Wayward, not lost

Hey, tea or wine? Or coffee…I’ve got very into half caff coffee lately, no really it’s not as bad as you think, especially if you make it with whole beans! (I’m not a coffee snob I promise…but I live with a barista so whole beans it is. ;) )

(Note: this post’s definitely more for the people who’ve already moved away.)

I want to talk about how it is to be alone in your new place (town/city/country, wherever), nah I don’t mean lonely I mean to be alone. To be alone and lonely can be two different things, the first can lead to the second but it doesn’t have to.

When we moved to Berlin, Tom (my boyfriend) had a few friends here but I didn’t. I had already secured a job, met my boss once and I’d found our flatmate through Facebook and met her in London (to make sure she was a real person) other than that, I knew no one here. Just because you moved with your partner doesn’t mean you can’t feel alone or lonely. Key thing here: this does not reflect badly on your relationship. So get that out of your head right now eh. Presumably you were both your own entity’s back home…you both had your own friends as well as shared friends and probably separate jobs and any friends or acquaintances that came with that? Therefore it’s completely natural for you to feel alone in your new place. This was an important lesson I learned. I felt so guilty for feeling alone that I never spoke to Tom about it - as we all know not talking doesn’t help anyone. No matter how great your relationship, you are human and we all need other connections in life. Whether that comes from the family you ‘re born with or the family you find for yourself.

How’s that half caff going down? Told you it wasn’t so bad. :)

Today let’s not talk about making/finding new friends, that’ll come later. There’s something much more important that comes first: YOU. No it’s not selfish, all will become clear…

This comes from another lesson learned, trust me. Of course I’m talking from my perspective of moving to a foreign country but that doesn’t mean these things won’t still make sense if you moved within your home country. I’m going to say something obvious so don’t laugh…don’t stop being yourself. Ah god yeah that cheesy line! However cheesy it’s bloody true, I always thought I was strong willed and a decent chunk of me didn’t give a fuck what people thought of me – that was the part of me that used to have blue hair and a Mohawk (yes really). I was surprised how slyly that part of me slipped away after moving here. Scarily other parts of me did too.

How did I realise? I had a big wake up call. Here’s a little background info: my mum is the amazing type of person who talks to anyone and everyone with natural ease and grace. My brother and I grew up watching her speak to someone in the supermarket for easily 20 minutes, only to ask later “who was that?” and have her reply “I don’t know”. She just has the gift to talk to strangers as if they’re friends and happily she passed that gift on to us and with it a natural response to help strangers. In Berlin somewhere between big city fears and language fears I’d stopped doing that. My wake up call came one day when I witnessed a young man caught in the grips of grief. He had just finished a phone call at a table outside a closed restaurant and to say he was upset would be an understatement. I am ashamed even now to admit that I, walking on the other side of the street, was going to ignored him. Thankfully I caught hold of that piece of me, instilled by my mum and I didn’t. I learned two things: I had not completely lost myself and we don’t need to have the same language to be able to check if another person is ok and offer comfort.

Stop second guessing yourself (alright be honest you’re like me, your second, third, fourth fricking fifth guessing yourself..lets try and stop that) – if there’s something that you would naturally do at home keep doing it here. If you second guess it, have a quick check in with yourself…did you naturally do it back home? Then do it here too (…within reason…maybe if it’s not culturally acceptable and/or could put you in danger,  don’t do it!).

It’s s lot more difficult to find your people if you’re not yourself first and that’s why I’m not talking about making friends yet. Now I’m breaking out that bottle of red I just bought and I’ll tell you about another big lesson learned…

Hey you, how’s it going? (I wrote this a few months ago now in understandably quite different times, however after sharing this with a couple of friends of mine and seeing their reactions, I feel it is still just as much worth sharing.) Fancy having an unfiltered chat about what it’s like to move to a new country? You know, not all the shit you see on your friends facebook/insta’ feeds, the real stuff. I don’t want to talk about the instagrammable locations, the cool clubs you’ve found, the interesting food you’ve eaten or fun drinks you’ve drunk. I want to talk about how much you miss boring stuff like breakfast cereal – seriously why didn’t Branflakes make it here? Or how about that fear you have that one day you may need to have a doctors appointment here? Or that you prefer to wait till you go back home to have your next dentist/optician appointment? Or that you feel like a child whenever you try and speak this new language? I think moving to a new country is a worthwhile experience and can be amazing but in my opinion similarly to mental health and loneliness (especially), it’s taboo to talk about what life is really like once you’ve moved to your chosen destination. To make matters worse social media presents us with a platform that makes us feel we should showcase the best parts of our lives or we watch others do so. How do you tell your friends that actually your struggling, when their big move seems to have gone so well?! (Surely all those cool pictures on their Instagram feed mean they’re killing it over there…right?) Do you recognise yourself anywhere in there? Or do you have a friend who’s made the big move that you feel a little jealous of because it looks like she/he are doing so well? Well hey, grab a coffee and lets talk. We’ve (Tom and I) lived in Germany (Berlin) a year and a half now and I’m finished with pretending that moving here was easy and I’m having soooo many great adventures. Dude, do you know how many times I’ve cried on the U-bahn (tube)? I’ve met some amazing people and had many great experiences but lets be real, it’s not all bloody sunshine and rainbows. It can be bad, good or just plain meh! I’m going to pick a theme each time I write to you and tell you the whole truth – for example: making friends. Yes I have made some great friends here and yes I did meet some of them in a bar but no it wasn’t quite that simple. Hopefully talking about the things I’ve struggled with will help you understand that we’re all in the same boat and it’s ok…we can sail it together (bit too cheesy that one?). It’s not all going to be doom and gloom though, I’ll include some funny or uplifting stories and also a few tips and tricks that might help you out. Please get in touch with me too, whatever it is you’d like to say I’d like to hear it. Maybe you have something you would like me to talk about? Maybe you just want to say you feel the same or perhaps you disagree with something I’ve said. I’m up for a debate too. Honestly I’m up for anything that means we stop pretending.

Stay safe everyone.

Ever looked through your social media and realised it makes you feel like you have nothing to say, like you are nothing and you’ve achieved fuck all?!

You haven’t? Hm this may not be the blog post for you but please keep reading.

Newsflash social media isn’t real! ..that was sarcasm incase the italics didn't give it away. I think we are all well aware of that on some level, these days.. thankfully.

I want to say, once we decided to break from b&a and revamp I was released from social media but I think I was already there. I’d figured out at some point that Instagram made me unhappy. It made me feel...all the things I’ve listed above. Even seeing posts from my friends made me feel shit. 

This may turn out to be one of the most honest posts I’ve ever written for b&a but in the world we are living in today with mental health in the spotlight I think perhaps it’s about freeking time.

Lets step back and pretend I’m not in my own head. If I was to look at myself and Tom from the outside and take stock.. what would I actually see?

Two individuals who:

started a business from literally nothing and learned an awful lot (just managed not to say fuck tonne there..trying to keep the swearing down)

learned to do a tax return without the help of an accountant

learned how to create designs to be printed on clothing

figured out how to sell things to people

realised they were capable of knitting hats (possibly one more than the other)

found out how to screen print

know how to use social media for business

had a dream and actually tried the fucker on for size

learned running a small business is actually really hard

figured out that running a business in the 21st century is a lot about creating a story on social media, displaying a personality to the world and essentially making people think your life is awesome and they want to have a piece of it.

I’m going to come back to the last point in a second I just want to finish up this list first. I’m going to show you another side of why barefoot & aimless came to a (perhaps temporary) juddering halt.

What else are we...

Tom’s been commissioned for logo’s, business cards, paintings and more

He has his solo first exhibition opening this weekend..he’s become a skilled painter

I am a self employed Arborist (tree surgeon)

I know how to use a chainsaw on the ground, climb trees with a chainsaw and recognise defects in trees

We’re both still learning these things but we have a decent level of skill right now (at this very moment).

I own a small gardening business and it’s successful

Tom has self recorded and released two EP’s with his band 

We’re both learning German so we can potentially move to Germany for a bit and not look like idiots

I’m halfway through my second degree

Tom has become a far more confident individual in the last few years and even his stage banter has improved 

I have finally learned how to do simple fixes on my camper van..I now know how to do an oil change (so does Tom), change the glow plug relay, take out the starter motor..and a few other things. (I can also name most of the parts of the engine..Yass!)

Together we’ve fulfilled commissions under barefoot & aimless.. just behind the scenes.

To those of you who thought: ‘Did you guys give up or something?’ or ‘throw in the towel?’. No, not quite. We’ve been trying other dreams on for size and seeing how they fit. 

Therein lies the juxtaposition of social media. Once we stopped living the lives we had been displaying on social media we found out our new lives didn't fit the online mould we had created...and we felt we had nothing to say. I hope the above list illustrates that this was/is all in our heads. And I bet it’s in yours too!

How many times have you started working on your own dream, only to look at social media and see what other people are doing and thought to yourself..I’m shit, I’ll never be that good, I’ll never look like that, I can’t compete with that?

UNFOLLOW. UNFOLLOW. UNFOLLOW. 

If you can’t stay off social media then start unfollowing the people that make you feel crap. You can unfollow on Facebook now and still be ‘friends’ with someone so they’ll never know, you can unfollow on instagram & twitter and no one’s going to know it was you. Sometimes you don’t want to see yet another post of someone looking amazing, following their dream and supposedly being successful. Sometimes that voice in your head that tells you social media is only people portraying the best versions of themselves, isn’t loud enough! Give yourself a hand.

The latter part of barefoot & aimless became about supporting and talking about mental health (10% of hoodie profits going to RGU Nightline) and I would like to make it a much larger platform for that..eventually. But right now I see no shame in us having taken a step away to follow other dreams and not telling the whole world about it.

See what I did with the title there? Haha bit lame but it works eh.

It seems it’s our turn to put our hands up and say we’ve changed..we’re sorry it’s not you, it’s us..was that a bit too cheesy? I couldn’t resist. 

Alright I’ll get serious. barefoot & aimless has been going for...*turns to Tom to check*...just over three and a half years. That’s a long time to keep a small project like this going. We’ve gone from being completely aimless 21/22 year olds doing shit jobs and wanting more to a couple in their late twenties (scary thought that - Tom’s got the fear and says no it’s mid twenties, late’s when you’re 28 apparently) with a vague idea of what we’re doing and some serious skills. Sadly gone are the times our business meetings consisted of a lot of beer and a sketchbook. Gone are the days where we had to look up what every other thing in the tax return actually meant... Tom’s even wearing socks right now!! 

Here’s a picture of us back then..with really bad hair (Why is it you only notice bad hair after the fact?!)

After multiple discussions - that didn’t involve enough beer for my liking - we’ve made some big decisions with regard to ‘the barefoot & aimless brand’. With heavy hearts we’ve decided to sell off the clothing side of barefoot & aimless. If you’ve been keeping up to date with our posts you’ll know I semi live in Inverness now and Tom has a lot going on too. We don’t have the time or funds to put into that side of things. Being honest with each other we also realised we’re no longer as interested in it either. Like I said, we’ve grown up and changed.

From today you’ll see our prices drop online (click shop) and in store (Geek Bothy & Knitty Kitty Bang Bang). Other than that you may see our logo change back to the original dinosaur. For now that’s all. 

What exactly will become of barefoot & aimless?

Well there’s no mystery if I give everything away right now, is there?! For the moment you’ll still see posts about living van life and art/design things. Commissions are still being taken on, so look out for some of those too. For now though, that’s all you’ll see. When we’re ready, we’ll introduce you to the new barefoot & aimless.

Never forget: 

As I am all of these things I feel qualified to write some tips to help other folks make their way through this (important) experience. [Note: our business money is all reinvested in the business, no bullshit here I am these things]

I added important there because I’d say everyone should be broke at least once in their life, it really shows you what you can make of yourself and helps you appreciate what you have/had. Even if parts of the experience monumentally suck! You also learn to appreciate other peoples’ perspectives. I’d say the same thing about being a student, it is absolutely never too late..i was speaking to a friend of mine recently who explained to me the reason he came back to college to study now (even though he’s all grown up with a child and everything) is because he read a story of a man in his 80′s who decided to go and get his degree because it’s something he always wanted to do. Can’t argue with my point now eh? ;) Lets be clear though I’m not saying you should all go get a degree..that doesn’t suit everyone. But if you’ve always fancied learning something don’t put barriers in your way. My brother’s just started Italian classes part time so he can communicate with his Italian friends better. Learning tends to bring satisfaction..and that feels awesome.

Oops got a little sidetracked there eh. Bet you’re going..I thought this blog post was Tips for being broke etc..my bad I’ll get back to it.

The following tips should crossover each other quite nicely I think...*puts down empty cider can* ..but that could be the cider talking.

Hey I just learned how to put these line things in ^^

Tips

Budget ..this word seems to bring dread but don’t fear it. I found a way that works for me..multiple bank accounts! At least one that you can’t access easily..ie cardless account (they do still make those I promise). Have one account your pay goes into then transfer money as soon as you’re paid, into other accounts. This stops you spending all your money all at once. I have an account that gets topped up by just a tenner a month but it’s there for emergencies like van breakdowns and trust me I’ve been saved by it a few times! This’ll work for non van lifers too. Ten pounds a month isn’t too much of a struggle and if you don’t use the account it builds up faster than you’d think. Then if something breaks or you have a larger bill then you expected, you’re not as f*cked as you thought you were!

Learn to live with less - if you live in a van...well duh you have less space. Think more in terms of need not want. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. You’ll have more money and more space. It also feels SO much better when you treat yourself (that’s a mum expression right there) to something you really really want but don’t need. This should crossover to the non-vandwellers too :)

Living in a van with less leads to things like...beer shoes..as seen below vvv

The reduced section - this is both a blessing and a curse. What self respecting broke person/student doesn’t head straight for the reduced section right?! Don’t be caught out..like it says above, if you don’t need it don’t buy it! We’ve all been there.. go to buy two things..one reduced section later..ten things. Damn!

Share - it’s a cliche isn’t it, karma and the whole give and get what you return..ok that last bit doesn’t quite make sense but sort of does at the same time (cider talking now?). Cliched it may be but it works. For example: Your friend needs a lift somewhere, help ‘em out.. This may mean when your van breaks down and you have no where to stay they’ll happily give you a room/sofa/floorspace. This has literally happened to me...the best part..that wasn’t my intention I was just happy to offer lifts to my mates. (What I said about crossover above)

Here’s one of my mates after he introduced me to a freekin awesome bookshop (It has a log fire and everything)! Can’t regret the lift I gave him to town now :) 

Save money/warm showers - yep that warranted a puzzled look! Being a student and living the van life means I shower in the college (I did this last year too). There are so many reasons this is good. 

You get an actual hot shower! (Except that one time the college’s boiler broke down..that was a..very bracing shower I tell you.)

It’s unlikely you’ll have to wait to get in the shower.

You’ll save money on your electricity/gas bill..especially if you encourage your whole flat to do this. (I know when I lived in a flat the shower used the most electricity.)

You’re already at college so how can you be late!

There’s unlikely to be anyone else knocking to get in/making you hurry up.

If it’s next to the gym facilities go and get some exercise first..double bonus!

If you’re thinking: surely that’s not allowed?! Well answer me this: why not, if you are a student and it’s a student facility? I can’t say for sure (I’m not the oracle of all colleges) but I’ve never had a problem and I can’t see why anyone could get angry with someone trying to be hygienic. 

Free/low price haircuts - your local undergraduate college (in the UK anyway) will likely have a hair and beauty course and guess what they need customers! Getting your hair cut by a fellow student may be nerve-racking but I’ve done this multiple times and the haircuts have been better than those I’ve paid top dolla for! My last college would do free hair cuts once a semester and I went every time (squeezed in between classes). My current one is about £6-8 for a womens cut. If you’re like me and have been so broke you haven’t had a haircut for 6 months to a year and looking in the mirror’s starting to get you down this is an easy way to perk back up. Anyone can get their hair done you don’t have to be a student. The salons usually offer other beauty treatments so if that’s your bag then go and get pampered on the cheap. :)

Drink less - she says after squeezing the lime from her g&t all over the laptop! But seriously this works, you feel less shit the next day and your bank account is healthier. Let yourself have a wild one maybe once a week or every two weeks and you’ll enjoy it more while still feeling good and worrying less about whether you can afford it. If you live in a van then it means you’ll be legal to drive the next day rather than stuck in the same place until you are absolutely certain all the alcohol has left your system. Lets face it, it is most definitely not worth the risk (that got serious but it’s an important and valid point)

Find free events - to the naysayers - it bloody can be done. London, perhaps the most expensive city in the UK..I went to work there for two weeks and stayed with my bro’ and visited some old friends. They, like me, were pretty broke and bemoaned the lack of things to do in London when you have no money. Well I stirred things up a bit. I went online and searched free things to do in london and dragged them out to multiple things such as: a seriously trippy Alice in Wonderland exhibition (there were toilets with virtual reality headsets), a mini cuban festival with salsa dancing and we almost went diving for free but the hangover got us (see above tip). If you can do it in London, you can certainly do it where you are (no excuses now).

Photo taken after Crammond Island - a free punk festival.

I feel like this post has got long enough. I’m sure I’ll write another in future with more tips. Let me know any of yours in the comments. Let me know if any of these work for you as well :)

I’m really supposed to be doing course work but after faffing about and then spending the last 18 minutes watching Lady GaGa at the Super Bowl (how good was she by the way?!), I’ve decided to write this instead.

No I’m not currently in the Van, it’s freezing, the van has no internet and the weather’s coming in something crazy..which I guess lets me segue smoothly into what I’m writing about today...

Some of the (harsh) realities of living in a Van..especially an old van. I meet a lot of people who tell me: ‘I’d like to do what you’re doing’ or ‘I could do what you’re doing’. I don’t doubt most of them could and possibly even will. But lets face it the ‘VanLife’ lifestyle has an awful lot of romanticism attached to it and unfortunately that’s not what it’s like all the time.

For instance I spent part of my weekend doing this:

These are the rusty holes in the front of my van that you can finally see daylight through..bugger! I’m doing what I’ve done for the past few years and just attempting to stop them getting any bigger. In the next few months I’d like to patch them up..but in the end of the day it’s all down to money and time.

This brings me onto an important point..if you want to live in an old van...make sure you have the available funds and time to fix it. When I bought Marv’ I was working full time and he’s been on multiple trips to the mechanic and I’ve paid out more than I’d care to remember..but like I said I was working full time. I managed to get the expensive fixes out of the way and mostly I’m onto the DIY and the cheaper things now *touch wood*. My point..old vans need time and money..there’s no fun way around it. Saying that..once you’ve put your heart and soul into them like that, they become part of you. :)

Be prepared...

...to pee outside in all weather...

...to breakdown in inconvenient places...

...and have people abuse you when you do...

...to figure out the best methods of keeping warm (& whether they work)...

...to learn how to grind/weld/replace parts/read many many forum posts...

...to have literally no shame...

...to have people stare at you...

...to wear a hat/hood in bed, pretty much all the time...

...to have very little space...

...to not quite have a home to go to...

...to shower wherever you see somewhere you can...

...wipe condensation off your windows most days...

These aren’t true of all people of course. You can buy a portaloo to fit in your van for instance..peeing problem solved haha. I’m hoping you kind of get the gist though. I could explain further but this isn’t supposed to be a negative post, it just..is what is is I suppose (You ken yoursel).

However you will...

...meet all sorts of people...

...make friends for life...

...probably swim in the sea...

...have weird and wonderful adventures...

...find yourself thinking it’s normal to pee in a bush/on the bumper...

...find it odd to sleep in a house (especially with the windows closed)...

...probably make some form of art...

...talk to your van, pretty much constantly (”No you’re not overheating you bastard, you’re fine, I know you’re fine! C’mon, Marv’!”)...

With that insight into my life I’ll leave you to ponder..VanLife still for you?

I’m here should you ever want to question me further...

If you agree with this and/or find yourself connecting with it. Share it or even better actually physically show your friends if they’re near by. Life can’t always be from behind a screen (that got serious quickly but I’m very big on communicating in the ‘real world’). 

We are a small (ok very small) business/project run by only two people. I think (or rather hope) that we’ve always been honest about what we are and what we do. We created barefoot & aimless as a way to channel our creative talents..urgh channel is that some kind of buzz word. Maybe.. show off or use our creative talents would be a better way of putting it. I recognised Tom as a natural illustrator from the get go and me, well I didn’t want to waste my (bullshit) art degree. 

That was the beginning. An awful lot has changed since then and now, in 2017, it’s time to recognise those changes and make sure you, our readers/listeners/customers - whomever you may be - know exactly who and what we are. 

Try and label us as a lifestyle brand and I think you’d struggle. We don’t put enough of that out there. Maybe we are a bit confused but what we are is real. We’re real people living real confusing and busy lives. We finally put our tagline out there because we are part of the wayward generation just like you (probably). People told us to get degrees then you’ll get a job and then a house and basically you can do whatever you want with your life and it’s simple..does that ring any bells with you? We tried that and it didn’t work, we left the beaten path and decided to try our own road...too many metaphors for you yet? You get the gist though. I know we’re not the only ones. Life’s not as simple as it was made out to be.

Wayward, not lost. 

We walked away from our original goals/ideas/paths however you would like to put it, to do things differently. I’m not feeding you bullshit with all the photos and posts about the VW Campervan, I do genuinely live in the North of Scotland for half of the week in a 1984 VW Campervan named Marvin (Marv’ for short). I do it in temperatures that reach minus degrees and the van’s often a total state. I am actually living, the so called ‘Van Life’. I regularly live in 3 different places in one week and travel upwards of 200 miles in a week. It is exhausting and sometimes a little too much but it’s worth it. Why? I’m studying to become an arborist (tree surgeon) while I work for one too. It’s one of the best choices I’ve ever made proving (to me anyway) that what you do with your life doesn’t have to be one thing. My degree’s not dead, I still take photographs but the degree killed my belief in publishing them, this year I’m set to change that.

What about Tom? There’s been no bullshit there either. Tom is a talented musician and songwriter, if you think I’m biased then head over to his Lord Leper page and take a look. Even better go to one of his gigs and witness it for yourself. I should mention his band mate and brother Andrew here, he’s equally talented and Lord Leper wouldn’t be the same without him. Tom has self recorded his own music working from the ground up. By that I mean he’s saved the money, bought the equipment he could and then taught himself how to use it (with help from the internet and his friends of course). He’s released one Ep and is halfway through the second. Many of you already know him as the damn fine barista that he is at Kilau coffee (just the best independent coffee in Aberdeen), a note to those who know him from there..don’t be fooled by the moustache he’s not as serious as he looks. That’s just the day job though..another thing about Tom; he paints (talented man eh). He’s studying and finding his style but you can expect great things.(Thomas Thores Hyman, if you want to look him up.)

We are One but also Two. 

We create design collaborations that we couldn’t do separately and that’s what barefoot & aimless is still about. If you’ve read this far then (thank you) I’m sure you’ve gathered that we’re not in a position to endlessly churn out new products and/or promotions. We prefer to take on design commissions, it’s easier, more satisfying and successful. If you’re quite rightly thinking ‘what commissions?’ that would be our fault for doing a terrible job of promoting our work. We’ll be changing that shortly as well. 

What am I saying?

I just thought I’d hit you with a tonne of honesty about us and let you know that things are going to get cleaned up around here. I’m not going to give you the crap line: New Year New Us..yeuch. No, still us, just doing a better job of telling you about it. If we get our shit together you can expect more posts about life in a camper van/as a self-made musician/designs etc. 

My mum’s just reappeared and knocked my flow a bit so I’m going to end this here...

Sunday Sesh!

First post in a while! Sorry we’ve been away for so long - hope you haven’t missed us too much ;)

This seemed like a fitting set of pictures to pick things up with again, since last night was one of those adventures (albeit in miniature) that we’re all about here at b&a! Here’s the story:

So yesterday being Sunday, I was off work and planned to spend the day working on recording some songs (sneaky plug: my band is called Lord Leper - check us out!). However, through procrastination and general laziness, I managed to get myself into a bit of a funk where I wasn’t doing anything except feeling guilty for not doing anything.

My brother had finished work at this point, and having had a real crappy day we decided to chill outside my flat with a couple of drinks. Sitting there, we realised how nice the weather was - something of a novelty in Aberdeen.

Andrew suggested we go for a wee skate.

We almost decided to leave it as we’d planned to watch a film earlier on and I was starting work early today. I have to say, I’m glad we didn’t just go back inside!

We took the boards out along the old railway line, planning to go along just a little. In the end we were out for two hours!

Along the way we cruised drinking beer, received some free rhubarb from a friend (which I’ve just made into a tasty crumble), enjoyed the view along the river, spotted a heron (see if you can see it in the pics), dodged millions of bats, tore down a massive hill, made friends with a cool black cat and at last rode home in the dark for some well deserved grub!

I think with all that fresh air, beautiful scenery and exercise disguised as fun, we both felt a shit load better!

Moral of the story: GET YOURSELF OUTSIDE!

Especially if you’re feeling stressed out/anxious/bored. You’ll feel so much better about things, even if it’s just a wee stroll.

I should’ve listened to Amy (aka Aimless) when she suggested just that earlier on! I guess I never learn ;)

Anyway, sorry this has been such a long one. Keep your eyes peeled for more Aimless Adventures very soon.

In the meantime:

take off your socks

&

HAPPY 2016!! 

I’m going to tell you about our new hoods, so our first blog post of the New Year kicks off with something Ethical, Positive and comfortable! 

We talked about them for ages, we tweeted and facebooked parts of the design and eventually the whole thing and now we finally have them in! 

As we’ve told you these hoods are Fair Wear certified, this includes things like no child labour was used to make them and no forced labour - work was freely chosen. Our printing’s done by a super talented independent in the UK, can’t get much better than that really eh. They’re a heavy weight cotton with a higher neckline so the freezing wind isn’t gonna be rushing in.

The Design...well we’ve talked about this a lot for sure. It’s easily our biggest, most complicated and collaborated design so far. The design has 3 elements: a brain scan (this is actually my own brain scan from when I was injured as a child, that’s me down below by the way.), the shadowy figure of a man (it’s Tom, the guy above) walking down a corridor and demon-like creatures. The design is supposed to encompass how depression can make you feel. It can be taken in a number of ways - we know this from asking our customers about what they see in the design. We didn’t go into this design blind because we felt like making a hoody/design to support mental health, we primarily made it because it’s something we both have experience of and understand.

Having said that we are giving 10% of our profits to the charity RGU Nightline >> http://rgu.nightline.ac.uk . This is something else close to our hearts. We both went to RGU and we understand that it’s certainly not as easy as films and TV make it out to be. You do need help and who better to help than people who are in the same situation as you?

I also have the added experience of working in a University and have seen how much a service like Nightline is needed.

If all that hasn’t convinced you of our choice then maybe knowing that Stephen Fry is a supporter of Nightline will! :) 

Student life is not always the party people might think it is. I can’t think of a service that does so much for so little, but even that little needs to come from… somewhere. Stephen Fry, Broadcaster, Actor, Writer and Comedian

We have finally got our heads out of our asses and started testing mics! Aaaand it turns out I have a strange announcers voice - I say ‘let’s see’ a lot and the mic we used isn’t the one for us but it was worth it for the practice!

Lord Leper was dragged in again for the tester and just after he came back from tour with Hjeartzz as well! The poor guy was tired-out but he’s agreed to let us put up the test even though it was an unpracticed and knackered session for him. It’ll give you guys an idea of what we’re up to.

Interested yet?

Give it a listen and then give us a shout because you know you want to be the next ones sitting in the van!

Take off your shoes

and wander around our van for a while

It’s that time again, where I’ve woken up at Tom’s and he’s off to work so I have a quiet flat (his flatmate Gregor doesn’t snore), a cuppa Joe and a laptop all to myself. I’m aware I’ve been promising you guys on Twitter some Marvin Sessions info for a while now so I thought I’d better get down to it.

*sips from massive (not acquired from Starbucks) mug of coffee*

So I’ve just had a quick read of older blog posts and it looks like I haven’t written much about Marvin Sessions, I guess that gives me more scope to chat eh.

I’ll start with the basics. Marvin Sessions started as a fun idea we just talked about we never really thought about turning it into a real thing. But I guess as one of us is a musician and pretty involved in the local music scene we should have known better. From what I see and hear though it feels to me that Aberdeen’s music scene could be represented by a blackout blind - everyone behind the blind knows what’s going on, who’s good to see live and the best places to go to but the one’s outside only catch small chinks of light, which can lead to a massive explosion. But it’s rare. How’s that for a metaphor? 

Basically we’re looking to tear a massive fucking hole in the blind and let the light shine out! 

The idea’s really simple, we want to get unsigned musicians from Scotland (we’ll start with Aberdeen but we’ll book in people who are touring through if we can) and drive them out to a location we’ve handpicked for them, give them an interview and then have them play a few acoustic songs in the back of the van.

I should have said Marvin sessions is based out of a red and white 1984 VW Campervan..a bit like the one from Scooby Doo but better..

You get the premise of what we’re trying to do. Recently we’ve been in discussions about: what other content do we want, what are bands looking for, how can we make it more original and what equipment do we need?! We received some funding for equipment but we may not have enough, so you might see another B&A product out in the future to help us raise the rest of the funds. We’re also looking into whether to modify the van some more. 

Here’s a tester session we did with Lord Leper in Autumn last year. Although we went ‘a bit arty’ with the filming this is just a really simple session we recorded so that we could apply for funding. You have to forgive him for sounding a little shaky this was by no means the first take and it was quite literally freezing! If the camera’s shaky that’s also why. We wouldn’t have done it in that weather if we weren’t so determined to test our idea out! I don’t know how he played with numb fingers, the guy’s a hero! 

Hopefully you’ve got a better idea of what we’re trying to achieve now. We just want to add more. We want to create a platform for unsigned bands to get out there and be seen and heard by a wider audience. I know it probably feels like we’ve been in planning for ages but we want to do a good job for the bands we have and not fuck it up basically. 

So to reiterate:

We take unsigned artists:

We interview them

We have them perform a couple of their songs and possibly a cover in the back of the VW

It’s all done on a location that we’ve hand picked to suit the artist

We have other ideas but we’ll keep them under wraps just now

What we want from you:

MORE IDEAS...if you’re an unsigned artists what would YOU want from a session?

Would you like to do a fun cover as well as one of your own songs? 

What would you like to get out of a session?

Get in touch with ideas or if you’re interested in doing a session

Right I feel like that’s enough bullet points for now. You can contact us via Facebook or Twitter or email here: [email protected]

I’ll add the obligatory Marvin Van picture later.

Give us a shout :)

Take off your smelly ass socks

&

So I find myself back in pyjamas at Toms with a glass of wine..finally getting to use the martini glass I ‘acquired’ once. :) Trust me drinking wine from a martini glass is so much more fun! I seem to write better here (and in PJ’s).. must be the mark of a place that feels like home eh.

Let’s see, there is so much my now slightly tipsy mind wants to cover. I’m struggling to decide what to go with, while debating whether to brush my teeth or just have another glass while I write?! Not going to lie, I’m also getting severely distracted by watching an episode of Bones and wondering whether I have any pictures for this post. I mean.. will it be too boring without pictures?! Damn.

We had a long but super chilled discussion tonight (maybe it was the refried bean toasties - you’ve no idea how good they are till you try them) about what to do next. In the studio no less! Damn I have missed that place. 

Well first off I guess, remember this: (hang on while I search out the picture) 

The above is actually one of the tester images. There’s no use in showing you the final design too soon! For those who don’t know or those who’ve forgotten (I forgive you don’t worry, it’s been a while!) this was a design we created based around how mental health issues can affect you.  We drew from our own experiences (just re-read this and saw the pun there) and..actually I don’t want to give away too much too soon. But it was a big collaborative project for us. Unfortunately our plans for it tailed off because of the issues mentioned in previous blog posts. However after some discussion tonight it looks like we could be bringing it back but perhaps on a T-shirt as it’s summer now. Doesn’t rule out hoodies entirely though! 

I think we’re finally getting our shit together. I certainly feel better..about a whole lot of things. Incidentally if you eat an apple they make you feel a whole lot better about life..no seriously there’s something in them that’s sort of.. zingy. Sorry side tracked..the long and short of it is, it looks like (not a 100% confirmation by the way) the design we created to help raise awareness of mental health issues will be going ahead. Hopefully relatively soon. After recent events..it’s probably more relevant then ever.

[Again another note (seeing as it’s on theme), I’d recommend listening to: Mental Health Happy Hour podcast, it’s interesting, informative, shocking and oddly comforting]

If any of you are reading this and going where’s all the info’ about Marvin Session?! Don’t stress it’s coming..but not till my next post ‘cos I gotta catch some zzZz’s. Rest assured though we did talk about it, it’s still going to happen and we are very keen to get views from bands to help us along the way. But like I said more on that later.

Gotta fly.

Take off your slipper socks

& 

This time writing from Tom’s sofa (there’s just something about writing from a sofa) sipping a cold coffee (I’m used to it no worries) and waiting to be deemed legal to drive..it was the degree show last night what can I say?!

I’m borrowing Tom’s laptop as well as his sofa, so I don’t have the pictures I was thinking of using for this post. I shall just write about our Austrian adventure instead. The glider picture above, Tom took that. Fucking cool isn’t it?! I thought it was a good calming picture to start with. We spotted the glider while chilling with a Weissbier at the highest bar on the Stubaital glacier. Which is also at the top of the park. I’ll admit to being quite boring and only hitting a couple of kickers but Tom hit a few features. To be fair though I’d had a few days off skiing…

I’d better explain: the second day there I woke up with the worst eye infection I’ve ever had..but it was in BOTH eyes. The short story is I ended up rinsing my eyes with saline solution but it only fixed one eye and after waking up with a stabbing pain I had to go to an Austrian doctor. Thank god I had Tom to lead me there as I was pretty much blind and I’m also really glad I can speak some German! I couldn’t go out in daylight for a few days. However this is where you’ll find the two of us are damn good at having an adventure!  At night we made dinners from scratch and then sat on the balcony with Austrian beers. When I could get away with just sunglasses, I went up to the glacier to meet Tom and we sat in this pumping (yep I’m using that word) bar surrounded by dancing skiers. It was SUNNY and LOUD and we had food and MORE Weissbier, couldn’t have been better. I didn’t even mind I not being able to ski!

That’s us at the bar ^^ Proving you can still have a damn good holiday even if the original plan’s have gone to shit. 

The day we sat at the highest bar was also the day we missed the last lift down! (and believe me you can’t really get down without using the gondola). We ended up skiing one of the fastest runs we’ve ever done to get down in time to catch the gondola with the staff. It was totally nuts.. when we made it to the gondola no one was there and it looked shut! We were standing there shouting: HALLO, HALLO! Thankfully we found someone who let us on and had a bit of a chuckle at what idiots we were and all we had to do was wait for the staff to come down. In part both terrifying and exhilarating! 

It doesn’t look like Tom’s got any pictures of Innsbruck and I’ve just realised I should have got my ass in the shower about 15 minutes ago! But I’ll add a bit more to this story before I go..

I’d recommend going to Austria it’s beautiful and the people are friendly. But have a little respect and learn at least a small amount of German. Trying goes a long way and people will be much nicer to you. How would you feel if someone came to Scotland and didn’t bother to learn any English? I witnessed some British people order entirely in English, with no attempt to speak German. Not even to say thank you! It’s embarrassing and gives British folk a bad name so don’t do it! Plus the more you try to speak german the more friendly people are. And we met many! Some lovely guys in a skate shop called: Blue Tomato, who helped Tom with a missing piece of his binding, a lovely girl in a random Vegetarian restaurant that we found totally by accident - they had the best food..we ate so much and had yet MORE Weissbier! Our hosts at the Chalet were lovely when we asked about the doctor and even wrote down the best one to go to. There’s more but I tell you what I’ve got to shower and catch up with some people so I’ll see if I can get Tom to add in some words about Austria below…

…this is Tom’s patch…

Take off your socks

&

see the difference in your footprint!

What’s this..I actually sat my ass down for long enough to edit some photos and write a blog post?! Don’t be too surprised I first sat down with Weissbier (reminds me of Austria) and attempted to get going and ended up falling asleep! I had to go and walk my dog to wake up (fuck yeah dogs). 

I feel this blog post may be a little less concise then the last one. If you want to read something clearer then scroll down and take a look at the last blog post.

Shall I set the scene? I’m currently sat in pyjamas on my red leather second hand chesterfield arm chair with my work clothes and washing falling on top of me every few minutes, while typing out this post. (I don’t have a floordrobe I have a chairdrobe,) I often forget I own an armchair! Crossed legged now, with a bra falling into my lap, I shall continue.

I know things got a little quiet on the barefoot front again, sorry about that. We haven’t completely been on a break. We have been doing some research and work. But to be perfectly honest we’ve just been busy living. As I mentioned in the last post we both work full time (and more) and then try to keep this up at the same time. After a while you reach a point where you just think: dammit I need to just live my life for a while. I’ve also had some serious and unpleasant issues at my day job. If this has ever happened to any of you then you’ll understand that doing extra work on top of normal work is sometimes just too much. All you really want to do is get out!

Well I’m happy to say that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. There are many excellent reasons to own a camper van..

These are actually two different Northern Scottish evenings. The beer shoes at the top of this post are from Cullen (if I remember right) and this one is from Clochforbie (hoping I’ve spelt that right). If you live in Scotland and you’ve never been to Northern Scotland, get your ass in your car/van/bus/train and go get yourself lost up there!

In true aimless fashion the reason we ended up by the sea, late at night drinking Brewdog beers from my shoes, was because we turned off the main road when we saw a sign that read: Pet Cemetery. Ever seen one of these? My camera (again in true b&a style) conked out so I’ll have to see if Tom has any photos (it was frickin charged as well!). Pet cemeteries it turns out are actually really cool and bizarrely, calming and peaceful. Very different from the human counterpart. They’re more ‘hand-made’ and personalised. Obviously they’re smaller but still they command the same level of respect I would give to a human cemetery. Are you feeling a little creeped out by the idea? Imagine how we felt visiting at around midnight with only a couple of torches! Did I mention it’s right be the sea too? Didn’t stop us pulling up and spending the night right next to it though. 

It looked just as good in the afternoon after a rain storm. I’ll skip over how we lucked out and ended up beside some lovely public toilets that were open all night. I’ll mention that we camped up next to some Germans (sadly never managed to speak to them) and by the time we woke up there was at least one more German camper van there too. I won’t mention how doing ‘acrobatics’ in  VW is an experience that’s as fun as it sounds. ;) I will however tell you all about a wonderful wee gallery we found. But I’ll leave that till tomorrow...

I will leave you with a calming picture of Giant Water Lilies though. 

Take off your shoes 

& 

check out the difference in your footprint!

Slowing Down and Chilling Out

We’ve been thinking of writing up this post for some time now - I think we even tweeted about it. So I guess the first thing to say is: I’m sorry it’s late. However for various reasons I think this is the perfect time to be writing it after all.

It’s about time we all slowed down and just chilled the fuck out a little. Tom and I run this company part time and sometimes it’s pretty damn hard.

I recently got a couple unexpected weeks off from work and you know what I thought? Excellent - I can get loads of exercise and go out in Marvin and have an adventure. In reality, I made a list. We’ve all done it, we make a list and look at it each day and think I’ll get most of that done today and probably have it finished by the end of the week. What really happens is we get maybe two things done per day and end up feeling pretty shitty that it isn’t all finished by the end of the week. But here’s the thing, LISTEN UP: it doesn’t matter about the list. What matters is feeling good! We all know that the list’ll just get added to anyway. So what I’m saying is slow down and chill out. When all is said and done the things on the list aren’t going to be what you remember.  I know you’ve heard this kind of chat before but here’s where I’ll make it relevant…

We will happily put our hands up and admit that we’ve fucked up with our life/work balance.  We’ve also (somewhat stupidly) rushed some of our designs in the past. To put it in a nutshell we are finally sorting our shit out and we’ve figured out quite a few things along the way!

As you’ve probably noticed we are taking our time with the new design, we’ve put a lot of thought into it and what it means to us. It’s all about mental health and how mental health problems can make you feel. We’re doing a lot of work with photography AND illustration this time. There’s a lot of working together and using each other’s strengths and accepting our own weaknesses. I’m damn excited about it! I won’t say anymore now though so I don’t give it away. Keep an eye on our social networks for updates.

Like Tom said earlier today: sometimes in life you spend too long going fast and other times you go too slow. The key is to find a balance between them. We are no longer trying to rush any of our businessesy (yeah that’s a word!) things and we’re not slowing down too much. Alongside the hoodie design we’ve created a new hat (raising money for Comic Relief) and we’re trying to get some of our things into stores so it’ll be easier for you lot to get your hands on them.

Along the way we’ve discovered we’re in total agreement with the Slow Fashion movement. We’ve always made sure our garments are either environmentally or ethically made, now we’re striving for both.  (Check out our wool section for an example.) What we sell has always been tested by us beforehand; we order samples and then try them on, get opinions and then wear and wash them before going ahead with a final order. (I’ll admit, as above we’ve rushed into certain aspects in the past.) We source as much as we can locally or UK based, if it’s not from the UK then we ensure it’s come from somewhere that’s fair to their workers.

Our designs have always been limited edition but we also aim to make our designs resistant to trend so that they’ll still be ‘cool’ in the future. We’ve even gone one step further so they have meaning above just being ethical and environmental. We have decided to use them to raise money and awareness for charities that have meaning to us! We don’t just pick these charities out of mid air and we are more then happy to talk to you about ‘the why’s’ if you like.

Here’s a good link to a break down of what slow fashion is: https://www.notjustalabel.com/editorial/slow-fashion-movement

My point I suppose is that we need to slow the fuck down and treat ourselves and our earth with the same level of respect. We need to recognise that our society is consumed by doing everything quickly and that’s no good for anyone! Here at barefoot & aimless we like to cook from scratch, we like to knit by hand and we like to drive around in a campervan that has a top speed of 50mph and you know what?! IT’S SO FUCKING FUN! We like to finish the weekend with at least one good story (preferably several but you can’t have it all ways). We like it when people ask us what we’ve been up to and their reply is an intake of breath followed by: ‘WoW’.

So stop worrying so much (stress will seriously screw you over), do more than just work and choose your clothes for reasons other than the price tag!

Remove your socks.

Last weekend, we took Marvin up north on a wee adventure. We had no particular plan except to explore, wherever the road took us.

Amongst other things, we visited Keith cemetery, basked in the sun by Loch Oire, scaled the Pictish fort in Burghead, ran along the beach in wetsuits and  swam in the freezing cold North Sea (a pretty bizarre sight so we’re told). We camped in Roseisle Forest and walked an hour-and-a-half to the nearest pub for a couple of pints! I tell you they were well worth it after all walking and we still managed a game of pool too. It was so cold that night our wetsuits froze on top of the van! Thank goodness we’d made an awesome duvet nest inside. :)

We also suffered a minor breakdown on Sunday morning (damn glow plugs!). But we had help from a lovely man and his dog and a couple of airforce men - our luck was in! We still had to call the AA but we were up and running by around lunchtime thanks to our very friendly AA man and managed to get home in time to make dinner for Mother’s Day!