I spent so long sorting out my drawings into sequence that I misread the clock, and arrived at Barbican station at the exact time the Studio Electronique film was due to start. What a bggr. Wanted to see the film and also my Doc'n'Roll and other friends. I'll have to go to see another of their amazing offerings instead.
Now sitting at home with a pie watching TV. Not quite the same thing, really.
On Sunday, it pelted down with rain. We had to give up and go back to get dry: the umbrella we bought blew inside out in nanoseconds. Monday wasn't bad at all: we watched as a group of men stood in the street, only one wearing a smart white shirt and a (rather dramatic) pink and red tie. The more casually dressed mates were taking the mickey out of the number of pens he had in his upper shirt pocket. It was a long-lasting ribbing which the smart chap seemed to take in his stride. I think we saw a seal, too. We drifted around the charity shops and the junk shops. It was tempting to buy things, but all too many of the antique shops had sections where there was N*zi memorabilia, or displays of g*llywogs. No! How can they do this? It all needs to be confiscated and burnt: there is nothing collectible about this stuff, it's revolting and retrogressive.
On the happier side, there's an amazing museum at the top of the hill and through a little park, full of all sorts of quirky treasures. The automata of the Whitby jet makers wasn't working, which I thought was rather funny considering the number of working communities in the UK who are currently on strike, or about to be. We sat at the children's table and drew with the crayons for a while (all the children were in the huge playground).
We were so busy. We went to an awful craft fair that had those sorts of things you make out of kits that are almost completely made already. We ate really great breakfasts and really great dinners. We ate ice cream and crisps. We were big babies. We stood where the tide splashes high, and we walked on both arms of the harbour. We went on a boat trip and we sat in cafés. We walked up the hill and down the hill and at rest time they watched awful Disney films, while I read a John Grisham book that was lying around from cover to cover, before continuing to read Sasha Swire's memoirs. There were thousands of dogs, often with owners who did not understand the concept of short leads when walking in crowds. We bobbled over cobbles, took photos of each other, squabbled and joked. The town was full of excited children scrapping with each other and being told off, elders negotiating impossible climbs very, very slowly, crap pre-hallowe'en decorations, and bonhomie.
What a wonderful few days away from the fascistic machinations of the British government. Soon, fun will become illegal. It was good to get our fill before the inevitable happens.
Well, here we are in Whitby in a tiny cottage. It's raining, and we have already been soaked through: we're sitting watching trash on the Disney Channel having stuffed our faces on very dry cheese scones that crumbled all over the floor. Our shoes, clothes and outer garms are drying on the radiators and smelling. The kitchen tap drips and the car is a million miles away, but that's Whitby for you. The shops are all out of umbrellas, and the one we managed to find turned inside-out straight away in the wind, and trashed itself before you could say 'vampire'.
True to holiday form, I got about five hours sleep last night because everything from the whole of my life visited me to torture my thoughts. This always happens and is why people go on holiday. I lay in bed and heard the church clock striking all the way to half past three a.m.
One of our party isn't very well, and my body is suffering because the builder who came to fix boards in the loft last week didn't have an assistant, and roped me into helping him to load the boards up the dodgy folding ladder. He said I needed new insulation and wanted more money for doing that, so I ended up doing it myself. I went on strike the next day, and he had to cut the boards in half in the rainy back yard and get them into the loft on his own, but my body damage was done. My back, my arms, my hips and my tolerance just said 'no'. He huffed and puffed and sighed big builder-volume sighs, but I was immune to his attempts to torture me with his pathos. Never again. No more builders in my house, ever, not even with the gigantic discount his conscience forced him into!
Before we came away I took seven black bags of filthy fibreglass insulation to the council dump. It felt so good to get them out of the house. I also mended the Dyson vacuum cleaner for the nth time. Dyson and Tim Wetherspoon epitomise sour 21st century entrepreneurial capitalism: things that work until they don't, and then the inventors/entrepreneurs sit in a corner snarling, despite having cleaned out the public with their enterprise, and stashed the cash somewhere safe from prying tax demands.
What an indulgent moan. It's also a holiday from being nice and tolerating things, just today anyway.
I have been drawing for a commission, a children's book about sustainability and clothing. This is one of the drawings, which I'm actually re-doing because electric shears are more appropriate for the sequence of illustrations.
I'm doing this in a little oasis of calm (a time oasis as well as a place oasis), because the loft is being boarded and the builder is using me as an assistant. I'm not happy about having that role at all.
What a lovely thing to wake up to! Thank you to the Rocking Magpie for describing my songs so eloquently, and for reading the undercurrents too.
https://rockingmagpie.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/helen-mccookerybook-drawing-on-my-dreams/
Two days to go till it finishes! I couldn't resist another visit to the inspiring Cornelia Parker exhibition at Tate Britain. This was taken by Mandy otherwise know as Champagne Friend, who had the idea of Helen and squashed Horns!
I have had some good airplay: Gary Crowley has played Beachwalk; Dexter Bentley, Andy Lewis and Robert Rotifer have played Amazonia; Wallace Dobbin has played Things Like This and Coffee and Hope. Apparently the producer Steve Lillywhite was singing its praises on Radio 365 last Saturday but it's behind a paywall and so I can't get to hear it. What a bugger that is! An actual producer.
I've almost finished sorting out this tour. Next year, I have a list of places I'd like to go back to: Ramsgate/Margate, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Birmingham, Stockton, Manchester and Liverpool. I'd like to go back to North Carolina, and I'd like to play in New York and San Francisco. I'd like to go back to Germany to play and I'd like to play in Paris. I'd like to play in Caracas, and I'd like to play in Japan.
Big dreams, small budget, medium sized person available to stow away in someone's luggage for the craic!
