Aberargie

This year, Alison and I decided that I would step back a bit from the modelling and start offering more work to the younger models.  She's getting more of a pool of younger models to choose from, so it makes more sense to use them.

Since the jobs outside of town require a bit of travel, however, we also agreed that I'd continue to cover those.  The buses get a bit sketchy sometimes, and the travel gets more complicated.  It can get very frustrating.  And if things go wrong, then I've got no guarantee that a model won't get discouraged and just head back to Edinburgh.  They are automatically less motivated than me to do a good job, so if that happens, then I'll lose the transport costs and I'll have to return whatever I've been paid for the class that gets cancelled as a result.  Plus, I'll have some very dissatisfied customers who won't be saying nice things about the professionalism of the business.

Now, fair enough - it's not just the model who's doing the job.  Alison, or a different tutor will also be going along.  But still, if the model decides to just quit, then she's not going to be able to forcibly prevent him from going home again.

That's a worst case scenario, but it's the sort of thing that preys on my mind.  Combine that with the length of time it takes to travel anywhere in Scotland and the infrequency of some of the buses and the unreliability of the weather, which can slow everything down or bring it all to a complete halt.  So a job that lasts a single hour, could involve a full day of travel.  So add in the fact that I'd have to make sure that both model and tutor are fed and I'd have to allow for the possibility of them being stranded somewhere overnight, so might have to pay for a B&B.  Stuff like that doesn't just cut into the profit margins - that's the kind of thing that can have me running at a substantial loss.

So I'm going to continue to do those classes that are out of town.

Anyway, things definitely went wrong with this particular class.  It was at a private venue in Perth, so I checked out the location online.  The journey involved a bus trip to Perth, then a shorter local bus trip to a small town called Aberargie, with a hotel.  That sort of thing is perfect.  Get as close to the venue as possible, make sure I arrive a couple of hours early, make sure I know where the venue is, work out how long it'll take to either walk or catch a taxi from the hotel to the venue, then sit in the bar of the hotel and order coffees until it's time to leave.  Perfect.  Unless I arrive two hours early get off the bus, into some really miserable, drizzly rain and find that the hotel has closed down.

I saw a postman and asked him for directions to the nearest hotel or cafe or anywhere I could sit in the warmth and wait.  He points down the road and tells me to go to Abernethy.  So I start walking.  Forty minutes later, I'm still walking down this little country road, dragging the sketchpads along behind me in the case, in this nasty rain - and I'm only just getting into the outskirts of the town.  And still no sign of any kind of place to eat.  And the whole time I'm aware that unless I find a taxi or a bus service, I'm going to have to walk all the way back.  And eventually, I had to admit defeat.  Time is starting to run out.

So I turned round and headed back into Aberargie.  And walked past the turning for the venue.  And lost another twenty minutes, while I figured out where I'd gone wrong, headed back and walked up another, smaller country road, looking for the venue.

The class was due to start at 1:30PM and I had intended to get there at 1PM, so I could have plenty of time to set up.  I wasn't late for the class, but I did lose some of the startup time.  That was intensely frustrating.  Also, by then, my clothes were pretty soaked, so there was a bit of shrinkage going on, which wasn't doing my ego much good.

When the class started, though, everything picked up.  All the stresses fall away at that point.  If there's anything that could go wrong, then that's already happened and been dealt with.  And if nothing's gone wrong, then it's all cool.  Either way, once the class starts, all the performance anxieties and the tensions and all those things are in the past and all I need to do is enjoy myself and make sure the girls are enjoying themselves.

This was the first class of 2013.

The venue was a big house, so the bride was smuggled into a different part of the building, while I was sneaked past some of the other girls and upstairs to the room where the class was being held.  It was a beautiful room and I just suggested one tweak to it.  I got permission to move a couch slightly, so that the focal point of the room was more focussed and I could stand in that area.  Then I stepped into the next room, got undressed, discovered how good Scottish weather can have a spirit-crushing effect on some body parts, dealt with the confidence sapping consequences of that, debated the wisdom of some "hand-fluffing" activities, wondered what that would look like if someone entered the room to check up on me and caught me at it, abandoned that potentially compromising activity, listened to the room next door filling up and waited for my cue to enter.

It wasn't one of the livelier classes.  The girls seemed to enjoy themselves, but they'd also been enjoying themselves the night before, and this had made them a bit more restrained - possibly even a bit fragile.  So we took it easy.  There was the usual banter and the usual drawing challenges, which they took to with creativity, but possibly not with complete enthusiasm.  But we took our time and relaxed into it, we went through the various challenges, picked out the winners for every round, got an overall winner and finally - I gave a card each to that winner and to the bride.

The journey back to Edinburgh was a lot easier.  It usually is, though.  For some reason, it's a lot easier to get into that town, than out of it.