Black Glitter.

I was searching for some new music the other night and came across this not-so-new band. 

I immediately loved it and I'll explain why below.



This music is the sound of my teenage years.  I listen and hear echoes of the glory days of the 90s where tuneful rock permeated the mainstream.  I hear echoes of The Smashing Pumpkins and The Pixies in the vocals; Placebo and The Silversun Pickups in the fuzzy, crisp chord changing guitars.  I close my eyes and I could be 16 again, in a sweaty, dark, packed gig venue with bleach blonde hair and chipped, black glitter nail polish on guitar-hardened fingers; an outlet for a collective teenage angst unfolding before my ears and eyes.

Total flashback.

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Buckle Up.

What. A. Week.

Monday was my first day in my new job.  Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.  As is typical of my organisation I literally rocked up on my first day, nervous as hell and was handed some numbers and told to pretty much get on with it.  Fortunately there is another girl doing the same role who was equally as bewildered as I was.  When I was taken to my first meeting on Monday afternoon expecting to have prepared a report and be able to deliver it to the meeting, I pretty much felt like I'd made a massive mistake in leaving the comfort  and familiarity of my old team.  As it turned out, there had been a cock up and the meeting was actually scheduled for that morning so I managed to escape certain embarrassment by delivering to a meeting that I had NO idea about. 

Tuesday got worse, and I winded up emailing the Sgt who was overseeing the roll out of our jobs to different sectors to complain that we had effectively been left to do a job without any training or preparation.  It fell on deaf ears, and Tuesday night I got home and cried, wanting to re-apply for my old job.

However, I think the breakdown did me good and cleared my head a little.  Wednesday saw a slight improvement as I embraced the uncertainty and focussed on the good points of the role which include actually having just one job to focus on.  On Thursday I delivered to my first conference and the feedback was that I sounded professional and precise which was amazing considering how nervous I felt. 

I feel better about it... I think it will improve as I settle and feel more comfortable in the role.  I need a few more meetings under my belt to get me used to the way they work.  I know at some point there is going to be a confrontation due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, so that will be a new and challenging aspect to the role that I haven't experienced yet.  Can't say I'm looking forward to that aspect but it's part and parcel of the work and can only improve the skills I already have. 

The new job has been the sandwich filling nestled firmly between two large, soft and wonderfully tasty slices of awesomeness this week.  On Monday night I went to see Extreme, straight after work, and having had ZERO sleep.  Rock. AND. Roll.  Extreme's 90's hair metal classic album Pornograffiti is one of the albums of my childhood- and yes I am aware how inappropriate that sounds - however the music itself is amazing, cheesy as hell, but amazing-feel-good cheese which warms my soul.  I know every detail of the album inside out and one of my memories of it is playing it at my 7/8th birthday party much to the bemusement of my7/8 year old, flowery dress-adourned party invitees.  Awesome.  They were aging, but brilliant.  As a 25th anniversary tour of the album, they played the FULL thing in its entirety.  Nuno still looks FIT AS, despite approaching 50.  Brilliant, I honestly haven't felt as happy as I did when I was singing away to "Hole Hearted" and I pretty much think I was mesmerised at one point by Nuno's solo- skills. Unbelieveble.  And he makes it look so easy.

At the other end of the week - Friday night I went to see The Penguin Café Orchestra which again, is another childhood musical experience.  The music reminds me of my Dad, and brings back so many cherished and happy memories of sitting as a family in the lounge, chatting, laughing and listening to the music all together.  The concert was at The Lichfield Cathedral which couldn't have been a more acoustically perfect setting for the music.  It sounded beautiful and just made my soul feel content and relaxed and happy.  I'd seen them once before, and possibly preferred their first offering in terms of content, however I love how the guy who now runs the orchestra is the son of the original founding member, and he recalls how the music relates to his childhood from the time when I too remember first hearing it all.  The parallels are as wonderfully fitting to me as the music is to it's own individual themes and concepts. 

After such an emotionally charged and stressful week I've taken this weekend off any sculpture projects to recharge my batteries.  Saturday was spent catching up with my two besties, N and Markuus, at the Fuse festival in Lichfield which consisted of sitting in a field drinking strawberry cider in the sunshine and listening to a number of acoustic sets and some good old fashioned sea shanties.

Today I've come to Nottingham to see family as I've spent so many of the last few weekends working on sculptures and commissions that I've not seen my Grandparents in months.  Time is precious, and so I've ensured today is spent in their company.  A roast is being prepared, and I look forward to spending an hour or two round the dinner table listening to my Grandad recount old stories and tales from his past, many of which I've heard before... but that I love hearing again and again nonetheless.

:-) Happy.

Okay. My first thought turned to this ---------------------->

Pop-Up Pirate, the game that many of us had when we were small I'm sure. It seemed this was to be merely my first encounter with the my Pirate Destiny.
I believe this game belonged to my older brother who also spent many an hour playing with Pirate lego, Pirate playmobile and so on. I must have been pretty much surrounded by pirates as a child so this was bound to have a long lasting effect on me.

Here's my brother when he was little, possibly about 8 or 9 years old... look closely at his clothing. Stripes, a scarf, belt with big buckle and a parrot on his T-shirt... blatantly Pirate. (Thank god he's in Japan, he'd kill me if he saw this). He also owned a Pirate ship which I think is still in the attic somewhere. My first piece of evidence was in the form of a photograph of Drayton Manor Theme Park... the photo plainly showed the Pirate Adventure ride- which happened to be my favorite at the time... mainly because I was way too small for most of the other rides and I pretty much hate anything that moves faster than I can think- no jokes about my brain speed please. I remember many a holiday to Cornwall. Hell, we still go there now, and I think we all hold it in our hearts as our family holiday destination. Cornwall, aside from being a holiday destination famous for pasties, piskies and cream teas, is also famous for Pirates. Lots of them, and a quick internet search will pick up many a tale and legend.

As I trawled through lots of family photographs spanning over some 20 odd years I should think, I found a pattern emerging. On most holidays, my family were able to track down large galleon sailing ships! My dad does have a fascination with boats so I think that explains it- but just how many photographs I found of these damn galleons was incredible, and now I too have seem to get drawn to these big ships when I see them. I even took a photograph of one last holiday in a place called Charlestown- another famous Pirate place.

So, even our family holidays were tinged with Pirate activity, visiting Pirate locations and playing on galleons. Look on the left and you'll see my brother playing with a cannon aboard one ship.

On the right here, my poor father experiences Pirate torture as my brother and I develop our blood thirst at a young age.

My little sister was born in 1989, and even years after these photos were taken, our family holidays were still including visits to sailing ships- possibly to train up the new Pirate in our midst. In the picture below, my sister could be no older than three and yet she finds herself at the helm of another Galleon. Incredible.

To Conclude:

Wether or not my family has REAL Pirate blood running through our veins is yet to be proven, but the overwhelming evidence suggests that it's a trait that we won't escape.

Holidays were tainted with Pirate activity, spending more than average amounts of time on large galleons and sailing ships. Echoes of this at home seeped into our lives playing with Pirate games, wearing Pirate clothes (in my brothers case) and playing with Pirate themed toys. The visiting of Pirate heritage still occurs on family holidays today.

It seems the Pirate instinct has lain dormant for some time and has gradually been re-awoken. Unable to pull away from the magnetism of the Skull and Crossbones symbol, The Jolly Roger has crept into my families wardrobe, decor and right into the core of our being.

It really is no wonder I just HAD to buy those shoes.