98. All the yummy food I ate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?