Nine years on…

Meet Sarah.

Sarah (yes that is her official name, posh bears like her come with names) is a handcrafted Hoo Bear, originally ‘adopted’ as one apparently says in collector-bear-world – or as you and I might say, paid a mental amount of money for – by my late mother. Late by nine years today, that’d be.

Me, I’m not a bear person.

Yes I know there’s a sodding bear in my Facebook profile picture, that was mum’s too, I have no idea why I picked it up when I was doing that shoot! It’s from the ridiculously expensive Steiff Christmas decorations she signed up for, and for which I had to pay when the 2011 one turned up – she definitely had the last laugh, and I’m in absolutely no doubt she remains highly amused up there on her fluffy flipping cloud having gotten one over on me from beyond the grave!

But that is the kind of smile-inducing thought I can live with.

Sarah normally lives as far away from me as possible in the spare room, with the handful of other completely-overpriced-don’t-dare-take-the-tags-off-or-lose-the-blasted-certificates-shit-where’s-the-fucking-certificates? bears that I couldn’t persuade anyone else in the family to take and surprisingly found my heart not quite hard enough to let go completely.

However, Sarah currently resides in the den/office/place-I-pretend-to-work literally staring at me all day, and it’s entirely Emma Darwin’s bloody fault! I have no idea how I came across it now – I was probably Twitter-twerking as she’d call it – but I watched this thing she did for the RLS about the Instant Gratification Monkey, and immediately decided to procrastinate further by getting my own monkey. Or Bear. Of course she’s a fucking bear – YES MUM WE CAN ALL HEAR YOU LAUGHING NOW, THANK YOU!

Of course, Emma’s longer post about procrastination has some mega-useful advice, but I’ve managed to continue mucking around in the Dark Playground long enough to not get around to any of that. Obviously. And if you’ve ever managed to stop seeing a Post-it note placed in your eyeline to remind you of something vaguely crucial, you’ll totally appreciate how well I can ignore Sarah even when I’m looking straight at her.

Here’s the funny bit, though. Emma connected with me after joining one of the RPS Roadshows last year where I was talking about my Associate panel The She Inside. And right now I’m writing this post instead of preparing for a longer live online interview, about the project and my photographic journey, with Peter Hayes FRPS on 11th June 2020 – deadline for which, of course, is looming large!

So actually, if it’s anyone’s fault I have a scruffy over-priced bear taking up space on my desk, I suppose it’s probably mine. {{{Grudging-lolz-winky-face}}}

Mum, please quit the laughing now. And just for the record, I still bloody miss you x