fucking tourist
Now Playing: jason segel & walter - man or muppet
Topic: life



I've been a little absent from the online world the past few weeks, primarily because Kyle arrived for an all-too-brief visit, albeit approximately 25.5 hours later than scheduled, making it even briefer.

A technical hitch delaying his flight from Mackay in Queensland to Brisbane by two hours (originally cited as being due to bad weather) caused him to miss his connecting flight from Brisbane to Singapore; and though eventually Qantas found him a seat on corresponding flights exactly 24 hours later (after feeding him and putting him up in a hotel overnight), by the time he reached Singapore, snowfall in London had impacted on flights landing at Heathrow, causing his British Airways flight to be cancelled, and him to be placed on a Qantas flight another hour later.

Thankfully the brevity of his visit didn't take away from the excitement and enjoyment of having him here with me in London, and getting to show him the sights, as well as a trip up north for a week to explore Yorkshire, Cumbria and County Durham.

Having snowed here on the Friday night, by the time Kyle arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, a lot of it had turned to slush and ice, but having never seen actual snow before, seeing the houses, train tracks, and parks coated in the stuff, Kyle felt it was all a little surreal [not dissimilar from my own experience around Christmas 2000 when I woke to find it had snowed overnight].

He had also been led to believe it would be extremely cold here, being midwinter and coming from midsummer Queensland humidity and heat; but being still fairly mild here at that stage, he was wondering what all the fuss was about.

So after a relaxing pub lunch [the first of countless consumed by us during his time here], he insisted I photograph him barefoot and in a t-shirt at a nearby park, showing him enjoying the mild weather. The original image is below.



As luck would have it, the following Thursday night it once more snowed, allowing him to wander out in it with his camera almost as excitedly as I had done the previous Friday night, and for us to take a second shot the next day of him enjoying the "mild" weather, this time going for full effect with him donning shorts, a "wifebeater", and armed with a can of Carlsberg.

All he was missing was a barbeque.

After "basking" in the morning sun, he also decided to do a barefoot lap of honour:

oh hai
Now Playing: fiona bevan - us and the darkness
Topic: life



Though I've been posting bits and pieces here and there, it seems like ages since I have updated properly.

Things have been generally pretty good with me of late. Work is work, that's probably the dullest part of my life of late.

Apart from that, as posted previously, I've been wandering around the UK and Europe since I arrived in London just over 7 months ago now. Specifically Eastbourne, Arbroath and surrounds, Brighton, Paris, and visiting new haunts and re-visiting old haunts. This coming weekend, over the Summer Bank Holiday break, I will be heading up to Edinburgh to visit some friends and possibly sneak in some festival treats.

This last is thanks to a recent visitor from Australia, Sarah Jansen, who kindly donated her return ticket to Edinburgh to me :o)

Speaking of which, she and I and another Sarah also enjoyed some fantastic live music recently: Fiona Bevan, Mika Doo, Cara Sebastian, Vashti and Joseph Stokes at Zigfrid von Underbelly in Hoxton Square.

I'm hoping to catch up with more live music over the coming months, including another dose of Sarah Nixey and a long overdue catch-up with CW Stoneking.

Recently I also managed to make time and get up the cajones to finally visit Pimps and Pinups to get my locks cut, which I'd been meaning to do since late last year (I'd done a small trim in October or so, but wanted it mid-length for Arbroath, so hadn't gone the whole hack I'd intended).

We have a new housemate moving in any day, and unfortunately "lost" our lovely Angeline & James recently, though they're only about 10 minutes away.

As you may be able to tell from the above photograph, I'm greatly diminished these days. I'm down to about 4-5kg from my goal weight, which is awesome. I'd like to say it just fell off, but it has involved a lot of dedication to the free gym at my work and trying to eat at least moderately better (though I've managed it without cutting out alcohol completely, which is reassuring).

Creatively there have been some nice bits of news recently:

Four of my images were included in the re-launch issue of twohundredby200 magazine for iPad and MagCloud.

'Creeper' was included in issue #112 of Shots Magazine

The latest installment of i see a pattern forming is now online.

And I have still been participating in The Divine Diptych Project, for which there will be a new round of images hitting the site from early September.

Thankfully, although the recent rioting in London was somewhat nearby, especially on the first night, it had little impact on me. Sad to see the damage done to a city I am falling further in love with each day though.

listen, do you want to know a secret?
Now Playing: things of stone & wood - junk theatre
Topic: life



Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh.
Closer,
Let me whisper in your ear...

The big news of the week?

I'm moving to Brisbane in early September. The reasons are twofold:

One I will simply sum up by saying that I've been really unhappy lately; depressed would be an appropriate word for how I've been feeling. So I need to make some changes, and moving should resolve most of this discontent.

The other part is about being realistic: I really want to travel to the US and UK next year, possibly even make a permanent move back to the UK, and paying rent in my current abode or in a place on my own in Melbourne is not really allowing me to pay off debts and save for that.

So I'm going to board with my parents in Brisbane to reduce my overheads, repay my debt, save for my trip and, if my parents have any say in it, finally learn to drive!

Over the next two months I need to cull down my belongings, so if you're in Melbourne* and interested in buying any of my work that I have framed, feel free to email me at propaganda@bronwenhyde.com to find out what I have available and maybe we can negotiate on the price. I have a variety of prints in a variety of sizes and prices.

If you're in Brisbane and want to know what I have, also mail me as I can arrange delivery in September without the exorbitant shipping costs :D

*You're welcome to contact me if you're outside of Melbourne or Brisbane, but shipping costs can be pretty high, you've been warned.

new year's day
Now Playing: blur - the great escape
Topic: life





Like many dogs, Vulpe is scared of fireworks so Karen was destined to be house-bound for New Year's Eve and I was happy enough to boycott, but on Karen's suggestion a small house party sounded like a good idea. So Karen and I sent out a small number of invites to our New Year's Eve house party. We didn't want more than about 20-30 people here at one time.

It turned out it was an excellent idea and I declare the party a success. Only one person was overly affected in a negative way by alcohol, and even then not really that badly; no fights; no breakages; and I believe everyone had a fantastic time and I met some cool friends of Karen and Nick's and enjoyed the company of the friends I invited.

On receiving her invitation, a workmate of Karen's declared she would only be in attendance if there were balloon animals. Although I'd only met Amy a few weeks previous at an after-work-christmas-party gathering here, I was totally up for the challenge. Admittedly I did ask Feih first about her skills with such things, but it only served to cement my resolve to "bring it on" when told that Feih's skills were rusty and she didn't have a pump.

So I went to Bernard's Magic Shop and found to my delight that they sell a "balloon modelling kit" inclusive of the right type of balloons, an instruction book and a pump, all for the bargain price of $20.

In the end I didn't have time to make any animals before the party, but (despite the obscure instructions) I did manage to get my head around the basic balloon figure (not quite a poodle, though Feih added the puffed tail later in the night) and was quite proud to show off my very first balloon animal created at the beginning of the evening.

These shots were taken by Anthony Horan on his cameraphone at around 6am on New Year's Day. I believe I was still conscious for a few hours after that.

I hope you all enjoyed your New Year's Eve and that 2009 brings you all you wish for xx