JasonBlog

Blurry beaches, close up thumbs, dogs and wonderful images...

Last night was spent looking through hundreds of images from the One Day for Newbiggin project. After weeks and weeks, the postman finally delivered all of the photos that were taken by the disposable cameras. The labs have taken ages to process them, and when they eventually arrived, they were on 15 CDs, each one containing images from multiple cameras. Each camera containing up to 27 images.

The act of looking at them was a bit like secretly searching through someone's private life. There were images of grown men in the bath, people making their dinner, tending their gardens, watching TV, sleeping on sofas, lying in bed, reading books, cleaning the toilet and many many other things too.

Themes emerged. Newbiggin people LOVE their dogs. They also enjoy wearing sports clothing whilst strenuously avoiding a sporting lifestyle. They enjoy large yorkshire puddings (including the biggest and best I've ever seen, served to the folks at Beachville Care Home), and much gravy on their food. They enjoy photographing road signs, cups of tea, dirty dishes, horses and allotments.

There are some unique images - some of which will soon be online - particularly of the older residents of the village. And when I've finished looking through all of them the fun begins. At the end of November there's an exhibition of some of these images at The Church Cenre in Newbiggin, then next year there's a 3 month exhibition at Woodhorn Colliery Museum, which will now coincide with the launch of the book - should we get funding (£10,000). We have, unfortunately missed the publishing deadline for a Christmas launch - we didn't get notice of the funding, or these final images in time to get the artwork done and off to China for printing. But hey - we might do a 2008 Calendar instead to keep the momentum going.

So I'll let you know when there's more to see, and you'll be able to see it at www.onedayfornewbiggin.co.uk.

Random holiday reactions and thoughts

Well I finally had enough time to get round to this. Last week's holiday was great fun, and a wonderful opportunity for a change of scenery. And the scenery was lovely woodland full of fluffy and feathery wildlife, so how lovely it was. Here's a rundown of the highlights in no particular order:

On check-in, after a nice drive across the hills and a stop off at the Hatside Top Cafe - we immediately saw red squirrels frolicking by the side of the road - including and a dead one that looked very freshly dead. I asked Toni to pick it up and bring it into the car so we could give it to a member of staff in case foul play or a rare squirrel disease was to blame, but she thought it would make us look suspicious so didn't.

While we waited in the queue in the car, we made up silly rude names for mushrooms and stuff we could see, mostly because I don't know what the real names are, and if you can get Foxgloves, it seems equally plausible that you can get Fairies Knickers, Gnomes Balls and Elf's Bottoms. Oliver though, went a little too far, and started using proper medical terms and we had to change the game, even though it was even funnier.

It was nice exploring the new place and surrounding woods - nice wooden lodges in lovely woodland.

The simple pleasures are often the best - the kids (including me) love feeding the animals and birds, and they're so used to people living amongst them that they're really tame. Rabbits, red squirrels, mice, woodpeckers, pheasant, and stuff like that. They all like peanuts.

I hid the contents of a box of Celebrations in the trees and undergrowth around the lodge, and the kids had a treasure hunt. The great thing about this game is that they never know when it's finished, and you can draw it our for hours insisting they still haven't found the Special Prize.

On the first night we watched Spirited Away with the kids. This is an amazing, and very very strange, film. Beautifully animated, a bizarre fairy story from Japan. Strange doesn't get close. No need for drugs with this movie - but suitable for kids and very entertaining.

One night we had an evening barbeque, and the kids had glow sticks which they used as lightsabres in the woods whilst the food was being cooked by Ian. We had home made burgers, pork and beef kebabs, and toasted marshmallows. And a fair bit of wine. And some cakes. And mint matchmakers. Great night.

One afternoon we Thompsons had a half hour in a kata-kanu. This is two canoes joined together side by side. We paddled around the still, crystal clear lake, and it was like a summer's day. Katrin insisted that paddling faster on the left made the canoe turn left, and was in quite a mood when I tried to persuade her it didn't. This wore off though. Some people in smaller canoes got very very wet.

The great thing about this type of holiday is the free swimming. We went every day, including the last day which we don't often do. It's a good pool with many many little areas and spas and bridhes and nooks and crannies. Too many actiallu - very easy to lose each other. There's also an outside pool which is beautifully warm once you're in, but you have to walk through a specially chilled area of open land about 300 metres long in order to get to it. Coming out again is even worse, and takes some stamina. There are also a couple of slide rides, and I only went on one of them - the kids spent a lot of time on these. I swallowed much water.

One day we had a spooky carriage ride on a horse and cart. The driver, who I believe was actually Peter Kay, was dressed like a posh Zombie, and told us all about Mickey the horse (who wore devil horns) and his honeymoon in China, from which he had returned only the previous evening.

Drinking coffee and eating chocolate whilst reading Bill Bryson is about as chilled as it gets, and his Thunderbolt Kid boo is excellent.

One evening the Thompsons and de'Wessingtons went bowling - and our kids were quite tired so got a bit grumpy. We played rather poorly, but it's not about playing well, it's about having a laugh. Sophie's playing nhad to be seen to be believed. It was like she could almost throw a ball in any direction and it would still end up getting a strike. I don't think I got a single one. She'd had two in her first three goes.

I enjoyed a bit of gentle ukulele playing - mainly learning the Black Orpheus theme music.

The Lakeside Lodge was the venue for the final evening's meal, which was great fun, even though we had to wait a bit for a table. The place was busy, but we had a drink on the terrace first, then the meal inside was good. The kids drew silly pictures with crayons. We sang along to the juke box. I had an excellent mixed grill with a very spicy pepper sauce. And a lovely syrup sponge with custard. And a bottle of sparkling rose.

Here's something you have to try once before you die - and it may be the thing that finishes a few of you off. Drunk, very fast, pitch black bike riding along narrow wooded roads. Worth a go.

Centre Parks

And that's how it SHOULD be spelled.

I've put a photo gallery on my FaceBook [click here] with a sample of some of the bits of the holiday I could be bothered to photograph. None of the splashy swimming fun is represented for reasons of safety and humiliation avoidance.

And there are no photos of the epic Lakeside Lodge Meal because they were taken on a different camera, and we were a bit too drunk to take pictures in focus. Best left to memory - of which we have very little but mainly positive.

I hope soon to follow up this post with some holiday highlights and observations, but for now, good night.

Interim blog

Hi. I've just returned from a lovely break in Cumbria, and thought I'd break the blog ice with a quick post - haven't time to do a proper one just now, but wanted to put something new up on my return. In brief - we had a great time at the Center Parcs (I deeply resent having to spell both of those words that way incidentally, brand name or not) and I'm looking forward to sleeping on a comfortable bed tonight - the rather lumpy mattresses being probably the only thing I'd take issue with over the past few days.

Returned to a full post bag - some good stuff, some bad stuff, some cheques, some bills, some trash, some statements, and a Stylophone - so a mixed bag there.

I will miss feeding red squirrels over the next few days, and probably also trying to light a supposedly flammable log that was surprisingly hard to burn - but more on this and other important topics of news and current affairs when I have a chance to gather my thoughts and photos.

I bet you never even realised I'd been away. Missed you too. x

Tom's Poetry

I was doing a photo shoot yesterday of the people who had won the Couple Poetry competition that has been running throughout the summer. The result is a lovely little booklet that features the nine winning poems, and ten of my photographs taken throughout the summer to go with them - available from many Newbiggin shops free soon).

The winning poet was an elderly gentleman called Tom Nesbit, a prolific writer from Ashington. I took a photograph of him with his wife in their living room, and was very pleased with the result. He read his poem to us - one of many hundreds spanning over 20 years of writing with the Ashington Writers Group (echoing the Pitmen Painters - something I must write about in a seperate blog - following from an excellent play I saw a couple of nights ago that tells their story).

I love the faces of old people, and would love the opportunity to work with them more, photographing them and hearing their stories.

Here is Tom's poem - By the Edge of the Sea:

In morning's light
a fabulous shore of quiet
sand stretched before us.
An ebb tide left our bare feet
imprints, a thin line of shingle
to dry under a fragmented sky.
Five geese cranked their way to
breeding grounds, across a world
of seeming emptiness.

Sea winds pierced our solitude.
Sand between our toes
more definite,
a wet hem slapped against her
legs whilst my rolled up trousers
no longer gave us cause
for laughter.

A brooding background
of pounding breakers
together with a cloistered
sense of reverence
made us turn, retrace our
non-existent prints
as though we had never been
in such idyllic times of but an
hour's history.

Post 892

I began this blog about two and a half years ago, in May 2005. This in my 892nd post, and it has made me think about how to celebrate the 1000th post - so I thought I'd throw it open and ask what you'd like to see or read on that milestone blog.

It also made me think about what I write here these days. When I bega I was determined to make the posts different and entertaining. I wanted it to be a mixture of journal, fun, serious, trivial, creative stuff and thought provoking stuff, and just an outpouring of whatever I wanted to express at the time. Obviously I haven't comke close to achieving this, and I think my worst posts have been the "sorry I'm too busy and stressed at the moment to write anything more readable but I'll moan about my lot in life anyway" kind.

Almost entirely absent recently are the more creative and deliberately amusing posts which I enjoyed doing. And I wish I could be bothered to do more in-depth reviews of films I've just seen, or books or songs or other stuff I've experienced and want to write about. Even if I haven't enjoyed something, there's usually something to say about it - my reasons for not liking something show as much about me as talking about stuff I love.

There's also more competition for my online time. Facebook is great, and it's a different online experience, but every time I log in there are 20 new notifications and a dozen invitations to be bitten by a vibrating sheep, or someone's thrown a wet nappy at me, or sent me a Sex on the Beach. I wish I had more time - and I still have never successfully found another of my friends online in the Social Chat application - which is potentially one of the more useful ones. It is however a great way of getting a slight overview of how your online friends are getting on, and whether they're smug or stressed about something.

So coming up to 1000 posts, and I feel that I should put more thought into what is displayed here at Jason Blog. I'd like to do more posts that have something to say, even if they're really short. In fact short posts are good - they're quick to write, quick to read, and if done well can be just as thought provoking, challenging or entertaining - and anyway it's involving people in feedback that really interests me anyway - getting a bit of interaction.

So do respond - especially if you read this regularly but have never yet responded with a comment. I'd be interested to hear about what you'd prefer to read about here - especially for the post that's now only 7 posts away.

Introducing the Little Monsters

This is the first proper rehearsal for the band that includes Katrin on drums, Oliver on sax, John on trumpet and Kieran on electric guitar.

Cutest little vermin in the world

Whilst getting ready after showering this morning I heard some of Katrin and Oliver's friends in the front garden, in a state of some excitement. They had found a little mouse, still alive, that must have been recently deposited there by one of our cats. At first I was a bit worried that the kids might do something cruel to the little terrified creature, but I need not have worried. Their only concern was to get the mouse out of the garden and off to freedom and safety.

I joined them as the mouse ran and hid under my car, five children crowding around and trying to get it out and away from the cats. I used a little fish tank that Rebecca had won on Hook a Duck a few weeks ago on Lifeboat Day, and the tiny Field Mouse was soon chased along the kerb and into the small plastic tank.

He (might be a she but for convenience we're assuming he's a male) looked very very tiny and scared and a bit scruffy, as if he'd just been in a cat's mouth. We decided to call him Lucky, and give him some of our pet mouse's food. The kids said goodbye to him and went off to school, as I promised them that I wouldn't set him free until they had got home again.

So I filled a bottle cap with water for him, added a little sawdust bedding to his tank, and took him upstairs, where he sat on my desk this morning while I worked. He seemed to calm down very quickly, and even showed an interest in what I was doing as I typed away on my computer. He didn't seem frightened or shy, and sat and washed his fluffy little face and stared up at me. I can't adequately convey how very very tiny he is. We think he's a very young mouse - possibly only a few weeks old. And he's a cutie, even though he is technically vermin and in another context (i.e. if he'd been found inside our house) would probably have been destroyed if the cats hadn't got to him first. So that's why he's called Lucky.

I know that Liz would be one of the first to tempt him with peanut butter, and then snap his back with a high tension sprung trap, but I just think he's ovely, and the kids were back from school earlier than they have ever been to see him again.

Obviously we'll have to let him go again, even though Rebecca especially is pleading with us to le him stay. So we'll wait until tomorrow then decide where to take him. I think anywhere near us and he'll soon find his way back to our door, either on his own, or with the help of one of our cats, minus his fluffy little face. So we think we'll take him to Gran and Grandma's so he can enjoy their sea front garden and bird table full of food. He'll have lots of friends, and good luck to him. Little Lucky chap.

Interpretation please

Last night I dreamed that I had  lost my tongue whilst sleeping. It had either fallen out, or been stolen. I looked on the floor under the bed, and there was no tongue there - although the floor was covered in cat food. Then a little later, in the house I lived in from birth to 16 years old, I busied myself hanging trailing plants around the walls.

The night before I dreamed that I was doing video interviews with the crew of the newly built and recently relaunched Titanic. None of us thought that naming another ship Titanic was in any way a bad omen, and we sailed on through incredibly rough seas towards an unknown destination, unafraid.

At least they're not dreams about teaching, sitting an exam that I haven't studied for, or doing an important gig with only half a drum kit, which are my three most common dreams.

Marching, marching, marching, marching, marching...

On Sunday afternoon I went swimming with Toni and our three kids. We opted for Concordia Leisure Pool in Cramlington which is the nearest pool that is 'a fun shape'. It doesn't have a wave machine or slides, and scrapes into the Leisure Pool category due to it's vaguely curvy contours and manky pretend palm trees.
I remember when Concordia opened in the mid seventies. My school sent a representative class to the opening ceremony, and I was one of them. The Queen and Prince Philip were there and they walked past all us children who had been lined up around the big field which is now a retail park. I was standing roughly where Halfords now is - probably in the roofbox department. One of the girls in my class actually touched The Queen and gave her a rose wrapped in tin foil. Her picture appeared in the local paper as a result, and I'm sure she was set for a better life after that. Or maybe that was the high point...
Anyway, Concordia at the time was, to me a wide eyed six or seven year old, a rather exotic place. The pool looked like a tropiical paradise, and we jealously peered through the amazing round windows at the pool surrounded by lush tropical greenery. In those days there were diving boards and a small slide too.
Anyway these days it has Wet and Wild and the like to compete with, so my kids don't have the romantic view of it I did. But they really love swimming, and I usually enjoy it more than I think I'm going to, apart from the cramped cold indignity of the changing facilities which are universally unpleasant wherever you go.
Whie we were there, there was lots of bustle and activity in the main sports hall. Today was some kind of regional Marching Band competition, and busloads of rather aggressive youths - mostly girls but a fair gang of lads too - dressed in terrible brightly coloured vaguely military themed costumes - were there either getting ready to perform, or smoking outside with their tattooed families. Some of the lads looked like the sort who would, perhaps when dressed normally, perform acts of violence on younger, weaker youths. Especially if they were seen in their Marching Band gear. It was a weird sight and at the end as we were leaving, some of the parents carried armfuls of plastic trophies and medals back to the waiting buses.
I wish we'd seen the actual marching. I don't know if they played any instruments - I didn't see any. I wasn't aware there was this sort of activity still going on at this stage of the 21st century. It was a world completely foreign to me. One of tall feathered hats and turquoise draylon and chin straps and shiny tap shoes and trousers with stirrups and satin sashes. And lots and lots and lots of plastic awards.