Tagged with biggleswade …

Nov 28 2011
Leave a comment
Art, Biggleswade

View from the Library

As the winter drew in at the end of October, I was experimenting with warm places where I could sit and draw. Behind the teen fiction section of Biggleswade library there is a small desk which looks out onto the street.

I’m not sure about spending the winter hanging out in the library drawing – after all, it was Nico who said that “libraries are where you go when you want to avoid life”. Plus, the library is a rather stationary building, and at some point I would be tempted to draw the inside of the building, which is all complicated bookshelves and perspective. No thanks!

This was also the end of my Arches “Travel Book”, a rough type of watercolour paper in a 16:9 ratio, that I started way back in Letchworth. I was actually pretty glad about that, as I was finding the paper really hard to deal with. Still haven’t found the perfect notepad for watercolours yet…

 

Tagged , ,
Oct 12 2011
2 Comments
Art

Shortmead Street, Watercolours

I’ve finally cracked the problem of working on busy streets: bring a good pair of headphones.

Although I was nervous about sitting outside on such a busy street in my hometown, it was worth it. I really enjoyed sitting out in the Autumn sun, drawing buildings, and I was able to ignore the busy road that I was sitting right next to by listening to some tunes. I’m really glad nobody stopped and talked to me, as I was listening to my usual bunch of weird music, and any conversations would have been punctuated by bursts of feedback and/or chanting.

Tagged , ,
Aug 22 2011
1 Comment
Biggleswade

Bananas in Biggleswade

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=207856872054721372717.0004aaecc3ef357504e88&ie=UTF8&t=h&vpsrc=0&ll=52.089237,-0.268693&spn=0.009229,0.026608&z=15&output=embed

For some reason, over the weekend, I decided to make a googlemap showing where you could buy bananas in Biggleswade.

This might be due to the fact that I am becoming ever more frustrated with living here. In fact, it’s getting to the point where I would sell an organ to move out. This can be expressed in the form

I could sell X and go and live in Y

Where X is an organ and Y is a place. For instance, I could sell a kidney and go and live in Brussels. Or I could sell a big toe and go and live in Leicester. Annoyingly, none of these are really a go at the minute, so until the international market for organs, toes, and hair picks up I shall be keeping an eye on the banana market of Biggleswade.

 

Tagged , ,
Aug 18 2011
1 Comment
Art, Biggleswade

The Sky, in Iver’s Field

This week, I’ve been really tired, but wanting to improve my watercolour skills. When I feel like that, I walk down the road to a field on my estate. There is a wooden bridge that goes over a stream, and an old cattle field that isn’t used anymore. I sit in the field, a bit away from my estate, and try and draw the trees.

Recently, there have been a few nesting moorhens on the stream. As I hopped over the gate, back onto the field, there was a black cat sitting on a tree-stump, eyeballing the two moorhen chicks. I threw a stone at it, but when I went back the next day, I could only see one chick.

In the pictures above,  I was trying to paint the clouds – which are really the most impressive feature of Iver’s Field. I know it’s called Iver’s field, because when I went back the next day, there was a guy taking photos of the amazing pink sky we had yesterday. He told me about living here before my estate was built, and about paddling around over the fields in a canoe he had. It sounded ace! I think we should have more canoe travelling in the area.

Tagged , , ,
May 12 2011
Leave a comment
Art, Biggleswade

Beyond Cookie’s Field

Cookie’s Field is a large playing field on the edge of Biggleswade. It used to have legal graffiti boards on it, which drew paint-stained types from across the UK to this small Bedfordshire town. At the minute, the fields beyond it are full of that yellow, hay-fever inducting crop, just starting to sprout up high.

As I was painting this, a spaniel discovered me and gave me an extreme crit, along the lines of “Woof woof woof woof woof”. I thought he was going to bounce closer and show me what he thought of my green-tinted sky by biting me, but his owner turned up and persuaded him that I’m still a beginner.

Tagged , ,
Apr 16 2011
Leave a comment
Biggleswade

Re-place

138-3823_IMG

The photo above was taken in 2004, when, behind the main street of Biggleswade, there was a large, empty wasteland. It used to be the brewery, but at some point it had been demolished. All that was left at the time were the markings and tiles on the floor; old loading bays, choked with massive buddleias that had grown unchecked.

Usually the gates were closed, but one day I walked past and found the gates open. In a few years time they would build a giant Asda here; it was probably the survey team, checking the area could cope with repeated deliveries of the things that Asda sold. By the time I found the gates open, the old brewery was deserted again.

138-3826_STB

One day the Asda that stands there now will be deserted. Perhaps buddleias will grow there again, attracting the same clouds of white butterfly’s I saw that day, breaking up the painted tarmac of the family parking zones. So it goes; you don’t need a brewery forever. A supermarket isn’t eternally useful.

Tagged , ,
Mar 25 2011
Leave a comment
Biggleswade

Babycakes

BabyCakes NYC: Frosting Party! from BabyCakes NYC on Vimeo.

Babycakes NYC is some sort of super-healthy cake shop. I think maybe it’s gluten and dairy free? Meanwhile, at my local coffee shop, I had to explain to the new hire what an espresso was. Life’s not fair, I tell you. Why can’t small towns in rural Bedfordshire have lunk-headed populaces, racist local papers, AND gluten-free coffee shops?

So unfair.

Tagged , ,
Dec 08 2010
Leave a comment
Irregular

Biggleswade Park

Park, frosty day

This park is opposite my house. Today I woke up and it looked amazing, with frost on every tree and leaf.

When I walked over to take a picture, the effect was somewhat ruined by the pumping garage music coming from the fairground.

Tagged ,
Nov 05 2010
Leave a comment
Irregular

The Mystery of the Five Coffee Shops

I should be writing my NaNoWriMo novel right now, but I’m finding it hard. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you about my scribblings; the reason I’m finding it hard is because it was a year ago that I went into hospital. That was the start of the trail of events that led me back to my hometown, Biggleswade, where I am forced to visit the five coffee shops.

That hospital trip a year ago saved my life, and I am eternally grateful to certain individuals who bundled me into a taxi and made me go to hospital. However, the illness itself was so severe that I have only now just come off the medications I was put on, and it will still be a long time until I am well enough to work. Because of this illness, I now live 250 miles away from nearly all of my friends.

Like I said, it’s been a year now. That year has been a long time for anybody in Newcastle; they’ve all been busy, and where I’ve been watching Star Trek: Enterprise re-runs in my pyjamas, they’ve been working hard. I have had literally nothing to fill my time this year, and anything I have done has tended to make me exhausted… leading to more time on the couch in my jimmy-jams.

Let’s just say I have high hopes of completing NaNoWriMo this year.

One of the pieces of advice that NaNoWriMo headman Chris Baty recommends working in a coffee shop, where you can pick up interesting stories about characters. This is completely not the case in Biggleswade, where there are an amazing five coffee shops within two minutes walk of each other. It’s like a vortex of coffee, but not in a good way!

The mystery of the five coffee shops is that none of them are particularly good. I cringe when I write this, because I expect my favourite shop – the one on the corner, that used to be an off-license where I used to work – to find this humble blogpost and beat me round the ear next time I pop in. However, I would like to assure them that they are much better than the rest, especially the small one on the other side of the town square, who made me a coffee so bad that I almost couldn’t finish it.

I miss my old life in Heaton when I think about this. I miss being able to bump into people I knew and liked in local coffee shops. I miss being able to have conversations with people about the things we liked, such as art. And coffee. I’ve tried to get to events ’round here, but they are too few and far between and to hard to get to – there just isn’t much to do without resorting to going into London, which is extremely tiring and quite alienating.

I’ve worked out it’s going to take me at least another year or two here before I can leave. I’ll need to work, and save up a war-chest, in a town which doesn’t value any of my skills apart from “could lift heavy boxes” (the Bedfordshire region does not need any trained gallery assistants). Maybe by the time I can leave this mangled idea of a town, I’ll have managed to solve the mystery of the five coffee shops.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jun 11 2010
Leave a comment
Irregular

Getting Things Done?

Yesterday was a trip into London to meet up with my mother for lunch, and then look at some art galleries and bicycle shops around the Brick Lane area. It was nice to get out of the small town where I usually find myself, but after the bike ride on Tuesday I rapidly became too tired with all the walking that being in the capital entails. I took a train back to Biggleswade, and went to bed early.

Another odd thing about fatigue is that after a certain point of tiredness, it’s hard to get a good nights sleep. During the night I kept waking up with an enormous headache, like somebody battering me with a steel bar. I woke up at six and fixed myself breakfast, before going back to bed for another few hours. That headache is still lingering around, occasionally rubbing up against the left side of my brain.

When I woke up for the second time, the post had brought my appeal against my medical assessment. Apparently, because my original medical assessment didn’t show that I had fatigue I don’t have fatigue. Yeah, and the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club. Thanks a bunch, whoever was in charge of that.

The good news for the week is that I won’t have to pay to go back to university. Huzzah! Lets do a dance. A predator dance:

Truth

Tagged , , , ,
← Older posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 550 other followers