Our House

The view from the bedroom is fantastic, you can see over to the hills beyond and at night the view is filled with the lights from the houses in the town below. It's so vast; I'm used to seeing houses and gardens opposite. Because our house is built on a hill it takes some getting used to. For instance the the front room, accessed via the front door is also, at the back of the house, on the first floor. So after a while looking out the window into the first floor of the houses opposite you turn around to see people walking past the window by the front door, which makes you think they are floating or flying past.

We've been here almost three weeks now and it still feels new walking downstairs to the front room. We've almost got the place sorted now, found room for everything. It's been so busy these last few weeks, it'll be nice just to sit in the house and enjoy it. We haven't had much time to explore our surroundings. There's a cricket field down the hill, I could hear the sound of leather on willow and polite clapping the other Saturday evening. Apart from that we haven't got much further than the pub on the corner.

We've got a yard too which will be handy for summer nights, when the rain stops. Until then we can sit inside on the sofa watching the people float by.

The Booklovers

Part of the joy of moving is packing up all the stuff you’ve been dragging around for years but have never found any use for, knowing full well it’s just going to sit in a cupboard till the next time you move. The plan was to give away a stack of books to the bookshop two doors down the road.

The reality is I’m handing the shopkeeper one book. He doesn't get up from his chair. He’s staring at the image of a bird on the back cover. I don’t know what the bird is called and I’ve a sneaky suspicion he’s no ornithologist either. He calls the bird something like ‘whirly-whirl’, a pet name for sure.

“Ah interesting, a whirly-whirl.”

“Sorry?”

“The bird on the back. Whirly-whirl.”

“Right.”

“Does the Whirly-whirl feature in the book?”

“I don’t remember the bird. It’s a book about a travelling musician.”

“Ah, so he travels with the Whirly-whirl?”

“I have to leave now.”

I pitter-patter out of the shop as he sits fixated on the back cover.

The next day, having lost my sentimentality, I have a stack of books to give away. I’m relieved to find it’s a different shopkeeper. He's standing, slightly stooped in an apologetic way. He tells me I’m very kind to give him all these books.

“Are you sure you’ve finished with them?”

“Yes thanks.”

He volunteers in the bookshop once a week. He asks me if I live locally, I tell him two doors down for about the next half an hour. It’s just a flat above the shops but it was my home. It turns out he lives with his mother and they live on the street with the Aston Martin, paying £50 rent a week. That’s the way to do it. His neighbours pay £400 a week. But then he tells me that when she passes on he’ll have to find somewhere else. He likes it in Highbury too and he’s worried he’ll have to move away. I chat to him a while and then tell him I need to finish packing the last of my stuff.

There’s no sign of the book I brought in yesterday. I’ve no doubt though that yesterday’s shopkeeper is at home, scouring the pages for Whirly-whirl.

Highbury, don't leave me

Early June, late night tube, I’m sitting with a full rucksack, my pockets full of paraphanalia, delicate wine glasses in a box by my feet. I’m leaving my Highbury flat and I don’t feel ready.

Earlier I hoovered up the dust in four bare rooms, not wanting to look in the cupboards because I knew they were still full. What do I want with this stuff anyway? When I started this site I called it searching for home and this flat felt like home, more-or-less since I moved in, certainly since I bought my rug. It really tied the room together to quote the Dude from the Big Lebowski. You see every time I move it’s because I’ve overstayed my welcome, I’ve worn out my flats like old socks; I’ve always been desperate to get out. This time is different. I like the flat, I like my landlord, I like Highbury. I was originally planning to stay in the area, hoping to move around the corner to the street with the Aston Martin on. Not because of the car, because it’s a really nice street, situated between Clissold Park and Highbury Barn. So nice, that the couple of places for rent there were way beyond our price range. I think if we’d held on we may have lucked out, but T found us a house, and we started thinking maybe we could live in a house like real adults live in, with a yard to sit in throughout the summer time. It’s out in the sticks but when we saw it, it felt right.

I had this idea of moving really slowly, taking a few boxes at a time in the car, depositing my nest gradually in the new house. Living between the two houses for a couple of weeks. But now I’ve started packing and moving I just want the thing to be over with. Most of my stuff is over at the new place. I’ve a few things left in the flat but they’re playing on my mind.

I opened a drawer, it was full. How did that stuff get there? I decided I’d sort it later. I wanted to take the wine glasses now to toast the new house.

I’m sitting on the train thinking about my old home. Things I take for granted in the middle of the city; buying a pint of milk at midnight, getting home from a gig at the Roundhouse, jumping on a bus to Oxford street outside my house, the sound of the football stadium, someone casually crossing the road in nothing but a pair of shorts on a rainy Saturday - just the variety of life you see on the streets, these things may be harder to come by in our house on the hill, but hey, everything is changing. It’s a new season.

On the Buses

Outside the window of the 253 bus a girl is skipping to school and it seems a good way to travel as she's beating the bus. At the stop waiting for the 31 a school girl is sitting with a unicycle. Impossible you say? Nothing is impossible when you work for the circus. The 253 and 31 are my new bus routes to work, although not for much longer. Sometimes I skip the 31, head to the health food shop and buy a load of licorice, which i chew my way through as I walk through Regent's Park and up over Primrose Hill to work. The other day a man sat on a bench on Primrose Hill playing war tunes on a trumpet. It sounded good in the morning air and I looked over to him as I walked past to give him a nodding approving look but he glared back at me as if to say: "Never seen a man practice trumpet in the park before?" To which the answer would be no. But I have spare licorice if you'd like?

Have you noticed how when people reach a certain age they boast about how they never go to clubs anymore. "Clubs, pah, I can't remember the last time I went to a nightclub." To counteract this we decided to go to a club last Saturday. What we were looking for was a London club that most mirrors Liquidation in Liverpool, so we went to How does it feel to be loved? which alternates between central London and Brixton. This week it was central, in the Phoenix just off Oxford street. The dance floor was packed, we started with a large space in the middle and ended up with a small corner by the speakers. I'd recommend nightclubs to the older patron. It's dark in there, nobody is aware you've been hobbling round the planet for 40 odd years until the lights go on. We leave before the lights go on.

On the bus home a huge guy is snoring at the back corner of the bus and nobody will sit next to him. Three rows in front of us a guy is sick three times, his mate sits laughing beside him. People either move seats or open the windows to try and dispel the stench. I'd forgotten how much fun the night bus was.

Listen Yoko, the snow is not falling

It's the hottest Easter on record for 100 years and there's another four days off next week so things couldn't be better. Although not everyone is in agreement. Yesterday in Marks and Spencer's a girl, who must have been all of twelve years old, shouts out to her mother, "I just don't understand this world anymore." Hey, I hear you sister, wait till you've got 41 years of confusion behind you and try and work that one out. But until then enjoy the sunshine.

I haven't blogged for a while, I'm out of the habit. I went to see Deerhunter the other week and I was going to blog about all the strange thoughts I have when bands are playing (if they're great). It's a lot like my thoughts on planes, I always think the future is going to be great and the possibilities become bright and endless. It's that time just before reality comes creeping back in to stifle you. Do you know what I mean Readers? Me neither, although I could explain it to you at a really great gig. Another thing I always think is going to happen at gigs is I'm going to see someone I know from the good old days, but I never do. Although at Deerhunter people were shouting out "Tracy". I decided to shout it out too, just because I like joining in, then it turned out to be some friends a few rows back who were shouting for the actual Tracy who was sitting next to me.

We went to Crawley yesterday to see my sister, and shortly after we stepped out from the station someone shouted, "Mr. Davison". I replied, "Yes" because that's my name but I had no idea who the couple and child were. I was all ready to have a conversation with him without letting on I didn't know who he was, and try and pick up some clues on the way. Luckily he took his shades off and I recognised him as Gareth, who I can't have seen for 20 years. But his girlfriend is my sister's husband's sister, so I guess we're more-or-less related. I'd not seen her since my sister's wedding in 1997.

Heading to the park the other day I saw the Aston Martin above parked outside a house in a road we really like. It's a quiet street we'd like to live in. I like looking into the bay windows to check out the rooms. (It's getting a bit of a habit so I may add this onto the hobbies section of my CV).If someone with a James Bond car lives there it may prove a bit expensive.

I'm only trying to help you Roland

What is the point of eating seeded bread rolls? How is opening the packet and being covered head to foot in seeds a healthy option? Interesting that this was never an issue under a Labour Government.

Saturday and we're on the Southbank with a few hours to roam before we go to the BFI. Two teenage girls, obviously fed up of the march, their banners pointing downwards, are eating ice cream. Further along the banks is a table with a cat basket on top. A girl, crouched under the table, has her head sticking up into the basket and her face painted with whiskers to make her look like a cat (not dissimilar to the one above). She purrs as we walk past, and as we put money into her bowl, confusingly, she starts to bark. Strange days have found us.

Later as we walk past Trafalgar Square, it looks like the protesters are settling in for a night of partying, drums beating and people chanting. We head up the road to an Italian ice cream parlour.

On the tube, a man with a Rubik's cube asks an audience, who are either returning from late night shopping or heading out for a night on the town, to mess it up for him so he can show off his Rubik powers. This is dutifully done and he tap dances as he twists and turns the cube. A protester with a tambourine gets on at the next stop and shakes along to his tap dancing. After a lot of tap dancing he stops and says he can't do it. The doors open and he makes his exit.

After this the tube is fairly subdued as we carry on towards home.

Considering a move to Memphis

This is out of order, I've just shaken off one cold only to wake with a sore throat this morning. Oy immune system, look; carrots, Berlotti Beans, zinc and other goodness coming your way. Now do your job.

Talking of doing your job, one of the escalators at King's Cross has been broken for around 5 months. They used to fix it on a Sunday, then two days later it would be broken. They stopped bothering with that after a while. Probably had to spend the next three months dealing with the administration. Passing through King's Cross means having to queue to get on the escalator every work day. As I went through this evening I noticed they'd fixed it. But the middle escalator doesn't work now. That kind of sums up the uselessness of England. Are we officially a third world country? Let's move to Memphis. No, seriously, what have we to enjoy here? Broken escalators, crappy weather, nasty government.

When I was young and ridiculed for going to the library I just thought these kids were idiots. Now I realise they were tories in the making. So you see the situation was worse than my young mind perceived. I remember on the radio one lonely night, a girl wrote in from Chichester ( i think), and said she hung around the library by the J D Salinger books. I fell for her immediately. Chichester wasn't so far away, maybe she was a migratory library dweller? The following day I went to my local library to check out the girls by the J D Salinger books. She wasn't there. Oh well. Libraries are still great places.

OK, I'm off to find a healthy drink so my immune system has no excuses.