Margo London 2008

All future blogs

2009-02-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

For all future blogs by me, please go here:

http://www.margolondon.blogspot.com

Duty and Shame

2009-01-21T04:54:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama's Inauguration speech really affected me on a personal level yesterday. I listened alone in a Boardroom, in the gathering dark above Hanover Square as he spoke of the duty of individuals to contribute to a globally networked community. He said "our patchwork heritage is a strength" and "let's not compromise our ideals in our need for safety".

It felt like he was speaking to me personally. I'm always most deeply affected by the idea that individual efforts can combine to affect the world and the community at large. I was reminded of Nelson Mandela's Inauguration day, and how much has passed since then. I realise that I've never seen myself as a citizen of any one nation, but rather a citizen of the world first, and then as a child of Africa, and now as a part of a European community.

"This too shall pass"*, and even this -

- that my parents are suffering so much and no matter what I do, I have no power to help them,

- that my relationship with my partner is a difficult one, and I don't know how and when and if we will survive as a couple,

- that my university studies have become more of a chore than a challenge, as I'm forced to study history from a post-imperialist apologist perspective that I despise,

- that the way I speak to people continues to excoriate and come back to haunt me,

- that I've only been given two days to reconnect with my sister and her sons; not enough, never enough, and I just have to accept it.

But then sometimes at my lowest ebb, I can laugh - at myself, as I weaved my way home last night, tipsy after 3 glasses of wine and a merry old time with Rosemarie, calling Gerald to have a good old sob on the phone - and thank heavens for my friends. My friends who are, after all, the family of my choice. I may not be there for them all, all of the time, but they're with me always and that's the one good thing that I needed to remember.

Good luck, President Barack Hossain Obama; hang on to your friends because I think you're going to need them! :)

* Abraham Lincoln, from a old Hebrew saying

Don't Panic*

2009-01-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

I stripped rather nervously.

As instructed, I crawled naked into the machine. Eye patches stuck over my eyelids, I reached out blindly for the button and pressed "Start".

For a moment, everything was still. I held my breath and waited. And then, like a space age rocket machine, a loud and pleasant "Bing Bong" rang out around me, and all the lights in the machine came on. Through my blindfold, I could faintly make out bright purples and reds; a loud humming noise and faint, ominous cracking noises in the background. I couldn't help a nervous giggle. God help me, I thought, they must all think I'm nuts.

I waited. I began to feel a heavy warmth spreading over my body, over my skin, creeping into every nook, every curve of my limbs. A glowing heat tickled between my toes, lit up my face, gleamed on my shoulders. Slowly, slowly I began to relax and allow the heat to seep through all my aching muscles, still plagued with vague doubts and wondering if anyone had ever been caught in an explosion and killed in one of these infernal machines.

"What happens if I fall asleep? What do I do if I overheat and shrivel? What if someone .... "

"Bing Bong" said the machine pleasantly and shut down.

I sat up, peeled off my eye stickers and stared in the mirror. Yes, definitely more tanned.

Funny thing, though. I feel like I've just taken a trip in Zaphod Beeblebrox's Free Lunch Drive*, and returned as a piece of roast pork crackling.

* with thanks to Douglas Adams

Cool Yule!

2008-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Non, je ne regrette rien

2008-12-19T02:40:00.000-08:00

I get awfully tired of hearing about the looming recession on the radio, watching tv news and reading the papers. So many words! Yet, with all the commentary on the credit crunch, the recession, a depression and economic mayhem, everyone is so busy attributing blame, finding reasons and excuses with the perfect vision of 20/20 hindsight, you have to wonder about our vision of the future. Is anybody looking forward and planning how to avoid this in the future? Doubtful!

Who cares whose fault it all is? Why do we have to spend so much time finger-pointing, blaming and picking history to pieces? None of it will teach us anything to prepare us for the next time round. It's so easy to destroy politicians after the fact (makes you worry for Barack in times to come). Lest we forget, we are the ones who had them elected, after all.

And we can bitch and moan about bankers, greedy capitalists and corrupt fraudsters like Madoff, but it was our own self-interest; our own consumerist hunger for more of everything material that made them, wasn't it?

We need to get over our little selves; our ego-driven arrogance, and celebrate the tightening of the belt.

It can only do us good to lose a little of the fat ...

... in every sense of the word.

The 8.02 via Charing Cross

2008-12-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

For nearly 4 years now, each morning I have come this way. I walk to Finchley Central, and I wait – if I am lucky – for the 8.02 to come down from Mill Hill East. It is a shorter route, so it’s the only train which arrives still empty. All the other trains come down all the way from High Barnet and they are full, so there are no seats. The 8.02 is the one train I can still find a seat to sit and sleep in, and to dream, on my way to work.

Most mornings I sleep. I start off by reading the free daily tabloid, the London Metro. But after so many years I am sick of the British media. There’s nothing of substance to it but the comics and the horoscope. Then I drift off to sleep and wake, every time, two stops before the one where I alight. It used to be Charing Cross – every day, for two years. But because I work in temporary contracts nowadays, sometimes it’s Leicester Square, sometimes – as now – it’s Tottenham Court Road and on to the Central Line.

Sometimes I study. We are back with poetry on my Open University course and I’m reading The Faber Book of Beasts. My thoughts drift off and I remember my dogs. Perhaps in March next year Guy will have the chance to meet Scooter and Zeus. I remember Scooter and how she loved to curl up against me and close her eyes in bliss, inside my arms, my smell, my love. I remember her first time at the lake; small abandoned doggy, so scared, hopping on three legs. She was such a girly-girl. She used to get stressed in the heat, stressed in crowds, stressed by Zeus, jealous. Feminine to the core. And Zeus, so much like Guy, big and bold and golden and beautiful – a force of nature; patient, joy-filled adventurer. I see them often in my dreams. Sometimes when I meditate they’re also there with me; they swim in the dark pools with me in the silence of the wooded forests where I walk. I think they’ll be with me till the day I die.

Today my sister Jane called me. This is the first phone call in four years; and it was a bit of a tragi-comedy. There she is, at work on a public holiday. She started talking and it became harder and harder to get a word in edgeways, until I had to cut her off to deal with an electrician waiting patiently to talk to me in my office, a broad grin on his cheerful face. I cut her off and called her back a bit later, and we spoke of my parents; frail, ageing, nostalgic.

She tells me Julian is heading on to Design College next year, and I’m filled with fierce joy for him. Vincent continues with gym every day, which also buoys me up with pleasure. But it’s possible they may be on holiday at the coast when Guy and I come to visit next year, so – once again – my family manages to plunge me into despair and irritation. Really, you’d think they were crossing continents to try and avoid me! But I shake it off; as I always do. This is my family and we are what we are and I am where I belong, for all the right reasons.

On Sunday morning, just after midnight, Guy and I will travel down to Stonehenge to take part in the Winter Solstice ritual at sunrise. He helps me realise all my dreams. There is no more powerful sense of belonging than to be drawn into someone’s arms at night and hear the words “my woman” whispered in the dark. Glimpses of other peoples’ intimacies over the years – love letters on a kitchen fridge - come back to remind me that 20 years of freedom was a great adventure for a loner like me, but that all the frustration and heartbreak of partnership are wrapped up in new worlds, new families and new adventures.

The 8.02 comes into Tottenham Court Road, where I change for Oxford Circus and the high street lights of Christmas. I put on my scarf and trudge the 97 steps (I’ve counted them) up to street level.

The lights are fragile and beautiful against the still-dark morning sky.

Our First Christmas

2008-12-06T08:10:00.001-08:00

The littlest Christmas tree

Home is the hunter ...

Absurdities

2008-12-06T05:58:00.001-08:00

Attack of the Killer Monster Snow Goon!

Guy - menacing? Never!

Winter's improbable gifts

2008-11-20T13:30:00.001-08:00

This last beautiful sweet-smelling rose flowered in our garden,
long after the end of autumn.

Welcome to Carnaby Street Christmas!
I work round the corner from here, in a new job;
quite unexpectedly happy again.

Halloween

2008-11-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

Return to Rochester Castle

In the Great Storm of 1987, several very old trees were uprooted in Rochester. To commemorate the event, the community carved this Monk out of what was left of one of these ancient and beautiful trees. The commitment was to allow the Monk to wear away with time, and to replace him with another - in perpetuity.

He looked very eerie in the sunset on All Hallow's Eve.

The Medway at last light.

The very best start to Autumn

2008-10-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon stroll along the Grand Union Canal towpath through the villages around the Tring Reservoirs ...

The end of summer

2008-10-11T01:22:00.001-07:00

Mornings in my garden

Afternoon on the South Bank

Evening on Camden Lock

Instructions (Neil Gaiman)

2008-09-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas - abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.

Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things, 2006

* * *

Instructions

(Quite literally, a set of instructions for what to do when you find yourself in a fairy tale.)

* * *

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never saw before,
Say 'please' before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted front door,
as a knocker,
do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat nothing.
However,
if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.
From the back garden you will be able to see the wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads down to Winter's realm;
there is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

Once through the garden you will be in the wood.
The trees are old. Eyes peer from the undergrowth.
Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She may ask for something;
give it to her. She
will point the way to the castle. Inside it
are three princesses.
Do not trust the youngest. Walk on.
In the clearing beyond the castle the twelve months sit about a fire,
warming their feet, exchanging tales.
They may do favours for you, if you are polite.
You may pick strawberries in December's frost.

Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where you are going.
The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferryman will take you.
(The answer to his question is this:
If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too loudly; that
witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.

Do not be jealous of your sister:
know that diamonds and roses
are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs:
colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope - what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.

When you come back, return the way you came.
Favours will be returned, debts be repaid.

Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall)
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown)
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).

There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand.

When you reach the little house, the place your journey started,
you will recognise it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember.
Walk up the path, and through the garden gate you never saw before but once.
And then go home. Or make a home.

Or rest.

Chester

2008-09-17T13:59:00.001-07:00

I survived ...

2008-09-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

... The Large Hadron Collider First Beam Event Horizon !

Provenance

2008-09-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

When people spend fortunes on a Rolex or a Piaget or a Cartier watch it means very little to me. Because they are buying into a brand name which is, after all, someone else’s character, personality, history and provenance. And the question I always ask (quietly, inside) is, “don’t they have any of their own?”

I suppose my vague resentment comes from a conversation about City men and how they spend fortunes on watches and suits and shoes and briefcases. I remember the most beautiful briefcase I ever saw was one carried by a Creative Director I used to work with. It was leather, battered, bent, curled at the corners, handle darkened by the sweat of his palm on steamy days, and it matched his shorts and scraggly beard and the pillow he always carried for Power Naps, perfectly.

In Africa they speak of seriti or isitunzi – those symbolic shadows we cast; a reflection of our greatness as a remembrance of the way we have lived our lives, and the richness we have offered to the community. Although our mark is sometimes measured in the number of cattle and the tangible wealth we’ve brought to the clan, more often it’s measured in the potency of action, the bravery and courage we’ve enacted and inspired. The izibongo – those epic poems sung about each individual recalling the anecdotes of a life lived well – accumulate from the person to the people and become a history spoken of for ages after. What will be the izibongo of the City men of London; the Viking raiders in a new age of rape and pillage?

In another sense we talk of context and of how it frames our paintings, our lives, our interests, perspective and focal points. So for instance, while people may ridicule the art of Damien Hirst, he serves as such a perfect foil for our time. He uses gold and diamonds as paint on his canvas. But he uses butterfly wings too. It’s all filthy lucre and fragility; gold spun fine as a spider’s web, ephemeral crap much in the same vein as Andy Warhol in his own time. Damien’s art is framed by the context of the London Cityboy - all Style and no Substance, more Wealthy than Wise. I sense it in other people too – that vacuous and empty search for the ultimate party, all glitter, UV, chemicals, alcohol, music and bright lights. Sometimes it just looks and feels so sad.

In a hundred years time, what will your provenance be?

And mine? For it’s all very well being a bard who sings the epic poem of my time, but out here in the “blag”osphere who will ever hear me over the babblings of all the other troubadours, blogging about turnip farming, turgid sex and expat life?

After all, the shadows we cast are only the momentary reflection of shapes passing through sunlight ...

Return

2008-09-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

Is this the season, I wonder, when all expats feel the saddest? This is moment when you are halfway, the furthest away from "home". It's been six months since I was in South Africa and it will be at least another six before I can be there again. Guy feels it too, and we seem to be spending a lot of time on nostalgic discussions of home-things, home-places, home-people. He mentioned something funny about New Zealand and had to stop for a moment, because it all turned around - some memory had struck him - and he choked up with sadness. I woke up yesterday from a vivid dream of a family reunion, at the Vaal Dam of all places, and had to cry on his shoulder. He laughed because I had the imprint of pillows all over my face, but how good it was to have someone to hug me who completely understood me.

This is the moment when the cold weather returns, when we go from living out-of-doors, back to the interior life of heaters and jumpers and floor-socks. The rain comes down out of a stolid, unrelenting grey sky, and I have returned to my books, back to the intellectual life of study once more.

2008-08-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

Of Paupers and Princes

2008-08-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

I stepped out this morning into sheets of rain and trudged to the Tube under Guy's large penguin-handled golf umbrella, through the ghastly, soaking, soggy drenching showers. We sat there in the tube train, all of us gently steaming away in the warm humidity, every now and then shaking off a dripping coat or sopping umbrella like drenched cats. When I came out from under Green Park, the sky was already clearing but it was still cool. In the shadow of one of the pillars of The Ritz Hotel, I saw a miserable ragged heap. It turned out to be a homeless girl, all curled up with her large dog in her lap, both trying to keep warm together. I stopped to say hello - her name was Emma, and her dog's name was Kipper. He was gorgeous, all beagle and big eyes; sleepy but sociable. We chatted for a while, and I scraped out all the money from the bottom of my purse to give to her.

At work we were auctioning paintings for charity - paintings that had been done by staff, for staff. I nearly bought one, but at the last minute decided to save my money for my first piece of archery equipment - my very own recurve bow (which will not be cheap). But it was fun, nevertheless, seeing others bidding, winning or losing on the works - which were all lovely. I'm running my own after-hours auctions on eBay - selling off vintage Judge Dredd comics. Some of them make money, others don't.

This afternoon we prepared for a special Evening Reception at work. I imbibed three glasses of the most dangerous substance on Planet Earth - champagne. Yuck! But I did get to meet one of the most famous and formidable Auctioneers in the world. He was charming and interesting. It really has been a week of movie star magic for me at this place ... yes, I met a movie star too but he's a client of the company and discretion is advised. How cool, though!

Today I did something bad again unfortunately. I sent a text message about Guy to my sister - not a complimentary one - unfortunately I sent it to Guy by mistake instead. Now this is something I've done recently to someone else I rather love and respect, and I couldn't believe my own stupidity and crassness today, doing it all over again. Really, will I never learn!? I truly am my own worst enemy sometimes!

When I got home, hot and sweaty, dishevelled and exhausted, I sat down to watch Pollock - a movie about Jackson Pollock. Guy had watched it before and found it depressing and sad. Me - I was more disturbed and intrigued. As the movie came to an end, Guy walked in. He had forgiven me - amazingly - and bought me a kite.

Now, let me tell you, this gift has got to be one of the best I've ever been given. Here's why:

1. It was a complete surprise - there was no rhyme or reason for it's arrival - he bought it for me "just because".

2. It was given on a non-event day. No birthday, no anniversary, no "forgive and forget". He saw it and he thought I'd like it, so he bought it.

3. It's a kite. No-one has ever bought me a kite before. It's a creature of the outdoors and the air, like me. It has no purpose other than to entertain and bring me (and others) joy.

A kite. He bought me a kite. Truly, he is a Prince among Men, and I adore him more and more every day!

He looked at me tonight and said "I couldn't live without your prickliness, you know. It's one of the things that makes you Margo."

And as I sit and write this now, I'm thinking of Emma and Kipper. I do hope they had a good day, and that they found shelter tonight and food and a place to sleep. I hope I don't see them again tomorrow morning in the shadow of the Ritz, in the place where Princes sleep.

I hope that they're ok.

Beautiful London

2008-08-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

By Guy

South Bank (a different perspective)

2008-08-16T03:40:00.001-07:00

My favourite Statue in London

2008-08-16T03:38:00.001-07:00

Piglet

2008-08-13T11:06:00.001-07:00

Our car.

I'm looking for a saucepan ...

2008-08-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

... down 't market in Brick Lane, like

Loskop! (rough translation: "Loose Head")

2008-08-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

So that's what happens when someone feeds you
a whole bottle of red wine,
and gives you a UV light cokie pen to play with!

The Ray Gun Police

2008-08-13T10:48:00.001-07:00

Sunday afternoon at The Elephant's Head, Camden
Three beers down ...

Humidity

2008-08-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

Like a weighted blanket, the air sits hot and heavy over London; still and humid. As you enter the Underground the temperature rises another stifling ten degrees. There is no respite; only your air-conditioned office, closeted and dark down the rabbit warren of hallways in the hidden areas behind the grand façade that is Christie’s Auction House in St James’s, Mayfair.

I have finished my university course on Leonardo da Vinci, and it was a humbling but educational experience. I didn’t learn too much more about the man than I already knew (well, except – did you know that he was also a sculptor?) but I certainly learned that I have a lot to learn about learning. My tutor took me down a notch or two, from scores averaging in the 90 percentile right down to the fifties. And I cannot but help acknowledge, he might’ve been a bully, but he was right - my essays did not deserve high marks. I’ve begun to realise you can’t always rely on Style over Substance in an academic essay. At some point or another, you have to Make the Argument. You have to find the right insights, using only university-accepted material, and make a strategic or deductive leap that clearly substantiates your argument – whatever angle you might be coming from.

I have always suspected that I tend to slide superficially over the real issues, be it in marketing or art history, and this course confirmed the truth of that. I have a lot to learn, but I have also learned a lot.

It put me off my studies for a while; a little out of fear, a little out of resentment. But I have been distracted by other things too.

Making the Argument is easy when it comes to my new man. We seem to argue heatedly over everything, and it’s not always his fault. (Amazingly, I’ve discovered I’m wrong in a lot of ways :-D ) I like my space, I hate eating breakfast or dinner, I like to be alone, I don’t always like to party. And I expect my partner to bend to my will in all things. Not so good. So temperatures have risen, and we’ve had some blazing rows recently. Thankfully both of us never forget how much we mean to each other, and each confrontation has been a good learning point.

We bought a Super King Size Bed – which takes up just about the whole bedroom. We love the bed and bought satin sheets for pure indulgence. Big mistake, as we’ve spent most of the last 10 nights sliding off the slippery sheets. Back to cotton we go, which certainly helps in this heat.

And we’ve taken up new pursuits together – including archery. He is an avid collector of decorative weaponry – compound bows, samurai swords and dangerous little flick-knives. We decided to try out bows and arrows at a club in nearby East Finchley and have just finished our Beginner’s Course together. We love it, and are just about to buy our first Recurve Bows. Recurve bows are the utilitarian design best suited to everyday archery, but I did have the privilege of shooting with a more traditional longbow as well. Not easy, but what a beautiful, elegant bow to shoot with!

Last night we sat together outside on the clubhouse steps, gazing out over the archery fields, and watching the big sky over Highgate Wood, where thundery storm clouds shot lightning bolts across the horizon, and a cool breeze began to blow the sticky heat away. This summer has been wonderful; I have been unemployed for part of it, but have loved the free time and holiday heat.

Archery, walking, swimming in the Hampstead ponds, as well as a Boules match at my Summer Sunday Picnic, and a day on the magnificent Stone Bay Beach at Broadstairs - as well as Glastonbury, of course - has made my summer season action-packed and an utter joy. No sweat at all …

Girl in a white dress

2008-07-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Margo's Summer Sunday Picnic
The Boules Court, Hampstead Heath

Remembering Glastonbury

2008-07-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

We took off early in the morning, and made it bang on time to the gates of Glastonbury at 8am; already there were queues and traffic jams forming … we parked miles away from the entrance and hiked up hills and down dales absolutely loaded under with tent, camping chairs, airbeds, cooler bag, backpacks - the works. By the time we made it to the front gate, we were already shattered. We stayed shattered (and got more and more shattered) all weekend …

We found a great spot to camp, on a legendary Glastonbury favoured field called Pennards. We knew we’d done the right thing when we said ‘hi’ to our tent neighbours and found out that they’d been to Glastonbury every year for nearly 20 years. Unfortunately we found out an hour later that Tina and Bill and friends had all camped about 500 yards away, closer to the road. After stamping back and forth down the hill, we decided it was just too much effort to re-locate, and that we would just keep in touch from where we were. Famous last words - haha!

Our neighbours raised a HUGE flag with a picture of a pink cow on it. Our tiddly little flag had my leopard print scarf and a sheaf of Red Indian feathers on it. Thank god for the Pink Cow; so many times that we would never have found our way back to our tent, without the smiling Moo Moo Thing flapping at us!

As we set up camp, slowly the field around us transformed into thousands upon thousands of tents, camped right on top of each other. People stuck paper messages on the grass where they wanted friends to camp, and we ended up with a lovely grass space in front of us which stayed open all festival and which was really nice in terms of a little “front porch”. In other places people had rows of passersby just tramping through their sites, over their guy ropes, even onto their tents; eventually after 5 days of this the grass was just carved away into dust. It became a physical chore just getting back to your tent through the campsite.

The festival was so organised though, in a lovely organic sort of way. They left piles of woodchips for us to collect for fires, they delivered milk and water every day in funny little tractor-drawn cow-painted carts. The only challenges, really, were the showers and the loos. In all my life, travelling right across Africa, I have never seen toilets so basic, so terrible, and - after 5 gruesome days - so stinky, smelly, horrible and horrific. Eventually, we just gave up, tried not to eat, and used some very basic ablutions of our own in our own tent (“wee in a bottle” would be about right!)

On our first two days, we set off exploring the Festival farm, and probably did the worst things we possibly could. We walked for miles, trying to cover everything and see it all. Mile after mile of quaint village camps, market stalls, stages, bars, pubs, Info spots, craft workshops, massage tents, fortune-tellers, restaurants, stone circles, sleeping dragons, hillsides, campsites, friends and neighbours, post offices - well, we tried and didn’t even get to see half of it (as we discovered afterwards, reading newspaper articles and saying “What?! We never saw that!?!? Where was THAT then?!) Quite, quite insane.

We also made the fatal mistake of having two rip-roaring fun nights in Shangri La, Rocket Ray’s Jukebox Diner, and the Tranny Disco in Trash City - which left us doomed with weariness and hangovers deluxe.

So by Friday morning when the festival only actually STARTED, we were well finished. Ready to go home, really. I could hardly move a muscle, my legs were so sore. Although our airbed was fabulously comfortable (we just rolled together to the dip in the middle and fell into the deep sleep of dead exhaustion), we were a pair of groaning, achy, middle-aged farts as we woke up each morning. We discovered that we are great campers together - we loved the early morning ritual of a cup of coffee over our tiny gas stove; the brisk stroll tripping over guy ropes as we walked to the loos for the first visit of the day, cheerily greeting fellow campers either waking up or just returning from all-night partying. We loved camping, and we will do it again.

The intensity of the festival though, is overwhelming. There is so much to see and do; so much to explore, eat, buy, experience, listen to, dance to and revel in - it’s hard to absorb.

On Friday, we wearily trudged off to start listening to music, and suddenly the festival gave us yet another dimension. The music! Oh fantastic! Each stage has the most fantastic sound system; everywhere the shows are great, the music stars so massive and famous, your expensive entry ticket (£150 for 5 days camping and 3 days music) became cheap at the price …

We saw rock bands, guitarists, old acts and new, DJs, stand-up artists and cabaret. We saw legendary musicians of old, including one of my heroes - Sinead O’Connor, and others we’ve never even heard of - The Gossip, The Editors, the Pigeon Detectives, the Raconteurs, the Zutons. We saw it all … and we still didn’t see them all. There were over 1,200 music acts on show over the 3 days. Twelve hundred. One thousand, two hundred shows. It beggars belief, doesn’t it?

On Friday we saw Fun Lovin' Criminals and the greatest living blues guitarist of our time - Buddy Guy. Absolutely magnificent. Friday was the day it rained, and I actually got to use my wellies. For those of you in the know, the Glastonbury Festival has been plagued over the past few years by rain, floods and above all mountains of mud. So wellies are important, but we got lucky. Only one day of rain and the rest was hot, dusty, sunny and wonderfully summery! Thank heavens, because that one day of shuffling through the mud and rain in wellies and sweaty oilskins was almost too much to bear.

On Saturday, exhausted, we did what everyone else was doing, we carried our camping chairs over to the wide green fields of the main stage and planted ourselves there for the day. The stage is shaped like a Pyramid, with a light shining out the top at night, and it mirrors the shape of the beautiful, magical, mystical Tor - far away in the distance. A glorious sight.

To see the great band Crowded House playing live was the fulfilment of yet another dream for me, and as we all sang along (with tears in our eyes) to “Everywhere you go, you always Take the Weather with You”, the clouds parted and the most beautiful blue skies came out, and stayed with us all weekend.

Around that time, I also managed the acrobatic trick of dropping my mobile phone into my pint of cider, effectively cutting us off from all communication with friends, neighbours and The Outside World. It wasn’t too bad, because a few mates bumped into us - karma - but Tina and Bill - camped so close and yet so far - we never did manage to find their tent again! Lost in the morass of blue tents and multi-coloured people, sadly …

Guy and I stopped in at the Jazz World Stage and saw one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful shows of the entire festival. A small group of British musicians formed a band called “The Imagined Village” and they have reinvented some of the very old country songs of hundreds of years ago, sung along with new technology. They sang “Are you going to Scarborough Fair - parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” and I held Guy’s hand and cried because it was so haunting and magical.

Later that night we went to watch Massive Attack, one of my best bands of all time. Their laser light show was huge, overwhelming and dreamlike, and the sound system was fantastic. We danced like demons on bone-weary feet, and then went to play until 3am in the hysterically funny Silent Disco (everyone wears headphones to hear the music and sing along like silly things. If you took your headphones off, all you could hear was the silence - and silly people singing along to the music in their heads).

By 4am we were up at the Stone Circle, where the huge statue of a wooden Dragon lunged up to meet the sky and drummers beat the rhythm around the early morning fires, greeting a pagan dawn, looking down on 177,000 people spread across the Festival.

On Sunday we sang along with Neil Diamond to “Sweet Caroline” and then headed on down to the markets to discover a tent called “Chai Wallah’s”. It was yet another small personal revelation I had, and loved, about Glastonbury. Here a loose collaborative of young and talented musicians had teamed up as “One Taste” and each sang, one after the other as we in the audience sat and rested, drank tea, sang along or slept on small platforms allocated alongside for the exhausted, weary, over-drugged or undernourished festival party animals around us.

But by Sunday night the mood of the Festival seemed to turn a little; it developed a dangerous edge of anarchy, fuelled I’m sure by weariness and a surfeit of overwhelming emotions. We watched Groove Armada and it was great, but I was simply too tired to enjoy it anymore. Guy and I bitched and moaned at each other, at passersby and at everything. Around us, people started huge fires, burning everything in their paths including chairs, clothing and alcohol. The field was mired in mess by the time we left.

I could not move from our bed that night but Guy was drawn by the drumming through the night from the Stone Circle, and at some point he slipped away to go up there and sit, saying his goodbye to the Festival. As you do at Glastonbury, he met a fellow New Zealander and they chatted on until the dawn came, and the “Last Hurrah” cheered across the fields.

At times over the weekend, people were so filled with joy you would hear a cheer start at one corner of the Festival and travel around the grounds like a Mexican wave of sound, everyone taking up the roar, for whatever reason it may have started, you never knew, but sheer ebullience carried it on.

I showered twice that weekend, once at the open-air Greenfields showers and once I got lucky - a friend of mine working in the Medical tent gave me access to a staff shower. Other than that, we didn’t mind feeling grubby - too engrossed to notice. We learned to sleep with our ears stuffed up with plugs - it became the only way to block out the noise of the all-night music and our neighbours partying inches away in their own little tents. But the discomforts meant nothing (well, except for the loos perhaps!); they simply fell away in the enchantment of the entire experience.

So many years ago, when I first came here, I sang along to the words of the Waterboys - “there is a green hill faraway, I’m going back there one fine day”. I never did expect, in my wildest dreams, to come this way again, in such wild and wonderful fashion.

We packed and left quietly at 5am on Monday morning; only a few had left before us, but it was the right thing to do. And we managed to stop in the nearby village of Glastonbury (the real Glastonbury - the festival itself takes places closer to Pilton Village) where we trudged slowly up to the legendary ruined tower of St Michael’s Church. There we met another pilgrim; a girl who had worked the festival for the BBC, and was leaving as we were, by saying goodbye from the oldest part of the countryside - that powerful symbol of myth and magic; the enchanted place where it all began and ended - from Glastonbury Tor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvoCT5I6xd4 ww.youtube.com/watch?v=MvoCT5I6xd4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnH7nF_zvoA&feature=related

Gone Camping ...

2008-06-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

We have packed our tent. We have our sleeping bags, airbeds, morning coffee cooker, our camping clothes, sunglasses, hats, jungle spray and sun tan lotion.

We are ready.

Up at 3am; we leave at 5.

And we won't be back till Monday.

Yahoo! We're off to the Glastonbury Festival!

Wish us luck and fair weather ...

Love,
Margs
xx

Art in the Park

2008-06-19T08:03:00.001-07:00

Balloon Flower (Magenta)

Exhibited on sale by Christie's
In St James' Park, London

Artist: Jeff Koons
Estimated value: £12 million
Weight: 8 tons
Security team: 2, one of whom was South African (of course!)

A Birthday Message from D!

2008-06-04T01:22:00.001-07:00

Lessons

2008-06-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

What have I learned from my time at work in London?

... what it is to work with and for the extremely wealthy. In a world where they can do anything because they have so much money, so many high connections and so many resources (eg experts and professionals; even I can class myself one), they are demanding, procrastinating, fussy and self-absorbed. Some of them can be very down-to-earth and approachable, others can be rude beyond belief – without, I think – even realising that they are.

... that the extremely wealthy are extremely trusting and even, in some cases, entirely naïve. I’ve had complete all-access to their credit card numbers, their bank accounts, all online pass-codes, passwords, security access, electronic signatures, and been approved by them personally for third party access to all of their personal information.

It has made bank managers, luxury 7-star hotels, restaurant managers and high-powered executives bow and scrape to me (yes, me!) because I can give them access to my bosses, and thus to all their dreams, hopes, desires and bankrolling requirements. But it can also be humbling - even humiliating - because some of them view the PA as invisible; we are no more than janitors and concierges, the person at the door, the gatekeeper. We are the "untouchables". No self-respecting corporate climber would be seen socialising with us at the Work Do, or the Christmas Party - not if you desire promotion.

I have learned the art of being a travel consultant. I can book any ticket, any hotel, any spa therapist, anywhere in the world at any time of day or night. I have the names of taxi cab drivers in New York City who will take my call 24/7 to arrange to collect and carry my bosses from and to impossible places. I know shop assistants in Hong Kong, flower sellers in Geneva, jet charter companies in Jersey.

I know the names and mobile numbers of several very high-profile celebrities. I know the hairdressers to the rich and famous, I have been wined and dined by the Sales Managers of the top hotels in London, and seen the paparazzi camped outside The Ritz and The Mandarin Oriental, waiting for Kate Blanchett and Mariah Carey.

I have learned about myself too – I have learned that I do not envy these men and women; my bosses, the extremely wealthy. Not one of them is happier or more content than me.

And I have learned that I can turn my hand to anything; I can be a mentor to young, up-and-coming analysts, dealers, traders, bankers, IT techies, executive assistants.

I know things. And it constantly surprises me when I discover that other people don’t. That common sense is not common. That logic is not logical or linear or easily accessible. That the devil is in the detail – there are infinitesimal differences between hotels, restaurants, bars, spas and gyms, and that some people will pay fortunes for a whim. I have seen men throw £20,000 (half a year’s wage for me) away on a “bad feeling”. This is no exaggeration.

I have learned the power of the personal touch; a first name here, a tea preference there. My Chairmen have remembered me. After all, how would they survive without their personal assistants? Their housekeepers and cleaners, their drivers and dog-walkers? For all that we are not in the core business – that massive agglomeration that is the finance industry in London – we are the “backstage managers” that make it all happen.

I have found that being a PA is very different from being a Secretary 20 years ago, and that is a fine thing. I have learned that my skills – subliminal though they may be – are in huge demand here (and everywhere in the world – I could find work in Dubai, Cyprus and the Netherlands tomorrow if I wanted to). I have found tedium and great joy in my work. I’m 47 years old, and I never stop learning.

Someone once said to me “people can be irreplaceable, but no one is indispensable.” I like that very much. It has added a touch of realism to an utterly surreal working life in this crazy city.

Amsterdam - The Girl in the Window

2008-05-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Guy and I had a turbulent week so we were looking forward to running away from it all for a while. It was good to get away from work and get home to start packing together. I'm always conscious of how much we enjoy things each time we do something new together. He was excited, buzzing around and more organised than me. We staggered off to the Tube together and made it to the train at Liverpool Street Station with time to spare. He rushed off to find beers for the trip and I was left on the train holding the luggage, wondering what the dire consequences might be if the train left without him - he hadn't brought his phone, and I realised how much we've come to rely on those irritatingly useful little mobile communication devices. He made the train just fine though, and brought out a bottle of red wine which we shared with great pleasure all the way up to Harwich.

As always, I find myself unwinding on a Friday night and as I become more and more relaxed, I get quieter and quieter. I seem to go inside myself - not in an unpleasant way but it can make me appear unsociable. Guy got quieter and quieter too and I felt bad - sometimes I'm so aware I might be subduing him in ways that make him unhappy. He loves to be sociable; chatty, out and about. He loves to have a drink or five on a Friday night and chat to strangers in pubs and clubs, but I'm going through my phase of "Anti-Awash with Alcohol". So the trip was pleasant but filled with inner insecurity; are we making each other happy? Are we boring each other? Have we run out of conversation?

(Oh, when did I say that I would never let this happen to me - to be part of the "couple culture"; to make my happiness dependent on a male companion's happiness!? Oh, foolish woman!)

It felt like a great adventure coming into the port at Harwich International. We boarded the boat and ran into a group of antipodean backpackers, whose loud chatter and friendliness both lifted us and made us aware of our quiet separateness from everyone else. Clearly, it is a fun thing to travel in a larger group. We had a drink on board, did some totally uneccessary spending in the Duty-Free and crashed early. It was delicious to wake on board, in another country. We couldn't wait to rise, dress, eat and rush off ...

After some backwarding and forwarding getting train money (everything in coins in this country - we were fatally unprepared for that!); me bashing my face into the back of Guy's bags (nice big cut on my nose showing up clearly in every photo after that - bugger!); and a somewhat sleepy journey into Rotterdam Central Station, we headed off down to Amsterdam. We chatted with an older couple heading off for 2 weeks in Greece - which sounded lovely but the sun was shining and I was convinced we'd have a better time :)

Arrived in Amsterdam, bought maps, and discovered that our hotel was less than 3 minutes' walk away. WHAT a pleasure! The hotel was glorious - huge, lofty rooms with creaking wooden floorboards, beautifully decorated with dark wooden Moroccan furniture, massively decadent bathroom and - hallelujah - an absolutely gigantic king-sized bed! Our stay there was not cheap but by God, it was worth every single penny. The hotel is billed essentially as a gay destination and I'll admit it was just a little intimidating for me to walk into a room filled with men - very masculine men, I might add - all of whom looked most surprised to see a woman arriving, and ALL of whom looked Guy over VERY appreciatively. I could only grin and think "he's mine, you bitches, keep your paws off him!" Guy seemed completely at ease in that environment, and it's one of the reasons I love him so dearly - he has no insecurities about gender or alternative sexualities - he may be vulnerable within, but he always comes across outwardly as so very comfortable, confident and relaxed in any company, no matter how unconventional.

We dropped all our luggage that morning in the breakfast room and rushed off to sample the delights of the city. The sun was shining, the breeze cool, the old city was beautiful, the canals were everywhere, and all the Amsterdammers were out in their boats celebrating the Spring weather. Guy and I strolled through the old streets, dipping into the delights of a number of different shops and stopping for coffee on a sunny street corner overlooking a Venetian corner of the city, where a little boy played "Manniken Pis" into the water.

We walked on, out of the Old City and came to De Hortus Arboretum where we spent some time wandering among the stunning plant life and Butterfly House, then went and sat on the shore in the park to catch the sun and watch the boats go by. We walked back through a different route, across small bridges with teetering narrow houses, glorying in the canals and heat. We came home, unpacked and ripped into the contents of the mini-bar (surprisingly less expensive than we'd expected) and fell asleep, exhausted and content.

The morning loomed a bit gloomier and greyer than before, so we spent the day on a canal boat tour; worth every penny and giving us a wider view of one of the few remaining cities in the world that seems to have retained a unique character and a beautifully preserved historic centre. We also ended up in Dam Square which felt much more "touristy" than all of the Old City we had wandered through. We found a free contemporary art exhibition in a gallery tucked away from the main square; we found a pancake house and more great bars and coffee shops than we could possibly try all in one weekend.

We stopped in the tired heat of the afternoon, in a little Italian pizzeria for a late lunch. Our host sat us in the prime window seat, where the shutters opened up to make it feel like we were sitting on a sidewalk patio. We watched the crowds go by down the little cobbled alleyway. A girl wandered past - so magical - she wore a long white sleeveless floating dress, her blonde hair long and loose between her shoulders, her feet bare. She came back past us one more time and we wondered why. Could it be she was a Flower Child, tripping on hash or magic mushrooms? Lost, dazed and glazed? Or was she a streetwalker? It was only much later that we found ourselves doing much the same thing, criss-crossing back and forth across the myriad little alleyways, trying to find this shop or that place that we had first spotted and wanted to re-visit. You do that a lot, it seems, in Amsterdam ...

However, I always believe it's important to try everything once; because it is possible that we may never come this way again. So Guy and I spent the evening wandering through the Red Light District. There were some interesting observations to be made. For instance, on a Saturday night, the famous windows are filled with the most gorgeous girls ever, all dressed in neon luminescent bikinis or lingerie; absolutely heart-stoppingly pretty. They all waved at Guy and ignored me, and once again I was reminded that he is a beautiful man to look at. Women simply never stopped looking at him - and in gay Amsterdam, a lot of men looked too. He is absolutely unaware of all of this attention; he is completely unselfconscious about his looks. Yet another reason why I love him so dearly. They didn't like me quite so much, it seemed. One even barked at me rather abruptly when I grinned at her. Oh dear!

In a dark alleyway I saw an older chap, dignified and fatherly, leaning across his bicycle to talk with a girl in the window. Not so much a conversation as a negotiation, perhaps, for when we walked back the same way later, his bicycle had been left parked neatly against the wall and he was nowhere to be seen. The curtain in the window was closed though the light stayed on. That encounter had some magic to it; some element of sensuality in the dark of the night. But the beautiful girls all disappeared in the harsh light of day and the next morning, the windows were filled with - as Guy called them - "The B-Grade Slappers". Gracious, what a desperate looking lot they were, and a sad and squalid reminder of the true nature of their business.

We spent Monday wandering the streets of the old city once more, re-visiting shops we wanted to explore in more depth. We finally ended with an hour spent chilling to some wonderful ambient music in a psychedelic "smartshop" filled with strange oddities like giant silver-coloured Buddha head statues, Barbapapa (remember him!?) and curious cats (real) asleep in the shelves and display cabinets. Psychedelic colours shimmered everywhere - stars and sequins and suncatchers glittering in the afternoon light. Guy bought himself the largest lava lamp he could find in the shop, which made our journey home a bit of a trial :-D

We had a leisurely trip on the trains, aching, weary, relaxed. Our silence this time felt much more companionable, comfortable. This time no inner concerns; I felt bonded with him. The trip has been good for us.

I came home alone to Finchley, and found that Monday had been a day of storms in London. A tree has come down in our garden and lies crashed and sad-looking, dying. Guy's courgette plant, so small and young, has been demolished by slugs. We need a weekend in the garden. We went out to buy a car yesterday, and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. We have slept well the last two nights, since coming home from Amsterdam. It feels good between us again.

Windless

2008-05-11T00:00:00.001-07:00

Springtime in England

2008-05-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

Bean there ...

2008-05-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

Broccoli Moments and Extra Duck's Legs

2008-05-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday afternoon on a glorious blue-sky spring day in London. Everyone has knocked off work early and we're all out crammed on the patios, the balconies, the piazzas and the river banks, soaking up the sun and the warmth, drinking Gin & Tonix late into the late, late sunset evening.

After searching up and down Covent Garden, Rosemarie and I found a fabulous spot bang in the centre of Leicester Square (that's Lay-sess-ter Square to all you plebian tourists!), where we guzzled our drinks and munched on chips and pancakes. Gerald joined us in his very slick-looking suit and tie, and ordered "Gin & Tonic with two pieces of lime, please" and "Duck's Legs on Pancakes - with extra duck's legs please". Rosemarie and I fell over laughing, but - by golly - our waiter managed to find some extra legs on that duck, so he did!

Then G regaled us with reminders of how we have all cocked up in the past. You know that shameful dire moment the day after the night before, when you stand in the Veggie aisle at Marks & Sparks (or Pick and Pay) gazing at the array of innocent-looking vegetables, and you're suddenly hit with a blinding memory of something insanely stupid you did in the wee hours of the night, when you'd had far too much alcohol and far too little sense left in your brain. Twats picked up and taken home to bed, phone numbers called of exes you'd rather kill and forget, numbers given out to supremely drunken ugly people you'd never normally speak to ... aaaaah yes, we've all had our Broccoli Moments and Cauliflower Cringes, haven't we!? :-D

...

2008-04-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

but sometimes I miss South Africa, home, and you ... dreadfully

Ten Things About Living Together

2008-04-26T08:46:00.001-07:00

Some of the secrets I'm learning ...

1. The logistics involved in fitting two adult bodies in a 200 x 200cm double bed can make for long, involved and hysterically funny conversations with other couples in a pub. In fact, it's a sure-fire way of making a lot of new friends you never would have met when you were single ...

2. Men and women will always view loo etiquette differently. Different worlds, universes apart. Nuff said.

3. Women either have to find a diplomatic way to explain that you can't split the food budget in half because you don't both eat the same, or get over it.

4. Men and women have entirely different understandings of the phrase "clean up the dishes".

5. Sex on a plate can lead to a surfeit. You either gorge and gross out, or learn to become a gourmet.

6. Time spent apart increases the joy you feel when you're together.

7. Two salaries combined really does give you four times the spending power.

8. Men are wilder, edgier, more dangerous. They take more risks. Women however, are clever, manipulative, deceitful and subversive. They don't need to take more risks; they just let the men do it for them.

9. But men are more fragile emotionally ... and women are stronger that way.

10. Sometimes the most special gift of all is the cup of coffee he makes for you every morning.

Five years since we were last together ...

2008-04-26T03:10:00.001-07:00

So there we were ...

2008-04-10T14:23:00.001-07:00

... Tina moving out, and ...

... Guy moving in.

AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME! ARRRRGH CHAOS!

Breaking News

2008-04-06T10:12:00.001-07:00

After a fraught morning in which at least three of us were manning up to four computers, we were all able to buy tickets to the Glastonbury Festival, for which we had pre-registered months in advance. Ticket sales opened at 9am this morning, and we tried endlessly to link to the site and process our credit card payments, while outside the whirling snowstorm continued until noon.

When we finally got confirmation that we are, all, indeed going to one of the lucky few to be going to the Festival, it was almost an anti-climax. I had already completed The World's Most Elegant Snowman, and developed a migraine. G had headed off to visit a friend; T continued to pack.

But now I'm surfing through the site, the links, the news, the updates and I'M STARTING TO GET EXCITED! This is as exciting as Burning Man, folks! Eleven weeks to go! We have to buy tents, wellies, ponchos, airbeds ... the list is endless. We hadn't even thought of the music acts we are going to see. We hadn't thought of the days, the trip, the money, the work consequences.

WE'RE GOING TO THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL AND, RIGHT NOW, NOTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD IS AS EXCITING! :)

The World's Most Elegant Snowman

2008-04-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

Yes Cinderella, you're going to the Ball

Patterns

2008-04-06T03:47:00.000-07:00

On the door of St Alban's Cathedral
One thousand years old

Mosaic tiles on ancient Roman floor, built with underfloor heating
City of Verulamiam, St Alban's
Two thousand years old

Illumination

2008-04-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

Even the longest winter must finally come to an end, and so it is with this one. In just the last few weeks so many things have changed in sync with the season. The days are finally finally getting longer, and what a joy it was to change the clocks forward last weekend, and come home from work in the daylight.

I planted pink heather and japonica in the planter near my bedroom window, and was amazed to discover that the Bleeding Hearts I had planted last year were in shoot again; they have shot up in the last few weeks, completely dwarfing the other plants and flowering their petite pink heart bell shaped buds beautifully.

There are bird feeders hanging above them and we've already seen robins, coal tits and blackbirds in passing. Even the squirrels hustle up to steal the seeds - little blighters!

Inside our house, there are packing cases everywhere. After 5 years of happiness here, T is finally moving on, into a house with her B. This means my G is moving in with me and I'm filled with fear, trepidation, delight and utter joy. I can't wait for our time together to begin ...

Already his collection of swords and crossbows, hats and masks and coats and suits have begun to accumulate in amongst my own things; we are cluttered, too cluttered, but looking forward to rearranging our little world together once the space is ours.

I spent a day in St Albans with my dear friend D. We had lunch in the Cathedral Cafe, then meandered through the gorgeous building - over a thousand years old. We had a magical encounter with an historian archivist, who was poring over an incredible parchment, 700 years old, filled with Latin recordings of the Manor Courts held by the Bishop for the villagers of the area. It was breathtaking to be inches away from the illuminated script drawn by monks in the 14th century. I found myself catching my breath, eyes brimming, overwhelmed by the sense of history.

Then D guided me past the glorious shrine to St Alban, the first English saint, and outside to the grave of the Baron Grimthorpe, who saved the Cathedral in Victorian times. Then on and out to the high street, filled with quaint and arty boutiques. He bought a lava lamp - glorious neon red and yellow; I bought a bedside lamp for G and me - LED lit with morphing colours of red and blue and green. Yes, ridiculous, I know, but who cares!

The day ends warm and lit as I sit in my window, munching on chocolate ginger in the soft glow of the changing colours, looking outside in the hope I will catch a glimpse of the robin trying out the new bird-feeder.

With every change comes new things - a new job, a new housemate, new friends and a new view on my world - my England.

The New Forest

2008-03-24T15:44:00.001-07:00

Creatures in the Forest

2008-03-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

Lake of Dreams - Bedrock - Dancing in Heaven

2008-03-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

We're lying on a couch and the industrial brick roof is coloured blue; it begins to move like water - the surface of a lake upside down on the roof. Beside it a strip light begins to glow and wriggle, like orange worms trying to escape and crawl across the wall. Lines of blue paint begin to drip down the lights; I blink and the effect disappears.

A girl wanders up to us, sits down and curls up in Guy's arms. I smile and stand up, look over the balcony down to where people are dancing in the whirlpool of sound and music. I glance back and he is looking down at her affectionately, holding her safely. They chat amiably and I'm happy. Everything has a dreamlike quality, surreal and slow and warm. A girl steps out through the crowd and she looks over the edge. She is small and lean, booted and beautiful. She has long neon-coloured plastic hair extensions, building her hair up into a multi-coloured wild long jungle that makes her Tankgirl comic-book Japanese anime.

It feels good to see Security and Medics walking slowly through the crowd; they talk with people; they are carefully checking to see that we are all ok. It makes me feel looked after. I stop for a drink, and a delightfully camp young man dressed in pink Priscilla Queen of the Desert Seventies gear serves me the perfect gin and tonic - he slides the slice of lime carefully around the rim of my glass and pops a swizzle stick into it, and gives me a free bottle of water, and he smiles at me prettily as he serves it and swoons over my ridiculous £5 tip that I feel delighted to offer him.

We move on, and leave the cool room - loud sound, step carefully down the narrow stairwell, through the slow-moving zombie crowd of dreaming dancers, and on into the next parallel universe. We find ourselves lost in the labyrinth. We arrive, squeezed out from the crowd, into a semi-private room. It turns out to be a little food kiosk, serving deliciously nutritious quiche, and ribena icecream; the ice is delicious, cooling. Guy eats quiche and I melt into an icecream with a girl next to me called Joanna. The three of us have a quirky, witty conversation. We sweat and the icecream steams in our hands.

Now we curve our way slowly down the stairs again, and emerge onto the main dancefloor. "It's like a swamp" says Guy, and it is. Slowly the temperature heats up, degree by degree as we have gone lower and lower. The heat is humid, sulky, huge, enveloping. We merge into it like drops of water; we become the swamp. And the music washes over us and we lap it up. Words can't describe the pleasure the sounds give to us; we love this music, this outrageous, post-modern, trancelike hypnosis it brings, where you care for nothing and no-one but only must move with the sound and the crowd.

We slowly find ourselves sucked into the quicksand of people; the images overwhelm me. I feel like I am nothing and everything in this crowd of creatures all moving together like one person. The room is huge; the colours are neon. A long burst of green lasers flash far out over the crowd of thousands; arms are raised, the images on the walls are huge, flashing. We are dancing and dancing and time melts like Dali watches. We are the painting now and I remember looking around and seeing all the bodies merging into one; naked flesh and gold glitter, belly rings and faces smiling and all in liquid motion like latin carnival celebration. We are all dancing together in partnership. Sweat pours off us, and heat rises. Condensation forms on the high, high roof, and comes back down onto us like rain. At first, we don't understand - what are these cold droplets falling onto us? Have they created a cooling rainforest effect especially for us? But the girl next to me smiles and nods and mouths at me "it's the heat". And then we understand why it's raining indoors, and it all seems so perfectly logical and natural.

There are moments when I am lucid and aware; and I know we will never come this way again. We are only ever here once, and I couldn't be in a more perfect place with a more perfect companion than this man. We are in a World Club, a place they speak of with awe in all the places on the planet where people love to dance and listen to music and experience all their senses and fear nothing. So I look around me like a child, through and past the Veil of Innocence. The club is a London club and this music - progressive house - is why we are all here. John Digweed played a 5-hour set that night; and all I know is that I'm hooked, and I've never been happier.

In the morning, we walk across the Heath through the acid yellow gorse and the dark black mud under thundery skies. Each moment takes us further away from the Lake of Dreams and The Night it Rained Indoors. We'll never be there again, and even writing the words can't describe the power of the experience. But I'll never forget it, and I'm so glad that I was there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnf9rkynKI&feature=related

Bedford

2008-03-08T21:48:00.001-08:00

A Walk in the Woods

2008-02-24T10:54:00.001-08:00

Brentmoor Heath, Surrey, Sunday 24 February

Finding Nemo in Harrods!

2008-02-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Rochester

2008-02-18T15:17:00.001-08:00

The Absolut Ice Bar

2008-02-18T15:13:00.001-08:00

Windsor

2008-02-12T16:11:00.001-08:00

On The Ball

2008-02-12T16:09:00.001-08:00

London the Beautiful

2008-02-11T12:20:00.000-08:00