Thirty five lives in a bee hive.

(Helloooooo image heavy update...)

Good early evening, blog. I'm not sure why I'm writing you instead of sitting outside in the gorgeous sunshine (with my newly replanted babies - 15 sunflowers). Instead I am sitting inside my study cave, looking out.
Hmm, so.... urrrm.... yes! Stuff has happened.
Weather has been getting better and better, with the occasional grey & moist days dotted about... I hope it remains like this for the whole summer, that would be great - even if we do get swamped by tourists (trying to walk through down earlier was tricky, a large cruise ferry had just shat shedloads of them onto Falmouth).

So close to the end of 2nd year now, infact my assessment is on the 11th June and if I don't get any referrals (I'm HOPING I don't) then I'm finished for the summer! More freedom! More time to go out exploring away from Fal and such. I'm getting slight cabin fever.

Since the last entry Silje & I have visited Dan&Lisa's forge again, on a location drawing mission (we also did a little exploring, and found some cows).I planted 15 sunflowers, since the 20 or so that I planted before ALL got devoured by slugs and the like *shakes fist at them*. These 15 I bought up in the cosy environment of my desk, with tender loving care (arrrr) and now today I repotted them... but I've mentioned that already.
I hope they battle off ANY slugs and snails.
Did some conservational volunteering work (BTCV) in a wood, there was a charcoal maker there which caused smoke to fill parts of the wood - this looked really lovely against the sun streaming down through the trees.Aaaaand.... went to St Mawes with Dan for his birthday! (For his birthday "party" we went to a beach on the north coast, swam in the sea, had a picnic of brie smoked salmon and crackers... then to a meadery for mead & MEAT. Then to Luke's brothers lovely place for music & drinking). We visited the castle & all that, and had a scrummy feast.
Watched ALL of Eurovision... not that I like it, but some of it's quite fun. The next day I had to walk through town in my gear, so... heels (holy crap) and a black poofy skirt. Serious non-Fal clothing.
Last Sunday we went to a free Celtic music event, a couple of bands played - Gallowglass and 3 Daft Monkeys. Ruth & I had a good old dance to the latter, and got rather sweaty. I need to go see / hear more music like that.

Next Saturday (12th) I WISH I was going to the Royal Cornwall Show, to see prized pigs... horse shows... tractors... the Duke & Duchess of Cornwall...!!!... and other such wonders. Am I old before my time? I'd rather go to a show like that than get very drunk and go mad at night.
Unfortunately, it seems I won't be able to due to transport.
http://www.royalcornwallshow.org/

And... GLASTONBURY SOON! And Falmouth International Sea Shanty Fest! And many other things! Dorset!!
Mmmm.

Anyhoo, I'm not in a particularly typey mood, I just felt I should update and write a little.

STUFF WOT I HAS MADE:
3 Swallows & Amazons (Arthur Ransome) covers (adult versions)And the "childrens" versions of the same covers...A poster for the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival!Embroidered(ish) tweed piece of "The Best Field" for Dan's birthday.Theeen 3 nursery rhyme pieces, in watercolour! I'm going slightly more traditional rather than digital here...Then today I've just finished the Falmouth Fish album artwork. Here's the version of it with not ALL the writing & such on it, just the minimum.OH! And and and I made me some trousers / bloomers / saggy crotch / hareem pants! All in one day! From scratch! Never made trousers before... I rather like them.And some imagery of other peoples:
Bears by Andrew Holder. They look so friendly... love the layers."Believe it" - Julie Sonmi HeglundRather different to what I usually like... "Dawn" by Tristan.Jim Tierney... I only meant to save that "Sea Wolf" bit, but the rest followed! (not that I don't LIKE the rest...)She looks so moist... Kris Knight.Patrick Haruby.

And now stuff wot I loike:This bedding by Patapri just made me dribble a little.
Eyeees! Everywhere! Image adjusted (googlies) by ilovecatparty.blogspot
New hotel Itell in Amsterdam, Silje sent me the link to this. Don't think it's QUITE finished in this image? But WOW.


Ohhhh.... links?
http://www.cumulusproject.com/ - stump stools
http://vimeo.com/11712103 - baby sloths. Eeeeee.
http://www.calligraffiti.nl - calligraphy vs graffiti... all in one.

Over and out.
(I just got a big waft of lavender bush, and now Oggy's BBQ)

34, heres some more.

More than a whole month without bloggagering; poop.
A fair load (sort of) has happened in that time.

We went to Dan & Lisa's forge warming party which was lovely, the weather was nice and springy & sunny and the location is laaavly, right in an old quarry with lots of trees and a patch of mossy grass. We made a fire in a metal thing and sat around it till fairly late with some singing & playing music, and looking up at the stars.(above: the forge! It's the old quarry blacksmiths forge, much better than the last place...)(The fire, the wood pile, and the toast toaster / sausage fryer).
After that was a party at Holyfield farm, that was pretty good too though the ride in the back of Lisa's van there & back made me feel, ehh, less than great... (I blame the winding roads!!).(Silje and a massive dog at Holyfield. In weekdays it's a centre for adults with learning dissabilities).
Silje left for Easter on the 21st, and we (joint effort of Rarr & I, with Faye to fit it onto) made a Max from "Where the Wild Things are" costume... Rarr made the pattern and I sewed it and adjusted it and whatnot. We know what went wrong for next time! Tiz all finished now, and it's GREAT.(Faygel in THE SUIT. The crown is a little squashified, and the suit a little baggy... but it works nicely. Pockets, too!)
My mum & Elk came down on the 24th March as Elk had something at Plymouth uni (blimey... she's off to there in September! Probably!). I got old (21) on the 25th, and mum took me out to a very tasty place called The Ferryboat Inn on the Helford river. Reeeeally good fish dishes... we had muscles in a garlic and white wine sauce, and then fish pie, and then a rhubarb crumble which wasn't a crumble thing. NOM NOM NOM. After that we went for a walk, mum was delighted to find a pair of mating toads by the beach (toads being her favourite animal). Of course she picked them up and put them closer to NON-SALTY water after lecturing them about not being old enough to do that sort of thing yet.
The evening of my birthday was great, it was a shanty practise but the Falmouth Shout joined us too as Kristian was filming us for a film of his. Lisa made everyone sing happy birthday to me there (mum & Elk joined in with all the singing when possible) and then we went over to The 'Front. Luke made the whole pub sing happy birthday to me again (I think? I seem to remember that... I also SORT OF remember that us Falmouth Fish sung for the open mic night... but I can't remember too well......).

Then on the 27th some of us got the ferry to Flushing and walked round to Mylor to go to an "end of the season of oysters" mini fest thing to sing. That was quite nice, though I must say that the kedgeree there wasn't overly tasty - rather too bland. We missed the last ferry back to Fal and so me, Lisa, Dan & Rarr walked alll the way back to Penryn and then leapt on a bus.
(Part of Mylor boaty business)(Looking over the water to Penryn when we were getting close)

The next few days were pretty un-eventful, and then I went back to Reigate on the 4th (after train and gas bill trauma). Rarr disappeared back to Norway a bit before I did to Rei.
It was lovely to see everyone again, and good to walk about Reigate hill. Silje arrived back from Norway on the eve of the 5th, on the 6th we and some others went on a little 9.5 mile walk.
Silje & I then got the train off to the Peak District National Park (Midlands area) on the 7th and went rambling / walking / hiking about for 7 nights! Getting ourselves from YHA to YHA by foot (and a little by bus). In total we walked about 58 miles in 5-6 days. Not too bad.
So many sheep & lambs & hills, and carrying everything on our backs. Here, have 5 out of 100 and something photos:(First days walk, going up near Mam Tor away from Edale. 9.5ish miles)(Second days walk. This was fairly near the end of a 14 mile epic)(Lazy day walk at Gradbach (we had 2 nights there).(More lazy day walk, this fungus thing reminded me of a Cornish Pasty).(Second to last days walk from Ilam to Hartington (then bus to Youlgreave). These were in Dovedale. 9 or so miles).

After Peak District (more train trauma) went off to Blue Anchor in Reigate for a few drinks with Matt, Tanzee, Imy, and Silje... then on the 16th we caught the train back to Falmouth. YAY! BACK TO HOME! Since then, the most noteworthy event may be emptying the bin out front... people keep throwing rubbish in it (loose rubbish) and it was getting to be a problem. So I emptied the water from it and it smelt GOD AWFUL... and.... ewwwww. Terrible. Yuck yuck yuck. Silje helped me with it and now it's fine.
PHEW.

And thats it for now. Here is some imagery and such:2 slow creatures by Aliki Page. Simple and makes old men more attractive.Kate Macdowell makes clever body parts... and long as they aren't thrushes it's fine. Thrush in the lungs... off, itchy.Georgina Hounsome makes lovely little prints. Black and white but you can see lots of other colours... makes me want to be able to make them. Playing timmmeeee!Liesl Pfeffer seems to cut up photos of things to make images of other things.Don't have the foggiest who's work this is, I just really like the textures in it.The only name I could find for this one was "Uberkraaft". I'm wearing a couple of (pigeon) feathers in my hair today.

A couple of things I would like:A t-shirt from Cavern Collection. Shame about the price $60+)Found this via Camp Comfort... bunting necklace from Scout Holiday. Corr!!

And now a few pieces of my own work:The two naked ladies (both a girl called Jane) are from Life Drawing on Tuesday. Around an hour for each piece (bit more for the first, bit less for the second). Brown Pentel brush pen, Pro-markers, and sunshine yellow ink.The above 3 are posters about this years Glasto fest. YAAAAY! Ruby anniversary for them, hence the red theme. The trusty brown Pentel, Pro-markers, and Paint Shop Pro.

Websites:

http://i.imgur.com/PHmF5.jpg
Not sure whether to trust someone? Judge them upon their BEARD.

http://www.akirathedon.com/2010/04/happy-birthday-zef/
It was Zef's birthday yesturday, scroll down on that page to find his birthday video his brothers made (I think it's AMAZING. Silje & I were singing bits of it all yesturday).
Zef: http://www.popuppirate.com/

http://www.lucong.com/
Those paintings are a little creepy...

Two little fleas, 33.

Corr, the weather isn't half getting better. Hello little blog. Sneeze. Sneeze.
The weather really is going all noice and springy, yesturday Squelchy and I sat on the less tourist half of the quay down by Chain Locker and basked in the sun whilst eating pasties & Guinness cake. Then later we were joined by Mr O'Shea and we all skipped off to Gyll, where we bumped into Kristian & companion. The 3 of us all resorted to removing socks & such and jumping about in the shallow cooold water (and falling over in it) and it was la-la-laaaaavly! What makes things better is that I have a jar with daffodils in it (from the daffodil man near Tescos - £1 for 10). I've put some blue food dye in the water, so the flowers which are open have little blue flecks in their petals. Eeee.
What to write. Ummm. Yes! We had a gig at 5 Degrees West last Saturday which went well, it was a mini beer/ale fest thing so lots of pubby local sorts and also a group of our good friendios were there, I think it went well. VERY hot though in our little singing corner. But free Betty Stoggs alllll night, and we carried on singing well after our gig with a couple of chaps (Nigel & Mark!) from another shanty band called The Falmouth Shout.
Next gig pleeeease!

I finished my essay, well... yes, it's finished. And my Paris project is DONE, though I still need to print & mount it all (may leave that until the end of the year, just to keep everything neat until then). Here, have a look at it:Not sure why there are STILL black / grey lines at the sides of a couple of the images, but I'll trim them off when I print.

My current project is a poster project, 3 posters for either Glastonbury fest 2010 (40th anniversary! I'll be there!) or this years Falmouth Sea Shanty festival. I'm yet to choose one, and also to actually START the project... since I've done nothing since Monday. Oops.
We're holding a 1950's party on Saturday, Vera is dressing me up and such. I'll certainly look different to usual.
And then my birthday next weekend, mum & Elk will be down to visit since Elk will be from a Plymouth open day, so I shall make sure to get dragged out for a meal! Nom nom nom.
NEWS! It is now 4 minutes past midnight on FRIDAY 12th March. I am a smidge drunk. Shanty practise and then some of us sang at open mic night at The 'front (again). Zef, if you are reading this, TURN UP TO DAMNED PRACTISE! Mermaid, please. Accidently, I coughed on my hand before nearly high 5ing Mr Drinkwater, apologies to him for ALMOST spreading non-germy germs since I don't have a cold or nout. Mmmm, this Sunday we're off to Dan & Lisa's new forge for a "forge warming party" which should be very good. I hope that crazy Dave is there, and that he brings his twanging box. Anyhoo, I have nothing more of a constructive nature to write, so I shall LOB images at ye! Adam Hancher. Gloomy colours with lovely shapes & hints of ZING.Sara Barnes. Collagey. Nom.Catherine Ryan, what friendly looking bears.This looks lovely.I miss doing this. Funny walks up the beach with Rarr at the start of last summer (was it late April?). Gwithian beach. I think. Laaavly.


LINKS.

http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=20552
Like from Annie's kitchen.... nom nom nom. I'll make it some day.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/whimsyandspice
Oh.... sploooodge!