INTERMITTENTLY REGULAR #365 SKETCH PROJECT UPDATE 141-144 & 147-150 (Myrtle)

ManInCastle
141/365 #Currentlyreading dog-eared 1970’s copy of The Man In The High Castle. Pencil and Uni-ball. 10 mins Notebook: Myrtle
HamsterCage
142/365 Another go at the hamster cage. Bit more structurally sound this time. Pencil and uni-ball. 15mins Notebook: Myrtle
12677551_1698461190441797_722121468_n
143/365 Farm house on a bright spring day. Don’t even need a coat. Straight to uni-ball. 10 mins Notebook: Myrtle
IMG_2275
144/365 Looking across to the tops of the buildings at the University of Bristol. Drawn over several days. Pencil and Uniball Micro. Notebook: Myrtle
IMG_2494
l148/365 Flowers of unknown species. I dunno they’re blue and on a bush, any ideas? Drawn whilst waiting for morning lift. Uniball micro. 5 mins. Notebook: Myrtle
IMG_2495
149/365 Some dude. Looks a bit sad but I think he might be playing Pokemon Go. Vball. 10 mins. Notebook: Myrtle.
IMG_2496
150/365 Posh Windows on Clifton. 20 mins. Uniball Micro. Notebook: Myrtle

147/365


We’ve had a rocky week here in the UK, ICYMI (unlikely).

There’s a lot of anger and resentment on all sides, and it becomes difficult to pull yourself away from the news stream because of the speed with which things are developing.

But we are where we are.

In a recent Guardian panel Paul Mason was asked to give one reason why he thought the Leave vote had won, he said this (I’ve typed it down as best I could from the audio):—

“Many people in this room.//who voted, like me, to remain will be going through a kind of existential crisis of the self, in the sense that the institution we have based our lives around is the EU. It’s the source of our law, it’s the source of our democracy, in as far as there is any, but also it underpins our opinions of social justice. Many of our life chances have gone, some of our young people feel as though their life chances are over, and our sense of self, of who we are, as europeans has been completely challenged by this.

Well.

That’s how it feels to be working class.

If in twenty years time your kids are offered the chance to ‘get one back’ against the people who did this to them, in one single vote, that’s what they’ll do.”

I’m hoping one thing that can come from this is that we learn to understand and listen to ourselves better as a country.

This is the first time I’ve managed to draw anything since last Thursday.

Windows in a public building.

Vball.

10 mins

Notebook: Myrtle.

One Year, one week and a day…


I took this photo 374 days ago, after a chest biopsy. The doctors had detected a large something in my chest that was causing me difficulty breathing. I had a few dark months not being sure which direction things were going in, I couldn’t even walk down to the shop to get lunch without pausing to catch my breath, and I was being told I should prepare myself for bad news. I was injected with radioactive fluid, put through a large electronic donut, and had bits of me taken away for examination.

Fortunately, it turned out the something was a non-malignancy known as sarcoidosis. The cause is unknown. There is a theory that it is an auto-immune reaction, triggered by perhaps an infection (or stress, or grief, or tiredness, or not stopping). It produced a granuloma in the lymph gland in my chest which was pushing into the lungs. But it had appeared to have stopped getting bigger.

So one year, one week and a day later, the sarcoidosis has receded. I look a bit older, but I have given up sugar and alcohol, lost a big chunk of the weight I put on, have seriously reassessed some priorities,  I’m writing every morning and on Friday last week I ran for twenty minutes straight without stopping.

With a bit of luck and application, I might even try a half marathon in the autumn.

Hope all is well with you guys.

Be kind. Be useful. Et cetera.