Aliens have landed

So my thoughts are following a theme, obviously encouraged by the things I pass everyday to feed my irrational paranoia and conspiracy theories about inanimate objects… although in this instance I don't really believe that the local authorities are providing directions and clear sign posting for extraterrestrial tourists, are they?

These little mosaics adorn various streets on my way to work, a couple of them are on buildings that are scheduled for demolition so I will try to photograph those, but I don't ever remember seeing a space invader on my Mac Classic II, from 1991 (I think I got that right).

Courage and the phones

From time to time over the last few years I have passed this building on the train and although it is an old advert for the beer of the Courage Brands Ltd, I've always seen it as a more personal message, for me and anyone else looking from the window of the train, but it has only been relevant on the way to work, never on the way home. I wonder what people think going the other way? It never fails to make me smile.

Then again it might be more of a warning. I need to get a grip. I put all the phones back in their cradles this morning and some how they congregated around one point in the kitchen by the time I got home. Gravitating toward the microwave…

Sunday is shed day

The whole day has been a progression toward getting into the shed, to make a stretcher for the image above. My shed is a small and perfectly formed building at the bottom of the garden, but full of kipple. In fact the shed is a kipple producer, a manufactuary of high grade kipple. A small part of a complex progress of kipple production and recycling.

But, before the shed I have had a morning in Bromley, eaten cookies, rescued my youngest daughter from an over zealous wasp, laughed on a train, nursed a grazed knee and pottered about in the kitchen.

So I approached the shed politely this afternoon and moved the kipple about so that I can at least walk in and stand in front of the bench. Trust me this is a major improvement on what it has been.

With a bit of space to work in I began to make a stretcher for the photo at the top of this page that I was given by my wife of the Penguin Pool at London Zoo. Its a photo that she took recently and had printed on canvas.

The first stretcher was a bit large due to an inability to measure things today, but fun to make and made more interesting by the parade of visitors who passed the shed door and ranged in age and size.

All of them had different questions from demands for Hubba Bubba to whats the tent like, but with a few small adjustments its now perfect and the photo is on it... There are more amazing photos, but I will tell you about them another day, I just love this one.

Back to nature

What a day. After food with friends on Friday night, we all begged out by midnight. I think its a sign that we are all showing our ages, a combined age of 189 years excluding the kids but including the 3 friends. We slept and dreamt of our great plans for the next day.

Saturday, fueled by a breakfast croissants, brioche and pain au chocolat, scrambled egg and fruit juice we were ready to face a day of indecision, which we are good at on a Saturday.

Watching the sky for signs of rain I spent a little time rounding up all the bits of escaped tent from the corners of the house where it has been planning it's next move.

Once it was all contained restlessly in the boot of the car and the car was sporting its rather eye catching, but not too dressy new top box, the challenge has been to round up the family, which is still reading Harry Potter, sleeping or causing mischief.

Finally we have spent an evening taming the tent in the wilds of Dulwich, hence the reference to nature, which is fantastic, racing against the clock to beat the rain, the tent is straight forward to put up and spacious and fits back into its bag!

Oh and its easy to take down, perhaps more importantly Harry Potter has been finished.

Tent bits, kipple and blink....

The quantity of tent related stuff in my hall is growing. Like kipple it is taking over, filling all the available space and has begun a slow directionless migration to all points various.

The worst thing is it's stealthy advance, it moves when you are not looking, bit like Dr Who, blink and you miss it! The individual parts are cunningly disguised as cardboard boxes, except for the carpet, which refuses to be contained and is leaking from its box a little bit more each day… the carpet is the piece to watch its much more clever than the rest, including the wardrobe that came with the tent!.

Tonight I will glory in the in the ripping away of the cardboard,a frenzy of recycling that will make me feel good! A stripping away if its boxy camouflage in an attempt to contain it in the hall for a short time, before I trap it in the car…

I might need help.

Story of the apathetic blogger...

After a great dinner with friends last night, Sophies Steakhouse, Fulham Road, where I had the swordfish and at which we debated the merits of blogging and why some do and some don't. Mostly apathy or a desire for anonymity, but mostly apathy... I felt inspired to think about it a little more.

And so today I've found an easy, perhaps not the best, but lets see, path of least resistance to writing a blog.

However it wasn't the dinner conversation that prompted me to write today. Nor the fact that I am about to finish a 3 month contract and will find myself with free time, no obligations to work or customer deadlines to meet. Just being able to stop, do a bit of navel gazing and have a holiday for as long as I want.

No, it was trying to work out how I was going to get the carpet (more on that in a moment) that came with my tent back into the box it came in, a desire to work out why so many objects are packed in such a way that you can't put them back into the box they came in once you have taken them out.

I'm dreading putting up 42kg of tent and finding that when it all has to be packed up I won't be able to get it back into the car. Even though I will be able to put the car in the tent if all else fails! A car that I can drive onto the carpet, which this huge tent includes.