Seven Years On..

Yup, it’s been seven years since my last post. Seven freaking fuckadoodledoo looong years.
It’s amazing to be picking up the thread, and I’m all pumped up. And, it feels good to be writing in a little longer form than my cryptic tweet-bursts. (outbursts?)
The old blog posts from 2011 were definitely hacked with all kinds of garbage - from penile enlargement persuasions and calisthenic acrobatic sex addled artistes, and that same chap from Nigeria still trying to please, please use my bank to kindly park his £15 million...

I had to go in and clean up a lot of it, so it’s littered with broken links, and I finally decided to just leave it as is and move on. Living in the ‘now’...

So definitely the way I write will have changed over the years, I’m sure. I really hope so. Evolution is change. Change is good. Possibly it may reflect some abandon, and a sense of new adventures.
And speaking of adventures.... in a few days all of us are off for a long overdue family trip together.
Mexico 'May-hee-co' and the US. They better watch out. Hang onto your hat! And follow along if you please.

Three Traumas

I've heard that there are three major traumas in a persons life - A death in the family, a divorce, and moving home.
Well, this moving thing is really intense. I've got too much stuff, and even though I don't (maybe) need all of it - and I'm trying to toss all the bits and unnecessary pieces away - I probably don't have enough discipline and/or the will. I DO have a nostalgia set of boxes - those got filled right away; my work stuff - video, animation and all the computer gear is a major, major pile of stuff - but what about all the little bits, all my clay from claymation matérial, the animation hardware, the kilometres and kilometres of cables and other bits, all my art supplies, all my DIY tools, all that lighting gear, TB's of hard disk drives, my bicycling gear, all the projects that are yet unfinished....
Krikka our big, big short-haired pointer, Sushi and Yu-Li the cats - they'll do the 30 day quarantine and will be off soon.
The moving chaps said we need a 40ft hi-cube and another 20ft container. And then there's the car - talk about baggage! I WILL try and get rid of as much as possible, but..... my books, all that great art - bronzes, stone and clay and ceramic sculptures - contemporary and kitsch and folk-art. No way I can leave them.
I told Mo earlier today, what if we just took the kids, one bag apiece and just walked away from it all.
It could be done, but.....

In a Vice-Like Grip.....

Imagine being locked in a vice-like grip between the thighs of some large muscled female wrestler! Well that's what I thought of (my twisted imagination running away..) - when I saw the temples of Téy Phrom with all the trees wrapped around them. There are coils of the stuff, everywhere, like liquid toffee - as though someone had just poured the roots that completely envelop the stone in some fantastic embrace!

Cambodia distilled

Tonlé Sap

An entire village on boats! There were shops, basketball courts, a pool hall, a police station, hardware stores, a church (really!), and lots of homes that were built above floating fish farms. The water at the mouth of the estuary of the Tonlé Sap lake looked like, and had the consistency of a light chocolate soufflé - froth and all.

S-21 Tuol Sleng

Take a school, convert it into one of the most brutal centres of torture and destruction - this was Pol Pot, along with his Khmer Rouge, a nightmare come alive - reminding us the of depravity we can be capable of....
A most sobering experience. The 'school' just sits there, in the middle of a bustling Phnom Penh (well not really - nothing about Cambodia is a real bustle), and it's amazing to watch the subdued atmosphere and the effect on all the visitors. We didn't take Mara & Tia with us (I'm glad), and it later took a long boat-ride on the Tonlé Sap for us to snap out of it.

Girls & me..

We didn't know what to expect. Mara especially, read up about Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge and land mines...
She needn't have worried, it was one of our best trips.