I know I said I was going to do teachery things for a while, that the artist would have to wait till December to be allowed to roam free, but an unexpected bonus has cropped up. In the middle of all the teacheriness is a trip to that London…. And so it transpires that Franny is going to take me in hand!
My meeting finishes at 4pm, and by then my brain will be swollen with stuff and guff and I will be rendered incapable of reading the map of the tube. Franny is going to meet me and take over all responsibility for me, like a large confused child… (me, not her).
It is with this impending meeting in mind that I gasp in wonder yet again at the internet. I don’t think our children realise or understand what a miraculous thing it is! They haven’t known life without it.
I have never met Franny or Kate, or Jean or Julie, or Marion, or Rob…..yet I consider them sort of friends. (I have met both Sophie and Wendy though!)
Franny is about 150 miles away I think, but I feel like I’ve known her for years. We have conversations, we bloggers, that cut to the chase. If you “get” another artist’s work, it is a short cut to knowing something of their personality, and something of what is important to them. You don’t make judgements based on appearance, or accent. What people make and what they write is the important bit.
I am hoping she thinks the same, because I don’t think, by 4pm tomorrow I will give a good first impression… I’m not what you would call “well-groomed” at the best of times. By the time I meet her I will be easy to spot… I will have crumpled everything within touching range. My hair will have been raked through with my undoubtedly sticky possibly chocolatey, definitely inky fingers all day. Any make-up applied carefully at 6.30 am will have slid down my face. I expect my knitted coat will be hanging off one shoulder, my bag slung across the other, doing its own version of “lift and separate”.
The almost all day meeting will be interesting and stimulating, I am sure. But I find what I’m focussing on is Franny. I can’t wait to meet you my long-lost, never-met friend!
