Bit of a summer hiatus

I seem to have got my blog days mixed up. Shoulda done one last week. With swapping office days it sorta messed up the schedule (such as I have) and I got stuck into things and completely forgot about the blog, but it’s hardly a big deal is it?

Have had a couple of short breaks from work and took a trip to Whitstable – a small seaside town on the east coast. It’s about an hour and a half by train and I loved watching the changing scenery from building site/industrial London then passing through pretty villages, riverside towns (Rochester looks like it might be worth a visit on its own) and farmland with fruit trees and maybe vineyards. It’s a five-ten minute walk from the train station to the town centre.

It’s a place of old stone buildings mixed with seaside type wooden ones. Small side streets, lots of independent businesses, an interesting art/cultural centre (am told it's a very creative place) and a few teeny weeny galleries...which were nearly all closed. Hey ho.

The beach is mostly shingle with a sand when the tide goes out. Anyhow, it was a lovely sunny day and a great little place to poke around in but it won't make the cut when it comes to deciding on a new place to live. Still, I so enjoyed being on the coast again and I’ll be looking at other places I can get to in under two hours. Getting out of my normal environment does seem to help open the mind a bit and I need to come up with some new ideas/possibilities for what I do next.

Creativity is parked a bit right now (yeah, no arty images to upload either - image above courtesy of Wix). Life in general is like that. Still thinking about relocating but realise/decided there’s no point in moving to another area just to end up doing the same combination of part time work and art. Where's the expansion? What's the road map? I don’t have one and have struggled with that since...actually I’m not sure.

Somewhere along the line, despite numerous iterations of business plans, changing media and styles, momentum has been lost and I’m unsure if it’s still the confidence thing or wondering if I’ve backed myself into a corner with what I’ve been working on. Maybe the performance niche was a great way to reconnect with art after so many years of avoiding it but now it’s time to stretch the creativity in other areas as well?

Have a couple of new ideas for painting to combine paper/texture and paint. I should probably get stuck in and try them out.

One thing I have managed to do is join a local gym after fifteen odd years out of training. They had a summer offer on, I can do a three month block and a few extra hours at work has covered most of the fee so it was just time to give it a go. I'm doing six days a week first thing in the morning except when I'm at the office, with a two day upper/lower body split and flexibility and ab work every day.

Training and gaining strength has previously had a very positive effect on how I view life so at least if I can do something in that area it might budge the stuckness in others. I'm firmly back on the 18/6 keto as well and that should keep me focused on ensuring no slip ups. First

week just finished, I'm up to three sets of everything and so far have managed only to strain a lower ab muscle with an unfamiliar exercise. Apart from that, everything feels good. Let's see what I can do with the next eleven or so weeks.