A Note On a Rainy Night

Lady into fox

I’m off work with a stomach bug today, I’ve been under the weather all this week. This morning I read Lady into Fox by David Garnett. He’s one of the Bloomsbury set who isn’t really famous (apart from the indignity of having a less popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on one of his books). The book was brilliant, about a bourgeois 1880s country couple and their life after the wife suddenly turns into a fox.

Right now I’m doing lots of laundry, writing about Roman emperors, and working out what bland food I can have for lunch.

Margate Shell Grotto

Earlier in the summer I went to the Margate Shell Grotto with my mum. I thought it was a piece of victorian tourist kitsch from memory, but it wasn’t like that at all.

More flowers

Pram of the Damned

Interred in an antique yard in Brighton

In the Flowers

Two self-portraits from June testing out my £2.50 remote. I’ve got a big backlog of photos to organise.

Customer Service

My cousin is working temporarily in Crawley, a town which exists solely for servicing Gatwick Airport, and every day he is confronted with a new bizarre sight outside the train station. The best one this week was two dwarves slapping each other. He popped into Sainsbury’s and bought a jacket potato and pack of Garibaldis (those biscuits with raisins in which look like squashed flies) for lunch. The man at the counter asked him “Are you going to have a BBQ today then, sir” perfectly seriously. He thinks Crawley might be directed by David Lynch. I like the idea of a biscuit bbq.

Lashings of ginger beer

I’ve been in Medway this weekend, I’m staying at my mum’s, but she’s not there. My auntie went into hospital to have her cochlear implant done, and her daughter is away on her long pre-booked holiday, so my mum’s gone to pick her up from hospital and look after her for a few days until her sense of balance returns.

Hello from Cornwall

Today we went to the beach, but I didn’t bring my digital camera because I was (rightly it turns out after I nearly fell in a rockpool) concerned about breaking it. I did bring my lomo fisheye though.

London Zine Symposium 2009

Sunday was the London Zine Symposium, and I had a stall with the other Brighton Zinefest people. We went up together on the train, and that seemed to counteract the jinx that plagues me any time I try to go to a zine event in London which cancels/seriously delays any known form of transport. I did forget to bring the “up for trades” badges though, and we had to make do with German ones (not that useful in an English-speaking event!). There were two rooms this year, about 2 million people I knew and it got very hot. I did a workshop with Alex about Etsy, we basically made it up as we went along.

Müllheim Swag

My friend/BZF compadre Ed went to the Müllheim Zinefest, and I gave him some of my zines to either sell or trade for interesting stuff. He didn’t manage to sell anything, but brought me back a bag with a creepy clown on it full of all kinds of great stuff in German and English.

London Zine Symposium Haul

I didn’t sell an awful lot, but I did a lot of trading, and I’ve got a nice haul here

Sue Rydering

So on Saturday I went to the Sue Ryder hospice sale in Oxfordshire whilst Chris was at work, a treasure trove as always.

Last Weekend

Last weekend I was in Reading to see Chris. On friday we ate at Wagamama, and then went to a gig at the Rising Sun. It was Ben, Jay, and the guy from the Inspiral Carpets who isn’t Clint Boon. I can’t say I’m an Inspiral Carpets fan, but the guy was brilliant. He also had a great anecdote about being beaten up by a Kiss tribute band.

Bramber & Steyning

Bramber’s a small village inland of Shoreham, it’s got one street with a couple of pubs and houses, a ruined Norman castle, and an intact Norman church (ie they’re about 1000 years old)

Shoreham

On Saturday I went out with my dad to have lunch out and a wander. We went to Shoreham, a small coastal town near Brighton, and Bramber, a village with a ruined castle. Here’s Shoreham.

Brighton Aquarium

When Chris was down the other week we went to the aquarium because I had a half price voucher. I love aquariums, and I’m going again on Monday evening for a work thing.

Charity Shopping with Tukru

On Sat I went down Rochester with Tukru to do some charity shopping. She got Ike & Tina Turner and Human League records, a unicorn colouring book for zine purposes (she’s a big unicorn fan) and I convinced her to get some Agatha Christie books.

Weekend in Medway

Last weekend I went back to Medway, and I went up the Great Lines with Tukru, and we messed about taking photos.

Alternative Press Fair – London

I shared a stall at the Alternative Press Fair at the start of Feb with my friends Scott and Chris, and their friend Pete who I hadn’t met before. Thanks to Jimi and Peter for organising such a great event.

New Hair

I added some black streaks to my hair, because I thought that the solid pink ( a base of atomic pink, made a bit redder with a mix of la riche rubine + flamingo pink) was making me look peaky. It also handily disguised my rapidly growing roots. I’m pleased with it.

Pancakes!

The 24th was Pancake Day here in the UK. You traditionally make pancakes to use up all your indulgent bits before Lent. I’m not at all religious, and I don’t give anything up for Lent, but I always make pancakes.

Women’s Zinefest

At the end of January I had a stall at the Zine Fest at the women’s library at London Met Uni in East London. I was horribly late, as it seemed almost every form of transport I could possibly use was closed for engineering works that weekend, so I ended up having to walk from Monument to Brick Lane to get there. I had a ridiculously huge table to myself in this cosy little library, and I made quite a good bit of money and did some shameless promotion of the Brighton Zinefest.

Panda Eyes

Hot Silk Pockets are my friend’s band, and they’re ace. I often get phases where there’s only one song I want to listen to. Their song Panda Eyes was the only song I could listen to last week. (This week it’s been replaced in my affections by Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective and Nothing Ever Happened by Deerhunter, but it’s still a great song)

Book Cover Archive

This website is ace. It’s just loads of scanned book covers, but really beautifully designed ones.

Hazy Sea

I went for a walk along the beach whilst waiting to meet up with my cousin, who’s just moved to Brighton. There was a haze on the sea that day, and the pier looked like it was floating on nothing. I never get tired of photographing the seafront.

A wander along the beach

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to trawl back through forgotten photos on my hard drive/negatives folder and post-process them. This was one of the first untouched folders I found. Back in September, I went for a walk along the beach along Hove Lawns, right up to Portslade. It was a beautiful day, and there was hardly anyone about, because it was the middle of the week, and the tourist season had pretty much finished.

Knitting Ahoy

When I was back home visiting my family in Kent, my friend Tukru came round and she fixed my issues with circular knitting, and we learnt some lace knitting patterns out a book my nan gave me. My mum laughed at us, and said we were very rock and roll. I won’t show my lace sampler I made, because it looks really weird, but here’s a stitch I learnt out of the book after my friend went home, it’s very simple, and looks very 70s when knitted in chunky wool.