Cat Lady

Walking past Choumert Road carpark first thing. Sunshine. Leaves on the trees turning golden. At the far side of the carpark an old woman in an electric mobility tricycle is being followed by 3 cats, tails up, excited. As she moved closer to the wall of the houses that back onto the carpark she was joined by another, and another and another cat. Fluffy, tabbies, black and white ones, older, younger. 10 cats. And another and another. Trailed by 20 cats, all their tails held up expectantly. Milling around waiting for the bags to open and the food to come out. Never seen this before despite working near here for 5 years.

Iphone

For some time I have been coveting the iphone, looking on green-eyed (in the jealous sense rather than the literal sense, although I am green eyed) as people on other network providers were able to get one. Kept hassling Tmobile for when they were going to start offering it. Eventually 2 months ago they did give me one. It has been everything I hoped it would be. Arrived in the neatest packaging I have ever had for a mobile phone. I have overcome the urge to constantly be playing with it - all the apps you can get, lovely things that are so useful (scan tool, crop photos) and addictive (angry bird, doodlejump). I have been caught up with an Instagram - which is like flickr but on the phone, constantly updateable. So I find I have neglected the blog. Perhaps this is the next stage that blogging will take, no longer a computer thing instead a mobile thing. Perhaps it has already made that leap.

Ceramics Class



New technique tried - leather hard clay is painted with shellac patterns, wet sponge is wiped over the clay body which removes layers of clay around the shellac design leaving a raised pattern.

Spider

The low autumn sunshine glints across the silky strands of a monster cobweb that is partially formed between the ceiling, shelving and wall. It will, when competed, include several webs interlocked on a plane. Clearly not a lot of dusting gets done here in the office, and the things stacked on the shelves are seldom in demand.

Sunday morning

The smell of fox is strong in the morning. Transported from a city street to a country woodland edging a field. Autumn is in the air - damp earth, yellowed leaves litter the pavement, mist hazy. Trees which started late this spring are having a patchy fall - one side yellow and brown already the other still holding dark green. In the garden a few late summer blooms have been resurrected with the autumn warmth after heavy rain and mingle with autumn colour. Grass is growing fast after spending so long brown and dormant in parched july/august. One winter flowering crocus has emerged under the japanese cherry.

Watching

There's a crowd of oglers by the alley on the side of the post office. A community police officer is saying "there's nothing to see here" attempting to shoo them away as you would a flock of angry geese. Murmmerings in the crowd. If that were you and me we'd be dead! One elderly west Indian to another. A large bottle of evian has splattered on the floor. I follow the gaze up to the roof line. The officer was right, there was nothing to see.

Fog Sandwich

Its been a fog sandwich of a day. Way into work on the train the tops of tallest buildings were obscured by the low hanging cloud and the air had that moist grey feeling of fog (even though the visibility wasn't bad). Middle of the day the sun managed to brighten up the sky, warmth came through. Seemed very much an end of summer day, rather than the autumnal we have started to become accustomed to. By home time the cloud has come down again and in the distance the tall buildings have disappeared once again into the sky.

Late Night, Church Street

3 men lurch along church street. The night is warm for October. Pavements have dried since the last rain.
...he said he was cleaning a strip club...
A strip club?
Yeah, up west, I said, so you're mopping up cum in a strip club!!
Raucus man-laughing.
They pass four tall men standing on the corner having a discussion. Two of them are wearing trilby hats.
Someone shakes a sheet out over their balcony and creeps back into the shadows.
Outside abney road cemetery a man sits on a bench to drink a vanilla smoothy and smoke a joint.
Another man passes me by and says Hi Leoni. I look blank. Hi Leoni, he tries again, does it burn down there? I have no answer. He's got wild hair, no coat and seems confused. I'm not Leoni, I finally say. He passes on by continuing up the road going in and out of pools of street light.

Light

Remarkable light at sunset - one side of the sky had gold shimmmering out from under the clouds, the other thickening black clouds darker than any seen recently. Amazed to get home before any rain fell.

Gloomy Sunday

Some days, when you open the curtains and discover it is grey and threatening more rain after a night of heavy rain, it seems the right thing to do to curl back under the duvet and wait for the next morning of reasonable brightness before getting up.

But, alas, this is seldom an option. The feeling has infected my disposition all day however - overly aware of the oddballs and theives in the neighbourhood. Beggars. Pickpocket on the bus. Drunks. Odd man I've seen before who must live in my neighbourhood who sits too close pressing his leg inappropriately, smelling of beer. It was a relief to get back home and close the door against the outside. And then it rained some more.








Fine and Dandy

He's got a strangely high voice chatting on his mobile phone. Wearing a tan leather suit and shoes. He's telling the caller how he's been out walking about in the pissing rain looking for a feisty woman. When he turns round he also has a big moustache, heavy gold chains and medallion rings on every finger.