Dance & Drink & Screw

09
Everytime I go to my local community garden, I buy a Lotto ticket at the WH Smith inside Stratford Shopping Centre. I have more chance of shagging David Beckham while Posh Spice looks on with a grin on her face but still I persist.

12
Our Garden Club leader is on holiday in the West Counties, so there was only weeding and watering to be done today. I learnt to "dead head" flowers and that people who use our garden during the week (it's open to the public) have no qualms about leaving behind their cigarette butts and energy drinks. Fuckers.

14
Rails have been set up across Mile End Road as you approach Grove Road. This is to stop drunk young ones from running into traffic when they stumble drunk/high out of Lovebox this weekend. Girls in hot pants, boys in black wife beaters. A lot of dodgy tattoos. Up on the double-decker bus I feel more than ever exiled from the land of youth.

21
Descale the shower head and get into lukewarm water. A cool breeze runs through the apartment. Plug my laptop, turn off the lights and watch trailers for upcoming films. Boyfriend returns home from his solitary studio.

30
iTunes on shuffle plays my brother's favourite song when he was a pre-teen, Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years". It's his birthday today.

49
These are not my lucky numbers.

My boyfriend and I are looking to escape London. Sometime next week, hopefully off this island. We've looked at trains, buses and airplanes. We've looked at Last Minute deals, suggestions by friends on Trip Advisor and on Livejournal, work colleagues tips - anything... it's been hard!

Our latest plan is to take a train to Portsmouth, a ferry across to France and spend a few days over there. But we can't find an available hotel room...

In the meantime, I've been blessed with sunshine in London during this first week off work. I've been to ice cream festivals (with fj), walks around Regent's Park followed by beers and burgers (with suzi, clay, sarah and rattler), sunbathing in Victoria Park with my boyfriend, gym sessions, yoga classes, pizza at the Lauriston, pints outside the BFI while watching the crowds go by, some fiction writing, some movie watching, some video game playing and a LOT of resting.

I'm hoping to go swimming in Hampstead Heath tomorrow - my first time there. It's part of my plan of using this time off to do fun things around London I've never done before, while taking advantage of the good weather.

An old friend from uni arrives tomorrow night and spends the weekend with us. I foresee walks down Regent's Canal to Broadway Market, lunch at London Fields, some dancing in the evening, breakfast at the Pavillion Cafe in Victoria Park... all the money I could have spent in some Greek restaurant I'm going to spend right here, in London's EastEnd.

We came in from the heat and sat down at a corner table covered with cowboy comic strips from the 50s. A man in the corner played a trumpet until a basil-scented pizza on a platter arrived for him from the kitchen.

The girl behind the bar wore lipstick that was slightly too red for her face - as vivid as the cowboy's shirt on the comic strip. We rested our drinks on the cartoons - beer, lemonade, Coke - and pulled out our notebooks and pens for a spontaneous creative writing exercise brought about by hours of talks on literature and art in a nearby park.

We were grateful for the fresh breeze that came into the pub from all the open windows.

After the trumpetist was done with his pizza, he picked his instrument up again and was joined by a man at the piano. We stopped our writing to clap every time they completed a song. Then we were back into our pages, the cartoon smiles from the American Wild West peeking at us from underneath our notebooks. More people arrived and the clink of glasses from the bar counter, and the chatter from outdoor tables, rose whenever there was a pause in the free jazz.

Vicky said we could be in Italy.

Yesterday was my community garden's Harvest Festival. wink_martindale and I helped with the children's workshop tent though we also lent a hand with the collection of lettuce from the beds beforehand, setting up tables, etc. The Festival was more of a neighbourhood party and lasted only five hours but I was completely knackered by the end; children's bundle of energy rely heavily on taking your own! But it was really good fun and we were all glad that the sun came out, attendance was high, there was a trio of musicians that added greatly to things and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I was happy to see amypops, her boyfriend David, kirstenlj and yaruar with their children. I got to tell them a little about what my previous Saturdays have been like at the garden and perhaps seduced them into joining me in future visits. They stayed longer than they intended to, which says it all really.

The children's workshop consisted of dyes made from beetroot and berries, brushes and potatoes carved to make shaped stamps (stars, triangles, hearts, teardrops...) The kids lightly daubed the stamps with the ink and pressed it onto the paper. The photo above is the mural I created from their work.

If a bomb had been dropped on Victoria Park yesterday, it would have wiped out 99.99% of London's lesbians, gays and trannies. Are steroids flamable? Because there was enough there yesterday (covered by fine trimmed hair and tattoos) to set the EastEnd ablaze after the explosion.

I never saw so many gayers in one space. Gaydar and Gaymers banners floated everywhere, drag queens danced and sang on top of a makeshift 1970s New York club (NYC Down Low) while punters with real and fake moustaches lined to get in, Stonewall volunteers paraded with their banners and handed out stickers, and every corner seemed to have a beat going for a happy group of semi-clad hands-in-the-air types. It was all very enjoyable and sunny.

I've got some photos to upload tonight. In the meantime, here's my brief review:

Best Gig
Hercules and Love Affair, hands down. They were fan-tas-tic - like gods from the height of 70s disco coming down to throw a party for us mere mortals. They showcased a lot of new music and it all sounds bri-lli-ant. Possibly better than the first album! I hope they play London again soon, and I hope I can get tickets. Second album is scheduled for a September release, apparently.

Nearly Best Gig
Grace Jones, who changed headware for every song and finished the set by hoola-hooping through a whole track. She was funny, she had legs that went for miles, she wore a thong that showed off her toned butt, and she sounded like Dionne Warwick in the mood for all-night-sex. She closed the festival with a golden key she normally keeps in her 80s dub pop box.

Sadly Missed Gig
Hurts. So very disappointed I missed them! And New Young Pony Club, who we caught towards the end of their set and sounded a-ma-zing and good fun. Must listen to them on Spotify when I get home.

Slightly Disappointing Gig
Cut Copy. Their old material had the crowd jumping in happiness but the three new songs they showcased just didn't do anything for me or most of the crowd. It's a departure from their old material - one of them sounded like Dire Straits - but hopefully it's better on record.

Honourable Mentions
- Amusement park in the middle of festival! Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, slides - all right beside the gig stages. Genius idea.
- Hot lesbians who dirty danced and got everyone in the mood to jump around.
- Gay boys everywhere, in all states of (un)dress. Muscles and fat, smooth and furry, deaf or with just one arm, tall and short, in groups or alone and off their tits. So so so many boys - the lover of people-watching in me was thrilled.
- Lots of great food stalls to choose from. We had Greek wraps and a lot of bottled water.

Dishonourable Mentions
Cigarette smoking. Everywhere. All the time. One after the other. Smoke blown in your face. Over and over. I feel today like I had half a pack of smokes just from all the secondhanding. I had a very dark thought on the way home: if everyone who smoked suddenly dropped dead at the same time, a lot of the world's problems would be solved... the only cranky thought from an otherwise extremely happy, satiated, TIRED mind.

There was a really ugly accident on Old Ford Road this afternoon. I missed it by a few minutes. I was walking home from the gym when an emergency ambulance car sped past me. Up ahead, in front of a block of flats, about twenty people were gathered around a couple of people lying on the sidewalk. There were more emergency cars, an ambulance, a fire truck (?!) and a police car (I think.) In the middle of these vehicles was a red car with a spiderweb-like smashed window on its passenger side. The two people on the floor were a mother cradling a 10 year old girl who (I hope) was only passed out, scratched, her face bloodied.

That block of flats has a green space bordering the sidewalk that was recently converted into a playground. Moms with little kids use it throughout the day but it's also popular with pre-teens. It's a hang out for the ones from the block and for the ones that live on the other side of Old Ford Road. My guess is that the girl was running across the road when she got hit - either playing with her friends, trying to catch a ball, or simply jaywalking. There was a big group of kids perched nearby crying their eyes out.

It's sad to conclude this but it was an accident waiting to happen. The playground doesn't have any sort of fence and it's only just a few feet from Old Ford Road (a fairly busy road) - I've seen kids run into that road before after their ball. I hope that girl will be OK.

Just round the corner is Victoria Park. I think one couple lying on the grass close to the Canal were doing it. When I saw a mother with three kids walking in my direction, I thought of warning her about the upsetting scene up ahead so she could take a detour. Then I didn't say anything.

shirtless men jogging up and down Regent's Canal.

vomiting a little in your mouth as you walk past hipsters sipping coffee on Broadway Road (do these people not work?!)

the modern world in your ears.

a solitary ham and salad sandwich at London Fields.

copies of London the Biography and Me Cheeta in Broadway Road Bookshop when all the main chains are sold out (mental note: always try independent booksellers first).

hasidic girls opening the flood gates for a barge to go through, under the command of a stern but attentive (non denominational) young instructor.

a flotilla of children inside colourful canoes clogging the canal, splashing each other with paddles.

a giant sunflower drooping down on you, a bee crawling its black eye.

a grey heron flying a feet above the water.

a crow calling out to you from the top of an apartment building.

a red-nosed and dazed drunk, sitting on a bench, eyeing you suspiciously.

a beautiful guy that looks at you twice.

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White sand and the sea
Summer birds return to Crete
Sun loungers their home


Photo by king_prawn

I walk up and down Regent's Canal every week day because it's the easiest way for me to get to work. I wonder if a day will come when the canal is as clean as a fresh river again and London's eastend residents can enjoy it like an open-ended lido. I once saw a large carp in it, and the swans and coots don't seem to mind the floating plastic bags, but it still looks damn dirty and uninviting to me.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I saw a student from the Bridge Academy in the water, holding on to his instructor's canoe while his classmates splashed him with their paddle. This morning, a girl tangled her cloth bag with her bike's front wheel, spun in the air and landed at my feet, griddled by her bike's spokes. I helped her up and asked if she was OK, then tried to make a joke that at least she hadn't fallen into the canal. "That would have been terrible," she said. She was deeply embarassed and cycled past me all hunched up, as if I might not notice her anymore.

Up ahead, I came across a note tied to the canal's railings. It said something like this: "to the girl who crashed into me yesterday (01/07/09), I never got a chance to get your number. Drop me an e-mail. ______@gmail.com" I wondered if it might be the same girl who fell off the bike - each day a different boy at the receiving end of her disastrous biking skills.

In the afternoon, I heard laughter and cries from my office window. I looked into the canal and the canoeing students were at it again: this time, at least three of them were in the water, trying to get back on their canoes while the others splashed them and fought like gladiators.

I'd be in heaven if I could go for dips in the canal on my lunch break.

There's a man outside my office window listening to Verdi's "La donna è mobile" on a gramophone. He's inside a paddle boat, rowing up and down Regent's Canal. He's wearing a cream suit and a summer hat, and he's being filmed.

I wish I could be outside today enjoying the sun.