It's life, Jim, but not as we know it

I remember when I had a life. I found an old roll of film in the back of a drawer and had it developed last weekend. They were pictures of a couple of years ago when I went on holiday to the carribean. Oh the nostalgia of having a life (and a waistline). Funnily enough though, back then, with my first attempt at snorkelling, I had no idea that now, in the last few months of this course, I would still feel like I was underwater. Everything is fuzzy and unclear and I'm a bit out of my depth. Visibility is poor and I can't seem to move forward very fast. It's all new and exciting, yes, but also a bit scary.

Anyway - here's me and my daughter discovering the wonders of the deep. Difficult to say cheese with a snorkel in your gob, but I think you can see I'm trying. Plus ca change!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming lack of sleep,
If you can trust yourself when others doubt you, but still believe you're in this far too deep.
If you can wait forever by the Studio and still be able to crack a tired joke,
And being told "at least another hour", go back outside for yet another smoke,
If you daydream of the time it will be over, but don't ignore the work that lies ahead,
If you can recite the Latin name for clover, and know the different properties of lead,
If you can meet with Jamie and with Andrew, and strive to understand just what's required,
If you can bear the twisted words they've written, when something positive was so desired,
Or watch your work be shredded in the process, and go back and start from scratch with worn out pens,
If you think you've got it sorted, but you haven't - you were looking down the wrong end of the lens.
If you can find just one thing you are proud of, and work, and work some more until it glows
But lose, and start again at the beginning, and never speak a word about your woes.
If you can force your heart and nerve and pencil, to serve you long after everyone's in bed,
And hold on when there's nothing left within you, and all your creativity is dead.
If you can stick the lectures without yawning, pretend you know just what you're supposed to do.
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, by saying "what's that blob right there in blue?"
If what they say counts with you, but not too much. If you can see the value of the crit
If what they say seems hurtful, be determined to let them see you couldn't give a shit.
If you can fill the unforgiving sketchbook, with 60 pages worth of sketches done.
If you can hold your own at presentation, and answer all the questions one by one.
If you can find another shade of green, mate, and just try not to end up round the bend,
Then yours is Hadlow and everything that's in it! And what's more, you'll be a Graduate my friend.

ldksjgjkdlsk kdksl

Lost the ability to type. Haven't posted pictures of my sections, although I meant to, but I think I've forgotten how. Will do so just as soon as I have finished everything else.

Have just been trying to do some sketches for the masterplan document. Laugh? I thought I'd never stop. I will pay someone £10,000 to do them for me. My fingers are bleeding, my brain is technically dead. I think if I see the word Hadlow one more time I will kill the next unsuspecting stranger I meet.

It's 10pm on Saturday and I have got loads left to do. I know that my sketches are rubbish, I know that John's basket ball playing cyclist has a sister and she's 8'3" and is riding a horse in one of my sections. Who invited her? And why are all my people wearing the same knitwear?

It's all hopeless. Shoot me now.

Birth announcement

I am proud and pleased to announce the arrival of a new Masterplan! After a gestation period matching that of an elephant and a labour which was long and arduous and left the mother on the brink of a nervous breakdown, Baby masterplan is finally here!

First pic:

Proud mummy:

And for those of you who have posted pictures of your work areas - check out the devastation here...........

Right - now i've got to start the sections.

Byee!

Painfully Slow Progress

But at least it's in the right direction. Tutorial today helped to get my mind sorted out. Still a long way to go, but I think I know vaguely where I'm headed.

Tonight I will start on version number 3 of the A1 masterplan (MP3 as it's known). Versions 1 and 2 were good while they lasted, but ultimately not good enough.
This is version 2

And this is a sketch over photo which shows the strong radial pattern of pathways, focussing on the central plaza, with its dominating central feature - or "Angel of Hadlow" as Andrew called it. I quite like that

And tomorrow I'll be mainly pulling the A3 document together. Why why why didn't I do more of this over the holiday?

Where is everyone?

I keep trawling through the blogs to see how everyone is doing and either everyone is working so hard that they haven't time to blog, or they've been abducted by aliens. Hey! Great excuse! I might try that one on Monday.

Actually, I have finally found some inspiration - isn't it odd how these things just appear in your mind and you suddenly think "Yes! This might just work!". But sadly, my little mental light bulb has flickered into life rather late in the day to have anything wonderful to pin up on Monday. Still, it's one small step on the way to a masterplan, and one giant leap in terms of progress for me.

It all happened like this...........no, i won't bore you with the details. But in my musings over the site at Hadlow and how it has no centre, no focus, no cohesion, and how all it's parts are loosely arranged in no particular order, I was reminded of a spiders web with bits of dead fly, or droplets of water all over it. I realised that the bits of dead fly, or the droplets were all linked together by the web, and viewed as a whole it made one pretty picture which made complete sense.

Now I've just got all the other stuff to do! Well, it's a start.

See you Monday!

OMG

or oh my god. I am getting nowhere. That's why I'm blogging, anything's better than sitting in front of the empty page that is my masterplan.

I got some very good advice from Claire yesterday- trace over the things on the site that HAVE to stay, and then work with the space in between - get the circulation sorted, it's vital to get it right. Well, I've fallen at the first hurdle. I have two maps of Hadlow, one misses out the bit by the village, and the other misses out the bit by Faulkner's Farm. Aha! join them together I hear you say! But they are at different scales and I can't face another trip to the printers! I just want to cry. And yesterday I read Jamie's email which said "you should pretty much have finished by now" (well that's how I read it anyway). Now my brain is in meltdown. The only thing I'm utterly sure of is that I need 1000 car parking spaces, and that's not very inspirational.

I don't want you to think I haven't been working! I have read all the stuff Jamie has kindly sent to us - I've researched on the internet and in books - I've thought of very little other than Hadlow, which is quite depressing in itself. The problem I have is that none of this has made any difference and I still have very little to show for it!

I am just not in the mood for this, so I'm going to post a photo of the wellies I got for my birthday. Dare I wear them? Or shall I just trace round them and overlay the pattern onto the site in a desperate attempt to find a concept? Hahahahahahahaahahahahahah! Manic laughter.