Hibernation

Two weeks of this, two weeks of bliss and it’s hard to get up and do something about it. The plates are piling up in the corner of the room scenario. The washing needs folding not just moving onto another clear surface situation.

The squirrels are going nuts for nuts right now. They have pouches in their faces full of foliage, and they slither along the ground scouting for yet more nuts to store somewhere they won’t remember. Rains come and go, plump off-white clouds are ensconced in the skyscape and morph in to night time with its hazy pollutant glow.

We are in uncharted seas, bobbing along between summer and festivities that involve baubles and time is sort of sloshing about and I feel quite tired and complacent. There was a play I saw, where the protagonist turned out to be a slug or a caterpillar of sorts, and he described his home fondly as being the underside of a cool dank rock. I get it now. He was living under a rock. That’s what people use as an excuse for not keeping up to date with television or the Kardashians or Cameron; I’ve been living under a rock for the past year.

Hibernation is a want, isn’t it. If only because daylight is getting scarcer and layers of clothing are growing thicker; we could all just snooze a little longer, and move less and eat more and sleep deep. But alas, we aren’t bears or caterpillars or squirrels, and we have timepieces and electricity and appointments. Oh to be a bundle! I said, Oh to be a bundle.

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.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Shove the bacon buttie in my face and absorb it instantly.

Things I will not miss about the Fringe are: the wet drips which fall from the grim underside of that bridge in Cowgate, the stairs (that are everywhere), and flyers.

Hungover days and the restless nights that come with drinking too much, and then the Scottish fried goods and the endless walking over from New to Old parts of town. It never stopped not even in the downpours or in the early morning, stuff just kept going on.

Lurching down steep steps, which I’d only just clambered up half an hour ago to collect some pants I’d left in the print storage room (spare pants - because I’m always prepared - or because I forgot that I’d left my pants in a back room of a venue and thought before catching the train “outta here” that I should probably collect them).

Sweating. Ski jacket. Prepared for all-weather but not for all this weather meaning the sunshine we’ve been getting. In Scotland? I know right.

But the upside of all this traipsing by a banister is, or, were the shows. I managed to see a heck of a lot of good shows. So here’s some I remember the most jotted down for you:

Le Gateau Chcocolat who is a big black beautiful opera singer told an achingly honest tale of a young man who grapples with depression, being gay and being black. The lighting design was the lighting design to beat all others. His voice is ridiculously amazing.

The show which dedicated it’s heart and soul to the artist and wife of Beatle, Yoko Ono, titled appropriately Oh No! by Jamie Wood was brimming with creative nurture. The most enticing bit was when Jamie curated some Bagism on stage and invited a member of the audience to get in a bag with him and get completely naked. The minutes of silence that ensued after this innocent plea was met with awkwardness until a fly lad of 23 got up, crossed the stage and entered the bag/blanket with him; they both followed to get completely butt-naked beneath the sheet and then continued to talk about whether said young lad had ever fallen in love before, and what it means to love a person. Performance art + comedy = happy fun.

LetLuce in Sea Men (A Naval Tale) was a hilarious and sometimes trippy ride in to the world of two clown-character comics who’s unfurling narrative about a fish who wants to go clubbing on River Island and a pirate captain who wants to drink the Potion of the Ocean (said in an elongated Brummie accent) was just the bomb. The nuts. Mighty Boosh would have taken their hats off to the pair.

The stand-up that I enjoyed the most was Liam Williams with his second stand-up hour: Bonfire Night. A pretty neat and of course, damnably clever hour to follow up his last show (Capitalism). Lots of self-hating and millennial naval-gazing, you just have to laugh or else you’d cry.


They’re my picks and in hindsight, I did have a good time and managed to tone my arse from all the stairs and got a surprising tan out of the outdoor flyering ordeal so, all’s well that ends well. 

Hero

A note slipped in her diary whilst she was away in the toilet. 

That was a bold move, Andy thought. That was a bold stupid move. Andy was sat a few tables away from her and he had promised to watch her bags and laptop whilst she ‘nipped to the loo’ as she put it. With no idea of what her name was Andy had formed a relationship of trust with a stranger, something he doesn’t very often have with anybody. His last girlfriend Clarissa was either a control freak or a nervous wreck, flitting between the two so that Andy always felt slightly responsible for their continued state of tension. She’s dating that bikram yoga instructor now so, each to their own he consoled himself.

Whilst peering over the edge of his book at her belongings intently (like a hero) it occurred to Andy that, well, she had been quite attractive really. Kind eyes, bright hair, soft features; he continued to muse contentedly that he was now her watchman, her uncredited protector. 

But then the waiter came and dread filled his feeble fleeting heart.

Alexander the waiter believed in himself and called everyone “darling” in a lovingly sexist way. If a pretty lady entered his establishment and didn’t have the exact change for a mocha he’d do what any self-appreciating male with sexual prowess would do, he’d give her a smile and a wink and let her have the mocha for less. Sure less, not free - he has principles come’ on ladies. Twenty minutes ago, Alexander, was serving the lady with the currently unattended bags and had spotted her feminine waistline and shiny eyes. Now’s his chance. Striding over with purpose to her empty chair Alexander wipes it down with a cloth and slips his phone number in to her closed diary that she left on the table. 

Wide-eyed but with no other external signs of shock Andy awaits with foreboding. A dark cloud emitting drizzle has formed around his head. Clammy.

What if the nice woman who had asked me to watch her bags while she went to the bathroom thinks it’s ME?! And I have somehow broken her trust. I’ll never be asked to be a hero again. I’ll never be considered by her to be an honest trustworthy individual! And when she finds that number she’ll be filled with conceit and probably tut inside her head that all men are pricks and after one thing only. Well I’m not after one thing only! He thought decidedly (although he did quite fancy her but that was besides the point at this minute.)

She came back and Andy had missed his chance to do anything about the note slipped inside her personal private diary, he was livid with himself, all he had to do was take the note out and eat it or something why hadn't he acted fast enough?

‘Thanks’, she said and smiled back at him. 

The waiter behind the counter gave her a wink across the cafe. Andy grabbed his belongings hurriedly scraping them in to his bag before disastrously upturning a saucer filled with the residue of his filter coffee on to his crotch making him exclaim ‘shitheap!’ downwardly into his soul. The woman who was sat cross-legged at her laptop smiled over the edge of her screen in his direction with forgiveness and understanding. ‘Sorry’ muttered Andy and hurriedly dashed out forgetting his book behind, and so clambered back in past the other diners and metallic tables that scraped over the linoleum floor apologising again and again to recover his book and then finally leaving to get the hell out of there. 

Cath turned to the correct page of her diary to check dates and found a slip of paper with a telephone number written across it and a small black scribbled heart in the corner. Written on receipt-paper she thought turning it over in her fingers. The heart looks like something drawn by a pre-schooler. Completely uninterested she ordered another black coffee and went back to checking dates in her diary.

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. 

Moving Eastwards Moving On

It was nice to see them both. My two friends from the good past who live in different lands: New York, Berlin, London (that’s including me). Oh sure, we’re jetsetters. It’s where history has flung us all - out - so that today we can sit on a Friday afternoon amidst the Notting Hill yuppies in a pub sipping £5 ale. It’s no big deal. We’ll pretend that this occurrence is normal, nothing special about it, just so happens that we’re all here in the same country in the same public house. Talking drinking, spouting nonsense, finally. Like the not so recent past… what has it been 3 or 4 years since we all lived in the same town house in a part of the world called Jericho? Where the bricks are made of sand; stone has been bleached by the oddly bright sunlight for southern parts of England and the streets are broad or winding; pubs pop in to view when you turn down a lane or continue to walk along the grassy meadows. I remember herds of cows galloping. Today we all shirk responsibility that has to do with growing up, I notice, but we all deeply care. The affected and ineffectual bunch. You hope we’ll make a good impression on the world. I listen and I listen and the thoughts of Annina are great and grandiose and matter. She makes them matter to anyone who listens and I wish I had her sense of striking passion, and I love her and I listen. And then Owen, the master of sciences, looking rather more worldly donning urbanite-upgraded Woody Allen specs and shabbier, longer hair. They’re both a pleasure to look at and to share time with, supping our rusty-coloured pints and dusk falling, dinner is next on the cards.

*

‘See you at 11AM at Royal Oak tube station’. And right on time Annina, the girl I call the sphinx, strides up the Underground stairs with a bagel wrapped in white paper in her hand ready to be part of the crew. Today is the “big boat move” that Mer has been planning for the last fortnight. Since we’ve now moored all over the western regions of the canal, seeing off Harlesden, Kensal, Little Venice and Paddington we have to move on eastwards, and to do so we must first take the top and sides down from the boat and drive it through the low Maida Vale tunnel. There’s no telling that we’re all excited but first Mer, the captain of the crew, gives us a solid debrief about not getting our limbs trapped swinging out the side of the boat and thus getting them ripped off. You see, important orders from the captain. A small fairground has been set up beside our mooring spot for a children’s day, so as we push off the banks and start to set sail innocuous bits of bunting wave us off. Bye bye West.

The tunnel is low and dark and dank and drippy. When we enter it, the 5 strong crew all go silent for a while, one pokes their head out over the roof to go under again, I crouch in the shadows with a large stick to fend off the sides incase the arse of the boat gets too close to the walls, and the sphinx kneels-on looking straight and forwards. When the entrance recedes and becomes like the pupil of an eye only letting the essential light in to reach us, the passage looks longer and more indeterminable. I got the impression of pirates and caves and Hades and the air tasted stale and sweet, as if the old cold stones sweated. Looking forwards, at first the exit was a small semicircle of brightness and as we slowly approached it light began to filter down, like ink on blotting paper and soon and slowly we were drenched in white light, as the nose of the boat broke the seal from the underworld to the real we all clapped or whooped and Mer told us to calm down.

The new world we had discovered was green and Arcadian. Great willows bowed low and grand as if welcoming hot summer heat and a tweed-jacket wearing frog, huge greco-roman buildings (surely, not houses) with white colonnades stood firm and ruled atop the banks. Then out of nowhere a huge avery filled with cranes, storks, exotic birds and a few wayfaring pigeons appeared and you see all of winged-colourful nature flying and hawking above your head and you forget about the city and imagine a crusade. Epic scales guys, that’s where boat tripping’s at.

After cruising past a floating red pagoda weighed down by frilly lanterns, the scenery changes again to one of grunge and iron. You see more young ones in peaked caps sitting on the canal side with their Red Stripes and a foray of unsurpassable tramps shouting fucks and twats at the passerby. It’s Camden Lock and there are too many tourists. Having never done a lock before I have to learn, but it mostly involves people jumping on and off the boat and running around over precarious bridges, which are actually the lock gates. Depending on what gate is open or closed, the water level rises or falls within the lock. The aim of the game is to get the boat from one side of the lock to the other. And the pressure is on when the sun’s beating down and children and parents of all nationalities are swinging their heads from side to side, licking ice creams or taking selfies right next to you as you sweat. Lock gates are hard and then heaving them open requires a whole other sort of strength, pushing with my legs for leverage, my whole body sprung out at almost 90 degrees shoving against an iron bar, ridiculous posturing from me I suppose.

The crew made it happen though, Annina and Aidan were the hero couple opening and closing locks as if there was no tomorrow, Mer shouting at us to jump on board or off, the others keeping steady hold of ropes so the boat wouldn’t kilter off to the side or end up mashed by the lock gates. There are a total of 3 locks between Camden and where we wanted to be, as such there was a lot of work to be getting on with. As we were inside the final lock, people took tea breaks and I dished out some chocolate bars and we filled up the water tank. 200 litres of water the tank holds, I wonder how many showers I can get out of that beauty? The sun was past the zenith but still in full swing, English July is surprisingly warm and it was certainly louts-with-shirts-off weather. 

The vista that opened up before us was sweet and impressive. King’s Cross, a skyline filled with cranes and brickwork. Two white swans with their 7 cygnet babies filed past our boat, in streamlined ordered parade; they looked regal and seemed to know it by law. The geese honked and the coots scurried and parted out of their way, whilst our boat headed eastwards to find a mooring a space nearby. 

*

After the long sun-drenched day my muscles ached and I had an unquenchable thirst. The sphinx lay languid on my cabin bed and I played with my newly acquired boustrophedon disk around my neck, it was brought to me from Crete and I’m very fond of it. We talked about nothing and everything and ate biscuits over tin plates and when the sun finally decided to leave the sky alone, we strapped on our shoes and went in search for pizza.

Photo courtesy of Annina Lehmann