Gardening jobs

Trimmed the tree
Trimmed the hedge
Mowed the lawn
Did some weeding

Amazing how much interest doing some yard work in the front garden can raise. Many offers of help (men's perception that women need help), lots of discussion about the good job being done, discussion of the tools being used.

Psycho Buildings

Caught sight of this at the Hayward Gallery Private View this evening. I want to see this.





Telegraph - series of pictures of the exhibits

Nearly

Woman with dog standing at the lights waiting to cross. Dog is very interested in the smell on the traffic light post. Cocked his leg and pee'd on it, narrowly missing owner's canvas shoes.

The Fly

I'm plagued. I'm starting to feel that this is one of those horror houses that innocent and hopeful young families move into in movies. They start out all bright and painted and slowly the house starts to show its dark side - shadows seeping out from under doorways that lead into cellars that are alive. My house had a rat living under the floor. It died when I poisoned it. It stank. Then the flies started. Big fat blue bottles, in the middle of winter. Finally it all went away and I forgot...

Until I came in from work one evening slung on the kitchen light and out of the corner of my eye saw a something slink back under the cabinets. Had to be a rat. More poison. More fretting. Called the council out. Ratman came and said I was doing everything right. Eventually it died. It didn't stink so badly. There weren't so many flies. It was all over again.

The last few days I have been plagued by flies. It started after the fruitflies started - they lay eggs in compost of house plants. I think I'm repotting stuff this weekend to deal with it. But now I have regular flies. Tonnes of them. There's no bad smells, but they are certainly eminating from somewhere. Probably something dead under the floorboards. Somewhere.

House of death.

Bake a Cake Day

Someone came up with this great scheme at work. No problem, I learned to bake when I was young and know that (as long as the oven is right and I pay proper attention in the cooking) I can make a good cake. Making the decision on the day before what exactly to bake was a bit more of a problem. Should it be something quick and easy - taste over beauty for a quick win (Amy, my sister's solution), or something complex and impressive to show off my baking prowess. Should it be something I've made before or something new. Should I please myself (i.e. chocolate) or think of the audience and do something else. Decisions decisions. Such a lot riding on it. What started out as fun-to-do, turned into a high pressure win/lose activity.

In the supermarket I still couldn't make a decision so bought the makings of rice crispy cakes, possibly making those and some other kind of cupcake, and cheesecake - in my mind it was topped with lemon curd and a drift of raspberries, and chocolate cake (couldn't decide whether it should be devil's food cake, brownies or something simpler). Got home with far too many ingredients and sat down to decide.

Started coming up with plausible excuses. Couldn't be bothered not being one of them. Kind of settled on something like I left it on the tube without realising, or someone knocked it out of my hand and it was ruined, or I was mugged.

Finally at 10.30 I stopped quibbling and baked a chocolate cake. Double sifted the flour (excellent tip for light sponge). Finally managed not to overcook something in my overly efficient fan-assisted oven (taken at least a year and a half to get used to it). Topped it with thin layer of butter icing and raspberries all over.

Next day having dragged it across London, not leaving it, not having it knocked out of my hands, put it out with the others - fortunately nobody else had baked chocolate, and nobody used fruit. So it was unique. There were marzipan rings, South African plaited donuts, Victoria sponge, cheesecake, flapjacks, banana bread, chocolate muffins, lemon cake and date and walnut loaf. My strategy was to have a very small piece of many of them. Others were going for big peices of everything. Others couldn't face it at 11.00am.

Ever had too much cake, even know that such a state existed? That's me today. Too much cake.

Parcel

I got an unable-to-deliver-parcel notice on the 12th May (day before my birthday). The only time I get parcels is when I've ordered somethig online, or an aunt or my sister sends me something. Due to the proximity to my birthday I deduced it was from my sister. I can never get to the post office collection until the weekend so I had 4 days to wait before knowing what it was. Still I felt it stretches the birthday celebrations out for longer which is always a good thing.

Saturday came, got up earlier than normal (have to get to the collection by 12.00), felt bright and breezy, and went off to get my parcel. Hoping for something exciting from someone. When I got there the lady behind the screen easily found me a little green box from British Gas which contained 4 energy efficient lightbulbs. Disappointed. Muchly. Not made any better becuase I have already changed over all my lightbulbs and have a stack of spares.

Tottenham folks

Exercising the dog (no, strike that), relieving the dog, on the local council block's scrap of grass. After the dog has done its business its back to the house - schlepping along the road in pink slippers and dressing gown.

Deer

Walking back to the office after a morning meeting discussing performance indicators (relevent, not relevent, relevent, not relevent) passed by this Stag Sculpture by Ben Long that is showing in a cleared building site where once a big block of flats stood.

B-day

I've had a suprisingly lovely day. Woke up with the sun shining in the bedroom windows and boyfiend said good morning. Love that thing of waking up face to face but not hot and bothered. Ate breakfast with the obligatory walk around the garden - inspecting yesterday's growth - what new things have appeared and how many centimetres the climbers have added on. My nephew (aged 3 and a half) left two messages on the phone singing happy birthday to you whilst bursting into giggles and not quite grasping the concept that in the middle you say dear so & so - instead we got a crescendo of happy birthdays.

Didn't tell anyone at work but felt rather upbeat ignoring the fact that I'm inching closer to the next dreaded decade. Lunchtime I bought cakes for the office. The office always shows great appreciation for afternoon chocolate fixes and so people wished me happy birthday and berated me for keeping it quiet. However I like low key, no fuss.

Anyway, I find myself in Las Iguanas waiting for dining party, sipping a mojito carefully constructed and not-too-vigorously shaken (so as not to get bits breaking off the mint and lime that can lodge in the straw and get in the throat) by a latino barman. Sun is still high over the Thames. Cool breeze. Feels like summer. And a happy birthday indeed.

Cartwheeling

At 34 my sister still feels the failure of not being able to do a cartwheel. This is not for want of trying. She still tries. The kids in the after-school club laugh at her because she can't do it. The problem lies, she feels, in the fact that she can't tell how it feels for her legs to go over her head. She thought she was getting it, until her husband videoed her attempts - only then did she realise her legs were barely 2 feet off the ground. She's good a somersaulting though. She said she can beat the kids at school in a somersault race down the hill. Small victories, or is it victories over the small?

Oh my god I can't believe it...

I might have just recovered from the election. Horrified that we elected Boris Johnson as our Mayor. I was stunned into silence. The full horror of it, I suspect, is yet to unfurl. Specifically I would like to know how have a tory as mayor will impact on the role of head of the London Skills Board - what will be the direction we will be driven in.

Saw a girl on the bus today wearing stretch denim jeans with anorexy embroidered on the back sitting just below the muffin top. Anorexy. What is that supposed to mean - combination of anorexia and sexy?

Ceramics Class

I haven't done much throwing - it didn't appeal that much to me - hard to make big dramatic things, lots goes wrong (just about make a nice shape and it slops off to the side or something). However, I found this foot peddled wheel that I could get more control of and found I liked it better. Threw these things. Quite liked it. Glazed them with a glaze that we mixed up last term.

Disenfranchised

My poll card hasn't arrived. I have the booklet with the candidates including a spread from the BNP which I find very offensive just by its exitence. But no poll card. So I figure I can't vote. Its made me really angry.


UPDATE: At 9:30pm I was rushing along trying to figure out where my local polling station might be. An elderly woman with a trolley and very large umbrella pointed the way and told me to run ahead so I could catch it. My name was in the list but crossed out because of having registered for a postal vote. Since the papers didn't arrive they let me vote anyway. I feel totally releaved. Didn't realise quite how upset I would be about the prospect of not being able to vote.

Massacre

Gardening close to where a honeysuckle hangs heavy over some elder I hear the feint squeaking of baby birds. Peering in through a gap in the foliage I spied 4 baby blackbirds beaks up to the sky mouths open and mother feeding them. Excited. I spoke to my neighbour about them. I resisted the urge to look through as much as possible but occassionally had a peek. Sometimes they are cheeping, sometimes their bodies just breathe heavily.

Coming back from a quite jaunt to Town on Saturday I a quick look and found the nest empty. My neighbour came out and told me there had been a ruccous an hour ago when 3 blackbirds were fighting with a magpie, they attacked him to no avail - his superior size meant he had not fear and got all four of the baby birds out of the nest and pecked three of them to death. The fourth one my neighbour rescued and put into the ivy at the back of his house but its hard to see how it may survive. 3 blackbirds against 1 marauding magpie. Perhasp thats why they call them a murder. We felt terrible.

Bus Stop Boogie

A young man practices his moves at the bus stop - later he'll be busting them down the dance floor. He likes the sandy scratching sound his trainers make against the newly laid pavement. Shoop shoop scatchscatch bo. Knees and feet speed skiiing on sand. He checks the shapes in the reflection of the glass. Then he turns it into a move that takes up space. Throws in a spin. Hikes up his customised jeans (cut at buttom seams so they hang lower down the back of the trainer, waitband cut in 3 places presumably so they slide down more) a little further up his arse - clearly the green belt around his bottom is for colour and not to hold his strides up.

Here but not here

Saturday night busy with stuff, forgot to cook dinner, ate some chilli rice crackers while watching Shawshank Redemption. Great film. Went to bed. Woke with churning stomach and had to run to get to the bathroom to throw up. And again. And again later. Spent Sunday in great agony, in bed, drifting from sleep to listening to the voices on the TV, to becoming aware of the telephone ringing and having strange disjointed conversations with people. Getting downstairs to get water felt like a test. Cold and hot. Shivers and sweats. Still hard to get up, felt pummelled inside and out. Felt bruised from the bed, couldn't find comfortable positions for my arms but couldn't stay upright for longer than five minutes. Could make more comprehensive conversation while laying down.

Finally Tuesday arrived. One last night sweat and it seemed to be over. Carefully reintroducing food. Legs felt hollow. But the delirium has gone. And the aching stomach and limbs. What a relief. There were times when it had felt never ending, day and night rolling together, endless hours, unable to get comfortable in or out of bed.

Costa Coffee Tottenham Hale

The broker gave away my 10.00 o'clock appointment at 10.00 40secs. Just after which I arrived. So I left.

Went to Tottenham Hale to buy a lawn mower. Tottenham Hale is a "shopping centre" in the loosest possible sense. Perhaps more of an arena. Anyway a recent injection of new shops (1 Boots, 1 Next) has enabled a desolate area glorify itself (new signs, new planting, new pedestrian routes with zebra crossings). It has Costa Coffee - probably the poshest cafe for a mile radius, perhaps more.

When I sit down with a tea - its just me and 4 male couples. Breakfasting, continental style. Later a turkish man and his brassy blond girlfriend come in. Her large bottom is squeezed into stretch denim with crowns embroidered on the pockets. They canoodle across the table. Her finger traces his moutache, twirling the ends. When she goes to the loo he gets out his hanky and cleans his nose and wipes his forehead. Then he brings out a walkie talkie and speaks to an operator at the other end. Maybe he's security and on his break. Perhaps he has many girlfriends - one for every break...

3 Men Talking

Somehow the only one who wants to be on the stage is the curator, David A. Ross, - obviously used to talking about art in a critique way. The artists seem to be unable to open their mouths while talking. Peter Campus does comment that when talking between themselves artists talk in one way but when talking to critics or curators they talk in a completely different way. At which point Douglas Gordon brought up the word wank. Neither american understood the word. So he defined it. When we were at college we called it art wank. That very specific type of art bullshit designed to make the art seem ever so clever but also contribute to the fact that the art isn't getting its message across clearly enough in its chosen medium.

Peter Campus also talked about his work not having words, ever, even when created. He then became very monosyllabic. Clearly didn't have many words at all. Both artists felt that art should be transcendental but defined it in different ways Peter say art should be more than the artist intended, Douglas that it needs to be something 'else' than the artist intended.

And so it continued. The two artists chatted amongst themselves about their dinner the previous night. The curator tried to ask questions that would provoke a discussion. Peter Campus would answer with a yes or no if it fitted. Douglas Gordon would answer his questions for him. Perhaps as the younger artist being more afraid of the possible silence... Ultimately we felt a terrible talk, largely because so little discussion was had and certainly nothing leading to any great insight into art or the use of video as a medium. And the Tate Modern projected such poor quality reproductions that the artists stopped allowing them to be shown.

Sky

Clear cloud golden edge as teh sun dips behind. Closer, a large blurry cloud hangs lower in the sky - sinking towards the street - raining not too far away in a very localised shower. Blue and pink and grey.

Elevation Technician Lingo

"Independent Lift Services, can I help you"
"I wanted to find out how much it would cost to change our lift panel - let me explain what happens - a person gets in and presses the button for their floor and the lift goes to that floor but if someone is waiting at a floor between they can't stop the lift - they have to wait until it goes back down to the bottom to start again."
"Let me put you through to a lift technician... putting you through..."
"Hello"
"Hi, we have a funny lift that will only let one button be pressed at once and we wanted to get a quote for how much it would be to change it to make it let all buttons be stopped at once."
"So, what happens exactly?"
"A person gets in and presses the button for their floor and the lift goes to that floor but if someone is waiting ... Does that make sense?" Colleagues corpse in the background, totally confused by the first and second explanations.
"Yes perfectly - that's what is known as 'single collective only' and what you want is 'full collective'."
I am astounded. There are descriptors, simple descriptors, for what I am talking about. He understands me, I can now describe our lift workings without having to resort to long complex scenario. I feel liberated and knowledgable. When I come off the phone I teach everyone my new found lingo. They all think I'm nuts.