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.

Lost Poster Cambridge

Peaceful and genteel. Full of brainy students and bicycles. Someone had posted lost posters on the lamp posts of my route to the Sainsbury Laboratory's Artist Launch (new building with artist's work integral to the design). Three hundred pound reward (in my neighbourhood a reward is seldom offered, and never more than £100). On closer inspection the lost item was neither a beloved cat or dog but a beloved fountain pen. £300 reward for a pen! Must have been expensive with great sentimental value.

Kings Cross is a filthy animal

Sitting in the window of Starbucks on the button corner of Pentonville Road. The streets are not littered as they once were but Kings Cross struggles to overcome it's grubby reputation. Over the road the once lovely lighthouse building is falling down. The lighthouse itself has lost some balustrades and is in danger of loosing it's roof, but it has gained some grafitti. The rest of the building has fallen into derelict disrepair - dirt clinging to intricate windows of the upper stories. Buddleia, beloved of butterflies, sprouting out of the fencing. On the second floor two pairs of pigeons copulate on the window sills. Ground floor has been neglected for many years and now the building has been declared unsafe. A succession of small independent traders, including Mole Jazz, resided in the dirt afflicted premises. The massive regeneration hasn't quite reached this block yet. No doubt it will be torn down and replaced by something in steel and glass despite the current building's underlying charm.

Tickets/No Tickets/Tickets/No Tickets

So, remember when they announced the Olympics were going to be in London? (the day before 7/7 which overshadowed the moment of euphoria the previous day). The moment it was announced I wanted tickets. As a family we always watch the Olympics. To have them in our home town, too good an opportunity to miss. Other people were unhappy we got the Olympics because of the expense. We started paying for the games in our Council tax. People complained. The expense, they don't like sports anyhow. I secretly still wanted to get tickets. The building works began. Upgrades to the public transport network. Commuter hell. People complained.

Anyway, the tickets went on sale, sorry, into a lottery. I applied for two tickets to three events. I picked evening events (don't know what will be happening at work in a year's time), men's 100m final, men's individual gymnastics, 200m freestyle women's swimming. Someone told me you have no chance with great glee. Have to be in it to win it, I thought. Pops and sis also applied for tickets - daytime, not main finals events (one senior, two adults and two children). Friends applied for a variety of events, for a whole heap of reasons.

Nobody I know has won any tickets. My disappointment is vast. How can nobody I know get anything and one person get £11,000 worth of tickets? Since we are paying for it, we should get a ticket. Too many tickets given to corporations for schmoozing their clients. Its not fair. I feel aggrieved.

Redeye

Is the Redeye very late or very early? I'm on a very late train. It's been a very long journey. Two hours from the destination still and it's 10pm already. The detritus of passengers who have gotten off already is mingled with that of those of us left aboard. We are a puffy eyed, crumpled, weary lot. I would really like to get off - my skin us dry and hot, my mouth fuzzy. I've been travelling for five hours so far - by the time I get there I could have flown across the Atlantic and watched three films. The man with the trolley is very nice but I don't want to put anything e-numbery and sugary in my mouth.

Strong Winds

Blustery winds of 70-80mph whipped around Dundee yesterday. Trees fell over. The bridge over the silvery silvery Tay was shut. Leaves litter the streets. And branches. Five cars were crushed by a fallen tree near the Law. Polytunnels crushed out of shape, their plastic torn off. It's always dramatic, Scottish weather!

Journey

The train rushes past the landscape of the east coast - farmland, flat - then a chalk horse on a hill after York. Wooded patches of trees growing upwards competing with each other. Horses and foals, cows and calves, sheep and lambs - physical springtime. A tumbledown farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with out-buildings that would make ideal studios. I know we're not supposed to as Londoners but sometimes I long for a less urban-pace of life. And sometimes I think it might be a hankering for an isolated existence which leaves me free to do exactly as I choose.

Random 41 year old thoughts

So it was my birthday last friday. I was 39 and 24 months old. Its not a significant number of years, so I celebrated in a low-key manner, which was nice. If I can't stand the numbers I don't need to draw attention to them I figure.

On the way to the local shop I saw a man in the key cutting shop. He was wearing a toupe. It was auburn against his grey and dark brown natural hair. The toupe must have been very old - it was balding from too much combing of the parting. Bald man in a bald wig. Time for an upgrade.

Sitting on the bus on the way home, a man behind me is talking on the phone. Hello! This is Rambo, can I speak to Moses? I'm getting clashes between American action heros with guns and pumped muscles and Charlton Heston as Moses parting the red sea.

Behind him some 14 year old school boys are talking about stuff they used to do when they were 11. Back in my day we didn't used to cheek the teacher so much. Back in their day - these are their days. Old before their time.

Post-Coital Journeys to Work

Waiting for the train she stands only as tall as his shoulder. She looks up into his face. He is talking to her. On the train they sit together, in the way that only couples do - bodies touching. He is spread out, she is tucked into him. They are sharing one set of headphones. He is playing tunes for her, do you know this?, he mime-sings along, what about this? Of course I know that, she mock-scolds. He grins. She looks up into his beaming face smiling through long eyelashes. The morning after the night before.

Drunk

The bus lurches round a corner as it weaves it's way east away from the main road. It shakes life into a semi-comatose drunk man who shouts, "leme awwt", stands up, creeps his way to the stairs aided by the handrail carry a large carton of juice and a full bottle of rum. He gets to the top of the stairs as the bus pulls away from the bus stop. His tenuous grip (one little finger) doesn't hold and he falls face first down flinging the rum onto the top deck where it smashes filling the floor with sweet smelling alchol. "Leme awwt. Open the fucking doors". A child upstairs starts to cry, frightened by the commotion. The doors open, "I've left something upstairs," he's creeping back up. It smashed someone tells him. The bus pulls off again. "Open the doors leme off this fucking bus". And finally he is.

Not the Royal Wedding

Fab a bank holiday - excuse for a party, previous week's summer weather made a bbq seem like a good idea. Checking the forecast all week I was fearing thunder and rain. However it turned out nice. Popped to the supermarket at 9.00am (full of elders - I have never been to the supermarket at that time before), cleaned house, preped the food. Didn't even turn the tv on at all, all day. People came at 2ish with news of the cars, the dress, the uniforms, the parents of the bride and groom, the Queen, the guests, the cheering, the music, the kiss, the ring having difficulty being put on, the trees in Westminster Abbey... So despite not watching it or listening to it I feel I know everything I need to know.

Then we started the coals and got the barbie started.

7 facts

There was a time some years ago when the blogging community was a more holistic type of virtual place - more linkage, more joint activities, posting that linked to other bloggers. Not for some time has anyone sent me an activity to be part of. Until now. Deb of Baratin-Deboradant has sent me a versatile blogger award for which I have to thank the giver, give 7 random facts about myself and send it on to other bloggers. I don't know if anyone in my bloglist would be interested in this kind of thing anymore so I'm a bit stumped as to who to send it to. (If you would like it - let me know). So, thank you for the award Debs and here follows 7 random facts:

1. I was trained in three dimensional design, a form of artistic design. I specialised in metals and made a lot of sculptural pieces from altered metal. During this time I tried ceramics and decided I hated it. Didn't like the dirty hands, or the possibilities for things to go wrong at many times during the process. I struggled with the whole function thing and didn't get on with it very much. So intersting that now I have been studying ceramics for 5 years at evening classes (oh how my art school chums laugh...)
2. I failed my maths O level twice, and only managed to pass it on the third attempt. No idea why so much difficulty. Suprising now that a lot of my job is about numbers. Hail the calculator.
3. I can touch-type. I taught myself when I was at university. I still think it is the main employability skill I left there with. My whole career centred on it.
4. I am only a quarter English - another quarter is Scot, the final half is American. I don't feel like an american - when I am there the people are somewhat alien to me. I also don't feel particularly English and I won't be considered Scottish by the Scottish (too obviously an English accent). My closest affiliation is London.
5. I'm a bit sick of the Royal Wedding. I have been rather non-plussed by the royals since we waited for the Queen during the silver Jubilee. We spent all afternoon sitting on the side of Roseberry Avenue outside Sadler's Wells, waving flags and singing why are we waiting (some forward youngster taught us). When her car drove past (at a very swift pace) I didn't recognise her because instead of a crown she was wearing a green and white coat and hat number.
6. I have played the recorder (yes, I know, its not like a real instrument but I played it for a number of years) at the Albert Hall (School's proms), and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. These are the closest I have ever come to being on the stage. The whole idea of the stage now terrifies me.
7. I have a birthmark on my earlobe. Kids at school used to think it was disgusting - clearly something was terribly diseased, in their minds. It didn't help that my mother always kept my hair very short. Nowadays nobody even notices it.

Easter Monday

Today I have mostly been...
Watching biblical epic films on TV. First it was Charlton Heston as Moses with the Egyptians against the Iraelites. I remember it from seeing it on TV in the 70s on those epic Sundays that never seemed to end, parents spent what seemed like hours behind the open pages of Sunday broadsheets and were extremely boring (only you could never say so because of Dad's decree that only the boring get bored). And then the epic films on the little orange TV that lasted for hours, literally. I was expectantly waiting for the red sea to open so that Moses and the people could get away from the Egyptian chariots. Let it be written, let it be done. And so it was. Shortly after another one started with Jesus and the romans. Haven't been able to sit still during this one quite so much (did skip some sizable chunks of the first one), so I have also been cooking and sewing.

I sat down and watched a bit more of King of Kings, while eating burnt toast, plagued as it is with some terrible wigs, Jesus almost looks like an addict - with very wide-open piercing eyes and lanky hair.

Electric Storm

I'm sitting in the garden watching the thick storm clouds gather, rumbling with thunder. An occasional fork of lightning crackles out of the sky. The temperature has cooled but not below body heat. Wind has picked up and the birds are a bit jumpy. Heavy with the expectation of rain. The air yellowing. I hope it's one of those fat raindrop storms, sudden heavy deluge that will clean the air. I felt one drop. I think it's coming.

Happy Easter

Dead Bird

A chaffinch just fell out of the sky floundered around all lobsided like he had a broken leg and then died.

V&A visit

Unofficial trip to the V&A to see the ceramics galleries - getting inspiration for next terms class. Waiting on the steps out front in the blazing sun of the hottest day of the year so far there was a sharing of working in Harrods stories (some of my colleagues have done it).

A friend of one of them had spent some time serving a very difficult woman buying a broom. When she had finally made her choice, he asked her, would madam like it wrapped or is she riding it home? After which he was fired.

Vulgarity

It's a sunny day I'm waiting for the bus. A young man walks up talking to his friend on the phone. They are having a man-to-man relationship talk. ...not into the relationship thing... Finally he makes his judgement, to be honest with you, you sound a bit pussy-whipped, he proclaims, and immediately is embarrassed, oops, maybe I shouldn't say that in the proximity of... I imagine he said women but he lowered his voice.

Book series

Tips for authors planning to write a book series:

1. Make sure the story is big enough for multiple books
2. Don't assume that to read as a stand alone book you need to repeat all the main points of all the previous books
3. The third book should not double in size - 400 pages is plenty - bigger is difficult to carry around

I have just finished the last book in the series by Jean Auel - I was compelled to read the whole series despite the fact the books got thicker and thicker and more and more repetitive. I wanted to get to the end of the story. Now I've got there the journey could have been shorter.

Tuesday evening

I'm unreasonably tired, thinking of going to bed, and its only 10pm. It was chilly today - having painted my toenails for wearing sandals and gotten the slightest beginnings of a tan going, the weather changed and had to put it all away.  Cee-Lo Green was on Jules Holland, now the lead singer of Glasvegas is wearing one of those sleeveless shirts with too large arm holes that open down to the waist (hate them - you can see a bit too much body).

Early summer

Its a hot day.
The remenants of last night's first barbeque of the year are in the firepit.
Cherry blossom drifts down from the tree next door. Glorious against a pure blue sky.
Last of the late daffoldils are starting to fade. The early tulips are fully open revealing their green and white inner colour.
The grass is long.
Birds are chirruping, and  bathing. It'll soon be time for the fledglings to emerge.
Tiny holly blue, and white, butterflies flutter around.
Love the peace of the garden in the weekday (working from home).

 Eat Cake

I'm having a craving for cake.
Coffee and walnut cake.
With a thin layer of coffee flavoured butter icing.
It needs to be home made, not a dry shop bought version.
Perhaps I should make one, but I can't really be bothered. That lethargy doesn't stop the craving however. I'm trying to distract it by watching CSI (first it was Miami, now its New York) but these are now all blending into the same programme and they aren't distracting enough.

Bruce Grove to Liverpool Street

A young couple sit on the train going to work.  He looks boyish with a man's haircut, tired eyes and a smattering of facial hair. She is serene and quietly pretty. Like side characters in a costume drama, playing maids and kitchen boy from downstairs. They are not speaking to each other but occassionally she turns from looking out of the window and smiles at him. It causes him to smile back and his face brightens. Neither of them read, paper or book. He is listening to one headphone.

Song Cycle for Japan

Pops and I went to St Mary's Church, Upper Street, to listen to a song cycle for Japan. The music was haunting, played on a baby grand piano with two voices - female and male. The church setting was contemplative. Outside the large clear glass windows were some huge plain trees with those balls of seeds, against a blue sky, rays of sun shone in.

The lyrics made me think about the images that stuck in my head from the news footage.

• People running out of offices while rubble falls from skyscrapers crashing onto the pavement.
• A white car drives along a straight road, behind it the tsunami wave crashes together from both sides of the road, large and blackened. Its haunting that they keep saying the wave is travelling at 500 miles per hour. I think about the car often, did it escape? It doesn't seem possible.
• The wave rolls over the town's defences, overcoming walls and houses, surrounded they fold in on themselves like paper.
• Aftermath - two buildings left standing in a town with a population of 10,000. The rest of it looks like tindersticks.
• Ships beached in the centre of flattened towns.
• A child with her mother and brother, searching the rubble of their former home, runs over with a photograph in a frame. The frame is broken and the glass is muddy, the mother takes the photograph out and wipes it with her hand. It shows her son and daughter with their father. A tear escapes from her eye and rolls down her cheek. Their father is a rescue worker, she explains, we haven't seen him since the wave came. We hope he is safe.
• An old man stooped with age, aided by a walking stick, climbs off the rubble with a rescue worker.

The nuclear smoke and steam from the reactor steals the news away from the human stories as the world becomes afraid of the wider impact. I wish they would return to the human stories. There was one news item that showed a road just after the quake - ripped up, jagged - and now - already resurfaced and fixed. The one person we knew who was in Japan at the time of the quake got back sooner than expected. He was truely amazed at the way the Japanese handled it - calm, orderly despite the terrifying situation.

Road Surface

Rye Lane is being resurfaced. They've been at it for months. Today the barriers extend in both directions for a long stretch of road. The lack of surface is not preventing it's use by cyclists and pedestrians who have opened the barriers at strategic places along the missing road surface. People will find the path of least resistance.

Supermoon



Look at the supermoon, someone texted to me. Couldn't see it until I got off the bus at Tottenham Swan. Bails had told me it was going to be bigger than normal due to it being nearer than its been for 20 years, or something. It didn't seem nearer while I was looking at it but it was incredibly bright - shining, almost too bright to look at as it reflected the sun back at us. Trying to distinguish its surface through the naked eye. When I got home I  looked out the back but it was too far over the roofs to see. It cast a distinctive shadow over the garden, almost light.

Ceramics Class

It is the term of functionality. Don't normally care too much about function, but someone commissioned me to make a water jug. So I've made 3 of them - they are a sort of set with different arrangements of handles and using the same method of decorating. The rest of the class and department seem to be having a teapot theme - many teapots being made. Someone said pinchpot teapots and I decided in a spare moment to make one. Once I started I didn't make just one but two. Like the second one better with its pinched handle, spout and lid.

May or may not make some more.

In London the sun is shining

Birds are nesting - collecting bits and bobs to soften the holes in the roofs nearby. Its all go again. They are back to bathing collectively in the birdbath. The black cat from across the gardens is on the neighbours shed roof watching. He likes to watch. Grass is growing. Buds are growing fat, ready to open. Daffodils waft in the wind.

In Dundee its raining and snowing. Sis and her new dog have been drenched twice. She was hoping someone else would take him out for his evening constitutional.

In Japan I can't imagine. A friend of a friend was on a business trip in Tokyo, finally made contact today - very shaken up but amazed at the way people reacted in such a calm manner. The pictures have been astounding - terrifying watching the tsumani wave rolling over the fields, tearing down buildings as if they were made of paper, rolling on and on over roads, airports, tossing cars and rubble around like so much flotsum and jetsum. Scared for the person who was driving their car along the road on the news while two sides of the wave slid over the road behind them.

Bus Journey

Behind me is a man on his way home from the office - he's reading and his breath smells stale, partially masked by coffee but not entirely.

Ahead of me a woman is having throat problems and keeps retching and burping.

Altogether it's making me feel sick.

Ceramics Class

 

Aim was to make a waterjug. It had to hold water, be able to be used for pouring, so not to big to be too heavy. It sort of has the puffed out chest of a pigeon or pheasant or something. One handle was never going to be enough!

Spring

Softly the sun rises and shines, takes the chill of the winter. Crocuses are out, daffodils in bud. Grass is long. Birds are preparing for chicks. Sitting outside with sunshine on the face for the first time of the year. Looking forward to the new season.

I recently bought a new frying pan but its much larger than it looked in the shop and is too big for the dishwasher and too heavy to toss a pancake with. So instead pancakes were turned rather than flipped. Sort of took the fun out of it.

Purchase

I bought two prints from a Petitou exhibition by Nicholas Frith. A stag and a lonesome woodcutter. They remind me of a print of Dad's of two innuit fishermen similar to some of these.

I got tonnes

You know that saying - I've got shedloads (of, for example, books, or something) - in my head I always imagine enough to fit in a shed (its not an infinite number but it is a lot). Someone today was saying they have a problem when the phrase is used because they can't decide whether the shed is a noun or a verb. I've never before realised that actually the use of shed in this phrase is a verb. It doesn't refer to enough to fit into a shed - it refers to an  amount that has been shed from a lorry. A shed load. Doh. BIG doh. I astound myself sometimes. How have I got to be 40 and not realised this yet?

Paperclips

How many paperclips are in circulation at any one time? I think I have bought a packet of paperclips perhaps once in my entire school and working life but always manage to have an overflowing collection of them in an assortment of useful sizes. At a meeting today someone collected a single clip off the desk at the end and said I'll have that it's a resource. Which it is. But who supplies them all if we don't actually buy them?

Coughing

There's a man behind me on the bus suffering with a terrible cold - he's coughing and spluttering and sniffing up snot. I'm worried the infection is all over the back of my head. Public transport makes you ill.

Private View

Hobnobbing with the art crowd at the preview of Susan Hiller exhibition at the Tate Britain. The work requires a certain intellectual engagement that isn't properly possible in such crowded conditions but there is definitely a reason to come back and spend more time. Feminist and psychological sensibility. Mixed and alternative media. Collections and cataloguing. Relooking at found objects, re-presenting them.

Tate Britain first gallery is full of sculpture of the human form, people mill around drinking wine and posing. I keep looking at shoes.

Of Dogsitting and Panic

Invited to London to look after a house while the owners are away and dog-sit at the same time. Thoroughly enjoying the city. Walking the dog and having a house to roam around in.

Come down one morning to find the dog has died in the night. Shocked and unsure what to do, look up a vet, call them. The vet says bring him in - they can look at what may have happened. Next issue - how to transport the dead dog to the vet, and how to get there. Having planned the route, discover a suitably large suitcase (this is not a small dog), put the dead canine inside and set off.

Surprisingly heavy load. Struggling up the stairs at the tube with the case. Passing man asks if he can help. Consider, then say actually its heavy, yes appreciate the help. Boy it is heavy, what you got in here, he asks. Quick thinking come up with a plausable explanation - boyfriend's decks - he's a DJ and is doing a set later. Man promptly runs off with the case. Second shock.

Two things flash through the head.

1. The man's face when he opens the case and discovers that his most recent criminal act has not resulted in his ownership of a fine pair of decks but rather a dead dog. Perhaps he's selling it on sight unseen to some budding DJ or a fence...
2. The explanation to the owners becomes increasingly implausable - OMG the dog died, I was taking him to the vet, in a suitcase, when I was mugged...

Lady Marmalade

Today I was mostly making marmalade. I didn't start until after 9pm so didn't get finished until 2am. Forgot I needed to let the mixture simmer for 2 hours, and then melt sugar and boil for a further 20 minutes, and putting it in jars took half an hour.  Anyway, the house smells divine - orangy in a way that evokes the summer. I didn't used to like marmalade but this reminiscence of summer is a lovely thing, especially in the middle of the winter.

There's a road that crosses Calendonian Road where when you stopped at the lights in the summer (having the window down, music playing) the scent of oranges would waft over from the orange juice factory. Made you feel like Florida. Cooking with oranges is like this. Pungent smell that is very evocative.

Ceramics Class




3rd week - three-legged spoon pot came out of the kiln this week - think its very jaunty with all the spoons inside. Finished the first water jug (thinking of making 4 of them for various people), and a 20 minute coil pot that I covered in green slip. Roll on next week, got things to do!

Me & the Foxes of Peckham

Leaving work at 930pm. The temperature has dropped. It's slightly misty. You can taste the damp in the air. Sky is pitch black and the recently huge moon isn't visible from my vantage point. Crossing, a fox darts out from the Girdler's Cottages and runs round the corner in a flash. The streets are deserted. Smoke drifts out of a chimney and is blown off by the chill, it's not really wind. The station is deserted. Distant sound of sirens and some feint background city noise like a quiet tinnitus. A plane crosses the sky but is not visible. Fingertips are frozen. I need some fingerless gloves (I can't type on the touch screen with full gloves). They would add to my channelling-a-Toulouse-Lautrec-prostitute-image (patent leather lace-up boots, black tights, hair twisted high in the fringe).

Overheard

I'm waiting to catch him, have a little word
What was she doing with his medical certificate? 
Well, it wouldn't be the first time, what can we say - she is the company bike, everyone rides it. So perhaps there's something going on in that department. Like I said waiting to bump into him and have a little word...

Gabriel Orozco at the Tate

Private view - started at 7.00, we were in time to actually see the exhibition before it got too crowded and before those who were just there to be seen arrived. The work ranges wildly in scale from objects that can be held to huge collections that fill up a gallery. It demands closer inspection, the beauty of it is in the detail - the skin prints on ceramic, wrinkles in the paint of pictures made by folding to create symmetrical prints, telephone numbers from the telephone book, pieces of blown out tyres that curl and fray like seaweed, lines drawn with a ruler with blips that go round fingers overhanging, lint from tumble dryers that is grey fluff barely holding together full of hair and threads and flakes. It is playful and funny - the one seat wide Citroen that looks like a glider plane or a racing car, fan with toilet rolls that spiral from each blade. Quietly clever beautiful photographs - concentric ripples across a pond that is actually a puddle on a roof, bicycle tracks circling through two puddles, watermeloncats. I like this work alot. Some of it was very familiar, definitely had a feeling I had seen some of it before.  I hadn't realised I was standing next to the artist and his son in one of the galleries until I came out and saw a video. Later I threw off my London nonchalantness and asked him to sign my copy of the catalogue. He was very obliging and afterwards held my hand in both of his as we shook  and said it was a pleasure meeting me, despite the fact I barely said two words to him and we really only shared an intense look. When I got home and shelved the books I found a catalogue from the ICA in 1996 where I had seen some of the work before. Its not often I feel as inspired and excited by an exhibition as this. I loved it, worth a look.

Reviews:
Metro
Laura Mclean-Ferris in the Independent

Neighbourhood events

Late afternoon on a 341 to the supermarket. As we turn into Glover Drive, home of Tescos and Ikea, one of a pair of girls (who on closer inspection do appear to be overdressed for a trip to buy furniture or household supplies) asks if this bus is going to Angel. I manage to suppress the chortle forming in my throat and tell them this is Angel Road Superstores not Angel (good for going out with it's plethora of pubs, eateries and nightclubs). Indignant, she says but it says Angel on the front. Personally I would have thought the feeling of it not being the right direction would have started dawning before the end stop as the bus travelled further into deepest Tottenham or even as it passed Manor House tube. The confusion of London. They had along journey ahead of themselves back to civilisation.

On the way home, getting off the bus, a dramatic car crash had just happened. A woman stood on the side of the road hugging herself against the cold in orange fluffy slippers and a teeshirt, curtains twitched in the flats opposite, bystanders ogled. The car had careened headlong into the safety barriers by the pedestrian crossing. As I got closer there was an arc of broken glass strewn over the pavement on the other side of the road, possibly the car went out of control before swinging across the road into the barriers. There was nobody in the car. A helpful bystander told me they all jumped out and ran away. Stolen car seemed to be the general hypothesis. An ambulance arrived as I turned down my street - wasted trip...

On my way out today the street was full of parked cars - Tottenham playing at home - a red jaguar searching for a spot pulled in to let an oncoming car pass scraping the back end of a parked vehicle. A man in grey sweat pants recorded the red jag's numberplate and inspected the damage. He scraped it didn't he - we conflabbed. Neighbourly I thought.

Bleak Mid-Winter

Its been relentlessly grey and damp. This is much more depressing weather than all the bright shiny snow we had in the lead up to Christmas. The daylight is low, the drizzle keeps going, its wet, there are puddles. Its making things seem a bit intense - maybe its the pressure building up under the clouds. Someone said there will be more snow in February, I'm actually looking forward to it. There is something jolly about the muted sound, colour and drifts of snow covered spaces. And there was blue sky.

Fur

It seems a long time since we used to shout at women wearing fur "Yuk! Your disgusting fur coat" and other such slogans as advised by PETRA, and those adverts of models dragging blood dripping fur coats along catwalks.

We have shared coat cupboards at work. They have hangers and are aired nicely so they are not smelly. One of the ones I use regularly started to have a fur coat in it during the cold spell. It might be rabbit - it somehow doesn't seem like a really expensive fancy one. Its a little bit scraggy, or something. Fur coat no knickers. Springs to mind every time I open the cupboard to put my coat in. I try not to put my coat next to it. Not sure whether thats because I don't want it tarnished by it or don't want my coat to feel of a lower quality.

Finally I discovered who was the fur coat wearer. A tall and painfully thin blond with a fondness of incredibly high tarty shoes. Fur coat no knickers seemed appropriate.

All in Grey

In Costas by Kings Cross downstairs from the Premier Inn there seem to be an awful lot of people in smart grey. Grey jackets and grey trousers, two in grey jumpers with a light grey cuff and collarband, and then two raincoats with lime linings. A uniform. They are all talking in french. Eurostar staff. Doh. Then another man comes in wearing a long slate blue coat, a bright red scarf and matching glasses. Natty. Another uniform - his bag says East Coast to Leeds. Must be all the long haul staff of the train companies who dress like air hostesses. Train hostesses. Like those cleaners who are now called Train Presentation Staff, and ticket inspectors who are Revenue Protectors.

Happy 2011

So making a change from Jules Holland and feeling sorry for myself on the sofa, I was invited to a new year's eve party. While the majority drank bubbly, we had brought whisky (not my usual tipple but I quite enjoyed the heat in the back of the throat experience). A mixture of friends and neighbours, nibbles and music. Midnight crept up on us quite unexpectedly and the host let off some fireworks in the back garden (mostly low level spark throwing and smoky, some medium sized bangs). Chinese sky lanterns drifted up into the sky from neighbouring parties. After the new year began the music was turned up and there was dancing. Happy new year!

I haven't made any formal new year's resolutions though, have you?

SALE

Work on Wednesday - one lone day in the middle of the week to meet a 31/12/2010 deadline. After the work was done I took the bus over to seething mass that Oxford Street has been for weeks. I've been looking for a new pair of glasses, popped into the Alain Mikli shop at the bottom of Regent Street.



Shoppers are hitting the shops, as are the tourists. Swarming along the pavements, packed into buses,  jostling around the stock searching for a bargain - shoes, clothes, electricals. Where people find the cash... The desperation of it all makes shopping an agony. I still haven't found a frame I am keen enough on to spend the arm and leg they cost - I like a slightly quirky frame. My favourite ones are from a couple of years ago and I still like them the best but I've had them reglazed 3 times now and they are terribly scratched again. I've found good shapes but the wrong colours, or good colours but the wrong shape.

Season to be Jolly

On the eve of Christmas Eve we were shopping in Edmonton Tescos. They had run out of brussel sprouts and I was told if I had wanted them I should have been shopping two days ago (not so much of a bad thing for me but terrible for some of my Christmas guests - they were texted and told of the situation, five minutes later they called to say they had some). Shortly after this a fight broke out between some customers. Lots of shouting and a massive crowd. Eventually someone came on the tannoy and asked customers and staff to move away from the entrance.

Two geese cooked for dinner, stuffed with a highland stuffing with the addition of two chopped bramley apples and a chopped quince. Apparently delicious (being a vegetarian I didn't eat any of it). Two full jars of goose fat drained off and given to the meat eaters for roasting other things later. Dinner was great, company was great. Played games.

Hoping you all had a great time, whatever you did.

3am

Snow reflecting moonlight bright like day. The clouds are white, one section of blueish light towards the horizon. Moonshadows fall across the sparkling ground. The sound of melting - water slowly dripping, ice losing its grip and falling, crunching. Tomorrow much of the precarious balancing stacks will have fallen from the branches and shrubbery will be green and brown again. Spells the end of the magic.

Winter draws in

I've been to Beckton to pick up a parcel - 1. its far away (all the way to Stratford and beyond, bus to Asda, across the street to a shopping arena and round the back of some factories to the depot of the postal carrier), 2. its a dump, 3. when I got the parcel back the goods were damaged and I had to send them back.

Someone at Bruce Grove tried a cashpoint scam on me that didn't work. Beware the helpful passer by telling you the machine is swallowing cards while pressing cancel button (without you noticing) - you leave to go into the bank to complain, he draws out the money. It didn't work but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Hate it when people try to rip me off.

Its been snowing - the streets are lined with exactly the right snow to muffle the sound of the world around us and heighten the crunch under foot. Snowmen appearing on every street corner and all over the parks. Sis in Dundee has been trying to get a snow shovel for a couple of weeks now - they are all sold out...

Got a tree, half decorated it, its the last few days before getting a break and I can't wait. Made mince pies, and marzipan for the cake. Sent the gifts to Scotland, maybe not in time to get there for christmas itself.

December evenings

It's 530 but feels later. Misty. Like fireworks night is supposed to be. Sort of frosty mist - great for eating potatoes baked around a bonfire in tinfoil and being warm on one side (hot face) and freezing on the back. Someone came back from a trip to America and brought mini hershie bars (not sure of the spelling, is it 'y', 'ey', dunno) and bitesized peanut butter cups. Blast from the past. Nanny used to send us parcels with these and hershies kisses and red hot gum. Quite unlike anything we had here at the time. I remember these space fillers more than the actual gifts - I think there were nighties with yolks and high necks made of highly electrostatic material or t-shirts for the Oklahoma 49ers. The parcel always came a bit before Christmas and we would open when it arrived rather than waiting. Treat.

Snowy Scene

London snow - not like the Dundee snow (sis says its sometimes up to their knees, theres a foot of snow sitting on top of her outside bin, she has had to knock the icicles off their roof before they injure someone, push and dig a car out of her road along with 5 neighbours, and push an ikea delivery van out of the road - they live at the top of a steep hill and have been snowed in for a week now) - its a sprinkling in comparison and while we haven't been snowed in it has caused some travel chaos.

Court Room Drama

We had to go to court this week for reasons I'm not going to explain. I had to do a witness statement and therefore was called to be available to the court in case I had to answer questions on it. I imagined being cross examined by a rabid counsel for the defence and cracking under the questionning. Glad to say life is not like in the movies.

There were barristers in cloaks with funny bits hanging off the back (apparently for attracting their attention from behind by tugging on it... not sure I believed this explanation except it was given by a person with a humour by-pass) and wigs that looked like they were slightly balding. There was a judge sitting high up on a red leather chair, wearing purple, not making much eye contact. There was verbal ping pong between the barristers (my learned friend) and the judge (your honor). And a listings manager or clerk or something who was like a bouncer who liked talking in a booming voice (top of the stairs announcing the court number to the waiting room), All Rise when the judge went in and out of the room. Eventually when the barristers were conflabbing and the judge was out for a while he came through the court and said we all looked like we were waiting for the film to start, next time through he called out ice creams ice creams.

And the outcome wasn't exactly favourable and will be drawn out for potentially another year.

The Season (to be jolly)

So, having endured the onslaught since August by turning a blind eye (don't believe in even mentioning it until well after Halloween), my mind has finally turned to christmas with the current freezing weather and plans afoot. I made mincemeat for mince pies last weekend, the fruit for cake is soaking, to be made tomorrow, there will be goose (!?!) for dinner. The last time (and incidentally the only time) I cooked goose was one christmas at Georgia's. They cracked open the sparkly wine before getting the dinner in the oven. As the bottles stacked up someone had to take charge, otherwise we probably wouldn't have had any dinner at all. That time we just bunged it into the oven with all the usual stuff. This time I've been looking up recipes and advice. Apple sauce, or quince compote, and some kind of apple stuffing, it seems may be the thing. (Would you believe I'm a vegetarian? I've been practicing cooking poultry so it doesn't dry out all year - start it sitting on its breast - and I'm not sure if that's necessary with a goose.)

Haven't done any shopping yet though. Did pass through Oxford Street once and hardly dared get off the bus the crowds were so huge.

Social Network

iPhone app - Instagram - social networking through photography. I use my account to post pictures taken on my iphone as I go about. Other people treat it differently - posting only their best ever photos. Linking to others is called following, people who follow you are your followers, theres a link button at the bottom of each picture where you can like it. There's a popular page where the most liked photos appear. To be really popular you need to be doing really good landscape/urban photography, sunsets and sunrises of the dramatic type that we rarely get in the UK and kitten pictures.

Social networking always works the same way - there's a giant love-in for a few people that attract a lot of attention from those who want to become popular - these few grow huge followings, their posts are loved by many and always appear in the popular lists but they are unable to share the love with lesser known meteorites because it takes them so much time dealing with their own huge following. It was like this with blogging (7 years) and is like it with Instagram (10 days). One of the A listers of Instagram was bemoaning that they must be doing something to keep his pictures off the popular page - must be a bit of a dent to his superego (loss of popularity is a concern) but as one of his commentors said in a kind of aside - I'm still waiting for a picture to grace the popular list.

I find its like in reality - I've always been just slightly too left-field to be really popular. As a teenager I wore that as a badge of honor. Must learn to take that attitude to online social networking!

End of Term 1

So another 10 weeks (11 counting half term) has slipped past. We've made glaze, experiments, disasters, pots, failed to finish anything significant, eaten pizza, drank wine and sambucca and are now resting. In the last two weeks I have made some significant progress towards some better work but being as it was the last two weeks it isn't finished yet. There are still some pots with images of nudes on them in relief, a pot that was made in half an hour that is 65cm tall (still drying), and a pot for wooden spoons that looks a bit like a joke pot but hopefully will be less so when glazed. In the meantime the results of all the weeks are a rag tag of glazing and making experiements that have to be squirreled away in hidden corners.



Next term I already have a better plan and clearer idea of what it is I am attempting to make.

Last night we talked about what it is that we get out of attending the class - mixture of development of skill, playing with material, using hands and brain in different more primeaval manner and the results we are looking for - symmetrical and unsymmetrical, perfect and kooky, could only agree on one thing - we like it. What we do it for is completely individual and what we are trying to achieve is also.

On the use of pale green

Passed a launderette while on the bus. Pale green walls. Presumably when designing it pale green is going to feel clean and fresh. Together with bad lighting and steam, hardy plants and industrial washersa nd dryers it ends up dingy and drab, lending a sickly glow to the interior and people within.

Hospitals with high ceiled wards and corridors. Pale green here intended to be a soothing colour to help the sick get better. But too many years between coats means it looses its clean sheen and ends up dirty in the corners.

Lewisham College under the reign of the formidable Ruth Silver used pale green as the institution's colour. Not until I left working there did I appreciate how a single colour scheme and a redecorating schedule that ensured a new coat of paint over the whole college every year, kept the place seeiming orderly, clean and refreshed.

Bags

How can a supermarket run out of plastic bags? I know we are supposed to be cutting down on their use but for the whole store to run out seems like extraordinarily poor stock management. I mean, couldn't they have cab'd some over from the next store over (it's only 10 mins away). They were handing out bin liners instead - flimsy things that wouldn't hold 2 tins of beans without splitting. They wouldn't give out bags for life for free either. Many disgruntled customers.

Ceramics



Its almost the end of the term and I've managed to get not much done again. Done some experiments with glazes, and using shellac. But actual end results minimal.

Violated

I've had my email account hacked. Someone has stolen my password logged in and sent tonnes of people a spam email from me. If you are one of those people I profusely apologise. They also posted onto this blog (now deleted). Ugh. I feel like someone has been in my house rummaging around my papers. Broken in. Hate it. Maybe its more than burglary. Maybe its more like stealing your identify and pretending to be you. Actually this is a bit of an exaggeration but I don't like it all the same.

Remember remember



Didn't actually go to see any fireworks display this evening but looked out when I heard a loud crack to see a couple of colourful sparks sprinkling over the rooftops of my neighbours.

Action

Bus driver says might as well transfer to the bus behind we'll be here a while. 150 passengers file off the bus unsure of their likelihood of a squeeze onto a following bus due to the overcrowding from the tube strike. A militant italian cyclist was trying to get his bike half on the bus to stop the driver absconding while he called the police. A fellow passenger told me he was claiming the bus driver nearly ran him off the road. Believable, yes, but when the cyclist clearly wasn't injured and his bike wasn't damaged wouldn't a more appropriate course of action be to take the driver's shift number and lodge a complaint. Particularly when the tubes were on strike.

Early to Work

Been expected early to work. So having to get up at 6.30. Before the clocks went back it meant I saw the sunrise twice without getting up for it specially. Red and gold and lovely. Quiet time. Leaves have turned. Bright yellow, orange. Sometimes a bright blue sky behind. Leaving the house at 7.30. Emptier on the way to the station. Leaves under foot, not yet slimy. Train station is more crowded, train is more crowded. These are early start people. Suited. Booted. More ferocious in their quest for a seat. Fewer seats available and none of the emptying out of the train at Seven Sisters that there is when you set out an hour or so later. Walk to work from the station faced with more head on pedestrians hot-footing it to catch the train. Look for the cat lady (haven't seen her again since although once saw two cats who must have been remaining after).

Work - whirlwind of organising, deciding, troubleshooting, emailing, question-answering, telephone calls and other distractions. And hot.

Sun sets over the ridge in the west, shining gold evening light into the side of the building. Afterwork, it is dark or darkening. The air is light on the eyes which by now are tired. The quiet and cool of the outside is refreshing. Stand on the platform of the station, high over the surrounding neighbourhood. Navy blue sky. Aeroplane passing. Slouched in a seat, staring. Longer the week goes on (and it is only second day), more tired I become. Can't wait for the weekend.