The Golden Year, Day 1

Oh I do love it in a non-vicarage! There isn't that feeling that someone can just come and GRAB one of the inhabitants and take them away to deal with Something Else. I've had a lovely day so far. Had to spend 2 hours walking round Hull camino-style with my big rucksack (packed with apples, sloe gin and cake) 'cos my over-55s ticket (Damn! I didn't have to PROVE my age!) was only valid on certain trains and I just missed one. So I chatted to a Big Issue seller, who was a young woman expecting a baby, but her ankles were swollen up, poor thing. I tend to buy a Big Issue when I have just, or am about to do something a bit extragavant. Going to London for 4 nights is sort of extravagant, except that now I call it 'research' since I'm going to be going to 3 museums/exhibitions - the V & A. Grayson Perry's thing at the BM, and the Knitting & Stitching Show. But I do a lot of sitting on park benches with a sandwich and some orange squash. I chatted to someone who was working for the Red Cross, and I said Sorry mate, I look richer than I am, 'cos I make my own clothes; or is it the opposite? He politely didn't say, and when he found out I was called Vivienne, he said that was a good name for someone who makes her own clothes (thanks, Mum!). I said, honestly, in this country, we really grumble about the weather, and all the time, the Red Cross is having to deal with places where the weather actually KILLS people. I'm in that state of camino-like openness when I'm on the road, and I talk to anyone and everyone.

No pics taken today, but here is a pic of the bags that my accomplice and I made at an embroidery and spirituality thingy: Today I loaded mine (the one on the left) up with sloe gin, apples, tomatoes, something called 'Grandma cake'.... so it now has a bit of a used look, but I find that things improve a bit when they get that slight patina of London Underground-ish muck.

So now I'm at Sonny no. 1's place, and the poor thing keeps yelping whenever some kiddie comes to give him an enthusiastic hug, and he says he is not going to want to go out tonight and be sitting on bar stools. (THAT operation). So now those grand-kids are a limited edition.

While in central London, I paid a visit to the British Library, and went to the Ritblat Gallery and saw a lot of stars: the Luttrell Psalter http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/luttrellpsalter.html, the Egerton Genesis http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8780&CollID=28&NStart=1894, the Holkham Bible http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/holkham.html, the Golden Haggadah http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/hagadah/accessible/introduction.html, some beautiful Qurans http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/quran/accessible/introduction.html. I contributed toward the purchase of the St. Cuthbert Gospel too http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/07/the-st-cuthbert-gospel.html- formerly known as the Stonyhurst Gospel - http://www.gbwny.org/news/2007/11/st-cuthbert-gospel-of-st-john-formerly-known-as-the-stonyhurst-gospel/ - a piece of bookbinding from the 7th Century (DO judge a book by its cover sometimes) - OK, 50 pence, but look, I'm a sump, not a wage-earner. The kept-woman's mite. I was rather bowled over, and this on top of a sudden surge of inspiration for my exhibition (some quite unsuitable, but I accept it all gratefully) next November, that I felt quite worn out. Grandson Eric, having last time paid me the - to him - compliment of  'Oooh, Grandma, you look so OLD!' asked me if I had my brain with me, so I said I might have left it on a train, or it might have plopped down the drain.

Today is maybe the first day of what, in the absence of a better title yet, I call The Golden Year. This is the year when I have to work hard to produce an exhibition of up to ten works commission-free in the Southwark Cathedral teashop. Mock not; they get more people passing through that than through the average London Gallery. So this is an unrivalled opportunity for me to make my fortune. Lets do the maths: I work all year and make ten things. Let's award me a salary of £10,000 a year for working, say, around a 3/4 full time job. Thus I will have to charge £1,000 per piece in order to generate that. Oh dear! I think not! OK then, 20 quid. My aim is to make enough so I can do the camino again. Then when I've done it, I'll have nothing left, be totally skint, and have a sketch book full of blisters and one of my ideas for embroidery will have got going. But I will have heard that holy nun, or similar, sing that song.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6az7f1n_HU Go on, watch, turn up the volume! Weep! The more I make on this exhibition, the more baths I can have along the way; I thought maybe every ten days I might stop in a proper hotel?? and go to the museum of Pilgrimage in Astorga http://www.trivago.co.uk/astorga-102453/museum--exhibition--gallery/museo-de-los-caminos-192031/pictures where there is also a museum of chocolate http://www.spain.info/en_US/conoce/museo/leon/museo_del_chocolate.html  but I won't be going to that.

Oooh! Sonny has just brought me dinner, his sausage and bean casserole; he might be sore down there, but thank goodness, it has not affected his cooking skills!