Sunday 21 March 2010

Are we nearly there yet?




Three years on.




This song has been buzzing in my head for a few days now. One of my favourite singers. A little gloomy sounding, maybe, but with a sense of hope.


Sometimes it takes a while to realise that the journey's as important as the destination.

My 'just another day' three years ago sucked. Big time.

Today so far I've had a relaxed, pleasant time over coffee and breakfast with friends, a walk in the sunshine, emails and text messages from friends. Today is shaping up to be a good day.

Tomorrow should be fun and the rest of the week ought to be quite busy but hopeful for our new company.

Even if the unplanned happens I'll deal with it and move on. Apparently, I've gotten quite good at that now.

I couldn't have done it without the upbringing I had which was of the "I cried and cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man with no feet" school of philosophy.

I couldn't have done with without family and existing friends who provided support, encouragement and practical help.

I couldn't have done it without new friends who mix with old friends and my family seamlessly.

Looking over my shoulder I'm amazed at what's happened in three years - and yet all the time it was happening I was just trying to get on with stuff. The journey has been harrowing and fun in roughly equal measures and I had no choice in the starting point.

I have a choice in the destination but I don't know what it is yet...maybe I'll keep going for a bit and decide later. Maybe something will waylay me and slow the journey down - I dunno.

"Let me know when we get there - if we get there"



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Monday 8 March 2010

Inappropriate Laughter


So...we're having a conversation over a Lego limo, a couple of pints and some nice food.

There were some comments about the photographic possibilities of said limo...and let's just say some people would have found our conversation in somewhat poor taste.

I am at one with the friends I'm giggling with...even though part of me knows it's all a bit naughty, really.

On Saturday I meet up with a pal in Birmingham - that's his leg you can see in the picture - he falls into the category of people I've labelled as "Felt like an old friend from the moment we met"...I'm hoping for a nattier title but that pretty much encapsulates it.

There are quite a few people in this group and I simply love spending time with them. Whether it's drinking coffee or beer, eating a burger or gathered round my dining table over a big pot of "slop". Time flies, silences are not awkward laughs are many and, most crucially, the humour is dark but not cruel.

On Saturday I agree with my pal that life cannot be taken seriously. Other people's lives ought to be - so designing a roller-coaster cannot be done in haphazard fashion - but life in general...largely ludicrous.
I like conversations like this - it reassures me that my snap decision to put my friend in "The Category" was a sound one.

On Sunday I spend part of the day with another friend and her daughter walking in the sunshine, playing in the park whilst dad did other stuff back at my house. I've not known L for very long either - in fact I've met her precisely three times and yet, the few hours we spend together are relaxed, comfortable and fun (for me, at any rate...and I do hope she had fun too).

Later that day I meet up with M for a walk, some photos and a drink. We discuss tragic stories, political correctness, social exclusion on the grounds of colour or sexual orientation and all the time giggle like naughty school kids. We are comfortable in our giggling.

I had the most lovely weekend - with people of whom I'm immensely fond - none of whom I've known for more than a relatively short time.

So - what about the people who don't get labelled like this?

Hmmmm... there are a whole load of people who I'm happy to spend a bit of time with but whose company I don't necessarily desperately crave. This is quite a big group of nice, decent OK kinda people.

But I have to admit there are just a very few (that is, probably less than 10) people I've ever met who I've pretty much hated on sight...or shortly after. I'm not proud of this but, even when I've tried to overcome my apparent irrational dislike and made a bit more effort, my feelings have only been reinforced. I have no doubt that the feeling are largely mutual.

Once, someone asked me why I had made such a snap decision to dislike someone...to be honest, it's because it saves time.

Life is short. Life is ludicrous. I want to spend more of my time with the people who I can label FLAOFFTMWM and less that would be labelled considerably less charitably.



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Monday 1 March 2010

90% Perspiration


If you've read earlier postings of this blog then you'll know that a TD and I started a company a couple of months ago and it's kinda hard going.

We knew it would never be easy but we've been a little bit disasppointed at the lack of engagement in the idea by local authority bodies whose brief we will be contributing to.

Nevertheless we press on in the hope we can start to spark some interest around us.

The chance of maybe setting up a relatively small project cropped up last week and so I arranged a meeting with someone I've known for a while and to whom I pretty much knew the idea would appeal.

June runs the Pierian Centre in Portland Square. She bought the house, rennovated it and runs it as a centre for learning and support for all sorts of people and things. As well as her time and energy June has poured an awful lot of her own money into the project - a real case of putting her money where her mouth is.

The last conversation I had with June was very much along the lines of "times is 'ard" but with continuing financial support from her the centre carries on.

Today she smiles and tells me that it's not free and clear yet by a long way but things have improved a little.

It would be easy to dismiss June and the centre as bleeding heart liberal, tree huggy nonsense but it would be grossly unfair.

Yeah, there are classes and groups who meet at the centre who would have me running for the hills but the core work of the centre is about social inclusion, support and true equality.

We talk for ages about how things are going there, how far along the plans for Bristol to become a City of Sanctuary are, griping about things political and then she asks me to explain what ExtraVerte want to do.

Then I tell her that she was, in many ways, the catalyst for me leaving work. It was a conversation with her at the back end of 2009 that made me realise that job security may not be everything. She looks a little surprised and then we both agreed that it would be far better going to our graves regretting some of things we did than thinking "I wish I'd tried to...".

We also talked about political correctness and how we hate it and how we got annoyed at tokenism.

We moved on to talk about the project I wanted to work on and she gave it her wholehearted support and offered some practical help too.

Then she annouced that later in the week she would be having dinner with two people who would be extremely useful contacts for me and she'd chat to them about ExtraVerte and our aims. This is more than I could have hoped.

She asked if I would go and take some photographs at a forthcoming event - that is, in fact, how I met June - providing volunteer photographers for her events. I happily agree.

I leave the place after a couple of hours completely re-energised, with faith that all things could be possible.

This morning, I realise that June reminds me of my favourite aunt. She was a devout christian who spent her whole life working for the benefit of the community she lived in - from serving on the PCC, fostering difficult children, running Sunday School and Guides, doing the flowers in the church, and, and...

All the while, she did so with a twinkle in her eye and without a shred of piety or political correctness.

She had me volunteering to play my guitar and sing at the church - something I still do from time time - she suggested I look after the church choir until a permanent replacement could be found.

All the while she knew I was an atheist, living in sin with a lapsed catholic (and ex trainee priest) and she cared not a jot.

In a conversation I had with CJ a while ago I said that the "church" was a force for good, in general, because it inspired people to do good things. He countered that these things could happen without the chuch.

June and her centre are proof of that...although a lot of work she gets involved in also features a lot of input from local faith communities. In any case, the work they do is vital to the health of our City.

I say give three cheers, and if you can manage it, a bit of support to organizations that work quietly in the background doing real things for people who are less fortunate than the rest of us.

Surely an example to everyone...


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