The Next Stop Is . . .

Waking up in the dark to go to work isn't my, or I should imagine anyone else's, preferred start to the day. But, once on a bus, I'm resigned to the current 9-5 work segment of my day.

Chauffeur driven, I'm left with my thoughts, the Internet and podcasts. It's December and I'm bundled up in a duvet coat. I share the commute with a variety of travellers at close quarters. Unavoidably, it’s the season of coughs and sniffles, which I hope will serve to strengthen my immune system, rather than make me ill.

 

As the blue-black of night relents, revealing a damp, pale, blue-grey dawn, filled with seemingly motionless trees and shrubbery, another day begins.

Arriving in the city, shop doorways bear the evidence of late night feasts. The revellers have long since gone, leaving behind makeshift cardboard carpets, takeaway packaging and lone bottles.

The Christmas Market stalls connected by twinkly string lights and conical Christmas  trees promise a variety of delights come opening time: cheeses from home and abroad; wooden animals and figures made from teak roots; cashmere and woolly hats alongside original handmade silver jewellery; mulled wine and churros to nibble while pondering pottery plates.

Fry’s Teak Gardem Furniture

Not wanting to be late, I stride by. Later, on my return journey, I'll pass by the stalls in the dark once more, but this time they’ll be busy and the street will be filled with people, the air with music and the Christmas lights will be twinkling.

Homeward bound, rain puddles have become lakes and I queue for the bus.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

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The Embroider

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around—Vanilla Sky

Early 2018, I awoke one morning with the decision to throw my current life in the Netherlands to the wind. I’d been living on the continent for over 27 years and remaining there no longer served who I was and what I wanted out of life. 

I decided there and then that before my next birthday, in April, I would repatriate to my hometown area of Oxfordshire in the UK. So, I put my house up for sale at the start of March and began a major life laundry, clearing up, throwing out and closing down my life there.

The move was complex. A moving company took the bulk of my possessions to the UK and put them in storage; my brother drove over with his transit van and picked up me, my two cats and remaining possessions. The overnight journey by boat went well and the cats became expats.

Since then, re-activating my life has been complex: buying a house; finding a job and getting used to England again. The feeling that I’m on Mars has lessened, but it’ll take a while before I feel as though I belong. The urge to speak Dutch has vanished, although the odd Dutch word will still pop up now and again thwarting my flow.

Finding a job is the main task at the moment and Internet searches on job sites are interspersed by appointments with employment agencies. It’s a slow process and my enthusiasm goes in peaks and dales.

On my trips to the centre of Oxford, I notice the increase in the number of homeless people, living on cardboard box panels, under duvets. Over the years, it’s  increased exponentially and it’s a sad sight to see in what is considered to be such an affluent city. Alongside the street dwellers, are opinionated preachers, musicians and young people, showing off acrobatic or football skills, in the hope of a few coins from passers by. 

One person, however, stood out from the rest, and who actively seemed to be trying to make something more positive out of her circumstances. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, on a sleeping bag, she was totally absorbed in the process of sewing a picture on a large canvas, using brightly coloured, embroidery thread and wool. Ironically, her back was facing the outside wall of a well known bank. Her pictures are happy scenes embroidered onto material, guided by roughly sketched outlines. Every so often she would be forced to take a rest, due to the arthritic pain in her hands. The results of her labours are charming, colourful pictures, which have a naivety to their style.

Stopping to chat, I found out that this was Carol’s turf. She’d sat here every day for the past six years—sewing. Her pictures were not limited to canvases, there was also a large lamp shade that someone had thrown away, which she had covered with her creative stitches, plus a rather macabre looking doll. ‘I’ll sew on anything I can get my hands on’, she said. At one time, she made a series of small dogs, which became popular and sold instantly whenever she made them, but she found making things to order boring. That’s not why she sewed: ‘I do what I do, because I have to,’ she said.

Whenever the police tried to move her on she would say: ‘I’m not beggin’, I’m working.’ To the tourists who want to photograph her she says: ‘ If you want to take a photo of my work and help me do what I do—throw some coins in the box.’

I told her that I kept a blog and asked if she’d mind if I photographed her and her work for a blog post: ‘You do what you’ve got to do—at least you asked, most people don’t’, she replied. ‘I’ve been on telly and photographed before’, she added. As a raised my phone, she went quiet, adverted her eyes and bent her head to look at the ground. 

Like many artists, Carol was doing, in her words ‘what she had to do’. How she came to be there is of course another story and not relevant to my conversation with her. I was touched by the way she embraces her creativity as a means to survive on the streets, but ultimately shies away from the limelight.

If you’d like to see Carol’s work, or have a chat, you’ll find her sitting at Carfax, at the end of Cornmarket Street.

© Alison Day

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Dreaming Spires

I've been wanting to create an illustrative map of my hometown, Oxford, for quite a while now. After a little research I came across plenty of interesting things to draw. With a total of 38 colleges on offer (13 appear on my selected slice of Oxford's city centre), Oxford is filled with an varied richness of: restaurants, shops and enough pubs for a jolly good pub crawl.

That was a few months ago and then other projects took precedence and I lost my momentum. Fast forward to two weeks ago and what should come across my path, but a map making course given by Nate Padavick (They Draw and Travel) on Sketchbook Skool. Perfect, it was a no brainer. A week long course, with the potential of a completed map (for me, of Oxford) at the end of it. So, I dove in (add to a the other three courses I'm was already doing—I'll never learn!)

The course was inspiring and the instruction from concept to finished map, clear and easy to follow. I've uploaded my map to TDAT's website, with a feeling of achievement. If you'd like to see the whole map, you can here

You may also be interested to hear, as an artist, and in the light of environmental challenges, I'm currently writing a creative E-Course. Due to appear later in the year or early 2018.

In it, the problem is addressed through hands on creativity, along with sources, resources and an informed environmental awareness.

It's an E-Course for adults wishing to take time for themselves creatively as well as meet others of a like mind. Regardless of artistic experience or creative level—so that includes you!

If you'd like to be kept up to date on my E-Course as it progresses, or have always wanted to take part in a creative class, with an environmental flavour, please, sign up for my newsletter to be kept up to date on my progress: here

The newsletter is a digital feast that will arrive in your inbox monthly, it also includes my most current illustrative work.

Thank you for reading.

© Alison Day 2018

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Eternal Renaissance

In the gravel car park of Wytham Woods, we head for a tall wooden gate. On the way we pass other Christmas walkers, with their hatted heads, booted feet and festive cheer. Unrestrained by its turquoise rope lasso, the gate yields to a light push swinging out into a field of long, tufted grass. The path is slippery with mud, so we follow the long tresses of its edges. The landscape undulates upwards towards a cluster of trees on the horizon.

The air is fresh and clean and I feel my lungs gasping greedily with the effort as my boots slide out from underneath me. Shrubbery, green fields and bare wintery trees surround us. The decorative dots of sheep, barely visible buildings and a white mass—The John Radcliffe Hospital, are part of the patchwork landscape.

Along the way, we greet friendly-faced walkers. Facial contours forgotten, fading almost as instantly as the time in which it takes us to pass by. At the top, through a metal gate that closes automatically behind us and into a tunnel of bare-branched trees connected at their tips. Dark, naked and silent waiting for the Renaissance of Spring.

A path has been cleared through the thick blanket of fallen and browning leaves. Twisted and gnarled limbs cavort around us. Fallen trunks are clothed in rich, green moss and the landscape falls away suddenly into a small valley, only to rise again a little further on, at journey's end. This is marked by a bench, facing a gated view from a raised stone plinth. Growing nearby, a pair of tree trunks like lovers intricately entwined, stretch skywards. It is here, three and 13 years ago, three siblings scattered the ashes of their parents to the winds—with a tear in their eye and pain in their hearts.

Silently, on this cool December morning, we absorb the familiar and favoured view of Oxford once more—a place that was the centre of their world and ours—for a while.

Photos © Alison Day

  

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Ferry Hinksey

"Beyond the ferry water that fast and silent flowed,

She turned, she gazed a moment, then took her onward road.

Between the winding willows to a city white with spires:

It seemed a path of pilgrims to the home of earth's desires.

Blue shade of golden branches spread for her journeying,

Till he that lingered lost her among the leaves of Spring."

 

- Laurence Binyon

 

© Alison Day Designs

The Kiss

This summer, on holiday in England, I was party to what I can only describe as the best kiss ever! 

In the words of INXS…two worlds collided...’ and boy did they, as it was a kiss of total abandonment, insatiable in it’s duration, hot and familiar, but in its action uncanny, as we had literally just met.

Upon reflection, I will admit that the cause of this was probably partially due to a night on the town with my sister-in-law and the predetermined pub-crawl with ‘a half in every pub’ along. Poison of choice was cider, and, several pubs later with ample amounts of the golden beverage inside us, the wheels of the lack of inhibition had been well oiled. 

Our tour of the pubs ended at a club, as by this time it was well after midnight, belting out good music, and a heaving dance floor, plus. It served cocktails as well - fatal mistake, but a very tasty one. The cider was traded in for a funkily named Woo Woo cocktail and we joined throng on the dance floor, which seemed to be just about anywhere you wanted it to be in the club.

How to make a Woo Woo:

1 ½ oz Peach Schnapps

1 ½ oz Vodka

3 ½ ox Cranberry Juice

Pour all ingredients into a highball glass over ice cubes, stir and serve.

Well, one Woo Woo, of course led to another and after a while I was definitely feeling no pain. All of a sudden, a tall, dark and very fit, handsome stranger appeared at my side and asked me if I knew of anything to do around here.  Much to my amusement, during our conversation I found out that he was Dutch and on a couple of days visit from Amsterdam. Laughing, I replied that although this was my hometown, I lived abroad and had done so for many years, co-incidentally in the northern Netherlands, and wasn’t up to date on what there was to do in Oxford except the obvious: visits to museums, bars and restaurants; discovering the colleges and a bit of punting along the river. After that the Woo Woo’s were replaced by Sex on the Beach cocktails, the taste of which I have absolutely no recollection!

Well, one thing led to another, and by the time the club closed we were kissing passionately on the street, outside the club with my sister-in-law and his entourage standing by staring at us in bemusement. It was obvious that this was a kiss with a mission and it wasn’t going to let up for a while. When I finally did come up for air, I made a Cinderella-like dash for a black-cab (which oddly enough had white paintwork), we’d manage to hail, leaving behind my website address scrawled on a piece of paper, for if future contact was desired. Whatever happened to a simple phone number, I hear you ask? Yes, I did kick myself several times the next day, but let’s not forget I was totally Woo Woo’d at the time and it seemed a less threatening option with possible potential in the long run - who am I trying to kid!

So, why do we kiss? Putting one’s lips to those of a stranger is not only very intimate, but a total invasion of body space not to mention the potential exchange of a vast array of bugs on both sides. Also, hanging onto someone with the sucker-like tendencies of an octopus tentacle and at such a close proximity too does tend to obscure one’s vision of the other person. I managed to clear up the last point by demanding that my sister-in-law describe him to me the next day.

Quick surf on the Internet and I find an article where kissing is said to have possibly stemmed from the pre chewing and passing of food by mothers to their offspring. It’s also equated with social bonding, and the exchange of pheromones during such an interaction can become a prelude to courtship and even sexual encounters!

Back to my pheromone encounter, although I won’t see Mr tall, dark and handsome again, maybe he’d like a re-match one day. Until that time, it goes on record as a kiss to remember – ‘Ow Zat !

 

The Kiss - Auguste Rodin

Are you up to scratch on kissing, try: Kissing Quiz

© Alison Day
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Dreaming of Oxford

Oxford is known as the city of spires and boasts an enormous concentration of amazing architecture and lots of bicycles. This famous seat of learning comprises of thirty-nine colleges, the buildings of which can be found dotted throughout the city. Entrance to the colleges is via grand portals overlooked by grotesque gargoyles, each with a porter’s lodge. Once inside this leads to a quadrangle with an immaculately kept lawn and floral beds, the whole surrounded on all sides by the college building.

The oldest college is University College (usually referred to as Univ), which was founded by William of Durham in 1249. Up until the 16-th century it was only open to Fellows studying theology. A special building in the college houses a statue by Edward Onslow Ford of the poet Shelley, a former member of the college who was expelled for writing ‘The Necessity of Atheism’, and then sending it to anonymously to all the heads of the Oxford colleges.

The Sheldonian Theatre, an imposing building also well worth a visit, was once described as ‘one of the architectural jewels of Oxford’ and can be found on Broad Street in the centre of Oxford. Its perimeter walls and railings incorporate thirteen heads on stone pillars, and these are known as ‘The Emperors’ Heads’, although with all the scholastic brains available in Oxford no one seems to be able to explain whom they are. They may represent Janus, who was both the god of doorways and of the New Year. The Sheldonian was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and funded by and named after the Archbishop Sheldon, its design being molded on the Marcellus Theatre in Rome. The Sheldonian is mainly used for university meetings and ceremonies, but at other times for classical recitals and plays.

Oxford has 150,000 inhabitants (approx) and due to the usual problems with parking, as with most cities, it can be best seen by bicycle. It boasts a plethora of restaurants and old pubs that serve pub lunches, real old ales, chocolate beer and in some cases ‘scrumpy’. This beverage is an acquired taste, a cider that lacks any fizz and looks as though one should flush it away rather than drink it!

One pub that is well worth a visit is The Turf Tavern a historic pub with wooden beams that is located just outside the old city walls. This is always a popular hangout for students and tourists alike. Another, dating from 1650 is The Eagle and Child, popularly known as ‘The Bird and Baby’. In the 1940’s and 1950’s this was the meeting place of a group called ‘The Inklings’, which included C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien who met there to discuss literature, writing and life in general.

For those of you in search of the more modern watering hole there is always Raouls’, in Walton Street with its endless list of cocktails to choose from. ‘QI’, (Quite Interesting) on Turl Street, (based on a TV quiz of the same name, where points are awarded for being interesting or funny) has an objective of being ‘…a place where you can have a decent conversation'. QI is a café-bar, bookshop, and members' club is a good place for morning coffee, food and has an underground vodka bar!

One pastime every tourist should try whilst in Oxford is ‘punting’; an age-old tradition where a long canoe shaped boat is propelled down the rivers of Oxford by means of a long pole. An interesting concept for many a new punter until he finds his/her pole stuck in the mud at the bottom of the river and is left frantically clinging to the pole whilst the boat continues its course further down stream.

Continuing on the boating theme there is the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, which takes place along the River Thames from Putney to Mortlake, a distance of four and a half miles. Every year, since 1829 the two rival universities have competed against each other with their strongest team of eight rowers, for the honour of the water. The rivalry between the two universities is an age-old matter and continues long after the boat race has finished in every conceivable manner under the sun.

The indoor market on the High Street in the centre of Oxford was designed by John Gwynn and is a fun place to shop. There you can buy meat, fruit and vegetables, bread, and hand made cakes, browse through boutiques, or just sit and enjoy a coffee in one of the several small coffee shops. The market, which dates back to 1772 aimed to remove the then messy market traders off the High Street and by being enclosed, offered shelter from the elements.

The Ashmolean Museum is well worth a visit and housing a diversity of archaeological specimens, paintings, and relics. But if that seems a bit tame the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has some marvelous dinosaurs and a dodo! The museum often has interactive exhibitions aimed at kids.

If you want to get the best views of Oxford and the surrounding area from above then it is worth climbing the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. The church is found on the High Street in the centre and is the best vantage point.

First published in the Connections magazine #12 Summer 2006 

View all issues of Connections HERE (editor, designer, illustrator: 2006-2013)

©  Alison Day Designs