Where You Been?...

Time for a long awaited update I think, it’s been way too long since I last updated my blog so here’s the deal: I update it more often, I add a new logo and maybe some cool new features too, you like that?…Well tough shit it’s just going to have to do!

So in my last blog I’d just sold my car to a bunch of chavs, and as you could probably guess things weren’t going to be simple.

A couple of days later the police phoned, they told me that they’d found my car stolen in daisy farm park burnt out. We informed them that I had just sold it and sent off the log book (ok, I hadn’t sent it off but I was about to), they then told us that they’d get back to me. I never heard from them again after that, but I have since heard the shithead…I mean young gentleman that bought it say that he set fire to it. I honestly don’t understand young people these days, they only seem happy when they are destroying stuff or yelling foul language down the street…stupid fuckers.

A few days later we went to the zoo, it was bank holiday Monday and we thought the weather wouldn’t be too cruel, when we got there it was pissing it down and my trainers got absolutely ruined. I’d never been bothered much by zoos in the past, but this time it really annoyed me how you’d get about a dozen people tapping on the glass at a monkey eating it’s food, I thought it would be funny and kind of ironic to tap on the glass while some big fat woman was tucking into her lunch in the canteen window, but she looked bigger and more ferocious than a gorilla so I chose to mind my own.

The next few weeks were rather uneventful, my time was taken up either in college, taking photos, or writing about the photos I’d taken, I needed a break from it and possibly a change of scenery too.

I had the opportunity to help out with my cousin’s sofa deliver business one weekend, I needed the mental break and the money so I said I’d do it. I turned up at my aunt’s house to be introduced to Anthony, he was driving the transit van and I’d be helping him carry the sofas. We went to the warehouse first where Anthony lost his house keys, after heading off and realizing they were back at the warehouse we backtracked, picked up his keys and started all over again.

The first delivery had to be there by 3 o’clock , I phoned the customer up to say we were on our way and will be there in time only to here a scouse accent on the other end of the phone, I looked at the address and it was in Aigburth in Liverpool, I looked at the time and it was 2pm, an hour from Birmingham to Liverpool?… Impossible!

Luckily Anthony was more chavified than a chavved up…um…chav, he glanced at the A-Z and said ‘No fuckin problem like’ with a mouth full of monster munch. The next thing I know we’re on the M6 doing about 120mph in a transit van.

Now I wouldn’t normally put my life in the hands of a chav, especially one rolling a cigarette while eating monster munch, talking on the phone and doing over 100mph on the motorway, but what choice did I have? Luckily he didn’t say much to me, he didn’t even offer me any monster munch which I found rather rude as I was starving. As we got to Liverpool he asked me something:

“Ya know Liverpool?”
“Yeah”
“Is it full of them scousers?”
“Yeah”
“Ow is it they go?…is it like ‘Calm down, calm down, ere am from Liverpool like'?”
“Yeah, something like that”
“Man, dat’s well funny”

When we found Aigburth I looked at the time and it was exactly 3pm, we knocked on the door and this man answered, he seemed a bit preoccupied with the TV though, it was the FA cup final and Liverpool were playing. We tried getting the sofa through the front door, the problem was that it was a big corner sofa and his door looked like something from Alice in wonderland.

It obviously wasn’t going to fit so I suggested going round the back of the houses and pushing it through the back door. This door was no bigger though, but they seemed determined to get it through. Me and Anthony were pushing it while this other man was pulling on the other end, just as I stopped to see how secure the window frames were though I realized something - the sofa was wedged in the doorway halfway up. After more pushing and swearing we finally got it through into the kitchen where we faced another tiny doorframe.

As Anthony started running at the sofa and head-butting it I decided that we should take the door off its hinges to give it a couple of extra inches to move. We found that removing the door helped get half of the sofa through but again it got stuck halfway, this was about the same time that Liverpool started losing, the liverpudlian guy was irate and told us to really give it some welly even if it means breaking stuff, I saw the look on his wife’s face which had the look of someone who wanted a shotgun or a divorce, I then saw Anthony launch himself across the kitchen and break a chunk off the worktop, I was too scared to even walk mud in and he’s just knocked a handle off the kitchen cupboards now too. Eventually the sofa went into the lounge and we helped the scouse bloke put his door back up, he said thanks and asked if I wanted a glass of water, I saw the cupboard and said no, even though I was spitting feathers at the time.

We got back in the van and headed off for our next destination which was Stafford. When we got there we had to deliver some wicker chairs to this house, this was so much easier because they were really light and they had a big conservatory door we could get them through. When we got back to the van I decided that I’d sleep for the rest of the journey, Anthony put his hard house drum n bass on though so sleep wouldn’t be possible. I got paid though which really helped.

Carl came back from Plymouth and needed to go back to collect some stuff so he asked if Adam, Gareth and myself would be interested in coming along, this would be perfect for me, not only I could get a break from all the work but I could get a few photos done too.

Adam couldn’t make it so I went with just Carl and Gaz, when we got to Plymouth we had a sit down and a cup of extreme coffee before taking an extreme walk to the extreme Indian restaurant where it was half price to eat inside rather than taking away. I chose the extreme chicken tikka masala (ok, I’m sick of this extreme stuff too), the meal was really nice but the highlight had to be all the waiters starting to sing happy birthday to girl there, the thing is they were singing all 12 identical verses, so every time we thought they’d finished they start again, when they finally stopped the whole restaurant gave a round of applause.

When we finished our curries we went over to the voodoo lounge for a drink, it was rather crowded in there and someone got the leg of their chair caught in the hole in my jeans, I had to hop behind them until they noticed what they had done. When we finally saw some free seats we sat down and I immediately put my arm in something sticky and unpleasant. I noticed some people stood outside that looked exactly like Jay and Silent Bob, excited I turned round to tell Gaz and Carl, but as I turned back round Silent Bob was lying on his back on the floor, he then sat up crying, I’m not sure what all this was about but it was one of those moments where I wish I had my camera handy.

Talking of cameras, when we left the voodoo lounge we went back to the halls of residence where I needed to do some photos for my course, we used tap-lights to paint shapes with light, it meant sitting around in the dark for most of the time but I think Carl had the best idea.

The next day we went for a walk around Plymouth, we walked down to Plymouth Ho (snigger) where there was a mini marathon going on, we walked around the harbour and then to Staples where Carl needed to get some boxes for his stuff. We managed to (just about) get all of Carl’s belongings into the car and started heading home.

When I got home it had just turned midnight which meant my sister was officially 21, the thing is she wasn’t there, so all the rushing to get home in time to say happy birthday was a bit pointless but at least I had a comfortable bed to sleep in.

That was the fun bit out of the way with anyway, now I had to work hard, all my work needed to be finished and I didn’t want a repeat of last year, I made a copy of the list of things I needed to do and decided I’d cross them off one by one as I do them.

I had loads of photos left to take, I had to do writing to go with them, digital imaging, essays, evaluations, research, test shots, finished prints, as well as writing up a business plan and cash flow forecast. This wasn’t going to be easy but I really really needed to push myself.

After over a month worth of staying up writing essays until the sun came back up, having total mental blocks, and using every expletive known to man because of my computer crashing before I had the chance to save what I was doing I managed to finally finish it all and hand it in last Friday.

It felt like I had finished running a 3 year marathon as I staggered into college half asleep with 5 big display books of images, 5 folders full of written work and a big ring binder full of my first year work, I put my work down on the table and fell back into a chair only to find everyone else still working, they’d all been given a little longer but I didn’t give a shit, the main thing was after 3 long years I had finally finished.

This meant I could finally relax, I could sit down, watch TV, go out, play on the Xbox, say I’m bored without having the thought of work that needed doing looming over me. It was 20 years worth of education finally coming to an end and a new chapter of my life starting. I could enjoy the summer and finally get round to doing stuff and having fun, not that I had many plans though, all I planned to do was go to London with my friends and see the Tate modern, although that plan is out the window now, they all went last weekend without telling me, they even went to the Tate modern too, they could have at least asked me if I wanted to go too.

Oh well, never mind…