Not a thing, but fun nonetheless

Saturday morning I headed off into town to learn how to do screen printing at Arts@Trinity. Holy Trinity is, well, a church. Consecrated and everything. It has a crypt, and odd gantries, and space where you wouldn't expect space, and a cafe. And because all the buildings around it have been knocked down to build an enormous shopping centre it's standing by itself in the middle of town for the first time in decades. So I wandered in, found the group (who were in the vestry, the only room that could be blacked out) and the tutor (Louise) who were mixing emulsion.

Ok, this is how the process goes:

• Mix some gloppy stuff with a silver halide to make it photosensitive.
  
• spread a thin, thin layer of gloppy stuff onto some mesh that's glued into a frame.
  
• let everything dry.
  
• print off your image onto transparency. (I used the T&C logo, and because there was space for two I did a Seal of Rassilon, just for geek points.)
  
• Put the image onto the photosensitive mesh, and turn a light on. Leave to expose for 15 minutes.
  

So at this point the wheels sort of fell off the day. We had one exposure unit so were doing screens one at a time, and the first person to expose his screen went into the vestry after the 15 minutes to discover the bulb had blown. We had no way of knowing when the bulb had blown, but one thing was for sure: we had no spare. So while Peter (his name was Peter) was washing his screen (the next step; scrub the screen, and the emulsion that was exposed remains on the screen, and the blacked out stuff washes out) I was deemed the most capable person in the group, so went with the organiser to find a new bulb.

The organiser was from Wakey, a nice lady called Helen, who didn't know the Leeds one-way system so I was giving directions to Maplin - which was hilarious, and involved me shouting "no! not that way!" as we were driving into incoming traffic a bit. Maplin didn't have the 1KW bulbs we needed, so we went to B&Q, which was quite a bit further away. Alas! No bulbs there either. Then I had a brainwave; Ring, the factory lighting shop, carries all sorts of whizzy kit that you never find anywhere else, so I directed Helen there, and joy! They had a bulb (we bought two) and even fitted it for us. Back to Trinity, having been out doing this for 45 minutes.

We got the exposure unit back to normal, put my screen on and exposed my images. Peter's, unfortunately, hadn't worked properly because they'd not exposed for long enough. But, mine did work. Here's my screen:

And everybody elses worked too, more or less.

So, when your screen has been washed and dried, you have lunch. Lunch was lovely, provided by Helen and eaten on trestle tables in front of the altar. The only space big enough to set out the tables we needed was up on the dais, and so we were sat there, munching tasty pie, looking at the stained glass and plasterwork. It was a somewhat surreal moment; thanks to my Catholicism I have a "churches should be quiet, contemplative places" thing, and this was anything but.

Once lunch was over we tidied up, and started printing. First, tape up any clear bits on the screen that you don't want ink to go through. Next, mix your colours. We were using System 3 inks, which are basically acrylic paints mixed with more gloopy stuff labelled "screen printing medium".

Mix the colour you want in a paper cup, then guestimate how much ink is in there and add the same quantity of medium, so if you're mixing a purple and have four squidges of crimson and one of cobalt blue, add five squidges of medium. This stuff dries quite quickly once it's spread thin, but in the cup it'll last for a while. Put whatever you're printing on underneat the screen, put some ink onto the bottom of the image, and using a squeegee spread the ink over the image. Then force the squeegee back over the image to scrape as much ink as you can off, then shift the screen out of the way as quick as you can, to stop the ink bleeding through your nice crisp edges. Voila! done.

We had some quite complex images from other people; one chap printed line drawings of a 1980s supercar, and a quite complex lion image. Another chap had a high-contrast monotone selfportrait, there were some self-penned works, and someone had a book of ancient greek designs that other people took images from (an owl was quite popular). We practised on some paper first.



Then we moved onto T-shirts if we had them. I only brough three t-shirts with me, so ran out quite quickly. Thankfully there was plenty of time so I ran out to get more, which I also ran through in no time at all. The problem then was drying them sufficiently to be able to take them home. We ended up using the pews as clothes horses.

The screens obviously had to be washed between different colours being applied, but also had to be washed if left for a couple of minutes without having ink applied, as ink would dry on the screen and cause splotches on the material. I was very impressed at the resilience of the screen; it stood up to quite a bit of scrubbing as we tried to get ink out that had set hard. There were buckets of water for washing stuff up in, and it was a good job there was tarpaulin on the floor!

Eventually, we were done. A quick tidy up, wrapping the still damp shirts in paper, and putting the tables away, it was like we'd never been there. Because I mentioned pinholes and matchboxes during the day, as well as Photocamp and Exposure Leeds (which is where I originally heard of the workshop) I've been invited to run a similar session sometime after September, and I'm looking forwards to that already.

I have to say; the organisation was perfectly fine, we had plenty of time and didn't feel rushed, and Louise, the tutor, did a fine job and was endlessly patient with us all. As part of an arts project called Trans=Send the unused prints were going to be used as envelopes and sent to a similar church in Sunderland; a great use of resources, I feel.

Results? Oh, I'm happy. I've learned a new technique, I have another thing I want to stuff into a studio (I might just bite the bullet and ask for space at Temple Mill), I met some fun people and I came away with whizzy t-shirts.

Result.

Day 159, 100809 Wordle

Whoops! I miscounted and thought that 120+30 was 160. Foolish boy, can't perform basic arithmetic. So, have a Wordle that's 9 days late. Next one will be on Day 180.

From Screen Captures

Day 159, 100809

Before I talk about this weekend, I just want to mention walkies from last Sunday (the 2nd) a bit. That particular Sunday I was up bright and early to go walking with Matt, Cathy and Mavis in the North Yorkshire Moors.

We met Matt at the Moorcock in Langdale End, possibly the most peculiar pub I've ever been in, and set off up a hill. Unfortunately Matt had to turn back about a third of the way in, and Mavis went back with him; Cathy and I carried on. It was a bit muddy, there were a lot of flying bitey things (I was bitten on the shoulder; it looks like I'm growing a second head), and at the turn-around point we had to ford a river and navigate through a whopping collection of of trail bikes all screaming around us; we couldn't find the path amongst all the routes the bikes had carved out of the ground and nearly lost a footbridge. Still, it was a pleasant walk and we made fairly decent time, picking Mavis up back at the pub (where I had a very tasty treacle sponge & custard).

This is the route:

The colour of the track refers to my heartrate at the time; the redder it gets, the more I was exercising. As you can see, there weren't many points where my bpm were particularly high, partially because it was ridiculously muddy and impossible to move very quickly. But, the views were nice:

and there was that really odd interface where two rivers, one clear but peaty, the other murky because of bikes churning up silt, met and mingled:

A good walk, overall, but probably not one to repeat.

So, this weekend saw a somewhat different walk. I had to be up at stupid o'clock on Saturday, S had to be up at less-stupid-but-still-very-early-o'clock, because we had trains to catch; S to London (to watch Phedre), me to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Train departing at 6:19. Getting the train to Horton is really, really nice; it takes slightly less time than driving there, it's much more relaxing, a return costs about the same as petrol+parking for one (if there's two or more it's cheaper to drive, but what the hey) and it takes you through some fab countryside that normally you can't see because there's a bloody lorry ahead that's taking all your concentration. Plus lovely little towns that make you think "ooh! Can I jump off here and have a look around?".

Anyway, I got to Horton a mere 15 minutes late (points failure at Skipton) and once I'd sorted out my footwear and GPS, I started walking. As far as footwear went, I was in KSB trainers and lightweight hiking socks. Those socks are the most comfortable items of foot clothing I've ever worn; just putting them on felt fantastic. The trainers were because this was all about as fast a time as I could get, and they have better grip than my boots. Well, that may not be true, but I trust the grip on my trainers more than the boots, and I like to feel the rocks under my toes. Coming down P-y-G a couple of weeks ago was a bit hairy, not least because I didn't trust my boots enough, couldn't be sure of my stability and couldn't flex my feet enough, and was thinking "wish I had my trainers" all the way down the horrible rock scrambly bit on the south-western face.

Yes, I was going to Pen-Y-Ghent again, this time on my tod. When we - Mavis, Cathy, Matt and myself, the usual walking bunch - did it last our time was 3h 33m, and I reckoned I could knock the 33m off if I was sure of my footing and felt like running in places. Here's my trip:

See the red bits? Serious exercise moments. There's three bits on the downhill where I really was running flat out and keeping my footing, with a HR over 168bpm. I'm quite pleased with that. This time, rather than go up the steady face and down the startling bit, I decided to go up the startling face (which is a killer on the legs and lungs) and down the steady bit. I was passed by four people on the initial climb, two of which were fell runners, one was a 3-peaker (don't forget, it was only 8am) and one was a bit of a pikey kid carrying nought but a bottle of Buxton water^[1]. On the rocky startling bit I started passing people who were having trouble (thanks to my trainers I was actually having fun), and got a few nice snaps on the way.


(yes, the summit is in cloud. That was very changeable).



And on the summit? Were the views better than last time?

No.

But on the downhill, the cloud started lifting in a really pleasant way:

Clouds forming patterns on the fields. Lovely.

So I made it down, running for quite a lot of the way, and stopped the clock. My time? 2h 14m. I'd knocked an hour and twenty minutes off. Now, I'm very pleased with this; I would have been happy with under 3 hours, but this was excellent. However, now I know I can do it that quickly I want to knock the time down further; I want to get back to Horton under two hours; if the trains are running to time I can get off the train at 7:24 and get back on a train to Leeds at 9:21 if I'm quick enough, and be back in Leeds for 10:30. What sort of morning constitutional is that? "Just off to climb a mountain, dear. I'll be back for elevenses." As a heartstarter, I can't think of many things finer, or more civilised.

Saying that, though: when I got back home I was shattered. The rest of the day was spent snoozing, reading GPTF^[2] and fussing the cat who was wondering where the other twolegs had gone. And filling the 'fridge. And on Sunday my thighs were aching something rotten.

Anyway; I'm going to count task #96 as being complete, although I'm certainly going to be doing that route again to try getting my time down. 2hrs 14m is a good start, but I can certainly do better. I can add one to my walking with Matt total, too, despite his having to turn back.

1: On the downhill I found that bottle, screwed up and on the path, picked it up and nearly caught up to the kid (but missed him by maybe a quarter of a mile) where I would have presented it to him.
2: Guilty Pleasure Trashy Fiction, in my case Chris Brookmyre.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #66 (72/250), #67 (1/>1), #81 (6/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (2/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+), #96 (2/>1)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 10
Remaining: 91

Day 144, 260709

Bad Mike, no biscuit. I've not updated for nearly a fortnight, so need to sort that out.

What's been happening? Well, getting faintly squiffy with friends (#56) is coming along, and there might be a part two to that in mid-September. The volunteering project (#20) has been kicked off and I'll be writing about that after the Bradford Photocamp (come along if you want to hear about it at Photocamp, as I'll be giving a talk on that and on pinhole cameras, slides will be linked in here after the event), but I've been having many meetings on this and learning all sorts of whizzy new stuff. Brewing ginger beer has occupied some of my headspace too (#50) but because we don't drink fizzy pop there's a shortage of storage vessels. I'll fix that in a day or two, though. Also, S got a piece of paper saying she has an MA. It's not part of this exercise, but still a very good thing.

Also upcoming: the local NHS PCT AGM is in September. For various reasons I'm on the list, so I might well take a day off and attend that (if we're not on holiday) because delegates get to wander about the Thackray Medical Museum (part of #57) as well as poke our noses into how the PCT is run. There's a huge redesign of Tea & Cake underway, and there's even a podcast up there now. It's not writing more (#58), but it's an improvement. Alas, I missed out on a chance of a backstage tour at the WYP, but there will be other opportunities. Cake comp (#95) is in October, and T&C will be involved with it, somehow.

There's other stuff as well, but this'll do for now.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #66 (66/250), #67 (1/>1), #81 (4/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (1/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+), #96 (1/>1)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 131, 130709 (pt 2)

Oh, and something else: I've made a start on writing letters rather than emailing people (#67). My Grandmother, bless 'er, has broken her arm so I wrote her an 8-page letter talking about my recent adventures in Telly (which I've not talked about on here yet) to take her mind off it. I can't think of a better reason than that, to be honest.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #67 (1/>1), #68, #66 (66/250), #81 (1/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (1/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 131, 130709

Walking in to work is easier than walking home. I want to get home as quickly as I can, and psychologically that means getting the bus, despite the bus stop being about 1/4 of the way home and I'd have to wait up to 30 minutes for the right bus anyway. Walking home takes maybe 10 minutes longer than getting to the bus stop, waiting for 20 minutes and having to battle through the traffic around Asda House. Walking in takes maybe 10 minutes longer than getting to the bus stop, waiting for a bus that never comes, getting on the next one that turns up - which deposits me in such a way I have to walk an extra half-mile to get to werk - which is promptly overtaken by the one I intended to get, and so on. Ultimately, I should just walk to-and-from every day that I can't be bothered togging up in cycling gear.

Even though my route varies slightly from day-to-day (I have proof of this, but as it identifies both where I work and where I live, I won't be making those GPS traces publically available just yet), coming into work is still sufficiently early that I can walk most of it in a zenlike trance, semimeditative, with a couple of subprocesses stopping me from walking into traffic (the routes I take are deliberately light on cars) and people. My mind starts thinking of random stuff, which I'm very happy to let it do.

The other morning, my branes started churning out Lewis Carroll, as a response to certain items on my To-Do list. No, I don't know why either. But, I was reminded of the chain of Belgian chocolate shops called Leodis, and decided that calling my chocolate company that would be foolish, and really it should be Loidis anyway (which sounds wrong), and if I were going to take the latin route the best I could come up with was Cambodunum (which is arguably wrong, but without a time machine or a cache of documents yet to be discovered...). Now, Cambodunum Chocolates does have a ring to it, but whether it's a good ring is open to interpretation. Loidis Chocolates is not going to float. What about Holbeck... and so on.

Anyway, the point is that walking to-and-from werk gives me 7.2 miles (ish, depending on the route it can be over or under) in a day, which over 4 days is 29 miles. I walk into town at lunchtimes, which would give me another 4 unrecorded miles a week, so over any given week where I walk at least 4 days, I can tick off one of my 46 weeks as part of Task #4. I'm going to include runs in with this as well as I gear myself up to the 5k, just because it makes the maths easier (and I can record those miles). Last week I walked a little over 35 miles on the daily commute and a few trips to the supermarket or lunch, so I'm happy to get one of my weeks of #4 out of the way. One down, 45 to go... and I'm already into this week.


Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #4 (1/46) #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (82/250), #81 (1/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (1/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 125, 070709

This isn't really part of Task 15, but I'm going to add it as part of the preamble to that task. Partially because, well, it was an outstanding meal in lovely company, but also because this place really ought to have a Michelin star, and it's astounding that it doesn't.

Last Friday we went for dinner at Anthony's (arranged by our good friend Tom, and I can't thank him enough).

I'm still wondering how to write this up, though. The photos of the food are in a flickr set, but they don't do it justice.



Basically: the food was stunning. Delicious, beautifully presented, never quite what you were expecting... surprising food. I decided to forego my vege/pescetarianism and just take whatever food looked great, so I went for a soft-shelled crab starter (fascinating, very tasty, with a slightly coleslaw-based addition that was still tasty and microherbs), monkfish with tomato, chili and chorizo tapioca, and a banana cake with incredibly tasty chocolate ice cream and - this was odd - a mozarella veloute. There were amuse-geules (a duck confit with foam that tasted like Wotsits) and pre desserts (odd quince pear/pistacio/pea thing that was almost certainly supposed to be a pun) as well, and a cheeseboard containing many tasty fermented milk products. S had an onion risotto that was a work of beauty - it tasted like great french onion soup, only as a risotto.

Deconstructing everything would take quite some time, and as I wasn't taking notes during dinner - how rude would that have been? - I think I'll save it until the next time we go. Yes, it was good enough to warrant a return visit. This trip out has made me wonder precisely how nifty a Michelin restaurant needs to be (although, given most of the starred restaurants outside France are in capital cities, perhaps "proximity to an airport" is one of the criteria). Looking forwards to completing this task, just to find out.

Day 121, 030709

You know how you get into the habit of doing something, then all of a sudden you stop doing it, and then it takes an age to get back into the habit? Last year I was cycling to work, and then in August I stopped because it was getting too hot, and then all of a sudden we're 11 months further on and I'd taken the bike out twice in that time, and not at all this year. This is not a good state of affairs.

I love my bike; it's a Specialized hybrid with slick-ish (but wide) tyres, an insanely lightweight frame given the size of it, and lovely shifters that haven't given me a moment's gyp since I've had them. And, despite not even being looked at for six months, all I had to do this morning was give the chain a blast of WD-40 and pump up the tyres. Hop on, and bam, I'm at werk without having to wait for a bus or be tempted by the gamut of coffee shops en route.

The route in from home is fairly straightforward: up a bit of a hill, right a bit, down a HUGE hill that gets me touching 30mph if there's no traffic on it, under the motorway, past the huge office complexes, under the train station, up Park Row, over Millennium Square and up the road past the hospital. Done, 17 minutes door to door. Homewards takes slightly longer, as I have to go up the huge hill. That gets wearisome, but it's tolerable, just. Because of traffic flow I have to go through Holbeck, but it doesn't add much extra time (unlike the hill).

Still, I'm going to count home->werk->home as One Trip Out on the bike, which means I only have 249 left to go before I can count Task 81 completed.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (66/250), #81 (1/250) #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (1/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 120, 020709 wordle

From Wordles

Day 119, 010709

Exposure Leeds #5 was last night (task 85). Again, a pretty enjoyable use of an evening, but... lacking, somewhat. There were a lot of newbies there, and a bunch of them left at 8:30 (possibly because they were expecting it to finish at 8:30, like wot I woz, and I'm categorically not a newbie) when we still had quite a bit to go through. Anyway.

I was on the door again (although Gav likes hitting the big green button, so I left him to it, mostly), getting people to sign in and nametag up, and hanging the prints people had brought for the Flash Printswap (bring a print, get a post-it, give the print to us. We hang all the prints, hidden away, and at the end of the evening we do a grand reveal and people can put their post-it on another print, and take that away with them once all the prints are claimed - and I say you can). The quality of the prints were excellent, in some cases considerably better than last time.



Talks: a decent one on macro photography, although a bit flat did have some interesting technical detail, some of which was slightly incorrect, but never mind, it makes no difference to the results. I'm minded to repost my talk from EL2 on "The Dark Art of Exposure". The second talk was about travel photography, and whilst it was very interesting (and I really like Ade and his work) it was about 15 photos too long. This was a thing, really - Jon let the talks go on for a bit too long, so we were a bit rushed at the end. And, I had to really struggle to hear the speakers. Now, I know I'm having problems with my hearing at the moment - struggling to differentiate background noise from useful sounds, particularly in my left ear - but I don't think I was the only one thinking they were a bit quiet.

Finishing at 9:30 is a bit late, though. Could be a minority opinion, but 3 hours is pushing it.

All that aside, though: I came out of there thinking about how I could get going with some macro photography, and an inspirational evening is always a good evening.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94+/365, stalling, not sure where I am with this), #13, #26, #37 (4/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (66/250), #85 (5/4) #87, #88, #97 (1/8), #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 108, 200609

Task #97 is "go walking with Matt at least 8 times." Matt and I are old friends - he was the fourth or fifth person I met when I went to University - and we used to go walking a couple of times a year. That dropped off, as these things do, but we stay in touch and still go for the odd stroll every now and then, between bouts of socialising. After a walk last October (ie, outside the scope of this project), we decided to do the Yorkshire Three Peaks, and needed to do some training runs. Unfortunately, life got in the way, and whilst we'd said "midsummer's day" for one of the walks, hopefully the full run, it turned out to be the first of our training runs, just one of the three.

When we said we'd do it, some other friends decided they wanted to come as well, which was great. I'm always up for more company when walking, as it means there's a greater chance of one of us making it back to civilisation.

Saturday was an early start, with Cathy and Mavis being taken to Horton-in-Ribblesdale for a stroll up Pen-Y-Ghent. Arriving in Horton was awful; although we'd planned to do this on the 20th months back, because it was close to the solstice and thus we'd have maximum daylight, it hadn't really occurred to us that other people would have the same idea. It was packed. We parked up in a field, and decamped to the caff where we waited for Matt to turn up. When we were all assembled there was a quick scout about the benches to see if there were any Devenish-Phibbs plaques, a trip to the loo (where I was bitten a few times by midges) and we were off.

There were steady streams of people going up and down the mountain. Because we were only doing one, I thought "let's take the easy route up" and led us along Horton Scar and along the backbone of the mountain. Everybody else was going to go to Brackenbottom and up the really steep bit which does involve some rock climbing, so we kept on meeting people on their way down. Stood at the bottom of the mountain, we could see a wave of rain crossing the valley and got our raincoats on just in time; the final stretch up the hill was done in cloud, and if it weren't for the occasional call out from the many teams of DoE expeditioneers we could have been the only people in the world, emerging blinking from the cloud into a world changed by the Singularity, or something more scary.

Downhill was awful; remind me in future to never do the route in that direction again. It means going up will kill us through exhaustion, but there were moments on the way down I thought we'd die through falling off. It was greasy underfoot, muddy on rocks worn smooth by hundreds of thousands of passing hiking boots, and there were a few unpleasant steps. Thankfully I didn't slip badly enough to fall off until it was safe to do so (but slip and fall over I did), but in future I'll wear KSB trainers and go on a nice, sunny day that's been preceeded by several other nice sunny days. And go up. I still want to set a speed time on that hill, so I may take a day off in July or August and see just how quickly I can do the round trip. As it was, we were 3h33m (GPS data will be forthcoming), and finished off the day with rhubarb crumble in the caff. Lovely to see the guys, as ever, and it was an absolute pleasure doing the trip with them. Next time: Matt sorts out an 8-mile route somewhere in the North Yorkshire moors. Should be fun!

Day 106, 180609

About two months ago I started an archery course, as part of task #68. Signing up with South Leeds Archers for a six-week beginners course, the first of the year, I thought I'd consider the task completed when I'd finished the course, not just after the first lesson.

Eight weeks later, archery is over, done and dusted, and all that jazz. What have I learned from it?

1. How to string a recurve bow.

This is harder than it looks, partially because it's counterintuitive. Fitting the limbs to the body is also counterintuitive, because they go on the wrong way 'round. When New World continent-conquering heroes had run out of bullets, they picked up the bows of their fallen enemies, and promptly took their own eyes out because they didn't understand the technicalities of recurve bows, and I can see why. But, get your head around the whole "you're doing it backwards" thing, and it's fine.

2. Consistency is everything.

Seriously, for three weeks it was all about "get your arrows in a good grouping without thinking about the golds". Then we moved onto using sights, which changed the grip and position, and that really threw me for a week. But, they're right. Concentrate on getting the arrows in the same spot, every time, then we can work on moving where that spot is. Changing your position on the bow, even a tiny bit, can make a huge difference to where the arrow will strike. I spent a week not realising that I should be touching the bow string into my nose and under my chin, not just under my chin; having two reference points is a huge help.

3. This is a survival skill.

Someone put a picture of a squirrel up on a target one week. It freaked me out a little. Reminders that really, this is a method of killing something did make me take a step back, because I'm not mad on the whole taking life away thing (I get guilt killing greenfly on my roses, which probably makes me some sort of big girly wuss). There is a huge element of skill involved in this, and it's skill I like to have, but the fundamental reasons for having the skill in the first place is something I have to think about.

4. Archers are nice people.

Generally, yes, people who carry weapons are quite nice to other people who carry weapons. The South Leeds Archers are fun people to be around, although social skills aren't necessarily a high priority. Not unlike geeks, really.

5. Arrows hurt.

Dropping the arrow off the guide rail onto your hand makes you go "ow". Doing it twice in quick succession gives you something that looks like fang marks and bruises that'll last a week on the back of your hand just above the thumb. Forgetting to put a bracer on your arm and then not holding the bow quite right means you'll get a bruice on your forearm that stings a bit. Not wearing finger tabs means your fingerprints will be worn off by the end of the session and you'll spend the next week wondering why the skin on your fingers is flaking off. Thankfully, nobody shot me, so injury was restricted to those things.

6. What all those bristly bits on pro bows are.

Stablisers. They're there to add weight to the bow, to make it move less when you're holding it. Of course, you have a fine balancing act between the amount of weight you need to provide inertia, and the amount you can hold without giving way. I added a stabliser and my grouping became much tighter; they are useful things to have.

7. How these things are scored.

It can be nuts complicated. It can also be very simple. Decide early on which way you'd like it to be.

8. Yellow = gold.

No matter how many times you call it yellow, and no matter how much it looks like a primary colour, someone will always correct you and call the centre circles the gold.

9. I enjoy the sense of peace.

You have to concentrate when shooting. Really concentrate. I would have enjoyed it more, I think, if there weren't two kids on the course constantly talking (or arguing with their Dads about how much money they'd get for hitting the target). However, in the brief moments where they were keeping quiet I could feel my concentration narrowing to a fine focal point, just in front of the arrow tip or on the other side of the sight, and there was an almost zenlike quality to those moments which I enjoyed. Concentrating at that level for any amount of time was very therapeutic and I really appreciated those moments when they came. Invariably, those moments came on shots where I hit the gold. It felt right.

So, that's that. I enjoyed doing it, and it's a skill I appreciated learning, but I think I'm done with archery for the time being. I'll be glad to get my Friday evenings back, and not have to keep an eye on the weather (out of a six week course, two of those weeks were rained off and one cut short) quite so much. I may go back to it, and if I get the chance to shoot I'll certainly keep my eye in, but for the time being I'm done.

Unfortunately, I'm putting task 3 on hiatus. I'm not keeping up with my photo-a-day thing, and so I might have to change it to "take 365 photos that represent a year's worth of shots over the course of the experiment". We'll see; I might pick it up again where I left off, but the "consecutive days" element will probably fall by the wayside.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94/365, stalling), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (61/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92

Day 104, 160609

Strictly speaking trauma isn't really what happened over the bottom half of last week, except in one particular incident. But to use the modern sense of "trauma" to mean "nerve-wracking" then yes, we had that by the bucketload. First, some background: my parents-in-law are somewhat disorganised, have a flexible approach to time, attract drama like a theatre company and my Mother-in-law (let's call her M*) has a serious wheat allergy so we have to be very careful with her diet, whereas my Father-in-law (G*) has had a laryngectomy and can only talk in a whisper, and only when he has a valve in his stoma.

Chronologically, let's go back to Wednesday. S headed to Brum during the afternoon, checked into her hotel, and awaited the parental arrival. The reason S was back in Brum was the public workshop, where professionals take on the writings from those engaged in the MPhil in Playwriting and put them on stage. S is one of those who had a play on (the one about bees, if you read the press release). In fact, S was the last play to be put on over the two days, Thursday and Friday, which could be seen as a great honour; the headline act, if you will. It was referred to as "the headliner" repeatedly by her classmates. On the other hand, it just gave her more time to get twitchy. Her folks were attending the whole public workshop, to see S's play and to observe the rest of the competition. However, they were using a satnav to get from Norf Norf London to Brum, and were travelling after work. G* apparently spent most of the trip flicking V-signs at the satnav whilst M* was trying to keep him calm and drive after a busy day at work. They get lost in Brum's one-way system, but eventually park in the Pallisaides and try to find their way to the hotel.

They can't. They get lost.

Eventually they get hold of S, who gives them directions to a spot where she can meet them and get them to the hotel on foot. This is a good job, because the car park had locked up and M* couldn't get the car out of it. Then they get to the hotel, only to find that their room had been overbooked and the duty manager was being a c0ck; "I can't magically build a room out of nothing" was one of the phrases allegedly used, along with "there's nothing I can do" despite the room having been paid for in advance and checked no less than four times over the previous fortnight. Thanks to S knowing the trade, she was able to get past the muppet of a DM to speak to the GM (who was, astonishingly, still on site at 10pm), who went white at some of the commentary S was able to provide. Despite having to book them out to the Etap that night (the hotel was the 4* Burlington), they provided taxis, comped breakfast, upgraded their room for the following two nights and eventually bent over backwards to help them out. M* and G* decamped to the etap, and S phones me to get all this lot out of her system.

Thursday morning, M* & G* get back to the Burlington for breakfast. M* has a kipper. Unfortunately she missed a bone, and ended up with a fishbone in her throat. The best cure for a fishbone in the throat? A piece of dry bread. To which she's allergic. They needed to be on a particular train to Selly Oak, so after M* got herself sorted out after that, they went to the car to find G*'s jacket. Except they couldn't remember where they'd parked the car. S, at this point, throws up her arms in despair and runs to catch her train, after giving directions on where to go ("turn left at the firey demon, and you'll end up in Hell" was what she didn't say). They eventually make it to Selly Oak, an hour after S had been there watching some quite interesting pieces.

Eventually, after all of this I arrived, was told all the gory details about how the last 24 hours had taken 24 years off S's lifespan, and was given ten minutes to wash-and-brush-up before going out to dinner and afterwards we arranged to meet in reception at 10 the following morning.

Friday morning - yes, this isn't a week's worth of stuff, it's about 36 hours by this point - we got up in good time to get to reception, waited around for a bit for G* and M*, then said "fine, they're not here, let's go" and off S and myself went. We had a pleasant trip to Selly Oak (I'm still amazed by the train station more-or-less in the middle of the BU campus), then a walk up the road to the George Cadbury Hall, and I was shown off - sorry, introduced - to the classmates (I am no longer just "Mike", but "Mikeasseenontv", apparently) who were saying "oh, we're just the support act, S is headlining", and we saw the morning's worth of plays. Solely my opinion, but they were... ok. There was a post-Auschwitz play that was interesting, but the other two were competent, perfectly decent pieces of theatre (and I've seen worse put on by hardened professionals), but failed to grab me by the throat.

Lunchtime, and I wandered off to find a Private Eye and a sandwich, then met Mavis at the train station, as S was engaged in schmooze. On my way to the station I found M* & G*, who were walking somewhat slowly; it turned out that they weren't at reception on time because M* had fallen out of the shower. She'd hit her head (twice) on the tiled floor, and had an eight-inch bruise down her calf. She wasn't feeling too well, had practically given G* a heart attack, and he couldn't phone for help because his valve had come loose and he hadn't had time to fix it properly, so couldn't speak. Eventually they got some help from the day manager (who was a bit of a charmer), and M* decided - in spite of feeling sick and headachey - to struggle on and go to see S's play. So, they told me all of this, then said "but for goodness' sakes, don't tell S until it's all over."

Apparently, M* had gone to Boots to get some arnica tablets for the bruising and shock; she got them, then had trouble opening the box. After a couple of minutes of this she went back inside and asked the girl on the counter to help. After a couple of minutes, she couldn't get into it, so phoned head office to find out how this lid worked. M* was offered a refund - "I don't want a refund, I just want my tablets" - and it turned out that this batch of arnica tablets were sent out in faulty packaging, and M* was the first purchaser of this batch. The whole batch was taken off the shelves, as M* tried to find another Boots.

Mavis and myself headed up to the theatre, chatted for a bit waiting for S to finish schmoozing, and when she came out, all sparkly-eyed, M* and G* turned up having stopped in the pub for a bracer. Then we went into the auditorium, and sat through a play about a metaphysical detective (which was fun), and a (somewhat) kitchen sink drama by the writer of Another Paradise, before the headline act came on stage, The Bee Charmer by t'missus.

Not wanting to give anything away; it was excellent. I know I'm biased, but the writing was stunning, the performances were wonderful and expansive, and the director was over the moon to receive the script. They had a lot of fun putting it on, and I felt that S's writing had engaged the actors' imaginations. There was pindrop silences in the theatre, people rapt, their attention on the stage. It didn't feel like half an hour, but it zipped by. The writing reminded me a lot of Douglas Adams, where every word means something. The headline act was deservedly in the right place, in my opinion.

We decamped to the library next door for drinks and nibbles, where the writers were asked to attend a ten-minute individual panel interview with the invited guests. I thought there would be about half a dozen people on this panel. S was the last play, so she was the last one to attend. The previous day, the panel were a bit up themselves, giving the impression they weren't really expecting to find anything of note; one person said "send us your play when you submit; we'll probably read it and we might give you feedback. What will never, ever happen is that we'll put it on." So, S goes to the panel, opens the door and sees 19 people sat in a big circle. An involuntary "oh my god" escapes her lips, and a chuckle runs around the circle. The course director says "so, who wants to start?" and they were off. Everybody *loved* it. These are the great and the good in the theatre world, those people who can make or break careers, and they had a few criticisms, but all were making comments like "completely charming", "spellbinding", "captivating"... and before too long, ten minutes were up.

Steve wrapped things up - "thank you for coming, we can go & get drinks now" - and left, expecting everybody to leave with him. I saw him come down with a couple of people, and thought "oh, that's the panel", not expecting there to be 19 of them. S didn't appear. Hm, I thought. Maybe she's talking to the play director. Then another half-dozen came down. Another ten minutes went by, and then this mass of people, S at the rear, came back. She grabbed a drink, and:

"after Steve wrapped up, I was expecting everybody to go with him; that's what's been happening on previous sessions. Instead, almost everybody wanted to talk to me, and rushed my seat like a tidal wave; they were queueing up to talk to me. The woman from the National who said they will never put it on was saying that she could see it on a huge stage, a massive performance in a big theatre, and it was tremendously exciting work..."

There were people from radio being excited, our local theatre, the Rep, agents... No kidding; they loved it, and her. Clare, her director, said that she'd never seen or heard of anything like this happening before and was stunned.

So after that, Mavis left, M* & G* left, and S and me went for a pint by ourselves, then joined up with the remainders of the class for a (bloody good) curry. Back to the hotel, we picked up G* from their room and took him for a pint to get him out of M*'s increasingly painful hair. M* had at least a mild concussion in my opinion, but wouldn't go to A&E to get it checked out, she just wanted to sleep and there was no arguing to be had.

The following morning was reasonably calm; M* was feeling much better, so gingerly got into the shower, whereupon the shower head - an 8" whopper - dropped off the wall. Thankfully, not onto M*'s head, so she wrapped it in a towel and dropped it onto Reception. Then they came to find us, asked me for help shifting bags (which I did), and before too long we were all checked out and ready to depart. Some coffee and a muffin, a walk to the war memorial (which is lovely), and then I wandered into the museum while the others went shopping. I had a good poke around the museum, then went to wave off M* & G*. S and myself pottered around Brum, I took S up to the museum to see one particular artwork that fascinated me (Jacob Epstein's Lucifer), then it was time for our train home.

Seriously, this has been one of the oddest weeks I've had in a while (for many more reasons than I've mentioned here) and I've had some odd weeks recently. The next five days will be a cakewalk in comparison.

(Thanks to spending four hours on trains I'd been able to read Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based off a film rec by my sister; yes, it's good. Not great literature, but not Dan Brown either. If you see a copy in a secondhand bookshop, you might enjoy it. I don't mention every book I read, or even one in twenty, but this is worth a thought or two. Beware, though: the subject matter may be triggering.)

This is a huge entry, and doesn't even contain photos. Tut. There are a couple of photos to come, though.

Anyway, this means task #82 has been completed! I have seen a play written by someone I know (and adore, quite honestly), and it was great.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94/365), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (57/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 8
Remaining: 93

Day 90 wordle

From Screen Captures