Ketchup

Posted by admin on August 21st, 2007 filed in I and I

I am not really sure how many people pay regular attention to this as I’m not a frequent writer, and how many people are actually all that interested in in what I have to say anyway? On the off chance that people who know me well enough to care, but not so well that you see me regularly, like to read this blog I am writing this as a kind of catch up post as I haven’t written anything for a while.

I moved house in July, only down the road but long enough to make carrying an oak bookcase feel like an epic adventure. Sidney Grove was a fine place to live but the new street is somewhat finer and a little quieter. No more am I woken by the smell of burning wheely bins in the back alley. 100% of men living at 86 Sidney Grove between June 2005 and July 2007 have moved in with their girlfriends and all are of ‘that age’ I suppose. Now I have a bedroom and an office which I share with Emily. It is nice to not find discarded capacitors in your bed, my patience for life in one room was wearing thin; things are much better. In the garden there is now a vegetable patch, an apple tree, roses and all sorts. The good life, we have a compost and make our own bread.

Our ex-landlord still has our piano. It took one day and cost two spines to move. We prepared it with copper and played it about 10 times in two years, it really tied the room together. The house was taken over by a group of students from China. Three days after they had moved in they were gone again. They had waisted no time in turning what was once a home into a multi-story weed farm. Hydroponics on every floor, thousands of plants and the beginnings of a hole in the roof to let the smell out. On sight of the landlord entering the house they scarpered out the back door leaving the operation behind. Needless to say ‘Big Chris’ is a little naffed off about the situation but this gives him the chance to “do the house up nice this time”.

Leckie’s birthday came round again. Some of the very best people in my world assembled in a field to build fires, dance and sing the three songs we all know: Kumbaya, the Top Gun theme tune and… something that T. Soare’s whiskey didn’t want me to remember.

It’s still the school holidays. I had a job teaching music in primary schools. It’s good fun once the kids decide your worth a damn. We sang songs about worms, space, time machines and Texas prisoners. Some of these kids were nothing short of amazing. We made our own instruments and watched Stomp videos to get us started. The job starts again in September, but so does my PhD. I am now waiting to hear about funding, any day now… I can only do one of these but at the moment I can’t pay my own way back to school so I’m crossing my fingers again. We’ll see… Any day now…