In the absence of smelling salts

Viv[en] [b]ruin

In the absence of smelling salts, a day was put aside for calming activities. (For Pete's sake, I've only won a prize with my sewing, but I feel as if I need sedation to help me over it). Washing a window (just one), rendering down a glut of plums, putting on washing (but could I or my accomplice fathom out where to put the powder in this new-fangled thing?) I'm preparing to travel to the metropolis darn sarf, and so it seemed that I needed to take special precautions, since on a former trip my upbringing that leads me to eat up all my greens and also everything a generous host puts in front of me did not play well in the case of the Belgian beers. How could I refuse the last one? I note that the name of it contains the letters of 'Viv' and 'ruin'. Despite having to be carted back to base in a taxi, I did at least manage to hang on to the bottle to remind me of  my under-the-table condition. Never again.

Just say yes

And so Tuesday 20th September will be a special day, receiving my prize of 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the Southwark cathedral Lancelot Andrewes art competition for my Sarah and Hagar exegetical tunics. http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/news/special-events Preparations include getting 'business cards' made (what business? 'Textile exegete' actually), and importantly, this bottle cover so that when I am offered a glass too many I can say "No! I have this healthful juice with me!" The pilgrim badge reminds me that when I was in Spain, the first glass of Navarran red cured me of the month-long aversion I developed as a result of the Bruin etc, so it is a two-edged sword.

Bottle Babel

Bruegel's 'Little Tower of Babel'

When it was just work-in-progress, it did remind me of something... It IS rather Babel-ish, n'est-ce pas? (A project for the future, obviously). And perhaps about as useful. It seems to me that spending a day making a bottle cover-cum-handbag isn't such a bad idea; most of human enterprise beyond keeping body and soul together (food, clothes, housing, hospitals) is no more or less daft than that.

Pink-streaked apples

When I get back, I will be well ready to return to basics, "Just Like The Camino". Things like wondering what kind of apples these are? Look carefully: I didn't cut my finger while preparing them, rather, these apples when ripe are streaked all the way through with pink. If you know what variety they may be, please let me know. We didn't plant the trees from which they came, so we have no idea what they are.

Other basics include the view over the handlebar. A blow in the open air looking across the Humber. Being interested in the concerns that seem like headline material in a small and sleepy little town where even the riots can't quite get going properly, though they do quite a good job now and again of smashing a few windows; but they can't seem to organise it into something that makes a proper splash. But I like the hoarding: not telling us that they are mending the potholes (as they are in fact), but reporting on the fact that the mending is being welcomed. [By some. Potholes? I love 'em.] "How gracious is that?"

£2000

So now I have to go and pack, and 'get my act together', which is meant rather literally, and will involve a flowery creation for my head, one that will travel of course, and I have a Vivienne Westwood tie which is rather Dennis-the-Menace to go with it rather than the rather sober one shown here. [Here I almost do for 'rather' what 'He said that that that that that man said....' does for 'that'] There is a little interlude in my day on Tuesday lunchtime when I get to a London Fashion Week event (bespoke flowery headdresses, £2000), a bit under wraps now, but my very talented friend Igor will be strutting some of his new stuff,
http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/designer_profile.aspx?DesignerID=1298 meaning that not quite literally, as other people will be wearing it all. I can never quite bring myself to make art that is just squares on the wall, though I have a lot of them done by others; I like to think that what I do is really useful, and Igor obviously shares that feeling. He's getting really big in underwear now; his business is really taking off.

Seriously  purposeful

When I get back home, I'll be taking the bull by the horns and going all sensible and working to a routine and being serious and purposeful. Wish me luck!