Indian Summer

Warm wind blows hot air through trees with browning leaves. Conker shells strew the pavements. They've stripped the road surface ready for new Tarmac and that tary smell hangs in the air. Sit in the garden after work until the biting insects get too bad. It's dark by 7.20. A bat swoops silently looping the loop.

Stinky socks

If your socks or trainers are too smelly to keep inside the room, and therefore must be aired on the windowsill, isn't it time to either a) wash them, or b) chuck them out and get a new pair?

Open House 2011

On the way home from work, if I catch a bus outside Liverpool Street up Kingsland Road, just before passing Shoreditch Church there are two tube carriages high up on top of a building. Never have known what they were used for or how they got there. This Open House they were open for viewing.




Up a steep wet spiral staircase is a set of studios set up on a rooftop - 4 old tube carriages are sited up there - two on top of lower structures. They cost the collective £50 each. Outside they are decorated. Inside they are simple spaces divided up into desk spaces used by graffic designers, music makers and craft people. The carriages are those old ones with wooden slatted floors and handles to dangle off which are no longer on tube trains. The view looks out over the buildings towards Liverpool Street and the east. Large sky, large urbanscape. A view and space that I would find quite motivating for working in.

Autumn

Spiders working overtime making webs stringing across the entire garden and lying in wait for woozy wasps to get tangled. Biting beasties are lurking in the long grass and attack whenever I walk past (six bites on ankles today). Conkers are falling - haven't seen any but the shells are scattered under all chestnut trees. Inbetween weather - never sure how to dress - need a jacket on the way to work but by the afternoon its too hot. Evenings draw in.

Citizen H

Yesterday discovered there was a meeting of the Tottenham and Seven Sisters area forum - an off chance look at Haringey's website. The meeting was to talk about the recent disturbances. 

Meeting was supposed to start at 6.30. Most of the people there were regular attendees chatting in groups, or local elected members. A small spattering of residents. 

Managing a consulting with the public meeting:

1. Advertise your meeting widely in advance
2. Signpost properly at the venue
3. Provide at least minimal refreshment (some water)
4. Start on time and keep to the agenda (this meeting started at 6.39 and by the time it was supposed to have finished it was only on the second agenda item)
5. If you say five minutes for intro, stick to it
6. Try to make the discussion questions manageable in the timeframe
7. Set the context within which the discussion must be held first - talk about resources, cuts, political climate - the discussion may then come from a position of realism 

I was disappointed that the discussions didn't get deep enough into practical solutions or thought enough about building the future - either realistically or fantastically - a good facilitator could have generated a better discussion from our table, and judging by the feedback from other tables, from other groups as well. It all was a little too much like work, not fun enough for leisure time.

Tube travel

The man opposite is 60 wearing cargo pants and two handfuls of unsubtle silver rings - claws holding an ace of spades, cows head with horns and others that might come from a heavy metal jewellers in Camden lock. He's got some kind of African ceremonial stick with a skull on top. People can't stop staring at him. He stares at his hands from under the wide brim of his hat. After his distraction gets off I'm staring at   alabaster legs with two ruddy ovals at the top. They belong to a smartly dressed woman with matching jade necklace and earrings. Looking closer it's holes in both knees of her tights. Each knee is ruddy. She must have fallen. The holes look even though, almost like they were done deliberately. Perhaps her knees get hot and when she is standing the holes are under her skirt. 

Hippy Woodgreen

There's a man with dredlocks twirling a light baton and dancing badly outside the cinema - the kind of thing that would look impressive on the beach in Ibiza when you've been up all night dancing and are coming home bleary-eyed but doesn't look quite so good in a dreary high street.

The Lurk of the Spider

Its that time of year again, having evicted many many spiders from the house one comes running across the floor at great speed, sensing me it creeps off into a corner, finds it way round the back of something and out into the light again, waiting, waiting, then running. Running over to the skirting board under the window. And he's gone. Gone for the time being. Ready to scare me later when I've forgotten he's gone under there.

Union Point Demolition (what I knew as the carpet shop)

Today they started to knock this landmark down. I don't expect we will get a comparable building when they put something else on the site. A small group of people from the community stood and watched. People came and saw and drifted off, replaced by other people. Couples walking their dogs. Father and son. Subdued atmosphere. Several media companies there, doing talking heads in front of the demolition.

Evening aftermath

Getting off the train at Bruce Grove, walk through a corridor in the cordon through some business' back gate, following a group of people talking about the looting across other areas - they think its stupid reporting when the youths are just breaking windows.

Through the park, a man is standing on one of the man-made humps flying a homemade kite. He manages to let the line out and out and out until its high high in the sky - over the gardens of houses about a short block away. Rippling sound of the fabric it is made of and the whoosing as it twists and turns in the sky making huge diving figures of 8. Someone behind me says to him the last time he saw a man fly a kite was in the Caribbean, at Eastertime. The kite flying man agrees - its good weather for it. Then his concentration is lost and he lets go of the line, the handle on the end of the line is dragged off, out of the park and over the wall of someone's garden. The kite is flying itself, higher and higher. The man and another chase after it, trying to call to the owner of the garden in case they can climb over and salvage it. As I go round the corner they are climbing onto the garage of the end of the terrace in an attempt to grab the middle of the line. Can't believe it hasn't crashed to the earth yet.

Round the corner a very drunk Pole is sitting on the ground with a half drunk pint of Guinness and a keg of guiness with homemade straw/pump contraption sticking out of the top.

I turn onto my road away from the rest of the walking neighbourhood. Must have been like this before regular public transport. When I get home the news is showing helicopter footage of a fire in a building next to Gregs - it looks like Rye Lane to me but the newsreader doesn't know where it is. There is nothing anywhere near - no buses, no fire engines, no bystanders. Nothing. Just a house and business on fire, unattended. Close the door and lock up behind me. The outside world still feels a little unstable.

Tottenham is Burning

On the way home at 5.00pm the bus was turned around when it came upon a protest outside the police station on Tottenham High Road. Later on the news the protest didn't come to the expected end and had escalated into something much more violent and destructive. Glued to the news the pictures were shocking - cars burning, riot police, burning buildings, youths throwing fireworks, petrol bombs and bricks. Choppers circling overhead persistently all night long.




In the morning it transpired that the rioting had reached much closer to home - completely destroying the carpet shop that acts as the landmark for Lansdowne Road. Walked down to have a look at the destruction for myself. Community members were shocked at the scenes. Horrified at the level of violence and destruction. One man said he lived in the flats over the carpet shop - someone had rung him and told him he shouldn't stay in too long (at 2am) because it was coming that way and they were burning things. He went out for a walk and half an hour later the place was completely engulfed. Further up the road it was possible to see some of the burned out cars and debris strewn across the street, further burned out buildings and broken windows. At the other end of the high road the media frenzy was in full swing with anyone who fancied being on TV hanging on the shoulders of journalists, or giving interviews. Nearby an icecream van had rolled up and was doing some swift business.

Hate the fact that the only time tottenham gets in the news is in these negative terms. Having come to live here 4 years ago I was suprised at the historic nature of a good portion of the buildings. If the Council had worked thoughtfully there could have been some building  here that  enhanced the historic while updating the neighbourhood. The regeneration was only half done - new shopfronts for some had created a uniform look to some of the stores. Many in the street were feeling the area has been put back 20 years. Time will tell.

Georgian London

Evening

After the sweltering heat of the unairconditioned office and a stifling journey home by tube, it is bliss to sit in the garden, following a long bathe, in loose unconstructed clothing reading as the light fades until unable to see the words on the page any longer. Visited by a couple of neighbourhood cats - the barely grown kitten who has already had her own litter and a stray tom. The air cooling considerably, prospect of a more comfortable night's sleep. Eating a red grapefruit sour enough to make the mouth go OO. Finally the flittering flight of the pipistrelle eating gnats overhead. Time to go in.

Good day for the beach

Halfway to the station it became apparent that the lady in the straw hat, big bag of beach things and an excited toddler was in a group that filled half the bus. A cacophony of bright shorts, designer sunglasses, vest tops and playsuits, bead necklaces, coolers and hampers.  Well provisioned, turned out for a fashion-mag day at the beach. Wished I was going.

Morning terrors

Blood curdling screams from next door made my hair stand on end. Thoughts of some terrible tragedy befalling family members went through my head. Then shouting at the dog. Dog came out into the garden making weird snuffling noises. Somehow he had killed a fox and was carrying it round. 

Later they have cleared away the evidence but the dog is excitable barking at phantoms. 

What to do on the holidays (time permitting)

Its a week, these are on the to do list:

•  remove carpet from spare room (methodology - cutting away sections from to get it from under the furniture)
• re-arrange spare room - setting up drawing table, planchests and sofabed
• remove stair and hall carpet
• sand woodwork in hall (bannisters, balastrades, skirting boards, parts of stairs that require painting)
• paint above mentioned woodwork (paint is already purchased)
• finish jacket that is half made (front facings, closures, pockets)
• finish waterproof coat that is a third made (second sleeve, pockets, collar, front facings, lining)
• go to the movies with Pops to watch The Tree of Life
• find a builder to build me a front wall, and possibly same one or a different one to paint the windows and ledges on the outside of hte house, put a downpipe from the guttering on one corner of the house

Alternatively if the weather continues nice, I might just squander it lying in the sunshine in the garden reading books...

Here's Looking At You

A morning, like any morning. Get up, get dressed, open the kitchen door, eat cereal walking around the garden, clean glasses with washing up liquid, put on coat, leave the house. Bus journey, 10 minutes to tube station. Bus is crowded with people going to work and parents taking kids to pre-school, students going to college. Get off the bus and walk, with the crowd of people to the tube, stopping to wait for the lights to change crammed onto the edge of the pavement, then the first island and finally the last island. Rushing collectively to the entrance, down the steps, along the tunnel, through the gates, onto the escalator, more tunnels, down the steps onto the platform. Crowded, lots of people waiting for the Victoria line. Stand slightly over half way along, as usual, just past the train indicator. Reread the meerkat advert again. Get on the train. Standing room only. Open my book. Middle aged man opposite smiles at me. I look away. Highbury and Islington, getting off the train, he looks me in the eye and scrapes an imaginary something from his chin. This was an indication I realise. I had something on my chin. I reach up and scratch. He indicates a bit more. That's better, he says. I get off, cross the platform to change lines. Mortified. I had come so far, with an Alpen oatflake stuck to my chin. Fear I'm turning into one of those sad cases with holes in their jumpers and egg stains on their shirt fronts. Must get a mirror in the hall.

Ceramics Class




Its been a term of testing things out - black clay (gritty, a bit like building with brownie mix, but interesting colour), lots of glaze testing (particularly the glazes I don't use normally). Raku firing at this time of year as usual.

All the embarrassing things that have ever happened to me

Well maybe not quite all, but certainly a pertinent few:

1. Donning my brand new double buckled patent faux snakeskin pointy toed boots, I left the house feeling hot to trot. coming down the escalator at Manor House station, toe got stuck at the bottom and I fell landing face down splayed out in the hall at the bottom wishing the earth to swallow me up while fellow passengers walked around me.


2. Walked down the main street from our holiday cottage in Padstow towards the beach with my long skirt tucked into my knickers. It was a hot day with no breeze and clearly couldn't tell. When I was almost there an old lady stopped me and let me know.


3. Shaking hands to greet a man who came for a meeting at work I was shocked at their glacial temperature, almost involuntarily I said, "oh, cold hands", "but warm heart," was his retort. When I came back from the meeting I was greeted by a chorus of Ooo matron and blushed bright red realising how our initial exchange clearly sounded.

Cinders Won't Be Going to the Ball

The promise of more tickets to the Olympics gave the glimmer of hope that perhaps still there was a chance to be there. So before work yesteday logged onto the site to find something. Ridiculously, they hadn't removed all the sold out events, so you had to trawl through all the pages of no availability to find where the gaps were. No athletics. No swimming. No gymastics. No cycling. No table tennis. No basketball. No fencing. No anything that I really wanted to watch. Thought about things that I wouldn't mind to go and see just to be in the stadiums. Boxing (don't even really agree with this as a sport), but you would have to pay £75, or £95 per ticket and I didn't really want to go alone, so would have to buy 2. And it was at the Excel Centre. Not really in the Olympic park, not a new building, not a sport I really want to watch, why would I want to spend that kind of dough? Weight lifting? Not really. Wrestling? No. Did manage to get a set of tickets at Wembley for my sis and her family to watch football, but since she didn't want to pay top dollar either it had to be women's football (apologies for being disparaging about women's football).

And they said that in this round you were actually buying tickets not being in a lottery - it was first come first served. Suprised then, that at the end of the payment it said we will let you know in a weeks time if your application has been successful.

It really has been a mega shambles and makes me want to boycott the whole event. The news yesterday said only 7% of London families had any tickets. No suprise then that I don't know a single person who has been successful in securing tickets. I only know of people through other people who have been lucky. Also that for some of the most popular events only 55% of the tickets were even available. They should have given less to corporate sponsorship and sold them to the public since the public is clearly keen to attend.

So now, at the end of the ticket thing, Londoners will have to cope with the huge influx of tourists, transport crush, hoopla and in your face advertising and not be involved at all. Perhaps we should  leave the country during that time instead and take our money to somewhere its wanted - you can watch the olympics on tv from almost anywhere afterall.

Exercising in the park

A Bassett hound stands wagging his tail while watching a weird hippy man do yoga on a brown rug on the path. Strange jerky warm up exercises that the dog seems to be comtemplating joining in with until his owner encourages him to come away and join the Yorkshire terrier. The yorkie is rolling on the grass with his legs in the air. In the distance hippy man is rolling, while tucked into a ball, from one side to the other and then moves into upward and downward dog, followed by a shoulder stand. The dogs have left the vicinity. Weird hippy man is just getting sideways glances from passing office workers.