We had visitors this weekend.

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing homework for my Visual Inquiry class on Monday, because I wanted a day off on Sunday.  I gave Jim a shopping list and he occupied himself doing the weekend shop, and watching the football/hockey at the local playing fields.

I also completed my "mini thesis" for my Pattern & Meaning class.  This is a bit of a misnomer, as I would call it a proposal for my final assessment.  I wrote this quite easily because I have a clear of what I want to create, and know the supporting artists and references that I want to use.  I want to create an installation artwork relating to Australian flora and Alzheimers Disease which my Dad had.  This will be a length of cloth, mounted horizontally, and with the right hand end wound onto a cardboard tube.  I want to print design and print a eucalyptus design along the fabric.  It will start at the left with bright clear printing, then incorporate some silver lines, to represent thought. The silver lines will get denser, then form clumps (amyloidal plaques which obstruct brain patterns in Alzheimers), and will eventually completely obliterate the eucalyptus pattern.  The silver clumps will stop in a straight line, representing death, followed by the continuation of the perfect fabric, indicating life continues.  Winding the excess fabric onto the roll, indicates the continuity of life for others.  I was pleased with how well the proposal came together.

On Sunday we had our friends, Alan and Wendy Baird, come round for dinner.  They have just flown in from the UK and will be cycle touring from Perth to Adelaide, where Alan's brother lives.  It was lovely to see them.  The first time Jim cycled across the USA on the Transam route, they were travelling on their tandem, a couple of weeks behind.  They were following his journal, and noting all the places where he stopped, which campsites were good, which were not, and where he ate etc. Really Jim did quite a good job of quality control by travelling ahead.  They contacted Jim via the Crazyguyonabike website, where both Jim, and Alan and Wendy were keeping their respective blogs.  Then we discovered they lived a few miles away from us in Essex and have met up a couple of times since. 

Jim and me, being love's young dream

Alan and Wendy - tandem riders extraordinaire!

We should have taken a picture of them on their tandem.  It is a magnificent machine, with lots of tailor-made features, that make riding it an absolute dream.  They have been touring all over the world and their attitude to travel opportunities and the ability to see positive outcomes in all cycle situations is inspiring.  They look amazing on their tandem.
Alan and Wendy are keeping a blog again this time on www.crazyguyonabike website.  This time their journal is called Nullabor Tandem Crossing.  Their journals are always worth reading.

It was lovely having them round for lunch.  None of us suffer from rigor mortis of the tongue, and conversation flowed easily.  After lunch we had a short stroll down to the nature reserve at the tip of Salter Point, where locals were fishing, although there were no dolphins there today.