Yeah, I’m still (sort of) here. It’s just that this giving up my job malarkey (one of those new years resolutions I wasn’t going to make) in order to have more time to spent doing the important things in life - like sleeping and painting and writing and reading and oh…I don’t know…actually getting out of the apartment more than once a fortnight - has meant that I’m spending more time than even at the computer. Partly that’s because of the malteser down the side of the shift key fuck up and then the shutting down of illustrator when it was saving an incredibly complicated piece of work that had taken four days to complete to my satisfaction which meant that the damn thing didn’t save and had to be done all over again.

The redrawing of a freehand logo (the original of which I dashed off in twenty minutes without any prior sketches and the memory of which has now taken on genius of a da vinci’esque magnitude) and which I’ve spent the past week trying to duplicate has not met with success either. My new business - which doesn’t officially exist yet because although I have a name I dont have a logo, business cards, website, portfolio (well one that isn’t in corrupted files that I can’t bloody open) - did get its first job. Obviously this has meant that although I’ve spent the past few years blithely applying gradient shading to everything in sight and (and I quote my previous job description) “giving thing the wow factor!” (i.e applying gradient shading to everything in sight) any and all ideas, self-confidence and technical ability vanished like snow in the sun and so I spent a fun week desperately attempting to get something down which didn’t (to my mind anyway) look like total shit. (You’ll be pleased to know - or at least I was pleased to know - that the client, oh that sounds so much like I know what I’m doing - loved the drafts I sent through and has picked one!)

So as you can imagine. Life here has been really fun recently (especially for F who has had to put up with me). I look like one of those Hanna Barbara cartoons, you know the ones where the character gets hit over the head with something heavy and the whites of their eyes are filled with scarlet concentric circles? Admittedly I don’t have the concentric circles, just one line in each eye but the fact that the lines are horizontal stripes of scarlet which sear through both iris and pupil means that they do a sterling job of terrifying any Jehovah’s witnessess who might come calling.

On the plus side and as I always say, when the going gets tough…the tough go shopping. I’ve been doing a lot of shopping recently (thank god retail therapy is now available online) and just as soon as I finish typing this out I’m off up town to do some more (well just as soon as I have a bath and get dressed that is, at the moment I’m still in my pj’s (stripey flannelette).

Anyway, the point of this post was A. to get back to blogging again because you’ve no idea how difficult it is to restart after a break and B. More importantly, to let you all know that my dearest and most wonderful Jgirl has now (finally) started selling her jewellery online. Her shop is called Executive Gothic and every piece is a one-off, never to be repeated, handmade design. Personally I think her prices are way too cheap but as it means I can buy more of I’m not really complaining. It’s amazing stuff - go and check it out!

Just don’t even ask. Who would have thought a piece of malteser stuck down the side of a shift key could cause so much devastation?
Radio silence until I redo all the work that the bloody thing managed to delete (Probably Monday)

I believe black is white…discuss.

UPDATED

Hostilities between herebemonsters and hendrixcat have ceased. It is now safe to go back into the comments box.

The Arrival

The airport hasn’t been built yet. There’s a spindled sleepiness to its shape, the plane parked haphazard between half-filled bags of concrete, grey insides welded together. Shovels spill like spears from leviathan masses - as if Captain Abe said oh sod it boys, give it your best shot and let’s get back onshore - looming in the bright orange light. I like it. Like the fact it is not built, I’m used to that, grew up amongst cement bags and plaster dust, it gives the place a homey feel, an unreal feel, as if I am slipping back into my past, as if we are the first to tread on some far off planet with unfriendly air. Breathe out, breathe in, feel the water touch my tongue. Noses are no good here. All the while we swim through the steam. It falls; drip drip dripping through my clothes, slithers between shoulder blades, trails in a squirming trickle to mid thigh, wraps round an ankle with snakish shudder. We clamber over piles of brick and bags of tumbled citrine stones, stumble across uneven ground, follow the cardboard arrows to the arrivals lounge, blink ourselves sober in the fluorescent light.

Uneven concrete floor with coir mats designates where we’re meant to stand, cathedral height white walls, steel beams supporting the whole. A tiny white clock some twenty foot above us points to dreamtime. On the other side of a narrow black tape I can see bags being pulled off the conveyor by white clad porters who fling them into a jumbled heap. No black suitcase with a splash of purple paint on the side yet though…

…we’ve been in the queue at customs for nearly an hour now. It’s not a long queue. Only our plane to see to but there’s only one desk open and a lot of forms to check. Luckily the door to the ladies is nearby; I’ve drunk nearly a litre of water between getting off the plane and now. God I’d sell my soul for a cigarette. F seems quite happy chewing the nicotine gum I’d packed for the flight but that stuff’s not for me, I tried it 50 minutes out of Gatwick, it tasted like I’d poured boiling water on a packet of Marlboro and then sucked the juice out of the stubs. Since then, whenever it’s got too bad I’ve slugged back some whiskey and held it in my mouth till it burnt the want away but now I crave real smoke.

On either side of us, people are complaining loudly about how long it takes “them” to process a passport. I wish they’d shut their gobs. “Them are probably as tired as we are, it’s late at night or early in the morning, either way we should all be asleep. I’d like to see “us” do the same sodding job in an unfamiliar tongue.

The place is swarming with soldiers. Two were waiting at the foot of the stairs when we got off the plane, two at the door to the arrival lounge, two by the baggage pick-up, more grouped around the exit sign at the faraway end of the hall. They’ve all got guns. Big guns. Really big guns. The ones at the exit are carrying what look like machine guns. It’s making me feel guilty and I haven’t even done anything yet. Although strictly speaking, my passport isn’t really in my name. Well it is, but it’s my birth certificate name and the rest of my ID (bank cards) is in my everyday name. What if they ask me for more ID to process the embarkation card? F wouldn’t be much help. In order to prove that I really am who I say I am and not a terrorist then he’d have to provide ID and not only does he hold a French passport (which doesn’t count) but his passport’s in a different name from his real name too. Maybe we should just become terrorists – I’ve heard that getting the false passport is the trickiest bit and as a career choice it would definitely be taken more seriously than admitting that I’m a graphic designer.

Buggerit mum was right. She told me to sort this out and I didn’t. I was going to when passport ran out next August, but truth to tell, I like my birth certificate name more than I like my real name. It flows better with my forenames and even though I don’t sign it often my signature is better when I use it. Of course I can’t change everything back to my birth certificate name because then I’ll have a different name to mum, dad and herebe and I wouldn’t want that; but vanity aside, I like having this link to my past – like having the same name as Grandpa T, it’s an acknowledgement of his existence. Anglicising it makes him less then he was. Names, proper names, are important. They have power. They strip us down. Bare us to the bone (and the scorn) make us who we are, who we’ve been, what we will become. But right now, with a distinctly un-English name on my passport, in an airport on a Foreign Office high alert – I’m scared. Midnight Express is running through my brain, in shades of blue and grey. “Call the British Consul” on the tip of my tongue (though fat lot of good they do, I’ve read their site. One visit a month and that’s about it). I can see the phrase fly over my shoulder towards F’s disbelieving face as I’m carted off between these beige clad officials with their shiny brass buttons and scarily big guns, anticipate the terror, feel the white gloves on my skin.

We’re almost at the front of the queue. They stop you, at a yellow line and gesture you forward one at a time to stand in the narrow passage formed by two white concrete desks. You can’t see the people behind them, the counters are so high. There are soldiers here too. Two at each side. Watching closely as the passports are stamped, gun barrels peering out over their shoulders.

Though no-one else has done so, even those I knew were travelling together, when the time comes, I’m walking up with F. I grab his hand and squeeze it tight. I’m tired that’s all. We’ve been travelling now for 24 hours straight. The fact that dad was thrown into a cell at gunpoint when he worked in Bombay has nothing whatsoever to do with it. They told him that life here was worth 400 rupees. I wish we’d cashed those travellers’ cheques.

They checked F’s passport first, barely glanced at it before they hand it back. I guess they like the French more than the English and from the way the rest of the queue has behaved I can’t say I blame them. I’ll be searching for a new nationality when I get back.

Then it was my turn. There are 2 men sitting below the counter. I say below because they sit so low that you can only see the top of their heads. One of them was quite young, the other an old man in vivid white. They peered at me and then at my picture, keyed in some details in the machine, read slowly through the embarkation card, looked at me again, flicked slowly through the pages of my passport- and then they stamped.

I couldn’t help it, as soon as the stamp went down; I laugh out loud “I’ve had my passport stamped!” In viridian ink. Bright green ink with swirls and whirls and dates and the scrolls of a strange alphabet. I don’t want a new passport now. Ten years come August I’ve had this one and this is my first stamp. Bugger the EU and their open borders that take all the fun out of travel.

My smile has hit each ear and threatens to meet round the back of my head. “Thank you” I say as they hand the passport back. They both look up, surprised. “You’re welcome” said the old man with a smile.

Another hour spent waiting at baggage reclaim. This is not a busy airport but I suspect, from the wait between one load of luggage and the next, that there is only one trolley to carry the bags from the plane. Whatever the reason, there aren’t many of us left standing here. The cabin crew long since wandered off with a sardonic “good luck”, the bastards. Finally there it is. The very last bag to come through that tattered curtain. Our old black case, with the purple paint splash from when we used it as a ladder to paint the bedroom for mum’s visit all those years ago.

“Cigarette” says F and drags me off towards the exit…

I know. This is the second post about India and we aren’t out of the airport yet. It won’t all be in quite so much detail. But the first few days were so strange, so much of a culture shock that I did write quite a bit about it. Think yourselves lucky - you’re getting the abridged version.

Sorry. Past eleven days have absolutely flown past. Just to get you up to speed.

23rd of January - Typed up a bit of stuff written in India.

24th of January – Out of bed around 8ish. Sat in front of computer at 9ish and began sorting out images for portfolio for website. Day somehow vanishes.

25th of January - Out of bed around 8ish. Sat in front of computer and continued working on portfolio.

26th of January – Mums birthday. Realised that I didn’t really need to take 3 skirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 3 jumpers, 4 t-shirts 2 cardigans 3 pairs of shoes and assorted underwear as I was; A. only going to be there for the weekend and B. Was going to have to carry my own bag since F not going. Whittled contents down to 2 skirts, 1 pair of jeans, 2 t-shirts, 2 cardigans and 2 pairs of shoes (obviously kept all the assorted underwear)

Sat for too long reading at kitchen table meaning I had to run for bus and then sprint along Princes Street. Well not really sprint, I don’t do running on account of the fact that practically every other member of my bloody family does. But I did walk really fast (for Edinburgh – it would have had people tutting at my meandering gait should I have walked at that speed on Oxford Street) Got to Waverley Station with 10 minutes to spare. Bloody Fast Ticket machine broke down and threatened to eat my card but backed down and spat it back out after I cursed and kicked it (much to the merriment of a bunch of Italian tourists standing nearby) Joined queue at ticket desk.

Made it to platform 2 and got on train with three minutes to spare. Left bags on seat; stood on train step and had 3 drags on a cigarette before being told by guard that smoking was now utterly forbidden in any platform of a Scottish Station even if said platform was outdoors. Realised it was the first time I’d been anywhere in this town since the smoking ban came in force – last year. On the bright side, this was the one occasion is where being able to say “I’m really terribly sorry” in an English accent came in useful in Scotland – as he let me off the 30 quid fine.

Sat on train for an hour and three quarters. Drank tea.

Pitched up in Newcastle. Went to catch bus. Bus fare has gone up £1.15 since the last time I got a bus from town to mums (ten years). Only had £1.85 in purse, driver let me off the last ten pence as they don’t take bank cards. Got to the Gill. Got off bus, went to Tesco’s to get stuff for mums birthday cake (800gms ground almonds, 800gms of Green and Blacks plain chocolate, 8 eggs, butter = bloody expensive birthday cake). Called in at florists to arrange flowers for mums birthday (tulips, lots of), sweet talked them into delivering them as I had to walk up to J and M’s to pick up key to mums (I’ve never had a key for home since she took it off me for being late for my 21st birthday party). Forgot that the walk up from Gill to J and M’s is a nightmare to speed walk especially when wearing high-heeled boots and carrying 3 bags of shopping, a handbag and an overnight bag. Made it to J and M’s eventually. Had cup of tea. Picked up key. J gave me a lift up rest of bank. Got home.

Stove not on. Lit stove. Shoved bag up in my room, took off coat and boots, left them on my staircase (round the corner so it looks like I’d put them away). Started making mums birthday cake. Learnt that attempting to melt 800grams of dark chocolate = chocolate everywhere but especially all over the brand new white not painted only primed wood units. Mum walks in while I’m juggling beating eggs and sugar to white froth, stopping chocolate in pan from burning, mopping up escaping chocolate and keeping bloody stove supplied with coke. Make mum a cup of coffee and give her a hug (in that order – you need to give mum ten minutes unwind time when she gets in from work). She asks what’s going on with chocolate melting as there seems to be rather a lot of it. I tell her that’s what the recipe says. She looks at recipe and points out that I’ve misread my own handwriting and its not 800grams of chocolate/almonds but 8oz which is considerably less and makes more sense as the butter/eggs proportion is that of a sponge cake. Flowers finally arrive. Wish mum a happy birthday.

Cake finally gets made. Pick up Auntie V (my godmother/Jboys mum) and drive to Chinese take-away in Burnopfield. Get take-away, eat take-away, A.V gets cab home at 11pm. Split another bottle of wine with mum and settle down to a good talk. Crawl to bed around 2ish

Saturday 27th of January. Mum and I supposed to be going to town to look at clothes. I really need some shoes (no, I really do –something I can wear with long skirts, I’m thinking Edwardian’ish either laces or button fastening with Louis quinze heels, possibly in either aubergine or brown leather/calfskin) and there are no decent shoe shops in Edinburgh, mum needs some new tops. We don’t quite get round to getting there – by the time we’ve decided what to wear (going to Newcastle is very much a dressing up occasion) and then realised we have to pick up Grandma at 4 we decide to go tomorrow instead.

Spend most of day sitting at kitchen table reading. Read the Devil Wears Prada – don’t bother, some book by the woman who wrote Fried Green Tomatoes - quite good, and the Poisonwood Bible – very very good). Can’t remember what mum read, but she said it wasn’t very good. Go to Grandma S’s at 4pm to pick her up for church. We all decide not to go to church, GS tired, mum getting a stinking cold, churches make me cry. Buy fish and chips instead. Give GS some birthday cake (which turned out beautifully in the end), and a glass of herebes whisky. Take her home around 7ish. Have some more whisky at Grandmas (special reserve stuff) and a glass of her homemade raspberry gin (because it’s good for me). Call in at Auntie V’s as P supposed to be there. No P. But have coffee at V’s. Get home.

Sunday 28th January. Mum’s cold much worse so no Newcastle. Make Sunday dinner. Spend rest of day at kitchen table reading while mum does work for school. Auntie R turns up with 2 jars of homemade marmalade and a jar of Norfolk chutney for me. No idea why she’s trying to bribe me with homemade preserves but I’m not complaining. Not to be outdone, mum adds 3 jars of plum jam and 2 jars of mango chutney (also homemade). J arrives with A and R – the gorgeous goddaughters. J appropriates a jar each of my jam and mango chutney and, by the time A and R have gone through my make-up bag I’ve also lost 2 lipsticks, a green glittery eye shadow and the hearing in my right ear. Have somehow also been talked into cat sitting Geli (mums psycho kitten) when she goes to visit herebe at half-term. Hand will have recovered by then I suppose.

Monday 29th of January. Get up with mum at 6.30am. See her off to work, do dishes, feed cat. Pack bag. Sit at kitchen table reading until 9am when it’s time to get bus into Newcastle. Faint on bus (no not sure why – but it was very hot and crowded). Wobble into station and realise I have an hour and a half to spare before train arrives so buy large white coffee (not latte – I don’t believe in them) and sit and smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke (because I can). Get on train.

Arrive in Edinburgh. F picks me up at station, get back home. Have coffee. Go to sleep.

Tuesday 30th January – Woke up at 7.30. Put washing in machine, do dishes, Hoover. Sit down in front of computer and continue work on bloody portfolio. Thoroughly sick of it all by now.

Wednesday 31st January – Wake up at 10am…go on guess what I did for the rest of the day.

Thursday 1st February – Slept in. Woke up at 8am but really couldn’t face bloody Unilever document. Who’s bright idea was it to create a front cover which features a kitchen, all cupboard/fridge doors open and every single product they manufacture on the shelves. Oh yes…I remember mine. Genius. That’s what I am. Bloody genius.

Friday 2nd February - Spent entire day sitting in front of computer attempting to learn how to use indesign. Managed to complete (finally) bloody Unilever cover.

Saturday 3rd February - ? Woke up. Grabbed mug of coffee. Sat in front of computer at 10am. It’s now 19.16. And the day has gone, where? Am now going to off licence to buy some red wine. Should really have something to eat too I suppose.

Promise I’ll type up the next bit of India stuff tomorrow.