Entertainment with a message - and an edge

The kids and I were privileged to be in the audience of Lupe Fiasco on Friday evening. It was a huge audience for the Jazz World stage, one of the smaller stages.
This young hip hop artist delivered an entertaining set and gave a passionate speech about Bush and Mugabe, and proclaimed that hip hop deserves its place on the stages of Glastonbury.
The crowd, my kids and me too, we all agreed.

(catch the performance on You Tube)

My first Glastonbury

So I left on Thursday after picking the kids up from school and started the three hour drive to the site of Glastonbury 2008. Headliner Jay Z.
We had a smooth run (after a short whinge from my son that he didn't have his Nintendo DS) and queued for about an hour before being directed into a field for parking.
Then began the first of many long walks - about two miles - to the site carrying heavy bags to our tent. My hubby and brother had gone up ahead and pitched tents, something that had not been easy. Imagine having to walk back three miles because you left something behind.
A beer on the busy food field sorted out my slight fatigue, and I declined my brother's offer of strawberry cider as I'm not a fan of sweet drinks.
That night, in tents, the rain lashed down. The wind blew. And a boy and girl tried to pitch their tent. And people ran around drinking and shouting. Our tent was lovely and dry.
The next night, a group of young men and a girl pitched right next to us, and began a three day binge.
I got back to find they had rigged up a tarpaulin using my tent as stability, taken a couple of tent pegs, and helped themselves to other people's guy ropes and chairs.
I began removing their tarpaulin and a guy jumped out. Then my hubby came back and took over. The young man sort of had a hissy fit and said we were being unreasonable. We agreed to move our tent over and D sorted out their tarpaulin so that they had an entrance to their lair. We don't mind sharing but...
Music was good, saw Kate Nash and my kids' favourite, Lupe Fiasco the hip hop guy.
The next night in the tent was not good. They were on substances to keep them awake all night, before resuming drinking and smoking in the morning.
I think I got about 30 mins sleep that night.
We also found out that theft was a problem, my brother had £50 taken from his jeans and my wellies got stolen from outside the tent. (disaster in the mud!)
That apart, it was a fantastic weekend and I recommend everyone to go once - but don't take anything of any value!

Elvis isn't dead

Went to watch my 12 year old son perform in a school concert tonight. It was the sort of thing I used to dread when they were younger, but now I don't get to go to that many (very few actually) and every day is a sort of battleground between the generations, I truly relished tonight's show.
In typical school style, there were a couple of cool things on the programme, a couple of geeky things and then the just plain naff.
My son was in the naff category: his class got to sing Chitty Chitty bang bang wearing flat caps and home made car wheels. But they looked cute.

While other lucky people got to sing the very wonderful Elvis isn't Dead by Scouting for Girls.
Just fantastic.

Bubbleacious

I got some old bubbles out that I have had since the children were young, and found that they still worked.
It was a mad moment - I'm getting ready for Glastonbury at the weekend, cooking and cleaning for hours a day and also playing "smily hostess" to our French visitor.
We eat too early for him - 6pm instead on 9pm - so he wasn't that hungry.

Oh well, at least he likes my cooking and eats everything. Makes cooking worthwhile, I think.

A great British breakfast

Our first 24 hours with M, the French student, have gone well.
I met him from the coach (once I'd established the right person) and then we went for a pizza before joining a load of teenagers for bowling in town.
The ten pin bowling arena is a hellhole of blaring music, bouncers, flashing lights and overweight parents outside in the smoking area (no offence) swearing at their own children. Classy. Vicky Pollard springs to mind.
My daughter didn't want my hubby and I to stay (she's at the "you're so embarrassing") stage.
So we watched Croatia against Turkey at the local pub (on the screen I mean) and I people watched for a couple of hours.
This morning my hubby cooked a great British breakfast; eggs, organic bacon and sausages, beans and toast.
M commented that the food was good, but he had heard that cooked English breakfasts were awful. Well they are in many a cafe or service station, as many of us know. In fact, there's nothing worse than a greasy fry up.

Our language has turned to Franglais, which in the case of my hubby is a dodgy mix of Inspector Clouseau style French mixed with Liverpool.
Also, we find ourselves telling silly stories, like the one about the peregrine falcon that my hubby D took 20 long minutes over.
Martin was spellbound.

I miss my dog so much

I can still hear her, feel her, smell her...but it's in my imagination as she's gone.

Getting ready for a French invasion

Have been frantically cleaning the last few days, as my daughter's French correspondant is joining us from Paris for six days. They are being whisked around the country by coach - the delights of Oxford, Stratford and Wales' very own Big Pit, and a quick jaunt to London before they get back on the Eurostar.
We spend the weekend together, and have to think of an outing that's fun for a 13 year old.
Alton Towers sounds like a nightmare, but you get the idea...
But a trip to Birmingham's own Ladypool Road, home of the balti and table naan, could be on the cards.

Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu

So said a letter from a 57-year-old reader in a rather homely women's magazine.
She was saying how much she had enjoyed an issue in which hunky guys were featured and one was on the front cover.
She has a point. Women like to look at guys as much as men like to appreciate women throughout their lives. It's just that society/the media doesn't allow it.

More work on P

Another oil painting class yesterday and more work on my painting of life model P. Which means more frustration as my colours are a bit cool.
A lady I have started to get to know blurted out (quietly) to P that she thought he had a great body. She wondered whether he was single.
It sounded as though he wasn't. Oh dear.

Careers Advice Needed

My nephew graduated last year with a 2.1 in philosophy/law. (more philosophy than law) and he's still doing what I call "bitty jobs."
Working in a bar, supermarket, all part time stuff. I suggested to him that he apply for some graduate training programmes which he is doing, but they're not easy to get onto.
I've had a go at persuading him to do accountancy, as I read it was in demand. I wasn't bowled over by his enthusiasm.
Anyone got any advice?

What not to wear

Trinny and Susannah would have a field day with me. Today, I'm wearing unflattering sandals, no nail varnish, and an apron.
But it's because I'm working with plaster outside. I'm blessed with a teenage daughter with a great fashion sense, who can knock years off my age without taking me to the realms of the embarrassing. I may spend time in Top Shop et al but I refuse to wear those glitzy, ditzy little bits of fabric.
I know what Trinny and Susannah et al are saying: I agree that us British ladies are probably the worst dressed around.
You see ladies of other nationalities in town and working in the stores, and they seem so stylish: hair swept up, make up etc. Too glam for ToolsRUs etc.

Dilemma

I'm trying to do my own work as an artist but it's not exactly fast progress. I'm doing one lady's portrait, she's not available for another sitting until July 4th, and I only get a few hours in the week to do the work.
I've been considering doing some teaching and I could probably do that very part time. But the other thing I have looked at is using art therapy with dementia patients, a post which has been advertised. The only thing is, when you look into some of the behaviours associated with dementia it's clearly a demanding role.
I have read of wandering, abuse hurling, physical things etc.
Yet art and music are known to help sufferers and are used to stimulate the parts of the mind that are still accessible.
Just mulling it all over, really.
So often, when people teach, they say their own work goes out the window. Yet creativity is essentially there to share.

Guys and perfect buns

When I arrived at oil painting class today, I groaned when I found out it was a life class. Drawing the figure is just the most difficult, tedious thing. (I think).
But when I found out the model was a guy, not that old, and in fact he had a great body and was to post naked in a "manly" pose, I perked up considerably.
Luckily, I had the back view, and the model really did have a perfect behind, almost as though it had been carved.
Not that I told him that, though.

Banning negative thoughts

I just had a negative thought and then quickly banished it, as instructed to do by the Secret. Also, my anti-sadness thought at the moment is to picture Vince from the Mighty Boosh (aka Noel Fielding) in his platforms saying: "Hi, Gary," to Gary Numan.

Summing up the Secret

Finally got around to watching The Secret, that film about "getting what you want in life."
Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought, although it could be summed up in two words: Think Positive.
I liked the idea of focussing on something that you want and then visualising it. I decided to try something achievable, like a fitness drive, so a picture of Elle MacPherson is going on the fridge. The idea being, my figure starts to look like hers..

And God Created Woman

At sculpture today I had to model a Brigitte Bardot pose for a lady who's sculpting her. It was a sultry, seated pose when Brig was in her heyday. Tough act to follow, but an excuse to buy capri pants and kitten heels.

Farewell Lucy all my love xxx

Hello darkness my old friend

It's horrible right now. I'm waiting three hours until the vet comes to put Lucy, my 16 year old collie mix, to sleep.
Old age, arthritis and incontinence has taken a grip. She came into our lives when I was still a young thing, even before having children. She used to love collecting sticks and annoying builders and all visitors with them in her younger days, depositing them gently at people's feet.
She was Lucy Dog when the kids were little, not the brightest dog (it was the red setter in her) she would bark at nothing for hours sometimes.
But fun, warm and lively, lots of happy memories.