An indulgent Saturday

I went to this place yesterday, one my favourite places ever. I spent the afternoon happily traipsing around looking at vintage cake stands, green glass, Edwardian table linen and antique jewellery. I cooed over French grain sacks and one particularly fetching oak table. In Cafe Violette next door I had something called Chocolate Lover's Delight.

In the evening I caught up with friends in Oxford, where we went to this place and I had a Messy Jessie and a peanut butter milkshake. On the Cowley road we drank in pubs sticky with snakebite and smelling of stale goth. I am always more comfortable in these darkened hovels, in trainers. I am over 6ft 2 in heels. People make so much desperate effort in small towns.

I wondered down Walton Street in Jericho admiring the little terraced houses with their tiny doors. There is a bookshop there called The Albion Beatnik Bookshop. It was still open at 11.30pm. There was a man in a wizard outfit stood in the window. On a low wall someone had left not an empty can of Stella but an empty bottle of vintage cognac. In the Jude the Obscure, on the toilet door, I found a solitary piece of violently scrawled graffiti, stating simply I love him.

The Forest Floor

If you took out the past its best food from my fridge, all that would be left is parsley and soya milk. This is one of the things I feel most guilty about; the throwing away of food that I didn't get around to eating before it went bad. I'm not sure if it's as bad as giving in to the nagging voice that says "you better eat those brownies/that homemade bread/that stew, as you don't want to waste it". At least with the former you stay the right side of healthily curvaceous. And there is always Lea and Perrins. That never goes out of date. There could be a nuclear holocaust and Lea and Perrins would be the only thing to survive. Lea and Perrins and cockroaches.

These are new paintings completed this week. The top image is the slightly smaller sketch for the one underneath. The technique is called negative painting by most people. You paint around the shapes rather than painting the shapes themselves, and then build up layers. There is always a stage when you think "this is all going wrong" and the it suddenly comes together. I use it quite a lot in my work.

Look! I'm a domestic goddess!

This is chocolate and pistachio fudge, courtesy of Nigella Express. I have made it for the guys at work, it's sat next to me in a spangly bag by my desk. It would have taken all the will in the world to give it away where it not for the fact that this is the second batch, the first batch having been consumed stealthily by furtive fridge light over a period of four days last week. I now can't look at the stuff without feeling a little bit queasy.

Tonight is the last night in my flat before I decamp to my mum and dad's for four days. Tomorrow evening I  plan to be in my pyjamas, vodka and tonic in hand, watching Narnia. Merry Christmas you lovely people.

A little recap

These are some of the paintings I did in November. I did quite a few other things as well. I took on a lot of extra teaching which seemed like a good idea a few months ago, when the job situation was looking particularly bleak. I also broke both my phone and my Ipod. There was a depressing evening in late November where I found myself slumped on the sofa feeling stressed and tearful and couldn't even listen to music to sooth myself. I also couldn't phone my mum.

It's all good now though. Work is winding down, we had our Christmas meal today and I'm blogging after ten vodka and tonics. By the end of the week I'll be feeling a bit bored.

Autumn landscapes

So, I have still been painting quite a bit. These are quite different from my flower paintings, which are very bright. I just sat down one listless Sunday afternoon and had a doodle. I've ended up teaching these techniques in class, I think people have quite enjoyed it. The trick is to apply the paint in very thin washes, let it dry a bit and then brush the shapes out with a very wet brush. The painting is built up this way over a few days as you need to let each wash dry thoroughly in between layers. I've spent a very happy and contented fortnight painting these and listening to music.

In other news, I have finished my short story but didn't throw my two main characters off a cliff. I left them bickering in a National Trust car park. I think we've all been there.

Hiding from the world

I had lots to do yesterday; class prep, 3 paintings to finish and a short story to be redrafted for a monthly creative writing class (FYI this writing thing is really hard! Give me a thing to describe and I'm away but ask me to plot something and develop characters whilst thinking about figurative language and stylistic devices and I'm hopelessly lost. I'm on the verge of throwing my two main characters off the nearest cliff).

Instead I reorganised my books. In order of colour. There was a point, midway through the afternoon, when I thought I might have bitten off more than I could chew.

I think I might start another anonymous blog. There are loads of blogs that I love; painterly ones, bookish ones, cookery ones... but the ones that keep me coming back and subscribing are the ones that Tell The Truth*. About important, trivial stuff. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's uncomfortable, sometimes cynical and sad but always sincere. I had hoped that one day I might come back to this archive and find not only a creative diary but an account of what life was like at this point in time for me. What I have found when looking through old posts is a blog with a bit of an identity crisis. The posts that shine for me are the ones when I decide to just spill, regardless. I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have blogged under my real name. People I know read this and, though I know they wouldn't judge, I do hold back because of it. Here are some of the things I'm not blogging about at the moment:

1) Financial meltdown at work

2) The possibility that I might be made redundant and have to move back home

3) The future: what the hell am I doing with my life?

4) The writing thing

5) Weight loss and exercise. I'm not blogging about this because I thought to myself, somewhat haughtily, "this is a blog for creativity and intellectual, important things not something as girly as weight loss". But the thing is, I have lost about 2 stone since Christmas and this has made a WHOPPING GREAT BIG difference to my life. I'm not carrying around 15 years worth of self loathing for a start.

So, there's quite a lot of stuff that I've been editing out of this blog and I'm not quite sure where to go from here. What do you think peeps? Am I just worrying too much?

*The Truth, specifically, about what it's like to be a woman at this point in time. Because this is a heady, difficult, confusing, potentially amazing thing. And we're all in this together. But, God, it's hard. Basically.

Through low light and trees...

I just want to share this with you quickly whilst I think about how best to unscramble the last few weeks of chaos. My brother's girlfriend recommended Smoke Fairies to me, I love the album and, most of all, I love this track. Universe, if you are listening, this is how I would like to feel about someone.

Pour yourself a snifter of whisky (or have a cup of tea), draw the curtains against the autumn chill and enjoy.