Back at Work

Here i am finally back at work, feeling in part like I've never left, but at the same time awkward as I feel a little out of place here now.

Anyway, not going to feel sorry for myself, but I am going to look at the mound of Mandatory training updates I have to do and the huge pile of NVQ work that needs to be done and feel like crying. When, if, am I going to have my own life back? Hmmm ponder for a while and then let you all know.

Must go and eat my dinner now, it's half midnite and time for tea!

More another day.

Its' it's, well it's green.

Sorry have to do a Star Trek quote from time to time. If anyone can come up with the episode number for this one, well done, prozes on a postcard!

My leg, as you may have gathered is now a grotesque mess of purple and green splodges with swelling and dry skin. It looks really attractive, if you are a zombie looking for an undead girlie.

I'm trying to take my mind off the dull ache that has settled on my leg, using Ibuprofen and distraction techniques, but alas and alack, it's not really working. It didn't help that I was working over the weekend and trying to not over stress the poor little limb too much. Thankfully when we were busy I did at least get to do some running about which made it feel substantially better. Of course in order to keep my leg moving and thus educe the discomfort I have been forced to go to meadowhell repeatedly, and as we all know, one simply cannot resist New Look for the fat girl clothes. Went to H&M and what a very small pile of poo their selection is. New Look all the way for me dahlinks. Even Lily Allen shops there so it can't be all bad.

Wanted to go to Pizza Hut for tea last night after finally seeing Slumdog Millionare, but they'd run out of food. Of course they let us sit down, menu in hand looking at the greasy offerings, but to no avail, because they had no salad, or pizza bases left. So we went to Bella Italia on Centertainment. Fabulous. Calamari made from fresh squid and the lightest crispiest batter. Melted in my mouth. Delicious Linguine Gambari, with shell on prawns and fresh linguine. What more could you want. And a bunch of nuitters too, playing tricks on each other as they work. Great atmosphere and excellent food. Happy tum, happy mum. Josh had pizza and chips, boring bugger.

I really enjoyed Slumdog, a real feel good movie and not overly sentimental. I cannot be doing with excess sentimentality, makes my eyes leak and then Josh takes the mick. The reality of life as a poor orphan was not saccharined for the masses, it was told like it is. In all the horror of children being blinded and sold into sexual slavery.

Lees of the depressing stuff, work to do, work to do. I'm going to try some monoprints today, and see how I get on with those. The results I promise will be posted somewhere in my online world.

To sleep perchance to get some shut eye

Here I am at 8 am writing in my blog when I really need to be getting to sleep. I've just spent three nights at work, after nearly six months of sickness leave, with precious little to do at work as there were no patients to take care of and all the weekly jobs ahd been done. Tried to occupy myself with homework, but there's only so much stuff I can take into work before I feel like the whole studio is coming with me. Reading is out of the question for more than about 1/2 an hour, because it makes me want to go to sleep, which is absolutely verboten.

Feeling abivalent about being back at work. Part of me is glad it hasn't really changed and that after all that time I could just slip back into it without very much effort or worry about remembering my job, and part of me thinks "Oh My God, NOTHING has changed!" Good bad and exceedingly ugly, work is a necessary evil and until I win the lottery or can get some rich art collector to be my patron, I'm stuck in the dead end paying the bills and never quite making the end of the month meet the beginning of the next. Does someone out there want to patronise my rather crap and obscure art? It all has meaning, honestly.

I really need to be getting off to bed soon, as I've been up all night and although I'm not working tonight, I do have things to do with the rest of my week off. Wednesday I'm off to York for the festival of Quilts, which will, hopefully, be fun and not too expensive. I'm a sucker for a festival bargain. Off to Leeds in a couple of weeks for tea and museums, not necessarily in that order, and thinking about saving up to go to the Knit and Stitch show in May I think it is this year. Maybe I may even get something of mine in it for next year with the Embroiderers Guild or with Knotjustitch, the textiles group I am allegedly a member of. I say allegedly, because the degree is taking so much of my time up I really don't feel like I have time for any textiles at the moment, which is frustrating as I prefer to work in textiles, I just love the feel of the fabric and the way the colours change with the play of light and blah blab blah.............(further lyrical waxing about textile arts). I really ought to put some pictures on, but I know for sure that no-one else reads this blog, so who am I doing it for? Oh yeah, me! I think that answers my question then. One of these days I'll remember how obscure and unfamous I really am, and forget to even bother writing for others to read. Hmmmm. Maybe not. (Crosses fingers and wishes for fame for art not other dubious activities).

For details of the dubious activities, please see Channel 5 website and look up "Private Parts" 3 part series. See if you can guess which one is me. Answers on a postcard to ........

Must go to bed, I'm rambling rather more than is good for me.

Night all.

PS Hope you like the picture. It's one of mine. I got a distinction for that project. And its a textile!

Ouch..cont.

Look at that for a big bruise, and it's still getting bigger, as it deep bruising, apparently and will take several days to all come out. All I know is, its big, its sore and it looks increasingly impressive.

Ouch!

On the way into college yesterday morning I was walking along having a jolly conversation with Jackie the third year when, down like a sack of the proverbial went I, landed square on my knee, and ended up soaked through to the skin on my bum and all down my left leg and I now have the most gigantic bruise you could imagine on my left knee. It is sore, and it only stops aching when I walk around, now is that fair? It means it starts to throb like a bitch when I lie down and try to go to sleep, and I had to go to Meadowhell this afternoon to alleviate my discomfort. I was forced to buy new boots, rather fetching ones if I do say so, but forced nevertheless by the rabid consumerism that is Meadowhell shopping centre, Sheffield.

Other news, I didn't get chance to Twitter yesterday and so spent an hour catching up on all the twitters from all the wonderful people who have actual lives that I follow. It is voyeuristic I admit, but when one is sad, lonely, single and skint, one only has voyeurism, because, well, its cheap!

I have singularly failed to do any work today, which means that I will have to spend all of spare time over the weekend catching up with todays lack of work. I might get something done before beddie time, but not much. I must edit the kit I take in with me too, as I've been carrying around a box of crayons I haven't used once at college, and I've been there for three months. Mmmmm needs a rethink and let's dig out the old pencil case.

All to say for now, I'm off to play with my pencils and prepare my kit for the morrow.

The day after the return of the prodigal

Well he's still as grumpy as he ever used to be, grumbling away for most of the night, but still I'm glad he's home. Chaos tried very hard to get close to him in the hope that maybe, just maybe, Thunder would sit still while Chaos practised his love moves on him. But no, Thunder just whacked him, grumbled and Chaos decided to try them on my hair. Bit me and everything. Vets next week, to remove the offending articles. We're having none of that in my house, plus cat semen can't be good for the hair.

On to more normal things, spent £35 in Hobbycraft on pastel pencils to finish 1 drawing. All that for just one drawing. Oh well, I'll use them again. Not really making as much progress as I wanted today, but I'll warm up to it soon. I have done one fine pencil drawing and a rough pastel sketch, and I'm half way through a finer pastel drawing, so I will get there today. Just not sure if I'm doing much exploring of the subject.

Had a huge bowl of leftover soup for lunch, followed by a rather tasteless orange. Why are oranges so disappointing? I want to eat sweet juicy oranges, not dried up bland ones. Still full of food and trying to get focussed and motivated. Maybe just a couple of games of tetris then?

The return of the prodigal

At last the fat boy is home, after nearly 6 weeks away he came home, fatter than ever but still not in the slightest bit impressed with the kitten we call Chaos. i really did miss him and I'm so glad he's home. I know exactly where he's been, and really I do not appreciate you feeding my cat, because that only encourages him to stay away from home.

Anyway, he's home, he's grumpy, he's fat and he's stunningly gorgeous in my eyes. Problem is Chaos is now approaching late adolescence, and has tried twice to, erm, well, hide the spiky sausage. Now he's just jumped him as I was stroking him. What to do....what to do?

Chaos is due to be denadified in the near future and hopefully that will calm him ardure and aggression down enough for them to find some common ground, find a shared interest and take up new hobbies that they can indulge in together. Thunder is, thankfully in the state of bliss known as neutered, wouldn't have it any other way. That's the best way to have a male pet, irrespective of the breed or species.

Suffice to say, I am happy, Thunder is grumpy and Chaos has no social graces. Life goes on.

Even longer time, no blog

I lost my blog, so I've not been able to add anything to it for a very long time. Life has carried on, I've completed a textiles course, did really well and then started a Foundation Degree in Creative Art Practices. In my 2nd semester and doing good, but could do with some inspiration for my chosen subject of cutlery. Maybe I should've chosen something more........well.....inspirational.

My last post was me being unhappy about not having any pictures of my mum, but I now have a coupple of belatedly sent and completely begrudged photos from my older sister.

This is a picture of my mum as a young girl, somewhere around 13 years of age. Isn't she pretty? I wish I had a better one, or even a bigger one, as this is tiny, hence the poor quality.

When she was in hospital the last time, she told me that she regretted not doing more with her life, and of being too afraid to try new things. It impressed on me the need to do your best with what you have and gave me a huge push back towards education and making something real of my life, not just making enough to pay the bills and go on a foreign holiday 3 times a year. I want to be good at what I do and that requires effort, practice and consistency. I try. But I'm still the queen of procrastination.