Monday 30th April 8:15am found me in a cargo container taking my clothes off. Not all of them, just enough to get my sweaty cycling gear off and into something more civilised. I had arrived too damn early for my lift down to London and the office was still shut so I had to change in one of the containers near the back door. Swinging a bag of clothes and a sleeping bag around on my back while cycling in was tricky enough but trying to get changed in a container which had weird liquids on the floor was a challenge. A small group of staff slowly formed around 8:30 and two group of us jumped in a pair of cars destined for St Catherines Dock in London, site of the Oyster private show which had been there for the last few days.

Our mission, to bring back one of several yachts that had been there on show.

The day was spent packing up boxes and storing away the props which had been used to dress several of the yachts so it was mainly wrapping up things in bubble wrap and then carrying boxes to a waiting van. The weather was glorious, a hot sunny day with a little wind but there was a problem as we had been planning on traveling back that night (lock out was due at 7pm) but force 8 gales had been forecast. One of the crew said we could leave but we would be sick. Blunt but to the point. The general consensus was to stay at St Catherines and enjoy the evening, which was made up of eating “beast” sized pizza at the Dickens inn and watching Man City drum Man United 1-0 in a game of that footy thingy.

The plan of coming back overnight meant we had sleeping kit and would be spending the night on a yacht, we still did this and I spent the night in what can best be described as a coffin. The front cabin is a double sleeper and I managed to bag this when stowing my gear. Clambering up onto the high bed (it has room underneath for storage so they are a bit high up) I found the skylight was about a foot from my head and the rain was pummeling it like mad causing a drumming sound to echo around the small room. While I do like the sound of rain, it was a little weird hearing it so close and when I pulled the blind over the skylight the room was plunged into total blackness… not a single ray of light from any source seeped through the doorway, skylight or any other part of the room. I’ve never been claustrophobic but I did begin to understand why Poe was fixated with the fear of being buried alive. I couldn’t see my hand infront of my face and finding the shelf to put my glasses down was a case of gently feeling the edge of bed then working upwards. Turning a light on would have been obvious but this was far more interesting, fumbling around in a pitch black coffin. Gawd un bennit.
I don’t know if it was being in a new place or just the whole mood (read as over excitement) but I had a bit of trouble dozing off at first so kept putting the light on and reading some Hunter S Thompson that I had brought with me, sadly all that did was make me feel weirder… but no bats.

The next morning was an early(ish) start with us setting off around 7:30 to lock out of St Kats and head into the Thames, this is where it got interesting as all of a sudden I found myself looking at Tower Bridge from a rather low angle. We started motoring along and I spent an awfully large amount of time suppressing a giant giggling fit. I was probably grinning like a loon even with the cruddy weather which brought a mass of low cloud and mist to the morning. Most of the tall buildings had their tops removed as the mist seemed to bring a low ceiling down around us and adding a slightly sinister atmosphere to the day. London fog? Naaah, just rain but almost Jack the Ripper weather.

Passing sights of London included the Cutty Sark and the O2 dome which looked like some huge Cyclopean beast squatting next to the river with giant horns protruding from a misshapen head as it watched us sliding passed in the gloom.

Theres little noise along the river other than the lapping of the water as it slops against the side of the boat, the main noise was the constant throbbing of the engine as we traveled under motor power for most of the trip. We spent a couple of hours traveling out of London along the Thames and the buildings slowly changed from flats and offices into more and more industrial complexes. We saw giant container ships sliding in and out of the industrial areas and as they moved around us it we difficult not to be intimidated by these giants that dwarfed us, while tiny figures would appear on their deck, glance at us and then vanish out of the rain.

We moved further out into the Essex Flats where the depth gauge would tell us that there was less than a meter below us but looking around there was nothing on the horizon. A flat expanse of water that could easily be the deep sea with no features other than shadows moving in the distant mist that could have been passing ships or easily have been something coming up from the depths to sink down again without making a sound.

My daughters puffin that came with her to visit the HMS Dauntless had snuck into my bag the day before, obviously his taste for big boats needed to be satisfied again and he took a turn (or should that be tern?) on watch.

I also managed to get my grubby mitts on the wheel for a while, probably because we had got our far enough for me to not hit anything. I WAS grinning like a loon at this point.

After not managing to crash into anything (mainly because there was nothing to crash into) the autopilot was engaged and watching that do its thing was weird. The wheel judders left and right in a slightly alarming manner as it holds it course against the tide but manages to follow a list of waypoints that had been entered into its little mind. The weather also started to pick up with what actually looked like blue skies peeping down at us.

Sailing on we started to head towards a large sandback scattered with dark shapes which moved around in erratic ways and as we drew closer we could see it was large group of seals splashing around the water line. We drew closer and watched from quite a close distance as they splashed around watching us. Their huge rubbery bodies flopped around and some ventured into the water and heads would pop up and glance in our direction before dropping back below the surface but none had the nerve to come close to the boat.

We spent a few minutes watching before setting off again, by this time it was late afternoon and the heat of the sun combined with the lack of sleep and drone of the engine began to affect me and I started to feel sleepy. I dozed under the bimini and opened my eyes a few times to see things like the giant sea based wind farm off the Essex coast (bit annoyed with myself for not taking some pictures of that) but mainly just dozed quietly until around the time we reached Felixstowe. The boat was turning into the mouth of the river Orwell where the twin towns of Felixstowe and Harwich sit on either side, it was being hit sideways on by some strong winds and was rocking quite badly. I’m afraid to say that at this point I lost my lunch over the side. I’ve tried to put it down to dozing so that made me lose the horizon and my sense of balance, it could also be I took too much sun and the whole event was too much for my tiny mind but whatever the reason it didn’t last long. Once I had got it out of my system I was fine and back to snapping the sights.

At this point I managed to take another turn at the wheel but my nerve broke when a small boat thought it would turn towards us and sail directly at us. I was guided around him but started to struggle to see the nav bouys so gave up and let someone else take over. A short ride down the Orwell brought us to the bridge and our final destination.

All in all the journey took around 11 hours to make and was a wonderful experience (with one minor bump) that I would enjoy doing again… just not right now. I need to let my land lubber legs get back to normal.

There is a big old mess of photos online in my picasa web gallery.

Days cycled to work: 74
Days driven all the way to work: 0
Days sailed to work: 1
Days driven half way to drop the car off at the garage to have a service: 1
Days tramped along in snow and ice: 2

The first week started off fairly easily, it was mainly just shuffling around a few places near to Tywyn and not doing too much, the drive from Ipswich tends to make me feel compressed so walking around the beach helps to stretch out a bit. While online trying to plan things to do around the iffy Easter weather I stumbled across a company in Aberystwyth called Mutant Caterpillar Games (I’ll admit it, I was looking for somewhere to buy boardgames to pass away the rain), we normally make a trip to Aberystwyth and I was intrigued by their claim to buy Spectrum gear. Dropping an email to them came up trumps so I dug out my old 128+2a and old games then wallowed in nostalgia while packing up the bits to take the next day. While scrounging up some YS mags I found a map of Jet Set Willy 2 and it got me thinking… (heres where plan 1 comes in) I’ve been reading up on Unity lately and after talking to Dan Higham and listening to a talk he gave about Unity I must admit to being interested. I found a tutorial on 2d games using Unity and it seems like its not too difficult to do (2d in a 3d engine, not create unity games) hmmmm….

So the first crackpot plan is an updated JSW using 3d content built in c4d, imported into Unity and built into a working game. Why this could work is that theres no shooting, no 3d wandering (just left, right and jump) and its already planned out. I can learn to code as I build each room. I create a library of content (monsters, objects etc…) and add to it as needed. Its a massive task but I honestly think it could be a massive amount of fun to work on.

After dropping off the stuff with the guys at MCG we went into Aber and naturally Waterstones was on the list. A few months ago I parted (rather sadly) with a signed copy of Anno Dracula that I had paid £75 for years ago. I say sadly because I was too damn scared to read it and didn’t want it to get damaged but once the new reprints had come out it was pointless to hang onto a copy that I would never read. I picked up a copy on the new print (with notes by Kim Newman) and read it throughout the holiday. What started as a good read started to turn into another itch I had to scratch and I kept thinking about the Francis Ford Coppola version of Dracula for some reason. While Dracula doesn’t come into it until the end, I kept imagining the characters in the book referring to the Gray Oldman Dracula with good reason. At the end of the book when Vlad is brought into the book he is nekkid. As Buck nekkid (Texas Ranger) as they come. Yup, it even describes his erm… fleshy manbits in great detail. As much as I try I can’t imagine either the Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee version of the Count allowing his old chap to waft around in the breeze in the way Mr Newman allows this giant Dracula to behave. Somehow its Oldman’s oldman that fits. I should say at this point I have read the book before so sort of knew this was coming which is partly why the image of Gary slips in (can I get much more innuendo in?) also the rest of the book describes the vampires that are at Dracula’s court as being savage beast of men who had been with him for centuries. All the other versions of Dracula seem like loners from a dinner party but Coppola’s Dracula is more of a feral charmer so suits the scene. Now what didn’t help is the day before getting to the end of the book, the daughter had been watching “Home on the Range” a rather strange film that marked the end of Disneys 2D films until the glorious return to form with “the Princess and the Frog”. One of the characters is voiced by the ever popular Steve Buscemi and I managed to get his voice lodged into my internal monologue for the next few days. Cue the rather strange bit in my mind when the rather dramatic entry into the court of the Prince Consort and the description of Draculas naked form when Steve Buscemi pops into my head and says “Sheeesh Gary, put some clothes on.” At this point I had to stop reading for a few minutes to tell Steve off.

So in a roundabout way I’m getting to the next project I want to tackle. I’ve been told I’m getting a train set for my birthday so I’m going to come up with a theme to base the scenery on and I’m currently leaning towards an Anno Dracula themed trainset. The Count has a fondness for trains and I like the idea of a graveyard, a castle and some 18th century buildings that I could build. I’m marking out a place in the cellar to put it and how much wood I’ll need to make the base with. Its either horror, steampunk or post apocalypse at the moment. I’d like to go western but its possibly a bit old hat… maybe western steampunk like Deadlands.

A couple of ideas formed and got squirted out before fully forming and of course in the meantime I need to finish off lil Cthulhu and the Babylon 5 scene I’ve been working on for far too long, but both of these projects are very loooooong term. The train set was originally for my retirement as I was going to sit in a room and paint trees until I die but I think i can live with starting it sooner. The JSW one will be a ‘learn as you go’ jobbie but thats the best way for me in terms of learning, i can’t do it any other way as I forget what I have done with tutorials. I can’t guarantee this one will come to much but at least it will be something to kick around.

Days cycled to work: 62
Days driven all the way to work: 0
Days driven half way to drop the car off at the garage to have a service: 1
Days tramped along in snow and ice: 2

Yawwwwwn. Time for bed.

From left to right they are:
- A flat blade with a curve to the tip for smoothing out flat areas and on the other end is a rounded halfball for small depressions
- A wooden tool with a shallow bend at one end and a thicker bit to the other end
- A sharp edged scraping tool useful for removing material smoothly with a flat end the other side. I have to say I don’t use the lower end much
- A home made tool which is a brass tube with a piece of wire held in place with a bit of Milliput and the wire is hammered flat like a screwdriver end. This tool has been invaluable for making the wrinkles around the eyes and hands

My other tools include a number of home made ones, shop bought and some dental tools that a very kind dentist gave to me years ago. I was given about a dozen in total as he said he can only use them for a short time before they have to be replaced so rather than chuck them away he donated them to my worthy cause. As a number of them turned out to be the same I traded a few for bits (students work well on barter systems), some I modified to different shapes by hammering or grinding them while the rest are perfectly good tools that I still have the pleasure to own. Over the years I’ve collected quite a few bits with weird and wonderful (if sharp) edges but there always seems to be a basic few I reach for when starting something.

On a related note, HP Lovecraft appears in an article on the BBC site which talks about the recent anniversary of his death. While Cthulhu is obviously one of his most recognisable creations, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Deep Ones. ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’ is my favourite story of his and on a more recent reading I couldn’t help but snigger at a reference to Ipswich (even if it is the one in the USA). While at college I once tried to sculpt a deep one but gave up after struggling with the basic shape, maybe it’s about time I tried again.

Days cycled to work: 55
Days driven all the way to work: 0
Days driven half way to drop the car off at the garage to have a service: 1
Days tramped along in snow and ice: 2

In the meantime my sculpture clicked tonight as my lil Cthulhu suddenly took shape due to the eyes being popped into place and something in my mind sliding into gear.

A last quick link to add some more anniversary fun to the mix, Francesco Francavilla’s tribute to Lovecraft http://www.francescofrancavilla.com/gallery/lovecraft_b_w.html

Days cycled to work: 52
Days tramped along in snow and ice: 2
Days driven: 0