Monday

The weather has been kind to me lately. I’ve now stepped out of many a building to the sight of washed out pavements and the squelch of trainer. That song ‘Why does it always rain on me –‘, hasn’t been in my internal charts lately. It’s really nice of her [rain] to have held onto the bucketloads of droplets and to only dish them out liberally whilst I’m indoors, particularly as I’ve had a sole flipping off my right Converse since Primavera Sound (how many allusions should I make to being a child of the Indie?) I received a worrying text from the mental yet responsible landlady after midnight on Saturday though:

Hiya. Make sure you girls are

checking those pumps with

this weather! In this rain the

boat will sink in minutes if

one of those pumps goes off.

Well she's not reassuring but at least she’s honest. And to be honest, the boat is fine, and the only trouble I’ve had with it is being locked inside before going to work, thus having to fling rucksack, body and all out of a roof hatch. It was like Indiana Jones: The Trailer Park Days. Saying that, I have come home tonight to find a member of the kitchen utensil crew has gone overboard. I’m not sure how it happened but the kitchen roll got loose from its hanging spot and now all that’s left is a limp trail of kitchen paper, and I assume the missing body [the rest of the roll] is floating somewhere in the Thames. Sorry Greenwich Council, but really it’s my loss (because I tend to spill things when I drink.)

Sunday

Nothing ever gets completed or started on a Sunday. Living on the boat with a goldfish and a non-existent cabin partner (Rose and/or Annina) makes it sort of boring. Lacklustre. Particularly when trying to do tasks, like making a cup of tea, there’s no one to shout through the door to.

‘Annina, do you want a cup of tea?’ 

No answer. Must not be in. I’ll boil the kettle anyway because I want a cup of tea. Then I’ll saunter off and have a look outside the boat and then put my shoes on to leave and then half-way down the street to the station I remember that cup of tea. I’d have loved that cup of tea, but maybe I need to be making it for someone else to prove to self the necessity of that cup and if no one answers back in the affirmative through that door, well, that’s just another unfinished task for Sunday.

Seeing the ex-housemates on a sunny sporadically showery Sunday made it all alright. We had a bbq on the terrace and whenever the skies threatened to rain, one of the men folk would wheel the bbq under a cover, and when it stopped (immediately after it started) they’d wheel it back out, and the girlfriends would carry the salad bowl and baps in their arms like a harvest. Either popping under shelter or stepping out in to glorious sunshine, like a farce, or a classic English bbq.

Saturday

Advice to self, don’t quell creativity when it comes. The boat is permanently moored in Creekside, Deptford which is in Deptford Creek. The view from the front end of the boat (I have no internet here so no point opening a browser to check what the nautical term is for the front end of a boat, all I know is “hull” and “portside”) is of marshland, which twice daily fills with murky water. It doesn’t sound idyllic but it strangely is. It’s a haunting beauty that creeps up on you. Some mornings and evenings when I come home at dusk, I meet the swans. There are two white and grubby looking swans, obviously a couple, who float around the boat and pull up weeds. They are peaceful to look at and completely uninterested in me.

It’s summer in London and the skies are either bright blue or a dull grey; the grey keeps in the heat and that’s when you feel muggy. Nothing to do with mugs but it can definitely feel muggy in the city during summer. You'd think that would be unpleasant but it also has it’s interesting consequences. People frown less and look more exasperated, which is a nice change from the commuter misery of London life. It’s so hot and muggy that people forget to fret about train delays and instead lean on things and wait with indignant tiredness and a “what’s the point” sort of attitude. Like I said, that’s a nice change.