Friday, October 06, 2006

Making an Exhibition of Myself


I've got an exhibition of photos up at the local airport, so life's a bit strange at the moment. We start the day with a mad rush to get my son to school, then I go straight to the airport and open the exhibition. For most of the morning there are just enough people coming through that I can't settle to anything else, so I get thoroughly bored. Once or twice a day there's a big charter flight, and then the place is packed. After all, it's at least an hour between check-in and boarding, and there's not much else to do. A good percentage of visitors ooh and ah, or say nice things to me about the photos, but nobody's bought a thing so far. Of course they've all checked in their suitcases, haven't they? My husband had the brilliant idea of selling postcard-sized prints: small enough to go in the hand luggage and cheap enough for an impulse buy. The only catch is, I can't get to the photo shop because I'm stuck in an exhibition all day, and he can't go either because he's stuck up a mountain. Maybe I'll manage it at the weekend. On the other hand, my business cards keep going, and with a bit of luck a few people will order from the web site. Of course this means that the web site will need serious work as soon as the exhibition's over.

At lunch time I close the exhibition and have another mad rush to pick up my son from school, feed him, and get back to the exhibition by three. Usually we're a little late. Then we try to get his homework done. Now my son isn't very good at concentrating at the best of times (and believe me, sitting in an exhibition isn't the best of times) so the homework takes forever. Then he plays with his Game Boy or my laptop, and gets thoroughly bored. At eight we shut up shop and have another mad rush to get dinner and get him to bed. I try to fit in a little cleaning or email before I collapse into bed. It's surprisingly tiring sitting still almost all day.

On Wednesday a friend babysat the exhibition for the afternoon, and I had a mad afternoon turning the house from filthy to grubby, and dyeing my hair. (Look, my hair colour is my own, all right? I paid for the bottle.) This afternoon my son went to his Godmother's, since the homework can wait a little. My goodness am I looking forward to closing for the day on Sunday!