Max Stafford's Kennel

I was sitting here pondering a blog post when it occurred to me that in November it will be TEN years since I started this blog and whilst I won’t be indulging in any concerted navel gazing in respect of this milestone, I don’t think a moment of reflection is totally out of order when I compare my world of 2012 with that of today. It was about then that I started to get itchy feet about returning home and I had started to get increasingly uncomfortable in my (admittedly chosen) career. My growing political awareness was a notable factor in both as well as a growing realisation that I was ploughing away at a furrow I was pretty much unsuited for. Fast forward to the present, I look back at that journey and all the significant waypoints on it and I see how all of them made me grow as a person. People left my life, new ones came into it and without a doubt I can say that most of those who came in have changed and enhanced both my life and me as a person. I have learned and grown much and I’m pleased to say all bar one are still a part of that life. One of them left, for the better, ultimately but even that proved to be a valuable learning experience. Two in particular served as real rocks during a tough part of the voyage and from them I have learned practical skills and received the odd push when necessary when inertia was a problem. You two guys know who you are and I wouldn’t be back home, living in a place way beyond my expectations in a state of contentment I couldn’t have comprehended on a Saturday night in 2012, wrestling pissheads on the last train to Whitehaven! Thanks brothers, I salute you, the two best wingmen I could have had! 👍

It’s nice to be feeling a bit creative again in this situation. The journey to get back home took up so much energy and effort that there wasn’t much time and drive left for creative activities. Taking a new job that again involved shifts, albeit on a part time basis also had a braking effect on the modelling front. On top of all this, we are genuinely living in a tumultuous period where history is being written and seismic changes are taking place. Whereas this can be disconcerting and downright alarming for many, I feel that turbulent as this passage is, it’s both inevitable and necessary in that it will provide the opportunity for real positive change to come. Of course, it is not a smooth process; far from it, but though things have the potential to go badly wrong I have a growing inner sense that ultimately we are collectively going to end up in a better, more stable situation. Call it instinct if you like, but that is something I learned to trust in both my former profession and in my experiences since. In all that time it has never let me down. I won’t bore you with elaboration on my hunches but time will tell and meantime, there is a lot of modelling and other forms of creativity to be done.

There’s a lot to tell about about what’s going on on the modelling front so I’ll do a couple of updates over the next couple of days. Now I’m in a position to do more I want to share the new output with those of you who kept the faith! 🙂