Meandering Milly

Van madness??

2008-12-10T16:11:00.002Z

Perhaps the intimate space is getting to us.

Missing Orkney

2008-12-10T15:52:00.003Z

Although we're thoroughly enjoying life on the road - freedom, creativity, change and meeting lots of new people - we are missing Orkney. Everything's fairly hectic down here and so many people, cars, shiney lights and things - so many things! Just spent the day in Shrewsbury (not too large a town in the grand scheme of things) and felt quite overwhelmed at points with all the people and shops. It's good, though, to be in a different space.

Back in Central Scotland

2008-12-10T15:44:00.004Z

Great to see Tony and spend some time at his. He made us a great ad hoc studio in his loft and we got lots of leather bits done - of course John and Tony also got lots of music made too. A bit weird to be back where we lived for five years before moving to Orkney - it did feel that we've moved on (and up!) But good to see the Ochil Hills again.

fair trading #2

2008-12-07T17:51:00.002Z

Yesterday we did a little christmas fair in a village hall in the lakes - Arnside. Managed to get a table at the last minute - i think our novelty value might have swung it. Spent the day chatting about Orkney (perhaps visit orkney should have us on a retainer?!) Also sold stuff and made some money - the table only cost us £15. Maybe small is beautiful in this case.

fair trading

2008-12-07T17:37:00.003Z

The christmas fair at hexham last weekend was less than a blinding success - all a bit credit crunchy really! Plenty of folk but wallets remaining deep in pockets. and as the stall cost £100 we didnt actually make anything. Still, an intresting experience, chatted to other stall holders and seems craft fairs are a pretty hit and miss business at the best of times - and this isnt the best of times.

Surely John's vaguely Eastern-European-military look couldn't have had an impact on our sales success?

bangles, bangles

2008-11-22T22:57:00.003Z

The sales tour is going well. The leather bangles are proving attractive to the craft and gift shops I'm approaching on the way down - good news.
www.en-case.com (En-case orkney website)

Orkney cat stuck up a tree - of course

2008-11-20T18:37:00.005Z

The tree

After a couple of nights off grid around Inverness we decided to have a few on site at Glenmore, to get on with marketing stuff for Hexham on the laptop. And give Harry (fondly referred to as the monkey, due to playful naughtiness) a chance to run free. Of course he ended-up 70 foot up a Scots Pine - of course he did, why wasn't I expecting that?

John and i spent a few sleepless nights (as did Harry, I guess) shaking treats and calling, he called back but was pretty well stuck. The SSPCA (very supportive) called the fire brigade on day 2 - their ladders wouldn't reach and they tried to blast him down with hose (tarpaulin all spread-out to catch him and all). He danced around to avoid the spray and stayed put.

Day 3 he must have been getting hungry - and probably a bit bored - he started to make a supreme effort to get down.

Vertiginous hero

John borrowed a ladder from the local shop and bravely ascended towards the monkey (by now his plight was well known locally and folks were trying to find someone who could climb the tree.) Harry got so far but no further, John was in peril of getting stuck up there himself, through sheer fear, so descended.

Enter the heroic campsite manager who shinned up the ladder and grabbed the monkey by the tail, dragging from the tree and into our very releaved arms below.

Back safe inside, on the ground

Why did he chase up such a precipitous tree? What ever could have lead him to such an

ill-advised act?

The primary suspect

Rural recording

2008-11-19T15:31:00.002Z

That John - he'll whip-out his guitar and lay down a track anywhere.

Milly at Badallarach

2008-11-19T15:30:00.003Z

Nice view

pictures at last - the renovation

2008-11-19T15:24:00.004Z

Euan crowns the flue - what a DIY king! Hero of the day, installing the stove in a Kierfiold force 8.

And our lovely stove - we love our stove.

Back in civilasation?

2008-11-13T11:23:00.002Z

Back on internet after three weeks in the back of beyond (Wester Ross). Stayed on a great little campsite by a bothy in Badallarach - www.badallarach.com - the perfect place to get away from everything (except the weather), but, then even mum in Devon got the weather so can't complain. Got down to some serious relaxing and managed to record a few tracks and put together some leather bits and pieces too.

The journey over to Badallarach was full of incident, and a bit too much excitement really - I was thinking I wanted to get inside some serious mountain scenery for a change. And I did, whilst also spending some time on top of some seriously snowly, blizzardy up-high roads. There's something indefinably weird about sliding around in your home - even managed a snowy five point turn on the top of the Badallarach road when we couldn't quite make it over on the Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a kindly passing local who wisely wouldn't drag us up to the top of the rise with his 4x4 as he feared we'd slide off the brae on the way down into the valley. We slept back down in the woody valley and our beautiful stove saved the day.

The next day all snow had melted, the sun was shining and I'm very glad we made it to Badallarach in the end - worth all the excitement and adventure.

I'll post some images once I have my laptop plugged into internet.

sad, busy times

2008-10-19T17:15:00.002+01:00

We lost one of our beloved cats on the road at Skaill a couple of weeks ago, things are sad and hectic in the run-up to travelling south. We moved from Skaill the day Delilah died and parked-up in Stromness, so now Harry - the last cat standing - is staying in the van until we're away from roads in the highlands. He seems to be coping fine, we're taking him out on a lead and harness, which he's got used to really quickly, for walks on the beach. But the whole experience is fairly intense, a bit like the three of us sharing a cattery pen! Also, now we're in Stromness, we're getting visitors!! It's all an experience.

The stove is back from the smithy - all beautifully re-made - and we've lit, filled and painted it. The flue's arrived (eye-wateringly expensive as it's double skinned, but safe and incredably shiney, so at least it'll double-up as a mirror.) So all ready for installing. A dear kind friend, far more DIY competant than either of us, is helping with that next weekend. Why not leave pivotal elements to the absolute last minute for that extra little edge of excitement?!

more change

2008-09-16T19:31:00.004+01:00

we've now started to winterise Milly and get ready for living and travelling in her - art studio, musical instruments and all. the shower/toilet room was being used as an ad hoc storage space and having the wall there was closing in the living space . . . so the wall's gone (padsaw, hammer, chisel and determination). this really opens things up and means we can install the wee wood-burning stove where the wall was (once it's done.) et voila - no wall - OK, so maybe it's hard to see the extra space, being as how it's full of stuff. note the pale wooden crate thing - a re-cobbled IKEA box I've built around the toilet!

all change

2008-09-16T18:16:00.009+01:00

and these are images of Milly once we got our filthy cussid hands on her . . . . .

the story so far . . .

2008-09-16T03:30:00.000+01:00

OK, so it's looking like this may be a weekly update - for now anyway. The Sorting Room - the community arts space in Stromness I'm involved in setting-up - is down to winter hours (3 days a week open rather than 6) which is leaving me more time to concentrate on my own business plans - and travelling plans, of course.

I'm uploading some photos of Milly today, to give a before and after idea. She's slowly transforming inside, whilst still looking like an unthreatening old standard motorhome from the outside. OK, there'll maybe be a couple of clues that all is not "weekend at the caravan club" (like the catflap and the chimney (to be)) but she's not a khaki 7.5 tonner, anyway. I'm so glad I eshewed the chanceof that 7.5 tonn ex-breast screening lorry I saw on ebay just before getting Milly - it would have stuck-out here at Skaill bay.

I feel Milly's a big enough vehicle to tuck into the landscape after years in Rita the Romahome (who could be easily and discretely overnighted in the middle of a city/on residential streets/in pub (and hotel) car parks/outside churches.) Only ever once outside a church, mind, since waking up in the middle of someones funeral. Still, living full-time in Rita really wouldn't have been ab option - not even for folks with a relationship as good as ours. Rita's off to her new home, now, with a friend on Shapinsay, who's off on a rtoad trip south to Glouscester for Christmas with cat and dog in her - so it's good to know she'll be well used and appreciated after her many years of faithful service with us.

I've re-done my en-case business website (without the dreaded bags) and listed a few things on ebay. I'm working on an updated version of my artist website as it's not been touched since moving to Orkney. Also building a site for John to display his musical talents - I'll link to it once it's up and running. John's off on a business start-up course this week - so maybe he'll get inspired to figure-out a way of making some money from all this creative activity.

Off to figure-out how to insert some images into this blog . . .

OK, the images on the left (hopefully) are of Milly when we bought her - very neat and tidy!

the first post

2008-09-10T00:35:00.000+01:00

this feels significant
and yet refreshingly light
perhaps strange to write things down, and share indiscriminately - though for an artist (and a resident of Orkney) bearing the soul is an everyday affair.

so, the blog is born and now i commit to . . . at least feeling guilty when i don't write.

we're planning to travel south for a few months in the van (Milly) where we've been living for the summer at Skaill Bay in Orkney (well and truely north). she'll need to made ready for the season ahead - shes's only an old domestic Talbot from the eighties and not originally built for all-season living, so we'll be installing a wee solid fuel stove and insulating with sheeps wool. think of her as a toasty yurt on wheels. the stove is at the blacksmiths - gifted us in a dismembered state, i have no doubt the smith will re-create, and i'll post images when he does.

i'm currently staying in a hostel in Stromness http://www.hamnavoehostel.co.uk/ in order to update and plan - it has blistering (and free) wi-fi access so it's a week of hi-tech tweeking of websites and blogs - not to mention general faffing around in second life.