Optimism

I've just started reading Louis de Bernieres' A Partisan's Daughter. There is a lot about London in the 70s - Archway in particular. "It was winter, not that you'd ever know what season it was in Archway, because in Archway it's always late November on a good day, and early February on a bad one." Its still like that - always windy, a bit miserable (not as miserable as it would have been in the 70s - it would have been worse then - grey, drab and probably messy).

I was a kid then. There was an advert on tv with 3 young people walking along a wide york stone pavement beside the cream columnaded houses around Regent's Park to a soundtrack of old fashioned millionaire. The boy gave one of the girls a piggy-back. It was everything that being a young adult was going to be (in my childish mind). And there were the multicoloured hair men (before punk made that more normal) - extraordinary and exciting. We were allowed to swim in puddles that formed in the playground of the nursery school (something that health and safety executives would never allow now). Covent Garden was full of sunken gardens made in the voids left by demolished buildings that could be overseen through spy holes in the hordings. Years later Mum told me they were full of hippies smoking grass, but that wasn't something I noticed at all as a child. It was just the secret, hidden, mysterious spaces - not perfect, not commercially produced. Openings in the dense city. I miss the curiousity of childhood, the potential and the optimism.

I hate the fact that the world is smaller than it used to seem, that the news is so overwhelmingly bad, that our politicians are corrupt and that working is such a drain on our time. Now that I've finished The Partisan's Daughter [this blog post has taken me over a week to complete] I think that's how the adult non-alternative life is portrayed. I hate that my life has turned out like that. I was supposed to be an artist. With an alternative lifestyle. I admire women who lead their own lives, uncompromisingly. And those who wear their passions on their sleeves - emotional, experiencing life in its fullest. I'm just not sure that early 21st century life allows for that kind of throw-caution-to-the-wind living (with all its doom and gloom economy & climate, politics and killing).

So this year I think I want to continue building the creative back into my life. I'm keen to do a jewellery course and I'd like to learn basket weaving. Perhaps I'll do some more regular blogging...

Morning rush

A man's mouth contorts. Jeans, K Swiss, a cap, reading a magazine. He takes he glasses off and rubs his eyes. Tired? Migrane? He holds the visor of his cap down low and wipes a tear from his right eye. Crying? He sits head down for a moment or two. Then he puts his glasses back on. Heartbroken? Bereaved?

Underground Overground Googling Free

Google street view - some love it some hate it. I like the fact I can see my sister getting into her car outside her house - its so ordinary and yet somehow feels like being in touch. Maybe over time as the image gets old it'll stop feeling like that. I've also been round to all my relatives houses all round the world to check them out.

I was emailed a link to something much more interesting done with street view. The overground route of the Northern Line Charing Cross branch. There's something demanding about the arrows on the street that have to be followed. I think of London like this - sort of a huge mound - from suburbs to suburbs through an increasingly chaotic and built up centre. This is a visual representation of the journeys I sometimes write about. The work of Ian Buchan. Take a look. The Overground Underground Northern Line.

Love

The stinking alcoholic leaned heavily on his woman, talking over her shoulder to anyone listening - about how they'd been together for 14 years. Love of my life, fantastic she is. She was dark brown with filth. Eyes staring listlessly out the window. His voice was coarse, heavy with drinking and smoking. She was silent.

Turning left onto Upper Street her eyes passed over an advert on the side of a bus going the other way. £54 to Corfu. Wouldn't it be nice to get away? Yeah, he said, it would be great to get away from this shit hole.

Ball games

Four men from the hand care wash (one of those businesses that spring up in an empty petrol station or car lot) are playing football and volley ball becuase they have no customers. Its sunny. The weather is warm. They keep kicking the ball over the wall. One in particular is over-zealous and can't control his kicking strength enough. They have to balance on a crate and drag the ball off one of the out building's roofs with a broom. Next time its running round into the garden of the neighbouring block of flats. Its funny. Like kids.

Boundary

Today I have mostly been thinking about the boundary of my house. At the moment it s a rotting fence to the front and a big cloud-trimmed hedge between me and my neighbour. I keep thinking it would be good to trim it into some topiary shape but I'm not brave at the moment. Pops is going to buy me a brick wall for my birthday last year - still haven't found a brickie to do it. I'd like the bricks to match the house - they are mostly yellow London clay - some are pinky and some are slightly blackened like they've been burned. There's a two row detail of red brick running through the building. Pops has a metal gate in his cellar that I can have. I might paint it pink or something that metal gates aren't usually painted.

I'm also looking for metal numbers - large ones, preferably brass. I want to replace the ones that are up there already.

I've also got a lollypop trees that I'm desperate to cut down. My neighbour has a chainsaw - he's willing to help. I want to replace it with a pale pink flowering tree. I've got lots of plans, but no action yet.

Reminiscence
and a couple of jokes I was reminded of at work today


How many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb?
One, but it must want to change.


The huge yellow orb is hanging low in the spring sky. Drawn to it I look and then get spots before my eyes. Sun setting over Hackney. Tops of buildings caught in light of gold.

Tiger Lillies flow onto the ipod. Reminds me of different times. Hedonistic nights in the Kings Head back room, late nights, surrounded by people. Georgia flashing her tits. Never getting tired. Endlessly seeking adventure and good times.

Pass Rosemary Works, a ceramics studio across the street from a pub where the Tiger Lillies used to play, I have a brief dream of a different life. Having kept the artists studio I used to have, I spend my days making work. I wondered how many pots I could fit into one of those toploading kilns that Kerry used to have at Cockpit arts. A life of making. In the late, bright spring light its a thrilling alternative life thought.


How many goths does it take to change a lightbulb?
None - they'd rather sit in the dark.


Pink blossom tree. Beautiful. Frivolous. Candyfloss and cake icing. Debate again in my head whether I want a pink blossom or white outside my house. White is more tasteful but pink gives me greater joy and elation somehow.

Sun has dipped and the sky is left with a glorious arc of gold cloud. Sometimes I think I should be where I can see more sky - it uplifts me so. Two fidgeters have sat in front of me on the bus this evening. Ants in their pants. Their presence is disturbing my thoughts. Interesting how thoughts come back to the present when you get into a part of time you didn't know in the past. My neighbourhood holds no old memories for me. The memories are the present and the future.

Ceramics class

So, this term I've been making big things.





(That last one is not finished yet - its a monster - takes two people to move it - I want to grow waterlillies in it once its fired).

Of Vacation, Tiling the Kitchen and Kew Gardens

Two weeks off have just finished. Spent the time gardening (1st week, first couple of days), and tackling the DIY job I had been putting off for over 2 years - tiling the kitchen. Once started the tiling really wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. Did take me most of a week, especially after I had to repaint the kitchen (black grout is filthy stuff).

When I finally got through we spent a day at Kew to relax. I love spring. Its uplifting and hopeful and energetic.

Oddballs

Stinky elderly gentleman sat on me and then nudged up closer.

Lady with a crutch and a massive dog called Maxy sat on the seat nearest the doors. Maxy got very comfortable and lay down in the middle of the exit. He wasn't very obedient and wouldn't listen when she told him to move.

What looked like another unstinky old man got onto the bus. He was wearing the most amazing white cowboy shoe-boots with silve toecaps. A man standing by the doors recognised him. It was Dave Elvis, famous in his own world, and to the rest of the world as an eccentric X-Factor auditioner.

Last Day Before the Vacation

It didn't start well. I decided, just before setting off for work, that I would water the newly planted bamboo (it was looking a bit dry). When I was done I managed to hose myself in the face. The shock of it made me drop the hose and in my haste to turn it off at the tap I ran over it, forgetting that it would spray up my front, up my skirt. Soaked. Doh.

Naked in the afternoon

Waiting for a cab outside Homebase in Haringey, the afternoon sun emerges after a rain storm, the cold air warming gently. My eye is drawn to movement over an italian cafe - in the roof is a skylight, a naked japanese man (torso at least) is leaning out of the window talking to someone outside. Moving forward the party he is talking to comes into view - another naked torso leaning out of the neighbouring skylight. Finally they both hook the window arms onto the notches, their heads visible though the opening like the eyes of the building.

Short walk

Between meetings from St James Park to Southwark stations. Was enjoying the sunshine in the middle of the day - drew attention to the arty stuff around, and reminded me that spring was on the way. Spring in my step today.




Bought delicious smelling fat plum tomatoes in Borough Market on the way home.

The Wrong Carriage

I stood one carriage down from my normal spot. Train pulled in and opened its doors. Only on stepping in did I realise that two whole lengths of seats wer crammed with excitable seven year olds on a school trip. Two to a seat frequently. Adult supervisors struggling to make them all sit down, be calm and be quiet. Packed lunches and bags. Squabbles over who sits next to whom. Chatting. Laughing. Noses pressed up to the window hoods shielding the light to see into the tunnel. Finding amusement in the curved glass of the doors as if it were a hall of mirrors.

And then they got off. Phew. Calm restored.

CSI Walworth

COLD OPEN:
[EXT. VARIOUS Walworth Road and Elephant & Castle (STOCK) - NIGHT]
[EXT. Walworth Road COMMUNITY (STOCK) - NIGHT]
WHITE FLASH TO:
SCENE #01:
[EXT. Blockbusters Walworth Road - DAY]
(Camera opens on a Securico Van pulling up outside Blockbusters. The first officer gets out and gets into the back. Second officer walks round to the back of the van.)
(Camera pushes in slowly to the hatch at the back of the van.)
(Officer inside the van pushes the box of money into the hatch.)

(Suddenly, a man runs up behind the officer receiving the money box, grabs the box and runs off down the road.)
(The officer takes chase.)
CUE SOUND: (PRELAP) POLICE SIREN WAILING

HARD CUT TO:
END OF TEASER
ROLL TITLE CREDITS

SCENE #02:
[EXT. Blockbusters Walworth Road - DAY -- CONTINUOUS]
(Emergency tape surrounds the scene and 3 police officers guard Blockbusters and the Securico van.)

(CSInvestigator in a stripy shirt and purple rubber gloves dusts the hatch of the van for fingerprints.)
(People of Walworth stream past the van)

CUT TO:
Council workers cling to the window watching the Securico van as if taking a Diet Coke break...

Pancake Day

Couldn't be bothered to make any by the time I got home. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow instead - just to shirk tradition.

Shopping

I need:

• Lightbulb for cooker hood (although I have many in the lightbulb drawer, none of them is exactly right to fit and work in the cooker hood - I need a small screw with a slightly more pointy end than the ones I have)
• Starflower oil suppliments (hoping to get ones this time that are not the size of horse tablets)

Instead I bought an ipod nano to replace the one that suddenly stopped working.

Bigger picture

The things that are giving me the most pleasure at the moment are the details, little things. Watching the birds in the morning flying across the garden, and the two blue tits eating seeds out of a half coconut, blackbirds washing in the birdbath, next door's cat leaping up the fence to find his spot on the shed roof, 1st floor detailing on buildings on the bus journey to the tube, coffee and walnut cake, slightly warmer weather - not feling freezing waiting for the bus, comfort of sleeping in the middle of the bed...

The trouble with it is that when I can't see the bigger picture I can't switch off the brain as easily.

Home again

Sometimes my favourite thing is to get home, lock the door behind me and bask in the warmth behind the closed off windows away from the madness in the street. To get away from the pick pockets, the madness of shrieking girls thrown out of school, smelly people, the crush of the tube, the sounds, other people's conversations.

Snivel

Being disgusted by the sniffing symphonies of commuters. Clearly nobody travels with hankies any more (I think my dad may be the last person I know to always have a hankie with him - a real cloth one, folded just so, soft from use) and people's hands, feet and noses are cold in the freezing conditions. I sat between two men sniffing in slightly different rhythms this morning. I'm feeling its a citizenly gesture to carry a tissue at least to blow ones nose with rather than sniffing.