An early summing up of 2011

I think it's time for another blog!! I arrived back in my little North-Eastern home-town after an amazing time away working at a hotel in rural Dorset. My friend Mel (who did a degree in tv and film production so she is a pro at this kind of thing) made a series of videos highlighting the best bits of our time there.Here is the last in the installment of videos....hehe I love it!



watching that back made me realise how many awesomely fun and exciting time I had at that place. And there are so many great times we had that aren't even on that video. For example when Mel and I were asked to work at a wedding at this rather enormous manor house called Studland Bay house, it was like a Royal wedding, or one of those big weddings you see on American movies...it was a huge piss-up of a wedding event, we were meant to be serving teas and coffees but hardly anyone wanted teas and coffees and as soon as they came from the wedding they all started drinking the pimms or champagne on offer as did Mel and me. So from about 4pm onwards our boss Lynn, kept giving us more and more pink fizz much to our delight while we had many breaks and were hanging out behind the scenes in the kitchen. By this time returning to our tea and coffee station, we were completely pissed and were dancing around to the likes of Abba, Pulp, and other wedding disco classics that I can't remember cos I was to pissed. We even got a thumbs up from the groom! When the time came for us to leave, obviously we didn't want to, our boss (who was also kind of pissed) was telling us the only way we would be allowed to stay is if the bride and groom said so, luckily we met this young Bristolian college chap who was insistent that we stay and from there he shoved glasses of wine into mine and Mels hands and practically dragged us away to the dance floor. There, we met a whole host of other college age people who were just like us! completely buzzing off the free booze and dancing like mental people. I think everyone liked the fact that the staff were having a good time and dancing. The whole evening and night from about 4pm onwards was probably one of the best parties I've ever been to and it wasn't even a part it was a wedding that we hadn't even been invited to.

The sluzzy waiters party, the Sangria nights, My birthday (anything but clothes party) when some of the guys came naked with just a leaf covering their modesty, the Derren brown show, Bankes arms beer garden, piano and ukulele jam in the garden room, Rachel dressed up as 'osama's widow' chococo for Anita's birthday, sangria night at the beach, ukulele sing-alongs to a improvised mash potato song, being suprised by my brothers coming down to see me and spending an awesome week with them!, road trips to Bristol, London, Bath, End of the road festival, 80s party at studland bay house, CJ!, cider festival at the Bankes,PIERRE! finding a monkey suit on the street, singing 'son mis amigos',star-gazing,spontaneous parties, smoking joints at the pool with edu and Paco, our BRILLIANT night out in Bournemouth in the church converted into an awesome nightclub, the nights out in Swanage, SNAPS! Beanie's trumpet noise, Al being the Pope,the Royal wedding party,Twister nights, being able to stroll down to the beach at any point between shifts, the after midnight walk to old Harry rocks to watch the meteor shower, sunset at Aggelestone rock, the staff BBQ, all the other BBQs,BRIGHTON!





The best thing, and I will probably be really sentimental here, has been meeting the people that I met. Nice, cultured, interesting, kind and funny people! Meeting one of the best friends I will ever have in the shape of Melanie Vautier! And falling in love with a boy called Pepe whom is now my boyfriend! When I went there in April and honestly I really didn't like the look of it in my first couple of days, I actually found in the end, that the people I've met and the things that happened to me while there were positively life-changing! The diversity of the people and places everyone was from made it such a more interesting and fun place to be and I wouldn't have a similar experience anywhere else. I feel insanely lucky.

Meanwhile the brilliance of this year still isn't over, as soon as I arrived home I went on a job-hunting spree, it was almost too easy for me to find a job. I only handed out 3 CVs and one, a lovely little Italian restaurant opposite the ARC in Stockton got back to me and I now work for them, starting tomorrow, eek! One of my best and longest friends Jenny, got engaged two days ago and she asked me to be a bridesmaid!! Next week I am going to see the Smashing Pumpkins in London and also a Mel reunion and then in a couple of weeks Pepe is coming over hurraaayy! and we will visit Newcastle and Edinburgh!

My smashing pumpkins ticket!! :D weeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

The delightful man in the park

I was in the park yesterday reading my book as it was such a nice sunny day, unfortunately I sat near this 40 something year old man in an England St George flag on his top. I decided to draw him in one of his more 'relaxed moments'. For the majority of the time he was in the park while I was there he was being abusive to pretty much everyone in the park within earshot distance much to the horror/bemusement of a bunch of old grannies who stood and watched him for a while like it was Jeremy Kyle live. He laid there with his dog Eve, so called because he got her on Christmas Eve he was telling everyone. He then started raving about how he was the only person in the park with a British passport, then he was shouting across to a man on the other side of the little stream who was playing with his toddler near the water, about how 'if the papers were here they'd take a photo of that and put it on the front page saying 'Man tries to kill baby', I thought it was a bit excessive. Anyway, him and his silent and grim hobo friend with their bag of Lidil cider amused me for a while .

Viva Asturias!

I recently returned from a trip to Spain in the region of Asturias in Northern Spain, Pepe lives in the pretty city of Aviles. English people generally think of Spain from what they know of the TV show 'Benidorm', fat, bald men in England football shirts and orange faced ladies looking for a cheap getaway on a last minute deal, or 'The Inbetweeners' style lads looking to loose their virginity with scarcely clothed girls determined to top up their tans, added to this, flamenco dancing and bull fighting would be pretty high on the stereotypes of Spain list. Asturias, on the other hand, is like it's own country, it's green, there are big mountains and tall trees, historical architecture, cider, and instead of bulls they have friendly-looking cows and it's own unique cuisines!




The trip consisted of delicious food, trying the famous local dish('Cachopo' could be my new favourite food), Spanish 'Sidre', generally Pepe treating me like a princess, eating out late in lovely authentic restaurants and observing my surroundings in this whole other interesting and wonderful Spanish culture. strolling around beautiful quaint streets of 'old town' Aviles illuminated at night, and visiting the charming town of 'Oveido' and also the quiet and pretty seaside village of Salinas where I tried a yummy 'Helado de limon'! and saw some amazing scenery and big waves (and also a very tanned Spanish dude walking his dog along the beach in speedos very funny sight for me)





One of the many things I loved about Aviles was how calm and pleasant the atmosphere there is, just casually walking around the streets and soaking it up, there are very few cars in this part of the town which makes it even more pleasant to walk around and gawping at the fascinating buildings without fear of getting ran over. There is a rich history to the town too, and lots of sculptures , they have sculptures for everything, even one for the seal that once visited Aviles! The shops have unusual opening times which is normal in Spain 10:30 - 1:30 then 4:30 till 8:30, apparently in between this time workers or who ever will have a siesta or go and chill out in one of the many delightful plazas with a cafe con leche!




One of the lovely cafes we visited which seemed almost a secret hideaway you could go out the back of the building climb up some steps to a sweet little patio terrace with trees and bird houses and a little pebble garden with gnomes in it! The other interesting thing for me was unusual eating times one night Pepe and I went to a restaurant called Casa Paco where we tried one of the best food I've ever ate, a Cachopo, I thought it was kinda similar to the Teesside 'Parmo' layer of meat, covered in batter or breadcrumbs with a layer of cheese and Spanish ham on top, but obviously this is more 'Spanish' than a parmo and probably ten times more healthy,it is the most famous local dish of Asturias, we also had a jug of Sangria Sidre! (cider sangria) very unusual for me but extremely delicious! We were the first and only people in the restaurant, as an English person, I am used to eating at around 6 or 7 so by the time 9 o' clock came around I was feeling extremely peckish so we went for an 'early' dinner, the other people didn't start coming into the restaurant until we had finished our 3 course meal at about 10-10:30pm!!





Friday came, we took a day trip to Oviedo which is the capital of Asturias and also the location which the Woody Allen film 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' is mostly filmed! The city even has a sculpture of Woody with a plaque in which he describes the town *translated by Pepe, thanks!* " Oviedo is delicious, exotic, beautiful, clean, pleasant, and kind to pedestrians. It's as if it doesn't belong to this world, as if it doesn't exist ... Oviedo is like a fairy tale". Very nice. There I saw lots of beautiful buildings, there are fountains everywhere and lovely clean bright streets, lots of nice little shops, cafes and restaurants, the beautiful San Salvador Gothic cathedral, some cool horse sculptures and a wonderful park!


We drank sidre in a Plaza served by the traditionally dressed waiters, every time we finished a part of the bottle a waiter would come over to re-fill our glasses in a unique way by holding the bottle high above and holding the glass low with their other hand and letting the cider pour down from a height into the glass!






On our return to Aviles at night we went to the new building called the 'Niemayer' which is a really cool modern building which has a cinema, a theater and is the cultural centre of the town. We went for cocktails in the spirally building, some might call it pretentious, but I'm not gonna lie, I totally loved the place. You walk up this big windy white path to the cocktail bar which is a round shape, and it feels like you're in some strange, romantic modern utopia, the smell of scented candles fills the room, there is nice traditional Spanish guitar music playing (Pepe HATED that kind of music but I thought it was a nice addition to the atmosphere :)) and the colour theme is dimly lit velvet red and purple and you sit on these low comfy red sofas, very romantic, and there is a gorgeous view of the estuary and Aviles lit up at night like little twinkling stars! so pretty! My cocktail was a mojito (classic!) and Pepe's was called 'Don't be so sweet, be a man" heheh





On the Saturday evening Pepe and I went to the Aviles football stadium which is right around the street from the hotel where we were staying and just a few streets away from Pepe's parents flat. We met his friends, we did the whole two kisses Spanish greeting which I'm still getting used to and we proceeded into a different stand of the football ground (his friends had a sneaky way of getting in free to the football ground by doing their own handmade passes stating that they were referees , and it worked). The atmosphere in the ground was probably the most exciting atmospheres ever, even more so than some Boro matches when they were in the Premier league! Spanish people are very passionate and patriotic, there was consistent noise and support for their team the entire way through the match, people brought flags of blue and white and drums to make a noise with and the supporters were supporting throughout from kick off to the end.

After a great win 3-2 to Aviles, now at dusk, Pepe, myself and his two friends Adrian and Pablo headed off to a cool bustling restaurants in one of the plazas which I can't remember the name of.*EDIT:I have just been informed the plaza is simply called 'La Plaza'* The concept, you took a table and you got a leaflet with a list of lots of options of mini baguettes, and you pick all the different little baguettes you want to try, tick them and write your name (Laurita) and hand it in at the bar. We had little hamburgers, squid, chorizo, and some other tasty things I can't remember the name of. I really love Spain's way of enjoying food! Throughout the meal drinking red wine and being stalked around our table by an adorable and persistent pug puppy, we chatted mainly about the English and Spanish cultures, lots of laughing and joking and talking about the stereotypes and the language differences, his friends are really good at English. It was a great time! After this, was quite drunk at this point and my attempts at poor Spanish were getting more frequent, we headed off to an Irish bar and I drank vodka&coke from a strange test-tube looking glass (alcohol there is cheap and generous). And finally we headed to a crowded nightclub/bar and sat on the terrace enjoying more drinks (which I bravely ordered in Spanish!)until morning, Next day I was hungover obviously.


We wandered around Aviles a bit more, into the Ferrara Park which has these pretty french gardens where the park scenes in the Woody Allen film 'Vicky, Christina, Barcelona' were filmed and finally on the last day I went for a meal with Pepe's Parents and his brother Enrique i.e. the mutant, senor Suarez cooked a very tasty meal for us, then Pablo picked us up and took me to the airport where I headed back to grey, cloudy London after having a magical and amazing time in Spain!!

FINITO!






adios espana!

Monkey Suit & glow in the dark horse Necklace

As I haven't written a blog entry for months now and am constantly getting annoyed with myself for the complete absence of creativity in my current life situation, also have been whinging on about never writing in this neglected blog, I feel now is the time to catch up. I've been living on the out-skirts of a little-known village somewhere in rural Dorset now for just over a month working in a posh hotel owned by the Ferguson family (the boss always seems to catch me when I'm doing naughty work un-related things like stealing scones and helping myself to orange juice) and even though to the casual reader this might not sound like a very exciting and exhausting way of life it actually really really is oh...and I'm having the best time. I returned from London last night from a two day excursion with 'The Mel', Mel is my New Zealand soul sister, basically she is me but born and raised in NZ and slightly taller, not only because of our parallel personalities but we even have a very similar facial features which I only realised two days ago. We bond over our love for flight of the conchords, I-Spy, Kate Nash sing-alongs and generally all things quirky and just a matching downright eccentric sense of humour.

Since being in Dorset, the land of Enid Blyton and all things twee and 'English' I have never before found myself in such a bizarre situation, one day I'll be partaking in a Sangria party, 40 litres of home-made Sangria in big white tubs, with all my friends and work-mates down at the beach having hilarious improvised sing-alongs to a ukulele about mash potatoes (we're given far too many potatoes in various forms here) then the next day I could be having Dorset cream tea - tea and scones, in a girly floral dress and a quaint little barn & stables converted into tea rooms. Then the next having a traditional tea party in celebration of the Royal Wedding in the courtyard, adorned in triangular Union Jack flags, meanwhile I'm sitting amonst my Spanish, English and Latvian workmates taking advantage of the free Pimms and Champagne on offer (they weren't very clever to offer me free alcohol between my working shifts). Not only am I having more parties than in my regular life, I also seem to be having more picnics than the norm here, always a good thing,...and making lots of daisy chains







Also hitchhiking, being in the middle of nowhere with seldom and expensive buses it's necessary to do the occasional hitchhike using a sign displaying our intended destination in lipstick, last week and kind old gentleman picked up Becky, Mel and I he told us his life story how he was an ex-nuclear scientist and he had fled to England back during the USSR days to escape from the communist regime and the government. It sounds far-fetched but the detail and conviction of this man's story led me to have no doubts about the sincerity of his claim! So that was a pretty awesome chance meeting with an interesting stranger, there was one point when I thought we had got into the car of a delusional madman but that's usually what one might expect getting into a car with a man with a Ukrainian accent who starts to tell you he's a nuclear physician.

Back in London, we spent most of our time floating dreamily around the labyrinth of the Camden markets in awe, we had strawberry flavoured sheesha at this little Moroccan place where we sat outside surrounded by Arabic decor, purple velvet cushions and silk patterned throws, over-looking Cyber-dog where all sorts of neon coated creatures and men with rainbow Mohican's were hanging out, and sat and smoked watching the diverse array of people zoom by.



We had yummy and probably heart attack-inducing Chinese food for lunch, then proceeded to wander around the markets. In a shop called 'The Curiosity shop', a shop bearing resemblance to Aladdin's cave, filled every square inch with vintage postcards, antique cameras, trinkets and delights, handmade necklaces, peculiar retro objects, dusty old porcelain dolls and I was served by a nice lady who was dressed like some kind of pantomime dame, where I bought a handmade glow in the dark horse necklace and a vintage NYC postcard which I just quite liked the look of. I could of spent hours in that shop browsing the unique assortment of wonders but there is too much to see and too little time!



After this I had a panic buy from H&M for a nigh time outfit, which included a tie-dye skirt and a little side bag. We eventually dragged ourselves away from the markets and headed towards our hostel on the Northern line at Belsize park, in a lovely tall white townhouse. We were, for some reason, upgraded to a private and large room in the hostel where we drank elderflower wine and did a bit of girly prep for the night ahead. We headed to Angel randomly and came across a nice little Irish bar where a band was playing and a strange chalk outline of a dead body was drawn on the floor and a large section of the bar was cordoned off, weird huh? but cool and different. then when we were done in there headed onwards to the next pub, on the way a strange little Irish man called Declan started commenting on my tie-dye skirt and from there we got chatting and got an invite to the Hawley Arms (it's all about the Arms) in which we had more drinks and were chatting to Declan and his tall friend who I forgot the name of. During one of Mel's filming episodes where she was filming me dancing round like a drunken lunatic, showing off my horse and generally me being an embracing moron, a handsome chap came over and we were chatting to him, then suddenly we became like magnets for all kinds of weird characters, some Mancunian dude came over holding a milk carton filled with booze and tried to get me to drink from it, it was a humourous situation nonetheless, then some other guy who was actually really good looking, started chatting to us (he was trying to get us to go to Proud Camden which is where we were going anyway) but then proceeded to tell us the story of how he nearly got captured by the Jesus bus and they tried to make him part of their cult.

Then after this episode we found the club, had a good night blah blah, Mel got conned into buying a glow stick for 50p from the woman in the toilets. Why would you sell glowsticks in a toilet? On the way home (this is the best bit) we noticed a long furry monkey looking object laid carefully across the floor as though it was asking to be found. It turned out to be a monkey suit and the rest of the evening gen rally revolved around us prancing around at 3 in the morning on the streets playing with the monkey and also found car tyres...and climbing on people's motorbikes. We then met 3 French guys, one of whom had his number pre-written on slips of paper which he gave to me and one for Mel (I found this hilarious) we tried to practise our French but failed, in between many kisses on the cheek, he then serenaded us with Edith Piaf on request and did a pretty cool rap, I think his mates were embarrassed with him, no idea what he was saying but it was an interesting and unforgettable situation. The next day was yet another gorgeously sunny day. We headed to Trafalgar Square above a wonderful blue sky and had croissants and frappachino overlooking the lions, fountains and Nelson's column, we walked across the river to the South Bank centre and came across the coolest little food street stall with an electric bunch of food stalls from all countries of the world, Poland, Spain, France, Belgium, got some free samples of Spanish breakfast and cheese, also saw a wonderful art installation called' the Lion & The Unicorn' which was a collection of poems tied on strings and some shaped as paper aeroplanes flying off into the sky.






After all the strolling, we headed to Hyde Park corner to buy some picnic supplies, on our way there we came across the Lanesbourough hotel where a crowd of people were gathered around I asked what was going on and Lady Gaga was set to make an appearance and come out of the hotel, we stood around for a bit, mainly we wanted to see what she was wearing, but then we got bored so onwards we went. So picnic supplies in tact we continued on to Hyde park and found a lovely little spot in the Rose Garden and chilled out in the sunshine for an hour or two.










We wandered around Hyde Park, I got stopped by some guys who were filming a section for the news and wanted someone to be interviewed giving an opinion on this controversial documentary that was to be released about Princess Diana's death and he wanted my opinion on whether or not I think it should be banned in this country and what the implications are of banning it! So I am soon to feature on some obscure channel no doubt! Following this we took a leisurely stroll through green park towards Buckingham Palace i.e. tourist central I think I might be in at least a hundred people's photographs and then headed for Victoria and had cupcakes and fruit juice in the most cute, girly and darling little cafe possibly in all of London - Peggy Porschen. It's all pastel pink, polka dots and ribbons and furniture resembling human size doll's house. So adorable!




And so that brings me to the end of this massively long blog post!

....

I really would like to start a business personalizing children's furniture. Just the other week I turned my bedroom into a mini artists studio. My uncle found this scruffy old wooden chair in a skip ...not sure what he was doing going through a skip but that is besides the point, he also found me a very old musty 'Painters of the 19th century' book which may very well be doused in human piss I don't know why but I always suspect men like to wee in skips. Anyway, here is the book




I tried to start reading it and did in fact succeed until about the second page then I gave up. So back to the chair here is the finished product.

Pros of the idea of making more of these and selling them include

• Its is LOTS of fun
• I get to drink milkshake and check twitter while I'm at 'work', something Im actively looking to be able to do in a career.
• Its putting my art degree to good use, even though its not really but people wouldn't have to know that.
• Children love colourful furniture.
  
• I don't know of that many companies/people who specialize in creating personalized children's' furniture.

I don't want to list the cons of going ahead with this because I'll manage to talk myself out of doing it. I guess my main concern is money. I hate money so much.






The only small error with this one, which can you believe it, I have only literally just thought about it. This is an adult size chair haha, how stupid am I. I didnt even think about it when I started painting it or even imagine a design in my head I just thought "ooh thats a plain chair it would look so much better with paint on it". A similar wave of thought occured when I painted this chair which actually belonged to the company that I worked for (sort of). I was bored one day and it kind of happened in a trance,




it looked really sad and plain so I just harmlessly spruced it up a bit then afterwards panicked and felt like I needed to get rid of it so I took it round my friends and put it in his house.No one will ever suspect me! Its got to be done, living on a privately owned island it does get pretty boring so you go through every way possible to relieve yourself from boredom even if that means what some might call "vandalising property" I call it making the world a more colourful and interesting place :)

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"

One of my favourite nights when I was living on the island was when I went out at low low tide in mid-August, when the water between two of the islands had went right out. We went at the perfect time when the tide was at it's lowest so about two in the morning. We took torches because it was otherwise, absolute blackness. The same night a meteor shower was occuring, the Perseids meteor shower and so as I stood right in the middle of the channel between the islands, hundreds of crabs scutteling around my feet and millions of starfish and glittering phospherences, turned off the torch and looked up I saw literally hundreds of shooting stars that night.