Jamie's blog

“What’s the weather forecast like for tomorrow Tom?”  I was on the train and was coming back from the airport from Ireland, I’d been working for some Irish friends in the making of a sand sculpture.

“Well it’s predicted for heavy rain Jamie.”  I was forlorn as this wasn’t good news.  “There is rain in the morning but it seems to clear in the early part of the day only to start again in the evening.  Shall we go ahead with it?”  The train was rattling away and echoing the process going on inside my head.  Should I get over a dozen artists to drive for hours to a remote beach at the crack of dawn on the off chance that the experiment may be rained off.

“I think it will be OK, let’s go for it.” Then all the messages were sent.  “It’s on.”

It rained heavily during the journey the next day but then a welcomed blue sky began to peel back the clouds to reveal bristling sunshine, although not warm enough to dull the chilling wind of April  2007.  We descended upon the beach and I began to give instructions on the new method of drawing in sand which I had recently devised to make drawing much faster.  This was a typical scenario as each time I do a drawing I am always pushing boundaries and developing the technique.  The drawing that we were to make was extremely ambitious, six times the size of our first drawing only one year previous.

“We need two small teams, Mark you can be the drawer in one team.  Who wants to be Marks personal raker?”  This is the person that follows the Drawer and then fills in the details with the rake.  A very catchy job title if I do say so myself; one for the C.V.  “We can then have general rakers who will rake the sand en masse.”  Not so good for the CV.

Everyone got primed to be ready whilst I directed from the top of the cliff, barking down the walkie talkie and giving instructions only to find that two didn’t work.  Batteries.  Lots of shouting and arm waving then became the norm.  Always in these drawings it seems so complicated at first that there is a general lull before things get going, as nobody really has any idea what they are doing, but as the magic begins to take hold the image moves forward like a wave on the rocks, washing the confused expressions from my friends faces.  It begins with a lot of talking, people are making sure of their position and technique.  But after a while all goes quiet as their concentrated gaze becomes focussed on the end of their tool, whether it is a drawing stick, a rake, or a piece of string, the only noise is the seas mumblings, gently reminding us that it is coming and that we do not have much time left.  We begin drawing patterns in the sand with the knowledge that we are joined in this seemingly fruitless pursuit by many others, all working towards the same goal, each person indispensible.

So why do it?  All that effort and aching backs just to produce a piece of art that by the time it is finished is ready to be erased by our great Mother.  I am not actually sure why. But what I do know is that it feels fantastic, there is an unreal sense of euphoria amongst the group as we have made something special that needed every one of us for it to be.  All the more special as it is fleeting, a moment caught in time for us to remember.   It is almost worth it just to see the expressions of the people taking their Sunday walk along the cliff only to see that below them where there should only be a beach, there is a drawing in the sand.

On the 14^th March this year, we will be making another drawing in Whitby, North Yorkshire, if you want to join us let me know, it will be an early start, from 8am until 12:30.  But this one will be an animated abstraction that grows from a seed and dances to music.  I leave you with this, the concept for the drawing:

“An idea is like a seed.  If you do not nourish it then at best it will stay with you forever but come to nothing, at worst it will rot from your imagination and be gone from the world forever…… But if you feed it,…. then it may grow beyond all imagining.”  A seed is placed in a ball of earth and then thrown from the cliff onto the beach.  It explodes, and then the drawing begins….

Jamie

I returned home from my jaunt to Finland and Sweden last week but couldn’t help posting this comment on my good friend David.

I saw David the other day in Stockholm and met him again in Helsingborg after staying with Johanna and Millis.  David is totally bald now but has an energy of youth that many youngsters would be lucky to ever grasp.  He is an enigma that bestows confidence, kind heart, positivity, opportunity and drama, and he is only too happy to share it with everyone, even if with a wisp of irony to keep us all thinking.

“I am thinking of growing my hair long again David” I once had for only a few years long golden curly locks that dangled from my head to my shoulder, dancing as I moved.  On a stormy day I loved standing with my back to the wind feeling the ringlets bounce around and touch my face.  For sure I suit short hair more than I do long, but it has been some time and I feel that having a ginger mop suits my character somehow more.  “The thing is, I think I’m going a little bald and am not sure if it would look OK.”  At this moment most of my friends would confirm my doubts and take great pleasure in mocking my fantasy and insecurity in one fell swoop.

David on the other hand is a different story.  He is driving the car and looks over at me and begins his flamboyant oratory with Swedish melody “Oh Jamie, you are an artist and can get away with anything, you would look amazing with a bald ginger hair bouncing everywhere.”  He then braces me with his keen eyes and gives a conspiratory chuckle whilst tapping on the steering wheel.  I laugh at this ridiculous parody and remark “Together David we are unstoppable, I think we could conquer the world!”  And I think with David that would be possible, I could just see us growing our balding heads just to see how it would be received and taking great humour in it.  We once picked up a friend Tilly from an airport who had brought with him his pal John that had never been out of England before.  For the occasion we borrowed some of his mothers dresses with flowery prints and greeted the boys as Swedish aupairs prepared with a song and guitar.  I had my long hair in question up in two afro pigtails and David had on a Scottish red wig.  Unfortunately the flight was delayed an hour, so we took great pleasure in entertaining the bemused airport with songs and pantomime; the security had a good sence of humour and we no limits.  When Tilly and John arrived we dashed up to them like dogs on heat and chanted in our best mock Swedish falsetto “Welcome to Sweden, my name is Inga and this is Olga, we have a song to sing for you!”  And, so we sang and everyone else listened, it was an unusual evening for airport arrivals that day.  Tilly’s poor friend John must have though he was on another planet and kept saying that he desperately needed a cigarette.

It is good to have friends that keep you grounded but also some that lift you and inspire new heights which is typical of David.  I feel refreshed having seen him.  It is an uncommon thing for two guys to be able to hit the dance floor as soon as they enter the place with no qualm of self, closing down more than a handful of parties in one night and then rolling in at 5am.  It is probably a good thing that we do not get together too often as it would probably be an unbearable burden for the world to bare.  Perhaps I should keep my hair short just for the moment.

Jamie

I arrived at the train station in Orebro, Sweden to be greeted by Millis.  I know her from my first year of University when I lived in the student hotel on Rosemount road, Bournemouth.  Across the street lived a house packed full of foreign students of which some became lifelong friends.  The last time I saw Millis was four years ago when she had just got a dog with her boyfriend Robert.  At that time the dog was just a puppy, but as it would now be a fully grown Rhodesian ridgeback cross I thought I should try and remember its name.

“What is your dog’s name?..Stveera?” I guessed

“No Tyra.” Replied Millis

“Tyra?.”  I was confused as this didn’t sound so familiar.

“Oh, my dog?  Oh, my dog’s name is Sveea, but my daughter is Tyra, and my son is Malte.”

I was bemused, “You have a son now?”

“Yes!  You didn’t know?”  It had been quite a long time.

I came to the land of the fair and beautiful a few days ago from Finland to Stockholm and had stayed with my very good friend David and his girlfriend Charlotte.  I’d sailed across the Baltic on the ship Gabriella that is owned by the aptly named Viking line.  For me it resembled more the titanic, not for its great bulk but for the ominous sound it made as the steal and iron of the boat cut through the sea ice.  I was staying in a cabin that was below the waterline and all night I had the lullaby of scraping and crunching.  The scene in the film Titanic occurred to me where all the Irish people are trapped in the lower cabins as the water pours in from above.  I even thought about what cloths I would wear if the ship started to sink.  My giant ice boots were so warm but would probably be too heavy to swim in, and my great down jacket would be useless in the wet.  I would have to make sure I would get in a lifeboat on the 9^th floor.  “I am so young, I do not want to die today!”  The safest place ended up being the bar on the 8^th floor which was a stroke of luck.

Millis opened the car and we drove through the snowy city to her house sliding about the road in a controlled manner.  She was relieved that she remembered how to speak English as it has been so long since she last saw me. I had forgotten all my Swedish which was once quite good; I even had trouble remembering how to say ‘Thankyou’ to a lady when I was buying a ticket: “Takk.”

“Tyra is so nervous to meet you.”  Tyra is Millis and Roberts daughter who is four years old.  She has never met a foreigner before, and didn’t understand the concept of other languages and that some people speak with different words and come from different lands.  Robert was trying to explain to her before I arrived:

In Swedish, he said to her “When Jamie wants orange juice he says ‘Orange’, not ‘Appelsin’, that is what they call it in England where he is from.”

“Orange juice” she repeats.  Robert thinks he has got through.  “Ja….”  Very good Robert.  ”…..men han meaner appelsin.”  Yes. But he means appelsin.  Oh dear.

“No, he means orange juice.”

“Ja……, men han meaner appelsin.”  She was not going to budge on this.

Millis and I came through the door to the greetings of Robert and the aroma of baked Salmon ready to serve.  I was hungry as always.  Pottering around was their son Malte who gave me a quick look over and was then unphased, he is two years old and not troubled by foreigners just yet.  Tyra on the other hand who looks much like her mother with blond hair and big blue eyes was totally aghast. Immediately she had no idea what I was saying and was not receptive at all to any of my greetings.  She was to stay stood firmly behind Daddy and nothing was going to convince her otherwise.

After throwing down the bags we went straight to the dinner table for the salmon, and a great salmon it must have once been for it was one of the largest fillets I have seen.  Everyone became seated at the table, me sat next to Robert, then Malte as ready to eat as me, Millis, and sat next to Millis starring right at me with unblinking eyes was Tyra, the guardian of the household and not at all fooled by this imposter.  It is always a funny thing with young children as when they see something they do not understand they will just stare intently at it, and no matter what I did she was not going to give an inch until she had figured out what this strange creature was in her home.  And what’s more, she could no longer understand what her Mamma and Dadda were saying anymore as the noises that now came out of their mouths were also incomprehensible.   ‘What was going on?  Was this the way things were going to be from now on?  And when the stupid creature speaks, he makes no sense, I can understand Malte much more than him and he is only two.  Is this what all foreigners are like?’  She continued to stare at me, processing many thoughts but not speaking a word.

After some time eating, Tyra began to relax a little and talk at least to her parents, but if I so much as moved or spoke she would stare at me again.  ‘What is this guy’s problem?  He doesn’t seem too bad, but I don’t trust him.  This is making me tired, I need to go to sleep,’ which is what she did, I was so impressed that she was able to maintain her cold as ice demure until the very end of consciousness.     In an effort I tried to remember some Swedish and quite quickly learned some basic words from the children, but it was not enough just yet.

Millis, Robert and I chatted into the night and then they showed me my room.  After a deep sleep I woke to the sound of children laughing down stairs which is always a joy.  This continued until I walked down the steps and then Tyra saw me and abruptly stopped.  They were watching cartoons on the TV, something to do with a wolf and a pigs theatre; I sat down to watch with them.  Kids TV is extremely clever as the humour is so basic and universal that even a child and a foreigner can be on the same page.  It was only now that Tyra finally decided that even if I was a little stupid I wasn’t so bad and at least knew how to laugh in the right places.  We laughed together and then she started to point and make jokes about the wolf.  It wasn’t before long that Tyra was running around the house in hysterics, her mother whilst drying her hair had been possessed by the evil blow dryer and it was her quest to escape it.  After breakfast Millis and I had to depart to go and see Johanna in the south of Sweden.  I think Tyra’s parting thoughts of me were that foreigners although a little stupid were OK on a very basic level.  I felt that I had made a good first contact for future international relations and was honoured to be Tyra’s first foreigner.

Unfortunately in true Jamie Wardley style, Millis and I missed our train.  We were not late, just busy talking too much to realise that it had arrived and then gone.  I hope nobody tells Tyra as it will just confirm her preconceptions and confirm her fears that her mummy may have been infected with foreigness.

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I lay there in the snow on my back a little bit worse for ware.  It is 1am and I have been well and truly Finned, my attempt to walk home has encountered a temporary glitch in that I have made it no further than across the road before having to lie down.  This is my second attempt at walking home but the last time I forgot my camera and with great effort had to walk back and get it. ‘Being Finned’ is what the Finnish do to each other on a regular basis, and what they take great delight in doing to foreigners.

As I lay there I began to make a snow angel but then the effort exhausted me.  The main culprit of my situation comes over the road to look at me.  “Jamie, what are you doing in the snow?”  Tero is a delightful chap and the head electrician of the snow castle.  He is such a friendly guy and said that I have always a place to stay if ever I want to come here on a vacation, anytime.  “Yeeees, Jamie, in Finland we get very nervous when people lie in the snow…. because they die.”  Fair point, it was -14.  Still, lying in soft snow is a very seductive pleasure when you just want to go to sleep.  But as Tero pointed out, in Finland that could be for a very long time.

“Yeees, Jamie, I almost forgot, I brought something to show you.”  This was Tero an hour earlier and I am a bit worried as he goes out of the room to fetch what I know to be some instrument of torture.  We had all been celebrating the finishing of the snow castle.  They had had fireworks galore and a choir opening  with “We’re walking in the air” from the snowman, and then somehow merging into “we will rock you” by Queen, and many of their other hits.  Slightly bizarre, but everyone was rather merry I think and thoroughly enjoyed it; I for one was singing at the top of my voice which can be rather loud.    Tero comes back into the room brandishing a bottle of clear liquid.  I was by this stage already feeling a little delicate.  I had made a mistake of sitting in amongst a circle of Finns.  Even though everyone already had a drink in hand, they proceeded to crack open a bottle of whiskey and then pass it round the circle until it was finished.  Peer pressure at its best.  The bottle wasn’t finished before it got to me and so I had to have a second round.  Taavi, who is the project manager of the snow castle grinned at me broadly and then introduced me to the next seven bottles.  So when I saw Tero sat next to me with his clear liquid who’s name I do not remember, I was a little worried.  Let’s just call it 80% as it is those innocent numbers that are burned in my mind.  Tero beamed as he took the cap off, taking a healthy swig and then offering over to me.  Not one to offend I took the bottle knowing too well that this was the end of my night and gulped back what can only be described as acid on fire.  I took it the best I could but began to choke, fortunately the 6^th bottle of whiskey was making a round and I grabbed the bottle to wash down the fire, gulping at it like water.  I have never thought that I would use whiskey to do such a thing.  Anti was so impressed that he then did the same pronouncing that “this is very bad” after a gulp of 80%, and then “this is OK” after the whiskey.

So you can forgive me for wanting to go to sleep in the snow.  Luckily, Kimmo and Tero got me on my feet and I ambled home to the hotel, only to dance for an hour to some blues band to clear my head.

And today I go to Sweden to see some friends who I haven’t seen for some years.  Oh dear.