I have added some new pictures to my photoblog: http://www.photoblog.com/dreadwear.

They were taken on Boxing day when I, Sam and Oliver and Nana and Louis all decided to brave the weather that day and go to Covent Garden.

Oh what fools. It was so cold, so horribly viciously cold that we all managed to stick it out there for a too long half an hour! Yep, all the way from Enfield and Bounds Green to walk as quickly as we possibly could through the plaza, round the very few stalls that were there on the day and to listen to one lonely song from a couple of very brave opera singers. Then we just had to mad dash it back to the station and home to Nanas house for a slap-up meal.

I took a lot of photos, but not many were really worth keeping. Just those that are now on my photoblog and here is one to adorn this post.



This is a picture of the Enfield Lock Train station underpass. I don't know what made me photograph it, it is really not very picturesque at all. BUT I think I have now managed to capture the bleak coldness of Boxing Day by turning the picture into a black and white one, whilst keeping the air and the outside blue. And believe me, the weather was blue!

I wish now that I had taken pictures of Nana's delicious vegetarian curry that warmed me up perfectly later that evening. It would have been a great 'hot and cold' set of pictures. But hey. I forgot!

Regardless of how cold it was, it was a great day none-the-less. I think BECAUSE it had been so uncomfortably cold, we really did then appreciate the warmth and cosiness of being at home with good food and good company.

A great Boxing Day!

Photoblogging

I have joined photoblog.com and have been uploading a few of my favourite photos there and also checking out other peoples photos. Really enjoying it a lot so far and have had a few positive comments about my own offerings.

I have always had photography in the background of my life, my mother was a model before I was born and I used to really love looking at her portfolio of photos. She was indeed a most beautiful looking woman. And then my father was the MD of Gilchrist Studios (now no longer around) which was an advertising agency where they did the retouching of advertising photography.

My father also had a huge collection of photography books that I used to pour over whenever I visited him. I didn't know why I loved photos then, but I am getting an inkling as to why I do now.

I have always had a bit of a creative streak in me, have been doodling and sketching all my life. I even went to an Art school for a year during my time living in Spain (as a child/teenager/young adult). I have kept this up all these years, drawing, in the main, comic/cartoon panels (which I will scan and upload here and elsewhere soon). I and my mother used to make costume jewellery way back then too and sell this at markets in Mallorca for a few years. etc etc.

Now, I have discovered photography and it is becoming a bit of a habit now.

So, anyway, I am going to upload a picture here and also add the address of my photoblog here to in case anyone is interested in checking it out.

So, here is my favourite picture so far. I took it in the Summer of 2007 during one of our visits to the Southbank in London. We loved it there. There is so much going on there, street performers and people and fun and excitement. It is full of excellent things to see and do.

One afternoon we had tired ourselves out a bit and were resting on some grass and were about to watch yet another performance (I think it was to be Dragon Heart which was BRILLIANT).

I was just lying there looking up and this picture is what I saw. A bright red umbrella peeking over a balcony or terrace at me. The red against the blue was perfect and the building roof framed it exactly so.

I love this picture. It just has this open feeling to it - lots of blue sky, a random umbrella peering down on us and interesting angles of a roof.

And it reminds me of just what a wonderful Summer we had each time we visited Southbank. We returned there again in 2008 and had an equally great time. Will add more photos of both years there shortly. We will be going there again this year...

Please see more photos here: www.photoblog.com/dreadwear. I hope you enjoy them...

Oops, I did it again...

Hm. I am going to indulge in a spot of moaning. Please don’t read if you can’t abide someone wallowing in their own sludgy pool of self-pity – I am feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

I have just started in my new job, been here a week and 2 days so far.

Last week, my colleagues asked me if I knew anyone who might like some casual work, simple admin, inputting some names, postcodes and phone numbers onto an excel spreadsheet as they come through via fax from outside of our office – part of a Market Research project. Money was ok, £7.50 per hour, and the person would need to be flexible as although the project is on-going, some weeks would have less work than other. It would only be a few hours a week all told.

I know the perfect person for this! My sister! Long term unemployed and looking to gently ease back into work. Wants something really simple that might eventually lead to more work and eventually possibly a full time job.

Gave her a call and yes! YES! Thank you, yes! She says. Cool! Come in on Monday and I will brief you and away you go. Fab! I feel like I have done good. My sister is ultra grateful and excited and pleased. The company I work for breathe a sigh of relief as they now have the person in place to do this particular piece of work. Someone reliable…cos I told them she was.

Busy weekend, don’t speak to sis at all, although she does send me a flower over Facebook and a message in my Ebay messages. Nothing about the work, just a ‘hi, how are sales?’ type message.

Come Monday, get to work, call my sis to find out what sort of time she will be arriving. No answer. Odd. No answer on either land line nor mobile. Odder. Start to sweat and feel a bit panicky. BUT it’s not the end of the world, the faxes with the details won’t start to come through till the afternoon although would have liked to have briefed her properly prior.

Call again at lunch time and really odd. STILL no answer.

Oh come on. Who am I kidding? I already know that I am so not going to hear from her at all today. She has, once again, blown me out. You see, this happens a lot. I find out about work and immediately think of her. She immediately accepts and then immediately lets me down.

So why do I keep doing it? She is my sister and I love her, but why do I put MYSELF and my job into jeopardy because of her? I desperately want her to do good, to get better, to grow up. I desperately want her to rise up to her full potential. I know she has it in her somewhere, she is bright, intelligent, smart…BUT I can’t change people, and who the eff am I to have the cheek and audacity to want to even try. How arrogant of me.

So I will NEVER offer her any work again.

Till the next time…sigh…

Why did I DO that!!!!

Ok, I did a strange thing today and I don't know why I did it. Please do comment with your analysis if you ever get to read this!

I travelled by public transport today into London (from Enfield, still in London but some like to say Middlesex...it sounds posher apparently. Although anything with the word sex in it can't be posh in my view...just snigger-making.) by train to visit a particular shop I go to around once a month. I always take a large bag, it has wheels on it and used to carry a tent. It is perfect to take as you can fold it in half and carry it like a shopping bag while empty and it holds a hell of a lot when full.

So, ANYWAY, I take a bus from Liverpool Street Station towards the shop I want to visit, standing there looking out the window and wishing the rain would stop (it was raining, hence I was wishing that) and then ring the bell to alert the driver that I want to get off at the next stop.

I am standing at the bus doors when this older man, must've been in his early sixties, taps my arm and in a very strong foreign accent says 'Market, Market. Stay, stay'. I think he is asking me if we are near the market, so I smile and say yes, Market and wave vaguely in the direction of said market.

Older guy says 'no, you stay on bus one more stop. This bus goes down market road'. Now, here is where I do something that is really strange. Instead of simply saying, 'oh, no, I am not actually going to the market, I am going somewhere else and this IS in fact my stop', no. I say, 'oh, thanks!' AND I THEN STAY ON THE BUS!!!

WTF!

Thank goodness, the bus stop the older guy has FORCED me to stay on the bus for (I know, I know...he didn't hold a gun to my head - but even so!) is actually slightly closer to the shop anyway. Will get off at that stop in future - thanks, Older Guy!

The strangeness hasn't stopped here, though. Oh no. I am stranger still than that.

I get off the bus and notice Older Guy (note how he now has Capital Letters) gets off too. So I now HAVE to (remember, Older Guy is very very forceful, even without a gun) turn right towards the blasted market instead of left towards my shop.

Why? Why am I doing this? I am asking this to myself even as I DO do this. I find myself to be one heck of a strange person. I won't ever see Older Guy again, he will never hold up the non-existant gun to my head in that highly threatening manner he doesn't have, so why have I done what he expects me to do instead of what I actually should have done - gone my merry way to the shop I want to visit.

So there I am walking towards a very bedraggled market (my wish that it stops raining has totally been ignored by whoever it is that grants wishes - thanks a bloody lot, Wish Fairy!) and there are very few stalls left and those that did brave the rain have already half packed and ready to go. BUT I don't want to disappoint Older Guy. He is, after all, still not holding a gun to my head. I walk up and look at the miserable wares that are sitting in their rain-filled plastic containers, ink smudged prices that tell me this market is really a giant £1 pound open air shop, I even pick up something - God knows what - and turn it over and nod as though I have found the bargain of the year.

At the same time, I am twisting my eyes in my head, straining to see out of the back of it, to see if Older Guy has crept up behind me ready to pull the trigger and shoot me with 'you are free to do what you like' missile.

Of course, Older Guy has actually long gone his own way, probably forgotten me the moment I stepped of the bus. Couldn't give a monkeys what I do or who I am.

So there I am in a market, a fair bit away from where I wanted to be, looking at things that I so don't want or need, feeling, to be honest, like a complete idiot.

I wonder what people would think if they KNEW they had this sort of power over others.

I wonder how I would be if I could live my life without being forced to do things I don't want to do....

I won't suffer from Writers Blog

Just a brief outline of who I am, where I am from, what I have done. Which I will eventually expand on. I am being highly self-indulgent with my blog – it’s for ME and me alone, however I am quite quite happy to share it with the world. But must warn you, you may be bored as it will be self centred, all about me, mine, for me, by me, selfish, self-absorbed, self-opinionated and opinionated etc.

I also want to try to trigger memories. I have a terrible memory and want to try out some exercises to release all those bits of information that are stuck within my mind, but that are coated with something that causes them to stay in the darkest parts of my memory.

I am hoping that by writing and getting my creative juices flowing, that those juices will wash away and clean up the sticky suppressant that I have coated my memories with and allow them to rise up and free themselves from me and allow me to feel them and see them and be them. I just might end up being someone a bit different to who I currently am.

Don’t get me wrong, I quite like myself! However I am highly aware of my faults and I want to work on those. I think that will take time, effort and some self discipline. What better way to start forming self discipline into a habit than to start to write a daily or weekly piece? Allowing my mind to flow and to move and to de-stagnate?

I am just about to become 45 years of age. I have lived probably at least half if not more of my life and it is high time that I took charge of myself. Not going to be easy, because taking charge of something that has 45 years of learned and self-learned behaviour is like trying to take charge of a moving ship and trying to turn it around with a piece of string. Or is that too negative an analogy? Possibly.

Now, should I force myself to write X amount of words a day? Or a week? Should I structure this is that sort of way? Or should I really go with the flow? I don’t think so. I think a combo of the two. I know what I am like and going with the flow without a bit of discipline just ain’t gonna work. I have to set myself a task. So, I must write and post at least once a week on this here McFangus Blog. That is my promise to me. Once a week. It can be more but never less.

And I can write what I like and how I like. I just want the juice to start flowing. One day, I might be able to post some blog entries that make sense – even good sense! But at the moment I am not going to give myself a hard time about any of that. Just write, just flow, just get it all out.

So, here goes….