87. How many words rhyme with seven?!

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

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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).