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Tuesday 19 November 2013

A great weekend at Armadacon

Well, the Armadacon 25th anniversary weekend has come and gone. Personally, I had a great time. I didn't get to see all the panels I wanted to, but that often happens and I will catch up with the videos later on. It was good to get away for a weekend after all the events that have happened this year, especially good to be with friends who have helped both of us get through recent events too. I'm looking forward to next year's now, although I will probably see even less of it than usual. To see more on why check out the Planet VFX blog. All the guests were very entertaining and Mitch Benn gave a great performance of songs after the end of convention dinner. I'm not sure it was wise to laugh so much after such a big meal. It is hard to get back to normal life again now, especially as it is sorting out the paperwork for our accountant to do our tax returns. Not a task I look forward to, but it has to be done. I think I prefer roto work if I'm honest.

The tortoise is still awake, normally he has gone into hibernation by now. Mind you he was up late last year too, it got to the stage where I was wondering what you buy a tortoise for Christmas. It looks like that may be the case this year too. I'm hoping a cold snap will do the trick and he will decide sleeping until the Spring is a good idea.

Apart from that there isn't really anything to report. Life is slowly getting back to normal. The husband is hyperactive due to the pills he has to take and work is slowly beginning to come in. More work would be nice though, especially as the tax man phoned last week. I think it will be beans on toast for Christmas dinner this year unless things improve significantly.

Until next time.

Monday 28 October 2013

Life improving

Well, when I say life is improving, it is doing so at a very slow pace. Thankfully, the husband is coming on in leaps and bounds. Apart from being a lot thinner than he was, you wouldn't know he had been so ill just to look at him. He has his sparkle back and I feel I have the man I married back again. Now all we need is for work to pick up. I suppose in a way it is, but very slowly. Although the film we are (were?) working on has hit funding problems again, we are talking to new people about various other projects. This is good, they seem very nice people and we like the projects they are discussing so this could go far. I certainly hope so.

The home knitting is very busy at the moment, I don't think the Alpaca farm can get enough knitters and so those of us existing ones have a lot of items to knit. This is good, I like having a lot of things to knit and it is useful when the weather knocks out the TV signal, which is happening rather a lot at the moment. I know digital is the future, but the old system didn't lose the downlink as often. I did remark the other night that I thought pianos would make a comeback, we managed approximately 3 minutes viewing of one program due to the rain storms blocking the signal. Thank heavens for broadband, but I do wish more shows were available on catch-up. I guess this is what is called progress.

With regard to knitting, I have made a start on my Dr Who Anniversary waistcoat too. I knit the Alpaca things during most of the evening and go onto my waistcoat for the last hour or two before going to bed (usually from about 12:30am to about 1:30 or 2am, did I mention I'm a night owl?). It is coming on quite well and I am now working on the Doctors heads. This part is the most time consuming so I hope it will speed up soon. I hope to have it ready for the Armadacon weekend, but I admit it will be close.

The storm over the weekend caused a lot of things to blow around the garden, but I think where the house is was a little sheltered as neither we, nor any of our neighbours had any damage as far as I can see. And this with the highest gust of wind of 99mph being recorded only a few miles away at the Needles. I think we were lucky this time, I remember the great storm of 87, which was very bad. Again all the trains stopped running, but then it was for several days. I was living in London then and my parents were away on holiday. I tried to get down to the island to check the house, but couldn't get further south than Guildford then. Thankfully, my Grandmother was alive then and she was able to find me my Mother's neighbour's phone number in the phone book (not much internet then!) and I phoned them to check on the house. Everything was fine then too. If you were caught up in the storm I hope you got through without problems.

Until next time.

Monday 23 September 2013

Compulsive Knitting

I mentioned in my last blog that I am a compulsive knitter, and its true. I can't sit and do nothing. I have to knit, although I don't when I'm working on location. Clicking needles tend to upset the sound department. I worked out the other day that I have been knitting for over forty years, this was quite a surprise as I really didn't think it was that long. However, when I think more about this I realise that, yes, I have been knitting that long. I started at a young age. My Grandmother declared that it was impossible to teach me to knit as I was trying to knit left handed when I was about four. Maybe I was then. I used both hands equally at first, perhaps favouring my left for most things, but then I worked out it was a right handed world and gradually used my left hand less and less. A lasting legacy of this is having problems with right and left. This does cause the odd heated moment when I'm navigating. I don't trust satnav, it always looses where we are at vital moments so I always follow on a map and then I can take over at a moments notice. We do get the "no, the other left!" at times, which doesn't go down well with my Husband, the driver in our family. Still, I'm getting off topic, I'll get back to the knitting. Looking around I don't seem to have that much to show for all that hard work. The house isn't full of knitted items, although there are quite a few hidden away. I will admit to having several stashes of yarn about the place, mostly in the loft (or attic if you prefer), a couple of cupboards, and in various bags around the bedroom. So, what have I knitted over all those years? Well I have made a few toys for various young relatives, jumpers for me and my Husband, the odd scarf or two, numerous gloves, but that wouldn't take over forty years to do. I'm guessing this is one of life's mysteries, along with where socks go to when you wash them, and why you can't find something for several days and then when you don't need it any more, there it is, in full view. I suppose I can account for some time due to not being happy with the end product and, after numerous days of knitting, unpicking the whole thing and using the yarn for a completely different project. But none of this accounts for all that knitting.

You may notice on my page that I have added a series of links. I'm new to this blogging lark and to Blogger. I do sometimes write on on a painting site, but that is a much simpler thing and there is not customisation. I'm still finding my way around this one. Some of the links are self explanatory, some less so. The ones to do with knitting are my own website, which has a knitting section, and my Ravelry page, which has a very nice lacy scarf pattern for sale on it, go on, you know you could do with one. Alternatively, knit it as a present for someone for Christmas. The other links relate either to art or to hobbies.

Talking of art, I just got a message to say that one of my pictures has been chosen for the Redbubble front page. Amazing! I don't know what to say, it is a real honour to be chosen (won't do the sales much harm either). So, check out Redbubble and take a look.

Until next time.

Friday 20 September 2013

A little background

I thought I should start this blog with a little information about me, not enough to cause identity theft problems, but enough so you know what to expect in the future. As is probably obvious from my blog, I live on the Isle of Wight. For those who don't know where that is, it is a small island off the south coast of England. My blog is called Vectis Life because Vectis was the Roman name for the island and it is still very much in use today. The island is a tourist destination and is also known for music festivals. However, these days it is suffering from the cheap holidays to southern Europe and so is now a shadow of it's former self. Personally, I think all those people who don't come here are missing out. We have fantastic countryside, great tourist attractions, and pretty villages, not to mention our beautiful beaches. Aside from this the island is also home to a lot of Artists and Photographers, I do both and belong to several Art groups as well as a local Photographic Society. I won't bore you with more about where I live, but if you want to see more of my paintings, photographs, and more about what I do then go to my website http://www.lindamarques.com.

Having mentioned my painting and photography, I will do an obvious plug for sales of my images. Well, a girl has to make a living and these days that is a little harder than it used to be. I have recently set up a Redbubble page to sell my images as cards, prints, iphone cases and ipad cases. I'm working on the T-shirts, but only have the one available at the moment. To see what I have made available so far head over to my Redbubble page http://www.redbubble.com/people/lindamarques. I will be adding items all the time and if you have a commission then please get in touch. I may not agree to do what you want, but it never hurts to ask. I should also mention that my Husband has a page on Redbubble too, he doesn't have as many images up as me, but please also look at his page http://www.redbubble.com/people/alanmarques.

My other main interest is knitting and I admit to being a compulsive knitter. To feed this compulsion I do home knitting for a local Alpaca farm, West Wight Alpacas. To see more about them go to their website, http://www.westwightalpacas.co.uk/. They attend several shows on the island and on the mainland, although these tend to be showing the Alpacas rather than having a stand with Alpaca products.

So, what am I going to blog about? Well, life the universe and everything really. I won't be blogging about any Film or TV work that is ongoing, so don't expect any of that. If I am working on location, for instance in 2010 I spent five months in South Africa working on a TV series, then I will blog about living where I am and what I get up to out of hours. But, I won't mention who I'm working with, or the exact location, only the approximate area. So that's it really. I will just say that you mustn't expect a regular weekly or daily blog, I don't usually have the time and besides, I'm just not built that way. I will try to update this blog reasonably frequently, but there may be times when I don't.

Until next time, have fun and enjoy life.