Vandalism?

My neighbour calls round this evening to invite me to his birthday drinks tomorrow night.

P doesn’t need any excuse to bang the Labour drum and of course the brewing election provides plenty of ammunition.

We’ve had numerous vigourous arguments over Iraq and how my faith in Blair has been fundamentally knocked as a result, but we can at least unite over our hatred of these bloody posters.

I show P the photo I took the other day of the ‘revised’ version. He’s similarly amused.

It can be very hard to disapprove of vandalism in such cases…

Still Not Thinking What You're Thinking

Well it didn’t last long.

We now have this delightful new addition plastered over the top.

At face value it appears that this is a wholesale rejection of the whole concept of ‘early release’ by the Tories. I’m sure they’ve thought through the implications for the prison service and beyond of taking away any meaningful incentive for good behaviour and rehabilitation…

I’m probably just being cynical of course they’ve thought it through properly.

I mean they did enough thinking to include a lovely chauvinistic subtext in the sentence.

I’m becoming increasingly suspicious that a certain Mr Blair might in due course be found out to be a major funder of this ubiquitous poster campaign. Frankly that’s a more preferable option to thinking that these posters are making a significant number of people respond “hmmm yes, that is what I’m thinking!”

Out in the Peaks

It’s sort of so-so weather as Phil, Sarah and I head out to the Peak District, but fortunately keeps dry for our walks.

First off we stop at Parsley Hey and walk along the old quarry railway line towards Hartington.

My dodgy foot is holding up well so we decide to head home via Lady Bower reservoir for another short walk.

It’s so good to get out and catch some fresh air that the time rather gets away from us. Consequently I text Debs to put back our meeting time for a curry tonight.

She texts back saying she’s had a really bad week with several bits of bad news. Once home I ring her to find out what’s up and I find her tearful. She so deserves a break, but it’s not happening right now.

We decide to settle for a long phone chat and reschedule meeting up.

It must be all that fresh air, but my heavy eyelids suggest this is no bad thing.

Easter Fire

Maybe it was finishing up those bottles of wine last night, or maybe it was the loss of the hour, but either way, somehow I don’t quite make it to Sarah’s greeting Easter service in the park opposite her church at 6am.

Fortunately her parishioners are more motivated and 27 turn up for what might now become an annual affair. Sarah is delighted at the turn-out, even though it means she and her colleagues are somewhat zombie like for the 10.30am service and she only lasts until mid-afternoon before having to give in to sleep.

Phil is also delighted with the dawn-break events, but his pleasure is derived principally from the spectacular flames he achieved through a careful match to the chopped up church Christmas tree used to create the Easter fire from which the Easter candles were lit.

In fact he is so animated as he relates his tale of pyromania that I’m slightly nervous leaving him in the lounge with lit candles whilst I prepare tea. Tonight we have smoked salmon and palm hearts in a lemon vinaigrette, followed by veggie and preserved lemon tagine with couscous (hey if ain’t broke…) and finished off with the remaining half of the cheesecake.

Right…that’s me done with the whole cooking/entertaining thing some time I reckon.

Normal service will now be resumed.

Who?

A nice quiet day today; outside of driving Sarah to and from B&Q (more anti-vandal paint to try and keep the local scallies from climbing into their and their neighbours gardens) I have the day to myself.

I plough through a backlog of emails and get close to getting up to date on Greenbelt actions.

Phil and Sarah, had planned to come round tonight to catch Dr Who. Sadly Sarah is just too tired, but being a nice friend I video it for my sci-fi tellyless freaks…I mean friends.

I settle in for a cosy night of plonk and DVDs. It’s a really good feeling to be on the second day off and still have two more days ahead before a return to work.

I reckon we should have more of these four day weekends.

A Good Friday

Custard powder safely procured, the cheesecake doesn’t turn out too bad, leaving the rest of the afternoon to tidy the house and get the starters and mains sorted.

Plenty of time eh? You’d think…

Fortunately Stuart and Karen are a few minutes late (I approve of friends like this) so it just about comes together in time.

There’s an air of Ready, Steady, Cook to the proceedings due to the unplanned shopping (“what can L1z make out of the following ingredients?”), but it seems to work out ok.

To start I do a made up recipe of chorizo, red onion and cherry tomatoes sautéed in red wine, served on char-grilled polenta on a bed of rocket (damn fine if I say so myself – I’ll be doing this one again!). Main course is chicken, almond and apricot tagine (with assorted random veg) served with couscous. All finished off with the cheesecake.

Not bad. Not quite Nigella, but it’ll do.

The effort seems worthwhile though – a really lovely night. Good wine and fabulous company; so relaxed and lot’s of laughter. I’m so glad Stuart and Karen moved to Manchester. I vote we don’t let them leave.

Unprepared

I’m supposed to be cooking for various friends over the long weekend. I meant to work out menus and hence a shopping list last night, but only got as far as fishing out my mum’s baked cheesecake recipe.

Even this however, I managed to leave at home.

I busk the shopping, making up recipes in my head as I wander from aisle to aisle. Something is nagging at me though, I know there’s a slightly ‘odd’ ingredient in the cheesecake, but can’t remember for the life of me what it is.

Fortunately my mum is very understanding about the mid-Tesco’s phone call querying “What’s the unexpected ingredient in your baked cheesecake recipe, that I won’t have in my cupboard?”.

Luckily she’s also on my wavelength and knows the answer: custard powder.

Unluckily, she has a daughter who is easily distracted mid-search: “oooh look Chorizo on special offer!”

So that’ll be a trip to Asda for the custard powder tomorrow morning then…

Home

Fairly regularly someone will ask me why I have chosen, for the last 11 years, to live in one of Manchester’s roughest areas. The honest answer is exceedingly dull and can kind of be summarised by saying that I think that where you chose to live is one of the most political actions you probably ever make in life.

That said, all the good intentions in the world probably aren’t going to make that decision sustainable in the long term if you don’t also love the area.

Often therefore, if I don’t want to go into a long and tedious social justice related explanation as to why I favor my little corner of this city, I’ll simply reply, “because here I like my neighbours”.

Of course even that half-answer needs a lot of unpacking. On one level it’s about my immediate neighbours and the communal aspects of life on our close (united in adversity as one neighbour once put it). On another level it’s about the wider neighbourhood, the diversity of the population, the spirit and character of the place and people – its personality.

It’s hard to define all that in words – where would one start or end? One aspect is that it has a subversive underside. This is a neighbourhood that blocks off roads with child-decorated wheely bins, until the council relents and commits to thought-out traffic calming. It’s an area where age-old graffiti stating “Love And Peace Is What We Need” (sentiment taking precedence over grammar), battles with gang tags and where some wag once daubed “Free Ian Brown!” (who returned the compliment by naming one of his recent songs M13). Here green guerrillas plant trees on brown field sites in a bid to protect open space from inappropriate development and car adverts regularly survive less than a week before the local band of adbusters subverts them.

Tonight I catch sight of a new example. In fact, in future, when people ask me why I live here, I may simply answer “because when someone puts up a divisive, negative electioneering, fear-mongering turd of a billboard in this neighbourhood, this is what happens:



And in answer to the adverts tagline question: No, Mr Howard; I’m glad to say that on the whole round here, people aren’t thinking what you and your odious little chums are.

World Water Day

It’s World Water Day today and WaterAid are running a scheme encouraging people to give an hour of their wages to save a life.

For just £15 you can fund a WaterAid project that will help some of the world’s poorest people establish lasting supplies of clean water and sanitation.

Go on, be a hero, click here and do your bit.

Escape to the countryside

My last full day down south and following a trip to my opticians (yeah, yeah, I know it’s about time I found one in Manchester, I’ve only been there 16 years!), we head for a quiet day out.

In my parent’s world this translates to a drive out to the country and a trip to a garden centre.

In contrast to myself, my parent’s have never been city lovers. Born in East London they moved to the southern suburbs after marriage, but work commitments never allowed them to escape fully. They would rarely go into central London through choice, seldom taking advantage of the cultural delights on offer in the big metropolis. Rather at every opportunity they would head out of the big smoke and were both keen hill and mountain walkers in their time.

It was always understood that they would retire to one of the places they loved – probably the west-country, returning to my Dad’s maternal family homeland. The MS has put pay to that though, they need their friends and established support networks around them more than ever. Accordingly they settle with trips out as often as Mum can cope with.

This is not the retirement that either of them hoped for; worked so hard for. The sadness is tangible.

In Need of a Break

Mum’s leg is out of a cast, but is now in an amazing boot affair, that stretches up to her knee, is fastened with numerous velcro straps and then inflated.

Needless to say this is not making her mobility any easier, but having seen the X-rays of her impressively broken fibula I can see the need for protection/support.

Generally she would try and get around the house (they live fully downstairs now) with the use of a wheeled frame. Although this is a slow and tortuous means of getting around (we’re talking 20 minutes to move from one room to another – and no they don’t live in a super-large house before you ask!), it does mean she uses her muscles as much as possible and maintains a small degree of independence. Sadly at the moment, getting up from even the motorised armchair is difficult and frequently impossible unaided and any ‘walking’ is only possible with a static frame and more times than not she has to resort to being pushed in a wheelchair.

She’s naturally worried about how much ability will return when the boot is eventually removed (at least another few weeks yet).

All I can do is let her cry on my shoulder and encourage her to do the exercises the physio has recommended.

It feels so crap to not be able to do more. MS is a shitty, shitty condition and it kills me to see my mum suffer so much.

Daarrn Sarrf

I’m down in London for a long weekend to see the folks. I usually favour the train on environmental grounds, but the journey times and prices are just prohibitive for this trip, so against my green conscience I elect to fly with Jet2, the new budget service running between Manchester and Gatwick.

It’s a bit of a contrast to the BA shuttle that I’ve used in the past. There are only 3 flights a day so the times aren’t always the best and with no self-service check-in facilities, and out of the way check-in desks and departure gates mean you need to allow more time either end. Then again, at these prices (from £30 return incl taxes) it would be foolish to grumble. OK you don’t get a snack and a freebie drink, but then on an hour flight that’s not really a hardship (and let’s face it swiping a freebie Smirnoff miniature feels good, but…).

Happily my brother and his family have also come across for the afternoon, so I also get to catch up with them.

I didn’t think large Easter Eggs for the kids would survive the journey particularly well, so I opted for smaller eggs to use for an Easter Egg hunt, which went down a storm.

Once all the eggs were found, ‘Aunty L1z’ got dragged outside by J and R to play football.

Well I say football…4 year old J (complete in England replica kit and announcements that he is Michael Owen) seems to have an interesting approach to the game. Let’s say he has an eclectic approach to sport, happily accommodating aspects of netball (picking up the ball and moving it across for a better shooting angle) and rugby (about to be tackled? Simply throw yourself on top of the ball) as needed.

It’s no surprise that his older sister, feels the need to approach Granddad for a whistle and yellow and red post-it notes to be used as cards. In contrast to her younger sibling, she’s one of life’s natural referees, with a tendency to get a bit hung up on things being done 'right'.

Still when the referee/goal keeper is only 6 years old and the defender only 4, it’s very easy to sweep up a giggling monster under each arm and score at least one goal yourself.

Not that they seem to mind, any opportunity to be swung around or turned upside down is unfailingly met with great enthusiasm. Why is it that kids love being dangled upside down so much? When do we lose that desire?

Festival

A text from the witty Sarah S reads:

"They appear to be letting horses run all over our lovely Greenbelt campsite. Surely this must be some sort of health risk?"

I can only reply to reassure her that any germs left behind from the great unwashed in August will almost certainly have perished by now and therefore the lovely horsies are quite safe.

Homeland Security

Inspired by Jude, the current US Terror Alert level is:



Click the image to see the other options...

Conference Call

More Greenbelt tonight as we have the second of our Ops Managers/Festival Manager/Programme Manager telephone conferences.

At the risk of sounding like Sally’s blog, can I record that Cullen was less than 10 minutes late.

An hour seems to whiz by as we pour over the latest site plans, programme, staff issues and so forth.

It’s all good stuff, though I’m coming to regret my comment to Ben last night re “it feels like we’re further down the line re knowing what sort of venues we have this year”. As ever there is much flux.

Of course the minute I put the phone down I remember that I needed to speak to Sarah re the VM/Planning Group issue. Ah well that’s probably better in a one to one call anyway.