Yes, it’s been a couple of months without a post on this sketchblog, but in my defense I’ve been lazy. Well, I’ve also not bought a new computer yet and my current one that I use for all my scanning is making a noise like Evel Knievel, so I’ve been reluctant to turn it on and catch up with the scanning. I have sketches from Arizona, Nevada, London, France, Belgium, and even Davis. Finally the other day I braved the loud slow machine and got it working enough to scan about half of those sketches. I need to work up the courage to turn it back on again and scan the rest. With everything going on in the world right now, I don’t have headspace for a noisy belligerent computer and a mountain of scanning, but at least some of it has been done. Now for the storytelling. This sketch goes back all the way to St. Patrick’s Day, and was drawn on 3rd Street, Davis. It was going to be all coloured in, but you know, one purple flag and a green tree was all it needed in the end (also, lazy). It’s hard to believe that it is nearly July now. I did do a race back in March though called the Lucky Run, it took place around north Davis where I live, and was St. Patrick’s Day themed. I wore my 1994 Republic of Ireland shirt, the one they wore at World Cup USA 94 when Ray Houghton scored that great goal as we beat Italy 1-0. I still have a t-shirt my mum got me a couple of days later at an Irish music festival that says “We kicked Italian Ass on American Grass”. Probably wouldn’t wear that now; probably wouldn’t fit anyway. I have another shirt my mum got me when Ireland beat England in 1988 at the Euros, “these boys made history” with a photo of the team. There were probably ruder ones available given the immensity of the occasion and the feeling between the two nations at the time but I was only 12 during Euro 88. I was 18 during USA 94 but the Republic’s huge baggy 90s-style shirt still feels massive on me even now. That made it nice to run in though. I’ve decided that for all future races I will wear a different classic football shirt. For the Davis Stampede in February, I wore the Hearts of Oak (from Accra, Ghana) shirt from a few years ago, that got a comment of “cool jersey!” from the race commentator as I crossed the line. I have another race in a couple of weeks, the Davis MOOnlight run, which is an evening race so I should wear something light coloured, I have a snazzy Ghana shirt, or maybe one of my Spurs shirts, another baggy 90s one maybe. Yes, something baggy, because I’ve not been exercising and practicing quite as much as usual lately so I feel a bit out of shape. I need to get back into routine, back to running several times a week, back to the gym, back to early starts; but you know, lazy. Hopefully this race will inspire me back to get out there.

Anyway I will also get back to posting my sketches and stories here again, some interesting travels to talk about, and some more travels yet to come. I’ve finally crossed the Atlantic again after three years and intend to keep doing it, make up for lost time.