Halloowweenn, and my failings as a human.

I always enjoy getting carried away with my spelling of Halloween. It looks far more interesting with all the double letters!

Right then. Yes. Halloween.Oh and please forgive the text heavy nature of this post...!

I'm sure you can tell by the title that Halloween does not in fact make it as my favourite of dates. I can't even call it a holiday or a festival can I?

It is one evening where a lot people feel it is obligatory to dress up as a zombie/pirate/fairy/animal etc or god forbid a sexy-blah blah blah. Children demand sweets and if you don't give them anything, either throw an egg at your car, or do nothing at all. I'm never sure which I find more disappointing.

(I feel a little bad using these pictures, but they personify the"sexy- whatever" style of Halloween that I so detest.)

I just think it is so futile.

Perhaps my Scrooge-like attitude comes from never having done anything much at all for Halloween until I was at uni. By this point in my life I was so completely devoid of self confidence that I loathed the thought of dressing up and looking like an idiot, drawing attention to my self. Yes, yes, I know it doesn't matter at all when your in a group of 10-30 people or so and you all look like idiots, in a uni town like Bournemouth, where lets face it, most of the population dresses up every weekend and looks like an idiot anyway. I did it. I went out. And spent the entire night craving normal clothes and sanity.

It's strange though, looking back now (with a totally different outlook on life, mostly confident in my self) I can't decide what it was that I hated so much. It was probably an equal combination of crap costumes: they were all without fail half arsed (and I felt like the fat, ugly one. A ridiculous self imagine I'm still trying to drum out of my head.) The places we went; awful bars with terrible music and revolting sluts and leering old men (generalising a little bit here by the way.) And the whole attitude of "come on lets go get drunk". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy drinking, I just don't like drinking at the pace set by someone else in a mad dash to forget that everyone looks like an idiot.

The above two paragraphs explain the second part of the title of this post. I suspect that in the eyes of a vast number of the population (especially those under 25) this makes me less than human. Even some of my closest friend will be disowning me about now.

On the other hand I miss the things that we used to do as a family for Halloween. Mostly this consisted of carving pumpkins, and lighting them up and pointing them out of the kitchen window at the church opposite, because the church warden at the time was in fear of all things pagan (he banned Halloween at the CofE primary school we went to in the village...that in fear!) My mum was great. I reckon she brought us up right - taunting the clergy.


I'd like to bring back Halloween properly.  No more ridiculous costumes. Polyester should be banned at this time of year. No sexy anything. Halloween is not an excuse to get genital herpes and chlamydia. It doesn't matter whether you choose to believe in the Christian side of the 'festival' or the pagan, or a mash up of the two, whether you want to make it a harvest festival, or the precursor to honouring the saints on 1st & 2nd of November, or if you want to have a Samhain summers' end festival. It does not matter so long as some sort of sense and reason is restored!

By that I don't mean that it should be some sort of demure event like a 15th Century puritan Christmas. It should be a raucous and shambolic, lively and exciting evening.

Check out this post. This is How I think fancy dress should be carried out. Brilliant costumes, well done.

And this. Bristol's Zombie Walk a couple of days ago. I was at work and didn't get to see it, but this link shows what I imagine to be some of the best!

Common, let's stop bringing sexy back, and bring epic back instead!


All images are © Chloe Cooter 2012 unless image links to another website. All images that are not © Chloe Cooter will be linked to the source (if possible) and credited in that way.

A busy week for the Chimera's Chloe

Well, I've had a busy week.

After a horrible start to Wednesday (doctors, MOT failure) my day improved vastly by joining my friend Laura of Laura after Midnight for a stroll around Gloucester road in Bristol. We met up at a café called Tart, which neither of us had been to before (and living on the other side of town, I'd not even heard of before!) I was first to arrive, and wondered in with that slightly gormless look that people use when clearly looking for someone and not wanting to catch the eye of the staff just yet. My attempt failed though because I was accosted by a very nice member of staff asking me if I was looking for a table. I replied with "not yet" and mentioned I was waiting for someone. She directed me to the back of the café where there were still some seats left. I plonked my self into a squashy armchair in a little hidden away spot with a very encouraging menu. After a little while Laura joined me and a couple of rebuffed waitresses later (we'd been chatting too much to decide) we both asked for a large cappuccino and asked about the cakes on offer. The waitress reeled off this enormous list of cakes all of which sounded astounding (I was impressed that she could remember so many without a single "um" or "er".) With our cakes and our coffee (both of which were excellent, and we'd know having both worked in a café offering home-made cake and proper coffee) we talked until the café emptied at about 3.30 or 4pm. I would recommend the place. Light, friendly but attentive service, good atmosphere, it was perhaps a little pricey for my poor empty wallet, but nothing out of the ordinary, and to top it all, we managed to miss the rain, although I can't in all reality attribute this to the staff at Tart.

After we were fed and watered we started our amble up the road, looking for inspiration, pretty and shiny things. we popped in to a few charity shops, and also headed in to a number of interior and gift shops. I wish I'd taken my camera because Laura and I kept noticing bird motifs and designs everywhere. On tea towels, lights, bird boxes, bowls, t-shirts. Well, pretty much everything. It gives me a feeling that I might have stumbled on to just the right thing with my Birds collection on Chloe and the Chimera.

We also made a trip in to a place called Flo-jo Boutique. Again a place I'd only heard of from Laura. I was in a very small and perfectly formed heaven. They sell haberdashery, fabrics and kits, and also offer workshops, some of which Laura is running. I was impressed, not only by the décor (I adore painted 70's furniture), and by the range of items on sale in the little shop, but also by the atmosphere. The shop felt bright and sunny and airy, and the lovely lady who was, I gathered, one of the co-owners, was just as bright and sunny. Chatty and friendly and made me feel welcome, despite just following Laura around the shop like and over-awed puppy dog! Again, I'd recommend a visit to this shop. You'll in all likelihood come out with something you never knew you needed, and perhaps even sign up to improve your sewing skills too!

The next couple of days I spent "at work". Which is a pretty loose title for what I do for money at the moment. Over two days I did some general cleaning and tidying and then instigated the removal of not only a stinky rotten carpet but the ancient cork tiles that were glued in patches on top of even more ancient plastic tiles, which were in turn glued to a pitch floor. (Which is in fact poured over very ancient flagstones.) We only removed the cork tiles in order to give a flat surface with which to paint on to. This simple sounding task required paint scrapers, a whetstone, hammers, a sharpened spade and in the end a pneumatic hammer, because the glue really liked being stuck to the floor. I'll be going back in order to paint it and make that room habitable again next week.

On Saturday I went to Bristol Harbour festival with my Dad. It was the first nice day we'd really had, not only sunny but hot too. We ambled up past the M-shed, watched the steam train, ran away from the ferry queue, walked up to the boat yard, got to see the Pryonaut do its things, which was brilliant because I'd never seen that before. Then we walked back down the other side via a stop for cider and burgers (didn't get the name of the place, but very good food. Lots of bottled cider but only two bottled lagers (but then it's not a pub). Next to the Thai restaurant.) Then we carried on to the first bit of the floating jetties on that side, where a collection of miniature steam boats were all sitting (by miniature I mean 6-8 people sort of size.) They were fascinating. My Dad's a big fan of steam trains, and boating so he got on well with them. They were beautifully made and designed. Hardly made a noise, and looked fantastic scooting around in the water! Would have loved to have had a ride. We spent the rest of the day ambling about with no agenda. We could have seen much much more, but it was nice just to chill and soak up the atmosphere.

Sunday, I was back to my real work!

All images are © Chloe Cooter 2012 unless image links to another website. All images that are not © Chloe Cooter will be linked to the source (if possible) and credited in that way.

A little of Bristol in spring

I went for a bit of a wonder yesterday to try to clear my head of Work related clouds and try to find a bit of a positive vibe in my self. I succeeded a little bit, so hopefully my semi-essay-like rants will be at least shorter if I feel the need to get it all out again.

It as such a beautiful day yesterday. Sunny, blustery. I even dressed up and made my self look nice. Alas (yes I used the word alas), I have no tripod or helpfully on hand boyfriend to take photos of my outfits, so further fashion posts will still have to wait. But I did take some photos of some of the things I saw yesterday.

 

Although this last photo isn't the most beautiful image, and certainly not he most colourful, I like it because that one seagull looks like he's trying to pretend it wasn't him making all the footprints going round and round. Guilty seagull! Although in reality the other ones just scampered out of frame just as I pressed the button.