Imagine if...

...every evening at about six thirty your life rewound 24hours and replayed, every day. Then imaginevthat the four hour that got replayed involved being dressed in a series of increasingly bizarre outfits and dancing and singing with a large crowd of people who, on the one hand, you don't know at all but, on the other hand, are such an intense part of your life and have been for months now that they feel closer than they should. It's sort of like that.
It's good but not entirely - I'm so glad I have a job where I don't have to be cheerful all the time, I don't know how people do it. Especially in much more demanding roles, for months at a time.
still - last day today - two more shows.
At warm up last night we started on a gospel number that went:
I wanna sing sing sing, I wanna dance dance dance...' which then went to the sopranos whilst the altos did 'swing low sweet chariot' and the basses did 'Oh when the saints' - the three worked together in great harmony and I think everyone got tingling spines, or some sort of buzz, there were a lot of smiles.
Backstage even the one person who I've struggled to like was nice to me - hope yet?
One lady (who I rather get on with) brought a (one, solitary) bottle of beer in to drink before the performance. No big deal to my mind - I'd been up to the sand bar for a swift pint myself. But apparently this is FORBIDDEN backsatge, absolutely unprofessional and an instant sacking offense in the world of REAL theatre and a couple of the more professionally experienced choir members made this vocally clear. It reminded me of the difference to attitudes to drinking and scuba diving at the Red Sea (very very bad) and Wales (no big deal and quite funny really) and smoking (Egypt 20 marlboro reds throughout the day - Wales shock and horror at one roly).
Overall I've got a new found understanding and appreciation of the effort and dedication taht goes into making and performing a show. Certainly the choir have worked hard but our bit has been nothing compared to the focus that the main characters and support crew put in.
I want to be an engineer again.
Right - I'm going to try and make my flat less of a health hazard

What day is it?

Is it Thursday? I think so - it was a matinee. I can't remember a time when I wasn't performing Doris, or when my eyes didn't hurt. Or not my eyes as such, although shutting them stops it. I think it's my frontal lobes.
I'm noticing how we make space for each other when there is no space. Someone commented that it's a shame I have to sit by the stage and miss out on all the cameraderie back in the changing rooms but I think I would crack up if I had to sit in there, even though they're (almost all) nice people. There's a way to be stood next to someone and leave them be, as if they weren't stood there.
I'm not signing up for anything with a two week run again, not unless I can stop working and everything else whilst I do it. I'm so glad I don't have a job where I have to be cheerful all the time. I could never work in Disneyland.
Someone was sick in the corridor just before the first number and a breakaway choir section wanted to go on all from the same side but as chaperones we said no and made them walk past it. A phone went off in the dressing rooms in the first half - twice - it turned out to belong to one of the two actresses/writers. We all had slightly different positions as not all the cast could make the matinee which threw some people out but actually made for a much less crowded stage.
My eyes just want to shut so I'm going to let them.

Groundhog day

I really don't know how actors and such do the same show over and over, nigth after night for months, with matinees. If I was doing anything else every night or day (aikido, spokes, work, etc.) it would at least be different every night but this is exactly the same every night. Well not exactly - One of the skateboarding nuns crashed into the set tonight causing the male lead to forget his lines. But it's only little differences like that - which somehow make the absolute repetition of everything else more surreal. The gaps between the choir's stage appearences seem shorter somehow, as do the gaps between performances. This is especially marked when we have a matinee, like last Saturday and I'm sure tomorrow twice, then Friday then Saturday twice will seem even more groundhog-like. I'm glad that I'm chaperoning as it gives me the chance to sit near the stage. I tend to read in the corridor but everyone else is in one long thin room, almost on top of each other. On Saturday they have arranged to take over the bar area between shows for a pot luck buffet and then afterwards they've planned to go to somewhere in the Northern quarter. I'm glad to have the excuse of a visitor to get out of it to be honest - they're a good bunch and I like several of them very much but we all feel a little too close.
I think I will be singing 'Secret love' forever.

I'm discovering a whole new world of tired. Friday I woke after four hours sleep - too excited to sleep but my eyes and brain were hurting. Somehow I made it through a BREEAM presentation and workshop - managed to get my photo taken with the certificate that has my name on - it's a good photo if I do say so myself but I was disappointed to have our technical director tell everyone that my I looked good on it - not well done for being the first BREEAM Communities assessor in the country and getting the first certificate and helping our relationship with these important clients and contributing in your own way to sustainability', oh no - nothing like that - just 'pretty hair'. And worse - people seem to think I should take it as a compliment, rather than a nasty and patronising chauvinistic put down.
Still....trying not to be angry.
So the day was tiring enough on Friday and then at five I was at Claire's house sipping energy drinks and rehearsing the spokes comedy routine - the girls have been practising all week and it really showed. I managed to fit in and then we cycled down to critical mass and did it for real in front of around 200 people, then I did Doris, then sat up late chatting to visiting friends, then did Doris again on Saturday afternoon, then again on Saturday night. Sunday I cycled up to Salford and caught the train to Chorley for an aikido seminar then tonight was back in the theatre doing Doris again. I am loving it but I'm also looking forwrad to getting my life back.

Opening Night

After a fraught few last rehearsals Desperate to be Doris opened at the Library Theatre tonight to a sell out crowd. Myself and another lady have been asked to act as chaperones which means that we have to hover around the wings until we hear our cues and then fetch our halves of the choir and lead them onto the stage in time for the numbers. This would seem at first glance a simple and straightforward request but it seemed to rub several of our fellow choir members up the wrong way and we received plenty of ‘Ooooh, I say! Who do they think they are?’ looks, and comments, and even more when we asked people to be quiet and not slam the doors backstage for the very simple reason that sound carries and it was spoiling the show. Then for the dress rehearsal last night several people turned up who had only been to a couple of rehearsals and quite clearly didn’t know the songs or the moves. I had a few minutes of feeling petulantly five years old and rather cheated and resentful but then realised that I could ruin the whole thing for myself by doing that or just get over it. But it did mean that there was even more people on an already cramped stage. There was also massive confusion over the dance for ‘Steamed Up’ (which has replaced ‘Steamed Heat’ which apparently cannot ever be performed unless it is part of an entire production of ‘The Pyjama Game’) even though we’ve gone through it I don’t know how many times, and the words for that matter.
As we started tonight I felt like screaming when no less than three people asked me what the first song was – it’s ‘Que Sera’, it’s been ‘Que Sera’ for over three months now since we started rehearsals and its written up on the walls in the changing room in big letters.
Anyway.......we only had one door slam tonight backstage, and not too much whispering and one bit where we got on the stage a little too soon, but it all went quite well, the audience laughed in the right bits and sang along at the end and cheered and clapped and as we came off I remembered just how great I had felt when I saw it at York – how I’d gone in feeling ratty and come out feeling elated and smiled for days in the knowledge that there was a big crowd of people in the world in pink feather boas and pink stetsons singing ‘Enjoy Yourself’ and so that then the world must be a pretty good place. Then I realised that the whole audience would be going out into the Manchester night feeling like that and we’d done it.
There were ‘drinks on the house’ in the bar and everyone seemed upbeat and a few people even thanked me for chaperoning and said I’d done a good job. I was going to come home but then got a text from the Sand Bar so took a detour for some fried chicken and cherry beer. Chemistry Claire from the Spokes was there – they’re rehearsing all week without me ready for our guerrilla performance of the comedy routine before Critical Mass (and just before Doris) and have all made their props. I have tomorrow night to make a big spokes flag.
One show down, another twelve to go – fourteen if I count the two Spokes routines.
After this I am retiring from the limelight and getting stuck into my Masters thesis.

The Cheesy Rucksack Incident

Rubbish - two months off but I'm back and through to the end of the year.
I recently completed what I'd forgotten was a challenge which was to take a 60 year old lady who had never been abroad before to France. It wasn't much of a challenge to be honest as she's an absolute dear and it fitted nicely with plans to visit Portugal. We 'did' Paris, well the Eiffel Tower which is quite a lot like Blackpool really, although I have to say that the food in Blackpool tower is better (although still dire), and it has a circus and a sea view so Blackpool actually knocks the spots off Paris, in tower terms at least. Hayden, our 10 year old companion was most impressed, so much so that he now wants to visit Blackpool next time he is in the UK.
It was a great holiday, not least because I was ready to come back at the end and glad to pull into Manchester. European trains are fabulous and I heartily recommend them over flying for more than just the carbon reasons.
A lot happened but you've hopefully had postcards, or rung me or we've met or something so I won't do the whole holiday as what I really want to blog about is Desperate to be Doris which opens tonight but I will recount the 'Cheesey Rucksack Incident'
I drove up to Seia on my last full day to get a new mountain hat and various delicacies. Included in this was a serra cheese - mixed sheep, goats and cows milk, unpasteurised, very soft at room temperature (runny - remember this, it is important). I packed my rucksack carefully with the cheese at the top so it wouldn't get squashed (and remember the location of the cheese). I spent a lovely evening in Coimbra - if you ever go visit A Capela - the little chapel that has been renovated as a fado club (Portuguese version of the blues sung by women in Porto and men in Coimbra) and has fado every night and expensive (by local standards) wine. It's well touristy but very well done and the Vinho Verde was chilled and delicious. I spent a night in cotton sheeted air conditioned luxury in the Oslo hotel, had a monstrous breakfast and checked out to explore the botanical gardens and the University, leaving my rucksack in the boot of the hire car. After a lovely day exploring I dropped off the car, sat down to write last postcards with a beer and got the train up to Coimbra B where my sleeper was departing from. 20 minutes to go and I looked down to see something white and squidgey oozing from the zip at the bottom of my rucksack (remember where I left the cheese?). I quickly realised what it was and sat there for five miserable minutes thinking 'I could just ignore it' but then accepted that as I had over 24 hours on trains including a night in a cabin with five strangers that wasn't an option. Two minutes later I'd got the rucksack unpacked and had a swarm of flies buzzing round me as I scraped handfuls of molten cheese from the inside. I did the best I could and then on the train unpacked again and tried to wash stuff (it was on everything) in the train toilet under a tiny tap that dribbled water. I merely succeeeded in covering everything, including myself with a thin film of cheese.
My rucksack - since scrubbed in the bath still smells of it. The cheese that I did manage to save I had on some toast at work yesterday lunchtime and it resulted in the most malodourous wind I can remember having. I cooked some of it into a pasta sauce last night thinking that boiling it would kill whatever has developed in it. I've just had a big bowlful and am sat at my desk hoping for my work colleagues sake and the Choir in the performance tonight (and the audience to be honest given yesterday's experience)that I'm right.

This project has become a victim of its own success. I'm now so completely challenged that I no longer have time to write about it in between work and study and rehearsals and socialising and sleeping and just doing stuff.
Without even adopting any new challenges I am currently:
-finishing my last ever essay
-setting up my thesis experiment
-rehearsing for the 'Desperate to be Doris' show in September
-planning a comedy routine with the spokes for October (Manchester Comedy festival)
-learning to hula hoop
-working on about six different projects at work including getting BREEAM certification and talking with Australians about sustainable cities
-trying to ignore the slovenly appearence of my flat, at least til I finish the essay
-planning a trip to Portugal later in the year and a cycle ride to Copenhagen in November
-trying to find new recipes to get me through the several kilos of dried apricots I found on my last bin raid
The list of things I am not acheiving at the moment is about four times as long.
This blog will be ressurected, soon

Confusion over words

And not just words, but opinions as well, mine for example. I remember long ago when I would change my opinions as I learnt stuff. I thought I knew everything by now but recently I seem to be confused.
Take for example the word 'naked'. Now generally when I use it I mean without clothes and when I explained to the police that we were planning a 'naked' bike ride I did mean it. Although on reflection what I ACTUALLY meant was 'naked apart from shoes and hats and facepaint and gloves and wigs' so not naked really. And what THEY thought I meant was naked except for underpants (and bras for ladies of course to cover up their unmentionables). It was all rather silly really and I was nearly part of the first naked bike ride to be arrested just because none of us really used a word to mean what it means, and because one person phoned the police and said that they were 'appalled' at the sight of us. So rather than hurrying us out of the city city to prevent further appallation (is that a word? It is now) they stopped us for twenty minutes so that more people could see us for more time and more traffic could be blocked by making a hundred naked people hang around on a main street.
Other words which confuse me are 'organiser'. Sean (my co-organiser, if thats what I am) says I am one and I say I am not. Sometimes I talk about things with people and then those things happen but does that mean I organise them?
Also 'nudist' - I'm not one but the thought of covering up for the naked bike ride so that I can be a proper marshall doesn't appeal.
And 'police escort'. Before the ride I would have put this in the same bucket of words as 'sell-out sanitised anarchy' but now I'm thinking how funny would it be if the police had to 'escort' climate camp, (for example). In other words hang around unobtrusively making it clear to anyone who didn't like it that these people had every right to make their views on a subject publicly known and that it was the police's job to protect and defned that right, which of course it is.
Hmmmm, words - funny things.
And opinions

cider drinking moths

have downloaded, or uploaded (however you want to view it) my holiday snaps to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57585081@N00/
It's past midnight - should've been in bed long ago but got a fire going in the back garden and attracted housemates to it, like moths, who drink cider, so cider drinking moths.

No place like home

Ahhh Manchester.....all the denizens were out playing in the public fountains in Piccadilly gardens when I walked through and letting all their newly sunburnt red and white bits hang out. Even the tramps had vest tops on.
I'm sure I didn't leave my flat in this state.
Richard Branson's personal vendetta against me continues - he stopped all trains to Manchester from London last night two minutes before I arrived at Euston. I rang various people who were all away or otherwise engaged - obviously I need to make some more boring friends in London. Everyone promised to put me up or find someone to do so if I needed it but then I spotted the train to Rugby and so got halfway home and visited the Black Pig on the way and continued on this morning.
I'm going to have a fire in the back garden.
ahh..home, but it definitely wasn't this messy when I went

Trying not to be grumpy and failing

I'm really really trying not to be grumpy but it's difficult. I got a fitful hours sleep in Burgerking before getting on the train which despite being a luxury high speed one has really small seats just too small to sleep in, even though I found two. The TER trains have wide comfortable squidgy seats which it's easy to sleep in but not these. And the armrests are made out of an especially hard plastic and the lights are brightly on. I managed to sort of wedge myself in and cover my eyes with my hat so that although I wasn't asleep I was in that sort of suspended animation state where you don't use any energy and so don't get any more tired than you already are – just grumpier. But because it's a luxury train it has air conditioning and what is the point of having air conditioning unless everybody knows about it? So of course it is set to just below comfort levels so that anyone not moving very much (i.e. me) quickly starts to get borderline hypothermia. And then, not half an hour in (so only 4:30am) some woman comes tramping down the aisle screeching 'Morgan, Guten Morgan' in a children's TV presenter voice. I assume it's the guard and jump up to dig my ticket out but it turns out she just wants to know if I want some coffee. I glare at her and say 'Nein – nur schlarfen' and crunch back down into my self imposed stress position. She continues her merry way up the brightly lit ice box of a train carriage loudly asking if anyone else would like some coffee. Then the announcer comes on but not content with just saying 'Next stop, Stuttgart' she has to say 'Hello, good morning , the train will shortly be arriving at Stuttgart, that's stuttgart, the time is bloody stupid o'clock in the morning, thank you for travelling with Deutsch Bahn ICE, on this train from Munich to Mannheim, connections from Stuttgart are for Berlin, etc etc, we hope you have enjoyed your journey with ICE and we look forward to seeing you again ..blah blah...' and on and on as if she was on cocaine or something, and then all over again in English. Grrr. And then the guard did come round and then insisted on seeing my ticket again on her way back down the train. And not only are the stupid seats too narrow but so is the aisle so although I only have two toes protruding out by half a centimetre everyone who walks past has to bang into them. And I got my wallet nicked and so I keep checking everything twice to make sure some thieving sausage eater hasn't made off with the rest of my belongings. And I'm tired. And the burgerking is sitting in my stomach like a greasy brick.

Post-post note
The discovery in Koln that the local speciality was giant size cakes did something to elevate my mood and after eating a toffee iced walnut pastry the size of my head I felt better. After all I had a lot of sunny snoozes yesterday so I should be charged up enough to get through a day of low sleep levels without becoming homicidal, even though I got off at the wrong station in Brussels and am now on the super-scenic (i.e. slow) train to Gent. But there exists a place where they make cakes as big as my head and so the world is alright after all.

fucking Santa Claus and Burger King

It's half past one in the morning and I'm sat in Burgerking at Augsberg train station. I'm not sure how the day ended up here. It started well enough – the sun was sunny and even getting repeatedly lost en route to the botanical gardens was worthwhile as I discovered the beautiful garden allotments of Augsberg. I don't think people live on them but each one has a shed, or chalet so magnificent that you could (I happily would) and most of them had, in addition to the usual allotmenty bits, little lawns, and swings, paddling pools and barbeques. All were divided by high hedges and gravelled walkways which gave the place a distinctly mazy feel. I felt a bit Alicy and had a snooze on a bench in the sun with one eye half open in case the white rabbit hopped past. Then I found a long water side gallery of stunning graffiti. I eventually found the botanical gardens and they're lovely too – difficulty was that anywhere else you could just head for the nearest trees but every time I saw a load of huge mature trees looming over some four storey building or another I'd go there and find out that it was just another load of huge mature trees that they'd just decided to leave in between the houses – to make the place look pretty. So the gardens were lovely, especially the Japanese garden and the apple strudel and ice cream (Bavaria's only real contribution to global cuisine – unless you count sauerkraut – I don't) was lovely too – so lovely I had to have another little snooze in the sun. Then I caught the bus back to Konigsplatz and wandered round the little town market which was – you guessed it – lovely. As was some Noodle and tofu soup (couldn't stomach any more piles of meat and potatoes or donner kebabs). I picked my rucksack up from the lovely youth hostel and caught a bus out to the Aikido Dojo where I met Suzanne there about to start the children's class. She's a tiny powerhouse of a woman and although I couldn't understand everything she said she is so expressive that it was easy to follow the class. I trained with the kids 5 'til half six and then with the adults from 7 'til 9 . It was great to do some proper exercise after a week of relative idleness and recent training meant I was able to keep up. I even out-knackered one of the guys – but it turns out he's a paramedic and had just finished a shift and so I guess he had an excuse. Suzanne asked around and found a lift back to the station for me – with someone called Chris – who turned out to be the paramedic. He came out of the changing rooms with a black t-shirt on that said 'fucking Santa Claus' in sparkling script across his chest and maybe it was that or the beer (they have beer in the dojo vending machine!) but for some reason my brain went walkabout and after being dropped on the station (and escorted to the right platform, and hugged) I went in my bag to find my wallet had gone missing.
I rang Suzanne who raced back to the dojo and rang Chris who checked his car whilst I emptied and repacked my rucksack and bag in case they had developed any secret pockets that my wallet had self-migrated to and watched my train pull away from the platform. Suzanne came to the station and we went to the dojo for another look but there was no sign of it there. It must have been lifted from my bag in the station but I've no idea how – some twat must have lightning fingers is all I can say. So Suzanne rang the train people and they've re-reserved me a place on the 4am train which should still get me to Koln for my connection to Brussels, which might get me to Calais in time for the ferry. Suzanne lent me some money but the station restaurant was shut and so here I am in Burgerking, feeling a bit sick, very tired, un-thrilled at another two hours wait, and totally stupid for getting my wallet nicked. I've cancelled the card, I think my drivers licence was in there and I can't recall what else – random bits and pieces.
Great – now a large group of singing, clapping, chanting, staggeringly drunk Bavarian chavs have come in. I shall sit and look growly and hope they ignore me.

Youf hosteling

Wow – wish I'd found this place last night. Like not needing to be a young person to have a young person's railcard you don't need to be a youth to hostel (although I turned down the cheap option of a dorm room for a single with en-suite). It's half the price of last night's and even nicer and includes breakfast. I have a little balcony that looks over a little river and some pretty back gardens. I only have the one night here and have to book out at ten which is a bit of a pain as it'd be nice to just settle down but travelling is meant to be just that and I'll be stationary again before long so I must enjoy this feeling whilst I'm lucky enough to have it. I managed to get a reservation on a night train to Koln for tomorrow for only an extra 20 euros which means I can train at the dojo on Friday night (I've had a couple of lovely emails from Suzanne who teaches there) which gives me an extra day in Augsberg and should get me to Brussels on Saturday morning. Today I have mostly been mooching around Augsberg, finding this place, having a sleep and even a little bit of homework. I'm off out now to find food and maybe music if there is any to be had.

Waking up in Augsberg

I've just opened my hotel curtains to a view of a green roof and some trees behind. I'm on the third floor and looking across the rooftops I can see a lot of trees. I got here late last night after finding all the hostels in Munich full and deciding that if I was going to blow money on a hotel I'd be better heading up to here and now I have the whole day to explore.
I found the surfing spot in Munich yesterday, or I think I did. I took some photos but there were no surfers braving the waves, probably due to the constructions site which had harris-fenced of access to the edge for quite some distance. Walking around the city being awed at the magnificent buildings and all the parkland by the river was beautiful and I didn't head up to the intersolar trade fair until mid afternoon.
It was massive – made France look small by comparison – one hall was just full of Chinese stalls although they made a good showing throughout as well. I saw a funny wind turbine that looked like a fish and some cylindrical pv cells, lots of building integrated stuff and generally wandered around going 'ooh, it's all so big' before finding Katy who I worked briefly with at CAT two years ago and Chris. Chris had an invite to the Valentin software party so Katy and I gatecrashed that and got fed little test tubes of drinks in multicoloured layers with dry ice in so they smoked. They had a guy with a big beaker of the stuff who put bits of fruit on sticks and froze them and then dipped them in chocoloate and then froze a load of popcorn so that when you ate it smoke came out of your mouth and nose like a dragon. Then the three of us went down to Munich and ate outdoors to the sound of a string quartet who were busking across the plaza. The monster storm the night before which blew over trees had cleared the air nicely.
I got a load of contacts and information for my thesis project who I have to email when I get back. I'm becoming an expert at the 'networking glance' where the first thing you check is someone's badge to see if they're any use to you, whilst they do the same to you and then you have this few minutes to pick each others brains. Every now and again you meet someone who you actually get on with and that's nicest. I found a chap at the conference who had missed giving his poster presentation because he got the rooms confused so I got him to explain it to me which was much more helpful than just reading it because I was able to ask all the stupid questions that the poster assumed I'd know and therefore really understand it. It must be very difficult to compress a years worth of work onto one sheet. Anyway – work bit of the holiday is now over and now it's holiday holiday, and breakfast time.

Home straight – for today

Lindau -Munich train delayed but under way now. I continue to be impressed by the rooftop energy arrays, and by the recycling – all the bins are divided into separate waste streams – and people seem to observe them as well. Also there are covered bike parks everywhere. This last is seen as a bit of a joke back in blighty – something to put in on a building to get an extra BREEAM point but here they seem to provide them without thinking and know what? - they get used. I say build them and they will come. Last hurdle tonight will be to find a hotel somewhere near the Bayerischof where the conference is and get clean and then sleep.....mmmm...

Escape from France

I was too late for the Strasbourg-Stuttgart train so they refunded my ticket at Nancy. In the same way that people really struggle to understand why you'd catch the train rather than fly, people struggle with the idea that you might be happy taking the slower train. Whenever a ticket clerk tells me that the train I'd like to get on is fully reserved (I suspect they only have one interrail ticket per fast train – it's probably run by Richard Branson) they put a face on more appropriate to telling someone you've just run over their child. Or they'll tell you that it's just not possible to get to a certain place and then reluctantly admit that is might be possible with a different route (even if it's only ten minutes longer). We really have become obsessed with speed and convenience. This route is a lot more scenic. The next train to Strasbourg went right through to Basel and as it seemed the only way I was going to get out of the country (only the international trains go from France to Germany it seems) I took that option and am now on a little two carriage train rattling it's way to Lindau. The outskirts of Basel were pretty – lots of allotments and so many solar collectors and PV panels on the rooftops. It's blazing hot. The Bodensee is gorgeous and I'm envious of the swimmers dotting the shoreline. If I had time I'd catch a train down to Oberstdorf for old times sake and call past Immenstadt to see if they still serve Guinness to the bikers in the Feuervogel. I managed to grab some food from a supermarket next to Basel station (all I have eaten all day is a pain au chocolat and an apple tart, and the end of a packet of nasty crisps in my bag since the UK). I should have enough time for a beer at Lindau before another train to Munich which gets me in at 22:45 having missed day one of the conference and the dinner, hey ho. But at least I'll be there ready for tomorrow morning. I have a meet up with a chap called Eelco who I'm hoping is going to get involved with my thesis project (as in give me a load of free kit and some installation) so it's quite important that I come across as a serious researcher and not some smelly old tramp – fortunately I've saved back one outfit of half fresh clothes, the rest will have to get washed in a hotel sink tonight.
I'm thinking that I'll not go back through France.

Lost in France – Part 2

Am on the train to Nancy after finally pulling out of some hick town the name of which has already escaped me. It was the first platform I've seen where the train times were just displayed on a paper poster, one train per platform. Everyone was smoking and the clerk gave the impression of someone who drinks wine for breakfast. Interrail is a very lovely way to travel but not a very effective way to arrive, which I suppose is rather the point. I have splashed out on a real ticket from Strasbourg to Stuttgart as it seems the only way of escaping France and to guarantee arriving in Munich today – I'm hoping the German trains will run with a greater degree of efficiency than the French, that is if I make Strasbourg in time for my connection. The main problem with Interrail is that none of the fast trains are included – I sort of figured this would just be the Eurostar but it's quite a lot more – sort of not like being able to travel on Virgin in Britain. God knows I'd rather not as I'm starting to feel after a few trips this year as if Richard Branson has a personal axe to grind with me but it is a lot of trains not to be able to use.

Lost in France – Part 1

I spent Saturday night in a ropy pub B&B in Dover. Getting in late I thought it best just to go for the closest rather than traipse around the town. It had a loud band on so I drank some whiskey to a Johnny be Good medley and Teenage Kicks and listened to grizzled Carl at the bar who thinks the youth of today are unfairly maligned and used to work on banana boats which are very fast and never spend more than 12 days at sea. I missed the first ferry by minutes after walking down to the port (past a string of lovely looking B&B's offering much cheaper rooms) but got rescheduled for the next crossing without problems or surcharges. I walked from Calais port to the station and felt very smug as my co-passengers arrived from the bus as I was tucking into my second crepe at the restaurant de gare. In Lille they have huge black plastic statues of babies with wings and scaly tails and lovely fountains and lots of bars selling moules and frites and beer. I'm don't know if the missed ferry would have been enough to spanner up the whole plan and so to make sure I got on the wrong train at Lille (it was the right one on the board but the wrong one on the platform) so instead of skirting round the edge of France, preferably through Belgium, I ended up going through Paris and then onto Troyes. I got in late again but wasn't falling for the first hotel trick this time. Oh no. I did a full circuit around the town and found that everything was around the hundred euro mark, or full, or shut before heading back to the cheapest hotel outside the station. Still - I got to have a cocktail in the main square which was called a Tahiti and came with a red sugar encrusted rim, a skewer of fruit balanced on the top and an umbrella, which it didn't need as even at that time of night it was still warm enough for bare shoulders. The train station hotel had rooms on balconies around a central courtyard with giant plastic coconut palm trees – class.
I'm finding that I remember more French than expected but being as I expected zero it's still not much help. I am struggling with the temptation to use a 'Carry -On' accent and speak in pidgin French in an Ab Fab way. I am eating more ham and cheese baguettes than I would like and nowhere near enough moules, frites and beer.

Day 1 – Mach to Dover

A heat pump lecture over ran making me panic about missing my train and so a mate kindly gave me a lift from CAT to Mach in time for the 2:07 train to Birmingham (which was then delayed). It was my last module of my MSc and as we pulled out of the station and away past the PV arrays of the Eco-parc shining blue in the sun I felt both sad and excited and thought about the ending that started my volunteering at CAT and the end of that which marked my starting on the course and my job and the ending of the taught modules and the start of my thesis and soon the end of that and the start of what else? Endings are always beginnings too. I've started writing my final essay on what happens when buildings are handed over to the end user who then behaves in a completely different way to how it was predicted and over rides all the controls. Basically focusing on how we think it's the end of a job but it's only the start of the building's life and the beginning of it's contribution to our carbon emissions, and what we can do at that point to keep them as low as they were designed to be (although that's not even particularly good). I'm writing on my new Samsung net book – what a bad environmentalist I am – that's a PC, a laptop, a net book and a work PC all in my name. I have justified it to myself by saying that I will write a huge chunk of my thesis on it whilst I am away these two weeks. Thus far I've hardly touched it – sinking with ease into the Wales induced incommunicado status that I usually adopt. I've had 71 emails in the last four days! But now I'm appreciating it although my internet dongle keeps cutting out which is frustrating as I've signed up to www.couchsurfing.org and was going to optimistically try for a couch in Dover tonight – I know it's late but those that don't ask, don't get (or 'shy bairns get nowt' as Lindsay is fond of saying) and I thought I'd try it anyway, on the off chance......
....that was a few hours ago, I got distracted by 33,000 football fans from Gillingham on the train heading nosily back from a one nil victory against Shrewsbury town at Wembley - by the time I got a connection back it really was too late.

Challenges to carry out on my trip so far are to take a photo of the river surfers in Munich complete with the no-surfing sign and train at the Iwama Ryu dojo in Augsberg.

Machynlleth to Dover

A heat pump lecture over ran making me panic about missing my train and so a mate kindly gave me a lift from CAT to Mach in time for the 2:07 train to Birmingham (which was then delayed). It was my last module of my MSc and as we pulled out of the station and away past the PV arrays of the Eco-parc shining blue in the sun I felt both sad and excited and thought about the ending that started my volunteering at CAT and the end of that which marked my starting on the course and my job and the ending of the taught modules and the start of my thesis and soon the end of that and the start of what else? Endings are always beginnings too. I've started writing my final essay on what happens when buildings are handed over to the end user who then behaves in a completely different way to how it was predicted and over rides all the controls. Basically focusing on how we think it's the end of a job but it's only the start of the building's life and the beginning of it's contribution to our carbon emissions, and what we can do at that point to keep them as low as they were designed to be (although that's not even particularly good). I'm writing on my new Samsung net book – what a bad environmentalist I am – that's a PC, a laptop, a net book and a work PC all in my name. I have justified it to myself by saying that I will write a huge chunk of my thesis on it whilst I am away these two weeks. Thus far I've hardly touched it – sinking with ease into the Wales induced incommunicado status that I usually adopt. I've had 71 emails in the last four days! But now I'm appreciating it although my internet dongle keeps cutting out which is frustrating as I've signed up to www.couchsurfing.org and was going to optimistically try for a couch in Dover tonight – I know it's late but those that don't ask, don't get (or 'shy bairns get nowt' as Lindsay is fond of saying) and I thought I'd try it anyway, on the off chance.....that was a few hours ago, I got distracted by 33,000 football fans from Gillingham on the train heading nosily back from a one nil victory against Shrewsbury town at Wembley - by the time I got a connection back it really was too late and so I've booked into a slightly ropy pub/guesthouse in Dover. It was the first one I found outside the train station and had a fun (very young) band on who played a Johnny be Good medley and Teenage Kicks. I had a pint of bitter and a Jamesons and chatted to Carl at the bar who told me he didn't think the kids today were that bad and that he learnt spanish working on banana boats, which are very fast - never more than twelve days at sea and said I should go and visit Dover Castle, it changes a thousand times.

Challenges to carry out on my trip so far are to take a photo of the river surfers in Munich complete with the no-surfing sign and train at the Iwama Ryu dojo in Augsberg.

Calling Trans-Europe Challenges

Well I still haven’t embarked upon anymore suggested challenges but I have a few challenging excuses for this and so will blog about them instead to fill the commitment gap.
On Saturday I attended the first meeting of the choir that will be performing the songs of Doris Day in a production called Desperate to be Doris at the Library Theatre in Manchester in September. It’s run by an outfit called Lip Service Theatre and I have a list of songs that we’ll be doing. I’m especially excited about 'The Deadwood Stage' and 'Enjoy Yourself – It’s later than you think' which I’d always known only as a Specials song but sounds just as great sung by Doris. I was thinking my hair might be long enough by then to bleach and curl into a Doris Day style but apparently we’ll be dressed as daffodils. Or possibly sheep – I don’t think they’ve completely decided on that yet but it all sounds ridiculous and excellent fun. And it’s set in a pyjama mail order call centre. So with Spokes moving to Wednesday I reckon I can do rehearsals for that on Monday, singing on Tuesday, aikido on Thursday and still have Friday night off.
Suddenly realised that the Manchester 10k was nearly upon me and got Mike to come running round Chorlton last Sunday morning – not nice but I made it round three miles. I went out again tonight and did about four and it felt better. One more I reckon before Sunday and I should make a decent showing – if I can track down my race number. I know it’s somewhere underneath the drifts of paper that have accumulated throughout my flat – clear my flipping clutter would be a good challenge. I have Saturday to find it and also do all the little jobs that have been building up or not fully completed before disappearing off again for potentially a month, depending how tomorrow goes.
Tomorrow I have an interview for the Ken Dale Travel Bursary – an award from CIBSE (Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers) for a research trip round Europe. I must focus throughout and not use the words ‘holiday’ or ‘jolly’ or ‘blag’ but instead refer to the important research of great weight and import that I will carry out with due diligence and seriousity. Oh yes. Amsterdam has some very interesting district heat mains – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. There are two other candidates so if something horrible happens to them.............
Whether I get it or not I am definitely off to Wales for a week of building knowledge and then Munich to the Solar Thermal Conference (because this is what I do on my holidays). I’ve just got my bike fixed and it’s running like a new bike after rattling along making a noise like a bag of spanners every time I change gear and not actually slowing down when I press the brakes. It came to a head when I had a catastrophic wheel failure in Bristol but now.........oh it’s lovely, it’s like having a new bike but one that I already love like you love a bike after having it for three years and riding it every day for two. But because I have chosen to Interrail it to Munich I have to leave it here, in Manchester and won’t have the pleasure of going up and down the Welsh hills with the newly functioning gearage. I think it’s going to be quite an entertaining challenge to get round Europe – I have a train timetable the size of two bricks to wrap my head round with two hundred little symbols none of which mean anything remotely resembling what they look like they ought to mean.
So until I return from my travels my bag of challenges from you lot will have to remain untouched – sorry. If you have any additional ones more suited to a cross Europe jaunt that I could do in the meantime then please feel free to suggest them.

Ha well - I haven't started a new challenge yet but I have blagged some roof space for my very exciting experiment. It was looking shaky but then I reminded myself that Frances says I am 'very charismatic' (this was not meant as a compliment but was offered up as a reason why somebody had done something very stupid purely because I had said to) so I repeated it in my head like a mantra and hey presto! I was the epitomy of charm, cool and professionalism and I got what I wanted. So now my confidence is running free and unfettered by logic, rationality or personal history.
On Monday I 'came out' to the Spokes as a bin diver and received the usual affirmations and a recommendation to join the I bike MCR bin dive bike ride the next evening. So I went along and found several people milling around. I milled with them and chatted and gleaned some good stories and top tips - several from a guy who had funded a holiday in Cuba for two from his bin exploits! It was funny to see people shiftily asking 'Ermm..are you here for the ermm...the bike ride?' carefully avoiding any mention of the purpose of it.
After twenty minutes it became apparent that no -one was turning up to run it and so I called Em and Nes and established that if there had been anyone, there wasn't now. I bike MCR is a month long cycle festival and happening involving a staggeringly varied amount of rides and bike related events but due to it's anarchist nature occasionally veers into chaos. So I gathered everyone and explained the situation and then got the people who'd been most informative to share their stories and we had a bit of a disucussion and I gave out my email and offered to set people up with a bin buddy in their area. So I now have one and when I get back from my jollies will be organising some group runs.
I blasted off for the comedy night and later, on my way back through Chorlton, saw somebody rummaging in one of my favourite late night shopping spots so I went over and said 'Anything good tonight' and went away with a bag of barbeque charcoal, a six pack of pepsi max, four yoghurts, two turnips, an egg whisk(?? - random), a bag of monkeynuts, and joy of joys a wedge of BRIE!!! Free Cheese - all of my dreams have come true.
I have ventured back into shops for essentials but have found I have a completely different attitude to the experience. Instead of merrily picking up anything I vaguely fancy and throwing it in the basket (as was my wont previously) I find myself assessing each item on it's origins and how much I really need it and whether I need it right then or not. It feels very strange but I think it's a good thing.
We've just had reminders out on the Manchester 10k which is three years away and so it must be time to start running again after my post half marathon break.

Reactions

I am surprised by the reactions of friends I have tentatively told about my new foraging activities. Laura initially said ‘errrgh’ and pulled a face but then went on to say ‘Oh, like bins at the back of Tesco’s and supermarkets? That’s ok. Let me know how you get on, my food shopping costs me a fortune every week’
Last Monday I was working in the garden with Vicky when she announced a lunch break and said would I like something. I said I had a load of pepperonata (fried peppers and onions, Italian style, lovely eaten cold with bread) but then felt obliged to admit that all of the ingredients had come from bins. She froze for a moment and then threw her gardening gloves at me. I asked if she’d heard the word ‘Freeganism’, which she had and then she really surprised me by saying, ‘Can I come with you?’ and ‘What have you found?’ I said that I’d had a mass of bananas a week before and then her face fell a little as she asked, ‘Those caramel bananas you fed to me and Shaun....?’
‘Sorry,’ I said and tried to look as contrite as possible. I had considered telling them at the time but then didn’t. Still – she forgave me, although we have yet to do a joint venture.
I’ve been back into my Aikido the last week or so. Firstly a four hour mixed martial art seminar, half of which was Ju Jitsu, most of which was choke holds for some insane reason and left me with a horribly painful throat and headache which lasted for a full week. On Friday I joined the dojo trip to a Daniel Toutain seminar in Edinburgh which ran all day yesterday as well – amazing and beautiful and fully inspiring and reminded me why I love Aikido so much and why I need to get back into it regularly.
I tried to tidy up the back of my hair yesterday with the clippers. It’s much harder than I expected doing the back of your head when you can’t see it. It went a bit lopsided and I tried to straighten it up but then it just got worse so I quit before it got even worse. Vicky laughed, a lot, when I showed her and said it looked ‘Auschwitz’ but agreed that I was right to not go any further with it.
More challenges – very soon – honest.

bras and bananas

It was raining tonight and part of me wanted to use that as an excuse not to go out but I pushed myself to do it anyway, putting on my burglar clothes and pedalling off into the dark for distant bins – well about a mile away. I had the same sick nervous feeling but tonight there was something else in the mix – a little edge of excitement. Weird – I tell myself that it’s because I’m such a naturally ‘good’ person that even this tiny act of wrongdoing (only in the eyes of the law and mainstream society – so not in the eyes of anybody who actually uses their eyes) rattles my conscience. I suspect the real reason is simply that I’m chickenshit.
The bins were round the back, my heart fell when I saw the massive fence, then lifted when I saw the massive open gate, sank at the bolted bin store, rose at the lack of a lock, fell at the sight of a load of plastic and then rose again when I realised it was almost full of food. The first sack had masses of beef wellington and crispy duck ready meals, still pretty much frozen as far as I could tell but I hesitated and then decided to leave it. Bin meat is a hurdle I’ve yet to get over although I know full well that my eyes and my nose will tell me if it’s bad and that thorough cooking will make it safe. The next bag was full of bananas and bread – result! Also bizarrely lots of baby clothes and car mats and stuff that never goes off – all immaculate – why is it being thrown out – surely someone must have a use for it – even if they gave it to a charity shop.
I rapidly filled one pannier and then realised a delivery lorry was pulling up to the gate and so stuffed the last couple of things I could grab in and pedalled off, not even looking up at the driver to see if he’d seen me.
Back nearer home I checked out a couple more locations including the place I got the eggs last week. Several perfectly good looking loaves were on the bottom but I couldn’t reach them without climbing in. I need a telescopic grabby thing, or one of those litter picking sticks. They would have kept me in breakfasts for weeks – what with the pumpkin jam I made (I found some cranberries at the back of the freezer and mixed those in and it’s almost exactly like raspberry).
So I decided that enough was plenty and came home, after less than a hour with twenty or more bananas, one small loaf, six fruited tea cakes, a ‘high quality black leather purse’ (that’s what it says on the box) and a 34C black and pink embroidered bra! (the last two items I’d hoped were a box of chocolates and I don’t know what)
If anyone would like any of the last two just say the word! If you want any of the tea cakes or bananas you’ll have to visit.

The Blackpool Half Marathon

There were so many people, and it was so cold. I resisted the temptation to retain my hoodie or a hat, knowing full well that within minutes I’d be roasting. When the time came to go the crowd temporarily bottlenecked and slowed to a shuffle sparking lots of jokes about ‘not setting off too fast'. Once we got going it was hard to find a pace with everyone running around me – a bit like singing a song with lots of other people trying to sing it too but to a slightly different tune, or beat (a bit like the community choir then) but I got into some sort of stride by the time I hit the first turning point at three miles. Half way back up the seafront we were directed down onto the promenade and were running with a sea view. It was clear and bright and even the wind farm off the coast was visible as a series of miniature straws on the horizon. When we came back up onto the road there was a series of little humps which felt like mountains to my legs but I was proud to still be running by the time we got to where the marathon lot were diverted off for their second lap. I had no intention of doing a sprint finish but as I came towards the finish line the sound of hammering feet came up behind me and I thought ‘I’m not being bloody overtaken this close to the finish line’ and stepped it up. I don’t know how much energy they’d saved for the end but they should definitely have been running harder sooner than that. I was considering getting my elbows out when I made it across the finish line - feeling breath on the back of my neck as I did so.
Awesome.
I made myself stretch out straight away although the pain was intense. Worth doing though as combined with the bike ride home I’m hardly hurting this morning – a bit of tightness at the bottom of my hamstrings and, strangely, my shoulders.
Andy and his sister Louise came in just after – they’d stuck together and her knee had hit problems in the first few miles. We all got t-shirts and medals and ‘goodie bags’ mine had two packets of muesli in???? I’d have preferred a muesli bar or something easier to eat. I stopped in Chorley and blatantly blew my two eating outs a week rule for a massive beef baguette.
I think I have rats. The little scratching noises in the loft have turned into scabbling squeaking, almost thumping sounds. Actually I think they might be elephants

Writing Lines and Banana Brownies

Stuck in the office - almost like writing lines...."I will fill out my calc file as I do a job and not leave it until the last day before the QA check to cobble it together, I will fill out my calc file......"and so on.
Only slightly more monotonous.
Apart from the light relief of being infuriated by Hevacomp - am starting to understand why people refer to it as Heapacrap. For no reason that I can gather - other than machine meglomania it keeps deciding to print out 976 pages with nothing but it's name on, or 376,000 at one point! By the time I've realised and frantically cancelled I've already been responsible for a several square metres of disappearing forest.
Still - I am grateful to have a job after a raft of redundancies have decimated the office this week. I worry that the rest of us may be facing the same someway down the line. I worry that those of us remaining aren't enough to cope if we win even one of the jobs we are waiting on. I worry about the people who've lost their jobs. I worry that Brad may be right when he says I'm a worrier.
Blackpool half marathon looms. I am supposed to be 'carb loading' according to Andy - whatever that is.
The little voice of (reason? laziness?) inside my head says 'Look at this pilfering collection of random food items, there's hardly any left, come on it's been six weeks now - you've done the challenge, you've learnt all your food eating lessons, you absolutely neeed pasta damn it! LET'S GO FOOD SHOPPING - cheeese, cheeeese, cheeeese' but another part of me wonders just what it is possible to make out of what is left and believes I still have food lessons to learn from this challenge.
Such as: banana and chocolate brownies don't make a bad breakfast. Also sushi and chickpea flatbreads may not be obvious partners but they're still a nice lunch.
recipe of the day is:
quarter a cup each of soya flour, chocolate powder and applesauce, mixed up and microwaved for 3 minutes makes a brownie. I replaced the applesauce with mashed banana and a little orange juice (bless free fruit at work!) and I do think a bit of baking powder might have helped.
I tried singing with the high group in the singing group on Tuesday and now understand why they all look so baffled all the time and keep asking questions. back to the lows next time.
Fossil fools day came and went without any action from me. I thought of everyone out there and wished I was.
I'm going home, however early that means coming in tomorrow.

Mmmmmm........Eggs

Not just any old eggs but free range ones, totally unbroken and in an immaculate box. I had two scrambled for breakfast - they were amazing. Then I started thinking about cake, and corn bread, and onion bhajis and all the other great stuff I could make with the others.
Lentil and beef hot pot for tea tonight with enough left over for another two meals.
No free cakes at work despite it having become established tradition in only the last few weeks that we have them EVERY Monday morning as a sort of reward for listening to Grieg tell us how few jobs we've got coming in. I found that my ears don't work as well without cake.
I went for a brew with Vicky in Flat three tonight and stroked her guinea pigs - Lola and Betty. They make a noise like Clangers. A guy came to look at the flat downstairs on Sunday - he liked what I was doing with the garden and offered to help out if he moves in - and he cycles. On Sunday I was out running on the South Manchester cycle way and came across Kidical Mass - the kids version of Critical Mass - Anna and Nes and some of the I bike MCR lot were on it and we waved at each other as we passed - me shouting 'Go Kidical Mass!' and them shouting 'Goooo Spokes!'. I turned down a chance to go to the Lost Plot in favour of the garden here but it was lovely to be asked. I think I can confidently say I've found community. Now I think if I just found some cheese that would be like a dream come true. As a habitual cheese fiend it's been very strange going without it. A friend in Mach fed me lasagne and I had the most amazing cheese dreams about a talking Alsatian who dressed in a suit and a bowler hat (sort of a posh version of scooby doo)
What would be the best thing you could find in a bin?

Midnight Shopping

I got my number for Blackpool this morning – brief panic when I read the route and saw it goes up to 26 miles! But then I realised that they have a full marathon going on AS WELL and that I haven’t accidentally signed myself up for that instead – thirteen miles is enough.
Had an excellent week at CAT and whilst there, during a dinner time conversation about the ethics of vegan and vegetarian diets Tom who was sat next to me announced that he does eat meat but only stuff he finds in bins so it doesn’t count. I was very impressed – the MSc week does bring a few straight mainstream people with it and coming out openly as a Freegan was potentially opening himself to, at minimum, a barrage of ‘errrghs’ or ‘yucks’. I’ve read Freegan websites and even an article in the Observer Food Monthly on it but never actually met anyone who does it so I got him to tell me about it and he launched enthusiastically into a description of all the amazing stuff that gets just thrown out.
So last week I decided to give it a go and set out with a bag, dressed unobtrusively – which unfortunately looks similar to ‘dressed like a burglar’. I was surprised how nervous I felt – I think compostable food going into landfill is a much greater crime and I’ve read so much about how much food we waste as a nation and besides which I’m missing fresh vegetables. First stop was a no hoper – ten foot fencing with massive big spiky barbs all along the top – honestly you’d have thought they had the crown jewels in there instead of a few past-their-sell-by-date bread rolls. Further on I had more luck – a big paper sack of mixed vegetables – left easily accessible on purpose I suspect. I had an onion, some potatoes and carrots – the carrots need peeling and the ends cutting off but they were great. Then I put my hand in deeper and found something ball shaped. I’m ashamed to say that I thought ‘oh – turnip’ with a degree of disappointment. I like turnip well enough but I wasn’t overly excited at the prospect of getting one, even for free. But when I pulled it out and it turned out to be a squash I was very happy.
I optimistically checked the bins behind the off license but there was no slightly scuffed up wine boxes or anything of that sort there. I found another bin in a locked bin store which turned out not to be actually locked (on purpose?) – there were some pringle packets at the bottom but it would have meant climbing in and I didn’t fancy that without a buddy to help me out or at least laugh at me so I took my vegetables home. I chopped the squash up and froze it – I might make Doce de Abobora – pumpkin jam Portugal-stylee with some of it.
Tonight I had stewing steak, sliced up and dusted with seasoned flour and sesame seeds, fried until slightly crispy. Then I fried carrot matchsticks in a bit of the oil and added soy sauce, rice vinegar, chillies, sugar and some grape must as I had no wine (it came from a jar of preserved red peppers, the peppers went a couple of weeks ago) and the beef back in and boiled it quickly down until it worked like a glaze - and discovered that pudding rice does a pretty good impression of sticky rice to go with it.
Another triumph of a low food cupboard is refried beans. Also Potato Gnocchi, which don’t need egg at all.
This weekend sees the start of the I bike MCR Festival – post critical mass the Spokes performed our new off-bike dance routine to the critical mass crowd at the Rollapuluzza Party – awesome fun. Two fixed gear bikes mounted on rollers, attached to a big clock that shows how far you’ve cycled. The aim is to go 500m faster than your opponent. They hold qualifiers and then quarters, semis and finals. There were only eight women up for it so we all qualified and I got a by through to semi’s and ended up in the final going head-to-head with Caz (whose legs are longer than I am tall). I was well proud to lose by less than a second and even got a prize – a mini courier bag, some technical science socks which seem to be space technology offshoots and a t-shirt which says ‘pedal peace – ride bikes’ around a CND logo made from a cog. After dancing to several bands I cycled back through an almost empty Manchester with a handful of others. I was tired to the point of exhaustion but still thrilled. Today they had a party at Platt Fields Park. People were playing music and spinning poi and racing bikes and learning BMXing. I took my new glow-in the-dark travel hula hoop with me and loads of people had a play with it. The effort that they’ve all been putting into it these last months seems to be paying off. I’m feeling very lucky to be where I am at the moment.

I missed my three miler last week. After pounding the London pavements 10 and a half miles from Elephant and Castle to Carshalton Village my legs were still hurting by the time I got home on Sunday. The weather had turned too - nasty gusting winds and spraying rain. I was beating myself up about it but then reminded myself that the challenge is to do the half marathon - not to drive myself to injury with overtraining beforehand. So tonight has been the first run since then - my little three miler through the park. First half difficult - second half easy - seems to be becoming a pattern.
I ate out a reckless total of four times whilst away - one was a west indian pasty type thing at half three on Sunday morning after a drunken walk back past the London Eye and so hardly counts. The lazy person in the back of my head tried aguing that Sunday nigth was really part of the holiday and so exempt but I ignored it and rummaged around in my freezer to find a seafood medley which went well with some brown rice and a tin of tuna and a few herbs and stuff to make enough paella for two days.
f*ck.........
Quick interlude there whilst I remembered the bread I put in over an hour ago and had forgotten clean about - saved it just in time (and myself and the other flats from being woken by a smoke alarm in the middle of the night). I found a bag of gluten and wheat free flour I bought ages ago from the Unicorn Supermarket - it's weird, part rice flour part potato flour (i.e. not really flour at all) but with the tail end of brown flour has made pretty nice bread - a tad crisped on the outside.
I reckon that planning food shopping doesn't have to be boring - just a part of deliberate living. I'm eating better and enjoying my food so much more AND there's still no sign of it running out - although the freezer is down to a box of cranberries, a haggis, a pack of venison and rabbit, two packs of stewing steak, one pitta bread, some pesto and some frozen sweetcorn and green beans - actually when I list it all out - 'down to' doesn't seem quite the right phrase. This could go on for ages yet - maybe I should start another challenge - not until I'm back from CAT next week though.

I've just got home after another ridiculously long day at work and haven't the heart to go running - meaning I will have to fit in a nine and a three mile whilst in London as I am off to Ecobuild tomorrow and then staying with Alice and then Linda for the weekend. Still - they have a lot of nice parks don't they - it will be nice to have a change of running scenery - although to be honest after the first few hundred yards I tend to be busy focusing on not collapsing.
I was going to make banana cake to take with me but it's too late and seems like to much effort and so I shall have to find some other way to be a good guest. I am not going to be rigid about the two eatings out whilst away but shall endevour not to indulge needlessly - I am taking food for tomorrow and will take a flask of tea as I shall feel very hard done to to sit on a train for a few hours, reading a huge amount of stuff on my thesis project, without a brew.
Food is starting to become more....interesting. I have some Pierre's world famous Lentil Lime and Chilli soup on the go but without the onions (which were never a large part of it) and with a rather stingy contribution of coconut - I've attempted to compensate for these with some dry roasted freshly ground coriander. And the lime will be lemon.
I made quinoa, butter bean and nut burgers at the weekend which were great hot but a bit stodgey cold but either way were dead easy and knocked the spots off the cauldron veggie burgers or any other commercial ones I've had. I still think I've got a couple of weeks left - more probably as I'm away at CAT, i.e. The Centre for Alternative Technology (hello Amy!) the week after next.
Singing was great last night although I keep ending up sat next to the loud-and-not-entirely-always-in-tune Yorkshire lady who annoyed me last week by singing the 'It's all too beautiful' in Icthycoo park as 'It's awl tow beyowtifull'. Yesterday however the pissed off face lady's bloke came along - who is like her alter ego - insanely cheerful, dances as he sings (with gusto) and keeps catching people's eyes so he can grin at them and twist his head in a hugely exaggerated wink. He almost sang loudley enough to drown her (and me for everyone else's benefit) out so that was ok.
We did The Chain by Fleetwood Mac and Satellite of Love.
I need to eat, and pack and sleep.
I really need to sleep
I got funding approved for my thesis project today - this made me happy.
Virgin trains however won't let me take my bike to London which made me cross and so I'm up to catch the bus at quarter to seven tomorrow.
yawn
zzz.............

Sunday round up

Runningwise things go well. I fell out of bed on Wednesday morning and into my running gear which I’d left on the floor beside me and was down in the woods just as the sky was starting to lighten up by the time I actually woke up. The dawn chorus was in full swing, all of them yammering away. The route was mostly the same as the seven miler I did the week before with an extra bit on each end so I didn’t have to keep stopping to look at the map. As I came up Princess parkway the rush hour was in full swing. Once you’re off the main drags Chorlton’s really nice for running – big open streets, wide pavements and not many cars but the main routes into the city are completely snarled up at that time – why anyone would put themselves through it is beyond me – it’s not even as if it’s quicker in a car once you get inside the M60.
Yesterday I dragged Laura out for a three mile round Chorley park. She set off at a fair pace and I was thinking ‘bloody hell – I don’t know if I can keep this up all the way round’ but I didn’t have to as she stopped at the top of the long bank outside Astley Hall, gasping and said, “God – you run so fast!” We alternated between running and walking after that and made forty minutes which made me just late for Aikido where the kids were getting their arses kicked for sloping in late as I pushed my bike through the door. They did a sponsored stay awake last Friday painting the dojo. Half of the walls are pink and the skirting boards are black. It’s a unlikely combination but I like it – makes the whole place feel warmer.
Friday night was critical mass – we stuck close into the city centre this month which was better because more people saw us and as we had to stop quite often at lights there was plenty of time for people to catch up and so the mass stayed in a tight bunch instead of getting strung out. As always - once the mass has started going through a green light that then changed to red we kept on going through until we had all passed – this usually meant two more changes of the lights until we were through – there was about 200 of us. A few bikes ‘cork’ the side roads by parking in front of the cars there to stop them pulling into the middle of the mass and people’s reaction to this varies from good natured to downright abusive. It’s much safer that way – having a car in the middle of 200 bikes doesn’t make it any quicker for the car but it makes it a lot more dangerous for the bikes and being as we’re pressured by cars every other hour of every other day for the rest of the month it’s a great feeling knowing that for just those two hours the road is ours. Some pedestrians shout out at us for running red lights, screaming that we should be locked up – it amazes me that people who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at their government illegally invading another country are so horrified by what is, after all, a rather minor act of civil disobedience.
I’m STILL eating well and still seem to have a large amount of food in my cupboards. Went out for a meal with the CAT food group on Thursday – we don’t eat cat food but it is a sort of ex-pats society for students of the Centre for Alternative Technology (Hello Amy – Amy works in media at CAT and so this will flag up on her google search for mentions of CAT and she’ll have to investigate it to make sure it’s factually correct – keep up the good work!) We did Tampopos and I had the full three courses including bananas in nutty breadcrumbs with caramel and appreciated every single bite. I had visitors yesterday and managed to feed them although the bean and couscous salad might have been better as two separate salads and I forgot they're not into strong cheese so the whole camenbert baked in it's box (the wonderous things that turn up in my freezer!) maybe wasn't the best choice but I enjoyed it. I think I’m actually eating better because I’ve stopped grabbing chocolate bars or sandwiches between work and training – forcing myself instead to take stuff from home. Also something I’m really appreciating is pasta sauces which even though I tend to pick them up on yellow sticker tend to be a)More expensive and b)Not a patch on what I could make myself, also bread. I’m not even spending more time on making food – just thinking a little more about it, remembering to defrost stuff or put things in to soak, growing beansprouts etc. I’m also realising which foods I do really need to have in (like onions, potatoes, pasta, porridge), as opposed to the ones I think I want to have in when I’m wandering aimlessly round a supermarket (frozen pizzas, chocolate croissants) Friends that I’ve spoken to who already plan their food shopping agree it saves them time and money, and most importantly of all, that they eat better. I chucked the frozen pizza I’ve been saving in the oven when I got in on Friday – the critical mass ride and a couple of pints had put me in the mood for junk food but I didn’t really enjoy it very much or feel better for eating it.
At the community choir Simon had us warming up by singing Shakespeare’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech to the tune of Mozart’s ‘Rondo Alla Turka’. He claimed it was an annunciation exercise and sat there at his casio keyboard grinning smugly whilst we tripped over phrases such as ‘Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles’ – I think he’d been looking forward to all week.
Plans of cake exchanging for vegetables at the community allotment have been cancelled – I have too much work on and so, like the corporate whore that I am I’m off to sit in the office for a few hours trying to get the school designs that were to be completed on Friday done before tomorrow. Hey ho.

no time, too many things to do

I have no time to write this. I've to do an 8 and a 3 mile this week and as all my evenings are full and because on Saturday I am running with Laura, which has to be the 3 mile - or she will collpase and because I am then doing an aikido course and then friends are visiting and Sunday is polytunnel day at the allotment the only timeslot for the 8 mile run is....tomorrow morning.....before work. I have google mapped a route and set my alarm for ten to six.
I may sleep in my trainers
I may oversleep
more soon
(It is remarkable how much hoummus one tin of chick peas makes)
(It is also good that I like it so much)
Question: if gram flour is made from a type of chick pea (chana dahl) can I use that instead of chick peas in hoummus or will that simply be disgusting?

Yesterday's run was seven miles, down through the woods by the river, under the M60 and back up through Chorlton park. It was grey and overcast but mild and despite the mud I enjoyed it. i didn't feel as if I was making very good time but didn't take any longer than the six mile the week before. Some kids were playing on the monkey bars in the park so I didn't do my crunches. Later on Caz and Em came over and we took our spokes bikes down to the park - first time out on them this year. Forgotton how much fun it is to be razzing along in a gang on little bikes. We dared each other to try the skateboard ramps - much screaming from Em - and had a play on the monkey bars - I can do ten crunches now! (although the last three involve a lot of grimacing and a sort of straining sound as if I'm trying to poo a pineapple)
Wheelies weren't happening - not for me and Em at any rate. Caz and the BMX fared better but I don't think it's something we'll be introducing into the routine anytime soon.
On Saturday night I attended the 'Reclaim the night' march - not really my cup of tea but wanted to see mates and show support as the Manchester group have been 'excommunicated' from the national 'Reclaim the night' group for allowing penis weilding oppressors, sorry men to join the march. One of the things I really like about protests is the consensual decision making that goes into them and the fact that each person and group (generally) actively encourages each other to define their protest according to what matters to them. This does mean that sometime there's a lack of focus on one main theme but it means that everyone owns the protest and for a bunch of southerners to tell my mates that they're wrong to do what feels right to them - well it just got to me a bit is all. It was all fairly fun and I got to hold a big burny torch thing so that's alright. Em had set up an 'I bike MCR' stall including some cupcakes decorated with spokes slogans and wheels which she was selling for donations. I had been saving my other 'eat out' of the week for something grand, or at least something involving an entire meal but seeing her (completely justified) pride in her creations I had to have one. The post march party was cancelled as the student union refused to keep the bar open until it was due to kick off and the organisers felt that everyone would probably drift off which of course following that announcement they did. Fuelled only by a cupcake and some guiness it was probably as well so I went home and had some pasta with a sauce made from a jar of doritos dip, the end of a tin of tuna with the oil it came in and the last few olives out of the jar.
Today I had venison sausages and mushy peas for lunch, pain au Chocolat for breakfast, courtesy of the team briefing meeting and started looking forward to CIBSE sandwiches on Wednesday night at a talk on thermal storage using phase change material.

More Radical than I Thought

I may be getting a new friend! When I was doing the garden last weekend the landlord was showing a lady called Victoria around one of the flats and brought her over to make introductions. She’d been planning to do a container garden so I explained my plans, including the ‘community fire area’ under the trees and said I would love to collaborate. I told her about the Lost Plot community allotment and she sounded really interested. Then she said she was going to Hulme Community Garden Centre potato day next Sunday. ‘Great!’ I said, getting my mobile phone out, ‘Give me your number and I’ll text you nearer the time’. She started to back away at this point and muttered something about dropping it in when she moves in so I said,’ Oh OK yes fine, lovely, oh OK then’ like a lonely loon with no friends who’s just scared off another potential buddy. A friend (because I do have some) suggested that she may have thought I was hitting on her but I explained that I had my new drastically short, sexuality stereotypyingly confusing haircut hidden under a hat........although I was wearing dungerees, ah well.

This morning I bumped into the guitar guy who lives with Lindsay in flat 4 coming out of their flat and he asked about the garden and what I was doing. He sounded really interested.

It’s nearly a week since I ‘just nipped into’ a shop on the off-chance of picking up a bargain and bought a load of random stuff I don’t really need and I’m still eating well – venison sausage and organic cider mustard ciabatta for lunch, fish and mushy peas for dinner – no chips as no potatoes but hey who would’ve thought that mushy peas were just overcooked peas!

A three mile run tonight seemed remarkably easy. Some kids were hanging out in the park and one humorously decided to join me. ‘You’re up for the whole ten miles are you?’ I asked and he said he was but dropped off after about 100 yards – thank god as otherwise I’d have had to run ten miles rather than being revealed as a liar. I sprint finished from the end of the shops and as I came back through the door guitar guy and Lindsay emerged with a load of bags – they’re moving out as well! So that just leaves me and Busha in Flat 6.

Over my mushy peas I started reading my first copy of New Internationalist. It had a pull out section of action groups across the UK including an events diary. ‘Huh,’ I thought, ‘Typical – all in bloody London’ and then realised that was because I was reading the London section so I turned to the Manchester pages and there was me! In print – in a photo doing a rather neat counter balance with the Spokes Bicycle Dancers – yes! How radical am I? Well radical - that’s how radical.

bad nachos and no cakes

Hmmm...haggis sandwiches are all very well - quite flavoursome and quite filling although I suppose that's only to be expected of what is essentially porridge in bread. The mayo didn't work - in future I'd opt for something more robust like a chilli chutney.
Blew the first of my two eating outs on some mexican nachos at Remedy comedy club - just as well the comedy was better than the food. They were welded together with melted chesse that looked as if it had had a few passes through a microwave.
No cakes at work

First day without food shopping - haggis sandwiches

Well I was all smug at not going into any shops today, until I got home and realised that I have NO onions, none. The nearest I’ve got is one bulb of garlic. Also I only have, sorry had, one potato. I ate it tonight. I thought it would be a lot longer before I started noticing things I haven’t got to be honest. No onions! How is it possible to cook without onions? Everything has onions in, except for things which ought to.
Been looking at what I’ve got and soaked some beans as I don’t want to end up eating just beans at the end of this challenge. The other fear is sushi – I seem to have two packets of nori seaweed and two packs of sushi rice which, if you’ve ever made sushi, you’ll know goes a long, long way. So I need to start eating that regularly.
I did think it would be a week or so before I was stretching my imagination but tomorrow I have haggis, mayonnaise and beansprout sandwiches to take to work.
We got pastries AND cake AND fruit at work today.

the third challenge

Ingrid’s challenge....
How long can you go without needing to buy anything?
Ok. Well this is a good one for me. Ingrid did suggest it could be food or food and other things but I’m going to stick to food and see how it goes. On the one hand I deplore consumerism but on the other I do buy stuff a lot. I kind of justify my eating habits on the basis that I usually check out the yellow sticker section first and let that tell me what I’m eating, but then I frequently end up buying various other ingredients to go with said yellow sticker purchase. Also I use the ‘oh I’ll just check the yellow stickers out’ excuse to go into shops and then end up buying stuff because it looks nice, or I fancy it, or because it’ll come in handy.
Having only moved here within the last few months I haven’t built up a huge hoard but even so my freezer is pretty much full, I’d be hard pushed to name everything that’s in there.
So this is the challenge – not to buy any more food until I have eaten what is in my cupboards AND to make it last as long as I can – I had to add the last bit in or I’d just have a monster pig out and clear the lot in a few days.
But how long can I make it last? What do you think? In the same way that I wouldn’t ask anyone to guess how many gobstoppers were in a massive jar of gobstoppers without showing them the jar I don’t expect you to make an uninformed guess. Here’s what I’ve got:
A fridge freezer of the big freezer, tiny fridge variety, freezer ¾ full, quite a bit of meat and fish and bread in there, fridge mostly jars of stuff, and some deep-cold muscle rub (which will not be getting eaten). One standard kitchen cupboard full of food and I mean full – bags of dried stuff and tins and rice and such like. Two more cupboards with not much in them – spices, herbs, teabags, oil and what have you.
I generally get fed about twice a week at work with various free food at seminars, also we get free fruit (which I sit right next to!) which lasts until about Wednesday, and pastries on a Monday morning, and cake when someone has a birthday. Honestly – it’s like my bosses have worked out what motivates me or something.
Because I’m not a complete masochist I’m NOT including alcohol bought outside the house, or cleaning stuff – not that I buy much of that anyway but I’ve tried home-made clothes washing stuff before and it never smelt that great or got things actually clean – not an issue when you’re on a mountain with goats for company but I would actually like to keep my job and my friends. Also I will let myself eat out, but no more than twice a week.
What’s the oldest food you’ve got in your cupboards?

Community and running updates

I trekked up to Chorley to go running yesterday as a comment that I was thinking about it was picked up on at work by Andy (who has challenged me to do the half marathon) and my boss Frank who both said they’d meet up for a run. Laura was less than enthusiastic – indeed I was after a night on Leffe beer which had ended up with me snoozing in the pub. Then the trains turned out to be on rail replacement buses from Bolton so I had to leave my bike locked on the station there and wait in the cold, still hungover for a bus which was 20 minutes late, and then wasn’t allowed to set off as they decided to transfer us onto another bus, the driver of which didn’t even know where Chorley was and we had to direct him! I sent various texts explaining the state of play, dropped my panniers at Laura’s house – she wouldn’t come out, and belted down to the park. No sign of Andy or Frank so I assumed they’d set off and decided just to get going. Despite the cold and the hangover it wasn’t so bad. The snowdrops are out and although the course is difficult it’s very pretty. Some kids had broken down the harris fencing surrounding a new rustic-style climbing frame play park area and were triumphantly sitting on the top of it looking down on the ‘building site – no entry’ sign in the mud. Various dog walkers were out including a splendid chap with a huge walrus moustache with two basset hounds. The course is 3 miles including two laps through the woods and I was planning on doing it twice as this was my six mile run. Andy reckons the second lap is the hardest but I can now say that actually the third is harder. I was only half way round the third and struggling when I saw Andy and Frank running towards me. They’d hung around waiting for me and then decided to run the opposite way to catch me. So I turned round and followed them back up the hill I’d just run down. Frank (who celebrated his 60th birthday last year) led us off round the other side of the park, along the edge of the muddy football pitches, always ahead and looking as if he were hardly trying at all, telling stories as he ran. I managed to keep jogging but at a pace which wasn’t much faster than a walk. They waited for me a couple of times and we did another lap round the woods. It was great running with other people because it made me try a bit harder, and they didn’t seem to mind that I was slow – the first time I ran that course was with Andy and Paul I’d had to miss out the 2nd lap whilst I got my breath back so at least he knew how much I’d improved.
Today I’m out for a 3 mile as I failed completely to get a run in during the week. I am starting to enjoy it a bit but I think I need to start pushing times. An hour and twenty minutes of running yesterday took me ten km – which I’ve put myself down for doing between 50 minutes and an hour for the Manchester 10k (which is after Blackpool – by which time I should be super fit or knackered).
Singing is off for half-term next week. We were fewer last Tuesday and the usual crowd in the ‘high’ singing spots was missing so I went and sat with them – and then Simon didn’t split us into highs and lows but leads and back-ups, and then moved us all around until I ended up with the lows again. The lady who had her finger in her ear next to me the other week was opposite me so I could see she was still doing it – maybe it wasn’t me after all – she also seems to constantly be pulling a face as if she’s either confused or pissed off. We did a song which had an instrumental break – and we were the instruments which was very fun, lots of silly noises that when they were all put together actually sounded really good.
I made it down to the lost plot again last Sunday for a few hours digging before the snow came. I took a barrow load of rubbish which had been gathered in little piles and odd broken buckets around the plot up to the central skip and had a chat with a woman who was planting out some espalier apple trees which she said she’d moved twice in the last year – they looked healthy enough but they were quite mature and it was so cold – I hope they survive. I have bought myself a fork and am going to get out in the back yard this afternoon and clear the little raised bed that is there. I’m also clearing the area under the trees at the end with a view to it being a community space for the flats that I live in. I have been planning to invite them all round for cake and tea and tell them about it but they mostley seem to have moved out. Flat one downstairs is empty and the landlord was round yesterday working on the flat below me and a load of rubbish had appeared outside – cleared out of the flat I think. I had a rummage in it and found some rugs which will do nicely to suppress the weeds on my little plot until it’s warm enough to plant up, also a proper old canvas tent – the sort that you really need a car to move around but that lasts forever.
I think community and fitness are the sort of challenges that only come slowly, and with time and effort. So – I’m going to keep plugging away at them but it’s time for another challenge - after the 3 mile run – difficult dragging myself out of a warm cosy flat into what looks pretty cold and nasty but I’m sure that once I’m out it’ll seem better.

Shoddy update

I am a bad blogger – barely a couple of weeks in and already I am neglecting this. My excuses are numerous. It’s my sister’s fault – she visited this weekend, thereby distracting me and I had a drink in the sand bar which turned into several and work has been extremely busy and so on........
The lost plot has lost out on my assistance the last two Sundays – the first for Chinese New Year which turned out to be on this weekend, so I had to miss it again. Just as well as it was freezing cold – big fat snowflakes fell all over the dancing dragon – which the Chinese compere called a lion, before being corrected by the girl next to him. Then they had a lion and unicorn dancer which he carefully explained was a traditional dance at the Chinese New Year and symbolised, ummm...good luck – with a cheery chat show host grin. It all went very well with street food and generally cheerful crowds although I did regret my choice of long Chinese dress and fishnets – tights with hundreds of holes in them – what is that about?
Running – I did manage to fit in a three mile and a two mile last weekend, the first round Chorley park with Laura who is training for the Manchester 10k and involved more walking than running to be honest – although Laura made a better showing than I did the first time I did that course when I had to miss out the middle lap to stand wheezing and gasping like an asthmatic fish out of water for ten minutes. Then I did a four mile on Wednesday night – I quite like running in the dark so long as it’s not raining and don’t buy into the general nonsense view that rapists and muggers are waiting around every bush and alleyway for suitable victims. It was great and I thought I’d got the whole running thing nailed - until this morning and a two mile stumble which was agony and even stretching afterwards did nothing to stop my legs seizing up and making me walk in a lurching, stiff-jointed marionette kind of way with a twitching grimace of pain at every step for the rest of the day. Repeated applications of deep heat seem to have helped.
Next week – five miles and three miles.

The Second Challenge

Do the Blackpool Half Marathon

Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow
How is it possible for my legs to HURT this much.
I have some shiny new running shoes. I have drawn up a list of runs that I have to do between now and April 5th to get myself gradually fit, breaking myself in gently and building up so that when it happens I'll be ready for it, starting with just two miles - two miles that's all, on the flat. And I cycle eight miles every day and do Aikido so I shoudl be pretty fit you'd think.
Basically this challenge means that my legs are going to hurt from now until mid-April.
I did two miles, round Chorlton Park. It's a lovely park - full of old trees and wood carvings, football pitches which were busy and a kids playground which was empty so I went all Rocky and tried to do some monkey crunches (or GI Jane sit ups as Em calls them) ha ha ha. Basically by hanging off the bars with my knees and one arm and tightening what I think are my stomach muscles I managed to convince myself that I was doing something - making a fool of myself I suspect.
That was on Saturday. Then my legs hurt on Sunday, and worse on Monday, and stopped briefly after acrobalance but then started again on Tuesday and still hurt now.
This week I have to do a two mile and a three mile run.
It is Wednesday and I haven't done either yet.
I did go to singing last night - I was in the middles again and the lady next to me kept telling me that I was singing the wrong bit and putting her finger nearest me in her ear - to block me out maybe? Simon who runs it has invited me to a family party on Saturday - presumably to get me on my own so that he can gently break it to me that when they said it didn't matter what your singing voice was like they didn't MEAN it. So maybe I won't go, then I can carry on singing, oblivious. We did 'The Truth Hits Everybody', and 'Won't you Come Home Bill Bailey' - theme seemed to be songs with more words in them than notes.

Community 3: Losing the Plot

I found a community allotment called 'The Lost Plot' on the 'Action For Sustainable Living' website. They're in Chorlton and I thought what better way to find community and maybe get some free veg into the bargain. They said they were there every Sunday so the week before last I wandered over in search of the lost plot......
I could see it through the high spiky pallisade fencing surrounding the allotments and recognised it from the photos on the website but there was no one there. I shouted to a woman in a wooley hat who was on the next plot and she said she'd never heard of the lost plot but let me in so that I could have an ask around. It's a massive site and has central compost heaps where I found several hairy gardeners with wheelbarrows. They hadn't heard of the lost plot either but at the words 'community allotment' said 'Arrrhhhh,' in the manner of a Bristolian Pirate who's spent a lot of years in Yorkshire, 'You'll be meaning the TOIMEWASTERS!' and fell about chortling through their beards before pointing back to the way I'd come saying 'it's in the corner - the one with all the TOILETS' and went back to laughing.
I wandered back and the lady who had let me in said that she did know Josh and Helen who run it but didn't know it as the Lost Plot. I mooched around, took some photos of the cob oven and the toilets and went to fly my kite.
The next week I emailed them and got an enthusiastic reply from Helen so I took a break from homework on Sunday afternoon to try again. They were there this time with two more allotmenters - Clair and ermmm...bloke with a blue coat. All very nice. I helped out moving some clay (left over from the oven building) and clearing an area for a polytunnel they've got coming and took a wheelbarrow of weeds to the compost area. They all seemed very nice and I shall definitely be going back but not this Sunday as it's Chinese New Year.
On Monday the spokes http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk/spokes.htm reconvened after the christmas break for the first acrobalance session. I had two major breakthroughs - a split second of actually balancing on my hands in a handstand - I mean I actually felt that I was actually balanced for the first time ever, and after weeks of Owen telling us to isolate the part of our body we were trying to spin the hula hoop around I did - and it worked! (I should try this listening thing more often). Also we discovered that J-Dog can actually get up on my shoulders really easily but that we're still all really rubbish at rock and roll dancing.

Community 2: My Birthday

I got my first birthday wishes, on-line at ten past twelve from Phil who I haven’t seen for nearly a decade, since he and Bridget departed, with monstrous hangovers, for New Zealand. We’d even lost touch completely until last year. Phil was a housemate and very much part of my community when I was at College and I classed him as my ‘best’ friend for a lot of years so having him back in touch makes me very happy, although the distance makes me sad. I had a barrage of other happy birthdays on facebook from Dubai and Portugal as well as closer to home, from people I haven’t seen in years to people I see regularly.
I was woken a few hours later by a text message telling me to look under the bed where a present had been left from my friend John who visited at the weekend. John lives in Machynlleth in Wales where I am an occasional part of another incredible community – the environmentalist fancy dress party animals, activists, thinkers and adventurers that surround the Centre for Alternative Technology. The present was a book, ‘Critical Mass, Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration’ a beautiful collection of essays from critical massers all over the world and a reminder that here is another amazing community of which I am a part.
All in all the day reminded me of the scale of the word community – it’s not just our street or our town or our immediate circle of friends but everyone, everywhere. I spent my birthday evening finishing putting a presentation together on sustainable communities, why we need them and what they are. I’m not that angelic – I’d promised to do it about eight months ago and suddenly realised it was this Thursday, last minute as always. I just hope no one challenges me to start doing things as soon as I realise they need doing – it would be impossible. I’d been struggling for a closing statement but I went with this:
‘And finally - all of us have our own areas of specialisation and it’s very easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Sustainable communities are not just about sensible energy use but also about water, waste and resources and also the opportunities they offer the people who live and work in them.
And of course they are not just about the way they are designed and built but also the way they are inhabited and used and how they interact with the already existing communities surrounding them, including the global community.
And all of us are a part of that.
And all of us have a duty to contribute to that.’
It was beautiful, honest. If they hadn’t been a bunch of hard-nosed engineers I swear they would have cried.
Happy Birthday to me. Thank you everyone for your love.
Right – back to my homework, only another 1000 words to write. It’s due in Tuesday and I’ve only had it since November.

Community 1: The Chorlton Sing

Last Tuesday, and this, I have been attending ‘The Chorlton Sing’ which is a community choir and meets at an upstairs room in the Lloyds hotel, handily located minutes from my flat.
It’s run by Simon, a man too tall for his jeans who unloaded his keyboard from the car and put out chairs in a manic fashion whilst explaining that everyone comes late, that people probably won’t come on the first one back and that they’re a sort of ‘Radio 2’ singing group rather than ‘that sort of gospel African group’. I smiled and nodded and drank my wine but it didn’t mean much as I’ve never been to a singing group before unless you count a singing workshop at a festival which was spine-tinglingly beautiful (but given the money we’d all paid to feel that way it should have been).
I said as much but Simon said ‘oh if your voice doesn’t have a ceiling just sit with the sopranos, otherwise just sit anywhere’. Well my voice does have a ceiling (a low one) and a floor (high) and walls (narrow) and a bloody great lumpy object in the middle so I sort of veer between low and high, missing the middle, loudly bellowing and school assembly quiet and crisply pronounced and pub-singer slurred in an unpredictable manner that even takes me unawares.
The group is around thirty voices, about fifteen turned up both last week and this despite Simon’s fears of post-christmas laziness. He manages the group with an enthusiasm that reminds me of a music teacher at school gallivanting between his keyboard and the centre of the floor with a tiny banjo, singing all our different parts to us (variously high, middle and low, or high and low or John, Paul and George) with confusing speed. My ears find it especially confusing as, obviously he can sing, because he runs a singing group, and no one else seemed to struggle but a lot of the time he seemed to be singing all the parts in a high falsetto.
Of the other singers there is Dominic – his brother who has a great deal of volume I found tonight when he was stood behind me, Paula with the flicky hair and glittered eyelids who laughed so much in the song ‘Bald Man’ at the line ‘When your dog disrespects you’ that she made me laugh so I tried not to look at her but I knew she was laughing anyway and could see her shoulders juddering from the corner of my eye, Janine who makes a face like a (beautiful) wide mouthed frog when she hits the high notes and some others – that’s as far as I got with names although there was a girl from Toronto and one from Malta.
Last week we did songs I didn’t know and this week we had a Monkees fest with ‘Daydream believer’ and ‘I’m a Believer’ and the ‘Off the Wall’ which Simon said should be jazzy but ended up sounding more ‘Gregorian-chanty’. At the end we stand up and sing all the songs which is the best bit.
I didn’t chat with many of them but there seemed to be a deal of chatting going on in the break and before and after and they’ve been going nearly three years so I think community was definitely in the air. I shall persevere but I suspect that with my singing voice I may well make more friends by leaving than by joining!