Matt's enormous painting

Matt keeps disappearing into the garage to add another piece to his enormous painting! I like him working in there. I can go and admire it every now and then.

Now I'm going to plant out the coriander and basil seedlings.

Girls and Boys Come Out to Play

Have just done the score for a little animated film - final tweaks with Matt adding an extra bass line from the guitar.

We're going to be credited as Jude Cowan and Matthew Armstong.

We're so happy because the filmmaker really likes it - well he is very enthusiastic and it's so great. He seems a really nice fellow and he's a pleasure to work with. Hope to see the film at a decent screening soon. How exciting! Matt and I found it a great thing to do and we'd like to do some more!

Filming trip - in Higham

Just got back from Higham / Cliffe where Matt and I have made a little film for the call for artist movies by Sarah Sparkes, subject 'Haunted Sea'. Have to view it now and see how it came out. We found a beautiful little spot in a very strange, spooky part of the estuary and I wore my black crinoline in a 'Piano' homage to Holly Hunter and Jane Campion.

One of our tenors - at TB sectional rehearsal

The Foulkestone

Now with added colour - and instruments! And on tartan in honour of the 'Talisman Crew'.

Plaster Man relaxes after an arduous shoot

Solly in the garden - painting

Garden paintings

Jude making music in the wintertime

Richard Tyrone Jones took the pictures of me at Spoonful of Poison at the Urban Bar, Clerkenwell with microkorg, drum machine and little desk.

Hotter day

Hotter than yesterday. I spent it in the basement at work

Autobiographical sketches 88 - Tom Allen Arts Centre

Printing out labels, stuffing envelopes. I thought it was a cushy job. You could listen to music while you worked. Heck it was a community arts centre!

Autobiographical sketches 87 - Tom Allen Arts Centre

We used to have a few noticeboards at some community sites round the borough. They were rather falling into disrepair by the time I joined the team.

By the way, Matt came to the Tom Allen Arts Centre to a few parties. I didn't meet him. But I wish I had. He would have seemed a lot younger than me then though, as there's a seven year age gap between us and I was in my early twenties.

Autobiographical sketches 86 - Tom Allen Arts Centre

I worked here as marketing officer between 1990 - 1995 my first 'full time' proper job. The CV doesn't lie!

I've tried to depict my rather questionable garb. Still I guess I look just as bad today. The boots were a bit uncomfortable though, as sometimes I wore DMs. And they didn't agree with my feet, too structured. I have terrible flat feet.

I used to like this part of the job and sought out times I could do it, walking around in the open air, posting leaflets through doors. Time to think. It didn't bother me at all.

Autobiographical sketches 85 - Tom Allen Arts Centre

Autobiographical sketches 84 - honeymoon in Turkey

Autobiographical sketches 83 - honeymoon in Turkey

Autobiographical sketches 82 - honeymoon in Turkey

Autobiographical sketches 78 - elastic band man

It was in those days when you saw very vulnerable men who had survived the war wandering the streets. One chap, who was always around the bottom of Burdett Road, by the Seaman's Mission, used to always wear a brown overall tied at the middle with a rope, newspapers poking out of his boots and an elastic band around his head which secured bits of plants arranged around his dome like a natural crown.

Autobiographical sketches 76 - Stepney Green

Before I swapped with the family in Clerkenwell I lived temporarily in Stepney Green on the Ocean Estate. The kids had a huge bonfire while I was there. It felt like living in the wild West. That night anyway.

The rats were far too visible there.

Autobiographical sketches 74 - moving house with Anne Marie

When I swopped my Mile End flat with the Bengali family in Clerkenwell who wanted to be nearer the mosque ... Anne Marie helped me, and them, move. Thanks Anne Marie.