File

I had to go to York late last week. There was an interesting training day and I was more than slightly desperate to be included in it. I even offered to go 5th on the waiting list and meanly hope five people found various ways of being unable to attend, therefore leaving me a route ‘in’. Fortunately there was no need for the five to ‘Find Treasure Island’ or ‘Go To Mystery Moor’, as I received a phone call informing me that the powers that be, were instead, offering five more places, bonus! Then I was in.

I had a strange day. Maybe you can tell, maybe not, the thing is I like talking lolol. Due to the disparities involved within the group of people I was attending the training with, little bubbles of two’s and three’s floated off to ‘be’ one. I was a ‘one’ and felt isolated. Of course the smoking thing also manages to offend, although why that makes my point of view or observation less important or interesting often amazes me, especially if I tell you this was a group of people, the majority of which were professionally non-judgmental – yeah, right.
Anyways. I spent the entire day there, avidly learning all I was taught. Received my certificate, praise - A4 shaped, to place on my wall, or hide in a file. Whatever.

I dashed off to catch the train home, a 45 minute wait at the station. One of those hideous paper carton’s, the size of which ensured my hands looked tiny, full of dish-water pretending to be tea, clutched snugly towards my heart, (it was cold outside (Baby)). All for only £1.7-fcuking-5, the robbing gits. I mean, queuing at the side of a ‘booth’ that could be mistaken for a lay by van parked up at the side of the road, handing over my good money, to be handed back a carton and a shite tea bag and then told to ‘go to the end of there, and pour your own milk in, and sugar, if you want it’, Ally McBeal said a few non-wise words in my head, I told her to stop interfering, that I just wanted a cup of tea or dishwater, I really was at the time of day when you stop caring and just want to get home.
So I took some rubbish photo’s.



The light was yellow and moody in that skanky Sweeny Todd and the foggy streets of London way.



I did enjoy the bike pile though :)



Amsterdam by way of York train station lololol

The bursting at it’s welds train for London appeared on time, along with the huge flock of people, oozing from the station walls (ok, maybe I wasn’t looking), all surging to fight for their place on it. Poor old Thomas. I do love the Brits though, you don’t see the Greeks, the Turks or pretty much anyone, anywhere else in the world, queue so formerly, or well, or that politely. I got on, found the first available seat and plonked myself down, the bucket full of dishwater still swishing (in it’s bibbity-bobbity hat). That was when I realised I no longer had my folder, or my A4 piece of praise.
My bag, my dish-water, my seat, my fight for the seat, my god, shit, shit, shit. The man I was almost sitting next too was a bit confused, can’t say I blame him, I must have looked like one of those people under the sway of a hypnotist told to stand up every time I tried to sit down, due to the seat being very hot, me bum barely touched the seat, before I was this mad woman, panicked, (off the train? Leave my bag to save my seat? Trust the man with my bag? Lose my seat. Where’s my file. WHERE IS MY FILE????) So I picked up my still swishing tea, and my bag and turned for the exit (how long till the train leaves? How important is the file? Can you manage to stand for the entire journey? Does that man think I am mad?). Three people blocking the exit, through them, to meet two guys attempting to put their bikes in the stables provided… “……’s no way this will hold four bikes, cheeky gits, that sign is lying, wh….” jabbering on in my ear, as I politely pushed my way through. Make way, mad woman in panic coming through…. I stepped on to the platform and the train bellowed. Fcuk. It knew... I moved quickly to the bench I’d been sitting on, file not there, the rest of me scanned the other bench’s either side like the Terminator, not missing my train for more searching at benches I know I wasn’t sitting on, turned and in-elegantly clambered aboard the heaving train. Bike wheels staring at me, raised up like spitting vipers, ready to strike, “there she is, she’s a loose cannon she is, lost her (marbles?) file, she has.”

He didn’t think I was mad. Which was a relief. He could see I was agitated and upset, and like Thomas, bursting at my welds. Angry at me, angry at all the time I’d sat there, not realising I had left my folder at the lay by booth selling all kinds of coffee and only dish-water tea. Silly me. Silly? Ally thought of other words, I told her to shut the fcuk up.

The man calmed me down, suggested several ways of retrieving the files (email, copies, pdf’s, another person on the training day) and then we chatted, he was really kind. He had a free training day, and I got someone calm and thoughtful, and with luck someone found my file and they too had a free learning day. Win / win really :)

Scarborough Belles

I had no idea just how much of my life is only available to me if I am on-line. Quite a scary thought, even worse when it became my reality. The names, dates, numbers I always had to hand via my little black book… yeah, I did have one of those, well mine was red, and not really that little, you get the drift though? I reached for this trusty book, upgraded over the years to lime green at the moment, and lo and behold…. nowt, sweet FA, empty, somewhere over the rainbow… no updated info. Wham! That’ll teach me to rely on computers and technology won’t it? So several long, long days later, the Internet was back up and running and my mo-jo has pissed off and taken the list of things I ‘woulda if I coulda’ posted, with it. So I think I will go random….
I’ve been a bit of a busy bee this week, appointments here and there, one of which was in the beautiful sea-side town of Scarborough. It took me a while to get there, and the damned appointment had been cancelled, so I had some free time and very easy access to good old M+S, way down there at the bottom of the main high street, only after managing to sneak by the rampant rabbit shop first though.... and I was in PUrane (Per Una) heaven…. I slowly drifted through their entire range, unable to keep my hands off the beautiful textures, feasting my eyes on the myriad of muted tones and colours, indulged, shivered and went upstairs to the department of panta-lunes…. Hehehe, nuff said. Red and hot pink seem to be ‘the colour of ladies UK undergarments’ this month though… leaving M+S and it’s warm comfortableness of nostalgia I turned left and wandered up the hill backwards, meeting supercreeps and some lesser scary monsters. Scarborough hides it’s lesser scary monsters out in the open, so if you aren’t careful you fall in to the spell of deleting them from your sight, they are there though, Zombie’s in the background, often wearing furry slippers having casually slung their Sunday slobbing clothes over themselves and actually leaving their homes with it not occurring to them that 1) it isn’t Sunday and 2) those clothes shouldn’t been seen outside a Sunday or for that matter, their homes. Ever. For the first time I actually saw the statue in the centre of the high street, of course she was only placed there quite recently in April 2008, so if she was there the last time I visited Scarborough, I wasn’t paying much attention… this time I was, for two good reasons, I had my camera on me and I had some time to spare, I also deviously thought, I wonder if I stand here taking photo’s as the people walk past, none of them paying ‘Our Belle’ any attention, will they stop and try and look at what I am seeing, or see what it is I am looking at, you know like the Candid Camera show where the bloke just stops in the street and looks up? How many will stop next to him and look up? All I can say is, it worked a treat, you want an important phone call to come through? Just get in the bath, you want to try and catch the sweet disposition on that dog’s face, setting up the shot, and, just as you press ‘click’, the bastard moves? Here it was, a perfect photo opportunity, a fairly tall statue, with no people around it, just asking to be photographed in private, willing to show just that extra little detail, or a hint of an angle that so many may have missed, or dismissed…

I dared to remove my camera from my bag, took it’s protective eye cover off, opened it’s back to show the screen, pretended to fiddle with the dial (it looks good) I just make sure it’s on ‘auto’ and left my ciggie dangling from my mouth, ensuring all those who did not require leprosy would stay well back, of course that didn’t work either, as someone who also already had leprosy was not put off, *obviously didn’t think that one through* and interrupted me actively taking photo’s to ask ‘You got a light?’ ‘Of course’, I said, and handed her my lighter, with a lovely Ally McBeal moment going on in my head, Ally reached over, picked her up and turned the woman towards ‘down the hill’ and gently shoved her off, saying, ‘don’t interrupt the grown-ups now dear and fuck off…. And was back to taking my photo’s. I took 37 in total.

The Bathing Belle is made of galvanised steel by artist and blacksmith Craig Knowles, who also made the Diving Belle.

This is my favourite.

These are 'nearlies'. Enjoy.