This
morning our local church hosted the Community Keeping Active Christmas
Luncheon*.
For the luncheon I made a stack of salmon and cucumber sandwiches and carried them carefully up the steep hill to the church hall, I was a little late and the room was already buzzing with ladies in lavender twinsets arranging platters of quiche and sausage rolls. The men were all in properly smart suits with ties and Good Shoes. Here I learned quite a lot about the French and English yarn industries (genuinely fascinating) and also more than I needed to know about badminton and exercise schedules.
After lunch I went back down the hill, beyond my house and further on down until I arrived at the very glorious tattoo parlour where Frank, my current houseguest is working, I had been invited for a tour and was not going to turn down this educative opportunity. Frank used to be female, he has a lot of tattoos and an impressive reputation for his work. He's not too keen on doing the sort of tattoos that people want him to do** but we all have to make a living. Artwork was pinned up around each person's work station - someone was very keen on scenes depicting Egyptian sphinxes and Aztec gods overlooking landscapes of brightly coloured limbs climbing out of holes bearing bodily organs.
My afternoon learning was mainly about which drugs inspired what sort of artwork and also to be careful about getting too popular for the work you do during the more transient phases of your life.
* I am currently living my life backwards: last week the church hosted the Community New Year Party
** wolves
howling at psychedelic moons, weeping faces ....