Today I am 50.5 years old. I have an amazing bloke, with three incredible grown up kids between us. We have a lovely home, both run our own respective creative businesses and various joint ventures, including a very cute holiday cottage. We have a car, four cats, a day job each, great family and a brilliant group of friends. We are fit (ish) and healthy for our age. It's all great. So why the fuck am I so fed up and snappy all the time?
I'll tell you why. It's because I'm crap at being perfect. How do people have 'perfect' lives without constantly wearing themselves out? My 'lovely' home is always a shit tip. My office is a disgrace to organisation. I forget appointments, or turn up early or late. I can never find anything. Always too much to do, so nothing ever gets done properly, or in order, if it gets done at all.
Don't get me wrong, where my commissioned work is concerned, if I'm working, I'm on it. I love my design work, same goes for my day job in the Post Office. I get into work mode and that's it. I know what I have to do and get on with it. It's everything else that's the trouble - the stuff that comes with no instructions. It's like I can't take my own direction. Always full of good intentions, my diary is full of never ending lists and tedious jobs and chores. They get ticked off eventually, but never in the right order, and stuff carries over to the next page for days at a time. The worst thing is about this is, I set myself rules. Tough ones. I have to finish all of the tedium list before I can allow myself some proper creative time. This is not good.
There's this flower. It's pink and pale, and I can just see it through the branches of a thorny hedge. It needs moving to a place with more light, but the only way I can reach it to do so is to reach through the thorny hedge. And I've got bare arms. It bloody hurts, and I keep trying, but those goddam thorns keep scratching, and I can't be arsed to go and put some gloves and sleeves on. So the flower stays where it is, in the shade, never reaching it's full glory, and I can't stop thinking about it. But I still can't be arsed to get the gloves, cos they'll be somewhere stupid or inaccessible under some stuff I haven't put away properly. That flower is my creativity. That thorny hedge is the tedious shit.
So, the hedge has to go. I need that pink flower in my (obviously half-finished) garden.
This weekend we started cutting it down. We being Dad Pete, Gary and me. Starting with the Swinton branch.
Our cottage in the Borders, Whippet Lodge, is the epitome of everything I've just described. Unfinished jobs abound. We can't let it out until it's in a fit state to do so. My dad despairs of Gary's and my illogical way of doing things. We can't help it, we just go gung-ho into starting things without the proper preparation and thought. It's just how we are. We spend more time discussing the best way to do something than we do actually doing it. But we have to change.
I for one am totally fed up of being like this. Wallpapering that has taken so long that the much needed, final, fashionable-at-the-time roll we want is now discontinued. Weedblock sheeting that has been down for over a year with no gravel on top now has so much soil and debris blown on to it the weeds are growing on the surface. I mean, what's the point? Yeah there have been very good reasons we haven't been able to finish some jobs. Work commitments, lack of budget, fair enough. But fannying around because we can't find our arses with both hands is no excuse.
So this visit we were determined. It was a tying up loose ends weekend. We have bleached, mowed, drilled, hammered, sweated, scrubbed, swept, wept, bickered, argued, sworn and ached through those two days. We must have lost half a stone each. Thank god for the Kinks keeping us motivated. Just.
I'm not gonna go into massive detail about what we did, but here's a few photos. Note: Sid's beautiful laser cut name plaque finally on the wall, just awaiting new bolt fittings and Iain and Sandra next door came up trumps again by giving us a rocking chair. Mirrors and pictures actually on walls where they belong - out of danger of getting smashed, doors that close properly, a working cold tap in the kitchen, and amongst many other things... holy of holies... A TOILET SEAT!!
It's a start! A start down my 110th journey down the road of organisation, that leads to the city of reinvention. I've travelled this way many times but never end up staying long. This time it will be different...
Actually, I say going to the cottage was the start of all of this Getting Things Done palava, but it wasn't. Last week, Gary's D.L.I E.P. was finally sent for pressing. It's been sat in a computer folder for ages, as has the cover artwork, but now it is on it's way! It's a bit weird going back to work we did so long ago, but I really enjoyed revisiting those illustrations. I did a lot of the From Coalfield To Battlefield artwork when my Mam was very ill, and the Jimmy Durham portrait on the E.P. cover was done when Gary and I were in Germany two weeks after she passed away. I just couldn't work in colour during those times, all of the DLI stuff is in black and white. I'm so glad I'm past that stage now. Colour is good. Makes me realise how I've moved on. Time does indeed help with the healing. Fantastically, pre orders for the E.P. are better than we could ever have imagined. Gary is totally blown away by the response. This is a really special project for both of us, as we both have family connections with the D.L.I., namely my Granda Wilf 'Pip' Temperley and Gary's great uncles Joe and George Mains.
In other artwork and design related news this week, the website I designed for Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds went live, and it looks lovely, I'm really pleased with how it turned out, check it out below:
I was also excited to be asked to design a website for another musician, this time the lovely Johnny Campbell. I've got some stunning images and photos to work with for this one. It's in the very early stages, but I'm hoping it's going to turn out a belter. Updates as they happen, but for now you can listen to (and buy!) Johnny's music here:
You may remember from a previous blog entry, Peasants, Ducks and Rain, from 23rd June, that Gary and I have been working with Durham Based, award winning film company Lone Pine Pictures. Film-maker Paul Stainthorpe is currently working on some promotional material for their up-coming documentary 'The Butcher Baronet', and asked if he could use elements of my John Duck illustration. Of course I said yes, and happily sent him my ginormous 62 layer Photoshop file to dissect as he pleased ha ha. Not sure if he laughed or cried, but I'll share the finished thing once I'm able. I get to draw another raven for this one, as the existing one doesn't quite fit, so I'm happy with that. I find drawing birds very satisfying.
Staying in Durham, on the 11th July, in the run up to the 135th Durham Miner's Gala, Gary and I went to see the fantastic Hayley McKay and David Neil Crabtree at The People's Bookshop on Saddler Street in Durham City. We love the bookshop, gigs there are great as they're so intimate, cosy and relaxed. Hayley is Gary's half cousin (her dad Stuart is Gary's cousin on his Dad's side) and we are really excited that she is going to be performing the female lead parts in Gary's stage performance of his mega-project Mad Martins at the City Theatre, Durham, on Saturday 5th October as part of the Durham Book Festival.
Hayley's music is Country-based, and her emotive, heartfelt and technically fantastic vocal delivery of both classic Country standards, such as Jolene and Harvest Moon, as well as her own wonderful compositions are a joy to behold. We love Hayley! David is Hayley's partner, and an incredible vocalist, musician and singer/songwriter, both solo and in his brilliant band The Mentulls. Check them both out if you get chance. A super talented couple if ever there was one!
Incidentally, David has just opened a new, intimate music venue in Pickering, North Yorkshire called The Cockpit. Gary is playing a solo gig there on Thursday 15th August, and Hayley is playing 2nd August, so grab tickets if you fancy joining us at either or both of these gigs. Tickets are available via the Cockpit website, link below:
So, the 135th Anniversary of the Durham Miner's Gala happened on 13th July, and we were proud to march in the procession with the Ferryhill Banner Group, carrying both the Mainsforth and Dean and Chapter banners, led by Gary's very own brass supergroup the Ferryhill Town Band! We had a brilliant day, despite the showers, with our usual crew plus some more than welcome new faces. After leaving the cricket ground, we stopped off for a couple at our old stomping ground, The Angel Inn, before finishing off, rather wobbilily at The King's Lodge. Gary played a few songs despite the celebratory din, which culminated in his rousing rendition of Scottish folk song MacPherson's Lament especially for Heather, as it tells the true story of one of her ancestors, James MacPherson, who was hanged as an outlaw in 1700, and which was met with some fantastic bawdy backing vocals. Needless to say, the bus station was like Sodom and Gomorrah, so we got a taxi home, and as is only correct after The Big Meeting, collapsed into bed snoring.
Well, for someone who was blogging about getting nowt done, I seem to have got a lot done. I suppose it's a matter of perspective, and not trying to be super human. Typing all of this up has given me a bit of perspective. Thank you listeners. You are my silent counsellors! Sorry this one has been a bit late. Have a brilliant week, and I'll update you on my 50.5th birthday do. As well as have a bit of a moan, I imagine. xx
Credits:
Helen Temperley, Gary Milletr