Well now I have got that Chichester thing off of my chest in my last blog, its back to a normal blog about what I have been up to.

This has been a week of yet more traveling on the train, two flights and another job interview.

I have been doing a number of days teaching at Kent Institute of Art and Design in Rochester. This has meant a 4.45am wake up call as it take 4-5 train connections to get there from Hastings. This despite Rochester only being about 48 miles away. I have so far had two days teaching drawing at
The Dockyard Museum on the Medway in Chatham. There are over 100 foundation art students and this was their first week, so it was intensive, but highly enjoyable. The students seem a great bunch and I love teaching at foundation level, because they are all so keen, ambitious and enthusiastic. I get home to Hastings at 8.00pm so it is a very long and tiring day. But, I must say it has been nice to do some teaching again and the staff there are a lovely bunch.

This week, I also got invited or a job interview for a part-time painting lecturer at Ulster University in Belfast. I was undecided whether I should go as I was due to work in Rochester on that day (Wednesday 22nd) and I did not want to let them down. However, they were cool about it and I decided to go.

This involved going up to London for the night on Tuesday where I spent the night at billy’s, then I got a flight from Gatwick to Belfast at some ridiculous hour in the morning. When I got to Belfast it was cold, drizzly and dull. I had not been there for over ten years and it was nice to see the there was no presence of the military police in the city centre as there used to be when I visited it before. I had a wander about the centre as I had some time to kill and to see if it was somewhere I could move to. Which I think I could.

The interview itself was a very formal affair with 5 on the interview panel who were very thorough in their questioning and gave very little away about how they were responding to me, which was good. I think I interviewed ok, but fell down on my record on academic research, which plays a big part at the University. So, therefore, I think I am unlikely to get the job. I had a look around the painting studios and there was little to see as the students have just started this week. The place was a nice big art school in what looked liked an old department store and the painting area was set in what looked like an old ballroom. Fantastic.

Got back about 8 last night to Hastings and today I am a fairly spent force as just went down the studio just to stare into space for half and hour and then leave defeated. I am off again to Rochester tomorrow and then London at the weekend, so I think I should cut my losses this week and start afresh in the studio next.