DO THE RIGHT THING?

A few weeks ago, I went up to the Permanent TSB (BANK) and lodged €1250 cash, into my account so I would be able to pay my mortgage. As I walked out of the bank I looked at my statement and seen that the bank teller had lodged €2250 by mistake, that’s an extra €1000.  Now, I cannot emphasise how long it takes and how much of a struggle it is, to save €1000 when you don’t have a job. It means I do not have a social life of any kind and my finances are in a really bad way. One example of this is my central heating boiler broke down and needs to be replaced, but I just can’t afford to do this and it will be the second or third winter without any heating in the house. That €1000 would almost pay for a new gas central heating boiler OR having that €1000 would have given me a small bit of breathing space with my bills and debts and I would have been able to go over to England and visit my family, which I really want to, but just cannot afford.  With anything that was left over, I could have got my tooth fixed which has been nagging at me for over a year, since my filling came out. Yes, €1000 would have gone a long way in my house hold and made a great impact on my life.

Well, I’m one of these guys that does the right thing and without question; I joined the back of the queue again and went to the bank teller so the mistake could be rectified. Which means I gave them back the €1000. The bank teller looked at me as if I was some kind of an ejit and I’m very sure that is what he was thinking as well. He corrected the amount that was in my account, although I personally think he should have had the decency to thank me as I almost certainly saved him from getting the sack as his till would be €1000 down.

Now, the thing is, there was no way it could have come back to me, regarding the extra €1000, as I had paid in cash which the teller counted (although incorrectly) and it was then put into the till with the other notes. So there was no way of proving what money I had given. If it happened again, I would still, without question, do the same thing, but I am starting to feel that I would have been better off saying nothing and keeping the money. I am starting to feel that being honest, equates to being nothing more than a fool.

I didn’t feel any better, being honest and doing the right thing. If anything, I felt a bit pissed off that the teller didn’t even thank me. On the other hand, if I had kept the money, I just wouldn’t be happy and would have felt like it was stolen money and I know I would have felt bad that someone may have lost their job due to me not manning up and doing the correct thing. However, I have seen, over and over again, people I worked with and for, and people I now, doing things that I just would not do. I have been over charged and ripped off and lied to by people that I should trust. But it seems that most people seem to get away with it.

I know I will always do the correct thing, or at least try, but my belief that “what goes around, comes around” is just bull shit. I’ve seen it so many times in my personal and work life and the dishonest people, just seem to drive better cars, go on holidays, live in better homes and just have it better all round.

There are no rewards for being honest and it seems I tend to get the shit end of the stick, most of the time. It seems that if you go out of your way to do some one a favour or do something honest, you get treated like a moron and seen as a fool.

Here are a few other examples of my crazy honesty.

Over ten years ago, when I was saving to buy my house, I was living in a rented house with a load of other guys. The landlord would call round every Monday, to collect the rent. One Monday, he left his rent money behind him. When I say rent money, I mean, it was a big wod of notes as he had about 15 properties that he collected from. There must have been over £3,000 if not more. What did I do, I put the money aside and called his house so he would know that he didn’t lose his money. To give you an idea how much that money could have gone towards my house, I won £618 and it was only due to that win, I was able to buy the house as I was saving almost every penny at the time. That £3,000 would have helped me buy a house in a better area or given me more money to buy furniture, carpets and curtains.  But at the end of the day, I am still happy I gave back the money, even though the landlord didn’t even thank me.

Another time was when I used to do a lot of cycling and I traded in my bike for a better one. We agreed on a price and I came back to collect my new bike and pay the balance. The balance was £100 less than the agreed price and I went back the next day to pay the £100. OK, now I think that was just foolish, but I just would not feel happy that I was doing the shop out of £100, which at the time was 70% of my weekly wage.

The saying goes “honesty is the best policy” but I am not so sure any more. What goes around, comes around, is another saying. Not sure if that is correct either. I don’t know if I could be dishonest, but I am thinking there must be something better than being seen as a fool.

Tell me what you would have done in my shoes?

Rocky2 lost his glove

One evening last week, Rocky2 my boxer dog, was playing with a rubber glove that he got from the kitchen. I think the door under the sink must have been left ajar, all though Rocky2 does have the reputation for opening doors himself so most likely he took it from there.

 A rubber glove to Rocky2 is one of the best toys, as he likes to throw it up in the air and catch it, as well as pull the fingers with is teeth while holding the gloves with his paw and then, the next thing I will hear is the sharp snap as he opens his mouth and the elastic properties of the rubber glove twangs back into shape again.  It’s the funniest thing to see and if dogs could laugh, he would be in the same hysterics that most young kids would get when they are having real fun.  I’m sorry I never thought to take a photo or video of my dog having such a good time, playing with something as simple as a kitchen glove.

 Now here is where it all goes downhill, and the glove got all dirty, ripped and torn.  I picked it up and threw it in the fire and OMG!  You would swear I was after killing his best friend as he spent the rest of the evening whining and looking into the fire and also looking up at me, expecting me to take it out of the fire again. After an hour of this, I ended up going into the kitchen and finding the other glove. I then tried to dirty, rip and tare it, as well as put Rocky’s scent on it (with one of his many tennis balls) I then hid it in my sleeve and pretended to take it out of the fire. As the glove magically appeared, like the phoenix from the flame, I then threw it up in the air in the hope that I had fooled Rocky2 with this identical doppelganger of a dirty glove.

Do you think he was fooled? No fekin way. It only took him a few seconds, to discover that I had given him a fake. He grabbed the glove, shook it and spat it out, only to go back to the fire place and indicate that he wanted the real thing.

I took a few photos of his expressions, so you can see for yourself. Even the next day, he went over to the fire place and started sniffing for his long lost glove. Don’t think Rocky2 will ever forgive me.

 As you can see from this photo, Rocky2 does not look happy with me at all.

This was taken the next day and as you can see he still has not forgave me.

He continued to look into the fire place and almost grieve for his long lost glove, for the next few days. I think I will be in his bad books for some time to come. 

 

New painting "Ballylin"

My new painting

Last April or May, I decided to start a new painting as I hadn’t painted anything or made any art since I was in BCFE a few years ago. As I may have said in some of my earlier posts, BCFE is a fantastic world renowned college and I will always be grateful that I was given a chance to go there, as part of a back to education year, were I did Art, Mixed media and design. It was brilliant to learn about art, painting, printing, drawing, photography and sculpture. I was supposed to go forward to NCAD, https://www.ncad.ie/ and get a degree or doctorate, but I just could not afford to. When you have a mortgage to pay, and no more savings in your bank account, you have to knock those dreams on the head.  I always had an interest in art, but just did not get the chance to do any, although, in fairness I think this is why I went down the career road of becoming a cabinetmaker and truthfully, cabinetmaking is an art. ANYWAY! I think I am starting to ramble a bit. So here is the BCFE website that will show you the college and the kind of work they do which includes the Irish college of animation. Also a few Academy Awards or Oscars have been received by past students who credit the college. 

http://www.bcfe.ie/  please check it out.

I planned to do a painting of the bird’s eye view of the Town land of Ballylin, which is outside the town of Ramelton in Co. Donegal Ireland. One of the things I learned in BCFE, is that good planning and research make all the difference. So with my sketchbook and the help of Google maps and also the Ordanance Survey Ireland website. I spent countless hours studying and finding out how I was going to complete my project. I also looked at some very old maps from the 1830’s which was way before there was a Ballylin road, as this road was built during the famine of 1845-1852. It was built as part of a famine relief scheme in which the workers would get a bowl of porridge for their days labour. In fairness it was pure exploitation of the indigenous Irish peasant, but I suppose it was at least something. I often wonder how many people died, when they built the Ballylin road, and also were they are buried. In those days (during the famine) the bodies would have been buried in either a mass grave or just buried in a field with no ceremony or even something to mark the grave. This would not be uncommon throughout Ireland at the time and almost exclusively affected the indigenous Irish catholic peasant . It has always been rumoured that there is a mass grave in our orchard at the back of our home in Ballylin. However, after digging drains and even building septic tanks, we have never found anything, thank God.

ANYWAY

So, back to the painting that I started in April or May. I first bought a small side table from Ikea, as I wanted to use the top as my canvas. It was a LACK side table in white and was only €4.99 when I bought it. I’m sorry I did not buy a few of them as they have gone way up in price and also they make brilliant square canvases. Instead of putting the legs on the table, I sanded the whole thing and then painted it with white artists primer. I got to say that paints and primer were very costly and pushed my budget up to way over 100 euro, if not more. So a bill or two didn't get paid and some meals didn't get eaten due to not having the money to buy food at the time. But sacrifices should always be made for art, in my opinion.
 I have to say, the white artist primer is fantastic and well worth using if you’re going to do a painting. I also downloaded a few low resolution satellite maps of Ballylin, and picked the best one to base my painting on. The one I chose was filmed in 2007 and I am sure it was early summer as you can clearly see that the silage has been harvested from some of the fields. Just to let anyone that does not know, silage is fresh sweet grass that is cut and stored for winter, to feed cattle and sheep. It used to be kept in a kind of bunker or three sided pit, and would be compacted and covered for the winter. Now the silage is compacted into large round bales that are wrapped in plastic to keep it fresh. These new bales turn out to be a far better way of keeping the silage, as the old silage pit used to collect all the liquid which would sometimes work its way into rivers and kill the fish. OH! Sorry, I'm starting to ramble again.

Because the landscape juts out in the sea, I decided to make the picture with an acrylic paste and build it up like a 3D picture, almost like a model, but still a painting. 

I used masking tape to make a border or frame and then I built up the landscape and sea with layers of acrylic paste, using different textures to highlight fields and woodlands. I then marked out all the fields as accurate to the Google map as possible. The sea and landscape was built up in different colours and textures and there was no solid colours used at all.

I then outlined the road and fields with the paste and then started to build up the colours.

With continued layering of colours and textures, I was able to bring the landscape to life.

This is the painting almost finished, although I was not happy with it. I painted the frame to look like verdigris copper, but felt it didn’t look good so I painted it white. 

                      The painting is called Ballylin. 

After a few more adjustments, which included a yellow wash, which gives the greens more life, and the addition of some fine detail, I think the painting is finished. 

I was still unhappy with the frame, so I gave it a distressed antique look. I ended up painting the frame in a distressed soiled white, as a reminder of the lives lost to build this road. A soiled white as the powers at the time, had no real interest in helping these people and just exploited them to get the road built. When the famine victims died, they would be buried and covered in quick lime which would also have a soiled white appearance. 

My idea at the time was to do three paintings of Ballylin, one from pre famine 1830's, the current painting 2012ish, and one from what I think Ballylin would look like a 100 years from now. 
It took me between 3 and 4 months to do this painting, including the endless hours of research, so I honestly don't think I will ever get the time to do the other two paintings. I am still looking for work at this stage and I am heavily in debt. But I am confident I will find a job.

If anyone has any suggestions, how I should finish the frame, please let me know.