Currently job hunting, as you may know my paintings don't pay the mortgage so I do temp work (Finance) to earn my living and then paint by night. At the moment I'm doing the rounds with the employment agencies, I feel like a recording talking about my CV each time, might as well get a sandwich board and paste it onto that then trot about town for all and sundry to see !!!

Fingers crossed I get something soon before the pennies run out, oh what fun...NOT !!

 

Also working on a painting of Canna Plants, the ones with highly coloured redish leaves, someone found a photo in a gardening magazine and asked me to paint it for them in my own style, it is proving to be the start of a new era in my art, a new direction, I think it may possibly be one of the most important paintings I have produced in recent years, it is not what you'd expect from me. It will be displayed on this site first when completed, estimated Oct / Nov 08. Click here for a sneaky preview of the work in progress.

 

This may not be the right place to document this but it's what happened and what I witnessed. Just as a bit of back ground info for those that don't know me, I consider myself a sane normal person and I have a reasonable knowledge of aviation having been a keen enthusiast and former private pilot. I have a logical and open mind.

 

When: 31st August 2008, time 20.06

Location: Blackwater railways station car park, Surrey, UK. View from my parked car outside the take away restaurants i.e.Grandma Buggins and Pizza place. Car reversed in and facing ourward towards a southerly direction.

Weather conditions: Blustery Rainy, low cloud. Dry at the time of sighting.

Who: Myself and a freind, both whilst sitting in the car.

What we saw: An orange globe / sphere object rising from the horizon (limited horizon due to A30 bridge over railway), looked as if illuminated from within, with possibly a textured surface, a real defined and constant glow (no flickering). We both witnessed it, I saw it first and alerted my freind next to me who then watched it too.

It continued to rise to an angle of about 45 degrees above horizon may be more, then stopped rising and moved in a straight line eastbound and climbed away. As it did so, the orange glow vannished and all I could see was what looked like a flicker, as if from a candle. (not an after burner glow), just a flickering as if a low flame. It continues a shallow easterly climb until out of sight, I am guessing the whole viewing was a minute or so in time. I cannot explian how it was still visible in the distance despite what I thought was low cloud, it never disapeared behind cloud at any time.

 

There were no flashing lights, no port (red) or starboard (green) nav light, no strobes flashing. I did not get out of the car so cannot comment on any possible noise. The rate of turn was too accute for a plane or helicopter in my opinion. The acceleration after the turn was also too fast for most planes I know. I would imagine its path would have been south of the M3 motorway heading London bound, almost parallel. The approach from Heathrow airport is close by and the aircraft were landing on runways 27 meaning they were approaching over heading at that time before turning over towards windsor for final approach. This object would have been in conflict with their routing I feel sure, especially airliners leaving the holding pattern at Ockham (Woking area) preparing for approach to Heathrow on base leg.

 

My conclusions: I saw an unidentifiable object, I cannot from an logical scientific aspect what we saw. At this moment in time I have heard of several sighting via news media. I did not report it officially as I see little point or value to be honest. My gut feeling is that it was most likely a craft operated by the military,  perhaps new technology we are not aware of yet. Space craft? Personally I doubt it very much although. never say never.

What I find a bit irritating is from the few things I have read military always deny most sightings or no comment but with a growing number of sightings would it not be a good idea to simply say its new technology being tested etc...if so, quite frankly thats understandable and big deal, thats progress.

Anyway, thats what I saw, make of it what you will.

 

 

 

...and here's one I made earlier ! Delia's recipe said a moist carrot and walnut cake made with veg oil. I think mine was sponsored by Esso. If I carefully wedge the 2 sponges together (yes there are 2, honest) and decorate with a little icing sugar, do ya think anyone will notice it's a tad "relaxed"?

(see pic below)

The loos at my work place: Why is it that when I'm standing at a urinal having a pee, the  auto air freshner above my head arms itself with a menacing click and then dispenses a mist of disinfectant over me, so I then smell like toilet duck for the rest of the day !

Thanks (NOT) to the mean Traffic Warden in Gloucester for giving us a parking ticket as we enjoyed a Sunday lunch in Café René. By the way Cafe Rene does the best roast dinner in that area. Although I think the regular chef has left, its still great nosh at a good price.

The aircon in the office where I work is doing its best to ensure we remain well preserved, it is freezing in there !!! I drank hot chocolate all day and sat with 3 layers of clothes on to keep warm. Of course facilities dept say there is no problem despite us all sat there at our desks like eskimos. Oh I love temping...NOT !

Went shopping to "SpAsda" supermarket for the first time in ages. Noticed prices got higher (used to be the cheapest) and some food packets have got smaller. Saw a 70gram tiny pack of thinly sliced ham, a quick sniff and I could have digested it !! Fruit and Veg still not up to much, Freezers partly defrosting and smelly, won't be going back.