Friday 22 August 2014

Friday

Today, I was weak. I came into work at 7.45am - so by 8am I'd eaten an egg MacMuffin, 2 hash browns and a coffee. I'm ashamed of myself. I even paid with a debit card.

Still consumed by rage at the death of my camera. I bought a new camera body last night - and a couple of cheap 'faux' macro lens fittings. Buying the body was cheaper than buying an add-on viewfinder that would have bypassed the broken LCD screen. madness. I had already wasted the best part of 2 evenings trying to get help online (the company website was so user un-friendly I nearly lost the will to live), it just seemed like the only practical thing to do. I can 'buy' a download of the repair manual for £20, or pay the same amount to ask an independent engineer the questions I already know the answers to. Later on, I will probably get 'my' camera repaired - I really liked it - and I have a selection of good lenses and a decent bag. I'm angry because, like most things, I've looked after it carefully - it was in mint condition. On the whole internet I could only find one person who had experienced the same problem - and they managed to get it repaired 'no questions asked' because it was still in warranty. The bloke sitting behind me at work has a camera that's older than my dad would have been, takes perfect pictures - I have a selection of good SLR cameras at home, but I need digital for work.

Just down the hill from me in Clive Vale there is a - or was - a small house on a prominent corner. It's all large, well maintained Victorian family houses with nice gardens around there, a very popular area - typical seaside - lots of Yuccas and Cordelines and gardens full of the lurid coloured border plants that the English love so much. This house was single storey and not particularly nice - but in a brilliant spot with great views and a lovely large garden all the way round. It was sold last year, the new owners put some extra foundations and footings around the house about 6 months ago - and a couple of weeks ago  knocked the entire house down except one internal room (looks like just the airing cupboard, and a chimney breast. The have now built the frame of a very large modern house with an extra floor on top - I think this counts as 'improvements;' rather than 'new-build' and is a sneaky way to get around planning permission. It's a huge house and dominates the whole area. I see people walking past staring at it with real anger in their eyes. talking houses - now that the wrecked house on the end of my road has been finished (someone in there already - so it must be rental) - the old lady two doors away is having the front of her house painted today. It's now just me that's letting the whole street down. I saw the old woman next door last night trying to do her shopping. She can barely walk - I told her not to try that again and just ask me to go for her.

One of my better clients is in India for 10 days from today, with loads of my work - they are in licensing and have a lot of business out there - this could actually be quite a big turning point for them if it goes well, I've spent most of this week on projects for them - I like working with licensed product, it's difficult and very hard work - and people are quite snotty about it - but it makes a lot of money and employs a lot of people. I see people in the studio looking over my shoulder as I work on illustrations of kittens and monkeys riding bicycles and I'm sure they think I'm strange or took a wrong turn somewhere in my professional career. I'm expecting a delivery of a large box of kids stationary and accessories from competitors later - that should be fun.

In addition - I'm working on high end light bulb packaging that's going to end up in Heals, at least I'm not going to get the two jobs confused.

Working with kittens all day... I suppose it distracts me from the news - I'm trying very hard not to engage with the outside world at the moment - too grim.

I wish I hadn't eaten that muffin, I actually feel dirty now - the inside of my mouth is coated with a bad taste - I'm going to brush my teeth

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