What's up?

Another day, another dollar, or rather, pound... I've been a bit of a boring git again for the past two weeks - inflicted due to a change in pay from weekly wage to monthly. But there's a long weekend coming up and thankfully my pay comes through just before it starts! So I'll be making up for some lost time and heading up to London for a day or two.

But the quiet days haven't been totally wasted! I got some air drying clay and Mark and I have been slowly making some chess pieces. One set each, and then the major task will be making a chess board. Thankfully Mark is pretty good at things like that so I should have some good help putting mine together. It's nice to have my favorite pass time back again and being able to get my hands dirty with some clay. It's pretty much the same as the clay I used at home, but it's mixed with nylon/fibreglass so it doesn't need to be fired, you just let it dry and then paint it and laquer it.

I'm making my pieces as woodland fairies and imps - inspired by the woods around here. For the light and dark sides I'm having summer and winter. Hopefully they'll turn out as well as they look in my head! So far so good though.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Unfortunately no travel stories yet, or in the near future. Although i may be off to Greece soon for a few days... Mmmm lazing about on the beach sounds wonderful after all this typically English weather! Just when i thought it was getting spring/summer-ish it got cold again, and it's been raining and grey - Brrrr!

A few days off. Not much else to write. Life is good and there's lots to smile about.

I have a few weeks to catch up on don't I? I GOT THE JOB!! Now permanency is mine! I do have another 6 months probabtion, so by the time I've finished that I'll have been here for almost a year. But the good thing about that is, at the end of it I get a bonus! He Hay! things are definitely looking up! Mark and I had a reasonably quiet weekend to celebrate, a few beers on the peir and a day of me trying to do some clothes shopping.

Hastings is really crap for shopping of that sort, so ended up not getting anything, but Brighton is pretty good. I'm lucky enough to get along with the girl I work with so I went shopping at lunch time with her and got some jeans, an excellent jacket, some smalls and a few summer tops for 30 squids. So i was pretty damn pleased with that little bargain trip... Well it is if I don't convert it to Aussie dollars, but anyway!

Last week was my final 'notice' week with my temp agency and then the long weekend to look forward to - and the hope of good weather. I got my wish with that one it was gorgeous the whole three days, not hot, but I did catch a bit of colour (I may be able to get tanned here after all!) Hot for here though I guess it was somewhere around the lower 20's, something like the weather at home at the moment I'm told.

It was a fantastic weekend, I really enjoyed having everyone down and
filling our little flat to bursting point! My mate Sue came down on Friday
night and we spent most of the evening yappin' away at each other. We were
supposed to go out, but by the time we'd finished the few beers and checked
the clock it was 10pm and the pubs here start to kick everyone out at 11. So
we stayed in instead. It was an excellent evening to start with - FANKS!

On Saturday early in the morning Tony - a friend that I do a little work for
and an old mate of Marks called and he came around to ours and then we all headed out for a fry up together. Very Nice! Then it was back to ours to meet Claire and her new man. After a few more beers - hair of the dog an' all, we trotted off to the
country park. It was a good afternoon but tiring afternoon with us up hill and down dale for the most of it. It was gorgeous all the same wandering through blue-bell fields and through the valleys with their tinkling creeks.

We headed off to the pub after that- all gagging for a beer or three! Had
dinner there. One good thing about living in a fishing town (well there's
more than just one but...) is that they do excellent fish and mussels. But I
had steak (my first in ages!), along with the rest of us, except Mark who went for the mussels again, so when he stopped eating for a loo break, we tucked into his and he came back to an empty bowl... Ahhh mean girls that we are!
Shortly after dinner and another beer or two, we watched the fireworks that were let off on the beach. I LOOOOOOVE fireworks, so that was a great start to the night for me! At some stage we left the pub and headed towards the 'new' town for a boogy. Ended up at a place called 'Brass Monkeys' that plays funk. They had a band on and we spent the rest of the evening there gettin' on down to some funky tunes! Ha ha. We stumbled back home and pretty soon I was fast asleep on the couch. Mark managed to get up only an hour later for the dawn dancing on the green near ours. I was dead to the world although they did try to wake me... Anyways! I'm told there were Morris dancers gallore surrounded by a lot of other people who'd been out all night and day
like us. Mark and Keiran (Claires man) said it was a good'un, but I'm not convinced that I missed out on the best bits!!

On Sunday we managed to rise sometime around 2pm, just in time to meet Sam,
Kelly and Rhys as they arrived from London. Our flat at this stage was packed
and if anyone else turned up we would've had to hang them on the back of a
door or something... We trundled to the pub (again) with them and spent the
arvo there in the beer garden out the back - a nice little spot. Tony turned
up with his wife and kids, so there was quite a few of us... After dossing
about there for most of the afternoon we split up (the kids were getting
antsy) us free-agents stayed on for another round or two, and then we met up
with Sam, Kelly and little Rhys again and headed down to the 'fair' that is
on the beach. A few rides and a bunch of laughs later and we went for some
fish 'n' chips and yet more beer.

By about 11pm we were ready to go home and crash again. Claire and her man headed back to their campsite, so it wasn't too packed at ours, just a tight squeeze. Too soon the next day rocked around.

Monday was the full on 'Jack in the Green' festivities. A parade through town
followed by people painted green, dressed in leaves twirling fire and banging drums ensued. Lots of queues everywhere, and seeing that I can now loosely be classed as a
local I spent some of the afternoon complaining about tourists crowding our
little seaside town. Ha ha.
We met Claire and Keiran up at their campsite for a late cook up breakfast and then back to the West Hill where everything was kicking off. More Morris dancers (I didn't think Morris dancers really existed until I came here, I thought they were a fantasy thing of comedy sketches...), lots of topless men beating drums, much dancing and beer flowing.



The actual 'Jack in the Green' ritual is this huge guy completely covered
from head to toe in foliage and a crown made of bright flowers. You can't
actually see the man underneath the costume. He 'dances' around to a stage to
the beating of drums by some quite muscled men and then once on stage the
crowd proceed to rip all the foliage off his costume and throw it in the air.
This has something to do with asking for a blessing for the crops and a good
summer. They then cut him down/push him over, and depending on which way the
Jack falls lets them know if their prayers have been answered. I'm pretty
sure though that the 'Jack' is out of his costume by the time he gets cut
down. I didn't see any blood anyway.



After that it was more beer in the sun and then I went back to ours to
say 'Adios' to Sue, Claire and Keiran and promptly crashed out once they'd
left. Sam, Kelly and Rhys stayed on a bit longer out on the green with Mark,
but I was way too shagged by that stage to even walk outside again.

Tuesday at work was abit of a struggle, but it Wednesday night now and the week is almost done!