Wednesday, 10 August 2011

100811 - Gambled at William Hill/Lost: £110

Unfortunately, I was tempted to try gambling at...

http://www.williamhill.com

...where, initially, I lost £10.00 whilst playing Black Jack.

I then allowed myself to get tempted to chase after my losses in order to recover all of my money back, again; by investing a further £100.00 into gambling. This time I decided to play Roulette; although, at first, I was winning by £120.00(having recovered back the £10 I'd lost, initially/and, won a further £10 on top of it); but, then, as usual, I found I just couldn't stop...the winning is so exciting...you just want to win more and more...! So, I went and made a further £30 bet which lost; followed by a £90 bet which lost; thus, leaving me with nothing but £0.44p. I had no other choice but to quit as the minimum bet is £0.50p.

Gambling HURTS! I've got to STOP this habit, and, the sooner the better. I'm an ADDICT; and, if I find myself doing any more; I will have to return back to go and visit GA-Gamblers Anonymous, located outside of Great Portland Street tube station/131 Cleveland Street, again.

080811 - Went Kingswood with Sharon

On Monday my cousin, Sharon, gave me a phone call saying she would be coming over to visit and collect me to go off to the country. She also brought along with her 2 kids in the car, both Domenic and Ryan. The car was red, big, new; I forgot the exact make; but, it was a luxury sort of many seater van...with seats in front/and, seats behind...which had built-in fridge/shopping trolley/tray/-etc.

She explained the reason why she was late was because she had an accident; a guy had parked their shopping trolley on top of a hill; and, it was loaded up with goods; when, all of a sudden, the trolley ran all by itself straight down the hill, and, had come to a stop by striking hard against their car; consequently, the car was left with 3 or 4 dents in it. She said she would have to go and make an insurance claim, even though the car was 'new'.

We went off to Kingswood; and, were going to visit a special park for kids, Wesley(?); but, unfortunately, the time had gotten late; and, Sharon explained that Laura, Ryan's mother, was expecting him to be back soon in around a hour or two. So, the original park visit was cancelled; and, we went to visit a local park in Kingswood, instead; where they stayed inside of the kids play area. The kids had a lot of fun! For me, personally, it was interesting as it brought back precious memories of when I was a kid.

Later on, we went home to Kingswood; where I saw the twins Oliver and Charlotte; though, less than 1 year old, they seem to have grown really very big; and, are drinking loads of milk; I'm sure, they must ingested around 1/2 a pint to a full pint; which I helped to feed them.

I remember Sharon saying she wanted me to be the twins Godfather; but, I really wasn't sure that I would be an acceptable enough role-model. However, Sharon said she sees me as close like a brother; so, it was very difficult to not accept. She said the babies Christening would be 23rd October 2011, at 1 PM.

I stayed there pretty late leaving somewhere around 9:15 PM. Unfortunately, on the Sky TV news program it said that in West Croydon there was rioting including loads of looting/burning. So, both she and her husband Geoff advised me to go take train instead of bus; normally, I would take a a 166 bus from Banstead to take me back to Croydon; and, from there take a 68 bus to West Norwood; however, the 166 bus also goes very near to West Croydon area.

The train cost me £5.50 to punch a single 'all day' ticket from Kingswood to London; paid for using Debit card; so, I didn't actually need to use cash. I had to change at Clapham Junction; and, then, take a next train to West Norwood. My train journey home was uneventful; even though the train did pass through both South Croydon/East Croydon; but, I was already fast asleep on the train when I'd reached those destinations; conseqently, I saw absolutely nothing happening at all.

One other problem I had was, as I was rolling over on the ground, playing with the babies around me. I had a black Praktica 10 MP 1100z digital camera which I kept hidden inside of my trousers pocket. When I took the camera out, unfortunately, the view finder part was broken; thus, the camera no longer works. I'm going to have to buy another one costing around £40.00 from off eBay, again, once more. This is the 2nd Praktica digital camera (silver/1000z) which I broke; the last one broke when I was knocked off my bike in the street by a car.






Friday, 5 August 2011

Went Morley College to go collect my artworks...

Recently, I went and signed up for Morley College Fine Art Pre-Foundation course, lasting 12 weeks/1 day per week, from 10AM-5PM. The course finished last week(6th May 2011/29 July 2011).

NOTE: I decided not to bother with doing the follow on course Fine Art Foundation proper; as I'm low in funds(£800 is concessionary fee); I'm not sure I could stick with it for a whole entire year(especially, keeping up with doing the homework?!); and, the type of art I'm interested in learning is really 'realistic' as opposed to being purely 'experimental'.

http://www.morleycollege.ac.uk

9:30 AM Woke up. Realized I was already late to get to Morley College on time at 10 AM Friday; because this was meant to be the day when they take down pictures of our Morley College Landing exhibition. Anyway, I left home late, at around 11 AM. Still I got there on time to be able to take down and retrieve all of my printed out pictures/sketchbook.

12:00 I decided rather than go straight home; why not go and visit seeing the National Gallery, instead. I stayed there all day from 1PM-5PM.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk

5PM I thought why not go and visit the National Portrait Gallery...which is located next door to the National. I stayed there until 9PM...as it was a late night opening.

http://www.npg.org.uk

12:00 midnight. I arrived back home. I did stop to go and buy some chips in Norwood.

CONCLUSION

Interesting day. Good fun going and visiting galleries/and, copying with pencil into my sketchbook.