Stomping ground

I went out yesterday; it's been a while! Put on my lipstick (the colour of a pimento pepper, I just noticed that it's called 'Kiss of Life') and went out to meet my two old schoolfriends. We go back 40 years and I've written about them before here. And one of them was the friend who wrote the letter I mentioned a few posts ago on this blog too. She had no recollection of obsessing about Sham 69 and Jimmy Pursey in 1978, by the way, but the evidence was there in black and white....  We got the giggles.

Our rendezvous, as usual, was in the town where we all grew up together. The town where we went to school, the town where we learned to ride bikes and swim, where we puffed tentatively on our first cigarettes, where we had our first clumsy kisses, our first pint of warm cider, our first naïve fumbles with dodgy boyfriends. Our first of many gig experiences too – which we reminded ourselves about when we'd finished our lunch and went on a mini-tour of our old stomping ground. We pulled in at the old maltings building which used to be our rather excellent little music venue, where we had seen the Banshees in January 1978, Adam and the Ants the following year, and countless other bands of varying degrees of notoriety and ability. In retrospect we reckoned we were so lucky, growing up in a rural town but only 45 minutes by train from London. We had fields, woods and riding stables at one end, a rock/punk club (and jazz and folk if you wanted it too) plus the Granada cinema at the other... our homes on the hilly streets between.

The town has changed; like most places it's bigger than it was even 20 years ago, new estates on its perimeter have spread progressively outwards like ripples on water, buildings in its centre have grown upwards like plants struggling to reach sunlight in crowded beds. But its heart still does have some heart, in spite of the increase in boho-chic shops with French names and the ubiquitous estate agents. The road by the market square still has its brick style paving, overlooked by buildings dating back to the 14^th century, even though they now sport their Mexican and Italian restaurant chain frontages. I never really noticed the beauty of the architecture as a kid - you don't, do you? - never thought about the history of the half-timbered houses or grand Georgian facades.

But you didn't really want to read about all that, did you? No, well... if you really must know, my first naïve fumble was with a boy called John in the bushes by the playing fields behind my house, on a Spring afternoon after school. I really didn't know what he was doing, nor what I was supposed to do either, everything felt unknown and daunting - my childhood had been so very innocent up to then.  As I said to my friends yesterday: “It was hard...”   Oh, I didn't mean like that! That's for me to know and you to wonder about.  Growing up with lovely friends like mine, though, everything else really was quite easy, and picking up where we left off all these decades later always is too.

Photo phobia

In the age of the ubiquitous Selfie, I imagine that most kids grow up now feeling very comfortable in front of a camera. I don't need to harp on about how different things once were, because I know that you too remember the days of taking your roll of film to Boots for developing, then, feeling disproportionately excited, you'd collect your packet of photos a week later only to find that those which weren't over-exposed had brutally chopped off the top of your head instead. Plus you had to pay for them. The disappointment could not be over-emphasised.

I never liked having my photograph taken and I went through a particularly rebellious stage as a kid. Somewhere, in a box in a room in my sister's house, there are dozens of slides from our once-in-a-lifetime family trip to Germany, with shots from the Television Tower in Stuttgart and Black Forest castles and cobbled streets in the many towns we visited. In every one, I'm sticking my tongue out. Miley Cyrus had nothing on my six year old fotografizophobe (I looked that up). (I can still do a fair impersonation of Miley now, as it happens, just flick my hair up at the front and pull out ears to complete the effect... but not in front of a camera...)

So on our return from the European jaunt my mum took the multiple rolls of films to Boots for developing, then, feeling disproportionately excited, she collected her packets of photos a week later only to find that every single of one of them which included her spoilt little brat of a daughter was ruined by the horrible face that said offspring had pulled. Only my obnoxiousness was over-exposed.  I'm afraid I was a difficult child.

Then again, if you'd been forced to have your photo taken at the age of two whilst wearing a ridiculous knitted bonnet (and coat) indoors, you might have felt the same way. That's fear in that chubby cheeked face there. Fear.

Revelations and renovations

Bloody hell, what a week.  I don't know what was most shocking - seeing a skip fill up with bits of my home (more on that in a mo), or the enjoyment I got from the Chas 'n' Dave documentary, 'Last Orders' on BBC4.  I mean, this weekend we watched two music programmes - the one I've just mentioned and the one on Robert Plant, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the former was far more interesting and entertaining by a mile.  Did you see it?  Did you see the clip from BBC Breakfast Time when Chas 'n' Dave were interviewed by Selina Scott and Nick Ross?  Unbelievable.   "Tell me...why do you wear braces?" was one of the questions from Selina, with no attempt to disguise the snigger in her voice.  "To 'old me trowsiz up" was the simultaneous reply from the interviewees.  The look on their faces as they tried to keep it civil whilst being patronised and treated like some alien species by their smug and incredulous hosts actually brought the Bill Grundy/Pistols incident to my mind.  It really wasn't that far removed, and could just as easily have been John and Steve sitting on the breakfast TV sofa wondering what the fuck they were doing there.  I saw the Rockney duo in a whole new light after that programme.  Just wish I'd had a bit more respect for them when they did an album signing at the record shop I worked in during the early '80s.  I'm afraid I was slightly embarrassed about the whole thing at the time.

So that was one surprising revelation.  Here are some others from the past few days:

We took out a door frame and found the original red brick wall, layers of dark orange paint and some good old '70s (?) brown and white patterned wallpaper beneath it...  I love the way you get a kind of palimpsest (a favourite word, that - any excuse to use it) when you strip back those layers.  A snappy(ish) phrase came to mind, one that you don't want to try without your teeth in: "decades of decaying decor".

If I seem a bit out of sorts at the moment it may be because my kitchen looks like this

...which resembles a sort of warped Mondrian to my tired mind right now.  Whaddya reckon to the light switch hanging from the ceiling, eh? (if you look closely, top centre).  An art installation?

Meanwhile, back in the living room, it's all about plaster... but I'm liking those parallel lines.

And as for the back wall of the 1950s breeze block extension (also part of the kitchen), here's what it looked like earlier today.  When is a door not a door?

I'm shattered.  I can't wait until I no longer taste dust.

Cheburashka

Life is so full-on at the moment I've just had no time nor energy to post or comment much lately (so sorry).  I'm still reading, though, when I have chance, and hoping things will return to a more relaxed pace soon.  Meanwhile, because you mean a lot to me and you know I would never wish to neglect you, here's a little something to make you smile...

I first saw 'Cheburashka', a 30-minute Russian animation from the 1960s, in the support slot to Eels on their With Strings tour when I saw them in Nottingham (several hours away but the tickets were free!).   Oh, it must have been about 8 years ago now... but what a great, different idea for an opening act.  I was somewhat smitten by the furry little big-eared, big-eyed character, just as I now am by the Meerkat idents used in the Corrie advert breaks - baby Oleg reminds me of Cheburashka - brilliant.  (Just a shame that's all linked up to advertising, they're too good).

So here's a poignant little song from the film, sung by Gena the Crocodile, to tide things over for a while in my absence.

Back soon.

Don't cry wolf

One I photographed earlier

Time to do a bit more PR for my eight-legged friends, you know how much I love them.

I've noticed a lot of wolf spiders about lately, mainly because the sun has finally come out these last few weeks and wolf spiders like it. On any warm sunny day, if you look closely at exposed walls, low lying plants or bare ground, you're bound to notice a few of these creatures, just basking. They come in various sizes and colours but as far as I'm aware they all have the same distinctively pointed abdomen and a blunt sort of head with quite obvious fangs. They also tend to sit around (you know what I mean) for a long time in the same pose - with their rather downy-looking front legs close together pointing forwards.

There are two things I especially like about wolf spiders. Firstly, as part of the mating ritual, the males offer their intended females a gift. It comes in the form of a ready meal – a dead fly (wrapped, of course, in the finest silk). It's not exactly altruistic; not only does he do it to get his legs over, but also because without this dinner it's quite likely he may end up being eaten himself. This way he can just get on with mating with her while she tucks in to her main course. I consider myself very geeky privileged to have watched this courtship behaviour one day last summer (and meanwhile, in an anthropomorphic parallel world, a wolf spider blogs about human voyeurism).

The other thing about wolf spiders concerns the female who takes great care of her egg sac and carries it around with her. A practical reason for this is that wolf spiders don't weave webs, so have nowhere to leave them as they are always on the move, hunting down their prey with stealth (and venom). Anyway, she carefully carries this cumbersome sac beneath her, raised up slightly from the ground so as not to cause damage, and then when the eggs hatch after about 7 to 10 days... oh, this is the bit I love... for the next week or so she carries her tiny babies* around on her back.  Wolf spiders – many species of which are common around the world – are the only ones that do this. Sweet, eh? Well... I'm smitten.  And it's funny how when you're interested in something you can effortlessly store all this useless information, yet still struggle with your nine times table.

 Good song, tenuous connection

* spiderlings (aww)

Kitchens of distinction

Over the years I've fantasised about many things, some of which I really shouldn't go into here, and, in spite of what you may have gathered from one or two previous posts, Ricky Gervais is not one of them. Up until very recently, nor were kitchens. I've just 'accepted' all the kitchens I've ever known: the ones in rented, damp, down-at-heel flats with their oatmeal wallpaper, pockmarked lino floors and brown bead curtains in doorways... I'm a tolerant soul. Our last home was different in that it was a new-build apartment and its kitchen cupboards had doors that actually shut properly, but the ratio of available floor space to size of an average human foot was not great. I mean, we quickly learned that it was easier just to walk backwards than to attempt a full turn, especially when holding a frying pan.

We moved here over a decade ago, to a very different property - a 200-year old cottage with all the nice things that 200-year old cottages have, such as woodworm and an absence of right-angles. 'Charming' in estate agent speak. It is lovely- but tiny; it would be a two-up one-down with an outside loo if it weren't for a more modern extension tacked onto the back to house the kitchen and bathroom. Well, I say modern, but this 1950s addition is where things stop being quite so lovely. Someone – presumably someone with as much knowledge on building kitchens and bathrooms as me (perhaps less so, I was a dab hand with the Airfix Betta Bilda after all) – installed cheap units as wonky as a Rubik's cube in mid-turn and a shit-coloured lino floor (it makes you want to wipe your feet on the way out) complete with mysterious lumps carefully preserved beneath. The concrete step under the back door has cracked so much that when I open it on damp mornings I have to remove small confused slugs and the occasional back end (or is it front end?) of an earthworm from the threshold – I'm not exaggerating.

So it is with some excitement and anticipation that we've decided – and can now just about afford - to do something about it. And I think I must have finally come of age because, for the first time in my life, instead of fantasising about things like curry and kinky boots, I'm actually fantasising about kitchens. (Oh, and bathrooms. That 1970s peach suite has to go.)

Imagine.

Some time in 1981 (part two)

It's June already, I can't believe my 18th birthday is only a month away!

I've spent some time this week rearranging my bedroom and it feels more like a little pad, I pretend it's my flat. Now I just have my mattress on the floor and I saved up and bought a stereo (turntable, tuner and cassette deck).  New albums I've been playing to death lately are the Au Pairs 'Playing With A Different Sex', Psychedelic Furs 'Talk Talk Talk', Kraftwerk 'Computer World' and Positive Noise 'Heart Of Darkness'. I've put this great Nosferatu film poster above the bed. Scared the life out of me when it fell down in the middle of the night and I awoke suddenly to find a vampire on my head (although Klaus Kinski does look rather cute in a bald, pointy-eared, fang-toothed kind of way).  So now it's stuck back with an entire packet of Blutac.

He looks a bit rough in the mornings

College is ok - Jill came in to visit the other day, I miss her from the Foundation Year but she's fine, she's gone very London now and has been hanging out at Le Beat Route - I feel very provincial now by comparison!

Been a strange year without Dad in the house but Mum is a lot better after her breakdown. It was the worst she's had, we're used to her depression when she stays in bed all day but we knew that things had got bad when she started saying/doing really odd things again as well.  She obsessed about painting her bedroom orange and wanted us to do it for her. Orange! Then she suddenly started reading the bible - we have a really old one in the house inherited from Dad's side of the family but nobody ever looks at it.  We're all so non-religious and this just wasn't like Mum at all, the way she was talking about stuff too.  It was a few months ago now but anyway A called Dr Lewis, he came over and arranged an ambulance - they took her to hospital that same afternoon. It was horrible seeing her wrapped in a blanket and wheeled out to it, like she was physically ill even though she wasn't. I actually think she was relieved, though. It was as if she was feeling, “I don't have to try any more. I can just give in to it” - like she'd reached rock bottom but at the same time a turning point, a time to let the doctors step in I s'pose.  A and I both cried after she'd gone but we were relieved too, and then we were fine on our own, in fact it was really nice having the house to ourselves for several weeks. We worked out our menus (macaroni cheese every Saturday) and we kept the place clean, it was like being a true grown-up with a house of my own (but sharing with my big sister). Hospital visits were hard, I hated going.  But anyway she got better, came back home and things have returned to some kind of normality. I haven't seen Dad in ages, don't know what he's going to do about my 18th (maybe he'll visit, that might be a bit strange).

Great news today! P has bought tickets to see Kraftwerk at Hammersmith Odeon so K and I are going with him and L. It's on the day after my birthday and I can't wait! Now I'm just wondering what to wear.

Girl Crush Sunday #2

Bobbie Gentry
(Roberta Lee Streeter)

I first saw and heard Bobbie in 1969 when I was six and she was in the UK charts with 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again', making it to No. 1. She was No. 1 to me too;  the crush I had on her was as big - bigger, even - than her hair. Talking of which, her long, dark, bouffant hair was a significant part of her appeal to me then (I hankered for two things as a kid, a head of raven locks and a Tressy doll, and never had either). When the song came on Top Of The Pops or Radio 1 I would abandon my Fuzzy Felt and be captivated by this American singer with her sultry Southern vocals and her flared trouser suits. But there was more to it: a warmth in her face and her voice, something special that drew me in. Whilst that still remains to my adult eyes and ears, I can see and hear so much more than that too now.

Here's a great track, with an interesting subject matter, which is little less well-known here as it didn't make the UK charts.

Bobbie Gentry on the Johnny Cash Show: Fancy

(Hat tip to Singing Bear over at Grown Up Backwards who included this on a recent playlist)