Work - at last. [# 13]
This last week I ended house-sitting where I'd been staying for the last month. It was a great find and valuable for me in that it gave me space and freedom to look for work. I've been studying Maya (3d modelling and animation package) but this'll take a while to learn fully. If ever. My laptop can handle it but I think my brain would need a faster processor with extra RAM and a larger hard disc.
The picturesque coastline north of Wellington
Working by myself was good discipline but after a few weeks I got tired of my own conversation - I always know what the answers are going to be. It was handy then that a friend was looking for somewhere to stay so she came to stay at Stokes Valley with me since there was plenty of space. Michaela is a landscape architect and was basically in the same boat as me - in town, no job and needing somewhere to stay. It was nice to have some company and to share cooking tasty meals. She had a van which had plenty of character - pot plants on the dash, hanging baskets full of herbs and spices, bamboo map shelf etc! We drove up the picturesque Karori coast on Sunday and ejoyed a welcome change of scenery.
Michaela using my laptop
Michaela's van and the Kapiti Coast.
Unfortunately she didn't capture my double back flip dismount.
Now I'm staying with Val's daughter's family about 20k's from Wellington (we measure things in kilogrammes, kilometres and dollars here in New Zealand - anathema to my English family back home!) Mike and Christine have a 90 acre plot and heard I needed somewhere to stay so kindly let me stay - I'd previously done work in Christine's mum's garden so there's a few more projects ready to start in exchange for my food and board. The property has pigs, sheep, goats and chickens as well as numerous fruit trees, veges and herbs. My first meal was a delicious collection of one of the recently despatched lambs' innards consisting of liver, kidney, heart and testicles. Not something I particularly make a point of hunting out but actually not bad.
But the significant news is that I've had my first days of paid professional work. Hurray. At last. It's not a permanent job but looks like it may be ongoing at 2 or 3 days a week. I'd phoned a few publishers and a small one had just lost their designer who'd left because his wife had just had a baby. She gave me a chance and we decided to see how things would go. On my first day she briefed me and got me going designing an 80 page childrem's book and she then asked me to come back for the next few days so I must have done something right.
Other things are moving onwards too - I'm also producing some mock up illustrations for the national education publisher who's showing some interest. I may be doing one day tutoring at the Learning Connexion too - an arts college I had an interview with last week. All or nothing eh! 3 Weeks ago I couldn't get a job as a wheel barrow operative. Before I arrived in NZ I thought I might have got a job doing computer graphics but it seems my illustration work might be more in demand. There could be the making of an elegant irony here. I only got to go to New Zealand originally after needing a break from the highly competetive field in the UK. Now I'm here as a resident it seems my work might be more in demand - its coming round to what I originally trained for years ago.
Now I'm seriously looking for somewhere to live - probably a room in a shared place somewhere in Wellington. I'm not ready for suburbia yet. I'm looking to move to somewhere in the city - hopefully with a garden. Got to have somewhere to stretch out and look at the sky, grow my herbs and carve sticks. Or do my other crafts. No, I'm sorry - no more news on my sandals made out of kelp however I'm very excited - there's going to be an exhibiton in town by a sculptor who makes stuff out of kelp. He's made some kelp cows out of copper and covered them with kelp and displays them near the sea. Who could resist such a show?
Kelp Cow sculpture
Namaste & Jule [#12]
August is here then and now I'm living in Stokes Valley, - house-sitting. It's rather tasty, plenty of space, great views and lots of time to do my own thing. My only responsibilities apart from protecting the place from villains is to care for the resident cats, Alice and Roger.
Alice made friends pretty quickly, Roger on the other hand would suddenly freeze when I came in the room and stare at me, rigid, fork halfway to his mouth.(OK he doesn't actually eat with a knife and fork - he's a cat, but you know what I mean). He was a bit wierd at first, silently watching me with unblinking eyes like the penguin off Wallace and Grommit's 'The Wrong Trousers'. Anyway, the two scorchmarks in the back of my head from his Medussa glare are healing and after checking my references he's come to the conclusion that I'm actually not hostile. We've crossed the Rubicon and I'm now his friend and each night he jumps up onto my lap and makes himself comfortable. Phew, what a relief. I realise my blog should really be renamed 'cats and carpentry' but I don't have a job and so until then...
Some blokes have women who are attracted to them, I have cats! As long as you keep reading it, I'll keep writing this rubbish! That's Capitalism.
As I said I'm staying in Stokes Valley but I've popped down to Cathie's last week to finish the shed I was building for her out of pallets. I've also made a tremp de l'oeil of a wee panel door to brighten up her neighbours garage wall which is adjacent to her garden and looks like Hitlers bunker.Curiouser and curiouser.
I'm not going to mention work prospects again until something definite happens, it's a waste of time sharing my near misses with the world! Suffice to say it's slow progress. (eg Heard back from one job I'd applied for - a 1 day a week part-time job at a publisher. They'd had 30 applications!). I seem to have spent half my adult life looking for work.
A funny thing happened to me the other day. Val had told me about a talk at her tramping club where a bloke was going to talk about cycling up in the Himalayas and she wondered if I'd be interested. Definitely I said (after having been there myself in 2001). Well the guy started his talk and was saying that there's some wonderful information available on the internet then the next slide popped up and it was a screen capture of my brother's website with a photo of him, me, Damien and Niall sat infront of a sign at 18,380 feet!
He'd used my brother's site as an invaluable travel guide for his trip. He was amazed and delighted to meet me afterwards too. Very funny.(Hence the reason for this post's title - 'Namaste' is Hindi for hello and 'Jule' is Ladakhi for hello. We called out to people namaste as we cycled along until we reached the Buddhist regions then changed to 'jule').
The picturesque coastline north of Wellington
Michaela using my laptop
Michaela's van and the Kapiti Coast.
Unfortunately she didn't capture my double back flip dismount.
Kelp Cow sculpture
