Bus Journey - a photo story






No. 35 from Walworth Road, 2 stops from Elephant and Castle, to Shoreditch. Dusk falling.

Earthquake

Well despite being substantially closer to the epicentre of last nights earthquake (being in Coventry for the last time) I felt nothing. Only one of the participants did - she had been awake at 1.00am (despite us having an 8.45am start - which seems unholy early to me, but a whole half hour later than tomorrow). Woke up this morning to Midland News interviewing all sorts of people who had felt huge shudders and heard wind whistling noises and loud bangs and ran out of their houses in their pajamas to find their chimney stacks falling or precarious.

Dad always told me that if there is an earthquake you should stand in a doorway (the mantle will protect you) - you shouldn't run out in the street - falling debris may hit you. He and mum were once in a sky scraper in the states when an earthquake hit - they said the world swung back and forth at an alarm angle but they were most upset because they hadn't realised there was a survivors party going on in the basement.

I remember the previous earthquake to hit - it was about 9 years ago - I lay in bed thinking that I was being shaken in the bed by a train going past - it just kept going and going. I rolled back and forth and then fell asleep. It was only in the morning that I found out what it had been. There had been no sound time - we must have been far from the epicentre. Its just not something that happens in Britain!

Sunset



There are pictures that a camera just can't capture. Like this one. They have to be experienced and remembered rather than snapshotted. The sky was almost entirely graduated in a deep thick orangy hue - orange verging on red with pink undertones. The colour of red grapefruit. Its gradually sank down to the horizon as the dark decended. On the bus on the way home a glimpse of the roundabout - a tower block framed perfectly against a orange sky background. No clouds. The camera can't do it justice.

Ceramics Class



This doll's head cast was freaking people out all week as it sat on the finished items shelf waiting to be collected. Slip casting isn't really like proper pottery making but it has some interesting possiblities - makes a very sharp image. Slip (runny clay) is poured into a plaster mould and left to collect sediment. After a couple of hours the wet stuff is poured away and the sediment that has settled is left behind in the form of the plaster mould. As it dries it peels away from the mould and you can bring it out. This mould was in two bits and I had to slurry them together (not a perfect fit). Glazed it in honey (v shiny and brown). A bit freaky! I'm thinking about making a set - could mount them on stakes, or perhaps stick them together in some way.

Dreaming again

Travelling round India with two girls, sort of. Washing in public bathrooms. They had a male travelling companion who was sometimes with us and sometimes off doing his own thing.

Was swimming in a pool in a hotel, but not the hotel where I was staying... A beardy friend, his girlfriend and I were walking home - they were showing me a shortcut and I was suprised to find the pool so close to our accomodation. We stopped in a restaurant/bar and sat down. They had British tea [weird blends that seemed very specialist] like Brighton Tips [this was something we knew and were suprised that a foreign country was serving it]. We decided to have pot of it. A couple of English tourists sat down at our table and we had a conversation about tea. Then Morgan Freeman and his wife came and sat at our table with their drinks (alcholoic drinks). I was saying, "now thats more like it", and he said, "yes you English people make me crazy with all your tea!".

Dream

Standing at a bus stop where Philip Lane and West Green Road converge, wearing a towel turban on my wet hair and another towel wrapped around my body. I had to keep readjusting it so it didin't drop off.

(I get concerned when I get these very vivid anxiety dreams - they're telling me something but I'm not always sure what exactly it is).

Camden Town Burning

Camden Town Fire Aftermath
Originally uploaded by Jeff Galasso

BBC news - camden town fire
Londonist - camden town fire
FLickr Camden Fire Pool

I haven't been there for a really long time but there was a time when Camden Town was a destination of choice every weekend - looking for shoes, clothes, jewellery, hair dye, music, clubs, drinking venues, boys - it was the place. There were punks, goths, weirdos, every type of alternative person you could hope to find. Definitely a place where everyone was included in rather than being excluded out. Before the lock market was as big and as commercial as it is today. There weren't any stables or catacombs. I would stroll through the clothes market closest to the tube station, through the tightly packed stalls, clothes flicking back in your face from someone ahead of you, up and down until finally released back onto the high street. Then up the street over the canal and into the canal-side market. Prince opened a shop on the high street, he ordered it to be painted purple but someone had already painted a building in Prince purple so it had to be a pinker colour - to be a little bit original. Later on the market expansion up to the stables and under the railway arches and the increasing number of tourists led to a change in the type of things being sold - less alternative clothing, more things. Second hand and antiques started coming in. A techno clothes shop with ultraviolet lamps and clothes with lights on them. I stopped going when I stopped wearing those kinds of clothes. Every once in a blue moon I got down to look at the furniture and house stuff. Last time I went I was looking for chandeliers - spent quite a bit of time in the catacombes and stables area, missed out the touristy bits altogether.

Shocking to see the flames licking into the air over the buildings on the news yesterday night. Can't quite get a handle on how much of it was engulfed.

Six Word Memoires

I think this has done the rounds before but I'd forgotten about it - someone at work reminded me of it this week. A life story in six words. What would your's say?

I'm thinking:

• sleep, communute, work, communute, sleep, commute...
• Art. Sex. Job. Career. House. Bored.

Don't think I've cracked it yet - its a bit gloomy!

Spotted

Maquita Oliver in the Grocery in Shoreditch, with pals, buying a trolley load of beer, 4 bottles of wine, a whisk, maple syrup, eggs and milk. That'll be a pancakes & beer party then. Not the traditional lemon and sugar either. Not sure maple syrup is really appropriate on pancake day, although colleagues at work were disagreeing. They were also suprising me greatly by confessing to using pancake mix. It took me 5 measily minutes to make my own batter from scratch. Not a lump in it either. Reminds me of my sister's brownie cake-making badge - they used cake mixes in her pack (really don't think that was within the rules).

Sid

Happened across the Dwyers. There are two of them. Both have photographs on their profile that couldn't be classed as 'official', in a work capacity, as it were. Most SID (staff internal directory) profile pictures are horrible head and shoulders shots against monotone grey backgrounds taken by non-photographers in very unflattering light. Makes all the subjects look like extras in the Adams Family, when in real life our staff are much more human.

Anyway I digress, back to the Dwyers. One picture has a boy dressed as spiderman and a woman dressed as Zoro on their way to a fancy dress party. The other picture is of two people either on the bath or perhaps at a foam party (I'm leaning towards the foam party) - a woman and a man, unclear whether they are wearing clothes, sticking their tongues out at the camera (her's is pierced). Party animals these Dwyers.

Out of interest looking at what other photos people were loading up - nothing to compete it has to be said but one very elegant cat, and another is a pair of scotty dogs.

Politicians of the people

Passed Parliament on the bus today - all lit up, sort of serious gothic palace. Thought about Henry Conway holding his birthday bash there - all hooray henries and henriettas gaffawing through the hallowed halls. Most inappropriate use of a government building.

Passing Downing Street - it looks like any other Georgian street on the TV - never shows the huge wrought iron gates and guards at the Whitehall end. A fortress.

Politicians are increasingly removed from their constituants and voting public. Their lives bare little resemblence to our lives. Its a closed club. They forget their accountability and get sunk into party politics. Is it any wonder that we mistrust them so much.

Big Garden Watch

Woke up to a blue sky and sun shining weakly over the garden. I sat outside drinking coffee and counted the birds in the garden. There aren't many different sorts but there is lots of activity. I saw:

• 2 blue tits
• 2 black birds (male and female)
• 6 sparrows (my neighbour says they sit under his eaves and try to peck out the morter to get into his attic)
• 2 wood pigeons
• 2 robins
• 2 collared doves
• 1 magpie

Growing things

The bulbs are poking through the bare earth. Leaves are budding - tiny, energetic. I'm excited by the second growing year of the garden. Waiting for the spring flowers. There's a yellow crocus about to open. It gets you in the mood for tidying up, pruning, watching. I belatedly moved a rather orangy red rose from where it was in too-close proximity to an elderly and huge wine red rose (colour clash) and transplanted it in the front of the house where hopefully I will be able to learn to love its multiple blooms (assuming it actually takes to its new home). Chatted with my neighbour about christmas, the roof and my deceased rat(s).

Stink

The wretched stench of death seeps up through the floorboards of the dining room. There is no mistaking it now, the bin has been emptied and bleached clean, the compost pail has been dumped in the compost bin, there's been spraying of odour eliminising sprays and burnin of incense. All to no avail. There be dead things down below. (S'pose that's what comes from putting punnets of poison down there).

Waiting at the End of the Universe

Please take a ticket and wait your turn. A number is called: three hundred and five please come to desk 4. My ticket says 333, issued at 5.40.

3 people behind the counter. Takes approximately 10 minutes to deal with each person trying to return items. Then there are five minutes in between to get the goods out back. This is an uncared-for part of the warehouse store, all the glamour and lighting kept to the bits where they are trying to pursuade you to purchase something. Here are hard benches, unflattering lighting with nothing to look at. Returners sit with their heads in their hands, unwanted, damaged, broken goods loaded on trolleys.

By 6.30 we are onto number 325. The last couple of people have been at the counters for 15 minutes. The 3rd staff member has wandered off. There seems to be an inverse proportion between the length of time it takes to serve someone and the closeness of your number.

My advice is this: make your choices carefully in Ikea. Do not go in there and buy on whims, don't buy on the spur of the moment. You do not want to have to return anything.

Ludicrous claims by tube train drivers

On a crowded morning train, sorry actually packed liked sardines, the tube driver asked us to please stand away from the doors because proximity to the doors was affecting the motion of the train. Two things went through my mind as my face pressed into the mac of a man in front of me, the angular handbag of a woman dug into my lower back and people to either side held me up - a. how exactly, and b. since when (first time I've ever heard that one in about 20 years of travelling by tube).

Blue sky yonder

 

the black thunder cloud is passing over and in the distance the blue sky is growing up from the horizon. A plane flies into the clear sky. The pink edge inches towards our office. Perhaps it will be dry by going home time after all.

And suddenly the rain started, then lightning, hail pounded, car alarms went off and thunder clapped. Its nearly time to go home and I didn't bring an umbrella to work today. Sigh.

January Blues



Its the longest month of the year (psychologically speaking), dark, damp, nothing to look forward to. Weeks of endless drudgery stretch out ahead of us. Work is mundane. Nobody is going out. Little things are keeping a glimmer of optimism alive - like the sunrise, like the hyacinths coming into bloom in the kitchen, the daffodil tips poking through the sodden soil, ER back on tv and ceramics class starting up again.

Urban Fox

(Or two, or three). Woke up yesterday, looked out of the window, as the light rose saw a fox sitting around in the garden without a care in the world. Later joined by a mate. Today there were three - two went one way and the other went down the side of the house.




They're young - haven't started making those horrible screeches yet. Just playing. Its going to be really stinky when they grow up if they don't move away when they grow up.

Attack of the Blue Bottles

Sitting watching CIS (repeats) a big blue bottle flew into the room, was dim wittedly attracted to the light whereupon I swatted him. Two minutes later another one appeared. I checked the other corpse was there thinking perhaps I had only stunned him and he had secretly come back to life and snuck up on me again like baddies in horror films. It wasn't him. Fly 2 was faster, less dozy. I had to chase him. Finally flapped him in the air.

Later I turned to find two more blue bottle baddies sharing some space on the standard lamp. Tricksy. Wouldn't be able to get both in one swipe. First one went down fast. Other one required some careful sneaking and sudden pouncing action before he too went down.

Phew. Cleared the air.

In flies another one. Flies about, hangs around the light on the shelf. Shoots across the room. Crawls over the light by the stereo. Makes a dash for the standard lamp, does one round, crosses the room. I'm after him flapping and swatting at his tail all the way. But he's crafty and gets between the back of the light and the wall. (He's the one that got away - like in all good horror you have to be left with the uneasy feeling that it isn't over yet). The next one will be called The Revenge of the Blue Bottles, or something.

Still hasn't snowed yet.

Still waiting... its cold enough to snow but it feels a bit damp in the air - might come a bit slushy.

We were promised snow. Thick snow. We're still waiting.

2008

Woohoo. Its a new year.

I hate the celebrations of a new year - always disappointing - either you are out with lots of pissed people stuck in a venue determined to have a good time (never easy to have an enforced good time), or choose to be at home, sometimes alone which starts off ok but by the countdown you end up feeling extraodinarily lonely and bahumbug about the whole thing.

I haven't made resolutions. But I do want to try to crack what it is that I really want to do. Over the last year work has seemed more and more dissatisfying - its not providing enough time for the self (not that work is really about that par se). Working for money is no longer enough...

I wish you all a good one.

return journey blogging from my phone on the free wifi provided by gner, sorry, National express (train crew keep making this mistake as wall) - so its taking a damn long time to text all this in - phone has a very limited vocabulary as well - it doesn't even know the word vocabulary. I also wish they would invent a system that would recognise punctation usage (like fact there is a good probability that the next punctation i will need is a close bracket). The train is half an hour late. On a 5 and a half hour journey thats getting to beyond most people's threshold of being able to handle it. They had double booked some seats. Some people have been standing. There's a man who seems slightly asbergers sitting behind the girl across the table from me - he has one of those evil laughs that make him seen ever so slightly deranged - shoulders shake mouth laughs eyes look like they could kill. He's a figet i'd hate to be sitting next to him. I dropped off somewhere near darlington and woke up to find a man had eased himself into the seat opposite around my sprawled out legs - i was very apologetic - likely very unladylike - i just hope i didn't do any of those snorty snores that slumped in seat sleeping can make happen. . ,

Toy Cars



Joseph played with his toy cars, a lot. He liked them to be in traffic jams and move them on in lines very carefully, one moving from the front to the back so each one had an opportunity to be first. Being first is terribly important in a 3 year old psyche.




I didn't know that most toy cars are now made foreign - of all the cars the only ones which were right hand drives were these old fashioned looking ones from Corgi.

Happy Christmas Everyone

Having a breather - been cooking up a storm all day, niece and nephew have had all the expected highs and lows when Santa has been, too much chocolate has been consumed and lots of presents have been opened, admired and discarded. Our cracker jokes were expectedly rubbish:

Q. Where should a dressmaker build her house?
A. On the outskirts of town. (groan)

Q. What did the beaver say to the tree?
A. Nice gnawing you. (not even worth a groan)

Q. Why didn't the skeleton go to the New Year's Eve party?
A. He nad no body to go with. (groan again)

Q. What has a bed but does not sleep and a mouth but does not speak?
A. A river (hardly a joke at all)

Q. How did the human cannonball lose his job?
A. He got fired (this was guessed)

Q. What does minimum mean?
A. A very small mother (groan).

How were yours?

Train Journey

Outside the frost clings to the fields and trees, white, stiff, outlining detail. Thick fog.

There's a weird screeching from the table seats behind me. What I thought was a miniature puppet show that a woman was attending to with great concern turns out to be some kind of bird in a cage with a specially made quilted silver fabric cover.

A portly man in a grey suit ahead of me plays with the underneath strip of his tie, twirling it as if it were a stripper's tassel. He has a missing front tooth and ate his lunch with great haste. Crisps, but he doesn't seem like a regular crisp eater. Bit like my grandad when he ate crisps. Reminded me of spitting image depiction of Roy Hattersley - all lisping and spitting and large bubbery lips.

Tables are awash with laptops - I'm wondering what the plug-ettiquette is when there is only one between four. If you're the first there and plug in, is it acceptable for someone else to want a shot at some electrical input?

Angel of the North high on a hill - all heavy metal solid and earthbound.

And then Newcastle - a city which looks interesting every time I pass through - its a testamont to industrialisation and modernisation and tradition - bridges, levels, warehouse rennovations, steeples of churches and turrets.

Weak winter sun tries to break through the mist and haze. Bright across the hazy landscape - it hasn't the strength to melt the ice layered on patches of water in the fields.

And then the sea, grey against a grey beach. Sandy coloured houses with red roofs pushed up against the hillside. The clouds out to sea rise up like mountains in the distance. the train flashes over a glassy river with arched brick bridge reflecting and a heron on the water's edge.

The bird lady is wearing a pale blue sweatshirt with a janty parrot emblem.

After five and a half hours I'm losing the will to live. Finally getting off the train and standing in the icy Dundee wind, face pink and burning, breathing deeply. Relief to be outside.

End of Term Ceramics Class Roundup

Over for another term, spent more time experimenting. Experiments don't always work out - sometimes they end up ugly!



Slabs painted with coloured slip and allowed to harden, then formed around a tube and slurry glued together. Colours come out stronger after glazing.



Long necked vessel made with extruded coils.



The stack of donuts pot, also made with extruded coils - big fat ones. Probably the least successful pot after glazing. Didn't quite look how I wanted it to...

Christmas is coming

Been to the Montpelier with work. Encouraged to drink one too many baileys (nice at this time of year - xmas and everything), now beginning to regret it as they wash around my belly on the bouncy bus on the way home. Pissed bloke is ranting incomprehensibly in the corner. He starts making a noise that is somewhere between growling and retching. "Easy," commands some man from the back of the bus. I get off at Newington Green. There's a man with a christmas cracker hat perched at the obligatory jaunty angle. Can't quite figure out whether he remembers he's wearing it or not.

Gilded Lilies

73 bounces along Albion Road, over humps, through traffic with frosty exhausts.

A girl in a red jacket has wide open stare-y eyes, her iris' flicker manically across the eyeballs.

I'm sitting next to a man with a similarity to Alan Rickman. He leans forward as a girl opposite him brings out a black eye lining pencil and warns her that she'll have her eye out putting that on as the bus lurches up Albion Road. She points out that she's an expert so he needn't worry. He persists, albeit on a different tack - you don't need it anyway, gilding the lily.

Content

To make up for the lack of content recently I'm going to paste this in from an email a colleague sent me (it made me laugh at the time).

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

My favourites of the winners were:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.


2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.


3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.


4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.


5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.


6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.


7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.


8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.


9. Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.


10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.


11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

John said, "I remember having something to look forward to," droll, semi-ironic. Me too I pipe up and at that moment I really mean it. My shoulders slump. Outside I buy a coke to drink with my lunch hoping the bubbles will pick me up.

Maybe its the time of year, maybe I'm in need of a holiday, maybe.

Jump Around

Christmas lights along minor high streets signify the real start of the festive season (as opposed to the first sign of season-specific goods in the shops). These are not the big overblown artistic displays from Regent Street (supposedly pulsing colours according to street traffic) - just a few yellowy lamp post decorations, the repetativeness along the street adding up to quite a dramatic effect, well, not really and they're only working on one side of the road. There's nothing else christmassy going on in the road yet - no trees or wreaths for sale, no foil decorations.

A man gets on the bus with some shopping bags. He's heavy with gold - chains thick enough to secure a motorbike with.

A year after moving into my house I'm still not sure it feels like home (too many unpacked boxes and chaos). Doesn't even fully feel like mine (far too much of it is owned by the bank!) I feel like I'm pretending. There's still much to be done to help transform it further into mine. Small steps.

I've got a cold that is manifesting itself in my teeth and gums. Roof of my mouth is itchy. Teeth feel numb and gums keep feeling like there is tomato skin stuck on them. Strange feeling.

So anyway, Christmas is coming.

Hoodies



Sarf London, home of the hoodie, where even dogs wear them. He's hard (actually I think being an alsatian is hard enough on its own without resorting to intimidating clothing as well).

Follow my leader

Battery of tests, again. From before it came out that I have a power motive - not necessarily about taking over the world or lording it over people, but probably manifesting itself in a need to be recognised for effort and good work. It also came out that I have achievement values - knowing that finishing things is important (but ultimately boring to me). It told me the organisational climate I was working in at the time of taking the test was extremely unhealthy (I did know that, thankfully it has changed now). Leadership styles I use mostly are visionary, affliative, participative and coaching (I don't manage anyone directly). And I most commonly use the following influencing strategies: empowerment, interpersonal awareness, relationship building and impact management.

So there we go. But what does it mean, and how should I use my new found knowledge... Perhaps its time to try to take over the world (I feel a Pinky and the Brain moment coming on).

Sent to Coventry

The commuters and I rode the train from Euston. Jolly, crammed on. Dark fell suddenly, dark clouds been overhead all day. Rain falling. From the cab on way from the train station it was hard to see anything more than the lower branches of trees, thinning leaves, yellow and orange. Raining.

Not looking forward to 3 days of leadership training. 3 days of being stuck inside. It ends up feeling very other worldly. Not seeing more than the bedroom, conference room and dining room. Barely stepping foot outside. Certainly not going far. I feel cabin fever before I even get there! I forget how much distance I travel in a day usually. The landscape of my life is relatively wide really - travelling from North to South London everyday.

Hat

A man walks down the street. It is night and a chill wind carries icy rain into his face. He is wearing a blue and white striped plastic bag on his head.

Persuasive

He bounded out of the bus all rubbery legs and leaping like Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz when he first gets off the pole. His girlfriend follows, stiffly. She gets cross a little way up the road, noticeable by the way she stopped rigidly in the middle of the pavement. He bounces back and kisses her cheek. This is not enough to defrost her. So he comes in for an altogether more elaborate embrace - full kiss on the mouth, arms pulling her to him. She is unresponsive. Her arms hang down like a child who doesn't want to be put into its buggy - stiff like board. They do set off again though - he grabs her hand. They walk off reflected in the wet pavement under the yellow street lights.

Things I'm loving about November

• Fallen leaves on tarmac driven into the fabric of the road.
• Frosty mornings and crisp nights.
• The chill of parks at night creeping over the street from under the fence.
• Warm body, cold face, visible breath.

These things are appealing because its the first time this year - 3 weeks from now when I've been freezing at bus stops, nose running and red from cold, and its dark when I get up and dark when I leave work it will have lost its appeal.

Tea cosy

Outside work, standing at the bus stop, was a woman who was wearing what could only really be described as a human-sized tea cosy. Roll neck, with a huge all enveloping knitted pleats that went down to the ground. One gigantic poncho.

Crack





On the way into the Louise Bourgeois we stood on either side of the crack. Couldn't go all the way along to the widest part because it was closed off. The crack was cut deep into the floor.

Fire

A fire's light flickers against the curtains at 1.30am. Looking out of the window my neighbour is burning old kitchen cupboards in a brazier in his garden. Strange time of night to be doing it.

Cold wind blows

I sit in the open doorway wrapped in a blanket watching the last dozen or so yellow leaves torn off the tree. Garden is closing down for the winter. The bare branches have new growth though. Birds skit about in the garden - robins, great tits, blue tits, sparrows, collared doves, thrush, blackbirds, magpies. Searching for worms, eating the last of the berries. Sky is blue, sun is weak and low in the sky.

Guess Where London

I'm a bit addicted to this London picture game! I haven't known any of the places so far though. Time to get more observant!

Angsty Halloween

Bus stop Archway. Saw my old English teacher Peta Webb. Small with henna-red hair. Folk singer. She once sang to our class, unaccompanied. I thought that was brave - girls can be so judgemental.

41 bus came and we piled on, grateful that we didn't have to stand in the wind tunnel, that Archway is, any longer.

At the second stop a drunk got on. Dropped his money. Picked it up. Fumbled in his pocket. Couldn't find enough change. Bus driver kept telling him it was £2. Drunk didn't have it. Bus driver told him to get off the bus. He punched the door in anger as he disembarked. The glass door shattered. We all decanted. Two men felt agrieved enough to want to run after the drunk and beat him up. The bus driver disuaded them. We waited for the bus behind.

A young man walked past in halloween costume. A skinny Alex DeLarge complete with slightly short white trousers and eye makeup. Instead of black DM boots he was wearing patent black lofas with his socks pulled up his calfs.

Second bus came. We got to Turnpike Lane when a group of three Albanian men got on with 2 passes. Big altercation happened when the bus driver insisted they pay for the final fare but couldn't accept a £20 note because he didn't have any change. Eventually after arguing for some time and insisting the bus driver was a wanker they produced a £5, which he didn't have change for and the bus continued on its way. Everyone a bit edgy incase there was any more trouble.

Happy Halloween!



(Pumpkin lanterns made out of clay with tea lights - made in the 10 minute exercise at ceramics class a couple of weeks ago - more than one student's work here).

Centre Point

Central point in London is a big tower block. I go to meetings there occassionally. This time it was the 18th floor. If I worked there I think I would spend all day staring out at the view. But perhaps over time you get used to it.






The sun was low in the sky, the windows weren't clean, it looked hazy across London. Landmarks stood out. Suprising sometimes - like the glass roof on the British Museum. Docklands looking large and looming up in the east. Feintly seeing Tower Bridge on its curve of river. Wembley far west (couldn't take a picture that direction because of the venetian blinds on that side of the building).

Windows of the Rich

Canonbury Square at dusk - large Georgian houses with genrous doors all painted black. The gardens in the centre are shaded with huge plain trees, planting in keeping. Walking on the york stone paving slabs somehow seems luxurious in itself, particularly in comparison to modern concrete slabs and cheapo tarmac. Yellow light from the old gas laterns bathes the street.

These houses are too posh for net curtains. Plenty of views into the large rooms with their high ceilings and chandeliers. Shutters for those who crave privacy.

Its soon time for supper. Two women cooking. Kitchens that look onto their back gardens at the far end of vast rooms with the dinning area towards the street. Busy at their sinks, backs to the street. Piled up groceries on the kitchen islands. One black cat sitting watching on the counter.

Influences of Harry Potter

I stopped into the opticians to see if they had a different kind of glasses - fancying something new, less square. A woman and her son followed me in. She and I browsed through the lines of uber-cool contemporary frames - plastic with stripes and inlaid diamonte, titanium with laser cut patterns. He son spied a particular frame.
"Mummy, mummy will you buy me some round frames please?"
"When you need glasses I'll get you some."
"But I do need some...Can I get some for fun?"
"No you can't." Half to herself, "but I need some new ones." She picks up a frame and tries it one, lookingin the mirror.
"Mum, let me try!" She puts them on him. He looks in the mirror, up, down, side to side. Approvingly.
"Professor Osborne", is his verdict to himself, "Mummy can I try some round ones? I need round ones."
"No! You don't need glasses, now stop pestering me."
"I do need sunglasses though," triumphantly.
"Where's the sun?"
"I can see it. I can!" He turns to the assistant, "I need sunglasses, do you sell them?"
"Yes, we have hundreds," she points.
"Nathan! Stop!"
This desperation for a pair of glasses is astounding to me - it felt like a failure of massive proportions when I first was told I needed glasses. Being one of only a couple of wearers at school I didn't because I couldn't handle the comments that would have been made. I think his mother should get him a cheap pair with plain glass.

Friday Feeling

For some reason everyone was wearing jeans today. Very relaxed. Sort of hung over from previous night's shinanegans.

It was Nigel's last day today. Retiring. I've not idea who Nigel is. He's upstairs. The envelope came round, and the card, but I didn't sign - he wouldn't know me either. Those that knew him went up for "party" at 4.00. Big square cake in large bakery box. Always spongy, often coconutty. Fake tasting icing out of a squeezy tube. Not much art in cake decorating anymore. Gifts in cheap wrapping paper from the whip round. Retirement gifts ought to come in classy wrappings. Gone are the days when it was an expensive gold clock.

Beautiful Morning Images

There's an advet on the tube about a club you enter in London and exit in New York that compares the two cities' skylines and riverscapes at dawn. New York is dark midnight blue, with a dark blue river water reflecting lights from the city. In contrast, London is a sort of mottled pinky, blue grey. Grey buildings with orange rising sunlight reflected in their windows. I've seen the Thames like that, on early morning starts, and also often on the way home at dusk, the riverbank lights and the sky reflecting in the water. Sort of fairy tale.

Sunday Shopping and Strolling, Harringay Green Lanes

Turkish barbers is busy with young men getting short, shaved lines and sculpted crowns. A slick of product and a brush on the neck.

Girls in skin tight jeans. One size too small. Flesh poured in, knicker elastic showing a smidge - lacy racy pink or plain white. Skinny eastern european girls in stonewash.

Young, good looking dwarf - perfectly proportioned, apart from his shorter than average legs.

Old turkish men - tweed jackets, moustaches and blue shopping bags - fruit, vegetables, bread and maybe even some sheep balls - white, veiny, lined up like eggs in the meat counter.

Mercedes and four-wheel drives pull in, parking illegally while passenger darts into the shops. Waves and toots for friends as cars drive slowly past.

Ceramics Class



So we discovered the extruder and started making these big perfect coils really quickly. I'm not sure its actually quite authentic - coil building is hand made and maybe ought to look like it. But you can build quite quickly this way. Not quite sure how to glaze the long necked one yet. The stack of donuts pot though is all thought out, if it ever dries enough to fire (coils are rather thick).

Stories from Kate

She's full of stories. I cried laughing. On the way back from TC to the office there was a large yellowy red leaf trapped in the windscreen wiper. Turning them on did nothing - it just waved jauntily at us through the window, back and forth. Kate said they used to have a van with windscreen wipers that wouldn't go back and forth. They would debate at length on rainy days over who would be the driver and who would be the passenger and work the wipers with strings that came through the windows. Must've been terribly energetic in a downpour.

The Facilities

My preference is for the cubicle furthest from the door - next to the wall. I went in there today and someone in there on their own was in the middle. I'd never go in the middle one by choice. If someone was in my cubicle I'd go in the one on the near end, and only if both those were occupied would I go in the middle.

In this office move the facilities are down a grade from the previous ones - they had windows and were painted white. These are yellow with woodchip wall paper and no windows. Someone has helpfully left a poem on the back of each door.

Please look back before you leave
To check for gifts you wouldn't want to receive
We thank you.

Toilet doggerel. Written in a chirpy, non-standard issue typeface. It makes me and two of my colleagues want to leave something nasty on purpose - we were thinking rubber snakes or plastic flies from the joke shop.

Knitting and Sewing

On the bus passing through Ally Pally, it was a clear day and I could see forever... Well across the whole of London, past ridge road, to the city and Canary Wharf... There was a show at the Palace - The Knitting and Stitching Show. Overwhelmingly middle aged and overwhelmingly white women queued up to catch either coaches or buses away at the end. Beige handbags and carrier bags full of accumulated stitching and knitting goodies. Lots of navy, virtually no black. Determindly unmodern in that way that only suburbanite and middle classes can be.

Ceramics Class



Been back to ceramics class for four weeks now. Haven't made anything thats finished yet - been experimenting with extruding clay for coil building. Big coils. Its very exciting but not quite dry yet. Did finally decide that the laughing man that didn't quite get finished during raku summer school ought to be finished.

After Work

Stayed until the orange sun dipped behind a building off to the west. The dusk was swift, the night dark. Liverpool Street was crammed with city bods drinking after work, crushed into the outside smoking areas. Drunk city boys. Pinstripes, black shoes. Queue in the mini-M&S in the station was long but moving fast. Stop off for singles. Everyone had one supper in their basket. No planning for tomorrow. All living for the moment. Likely to be heading back to their young professional's apartments - fancy kitchens with granite worktops, lots of shiny chrome gadgets and an unused cooker. Beautiful perfect developer-designed blandness.

Hordeolum

Sat am: woke up with itchy redness in corner of right eye. Rubbed it before realising what it was. Looking in mirror while washing realised with some anguish a sty was developing. Stayed home, didn't wear makeup. Itched like mad.

Sun am: definite lump developing, hard inside under eyelid. Inevitable.

Sun night: still there. Not going away anytime quickly.

Setting up to be an ugly week (trying not to notice the constant abrasion in the corner of my eye!). Haven't had a sty for over a decade. Seems to be a thing I had at school on occasion but not since.

Of Bruce Willis

Its been a long time developing but everytime I see him in a film I forget how cute he actually is. Lovely smile. Cheeky. Even if he does like wearing his trousers too high.

After Dark

Bus driving driving down wide tree lined boulevards. Orange street light poolling against the tarmac. A small strip of shops - grocers, telephone shop, closed newsagents. Council short-rises set back from the road by slightly landscaped grass with trees.

Reminded me of the first time I noticed the excitement of night. Driving into Exeter at 1.00am after a long car journey from London. Dark night, street lights slipping past the rear window, nobody around. I think I was seven. Always have liked night time since then.

Autumn

The nights are drawing in. Its soon going to be clock-turning again. I haven't turned the heating on yet. That would feel like giving in too soon. I haven't put on a winter coat yet either. I'm braving it with a mid-season-weight anorak, well not really an anorak but you know the weight I mean. The leaves aren't turning yet though.