I managed to sharpen the knives

My dog and I have been ill like “baton touch” as the Japanese would say, which means, as if we were running a relay race and passing on the baton of illness to one another. 

First it was my dog’s ears, I believe. They became infected after she scratched them to bits, possibly because she had an allergic reaction brought on by the summer’s heat. Ah – the summer. 

Yet even though it’s October the warm sunny days seem to be here to stay. Nothing wrong with that, apart from when I was ill and bed bound, I was forced to watch the beautiful blue sky days pass by through my windows. 

In the garden I felt the warm summer breeze caress my dry skin, my tan already faded to old terracotta. In the bathroom I squirted aloe vera gel onto my arms and legs and wondered when did summer happen, exactly?

When I talk with my Obaachan in Japan the summer has definitely been happening. Too much, too hot – unbearable. 

People ask me how is your grandmother doing? I tell them, well, she’s doing well but she’s almost ninety and we’re going back to Japan to see her for her 90th birthday. Then I follow up with the caveat that because Japan’s summer has been so hot, so humid, she’s housebound. Everyone needs an air-conditioner to survive; she can’t get out to walk to the shops or meet her friends, so she feels weaker. Also, bored. The old people in her area are all locked up in cooled rooms, like during lockdown.

I’m getting married next year. Which is why I’m going to Japan for Obaachan’s birthday and also taking an entourage of English folk with me who are all related to my husband-to-be. There will surely be a lot of culture-shocks form both family clans. I’ll have to be the translator. The lone translator between ten people all of whom want to understand one another – I’ll not think about how difficult or fundamentally impossible this task may be until I’m on the very expensive flight to Haneda, to save my wits.

The reason I got ill is because I was trying to be good at all my jobs and it took its toll. I have my paid job then my charity job then my wedding job then my house job – all the while pulling along my little brown dog ROLO with me wherever’s dog friendly. (I also think I have an aversion to rest, or I’ve taught myself how to tolerate being too busy, whichever it is, my habits aren’t great.) No wonder the two of us get ill together.

Here's how it went: I was thinking about different people and languages, and working to a school calendar at the same time as the standard calendar, and then my dog hurt her paw, so she was a hob-along in bandages wearing dumb paw-boots; I did First Aid Training which made me afraid of everything killing everyone, specifically through catastrophic blood loss, then I gave a speech in front of an audience at a Japanese festival on an unseasonably hot day and cried in front of everyone when I mentioned my dead mother, then a girl wearing a green headscarf and pink kimono (rad combo) handed me a tissue from the crowd; I got thrush and back at home I curled up in a heap under a cheap blue velvet duvet with my dog and slept for 80 hours. 

The torrent of activities made me miss summer, during which I had this strong desire to use my whetstone I had bought a year ago to sharpen the kitchen knives. I was slicing some chilies and realised the knives were blunt – right after my First Aid Training course – and freaked out about the dangers of blunt knives, so became determined to sharpen them. 

But alas, I went to Norfolk to visit friends who have a little girl and live next to the ruin of a Norman castle. Then I went to my fiancée’s family home to help clear the garden because they’re hosting our wedding next year. I also went to Oxford to walk through ancient Wytham woods with a friend. 

The rail strikes finally put an end to my weekends away. Once the plug got pulled on my adrenaline, I got ill and then all my other inane worldly tasks were forgotten too, like updating Instagram or boiling eggs.

It then became October and half-term was being mentioned and it was still unseasonably warm. The charity has finally begun to close down, and I’ve had some rest, and I’ve even stopped drinking alcohol to give my immune system the helping-hand it was crying out for.

I’ve spoken to my Obaachan, and she says it’s finally started to cool down in Japan as well. She tells me she is able to go outside again; she is so grateful for Autumn. 

I have noticed the immense number of spiders living in and around my house. Munching flies and leaving their corpses dangling by threads like mobiles from my ceiling. They’re fattening themselves up and I say go ahead, just please don’t be poisonous. ROLO ate some poisonous red berries from a yew tree, and I had to go to an emergency vet to get her stomach pumped. I wish she had more canine street-smarts, but in good news, I am no longer ill.

Today I have turned a momentous corner in my life. I managed to sharpen the knives. I know that the seasons are turning, and I’m pleased with the way things are going. Even though, when I look at my garden the tulip bulbs I planted three days ago have been unearthed by some squirrel (or my dog), I know I’ll live to fight another day.

What I do when left to my own devices

I’m woken by a yelp. 

Groggy with the taste of gin and the sound of bass fading back into sleepy memory, I listen in bed hoping that it wasn’t my dog downstairs making that high-pitched whine. Yelps again. Yes, it was. My bones creak and I look at the alarm clock which says something like four in the morning. Admittedly it is dawn outside and she can sense these things. I hear the first birdsong through the crack in my window. I pad downstairs, open her crate door, thump back upstairs and go back to bed. 

My second awakening is more at my own pace but still I wish I had had more sleep. I open the fridge to find the coffee from yesterday, now chilled. I pour it into my blender with ice cubes, oat milk and Oreos and make myself a cup of coffee-Oreo milkshake. I scoop the delicious sludge into my mouth with a spoon and drink the dregs. 

I look through catalogues and newsletters which have been posted through our door. One is the local Borough’s newspaper; we’ve got a new mayor and they’re holding a sheep shearing demonstration next Saturday at the park which has a deer enclosure. I hadn’t known they kept sheep too – saying that I did spot a lone goat behind bars there. I flick through wines you can buy per bottle or in crates, browse seedlings and bulbs which could be planted in our unsuccessful flowerbed, and put tick marks next to natural dogs treats I’d like to buy. All the while listening to BBC World Service with their eclectic range of current affairs programs.

I stretch, I yawn, I scratch. Unload the dishwasher. Decide to take ROLO on a big, long walk as the weather has been too hot for those recently, also I went out last night leaving her alone for ages, so I owe her one. I put on an outfit worthy of a Pokémon trainer (cap, backpack, trainers) and head out towards Crossness. It’s about a 3-hour round walk barely crossing any roads, so it’s safe for ROLO to be let off-leash a lot of the time.

The grass is dry and patchy. The path is dusty and at points dotted with dried desiccated turds. Buddleia are growing up and up, and there are these small faint pink flowers on spiky stems which are buzzing with bees. (Later on, I’ll find out online that these bushes are probably Hawthorn trees). There are new residential buildings being built on brownfield sites and a train station is undergoing major maintenance works. Everything on the outskirts of London is having to be resized and reinforced for more people. We are at the point of perpetual growth.

The sun starts to come out and ROLO is panting. We sit on a bench. I give her a long drink of water and some dog treats while looking out across the Thames River where there’s a huge recycling centre on the other side with cranes and diggers shovelling mounds of rubbish. When we get home I give ROLO dog food and myself some homecooked Japanese curry with pickles. I sit outside in the sun and drink a tall glass of water with ice cubes in, enjoying the garden, which is pleasantly tranquil with all the bamboo swishing around.

I’m getting the fold-up chair at the bottom of the garden ready to have a doze in, when I notice there’s a dead pigeon behind it on the ground covered in flies. The pigeon is lying face down with its clawed feet sticking up in the air, looking like something had attempted to bury it and then gave up. The bird’s greyish blue feathers are open at the chest where I can see into its bloody cavity and discern a dark red heart within a gaping hole. 

I look at ROLO who is nonchalantly lying on the sunny patch of grass. I look back at the pigeon. Something killed it. It’s too bloody and torn up for it to have “passed away”. A fox may have dropped it. My dog still looks nonplussed as I go inside to fetch a plastic bag and some disposable gloves. I can’t be sure what happened but I’m about 60% certain that my pet killed this pigeon. I’m almost sick when I put the surprisingly dense carcass into the bag and drop it into our black bin outside. I immediately regret not double bagging it.

I go back inside and wash my hands thoroughly and go put on a quiet podcast through my Bluetooth headphones. I sit back in the chair at the bottom of the garden and peep out from under my cap. I can see a satisfying slice of blue sky and the yellow-green of the bamboo shoots. The sunshine isn’t strong, and I’ve got sunscreen on and a bottle of water on my lap. Listening to some people speaking about poetry I un-reluctantly drift off into a light sleep. Even though I’m not quite awake, I can still sense the pink sunlight behind my eyelids and I’m content.

 

Being good tired

June has happened without much deliberation. The onset of summer is heady, and I get filled with the prospect of late summer evenings drinking beers on rooftops and in open fields. Wedding after wedding have filled weekends, a panoply of love. Friends have flown in and stayed at our house enjoying the cosy offerings of the “Japanese Pub”. 

ROLO has acclimatised to new people arriving and has slept on the floor beside them, snuggling into their sleeping bag and pretending they are their own pack, away from civilisation. One guest awakes saying that I tap away at my keyboard ‘just like a drummer’ with intent and in short bursts.

We’ve gained a beautiful bouquet of flowers from friends who stayed here – but didn’t get to set eyes on because we were at different weddings. They left lilies and carnations in a vase, alongside a nice bottle of gin, classy. A new shiny soap dish that’s like a thin polished piece of wood has appeared on my bathroom sink to help out my formless disintegrating soap. 

As they sleep upstairs on the futon, I’m downstairs tap tap tapping away furiously. I’ve met old friends I haven’t seen in years and made new ones who happen to be in London. It feels good for once to be tired because I’ve been spending my time trying to fit it all in. I’ve learnt a new word too: orchidaceous.

My Canterbury Pilgrimage

In the summer of 2021,

I undertook a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury with three friends and a dog.

You can read my account of it here via an ArcGis Story Map: https://arcg.is/15q1CS0

There's pictures and interactive maps too. 

https://arcg.is/15q1CS0

Rice

In my kitchen while pottering around I put the leftover rice from the curry last night into a bowl and pour hot water over it (I don’t know where I learnt this). I think it’s an interpretation of Japanese ocha-zuké, where you pour green tea over cold rice, adding some condiments to make it into a palatable refreshing gruel. It’s to decrease waste – my Obaachan absolutely hated wasting anything – a child of The War. If there’s rice stuck to the bottom of the pan then simply add water, put it on the heat and stir. Throw in chopped cabbage, ginger, maybe a dash of soy sauce, spring onions. Why not crack an egg? Don’t you worry, I know what to do with leftover rice.

I use both hands to lift my bowl and carry it surreptitiously into our garden, tiptoeing across the patio slabs so as not to get my feet dirty. I manoeuvre onto the wicker chair and listen to the birdsong trilling. Energetic weeds push up between the slabs – they must’ve gone through a growth spurt during this hot spell – peach coloured roses droop from their stems and the lavender is buzzing. I pull my spoon around the bowl and up to my mouth to get the intense salty taste of chicken stock, the spicy tang of curry cubes and the wholesomeness of white rice.

This is the first time I’ve stayed in London over summer. My world has shrunk enormously, just like everyone else’s and eating food has become an event. Slowly my mind feels like it’s being re-wired to approach situations differently, with more time and flex, simply, the world seems more bendy.

I’ve lived here all my life and still the habits of Obaachan bubble up inside me. For an eighty-six-year-old she moves pretty fast. She might be talking to you from the kitchen, but when you reply she’s already out in the back-garden sweeping the paving stones. I can never keep track of her movements in her own home because that is her domain. Her hair is tightly permed framing her robust face like a cropped lion’s mane; she usually wears an indigo smock with a fetching owl motif over her clothes when she executes her cleaning rituals. Every morning Obaachan gets down on her hands and knees and wipes the floorboards; vacuum-cleans the carpets, both upstairs and downstairs. I caught her once, astride the bath-tub in oversized wellingtons (to stop her feet from getting wet), reaching up to the corners of the ceiling with a mop. I told her to get down carefully and never do it again. What if she were to slip and crack her head on the side of the solid stone bath? She bared her teeth and laughed at me, saying she would never do it again. As if I believed her.

I speak to my grandma every Sunday, although since lockdown it’s been more frequent – it was the best thing we did getting her a smartphone. When I see her pixelated world on my screen it reaffirms for me that another reality can exist. I see the rice-grass spun rope hanging from the kami dana (shrine) in her living room. This small wooden shrine is a house for the many gods, or kami and is positioned just below the ceiling, so when Obaachan holds up her camera phone, the kami dana floats above her head in the background. On the altar stands two vases of freshly cut leaves, a cup of water, and salt on a white porcelain dish. It’s something special that over the many earthquakes her house has endured the kami dana has never come crashing to the ground. I examine the background while talking to her and occasionally I’ll convince myself that her world and my world are not contradictory. Even though our cultures are different, I perfectly understand us.

This physical distance that’s been imposed on us is not too dissimilar from how we used to live. I only get to see her once a year – meeting only once a year isn’t enough when you’re over eighty – we both know realistically there’s not many years left. But this virus has made plans uncertain, a mental breach of something we both held so dearly, the promise of seeing each other again. Missing someone like that isn’t something you can do every day, otherwise the pull gets too strong and becomes a strain. It wears you down and you start to lose hope. So, as long as Obaachan keeps cleaning and I stick to my work… holding the bigger picture in my head, we will share a meal together again. It will be alright.

We have a rice-cooker in Japan, which Obaachan uses every day. Usually she cooks 1 gō of rice for herself (approximately 1 cup) because rice doesn’t keep, but when I’m visiting, she cooks up to 5 gō a piece. ‘Rice tastes better when you are here’, she says to me because the grains become fluffier with a greater volume of water and cooking time. A pang of pity swells inside me because I am reminded, every day she eats alone. Obaachan who is such a good storyteller, captivating us with her funny asides and character voices. Why does she have to eat alone? Because her eldest daughter emigrated to England, her younger daughter married-out to another man’s family as is the way, and her husband died.

I think about her now as I eat my rice. The two of us separated by thousands of miles – it’s not impossible – we could be eating rice at the same time. Not in the same place but in the same present performing the same actions, as in a ritual, finishing off a half-drawn circle; stirring my spoon around the bowl’s edge, tasting the sacred white rice.

Tanabata 七夕

I celebrated Tanabata at home in South London, with my new housemates.

This is a traditional Japanese summer festival which is connected to the stars. Legend goes that there is a weaver and a cowherd up in the Heavens who fall in love. But because they fall in love so deeply, they abandon their duties. The sacred silk stops being woven and the cattle wander all over the place. The god who oversees Heaven is pretty angry, so he splits the lovers apart by the Milky Way. Now, only once a year on Tanabata are the couple allowed to meet at the stellar river. To aid them, a flock of magpies appear to create a bridge for them to cross and meet.

It’s a pretty sweet story and has a relation to the stars in our actual galaxy: Altair and Vega. These are part of the summer triangle, which are the brightest stars you can see in the northern hemisphere at this time of year. When the two stars become brightest it means that it is the height of summer, and if you are able to look at them during a dark night sky – in between Vega (the brightest of the two stars and the weaver) and Altair (cowherd) you can distinguish the Milky Way.

On Tanabata, one of the things we do is write wishes on colourful strips of paper called tanzaku, then hang them from a bamboo tree. Here is the emoji to prove it 🎋 You can wish for anything really, like passing your driving test or world peace. Whatever you want. I made somen noodles for dinner, which are thin and white and symbolise the Milky Way, while Simon fried tempura. The best combination is the crunchy fried-ness of the vegetables, dipped in the light noodle broth.

I told Obaachan about me celebrating Tanabata with friends in London. She told me that when she was a girl, she remembers her father going out on Tanabata to gather very long reeds from the river. He would sit on their front porch and wind the reeds around each other. She remembers he would weave out of the reeds two horses, then face them towards each other and bind them together with bamboo. On Tanabata he would release the two horses on to the river for them to be carried away by the water.

‘Why did he do that?’ I asked.

Obaachan makes a hmmmm sort of noise, as if both recalling and trying to work it out.

‘I wonder? It was probably something to do with the region.’ She grins, ‘They were really good horses though.’

Greek Roadtrip

Driving around Crete with two friends

Peckham Perspective (or how World Cup fever worked)

WHITE HORSE

A pub where the interior decor is like a greenhouse with hanging succulents and skylights, lifting that heavy dingy pub atmosphere. You can breathe in here. The average age is 24, in fact it’s the most healthy and nonchalantly dishevelled crowd I’ve seen. Stylish ironic sports caps worn askew, and frayed backpacks that look like hand-me-downs from war veterans at Dunkirk. A vegan burger is over £10 and doesn’t come with chips - that are handcut by the way. The football is playing on one screen at the end of the room. It’s the England Vs. Colombia Round-16, I’m not very familiar with football but I’m here. Leaning across the bar with splayed elbows to cool down, at least I can see the ball. With my glasses on I can also see everyone else. Around a third of those watching care about the game, but the rest are hanging out with their tribe in a chill environment sipping on their locally brewed beers. Even in the height of summer dark ale is being supped. Once, the ball grazes the side of a goal post and skims off the pitch, people clap and give a single shout that feels like a pat on the back.

NAG’S HEAD

An England flag hangs under the telly. Tacked to the wood panelling with drawing pins, stamped in. The white of the St. George’s Cross is stained by nicotine and time. There's clenched fists and pint glasses filled with lager - lager - lager - you can even buy tinnies in here. The guy sat alone at the back with the sideburns and mullet is draining his can right now. He leers at the girls on my table like a maniac and grins with no frills and broken teeth. Everything is brown in colour, mauves and maroons seep through. Upholstery like the carpet of a forgotten ferry, docked in the shipyard since the late 1970’s. Around the island of tables in the middle of the pub are Great White Sharks. Big Fat Lads with Bald Heads. Bellies.

Gawan my Son
Not laaaaaaikely
Playin’ like bollocks
Take it daaaaaan tha liiiiiine
BOLLOCKS!
Keep ‘old of it son
Take your time, son

The match is being played over three screens. Every man is steaming, shouting, seething at all angles. I see spittle and raw joy, incensed blokes who look like they’re having the time of their lives but are about to explode. Slurs and You Wot!? Chucked at the Colombian shirt wearing cunt, perched like a pile of meat skewered to a stick on his stool. Jeering. Eruptions of laughter. You can’t take a joke? 

It’s what we call an Old Man Pub but I feel more raw energy in here than a playground. A fruit machine flashes wildly against the wall. When Colombia scores the mood gets cut. Silence like a soldier got shot. The guy in orange hi-vis punches the door and walks out on to the street, where we go next.

It’s Extra Time as we walk the length of Peckham High Street. Every window, in every shop is playing the Game. Hairdressers, chicken shops, John the Unicorn, newsagents. We peer through panes of glass at the scores staying static. We walk on through the quiet and empty street. The summer heat hangs heavy with pressure over the tarmac, and the traffic lights change colour to no oncoming vehicles. 

PECKHAM LEVELS

A converted car park with a good heavy-handed lick of paint, since I last saw it. I remember a bare building with you know those holes between the car park levels, between floor and ceiling. Because you know car parks are concrete slabs made for sheltering cars not people, though sometimes skaters use them and homeless people. Well let me tell you! Now there are windows! And fluorescent tinted tubes and industrial sized fairy lights, and wacky chairs and a working bar and proper toilets, the works. They’ve got a big screen playing the match and now it’s on to penalties. Groups of thirty year olds in tight polo shirts and arm bulges, wearing espadrilles, share a jug of beer and gesture with boyish excitement. Boho chic, tussled hair, the ambient mood-lighting is flushed with pink, setting off the sunset hues dissipating over the city scape outside and damn - this is so Instgrammable. England scores! The room erupts and hushes. Colombia misses. The room claps and hushes. The final kick is coming. The ball is soaring. England SCORES!!!!!!!! 

Field Notes from an Anthropologist: There are three pubs in Peckham filled with three types of people. I’m part of it. The hipsters, working class, and yuppies. There are invisible barriers that exist between the pubs and their clientele but the footie breaks them down. Because when you are all sharing in one activity (you could call this common activity a ritual), you can be different but it’s okay because you are all doing the same thing. 

Spirit level

I had to spend the hot sunlit days caged inside an office. Outside there was the repetitive pounding of a crane, breaking up the hard ground beneath the silt under the Thames. I imagined it giving migraines to those walking by, but filtered through my thick walls it was like the quickened strikes of a clock tower, madness. 

I ride the train every morning and some days I can concentrate on reading, other days I cannot and stare past people. There has been a lot of that lately and the views are not great. The backs of buildings and concrete. Scaffolding. As we approach the city there is too much glass. The whole train carriage overhears something that sounds salacious to the speaker - sleeping with a middle manager - but for the rest of us it as a nuisance disaffecting the daily commute.

Amongst one of these days I am leaning against a luggage compartment, blockaded by a rucksack and some shoulders, then holding on to the railing before me I see the back of a hand close-up. In biro it is written SPIRIT LEVEL. I think hard about what this could mean, until I follow the hand up the arms to see it is connected to a man dressed in overalls, with dust and paint all over his shirt. I turn back to stare at the grey everything with an extinguished sense of wonder. 

But for the last weeks I have been thinking about what it could have meant before I realised what it actually meant. ‘How’s your spirit level?’ Is a good question. If I asked myself that recently it would be, ‘Particularly low today. And your’s?’ There have been invites sent in the post sealed with happiness about weddings for me to receive in my pyjamas to feel slightly saddened about. My twenties are over. I have managed to accumulate things, which remind me that I once got that with the hopes of... then I feel a twinge of disappointment in myself or the thing for not following through with it. 

An ex-boyfriend sends me an e-mail about turning thirty and living in Honolulu or ‘Wherever the wind takes me’. The billboards on the side of buses carry slogans that don’t make sense with the aim to make me linger on their messages; I fall for it. The possibility of getting a dog seems distant, while I get invited to flat-warmings and take in the nice scenery and accept that people are moving on.

Though spirit levels are about balance and some days I am high. Like when sitting in the sunshine in a park I have only just discovered and fallen in love with, for it’s the site of a Victorian ruin. Resting a sleepy head on my lap, stretching apart my toes and watching a grandmother fanning herself, as her grandson shows off tricks on his new scooter. Spirit level rising. Later I had a bubblegum flavoured ice cream from a van, which was bright blue and had a similar chewy consistency to gum. Proving that childhood memories can be bettered by current ice cream flavours. 

So things are not all that bad and not all that good. But I do feel slightly off-balance.

Warming thoughts for coming Winter

Cat scrambles up tree chasing after squirrel. 

Her tails whips around the trunk

Squirrel’s tail twitches furiously round and round

The chase becomes a mad scramble. 

Does she catch him? 

Claws and fur.

Leaves.

I have been inundated with books. It’s no bad thing but I need to make time to read them all. No examination coming up. But lethargy is a killer and I always moan that I want to be learning something so I should bloody well open up my brain to all the words. 

It’s autumn now and winter tomorrow. The outside weather makes us all want to stay inside. This happens every year and still it’s unpredictable for me, difficult to commit my heart to. The reason is because it’s unwanted, when it’s getting sunnier and warmer it’s easy to expect it in fact you can’t wait for it. 

I love summer. Friends invite more people out in the summer. We all went swimming in a pond once, no twice. The muddy cold fresh water of Hampstead Heath, leaves stuck to the hair and algae skin. A tiny pool more like a contemporary puddle in the midst of skyscrapers and the new Google outfit, we shared the water with ducks and ran screaming in to a sauna that looked like a barrel.

You can think fondly of those things because it’s life affirming. Exhilarating. But now. Now it’s wet and cold and a political shitstorm so, why would we choose to get out of bed. 

Hole up and read for the winter and eat warm nuts and soup. That’s the life.

Primavera Sound Porto (playlist)

Listen via Soundcloud to my Primavera Sound Porto playlist

With my arm bound in poly-thaaine (Withnail fans bow in adoration) I am aware I have not yet done my packing nor got any Euros out or checked my train journeys to the airport. Again I loll about in a lull of time listening to tracks that flicker because of our super-slow broadband connection and the light outside my window only exists because of pollution. Off to a beach town. Off to a port. My arm is wrapped in cling film because I burnt it on the frying pan flipping courgettes. I wonder what will happen when I wake up.

Seasons

I look down the corridor and it is still. I look out of the window and I see a formation of seven geese soar above the roof. I bought a chilli plant this morning and was given a white porcelain pot to place it in. The stolen clock now contains batteries and tocks above the bookshelf.

*

There is nothing profound in saying this: how times change. Everyone’s said it. And everyone’s felt it I bet. The return of seasons make progress seem familiar but times are never similar. Not that I’ve found anyway. I have always had a penchant for chilli plants and that began two years ago when I lived in an ex-council flat in Bethnal Green, which was a pub crawl away from Columbia Road Flower Market that opens every Sunday. The narrow street would fill to bursting with flowers; stalls and hawkers; coffee enthusiasts and fixed-gear bicyclists; expectant skinny mothers and babies in suede, it was a version of heaven - back then. And I would try and pick up the dregs of flowers that hadn’t been sold at the end of the day, because it was cheaper still and I would always be enticed by the chilli plants. The red and yellow bulbs that shone, and I knew you could eat them and the taste would be sweet or bitter and if you’re lucky, extremely hot.

Friends I cared about but no longer see stayed with me back then. In my rented apartment that I no longer live in nor share with the people I knew (the housemates have all scattered too.) The friends who stayed over had only just finished university with me and so there was real promise of visits and “no plans over the weekend” and such and such. And when I think of the daily trials and tribulations of two years ago it was different – I was drunk more, I couldn’t tell if I enjoyed my job at all, people who meant nothing meant everything, and the Winter seemed long. Maybe Winters always seem long and we forget because Summer stupefies us.

Today on the bus a woman thus spoke to a neighbour:

‘Make the most of the sunshine

You don't know when the breeze is coming

In this town

And the darkness'

In her Caribbean accent she had directed it at a neighbour who wasn't sat beside her. Oh, there was someone there certainly; it wasn’t a call of madness. It was sound advice. Later she fell asleep. I heeded it. I should be enjoying every minute of this.

Back and Forward

Birdsong rushes in through the open windows. The weekend has been and gone. A new day has started.

One would think being back where you went to school is a bit of a regression. Intimate knowledge of a wall you used to hide behind to smoke cigarettes at lunch break, or the school gates that you passed through a decade ago daily would be somehow a reminder of things you left behind. But in fact, they are memorabilia now, like nuggets of memory to fold-up and place into your left breast-side pocket to be patted down every now and then. For reassurance and nostalgia. I was that. Now I’m this.

*

Books on philosophy – the names of modern political theorists adorn my wall – a book shelf absolutely teeming with all the knowledge and know-how that I don’t possess. The dormant army sit there offering up a quiet challenge to be better. Get smarter. Come on, read me if you can. I can’t imagine anything more enticing to return home to and it fills me with gladness that I’m going to be able to live in this house that’s a home.

We get milk delivered to our doorstep in clear glass bottles.

The window of my room faces east, so sunlight pours in whenever I can manage to open the curtains like I did this morning. Big yellow trees are splodges on my sightline, a townhouse garden extends forwards in to thickets, I see some allotment patches, one small misted-up greenhouse and a shiny spider’s web that glints once or twice before it disappears. Nothing is dramatic nor apparent and it’s bliss waking up to the niceness of this.

A few marauding cats get shooed off the grass and the leaves blaze leaving a trail of summer behind before falling in to autumn.

Heatwave and more fish

I had thought about buying another bowl for the boat. At the moment we can’t both eat soup at the same time, nor anything else that requires a bowl, for that matter. I had thought about buying another bowl for the boat but I had thought about many things since walking aimlessly around this store because the heat had made me go insane. I gladly stood still in the milk and cheese aisle for 10 minutes considering my options about a bowl and then bought a cucumber and left.

Heat brings it out of people. Crying (a woman outside the Tube station, into her hands with a friend stooped low to help), fighting (beefcake boys on bikes skidding and smacking), cavorting, frolicking, rollicking, shouting with jubilation at passers-by because they’re happy or sad or mad. It’s a bad rad heat that’s struck London this week. Tubes like slums, pubs like slums, everywhere like slums, with temporary shacks along the pavement springing up comprised of pimms-in-a-can or slimline-gin-and-tonic-in-a-can or something else that clatters. I bought a can of coconut juice which instantly became tepid when I left the coolness of the newsagents. 

‘Excuse me!’

I don’t hear a thing because I’m miles away sitting on my boat rooftop, my thoughts are like smudges.

‘Excuse me! Hey there miss!’

Oh it’s a child. On a bike. With a friend. What does he want… ‘Yeah?’

‘Do you know where you can buy fishing stuff around here?’

‘Not really.’ I go back to my staring out across water at nothing. But they’re still there waiting expectantly on their tiny bikes. I have no clue how old they are but I don’t think they could mug me because their bikes are so small.

‘I thought because you live on a boat you’d know where to buy the stuff.’

He said “stuff” with this inflection that made it sound like drugs and I’m no dealer, of fishing stuff or any stuff. ‘What sort of stuff?’ I calmly ask because it’s just so very hot.

‘Fishing stuff.’

I feel like we’re going in circles. Then the other one perks up, he’s on the small red bike.

‘Oi, do you reckon there’s fish in here bruv?’

‘Yeah I reckon so.’

‘I saw a massive carp get caught the other day, so sure there’s fish in the canal.’ I’d apparently decided to be part of their conversation.

‘So you do fish!’

‘No. A man was fishing.’

‘Where’s this man then?’

‘I don’t know.’ I stayed still and quiet but they still noticed me and looked in my direction expectantly so I shrugged and pointed and said: ‘He went that way’. 

And with that they left. 

I heard a crash of breaking glass hitting pavement, a roar of applause and some ensuing argument or other dissipating from the pub in the opposite direction to where the two boys headed. They hadn’t caused the commotion but the sounds of laughter and braying of men and women wafted over the river for eternity in this heat. I bet they’re cycling extravagantly towards Mile End.

Light at the end of the tunnel and fish

Feeling quite lucky today, walking along the tow path back to my boat. 

This weekend we sailed from King’s Cross to this part of town, Angel of Islington, a nice part of town. To come out on this side of the canal however we had to drive through a long and treacherous tunnel, underground for what seemed like five hours to me riding on the back fending off the arse of the boat with a pole to stop it from scraping the sodden crumbling walls of the Islington tunnel; built over 200 years ago; lingering with the smell of stale sweat and the feeling of dead men. Crumbling walls, crumbling bones, cobwebs gliding over face and shoulders and my mind flying at the thought of getting stuck. There was light at the end of the tunnel - behind and up ahead - but there seemed little promise of making it through alive. Of course I’m being dramatic. My friends told me they enjoyed the ride afterwards. 

Today, sunny and mundane I stroll along the tow path back to my boat which we parked beside a small chug-a-long of a thing. There’s soulful American folk playing from within, the tinny twang of guitars drift through my cabin windows as I peek out to see a pretty lady with maroon-coloured hair painting her toe nails on deck. Summer has broken out in patches across the city. This part of town has rustic warehouse conversions, busy manic cafes that spill out on to the tow path and bespectacled clientele with vintage briefcases and art-student graces. People look rather beautiful here. There was a man who caught a monster of a fish when we arrived on the scene. I asked what kind of fish is it? He told me a carp. And the passers-by went up to have a look, to take a few photos. The two fishermen took a cool swig of their beers, looked pleased with themselves and let the big fat carp go. He splashed its face a few times with canal water before the carp looked lively enough, then the unfortunate grotesque aquatic creature flicked his tail and dove down in to the depths of the water to dissolve. 

Whilst in Orkney we were walking along a stretch of beach outside my grandparents’ home called Watersound. At the headland there’s a disused pier jutting out and there two kids, one with bright orange hair and the other with spiked white hair were playing. Being bored and shouting at the sea, mainly. When we threw rocks in to the sea the white-haired one copied us and got even bigger rocks until he held a minor-sized boulder and crashed it down in defiance in to the shallows roaring whilst throwing it. Feral kid. The other, who was hanging off the pier out of sight shouted back to his mate, I caught a fish! I caught a FISH! and they both scarpered and screeched through gritted teeth, excitement, anger and amazement.

Fish are exciting, apparently. 

Tuesday

Love. When neither one trusts the other one cares at all. Not one bit.

One thinks the other hates them, with their guts. The other thinks the other is nonchalant. The epitome is when two persons sit on a bench in a fading summer’s day in silence, not thinking of anything other than it feels better to be near each other than it does not to be. Not a matter of conversation simply presence. Then they aren’t lonely. They are happy. But love, forsaken, taken for granted and lost to eternal thought, never makes its presence known.