waste not...

right, been a while since my last blog, and I'm not quite sure where to start. torn between reverse chronological... or keep true to star date time.... right.... here goes....

So last Friday, Hana came back to the big smoke to be introduced to Star Trek. Absolutely incomprehensible she has never laid eyes on any before, and i am truly proud and honoured to have popped her eyeballs that are the cherry that is her trekkie virginity.

*at this point i must intervene and point out how ridiculous the fact that the spellchecker on my blog doesn't recognise the word "blog" .... *

anyways, back to friday night.... So Hana is a big Star Wars fan... and that is completely acceptable. I am quite partial to the wars among stars too.... but her *ahem* boyfriend (yup, i said it.) is a little less accepting of her coming over to the grey scale side of star trek.... so as a token kind gesture, i allowed her to don my darth vader jumper while i was forced to wear a polyester top that resembles a star trek uniform....

i think Milo was practising his Jedi mind trick....

anyways, t'was a good night. and Hana.... in case u haven't seen this spectacular lost footage.... i shall share.

So, that was that.


On Saturday night, i went to go watch Pelican play at the garage. good gig.... bar some douche up front with a meer cat. (if u r reading this.... try and deny the douchyness of the night.... go on.....)


Sunday, Simon, Harry n myself went for a pretty epic roast at the Duke of Wellington. I cant plug this pub enough, seeing as my mate is head chef... and awesome.


After which we simon, phil n paul all went for drinks to chat shit. was a really nice relaxing afternoon, til me and simon started heading back up North London. Firstly, i spotted none other than the Chupacabra in a tree....

WTF

Then an insane man sat beside... well, we sat beside him.... but sometimes its hard to judge insanity vs. phone headsets. he was proper insane... and very angry. 

Then i saw a man in some sort of weird cape... just walking around as if it is perfectly acceptable to be a grown man dressed as Harry Potter...

i musta missed that memo.

Oh, then a retired jockey tried desperately to convince us to go join his pub quiz team (which clearly comprised of himself and no others). bless. he apparently had an "oath he was gonna win". whatever that means. rigged i tell ya, jockey... makes sense. they'll be turning the quizmaster into glue before u can say 'sticky situation'.

true story.

So then me n Simon went to the Winchester where a super creepy old man with a bowl haircut was trying to flirt with me all night. Then i left. *shudder*

Monday i was still not back at work, what with all this Easter malarkey, and i cant actually remember what i did on Monday... which worries me. Oh, no i stayed in most of the day, but in the evening went to go check out a Mario Cart competition in the basement of a pub. Was kinda disappointed with the turn out... but clearly i have seen too many documentaries from the states where their nerd population kicks our little nations arse. It's understandable though... surface area and all. England's nerds are the stiletto heel to the elephants foot that is the united states of America. We just hurt more... 

So yesterday was my day off, so i went thrift store shopping (i know, i know, i'm as predictably boring as Lady Gaga) .... but i bought some cool shit!

took me all of about THREE BLOODY HOURS to manually tune my digital tv to the correct analogue channel... coz my TV didn't wanna pick it up on auto tune... but it's done, and i felt a huge sense of accomplishment when this finally came up on the screen amidst the mass of grey angry noise i had been trawling through.

So then i went out to meet Rory off his train, who fancied a pint of 2. Managed to have a gander online at "things to do" and found out about this cool exhibition

so we went...

y'all cant even begin to imagine my excitement when we turned the corner and this was waiting to us! 

i was determined to keep looking til i found some Chinglish. There HAD TO BE SOME!

i mean, how can u have this much stuff from China and there be no Chinglish!? impossible... surely...

and

just 

as

i

was

about

to

give

up....

GOOD mother fuckin'  MORNIG!

i really like the Barbican, it's a cool space, and across the water over there are heaps of graves built into the brickwork. lovely.

So then me n Rory went to a cute little drinking establishment for dinner. It was across the road from Bunhill Fields burial ground... which i have since read up on and sounds awesome. It's a grade 1 listed open space, and is the largest ancient burial ground in London, all on unconsecrated ground. John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, and William Blake are all buried there. (did ya notice how i posted them in the correct star date order they died?!) 

must go one day for a wonder.

in other news, i was doing the crossword in the Evening Standard last night... and behold! They were very kind...

made me blush.


til next time... oh, and i shall post some new tattoodles soon people, fear not.

I'm still here.

Right, just to fuck with y'all this blog is gonna b in reverse chronological order, coz it has been a while, and i feel i should post work stuff first and foremost...

so here goes...

right, did a fun tattoo of the Darwin tree on Monday.

 Some of u may know i have a bit of a thing for Darwin. In fact, i"m getting him tattooed soon. I also found another Darwin 2 pound coin and sent that off to Traycee in Ireland, as she really wanted one.

 I Bunged a peg on it for good measure. 

So yesterday, i had the lovely Kaye back in... who got this...

the stencil looked rad on the lightbox...

then i did this dude...

and got a healed pic of a tattoo i did a few weeks ago that i never posted...

lovely. oh, and on Tuesday i headed down to maidstone for some more work by Jay. Got my left foot tattooed, but shan't post a pic til i got the right one done... coz they kinda work together... actually, they really don't. OK enough babble. u'll see it in a few weeks. til then, here r some Polaroids of Tuesday... in 1971 by the look of it.

i dunno why the scanner at work felt the need to remove all evidence of these being Polaroids... but i can't be arsed to rescan them....

oh, Tuesday started off pretty shitty with my bathroom mirror crashing down whilst i was in the shower. trust me, with a bathroom the size of mine, it's not fun getting outta the shower but naked attempting to avoid impaling urself. 

anyways, i was informed by a fairly reliable source, that if i wrap the mirror in red ribbon and bury it, all will be well. so thats what i did.

you get weird looks from people in parks doing this kinda thing. 

dont say i didn't warn ya.

right, in other news, the weather was (operative word WAS) glorious. went for a lovely sunday roast a few weeks back with Simon @ The Flask. Really lovely pub, great food all good.... well all good except for their choice of grammar on certain signage...

for 1) i am not a "sir"... and secondly, i have performed no autopsies... 

anyways, the poster in the toilet is pretty rad. yes, it does say "keep your pecker up"...

Oh, and i gave Simon this pretty rad little gift!

every time Simon went to the bar or the toilet (he goes to the toilet an awful lot... and according to him, i have a 'bladder of steel'... which must be the lamest superpower ever) he'd say "keep an eye on Simon"... but then as we got up to leave... after me babysitting simon, Simon almost forgot simon! (that makes sense to me).

After the Flask, we went on a little wander round Highgate, which is just lovely... so pretty up that way.

and we went to 'suicide bridge'....

was a really nice day out. i was kinda hoping it would be cheaper than our regular sundays where we end up shopping and feeling better spending in company. i can no longer blame him for my shopping habits. i arrived in highgate early that sunday, so had a browse through some thrift stores... saw this...

i dont even know. the shop was shut. i'll never know what the hell that is about...

but "Ripping Yarns" was open... and i ended up leaving with about 6 books. The one i'm reading at the moment is basically entirely about women spanking women's bottoms. I have many a friend who want to borrow it when i'm done. i cant imagine the state it'll be in when i get it back... other than damp.

Also bought an incredible book by some awesome crazy western hindu who has a penchant for Hanuman and insane scribbles...

long story. i havent even managed to read a few pages yet... coz it's a bit of a head fuck. this one will take some time.

anyways, if i ever have it at work i'll be sure to scan some pages, because it looks incredible.

oh, and i found this in High Barnet the other day! Beautiful hardback version! i used to fucking LOVE this book as a kid.

anyways, enough of my rambling about stuff i'm sure most of u aren't remotely interested in. 

i have Rory in to get his elbow tattooed, then i am getting tattooed by Ely... so best get to it.

Hope y'all have a good Easter. Eat plenty of chocolate eggs in remembrance of Jesus returning from the grave or something. Speaking of which... Hana is back tomorrow for 1 night only... and we r having a sci-fi night with none other than STAR TREK! cant friggin' wait. she's NEVER seen it. insane.

oh! and before i forget.... i gave layla a present today, and she said "if i had a blog, i'd blog about this"... so i'm doing it for her. here's layla and her new toy (literally)

robots gotcha back...

quick post of a fun piece i just finished off.... this girl sits really well. hard as nails i tell ya! fun piece to work on.

 

happy lil' guy, aint he?

anyways, next customer is waiting... 

til next time.

stop! hana time!

so, i've had some lovely days off recently, involving eating incredible roasts and drinking with incredible people. oh... and shopping. cant forget all the shopping i did...

last sunday, me and simon went for a sunday roast at the abbey tavern.

so good. so after that, our evening plans got cancelled, so we strolled through to camden market. i know he blames me for the amount he spent... and .... well.... i blame him for the amount i spent. so fair's fair. 

first stop was one of my favourite little antique/curiosity shops where simon got some sweet pictures and old coins.

also made friends with a pooch called "rascal"

 i bought some weird napkins (u have to... i guess u kinda had to be there to understand how cool they are)... oh, i also bought this...

so then on the way to the taxidermy shop, i got crazy sidetracked by frilly collars (i am partial to a good frilly collar dont you know?...) anyways, ended up in an adorable taiwanese clothing shop where i bought 2 dresses, this handbag...

and this jumper (which i am incidentally wearing as i type this right now....)

so then to the taxidermy shop, where i was adamant i would not buy anything... and ended up buying 2 Victorian brooches. 

oops. oh.... and i got this in the shop next door.... : /

(yes, it is on top of my fridge. i have OFFICIALLY RUN OUT OF ANY SHELF SPACE.)

doom. lets hope the mayans were right... and this wont bother me much longer.

anyways, then we went for cocktails, which was nice. ended up getting that crazy chilli apple one again, but different barman, different drink entirely it seems. 

*come back rum loving man with long hair who's name i know not*

on tuesday... i was graced with none other than HANAWHOHASBEENAWAY FOR 4 BLOODYMONTHS' presence. 

was so good to have her home! although, she did a good job of making me feel loved and special from abroad with sweet cards and little surprise gifts in the mail. she's rad.

so i made sure i was up and dressed and ready for her imminent arrival at my front door, with a pot of tea on the go. she had brought some homemade honey back from Austria which is absolutely divine. 

then we headed to the milkshake/smoothie place which has recently become half milkshake smoothie shop... half antiques. i think it's the best shop ever. and it's down the road from me. i am a lucky gal. U know theres only one other shop in the UK where u can buy and antique and a milkshake. It's called Harrods. true story.

this does the shop no justice. 

So back to the point, i had to pick up some purchases from a previous day. i bought a set of 3 Edwardian parlour girls pictures, and a lovely little wooden boxed writing slope. We dropped that off back at mine ... then went back to buy smoothies for our trip to camden.

Hana seemed to think hers resembles a cup full of semen, which worries me. Her smoothie was Kiwi and full of seeds. (hana, speak to whoevers semen it looks like and get them to a doctor please).

anyways, after hysterically laughing our way into town and hana spitting her smoothie all over the tube, we went for tea in the pet boutique... where milo tried on... a hat.

then we bumped into Simon, and went for drinks... i was meeting Paul later that afternoon so we literally sat there... all day... 

tell ya what, the bench outside the pub made for a pretty good old man vantage point though 

paul was a little sneaky and took photos of us on his ipad... but then, i did the same with my phone. fair's fair. his photos r way better. i need an i pad. purely so i can photograph ppl on the sly. old men for example.... 

so then me n hana headed back to barnet, super excited about the prospect of getting a take away roast dinner. have you ever heard of something so miraculous and bizarre encompassed in one thought process?! other than flying monkeys... of course.

it was amazing. i dont think anyone else has ever ordered a take away roast from this particular establishment before. the chef looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown when the two simple words "to go" came out of my mouth. we had pepsi cups to fill with gravy. it was hilarious.

in other news, yes... i have been working.... just i havent had a camera at work for a week now, and keep forgetting to look for my spare and bring it to work... but i did take this on my phone the other day...

good sitting on the ribs. really looking forward to doing more on this piece. :)

right, thats all folks. 

til next time.