INDIAN THINGS

You would smile a HUGE smile if you saw where I was typing this right here right now. 


Gokarna is a colourful and textural paradise. 

Photographs cannot completely capture the atmosphere (the smells, the noise, the dust) but I am so excited to use them as inspiration for my new work which I need to crack on with as soon as I get home, OH MY GOODNESS!  I mean look at this...

Camels, cows, dogs, colour, people, Saris, Pilgrims, smiling children... It goes on and on... I am in LOVE.

It is rather difficult to imagine the process of Embroidererererereding to say the least... I have not made a piece of artwork for 6 months and I have a solo show coming up in 5 months.  It is quite a daunting task at hand especially with no flat, no studio and a life of boxes in my Dad's old dairy. 

Anyway, back to where I am sat ... right here right now....Picture this ...
I am sitting in a bamboo hut which is pretty much falling apart and is right next to the sea on a long white sandy beach.  The Internet sign is half tacked on to the outside wall facing the sea and the roof looks like it will blow off any minute and has plastic bottles decorating the protruding bamboo bits.


You walk in and there are little wooden tables and big chairs so your knees are above the keyboard.  There is an inefficient fan and old sheets lining the walls and quite frankly I am sweating rather a lot.  I am rather looking forward to being cold and wearing a woolly hat.  Or am I?  


OK ... enough ..... heres a treat - 
This ones dedicated to my brother.  Golly Gosh Pants... I wish you were here.

How Classic is that?  It was worth coming all this way.... 

Strange things happen and it just becomes normal.


I was sitting on our balcony last night when F ran out to announce that there was a scorpion in the bathroom. 
Not another strange creature! Not another near death experience with entertaining Mother Nature! 
We ran in (when all I wanted to do was run out) to the Bathroom, this being a toilet and a bucket and a tap. 
As we stood tiptoed and poked our head round the door to our toilet, like two little girls, F pointed out the pale yellow scorpion shape at the back of the toilet rim. 

I didn't have my bloody glasses on so couldn't see the damn thing clearly in the dim light, so, we grabbed my camera and zoomed in.  In studying the photos we identified it as, yes a scorpion.... but the question was ... Was it Dead or ALIVE? 

What to do?

Realising the seriousness of our situation we decided to look at each other and squeal a bit.  We wondered if we needed help but when F ran to find anyone, no one was there.  We looked at each other and then back at the thing. This went on a few minutes, keeping a corner of eye on the thing at all times and quietly imagining how close ones bottom may have been near it. 

We had a very serious discussion about the dangers of having a questionable scorpion thing under the loo seat, for a few moments and slowly I came to the realisation that YES! We needed to do something. 
We needed to see if it was dead or alive. 

I decided that I needed shoes for this situation. 

I grabbed the relevant weapons for my task.  A large piece of rolled up toilet paper, my lighter with torch attachment ( brilliant invention) and a pen knife. I took charge. 

"Oh my Goddd!  Another one!" Fanny shouted as I got close to the toilet.

"Only joking!"

Another fit of squeals.
After a fit of giggles, despite this near death experience, I slowly returned to the toilet one step at a time. 
Carefully I shone the light on the beast and then stretched out, having a closer inspection. It hadn't moved at all so I leaned in over the toilet to give it a minuscule poke with my lighter.... aware that at any moment it might jump in my hair or down my T-shirt.


It was dead.


In fact it was a a shadow of the former scorpion and was actually just the crusty shell it had recently and casually shed before we Fanny found it as she spat her toothpaste into the toilet.


SO WHERE WAS IT NOW?  A vivid imagination is not a great asset at this point.


However, I have learnt to sleep in situations like this.  
Its uncanny what you can get used to.






Lou always now check the loo Gardinelly.