The Carlton

I had a couple of "firsts" this weekend. My first repeated customer - one of the girls had seen me before when I did the class in Dundee. My first job at The Carlton in Aberdeen, which is a bar I hope to use again. My first job with Fiona - my Aberdeen tutor. And my first job where the class asked to take a break halfway through so they could get something to eat from a buffet. When I do a class, I tend to be very preoccupied with keeping the momentum going and making sure everybody has a good time, so I struggled a little bit with that last detail. I wasn't completely sure what I should be doing while everybody was eating - but it still seemed to go pretty well.

A couple of girls had arrived early to decorate the venue, so there were balloons everywhere and I used one of them as a prop early on. Fiona welcomed the girls when they arrived, while I took up hiding and waited for my cue. When I stepped into the room with the balloon (heart-shaped) strategically positioned, one of the girls actually screamed.

Recently, someone reminded me of a couple of drawing challenges that I haven't used in a long time, so they were resurrected for this class. I challenged everybody to draw a picture without looking at the page - and I can't believe I haven't been using that one in every single class. It's a real laugh; especially when the artists are keen to "not cheat" but still have the instinct to glance down at the page. Someone asked me if I was going to be "invigilating" and I was very embarrassed to admit that I couldn't actually remember what the word meant. I'm literate... I was familiar with the word... but right at that moment, I couldn't remember it at all.

When everybody paused for something to eat, I started to become conscious of the approaching deadline. We didn't have the venue for much longer and I wanted to cram in as much as possible so the girls could get the full value of the event. So I suggested that we move on to picking out the favourite picture and posing for some photographs once they'd finished eating. Then, after a quick check of the schedule I amended that to one more quick drawing challenge, then the favourites, then the photographs.

Finally, I got dressed and said "goodbye" to everyone. I don't like to break the continuity of an event by letting everybody see me with clothes on, because I always think it drags "real life" back in and destroys the illusion. Sometimes it's necessary, though. I made a couple of jokes about my appearance. I prefer to be naked, because then people don't see how scruffy I normally. Then, it was off to the bus station and back to sunny Edinburgh.

I used to live in Aberdeen, and it's days like this that make me want to live there again.