sweden, and was impressed by my upside down map drawing & writing skills. I have since drawn up a proper map on how to walk from here to Fowey, because so many folks ask.
Charlotte gave us chocolates when she left. It's such a shame the current guests aren't as nice! Although we have had an amusing & friendly German family arrive today, one of his first words was "scheisse"; this goes down well in my book.

On my "Saturday" (Monday) Rachel & I ventured into St Austell to go see the new Harry Potter film (finally!). Getting a little misplaced on the way there, and having to pull up on double yellows so that Rachel could CHUNDER, we finally arrived and did a snippet of shopping before the film (I found a 100% pure wool jumper for £4 in a charity shop - navy blue with bigger than a tennis ball white daisy flowers on it with yellow middles. It's really itchy, and some people would say it's really ugly (it is a bit) but I do rather like it! Though I hope the itchiness dies down. It shall be VERY cozy in the winter when I'm being a dirty hippy - of course I also have my Icelandic knitted jumper which my mum made me, but that isn't so tight knit. I also got me some shampoo/conditioner/shower gel from the St Austell branch of the Natural Store (love that shop), and have decided I want to buy some carob to make some weird & wacky food. Can't wait to opt out! Roll on not eating YHA food all the time!

Tuesday was a relatively lazy day, had a lie in and then adventured off to St Anthonys head (nr Falmouth / St Mawes etc). Had a stylish lunch of poppy seed fresh bread with salted butter & ox tongue / cream cheese & smoked salmon (reduced price jackpot!!!), with orange juice with juicy bits. Climbed a pole, got a tad worried about a cow and her three calves in the middle of the footpath (just incase she got moody about people being too close to her babies), and enjoyed the sunshine. The sun shone, but there was a bit of a breeze... so in the end didn't jump in the sea. I NEED to jump in the sea more. I miss it.

I'm afraid I don't have much else to report on, apart from The Artworks Agency in London telling me that they don't want me (keep trying somewhere else, I suppose!), and a gallery in Plymouth saying that they DO want me! (I didn't even ask! Thats good).
I found that chickens love blackberries, and that I definately can't cook scallops as well as they do in restaurants (not a big surprise).
I decided I want to buy a hammock to string up between the 5 big evergreens in our gardens, it is so nice and cool under those trees in the hot hot heat (today is grey & chilly).

Here is a sketch I did, for Mooncup (yes... if you know what it is already, hurrah! If you don't... it's worth finding out - more so if you're female ;) !!!).
This piece by Chelsea Brown caught my eye, even though she has such a serious face!I watched "Young Victoria" and fell in love with Rupert Friend in it, especially his outfits... he wore them SO WELL!

This looks tasty tasty, for easy good snackage when pudding is the thought!

Should I buy this camera? And the sexy brown leather case for it?

91. Catch a small plum

2011-07-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

(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

2011-07-20T14:25:00.001-07:00

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

2011-07-13T04:22:00.001-07:00

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.

2011-07-05T04:41:00.000-07:00

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!

87. How many words rhyme with seven?!

2011-06-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

Ahhh well THAT was a lovely few days...

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!

86. My toe clicks

2011-05-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I am here!

I am alive!

Currently sitting in my HUGE bed in my SMALL bedroom (2 foam ex-YHA matresses on the floor which fill the majority of the room since my old bed has been driven back to Reigate).
Silje is sitting the other end of it, and we are both typing away whilst wrapped in our duvets (mine is my lairy tie-dye stuff, where as hers is Harry Potter branded stuff), and listening to Planet Rock radio. I've thankfully finished all my uni work, so I'm typing this. Just gotta print EVERYTHING, mount it all, stick it up on the wall, and be joyous and hope for the best. Mmmhmm.
I reckon I should write this (I've been meaning to do so for a while), and then perhaps I'll take myself off to my study and I'll print my written work, put it in folders, and make a business card holder.
Look at my business cards! Hurrah!Thats the front of them, anyway.
I do hope the final stretch will not be too anger making, and I hope I have some fresh scalpel blades somewhere so I can cut my foam board successfully. Yessir.

The past few weeks have been good and interesting, mostly.

Since the last update I have gone with my delightful shanty band "The Falmouth Fish retured from Davey Jones' Locker" to the wonderful Brittany, to take part in the Breizh-Kernow festival Aberfest. That was highly confusing to start with, but UBER (yes, uber) fantastic in the end, especially with the hot weather we got (I now have the wonderful brown colour of someone who isn't an illustration student).The beautiful girls Miss Molly and Miss Lisa singing in a wood by Arthurs Cave & Camp.
Mr Coote and Mr Drinkwater along with others playing in the procession we took through the village of Brandivy. I'm pretty sure it was a village, not a town. It was certainly tiny.
I could write a highly detailed account of it, however I think I shall leave that to Mr O'Shea (his writings are currently not finished, so no detailed account will be left there, either...).

Getting back from those top notch travels we illustration students were roughly thrown into our final term of our degree EVER. Funny to think, that the end of that term is basically here.
The majority of folks went off to New York to go in groups about various publishers & agencies, me, being be, decided to go it alone and attack London instead.
I managed to get one meeting with one agent (admittedly I didn't try for any publishers, and I got e-mail feedback from the rest of the agents). The meeting went well, despite the fact I managed to get lost between the station & the building (Bex + cities = much swearing, worrying, and wanting to jump back on a train back to the land of fresh air, blue skies, and greenery).
But yes. Meeting went well. More on that when it occurs FO SHO'. I hope it does occur some more, even if it DOES mean having to treck to London again in July, which I will be doing. Yuck! But yay!

The last few weeks have mostly been heavily peppered with the company of Mr Arnold, who appears to have become a rather good cohort of mine. On he 7th May we made our way at the crack of dawn to Helston for Flora Day. We got there for the first drum beat (well, pretty much) and saw the first dance. Sadly the weather was a tad grotty so we didn't stay for the entire day, although perhaps I'll go again next year. We made our way on to the Lizard where a brief snooze occured until the sun decided to stick it's neck out, at which point we went for a wander about the still foggy cliffs, then on to the little fishing harbour village of Mullion Cove, then on to Helford to skim round flat stones on the river, before finishing up at the Ferryboat Inn munching mussels and sipping cider.
All in all, superb. I was constantly stalked by the chap with 3 eyes, one which kept imaging me. Pervert. Ah ha.

Since all that I've just been "working", drawing, and writing etc. The norm!
Can't wait for my month of freedom, sea, sand, sun?! Staying at YHA's rather than working at them (Lands End & Perranporth), Royal Cornwall Show (may be playing a mini gig there...?). ETC! ETC! ETC!

Here's some stuff I've been up to. For a full view, get your posterior over to my Flickr page.
The un-coloured version of an adjusted sketch of Fowey in Cornwall.
I finished my "quotes" page for uni. The quote being "Folk is bare bones music" by Ben Harper.
I look forwards to seeing the fully finished book...
Doodle done in Brittany. Did a small series of these things.

Some speedily done posters, this being one of a trio. The aim was to be speedy, so thats good.Must remember to send the original of this off to Brittany, as a thank you card to our host family (yes, bit of a self portrait, although, as with the majority of self portraits, not entirely accurate).A doodle, but I'm rather enjoying it! Good round chicken. Yes yes.5 folk characters I created put together into one. Mmhmm.

A (admittedly speedily done) image for Mr Arnold. I'd like to do more like this.

Aaand here's stuff from other folks:

Sarah Abbott. The colours and subject matter aren't so much my thing, but the way it's been done is rather niiiice...

Rob Hodgson. Simple, clean, but dirty. I'm enjoying the colourful tree's in the middle of the not so colourful scene.

Gwenola Carrere. Mmhmmm! Currently a little too on the "artsy" side for me, but I can see some delicious things in it...

JulieVW. Gotta love a chicken eyeing up a singular chopped finger.

From "Kristomatic"'s blog, I like this not because of the subject matter (it's rather too fashion for me) but for the way it's done. I'd like to try this.

From the same source as above, I have also suffered from chronic bitchface before, most of the time it occurs in Reigate, on the same corner, where I have had multiple people (generally blokes) say something along the lines of "cheer up love!".

Emma Bennett, one of my classmates. This piece tickled my fancy. I like the noises coming out in their little bubbles (parp). Got some good sneaky textures going on there, too...

Yes, of course food had to come into the equation somewhere. Charles Schiller, food photographer makes me want something to eat even more that I currently already do. Eep! What scrummy looking sarnies.

Gethin Thomas gives me a few ideas. Simple, seasonal, and... yes.

From BawkBawkBawk's blog, a doggalump which looks human.

Elizabeth Mahoney. Although rather much too "scene" or "hip" or "cool" or whatever it is these days, I like that all I can see is a forest of legs.

From Apartmenttherapy.com. When I have my own place, I reckon it'd definately be good to colour each banister seperately. YESSS.

Found from a vaguely dubious source (original artist not listed), I just love the freckles!

Something from Mr Arnold. He likes his photography. A drunken sneaking photograph of Vera, myself, and Silje whilst at Jacob's Ladder pub in Falmouth, watching folks play moosic.

Found at Modish Vintage on Etsy. What a delighfully well shaped bunny!

There you go.
On with life now :)

85. Do the hand jive

2011-04-07T04:12:00.000-07:00

RIGHT... an update with IMAGES! IMAGE HEAVY ALERT!!!

Today I have got my back tyres replaced, and I wish to do some painting / drawing (for business cards and such), and print out a picture, and make some cake, etc etc etc.

Here are some images of what I've been doing:

Created the sketch for this just before the "Swan Lake on Ice" show started, came home & coloured it in. Squidget also made a sea captain picture, I want to do more "we should draw THIS" things, it makes us create things we otherwise might not.

First doodle I did at Golant, just painted it, no pre-sketching or anything. I like that he has no body, and he only has snapped strings as I decided I couldn't paint in all 4 in such a small space with such a not so small brush...

Went on a walk which resulted in a sketch for this, and then creating a more "proper" image of it, which is this. I also then doodled this:

Which seems to be peoples favourite current doodle on Society 6 (well, of my stuff) which surprises me as I thought they'd prefer the other more "done" stuff. This is, REALLY, a doodle.

One the same page I also made this doodly doodle of 3 girls, because I had paint leftover, and I really don't like wasting it.

The hostel is thinking of making a muffin / cupcake business, to help raise more money for the place. I created some easy little labels to stick on them (dashed line to write on what the cakes are).

And THIS is a sketch I did some many days back, but I tried to paint it and it wouldn't work and I got frustrated so I drew it out and did it digitally in the end. And that worked, mmhmm.

The on came a couple of "lairier" bits, a mermaid with three tails...

And an image for my assistant manager who is leaving Golant soon, to go back to Treyarnon Bay YHA. I hope she doesn't see it before I give it to her.

More stuff soon, I hope... but I can't upload images or words onto the internet at Golant (incase my, or anyone else's memory stick had a virus on it. It'd affect the whole YHA system!), so it could be a week or two. Sorry!

And here are some of what OTHER folks have been doing:

A photo of a baby Snub Nosed monkey from National Geographic... they aren't so cute when older (the same applies to most things, apart from humans, and human babies... well... yeurgh!).

The moon on the 19th March was MASSIVE. Found this via National Geographic, too. It's over New York - appropriate for some (not me).

My mate tall Will does funky photograph related things. Here is a solagraph of the sun moving over part of Falmouth (in the direction of my house!) over the course of a few months / weeks or so. He sent me a link to this:

The same sort of thing but elsewhere, by Tarja Trygg. It's so lovely seeing how the sun moves... mmmm the sun.

Owen Davey graduated from Falmouth a few years back, and this is DELICIOUS!

84. I'm a total bore.

2011-04-06T04:03:00.000-07:00

OH FALMOUTH, how I love you!
Woke up 6:30, watched the sunrise – well, part of it. The bit which wanted to show itself to me. Which was most of it – the bright orange sun appearing over the hill, some pink fluffy cloud above it… mmm. It sucks not having keys to the hostel, though. Can I have some yet, please? Someone was a bit late to join me on breakfast duty, so I couldn’t get in! Thankfully I found Ben & got keys off of him, and then Rachel came and joined me and so everything ran wonderfully smoothly and then… OFF AND AWAY!

It’s not a bad drive from Fal to Golant, my driving was a bit shit though as my tyre air was VERY low, and even another van driver honked me whilst next to me at a red light, & said “your back tyres are desperately low!!!” sort of thing, so I found a garage & pumped em up. I am yet to learn a lot more about vehicles & their needs. And… I’ll need to get a new set of back tyres. They’re very bald. Yes indeed I will. Perhaps that can be my job tomorrow.

But the sun was shining, and even though I had to pay £2 for parking as I couldn’t find a space, that was made better within 2 hours as:
-I got to use the INTERNET!
-When I moved Hector 2 hours later, I did a VERY nifty bit of parking, pat on the back to moi!

After that I went for a wander into Falmouth town, it was lovely! It’s crazy how much one can miss a place.
I went right to the end of the high street to the old high street, to the Natural Store. I’m not really meaning to be very VERY personal & all, but I went there on a mission: TO BUY A MOONCUP.

A Mooncup, you may ask? Well, the first time I heard about them was when there were adverts for them pasted all over the backs of toilet doors at Glastonbury… didn’t really look into it much, though. The next time was when my cousin Dan came to stay, she said they were really good as they totally reduce both waste and costs of BEING FEMALE. What are they? Well, I’m going to leave it to you to look it up. If you don’t like super girly things (this may apply to any chaps out there) then you may not want to. I can warn you that they aren’t the cheapest things to buy (roughly £20) but I’m sure they’ll be worth it in the end.

After than I skipped past a couple of charity shops, in one I found a lovely shade of turquoise jumper – 50p – nothing wool or anything, just cheap, but I have slight plans for it. The other shop I found a glorious “hippy Indian” throw / hanging / scarf / piece of pretty. Lovely! Now I just have to argue with myself as to what I’m going to use it for. As you can tell I was on a little bit of a spree… but the sun was out and I’m going to get paid a little soon! Not that I want to spend it all, but these things are mostly all useful… I went on to Boots, where I bought some liquid plaster (Germolene stuff – in catering you may well have to wear those blue ones, but they CAN fall off and they SUCK! Where as this Germolene stuff is good as if you put 2 layers of it on, it doesn’t come off (even in the shower!) and can’t be seen, and doesn’t make your finger smell. Yes, it’s the way forwards. Especially since I’ve been getting little cuts on my hands left right and centre, which I only find out about when I make a citrusy fruit salad or do the washing up. Yowch. Also got some chiropractic heel things for putting in my steel toe capped Doc’s – it’ll hopefully make my feet far happier in the kitchen.

I then went and sat on some quiet steps down to the sea, where I watched Flushing, and the boats go by, and basked in the sunshine whilst still feeling as if I was still missing Falmouth, despite me being there.

Walking back I passed our landlord Jeremy "Jezza" on the street, he's so forgetful - asked me what year we were in! Third, silly! Otherwise we would need another year in the house!!
Roskillys icecream shop was open, which definately signals the start of summer. The bald chap was in there, so I had my normal conversation with him of "oh, I never know what to have" and then after 5ish minutes "I think I'll go with the apple crumble, it's not warm enough for orange and mascerpone" (I ALWAYS go for apple crumble). He told me to try the blackcurrant cheesecake some day, but I reminded him that I'm not a great fan of blackcurrents (we've had that conversation before).
So I went and licked my icecream on some steps on the quay - not the best place, as that place was already taken, but it made me notice that I'd never sat on those steps before, and that Trago Mills is on stilts!!
Then to Tescos to pick up some grub & milk to keep me surviving, it was good as my two favourite Tescos workers were in there (mmhmm!), always makes a day better.

Munched on some reduced chicken & vegetable sushi in the sun in the back yard, and then indulged some more in the interwebs before shooting off to Lisa's for food, wine, and nattering. It was good to see a friendly face again. Well, a friendly face I hadn't seen in a while, who I know well.

The walk back was nice, the night was clear so I could see the stars, and it smelt like an early summer evening, and on Arwenack avenue the lamposts were making silhouettes of the trees and leaves on the floor. Lovely jubly.

83. Where were we...

2011-04-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

Bedtime. Again. Definitely, got to be up in 6.5 hours! Could have gone to bed earlier, but Siobhan, Rachel & I were sitting at the top of the stairs having a good natter about life. Mmhmm!

A few things in my brain have got sorted out, I don’t reckon I actually want the duty manager job as I’m not sure I’ll want to stay here after October (a couple of reasons, nothing awful, but… yeeeah). Rachel is thinking the same, but with catering manager job. We shall see indeed! Wherever life takes us / we take ourselves / a joint effort.

Off to Falmouth tomorrow night, for 2 nights. I need it, yes indeed I do! It’ll be good in the summer once Hector is all kitted out, I’ll be able to take myself off in my off days and just crash in the back of him.
The stars are lovely and out tonight.
My feet ache like… HELL tonight.
Goodnight. I’ll post this all on teh interwebs tomorrow when I indulge myself ALL EVENING on MSN & Facebook & such. H’OH YUS.

Night y’all!

82. I want you-oo-oo

2011-04-03T03:59:00.000-07:00

Mrrr.
Hello, first hangover of Golant.
It was the big wedding party last night, and although we weren’t essentially wedding guests, we (myself, Rachel, and Ben) decided to turn our night off into a little party. Drank down some pints of Heligan Honey (mmm), I munched on some of the leftover hog roast (my god!), and we nattered, and raced, and attempted to barn dance, and tried to stick Rachel into the toilet with sellotape, but failed as she is TOO CLEVER, and saw it. Later on we sat in our staff living room and listened to music (well, went “YEAH I LOVE THIS SONG! AAAHHH!”).
So yes… we’re now all a bit zombieish.
Whilst cleaning, I looked out of the window (room 7 or so, I’d say. Nice view of the river) and it was raining/hailing BEAUTIFULLY. The sort when it’s just coming straight down, not too hurried but still fast, thickly, and making a constant “shh” sound. When you can see some strange body of it even in the distance. I just thought it was excellent, so stuck my head out the window (fresh air was greatly good).

On a different note, SOME PEOPLE ARE SO DISGUSTING.
And on a different note again, I really love serving food to people off of the hot plates thinger (like a dinner lady!).

Mmm… bed. Today is definitely a bed day.

81. Plum on the run.

2011-04-02T03:59:00.000-07:00

Didn’t write much yesterday… but I’m sure that’s FINE.
Today I worked 7am-4pm, and I’ve been lazing about since. I’m now watching River Garden, and feel a little bad about all the crap I’ve eaten today (lots of leftovers from cooked breakfast…. So… well…). And then there’s the rest…
Must remember instead of nabbing old cold croissants, to grab a TOMATO. Especially since here in the hostel they’re so fresh! Because they get used, and then more get bought.

I’d like a proper set of sharp knives for the kitchen, please. In fact, I’d like a properly equipped kitchen, and a pot washer.
Butternut squash and peanut butter soup, with a squeeze of lime… that sounds GOOD… with chopped coriander and natural yoghurt on top. OM NOM NOM! I can has blender?

Weddings are odd… the ACTUAL wedding didn’t happen here, however a LOT of drinking Pimms did.
“Feeling exhausted? Dark circles? Try this make up to put over it! With caffeine inside it!”. Really. REALLY. I don’t think that makeup will make you less exhausted. Some adverts are ridiculous.

Old saying “the devil himself was too scared to go to Cornwall, in case he ended up in a Cornish pasty” (does this mean that the Cornish will put ANYTHING in a pasty?). Apparently. River Cottage man is making pasties. They DO look good… and he put it in his pocket. “I can’t tell you how comforting it feels, digging, with a hot lunch in my pocket” (I reckon it should have got crushed by now, he was bending over a lot).

80. I don't like tea.

2011-04-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

30. Your highs and lows of this month.

March was pretty daaamn good. My cousin Dan was down for a while, so we went off on a few little adventures, the sun re-appeared for the year (come on summer!), and I went on a miniature adventure to Lands End with Squidget. Saw a musical and an ice show, my birthday occurred and we sat on the beach at night with food, ale, good company, and musical stuff.

On the low, I suddenly noticed that I was soon to leave Falmouth for soon, being near the end of my degree and such. I failed to go to a couple of things – parties, the BTCV weekend away…
But the highs KILL the lows, as there’s so many more of them! Live with optimism! (occasionally easier said than done, but it’s worth a try!).

Wow… never seen so many well dressed people in one Youth Hostel. No… never seen well dressed people in a Youth Hostel!!!
The wedding weekend started today, people started to appear, and I spent a long, LONG time cleaning up after the school party who were here before them. Messy school.

79. I'll have it in pine...

2011-03-31T03:47:00.000-07:00

29. Goals for the next 30 days

-Get my illustrated book image finished to a level that I am happy with.
-Get at least 2 projects done for uni.
-Do not watch that TV unless it’s just to be sociable!
-Sort stuff for a car boot sale.

-Start thinking about finding agents to see in London.

-Get on with putting a fabulous portfolio together.

-Get the van bed finished.

I know they aren’t exactly AMAZING goals, but… I just need to get some stuff sorted at the moment. Nothing much just for me, it’s just for my life. Self pampering can come later. Perhaps in June. Definitely in June.

Arrrgh… I now know why I don’t watch TV; the real reason is because we don’t have one, the OTHER reason is because I’ve just watched the TV here at Golant for maybe… two hours? I don’t even know WHY I was watching it, all the programmes were scheisse and it made my eyes go funny. But the day is not entirely wasted, no! Not at all! I had a lie in and so my alarm went off at 9am and I got out of bed a few minutes later, then did some arty farty stuff (“coloured in” a pictcharr), and then Ben and Rachel came back from morning shift & we had a brief natter & Rachel gave me some post which I’m GUESSING was from my dad via Amazon, as it was an OS walking map of this area (I HAD asked for one to be sent, but not a brand new one!!). But yes, I decided that even though the day was a tad grey, and a little moist, I’d go for a walk into Golant village. Off I went along the drive, coming to the footpath and walking through a field which has longish grass which rustled in the wind, and birds (skylarks?) twittering above my head. On I went and walked past a field in which I looked into and 2 pigs came running up to the fence to great me, oink oinky snuffle grunt. Nice and nice, looked those piggies. Shame they were behind 2 barbed wire fences and a bit of hedge – apparently that farmer is paranoid about foot and mouth. Walked past a dead rabbit (on my way back I walked past it again, and it’s guts had been torn open & it’s eyes pecked out). There were some cows with new calves in the field, one teeny calf was propping itself up in a corner. Went briefly into the churchyard on top of the hill, then walked down the hill. Wandered through the village, it’s quite pretty, and onwards over the china clay works railway to by the river. Here I ate my lunch of a tine of sardines in spring water, and a chocolate brownie. Pondered life a little, then walked back up the hill (puffing a bit, it’s steep!!) and went back to the church as I wanted to look in it, and last time there had been other people. Looked in, it was drizzling at this point, and looked through the visitor book to see if any folks from places I knew had visited. The organ player came in and I talked to her for a while, friendly woman, said that the hostel is in the perfect location. I left the church and sat under a tree in the churchyard, eating an apple and being rained on whilst listening to birds tweeting and the wind blowing. It felt good; mysteriously good for someone who is getting soggier by the minute. Continued walking back “home” (went the say way as I came, contemplated making a circle walk but felt a little lazy), on the way I looked in the pig field again and there were 2 male pheasants chasing each other – when they saw me they stopped, and walked slowly about for a while, ignoring each other, then when I hid a bit they chased each other again! Gay lovers? Embarrassed by their squabbles? Who knows! Home, then went into hostel to check e-mails and talk to Paul.
I asked 3 questions:
-How do I get the global gossip internet thing? He doesn’t have a clue, suggested asking Ben… I hope he knows. Internet is getting more important, sort of.

-The catering manager job… do I have a chance? He said that it’d be better if I applied for another up coming position… duty manager! BASICALLY, assistant manager. Siobhan is leaving, so the position will be opening. I’m more qualified for that, too. Sounds important! I’ve e-mailed Chris Long (YHA jobs chap) about it. Eee! Ohh… it’s scary, and a little daunting, but… what’s to lose?
-Cake illustrations… would he like them now. He’s got ‘em now, and we sorted out a couple of other things too. Friendly chap indeed.
For supper I made up a batch of veggie Thai green curry, that’ll last me for a few days, since it looked like it’ll be super busy for the weekend (the wedding going on, and all).

Whoops, I appear to have piddled someone off by applying for this new job… even though they have had exactly as equal chance to apply themselves? It’s a strange, frustrating world sometimes.

78. Mmmmasticate.

2011-03-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

28. Something that you miss

Something I miss… right this moment? Happy feet (not the film, my actual feet), and the Internet. Even though I know the Internet would just make me procrastinate. But right now, I’d like to procrastinate.

Thinking deeper, I miss not having to think of things like “I wonder if I ever WILL be able to make decent money out of doing what I like – art”, “Should I go for this job promotion? Will I prefer it to what I have now? It would let me stay here at Golant for longer (if I wanted to) since it’s a permanent position… surely that’s good?” (I really don’t know whether to go for the job or not, you see), “how much / which bits of my stuff should I get rid of one way or another when I leave Falmouth? Can I fit all the stuff I want to take to Reigate in the back of my van?” etc etc etc. THESE ARE GROWN-UP THOUGHTS. WHY AM I THINKING GROWN UP THOUGHTS. I’M ONLY…. 22. It appears, that that is grown up age. Bugger.
I miss having the Graphics crew group discussions at Epsom – whenever anyone in our 5 got a bit stuck with their work, we’d all give feedback sort o’ thing. I miss the ride in Racheyboi’s car to and from Epsom. And having our mad pancake extravaganzas. I miss the hamsters. I miss the times when I’d first found alcohol, and parties (especially those at Tanzee’s) were AMAZING, and always a greatly looked forwards to happening (Halloween, Christmas, and end of Summer). I miss playing marbles on the floor of shanty house, with Mr O’Shea, Lisa, and Lurkdink… even though it only happened once. I miss plenty of things! I miss my Norwegggg’s! I suspect they’re definitely back in Norweg land now. But yes, I may miss a lot, but the list of things I miss is only going to get longer the older I get, so I should concentrate on making the most out of the things I currently HAVE. Sometimes easier said than done.

My thoughts at 6am: “Who the f…..hell wakes up at 6am!!!” but really, it’s not so bad. Except for it was still DEFINITELY dark, that was my only problem – I’d had enough hours sleep, though. I just like to wake up in the light, s’all. Spent a few hours washing pots (the newbie’s job, or just because I don’t know what else needs doing and the job just needed doing?), and then mopped the floor and did some bed tidying and bin emptying. Finished at, lets say 11am. That’s already 5 hours of work. Again at 5pm! But it’s fine. I’m getting paid. And tomorrow I have a day off… I shall either:
-Drive to Falmouth to pick up my steel toe capped Doc Martens (hey, I could just take the train… probably cheaper?).

-Steal the internet all day, to update myself on things I need to do… basically do NOTHING…
-Go for an explore.
We’ll see. It depends on what my heels want to do. ACHE ACHE ACHE.
It’s raining today, on and off, but raining non the less.

I wonder if it’s legal to catch pheasants round here… pheasant fillets baked in wild garlic pesto?
Apart from saying that, I have no emotions currently to write anything else this moment.

Ah hah ha hah. Ben’s door croaks whenever it’s opened. And he’s talking to himself.

77. A slice of melon

2011-03-29T03:45:00.000-07:00

27. A problem that you have had

Problem? What sort of problem? I have a habit of stressing out a bit too much when things aren’t going exactly my way (lost my way on a map, and can’t find the way? OHHHH NOOO!). That is always a problem.
I’ve had problems with bullying, as in, I’ve been bullied, and had a problem with it. As it sucks. But I reckon we’ve spoken about that before… and I don’t currently fancy going into it.

A problem with cheese sandwiches… the sort where you sandwich a great amount of cheese between 2 slices of bread, and microwave it until cheese is melted. I used to eat at least one every day when I came home from school. No wonder I got chubby.

I now have problems with hangovers, as I killed my liver it seems from drinking a lot of vodka in the “good old days”. When bad, those hangovers can be of the 2 day variety… so I try not to drink so much these days.

I like to put things in order – size, height, colour… is that a problem? Some would say so. I don’t agree with them.

Lets stop with these problems.

Good morning, waking up at 7am… got 5ish minutes until I have to leave to go in for 7:30, so I’ll type a bit of this.
Last night in the kitchen was really good, we had an American party of 22 folks in, 2 wanted macaroni cheese (instead of what we normally serve which is cauliflower & broccoli pasta bake). So I said I’d make that, used a base of “béchamel sauce” which is weird shit, it’s basically a pre-made white sauce (as I said with the pre-made stuff…) but I got to add my own touch to it – milk to thin it out a bit, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and cheddar. Paul said it tasted WELL GOOD (not in those words).
ALSO… there is a catering manager job going here. I’m half tempted to see if I’d be able to get it, as it’d be excellent just to work in the kitchen… sure I’d have to do loads of paperwork too, but once I got all that organised I’d be sorted. I think I’ll ask when I go in, as both my parents said (or something like this) “you’ve (I’ve) nothing to lose”. Agreed.

Good afternoon, it is now 2:30pm and I am sitting on my (actually quite comfy) bed, listening to Planet Rock! Sadly it’s a song by U2, but… I’m sure something good will come on soon. And drinking my version of chai latte. Basically, a mug of milk (microwaved) with a little boiled water and the chai teabag. It doesn’t seem to NOT work, but would possibly work better if I put the teabag in the boiled water for a while, then added lots of hot milk.

And I thought that being in for 7:30 (wake up at 7am) was early… tomorrow… in for 6:30. UP AT 6AM. Well, perhaps it’ll get me into good habits. I’d love to be a hardcore morning person.

I asked about the catering manager job and got some print off stuff, it looks good enough but I’m wondering if I’d REALLY be able to do it. It’d also put my salary up to £14,000 - £16,000 a year… (extra £2-4,000).
The American group staying here are ok, for breakfast of course we were serving all sorts of breakfast, and when it came to the cooked stuff they were like “oh, can I have, err, like two pieces of ham, and some hash?”. ARR HARR HARR. For a start, it’s BACON. Not ham. And they’re hash browns… otherwise it just sounds a little odd. But I guess each to their own…
9:55pm. My god. My feet ache. I’ve been on them 5pm until now, but not really walking about – just washing up. It’s the newest persons job, I suppose, when everything else is all go. I did get to finish making the couscous though (well, y’know, add the herbs and weird salty stuff and hot water and couscous to the already seasoned by Paul raisins & beans etc). So yes. Much washing up. And guess what? I’m now home, and soon to DEFINITELY go to sleep as I am up at 6. I’ve already said that. MY FEEEEEEEET! This isn’t REALLY a whinge, I know what this job is… it’s just my first day of foot ache, s’all. For the I have a feeling that I get the day off on Thursday though?? We’ll see.
One thing I did find out today: dancing ridiculously in the kitchen when your feet ache ACTUALLY REALLY HELPS. For a moment or 10. Not long, but it raises the spirits and is amusing when hugely tall people (Ben) join in.
Also find out that Paul shouts something like “YEEEAHHHHHH!” when Alice Cooper songs come on on Planet Rock (yep, on in the kitchen!). But that’s not surprising since Alice Cooper is his ULTIMATE favourite. ULTIMATE.
I can’t believe I’m going to sleep at 10pm. Why do these American’s insist on leaving the hostel by 7:30am latest…
Sitting in bed starkers here, I see I have a slight belly. That must go. I guess that may not be so hard, since my supper consisted of 1 half full mug of chocolate custard, a few (4?) sneaked chunks of sausage, a little bit (like, less than a cupcake by far) of chocolate cake, some tomato, and some apple. Actually that’s a fair amount of crap. But yes. That was all I ate for supper. Interesting, eh? At Exeter we used to have supper breaks (though not for long, but still at a decent supper eating time. When you get in at 9:45pmish and need to go to bed straight away pretty much, it’s not a good time to eat supper.
Note to self: BUY A TORCH. Went to walk back to the cottage with my food box, and thought I’d be fine! But no. It was utterly pitch black. So I had to sit about for a little time until someone (Siobhan in the end) came along also going that way, and she had vague light.
And now, I shall reply to a text messaaage, and then SLEEP. I’m glad I had a longish power nap earlier.
Good night.

76. Pile some bricks

2011-03-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

26. What kind of person attracts you

Totally shallow wise, and thinking of “corr yeeeah, sexy!” attraction, and also part based on who I’ve rather enjoyed so far, I’d say:
-For girls they’d have long (well, long enough) brown hair, relatively dark brown hair. Say no lighter than milk chocolate. Brown eyes are quite nice, though really any colour is fine… strong minded and outgoing, not all skin and bones – gotta have some curvation going on there. Height doesn’t seem to matter too much, so long as they aren’t dramatically taller or shorter than me.

-Guys? The majority have so far had hair on the lighter side of things, milk chocolate darkest! Blondish. Again with the majority, they’ve all been roughly my height or a smidgen shorter

I’ll stick to that girls summary, it still sounds good. Though guys?
Taller than me would be nice… surfer guy build! Or similar. If I’m allowed to be totally picky, then not too much body hair, and their actual hair should be quite long and flopsome. Beards are fine, I like a bit of scruffiness there… but if it’s any longer than 1cm then I’ll be lifting MANY eyebrows. On the mention of eyebrows, MONOBROWS ARE FORBIDDEN. As are eyebrows which are so minimal in the hair department, that they may as well just not be eyebrows. Of course noses, lips, teeth, number of limbs (no more than 4), and tastes in music, food, and hobbies are important too.

In general, a person should be open minded to pretty much everything, nice and outdoorsy, and not grossed out by the fact that I FART, pick my nose, and occasionally (yes… ok…) talk about subjects such as bowel movements at the supper table. Smelling like something died, or a giant fog of artificial scent is NOT GOOD IN THA’ HOOD.

Golant.

GOOD AFTERNOON, dear people… today is Monday 28^th March, my first day working at Golant YHA. Had to be in the kitchen for 8am, didn’t do much – not many breakfasts needed doing and Siobhan did most stuff, I just learnt where things lived & what needed doing. It is quite a different kitchen to Exeter – for a start there are deep fat fryers and more stuff is done from pre-made frozen stuff (the majority of puddings in Exeter were made there, then frozen where as the stuff here is bought in frozen… though it seems the manager Paul wants to get a cupcake/muffin business into it all to make more money for the place, so they’ll all be handmade. Rachel seems to be perfecting a carrot cake recipe, and I reckon if given the chance I’ll use my poppy seed with cranberry & cream cheese invention.
Did a bit of cleaning, too… delightful. And then I was too busy to write about the rest of this day.

P.S. I had a dream about sniffing a rat. A lot. It smelt good… like that young hamster smell before they smell of piddle.

75. I went for a drive.

2011-03-27T03:41:00.000-07:00

25. Someone who fascinates you and why

Fascinates me… I dunno, lots of people are interesting! Each in their own way. Some more than others, of course, but when you watch them for long enough you’ll always find something. Little things they do… rubbing their feet together when warm and comfy? Opera singing in the bathroom (I always like to think it’s on the toilet, for extra amusement)? The way someone walks, why do their hands have a semi-spasm every time they swing backwards? Everyone is interesting!

I may possibly have that bad habit of staring at people when they really catch my eye, but don’t we all? Maybe. I wish it was polite to stare. I’m not staring because of that horn growing out of your head, ok so maybe I am… but it’s INTERESTING. Why is it there? It’s not freaky at all, s’all fine. I can’t exactly call you a freak since my feet aren’t exactly the most normal feet ever… we’ve all got oddities.

I don’t take much notice of famous folks. Janis Joplin was interesting, though.

Yeah… not much to say about this one.

Ahh… so, now I’ve had a night here at Golant. I need to definitely remember to bring my own bed sheet for next time, forgot how the YHA standard bedding doesn’t fit “normal” beds (just midget bunk beds).
Slept well, it was so gloriously dark and silent! At some point I had a dream that something was happening, something something something, and then something smashed in my face – perhaps thinking back to the other nights exploding rocks / wood on the beach fire? ANYWAY, that sort of woke me up, and then I thought that at the same time something very close to me had sounded like it had banged so maybe they were linked.
But then I stayed awake a little while as it was 5:30am and it was SOOOO GOOOD because the morning chorus was in full whack! There was still a night owl hooting (sounded like a tawny) but every single bird outside had joined in chirping and tweeting, and the pheasants were still doing there thing… and it was ever so slightly lighter, but very very misty (it’s still a bit misty in the river area currently – it was VERY misty when I got out of bed half an hour ago) (9:30).

Today is another sunny day. I should really get out and go for a walk or something, but I kinda want to sit in and paint. I’m here for 3 weeks, so it’s not as if I’m never going to have spare time, right? Plus I don’t have a map. I’d like to have an OS walking map (the orange ones) for this area. In fact I’d like to have all the orange maps to cover Cornwall (not literally). I wouldn’t be so needing if I had the interwebs… that way I could get the maps off of OS online (just the little bits I needed) or check them out on Google Earth. Hum dum.

Hello 2:35pm. I am just back from my wanderings – yes, I did go wandering in the end, without a map. I found the route out of the YHA the back way as some young childrenish sorts carrying large backpacks came from that direction, which was handy. Had a brief look round the YHA grounds though and found that they have CHICKENS. I dunno if they’re the YHA’s or someone else’s, but there were chickens and such. And badger sets… but I know there are badgers here.

Walked out and the sun was shining, went through a little wood which was just FULL of wild garlic (on the way back home I picked a decent little handful, may have it for supper later with a tin of sardines perhaps… I hope the large stash in the wood stays alive for a while, it’d be nice to have continuous slightly garlicky tasting free salad. Walked on through the wood, then sat on a fence to look at the view, then kept walking. The footpath wasn’t exactly clear, couldn’t work out if I’d just walked into a private field of not… but then saw a church & walked towards it. I then got worried, as it looked like I may have to walk through a farmyard (and when you don’t have a map to say whether there is a public footpath through it or not, it’s WORRYING, mostly because I don’t like barking dogs running at me). So I turned back, and got moo’d at by a cow (there were a few in the field, with a bull & calf too).
Decided to go down the other side of the field instead, but when I heard a tractor start up & still wasn’t sure if I was on the footpath or not I headed pronto down the hill hoping there was a stile or gate at the bottom. There was not. Instead, there was a barbed wire fence with brambles & nettles. But me being me, and not being overly fond of tractors tearing down on me (they weren’t) decided to climb through the fence anyway. Then safely into another place (a tangly bit of woodland / dead area) I thought I may as well climb into the other field which I knew was attached to where I had come from… so to get into THAT field I climbed over more barbed wire past a broken rusty gate, over a tree. Then instead of going the way I knew I could go, I walked along the other field boundary which joined onto a wood. After a while of walking along here in the sun (I thought I was quite nice and camouflaged wearing brown boots, dark green jeans, and a yellow floral vest top with a green velvet ribbon in my hair), I noticed that the barbed wire between the wood & field looked easy to climb through, even if it meant going yet further away from my original place. So I went through it and got lightly molested by some spindly branches of a tree which decided they REALLY wanted to touch me and not let go. Through the wood I went – in a little while it’s going to be gorgeously full with bluebells – and crunch crunch crunch over dead leaves. I soon enough stumbled upon a path, so walked on that as it seemed a bit more proper, and for me less likely to get shot (not that farmers / land owners seem to do that anymore. Bit out of fashion to have human skins hanging above your fire place). I followed this path, and it lead through the wood near to the estuary / river / MUD. Soon enough I found some double steps (like ones for mounting a horse) taking me over a wire fence, so I went over & skipped across a random railway line (don’t think it’s a main line, in fact I seem to remember reading some place that it doesn’t work or is only used in certain circumstances or something? WHO KNOWS. I went over it, and then hopped onto the beach / dry bit right next to the river. After watching the water for a bit I ate a little bit of malt loaf and drew a small picture and tracked back in my steps back onto the path.
Continuing to follow the path I eventually came out of the wood into a field, which I soon recognised to be that which is below the hostel! So through the field I went – making sure to stop and lie down in the middle of it for a brief snooze – and eventually got back here.
Lubly jubly.
The sun is now umming and arring as to whether it is coming out of staying behind a misty cloud.

“Sexy Ways” by Funkadelic reminds me of Glastonbury. Just sayin’.

74. Here's some more.

2011-03-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

24. Your favourite movie and what its about

Favourite movie… I’m not sure what my favourite movie IS… I love Rocky Horror, it’s amusing, I can sing along to it whether I’m drunk or sober, it’s fun to dress up to (even if I think I look terrible in some items… others say otherwise, but… self confidence!!). But then, it doesn’t leave me wanting anything, except for to prance about some more and party some more like a mad beast.

I like The Dreamers. It’s a bit (ok… very) sexy, I mean – EVA GREEN. Something about that woman. But yes… it’s set in interesting times, they have fun – yes they resort to eating bad food (never a good thing in my books) and then never really go and see any greenery as they’re often staying in the house (another bad thing… says she who’s stayed in her room all day!). It’s just sensual.
What else… JUNO! It somehow makes pregnancy look FINE AND OK, even though to me it’s not. It’s lovely and quirky and makes you giggle but also plays on the other side of your emotions. I like the “alternativeness” of it, I like that she makes a living room on a lawn, and that she chunders blue stuff into a vase, etc etc etc. Little amusing things.

Pirates of the Caribbean. Enough said. But I’ll say a bit more anyway. Yes, I’ve watched the first one a few too many times now… I start to think “oh FFS you supposedly evil people, we all know you’re not evil, and Will and Jack – you’re meant to be making out. Have you NEVER read ‘The Pirate Way’?” but the romantic aspect of pirates… even though pirates really are NOT romantic… but Jack Sparrow… ignore the fact he’s probably got multiple STD’s, his teeth are definitely a tad rotten which leads (amongst other things) to bad breath and whatnot, and he no doubt smells a wee bit pongy… however even with all his madness he is one attractive character!
On the mention of Johnny Depp characters… CHOCOLAT. It’s dreamy and arty and Johnny plays one hell of a scrumptious chap. AND there’s chocolate in many forms. And river “pirates” aka some variety of gypsy!
This little list can go on… BUT IT SHANT.

I really can’t choose favourites.
Romantic or amusing (or both) costume dramas set in time before too modern technology… good scenery… things which carry you into a perfectly grinnable place.
I don’t want horror, or too much sci-fi, or anything overly modern, or ridiculous action films with someone who can turn into an alien… none of that. I will stick to stereotypically girly films. Hell, I even like chick flicks. Easy watching, easy giggles, often AWFUL but also often cheap to buy. Pink and fluffy and squee worthy is what I want… even if it leaves me feeling alas, a tad soppy afterwards.
Yes, so despite my prejudices against every other sort of film I still have seen other things – once my stubbornness or boredom gave in (films I didn’t want to watch: Simpsons Movie, Wall-E etc… even though I’m now not quite so adverse to animated stuff, I’d still rather watch the real deal – real humans).

My new workmate (I’m now at Golant YHA) Ben says I can watch his collection of DVD’s which are downstairs. Doesn’t sound bad, since I don’t have internet here (except for any I can sneak off of the reception computer when I’m down there… I’ll try post these when doing that. Carry around my memory stick, sort of thing.

BUT YES… Golant. It is currently 27^th March, whether this is posted on that day or not, and I arrived here at 12:15pm after an hours drive from Falmouth. My TomTom (first time I used it!) only got me lost once, it didn’t tell me which way to go, see, at a crossroads… the drive felt shorter than expected, the long driveway down to Golant YHA itself is… well… I thought the track to Lisa’s forge was bad – it’s NOTHING compared to this. Sure the ground level itself seems more even, however the POTHOLES… they appear out of nowhere and are mahooooosive, but not so massive that you can just pop down into them then eventually pop up again. No. They’re like the road biting chunks out of your vehicle every time you don’t manage to swerve round one (need to learn the pattern of swervation).

My room is mostly nice, if I get this same room from July onwards I’m sure it’ll be even nicer. It’s got a window which faces out over to the river/estuary/mud beds and everything, enough storage room, the bed feels comfy so far, got my own sink… though I could do with a couple of extra plug sockets on the other side of the room (though maybe it’s a good thing to have to get OUT of bed to off my alarm clock). I also need to acquire a desk (will bring my desk from Reigate>Falmouth when I next come, I hope it fits perfectly in the window space. And I need to get me a light bulb (the long tube sort) for the light above my sink or for my desk area (desk currently is a chest of drawers so I’m not allowed any knees). And internet. As I mentioned before. May have to get a dongle thing…

And I miss my Norwegian sandwich and such. Already. I KNOW I’ll be back in 3 weeks… but I still miss them.

On the definite plus side, the side of the room is good, and as I said – the view is definitely good. It makes a change from car park / roads. There isn’t a single millimetre of concrete or tarmac in sight, the only manmade objects I can see are 3 washing helicopter twirly whirly drier things, and if I look left a small greenhouse & 2 small sheds & wooden garden furniture, and right I can see co-workers parked vehicles. But that’s fine. All I could hear earlier was the sound of a couple of distant barking dogs, and birds. NOTHING ELSE. I stuck my head out an hour ago (at 9pm) and all I could hear was a pheasant (can hear lots round here – YUM!!!). And it was dark. And not just “ahh yes, it’s night time, the street lights are on though” dark. DARK. I could see a couple of lights on the other side of the river (I think there’s a little marina or something there) and then if I looked towards the big house (the actual YHA mansion) there were a couple of lights on in windows, but they did nothing to taint the blackness of the night. Not entirely black… more of a dark blue as it’s a clear night, and I could see lots of stars.
I’m tempted to go to bed soon so I can wake up at crazy o’ clock (say… 6am?) just BECAUSE. I don’t have internet to distract me.

I wish I had someone to share this semi-wilderness with me. I’m sure I’ll get to know the rest of the folks here sooner or later, though. I hope so.

I wonder if I can get away with sleeping starkers / just in pants here… I’m sure I can… it’s not as if anyone is gonna come in, right? People are surely more likely to come into my room in Fal, and I sleep nekkid there!!

73. There is a fly on my knee.

2011-03-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

30 day challenge!
Post pictures of 5 famous men (what about women?) who you find attractive!

How... mature!! Heh heh.
Well, here goes.

Devendera Banhart.
He's a relatively recent find, I had seen images of him before but thought he just looked a bit... posery? But now I've heard his music, it helps, you know... nice and chilled. Plus he is a suitably scruffy looking arty sort of chap.
Eva Green. HELLOOO. Yes, I'm fully aware she isn't male. But... well. First found her via the moooovie The Dreamers, she's got a brilliant face, and such. And a lovely way of acting women with crazy sides. I think I like my girls with darker rather than lighter hair.
Johnny Depp. Yes I know... stereotypical like for a female... but he does look most marvellous. Especially in Chocolat, and he's just pure BRILLIANCE in Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't care if this is a very normal like. It's GOOD.
Ozzy Osbourne. BUT ONLY IN AND AROUND THE 1970'S. Before it all went wrong, really. He still looks delicious at this age. And of course now he's just an utter nutter of an old man... but he's brilliant. Ahhhh yes. I remember when I was... say... 12/13? At my birthday party. Us girls were saying what famous people we "fancied" and by that point I had somehow only found young images of Ozzy, so I said Ozzy. The others found this hilarious, I wasn't really totally sure why since I didn't really know how old he was...
Richard Armitage. And his fancy towards being in costume dramas. YES!!! Found him via Robin Hood (which everyone watched in 1st year halls), and then Silje & I went on an Armitage binge & found out about North & South (MY GODDDD) and other such tasties. Of course they aren't all as good as the rest, but non the less... now that nose is one thing I wouldn't mind having poked in my eye.

72. Whoop de doo.

2011-03-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

22 / 30 day challenge!
How have you changed in the past 2 years...

I am currently sitting in the living room of my (shared with 3 other funny little illustration students) house. Listening to Lykke Li, and looking at the new batch of bunting stuff I put up yesturday for the 1965-1975 party (it's green and red and orange and stars and moons and other moons and more moons... the moons have all been drawn on).

This time exactly 2 years ago I was soon to go to Norway for the first time, I was living in uni halls (Glasney parc) sharing with 6 other people... I wouldn't say I didn't get on with them, I just wasn't really on the same wavelength. I still talk to Jen occasionally though, and sometimes the others whenever I see them in town. I mostly spoke only to Silje & Vera, though also at that time to Jen & Loz & a little bit a few other people.
I had a nose stud which didn't want to heal (then again, this one doesn't either - STILL - but it's better than that one!).
I didn't really know where I was going with anything, or anyone, and around about this time we were soon to go on our first "sunny hot day out of the year" to Swanpool beach and jump in the sea, to soon find out that our balls & such shrunk up inside our bodies because it was so cold (even though we didn't HAVE balls, it felt like it. PAINFUL).
Flying to Norway with Silje & Vera was the first time I had been on a plane without any parents, and on the way back it was the first time I ever went on a plane ALONE.
Sometimes
My clothing style was pretty odd, and I wore mostly EVERY colour, in odd ways.

This time a year ago I was in a sea shanty band. We practised every week and did some gigs (a year before I would NEVER have thought of going on any sort of stage to sing, alone or with others!!). Through the shanty band I met some good folks, including the 2 blacksmiths one of whom I would now have been in a "real" relationship sort of thing (that all still sounds very... grown up??) for a few little months. Forge warming party, never thought I would have known blacksmiths / a forge the year before... it had seemed I was destined to a life of only knowing illustrators / graphic students the year before...
We also had a 1950's party, and Verarr did my hair up all proper, and I looked female for once. I even wore heels.
Was still doing BTCV stuff every so often, and so due to the fact I was in a shanty band / knew dirty scruffy smelly lovely blacksmiths Dan and Lisa, my clothing choice seemed to either be scruffbag in a "lesbian shirt" or shanty wench in floor length skirts.
In a coupleish of weeks Silje & I would be off to hike round the Peak District.
Walking almost exactly a mile across town was a very regular occurance, and vice versa - I miss that walk a bit. I liked to stop to take a breath half way up "shanty hill" and stare out across the water to Flushing, and "the best field"; whether it was light or dark that view was always delicious to me. I suppose I started doing things more on my own, and with Dan a lot.

And now, this year. I'm single, annoyed and lonely at being so at this current space in time, and currently a little hungover from the party yesturday.
The living room is a lot more homely than it was a year ago... though I'm starting to think about slowly moving things together, ready to move some stuff out in May, more stuff in June at some point... it's worrying thinking that I'm soon to graduate uni. This time 2 years ago it didn't even occur. I didn't even think about it! I'd only really just started uni. Time has sped past.
Clothing style? Mostly earthy colours in mostly natural fabrics... I buy far less clothes, try to fix things when possible (though it gets a bit dull).
I like crochet, I only learnt that within this past little while, I don't drink so much in general - going out to the pub usually means 2 pints MAXIMUM unless it's a "special" event.
I seem to have found some sort of style for illustration, I get on well with the majority of the tutors.
I've been spending more and more time with Lisa, though not so much recently as she's been busy. I still stick mostly to my Norwegian sandwich of Silje & Vera though. Squidget & Rarr. I shall miss them muchly, it's TERRIFYING that this time in a week I will be in phase one of my new life at Golant YHA (out of education). Of course I'll be back to uni after the holidays, but... I would have tried Golant out, as it were.
I had a good spoon with Rarr earlier, and a nice sleepover with Squidget last night (and a mucho giggle, in the living room tent, in the evening). I hope they return to the UK at some point after we end uni... what am I to do without my brightly coloured headed Norweg's!

So yes... I have changed a lot. Without sounding like a twit, I can safely say that I have matured - I've found myself a job finally, I've got a van and can drive it (STILL to fit it out inside...). I live in a house, with rent and such which I need to remember to pay. Cleaning must be done by us (though don't mention it too much).
I have a style of arrrrt, and don't even mind singing in front of people, though it still scares me a bit. I go round doing voluntary work at YHA's - I seem to have got into the circuit a bit. Could name drop a few... I still do BTCV... and I hope to jump in the sea again soon!

So yeah! I have CHANGED! For the best, I say.
I am a bit hungry still. Max & Rarr have come & joined me in the living room now.
I should end this soon...
Infact...
NOW.
Good night.

71. A split open thumb

2011-03-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

30 day challenge:

Your favourite show.

What sort of show? TV? I don't really watch THAT much TV... infact no REAL TV, just TV catch up. But over this past year on that, I have watched:
-Desperate Housewives (it's addictive! Started a few years back, can't help it!).
-Lark Rise to Candleford (how dare they cancel it! Bring back Larkrise!).
-The Tudors (thats nearly over now, I guess... since he's on his last wife, and in ill health...).
-Secret Diary of a Call Girl (read the book... and Billie Piper?).
-Downton Abbey (come on 2nd series!).
-Monarch of the Glen (yes, so it's old, but I watched it all within the past year...).

Heres some work I've been doing... I am kind of aware that if anyone who reads this has already looked at my Facebook / Flickr / Flickr e-mail header / Society 6, then you would have seen these before. But I like to put them all up all over the place :)

A couple of doodles:
And my 5 posters for my uni project on the YHA...

70. Hug a tree.

2011-03-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

30 day challenge:
How important do you think education is?
WELL.
Rather, I'd say!
I'm soon to leave mainstream education (school, college, art college?, uni) after being in it for, what... 18 years!?! Probably a bit less, as I don't think I started reception until part way through or something... but still. 18ish years! That being the majority of my life!
Here goes a brief history of my school life, with photos of myself throughout it! Just because my external harddrive is currently attached to my laptop.

I didn't enjoy the majority of school - in the first few years I got frustrated with learning, as some people were doing it faster & better than me. (Above photo, year 1 (5-6 years old). I'm far left, middle row).
In the few years above that, I started getting more & more bullied, I never really had a good friend until mid year 3, where I became best friends with Becca Jones / Joneseo / RTD3 / Tweedle Dee. We bonded over the Victorians. See picture below. I'm the blonde.More bullying, more getting confused over maths, more just wanting to draw & paint & such. More struggling to make more than 1 proper friend (in year 4 Rose joined Becca & I).
I guess the first time I ever really thought of education more than "urgh, school?" was when we were all starting to think of what secondary school to go to.
My mum offered me the chance to go take the entrance exam to Reigate Grammer school - that place has pretty big termly fees. I turned the offer down... I didn't think I'd pass the entrance exam, at age 10/11. The second time thinking about education, was probably around the same age - still year 6, when I couldn't do algebra. My thoughts were "urrrgh! So difficult! Oh well, I'll be able to do it when I'm older". That thought sort of became my life mantra, much to my mums disgust... I think it's part true, though. You WILL know SOME things when you're older... fair enough I sort of learnt algebra in secondary school, but I've since forgotten most of it apart from the basics. But who cares? So far I haven't needed it at all. Ahh... leaving primary school. I felt so grown up. Here, have a photo of me with my new friend(s) Martha (left) and Imy (middle). Yes. I really did used to have a duck smile... I think it was cured by my goth times of not smiling so much. This was on the last day of school.
Secondary school... Warwick school. Shit hole full of chavs... was going to go to Reigate school (not the grammer, the other one) but when we were just leaving some shitter threw a strone at my mums car, so she didn't want me to go there. So I went to Warwick, with my new friend Imy.
Again, slightly tough time making friends - I kept myself to myself sometimes, just had people I'd "hang round" with. Imy tended to go off with other people. I got bullied more & more, chavs. Doing work was more for just getting it done (if it seemed important enough / if I knew the teacher would otherwise embarrass me / detention me / worse). Art was still the one good lesson, though gradually graphics became better and better, and cooking wasn't so bad either.
Boys (and girls... but that was kept on the quiet. Why give a chav more ammo...) were more interesting to study, I used to draw the backs of their heads whenever I sat behind one I liked.
My decision to become a "grunger" "goth" etc possibly didn't help me with the chav attacks, however it was good. Instead of working, I'd doodle in the backs of excersise books / soon learnt to carry a small note book, as teachers would tell you off for messing up books. I'd have totally buggered up pencil cases (see below picture of me with bright pink fluff on my head, holding a Zippy pencil case). The bag was messed up too, patches & such, but with more care.
Slowly I became more popular, with the "weird" crowd anyway. We hung out outside in the quad, on the benches around the big stone chess board floor bit. The freaks, the geeks, and the losers. Great fun! It sometimes really was! But there was still the horror of bullying, and hating classes... so grades slipped (though I was still in near top classes for everything - maths kept going up and down a class though...). I took up drum lessons, tried to get them so they were always over a class I didn't like.
I became better friends with a good little crowd at Reigate school, saw them at weekends and small gatherings when possible. They were, admittedly, more my "style", though the 2 groups seemed to merge a bit in the end via my parties & college. Below is myself & my 3 best females of the time (L>R, me, Jenny, Tanzee, Jennie) (don't ask) (it was fun).Below is a photo from right near the end of secondary school, myself (the most awkward looking one - 2nd from right) and my other female friends there. Yes, we did have boys too... this was just our girl gang. And then... from age 16... FREEDOM! I managed to get my 5 A-C GCSE grades to get into college (just).

Off to college I went! This was good for various reasons:
-It was a 10 minute walk down the road for me, rather than a 15 minute cycle ride, then a 15 minute walk.
-I didn't have to wear a uniform.
-The majority of chavs weren't clever enough to get into college.
-Any bullies left, generally left me alone now... lots more "weirdos" went to college, they came from loads of other schools about the area.
-I could get on more with the things I ENJOYED.
I failed my English GCSE, of course my mum was greatly annoyed about this... but that was ok, I got to take another year of English at college, and re-did the GCSE at the end of that year. The other classes I took were Geography (it was never THAT bad... and the field trips looked good... and I had to pick a 3rd subject). Photography - taking photos? Must be easy! And arty! Yay! And of course... Fine Art. I just wanted to do art.
College started off ok, I made lots of friends, joined up with old friends I'd had from a different school, I was still quiet though. Annoyingly so, it seemed, as when I fell behind in Photography, I didn't ask for help... I just started not turning up to classes. And then I barely turned up to English... and Geography...... and Art. Of course I still had fun, though. Lots of fun, sometimes... I think perhaps I lost being so friendly with some of my friends though because I got a chap, and a girl.
Scarily, they tried to kick me out before start of the second year - I had to beg for my place back, but to do that I had to have excellent attendance. Thankfully, I had better attendance but less friends and now took to wandering about on my own all breaktimes & lunch, trying to find someone to talk to who wasn't already stuck to their boyfriend, or in their little click of other friends.
The thing which kept me full of possible friends, was quite likely the fact that whenever my parents went away for more than 2 nights I'd throw big house parties, and they were super fun. Sometimes a little messy, but always good, and always easy enough to clear up from afterwards. The second year of college also resulted in me getting a tad depressed, partly because I'd had a miserable break up with my then boyfriend and girlfriend (a tricky business, I don't think I need to go into it, really!!). I ended up walking to the church yard at lunch & such, to talk some half arsed photos for Photography, & to prevent myself from going home (the result of which would be not going back to college after).
Have you noticed yet that none of this is really about education? More so just about me being IN education. The thought never really occured to me that some people of my age weren't, they just got jobs. I don't think I wanted to do that though - and contuining education was the easy option... I got my first job just after my 18th birthday, because my mum told me to.
Below is the start of one of the afore mentioned parties... Martha & I. Yes.Mid second college year my art tutor mentioned that I was good enough to get into Epsom art college, the two colleges had some sort of agreement going on. So when lots of other people were thinking more about going to uni, I went to art college...

Epsom art college! Hurrah!
Now, THIS was good! I'm glad I had this year, I wasn't ready to go off to uni like some other folks. I got to concentrate JUST on art - with the occasional essay here and there, but not really, and made a super duper great circle of friends. I eventually went into the Graphics class at Epsom, with my "crew" Racheyboiii ("God"), Emilarrrgh ("Pink Power Ranger"), Ninoid ("Captain Jack"), and Sophie ("Pamela") (I was Barbie). We had so much fun, even if I "had" to listen to slightly mainstream music in God's car... heh heh heh.But then... I had to start thinking about uni! That was leaving home! The real world?! I really enjoyed graphics, but I had a more free style... but not so free as Fine Art. It got suggested to me that I tried for an Illustration course. So I did.
It didn't occur to me that I should look at what reputations each place had, my thoughts were more so about was the area they were in pretty, and was it far enough away from home. I didn't choose Brighton, as it was too close to home... instead I chose:
Route A:
1. Falmouth (went to interview)
2. Bournemouth (went to interview)
3. Derby (this was my back up plan.....) (went to interview)
Route B:
1. Edinburgh (didn't need to go to interview, because...)
2. Portsmouth (see below...)
I GOT INTO FALMOUTH! Only once I had applied, and got accepted for INTERVIEW did I find out that it was the illustration course with the best reputation in Britain. I took big mucho pride in that, when I was accepted :P
So... off to uni I trotted.

Hellooooo university.
Had automatic friends with Silje (I spoke to her all summer via MSN & Facebook) and then also with Vera. I didn't really "hang out" with that many other folks, it's always sort of been just us 3. Just how it is, really. Norwegian sandwich with a British filling (sorry, it's not vegetarian). Here is the sandwich in first year, with icecream. I'm the topping, though... with brown hair. First year was a bit crap, I didn't know what direction to go in, my work turned out shoddily, and I worried that I was on the wrong course for a fair long while and thought that perhaps I should go onto Graphics. Thankfully I didn't fail, at all, only referral I got at the end of the year was in life drawing due to attendance. But thats fine, I got the work done super speedy.
Third year happened, I noticed a good improvement in my work, though kept myself even more to myself & my Norwegian bread slices except for my joining of a sea shanty group.
Essays happened... yes... but I never took them too seriously. I find essays tricky. And why? Well, at the end of 2nd year I found out I was dyslexic! Which is great, as it explains a few things (and of course gets me free stuff ^^).
So is this really education? Yes, of course it is! Is it education in THE ARTS! A VERY important part of the world, thank you... without it, we'd live in a far uglier place (thankfully it'll never be totally ugly, so long as we have nature).
Third year, thats now. I've had to do one essay - my dissertation. That was difficult, but I did it. I HOPE it has not failed... it may quite likely have got a bad mark though. But you know what? I don't really mind. So long as my portfolio comes out well, and I continue in life doing what I want to do, I don't mind. I've got through university, and thats more than many people in the UK can say... and then SOOOO many people in the world don't even have the chance to get that far in education! They don't have the funds nor anything else! So, I'm happy that I've had it - still got it!

I don't reckon I'll ever go on to do anything like a masters degree, thats my current opinion anyway. It sounds like it entails much essay writing - something I am not strong on. Let me write a fictional story, sure, but not a factual essay which requires shedloads of research.
I hope that one day I can earn decent money for my art, but I shan't hope too high just yet... we'll see how things go.
I'll sort of miss being in education, I suppose I've become accustomed to the structure of it all - especially now that it's all to do with something I ENJOY...

So... do I think education is important?
YES! Indeed! You have to go through years of shit to get to what you want to do, but I think that perhaps it is for the best - when we're 6 years old we really don't know that we want to go into art for the rest of our lives... and you really do learn some valuable skills in the rest of your lessons (even though you forget the majority of stuff you learn, perhaps it is the best most important bits which stick. This includes knowing that there is a religious group out there called the Amish, not the ARMish.
Not everyone is priveleged enough to be able to afford to go to school, let alone do anything else they would like to do rather than HAVE to do.

Anyway, thats the end of that part of the 30 day thing... next bit will appear at some point...

Heres some images by other folk...Scruffy but good looking goodness by Elizabeth Bishop.A more graphic sort of scenery by Sea Hyun Lee.A funky chicken by Melanie Mikecz... and FINALLY...An AMAZEEENG little (well...) pink house, by the ever wonderful Nina Cosford! Oh...And a rug by Loom Rugs...And a couple of gawwwwjus stills from this little mooovie.

Have a little look at THESE funky hotel rooms!

69. Oo err.

2011-02-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

30 day:

Disrespecting your parents.

I have DEFINATELY disrespected my parents, I was one hell of a grumpy teenager...
Though I do feel that parents are a rather essential part of my life now, even if I rarely ever see them, most communication is done by MSN (and that is sporadic, and more with mum than dad since, well, he doesn't talk much).
No more disrespect any more, I'm no longer a grumpy teenager. They sometimes help me when I'm tearing my hair out over a "grown up" issue (such as tax return). Every so often a little money trickles through (always useful), and I guess their sense of dress isn't so bad after all... it's weird how I used to complain about my mum wearing sludgy green & some brown, where as here I am, sitting in bed (yes, bed... I'm warming it up before I sleep!) wearing sludgy green thick army socks, some odd sludgyish brownish (saggy) leggings, and a rusty red top dress thing. GONE are the days of being a slave to black, THANK GOD! Black is so... yes. BLACK. Of course, it looks good on some. I just prefer to avoid it.
I used to think men with beards (like my dad - mum hasn't ever seen him without a beard. They met at uni...), were weird. Why the HELL would you want a beard?! But now - BEARDS! YES! THEY'RE GREAT! They make a chap look more like a BLOKE than a boy. So long as it's nice and neat, nothing bushy & overgrown etc (see here).
Hmm... so the subject of disrespecting parents has moved onto preferences in colour and mens facial hair... must mean that I've come to an end of this challenge section.

NON 30 DAY:

I have just polished off a couple of home made oatcakes that my cousin Dan(ielle) made when she was down in Falmouth visiting me for a week.
It was great to have her here, she was a tad off the rails due to LIFE problems, but I haven't seen her in years & it's graaaand to eat a different sort of diet for a while. I've never really eaten tofu before, but I had it TWICE - nice & marinated. And nut cutlets! Safe to say, I went out & bought some today. Well chopped salad for lunch, mixed in with feta and crushed in hand walnuts (that bit was my idea). Mmm. Even though all the veggie food was delicious, I can safely say that I still love meat (this was proven this evening when Silje & I ate a Norwegian sausage, it tastes of stick meat - the only food so far which has almost / quite possibly HAS made me cry with happiness!!!).
I took her for a walk to Pendennis head, where we saw a whole tribe / gang / heard / bundle / collection of dolphins playing in the wake of a couple of boats, and leaping RIGHT out of the water. It was pretty amazing (yes, I DO insist on using capitilised words today).
Went to the pub (a few times, various pubs) sang some shanties with the Falmouth Shout at 5 Degrees West. And Elk came down for a couple of days too, so we drove off to Perranporth on a gloriously sunny day & went on a short coastal walk with me constantly making noises of awe & affection for the Cornish coast (of course I've seen it all / most before, however it never fails to make me want to squeal and jump up & down & then touch it. And smell it. Walk it, lick it, stroke it, roll on it... etc. ALL OF IT. I'm hoping Dan enjoyed it just as much as I did, even if the noises & actions coming out of her were a little less OTT.

This weekend Silje & I were meant to be going on a free holiday BTCV weekend to near Plymouth to do things like plant trees, some little outdoorsy mini-courses (green woodworking / fence making etc), music making, watching a band... etc... however a few days before Silje had a yurghy cold, and I was feeling a little pushed over with everything, wanted a free weekend... and so we sadly had to drop out at the last minute. I hope they found 2 alternative people.
So today the Norweg's & I took a little trip to Truro, to pick up my precious cargo of 18 pints of Heligan Honey from Skinners Brewery. Mmm. I hope free ale tastes EVEN BETTER. Also briefly skipped round the city (ha!) centre, I found a lovely RUSTY coloured top / dress thing (previously mentioned) and nothing else. Back home past Lidl & Sainsburys (isn't this interesting...) to buy copious amounts of bogroll, and more avacados. Yum yum yum yum yum.
This evening I have just been snoozing on Silje's bed, eating, and painting.
And now I can smell the popcorn Faye just made. WAAAANT.

Eek, I can't believe how fast these past few weeks have gone, and how fast I suspect the next few weeks will go!!
This coming week MAX is coming down, which'll be groooovy, and then theres my 1965-1975 themes birthday party (held a week before my birthday). I hope a decent amount of people turn up, and it's all fun... I've invited a few folks I've never invited before, I HOPEEE it all turns out fine. It'd be nice to have a good bunch.
Then of course it's my actual birthday on the 25th, I'll keep that to my 18 pints of Skinners & some likers/lovers of the liquid. Found out that I have to START work at Golant on the 27th, so I guess I'll travel there in a slightly hungover state on the 26th. Oh bugger. I was kinda hoping to be allowed to travel there on the 27th but beggars can't be choosers, and I don't fancy asking incase they decide they don't want me?!.
At the end of April we're off to Brittany, it'll be larvelyyy to see some folks again...
We're meant to be organising a pre-Brittany gig or 2... however I don't know the first thing about it, and I'm away for most of the time before then, and... ARGH! What the hell do I dooo? Don't really want to go to Lisa to ask for help as she gave the job to us. But really...

Mmm... and now I've had a lovely sunny Sunday. Woke up 10am-ish (bit of a lie in) and then after a VERY fruit filled breakfast, wandered off to Gyll beach with Silje for an icecream (Roskillys Hokey Pokey with a flake) and a sit on the sand in the sun by the sea, watching the likes of a dog thoroughly enjoying the sand & other dogs, and some girls in bikinis who must have been FREEZING. Young teenagers are strange people... that sounds weird, that we were watching young teenage girls (and one boy). It's not meant to be. It was just because they were right near to us. NOT WEIRD.
After that we strolled back home, popping into various hotels / guest houses / B&B's to find a place for when Silje's parents & brother come down (exciting!!!).
Lunch happened, without heating my leftovers up in the microwave - I quite enjoy having a non-functioning microwave, really... seems that Faye can't cope however.
Sorted out part of my study, I've slowly started digging into the stuff.
For supper we polished off Silje's chicken goujons, with some oven baked sweet potato, potato, and courgette chunks sprinkled with spices. Ate all that with a salad & some chive & garlic mayo which we threw together (hom nom. Definately have to take the beloved Clive the chive to Golant & beyond). And you know, Chinese 1 clove garlic is AMAZING. Of course it's not sourced so locally as other garlic, however it comes in big bulbs (from Lidl in a basket). I very very very much love garlic, so big single clove bulbs of it are godly. I wonder what they're like, baked... on their own... with some good butter.

Anyhoo, shoosh Bex. Everything will be fiiiine.
Have a few photos from the past little while...Silje & I went on a 2 night visit to Lands End YHA to do some voluntary gardening work, the weather was mostly lovely. On the first day we went on a brief stroll to the cove down the bottom of the valley (it's actually nearer Cape Cornwall, as I mentioned).On the second day we had the bonfire. There's Silje & Chris the manager (warden, for those old school YHA folk out there).On the third day, we went home via various points on the coast. MAGNIFICENT.From my cousin Dan's visit. We brought out the Max suit when Elk was down. Left to right (of wild things, etc): Vera, me, Silje, Dan, Elk.Perranporth - you can see the YHA there, perched on the cliff. Look at that beach... the sea... the cliffs... the sky...THE COLOUR OF THE JKSHFJKSEHGRJKSEHG SEA!!!

I made this little doodle yesturday:Gouache, & then the photo got thrown in in Photoshop (it's one I took in Norway, last x-mas).

Now, heres a few bits of imagery I've got lying around recently:Joe Waldron. Nice blocks of colour, nice angles, and for this one, nice theme!Lou et Tom - Polish paper cuts. I'd really like to try something like these, perhaps I'll start with something a little more simple, though (apparently in the olden Polish days, some people used to make these things using sheep shearing shears!!).Found via Studio MHL - mmmm paper cut bunting stuff. I think this would take a VERY sharp scalpel, and a lot of patience, or a tiny saw.Although they look a LITTLE tacky, these Moroccan styled recycled lanterns from Design Sponge are interesting... hmmm...
"Whitby" by Mini Moderns. This wallpaper comes in a small variety of different colours, and I think it's LOVELY. I'd rather like it as a feature wall in this house, please.
After the damp issue is sorted, however.A mid 18th century dress which is currently in the Metropolitan Museum. Isn't it so very laaavly? I'd love to wear it. I'm guessing it doesn't come in my size...And finally, a stereographi projection found in the National Geographic, by Luc Perrot. Isn't it just so... ahhhh.

When looking for a quote, I stumbled across this poem... and MY GOD it is long. I still haven't got to the end.

So... thats that.

P.S. My quote for the uni illustrated quotes & sayings book is: "I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." - William Wordsworth.

68. Life is GREAT.

2011-02-26T07:05:00.000-08:00

Today:

Your beliefs.

I am not religious, full stop. <- a full stop. <-another one

I do however believe in some things like the right to an imagination, freedom of speech & every other freedom possible (for those worthy of it, anyway). Free free free, free free, free, free. I believe that all parts of an animal should be eaten (if edible - don't want to eat bits which make me SICK). I recently found out that Haggis is illegal in America, as it contains too much / any sheeps lung. They're willing to eat junk food, but not certain bits of an animal... sometimes I REALLY wonder whats going wrong over there. I indeed believe that no food at all should go to waste! Buy something? Then use it up. Keep an eye on what you have in the house before eating something which doesn't need eating so much. Waste not want not, yes yes, eyes bigger than your head? Waste in general gets me annoyed. I believe in a lot of things.
End of 30 day challenge for today.

Today Silje & I went on a BTCV day trip to an Iron age Carn next to Carn Euny past Penzance. The weather was lovely (if a little blustery) and we had a good view out across to St Michaels Mount. We mostly chatted to Claire & kept control of the fire (controlled gorse burning before nesting season) and then whilst waiting for the fire to burn down we toasted marshmallows (I got a sugar headache, but toasted mine by setting them alight and then removing the outer crust & eating it, before repeating it again). Got home this eve and fell asleep on the foot of Silje's bed, like a trusty doggalump (3 lovely friendly dogs out earlier).

On Frrrrrrrriday NINA and her chappy Dimmi (Dimitri, but Dimmi is easier to write) appeared in Cornwall. After a little confusion as to which palm tree my house was near, they FOUND me! It was all highly exciting, as Ninoid has never seen my humble home before. I gave a brief tour of the house, and then we consumed cake & slurped at hot / warm liquids whilst sitting in my study, which Nina seems to be rather in love with. It was super good to see them, hopefully I'm gonna crash at N's in May when visiting London (it's certainly closer than Reigate).
Ahhhh the lads...
Come on Nino, you know you want to come visit me again!

On Thursday I had my assessment presentation, I thought I screwed it up as I got nervous about talking about my work in front of people however I was told I was fine (though had to assure someone else that they DIDN'T seem like an utter nutter whilst talking). That evening I had just put a chocolate gingerbread cake into the oven, and was just eating a simple meal of a microwaved potato with butter and some tinned fish (I'm racking my brain trying to remember which sort) in tomato sauce... when LISA rang! A few days ago her van decided to blow up (cam-belt was a tad old...) and we have since found out that there is no point in repairing it due to it costing too much money, so Lisa has been going round in a silly little hire car thing. But then that died at the forge, at about 8pm. So I went out on a rescue mission with my faithful handy man (Silje) and a thrown together wing mirror; why, you might possibly ask if I haven't already blogged about this before? Because some utter knobend went along the road deciding to kick off some folks wing mirrors, mine being one of them. The mirror itself was no where to be seen & the casing is a bit damaged (have aquired some black gaffa tape...) and so I had to spend out on buying a new mirror. ANYWAY, on with the story. I made a part time mirror (drivers side, sadly) out of Vera's hand mirror strapped on with gaffa - it didn't work amazingly, but since it was night time I just needed to be able to see any lights coming up behind me. Yes, I am aware that it's slightly naughty to drive without a drivers side mirror, however it was a RESCUE mission!! So I drive along, with Silje keeping me sane as I hadn't ever driven in night THAT DARK, nor THAT FOGGY!!! Finally got to the end of the forge track, and decided against taking the van along it as it's dark and full of pot holes & mud. Left Silje guarding the van with it's lights on, and I walked the 0.8 miles down the PITCH BLACK track to the forge with no torch. I swore at a horse, as I thought it was on the wrong side of the fence, and almost punched a few bushes for looking mysteriously like skulking evils. Found Lisa in the dark (her torch battery had died), then we walked back (she seemed pretty amazed that I'd walked the whole way on my own). Got back home, finished eating, cake was GOOOOD (Rarr took it out the oven) and then went to the pub for a few mission complete pints. And then to a bar. And then the next morning I was hungover, yuck.
That has pretty much been the whole of my most recent happenings. Tomorrow eve off to Gyll Beach Cafe to watch Peoples String Foundation, and then Monday - Wednesday am at Lands End.

Mmmm. Images: Nice cut out vs simple style... I'm itching to try it.There was a short series of these, this being my favourite.
Wasn't Ozzy pretty when he was younger before he waded in deeper than he could snort?

I made some patterns! They can all be repeated quite nicely...I got a little addicted to bunnies for a while.Bunny bunny bunny.See? Repeat!

Some links:
THE BUNNIES. A great saviour to those who are stressed.
Might try designing me some socks...
This chap is one of our external assessors. I rather like his work, yes indeed.
Young to old - made me grin a little bit (just a little).
Have I already posted this? I want WANT a trunk (or 10) and satchels, and EVERYTHING.
Or this... similar, but theres no trunks there.

And now... time to wait for a bus. Was going to cycle to Penryn to retrieve my new wing mirror, but I had forgotten that my bike is chained to Faye's bike TWICE - one of the locks being Faye's, so I don't have the key. And she's asleep. Bugger. Agh well! Bus it is!

67. Elk lives in Devon.

2011-02-16T10:36:00.001-08:00

*drumroll* today's 30 day thing-a-ma-jigger-wotsit IS...

Your highs and lows of this past year.

Ta da!

This time a year ago, it was the 16th February 2010. Amazing, that.
I'd only just starting "being with" Mr O'Shea, and we'd actually been on a Valentines (ok, the day before) picnic! But then I went off to Paris with Squidget & Rarr (and many other people on my course). Paris was pretty shit, in my opinion. Except for buying cheese, meat, French sticks, and GIANT GARLIC. 3rd time in 4 years? Uh uh.
But yeah, so Paris wasn't so great but I was def-nutly happy with Mr O'Shea... even though that caused a bit of friction in the house, it seemed, because I was spending so much time with him. That wasn't so great (the friction).
The year was full of illustration - which got far better AFTER Paris, singing sea shanties, being given gifts of carrot cake, urdurt, Green & Blacks chocolate, and Toblerones.
And other such delights.
Sadly it got to the summer and I had my normal twitch of "getting bored". I just wasn't happy with it anymore, and you're not meant to stay with things (places, people, objects) which you aren't totally happy with. So, come, ehhh... September / Octoberish, it all ended with Mr O'Shea, and it was a long and nasty process, but it happened. That WOULD be the low. Nastily energy draining, it is a sad thing to do.

The high would still be Glastonbury, which I mentioned in a post not far behind this one. So many colours, smells, sounds, feelings... the whole shabang. The people, the weather, the dust dirt I could scrape off myself (probably with a spatula!). One day I hope to have something similarly fabulous.
Recent highs would be getting the job at Golant YHA, finding out that driving Hector round isn't QUITE so as terrifying as I imagined (still getting used to the blind spots though! Need some of those funny round mirrors), going to the forge, etc etc etc.
Yep! I'm happy :)

Here's 3 bits of arty fart I've finished this week already. 2 pieces I did in an evening each sort of thing (more like engorged doodles) and the other is the Anne of Green Gables project I've just finished (started before dissertation, but that blasted essay got in the way). Well, the FRONT of the AoGG book cover, anyway.

66. A big pile o' sticks.

2011-02-15T16:13:00.000-08:00

Onwards with the 30 day challenge, after a break of... a bit over a week!

YOUR VIEW ON MAINSTREAM MUSIC

I've never been crazily IN to mainstream music. No, not at all. Always on the rock side of things, and now thats all in-bred with folk stuff too...
Theres some music I hear and go "urgh" - most of that stuff is in the majority of clubs today. Admittedly some of the stuff out there is catchy, or has a good beat, but it's really not for me.
I also have to admit, that today I listened to an album of music which I'd never even THINK to listen to, I was attracted by the name of it & the album artwork...
Elephant Man - Dance & Sweep. It's really not my sort of thing, but I listened to MOST of the album before getting sick of it, and it's got a good fun beat indeed! If the clubs round here played THAT, they perhaps I'd be seen out more (though there are still far better things for clubs to be playing, however we have to stick mainstream, right?).

Sometimes I look at people blasting such crap music into their ears - of course, it's what they're spoon fed off of the charts - and wonder why they don't ever think about listening to music which is a bit more beautiful. Something which isn't just pure noise, of sounds made by a machine.
And something Silje & I mentioned the other day... the SU bar up at Tremough holds big themed parties. Sometimes the theme will touch on the music too (like the 80's party has 80's music) but they always throw in all the modern stuff, too. I reckon it's be more FUNNERER to keep the theme.
I'd like to have a Woodstock & such party for my 22nd ("& such" being funk, I'd like to throw some delicious 70's funk into my mix of folky 60's). However, I'm guessing that people will let a few songs play but then insist on changing it to something shoddy. Yes ok, shoddy only really in MY opinion... perhaps I just need to find more people to have parties with, who don't mind FOLKY ROCKY GOOD stuff :P

On the mention of music, here are 2 other CORR BLIMEY albums I found out today:
Blowzabella
Bellowhead (apparently they're playing Green Man festival this year - I want to go...)

Good night!