This is what happens when I can't sleep

Early Saturday morning. Still on a bad Sunny D come down, that drink does things to me. Can't sleep. Wide awake yet fast asleep, this is a dark time. I hear seagulls, the sky keeps changing. I'm surviving on half the recommended hours of sleep a night. I dream of festivals and make up stories in my head. It's too hot but I know that without the duvet I'll shiver. I hear cars pass the window, it's too early. Where could they be going? I've spent my night and morning watching the hands of a clock. Even when I close my eyes. There's nothing else to do but lie and tell myself I'm sleeping. But me and my head and my body and all the eyes on the wall know this isn't true. Shadows are cast over the bed as the sun rises, cheating me. An orange glow seeps through the window where the curtain fell down, shining on my insomnia. I hear the world and the sea and it's animals wake up, just like I heard them sleep. Everything is still and silent. The birds are awake but slow and the sea still sleeps, it's turned lilac in the reflection of the sun. My mind sung myself awake. I watch a baby bird peck at rubbish on the road. A driver takes no concern in considering to swerve. It lands by the damaged bollard another driver hit. I think to myself here, as I sit. Darkness hides nothing when it comes down to it. If I look around the corner of the window I can see The High Point Hotel. A national reference point for locating local scandals. Like when those boys got caught in a storm and when that girl threatened to jump into the sea. Thing is, The High Point Hotel's been closed for as long as I can remember. Lighting is almost the colour of daylight now. Things are getting brighter and bluer and whiter. Ships are moving about, a small boat swims into the path of sunlight. This is the time for joggers and cyclists and dog walkers and drivers, or people who've been awake all night and have given up on trying to sleep. One day I'm gonna draw this room, face by face, thing by thing. I would paint the sky too but it's different every time I glance my eye. I hear a cat's collar clinking on a food bowl in the kitchen as I watch a bird's wing trace the edge of a long blue cloud, like a fingertip along the top of a dusty shelf. My mum wakes up in the next room, puts the kettle on and opens the back door. It seems like the day has started. Without me embracing the night. I close one eye and see the opposite side of my room reflected in the dressing table mirror. The crumpled heap of my duvet suggesting restlessness, the pile of jumpers and underwear I moved from this chair. My sleeping bag thrown in the corner from when the end of August became too cold and we had to stop kidding ourselves that there'd even been a summer at all.

This is a quick self portrait I did in the Laing Art Gallery on a strange silver board about a month ago =)

Art gallery's make me happy

Photo number one is a painting board at Bingley Music Live. Just out of shot it said 'Jarvis Cocker is god' in yellow paint but 'god' looked like more like 'goo'. No points for guessing who wrote that (me) Photo number two is from The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle, my favourite art gallery. It would be cool to have a massive doodle wall that like that in my room, I might try it. Interactive art is the best kind.

"Oops, I think we just broke the small Yorkshire town, Bingley. What a night! What a crowd!"

 

After six or more years of waiting to see Maximo Park, I'm now lucky enough to say that I've finally managed to see them not only once but four times! With each performance I swear Lukas Wooller becomes more and attractive and Paul Smith's moves become slicker. Not only have they both replied to me on Twitter but at my request they've been playing my favourite song, Postcard of a Painting, on their recent festival dates and I even managed to touch Paul's knees and get their setlist from The Cluny. Happy, happy happy! I would go into more detail about all of the gigs and all of the encounters but it would be best if I didn't as I can get carried away, as anyone who remotely knows me will agree,  plus I need to try and look presentable for going to see the original King Kong tonight, bye

Ticket to Ride

This is a lovely little display between the stairs of Tynemouth Market that I saw a week or so ago when the metro's were being weird and  when I went to buy some brogues. I love that they use that space for installations and things.

And then in town I saw this nice graffiti opposite the Newcastle Library...

 

Happy 1st Birthday Lucy!

♥

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

Eating samosas in the car and listening to PJ Harvey.

I have such a thing for that woman. Her vocal range is incredible.

She's equally fierce and delicate. She's my hero. Combined with my love for Warpaint, Hole, Elastica, Sleeper and The Long Blondes I think I'm actually becoming a musical feminist of some sort.