Category: Blog

Back to the office. (Once, hopefully not again)

September Monday/Tuesday 28/29 2020 – London.

After a very long period of procrastination I finally got around to calling my doctor about an unevenly growing mole on my leg. I was surprised that even though Covid is gaining ground in the UK again I was very quickly offered an appointment at the dermatology clinic in Whipps Cross Hospital; a 30 minute walk from our place in Walthamstow. As an aside; it seems we are now both referring to St Leonards as home, and Walthamstow is now the place we visit, a complete reversal from five months ago.

As we were going to be in London for a couple of days I elected to spend a day in the office. I am working on a procurement project and have five response documents to read, totalling almost 100 pages. With so much to process my preference is to read and annotate paper. However, I was not wanting to use my own printer; plus my printer is slow enough that I suspect they would still be printing as I write this 10 days later. I also wanted to see how many colleagues had responded to the offer to go back to the office. I was also interested to see how quiet it is in the Westminster and Regents St areas.

Eleanor and I have been very good at maintaining some work disciplines throughout this Covid event, and the alarm still goes off at 6:35. Admittedly rather than leaping (stumbling) out of bed, we do have a coffee in bed before showers, breakfast and commuting to our workspaces in different rooms of the flat. As I was going to do a proper commute we were up early and I was on the Victoria Line at 7:15, a bit earlier than I would have been in normal times. This was my third journey on the tube since March, and the first in any form of rush hour. It was OK, 95% of passengers had masks on, and most of those had the mask on properly; except of course the person next to me. When we left Walthamstow Central the carriage was only this full, by the time we had got Kings Cross all seats were taken and people were standing, though nothing like ‘normal’. There were not a lot of white collar workers, and only two others left the station with me at Pimlico.

The roads around Marsham St where my office is located were very quiet, though the queue in the Pret by the office was too long to want to go in, so I went to Leon and picked up coffee and breakfast; doing my bit for the local economy. Most of the cafes here are part of large chains and I care little for them, though they do provide jobs and I was pleased to see the young woman who made coffee in Leon before lockdown was back making coffee again. I bought lunch from a small independent Italian cafe, their coffee is not too my taste. Much as I like independents, I like coffee more and I could not be bothered to walk to the very good NZ owned coffee shop up the road.

The office was really quiet, in our area of perhaps 100 desks, four people attended during the day, including me. Our director was there and I saw some of the senior civil servants and the permanent secretary, but very few of the junior staff were in. The earlier exhortation to get staff back in the office seems to be failing; though the message that week was only come in if you really want to. To be fair to my department, they have very much pushed the message that no-one should feel compelled to attend the office.

Nothing physically has been done to make the office Covid safe, the desk layout is the same and there are no screens; however lots of process changes have been made, signs everywhere, you have to book a desk, one person per pod, two people in the bathrooms and one in the kitchenette etc; there are a lot of cleaning staff present. There were minor frustrations; signs on the lift doors asking to use hand sanitizer before entering the lift, but no sanitizer by the lifts and wipe the printers before and after use; but no wipes nearby. Naturally I did not point these out, just moaned about them. I am British after all.

I was in to print documents, so naturally the aging printer fleet that was there when I left had been replaced, so I need to install new printer drivers, register with the new service and faff, faff, faff. An hour after arriving I finally had five documents printed. It was worth it though. The printers are nice, so much better than the old ones.

I spent about six hours in the office, it was quiet and I got stuff done but it was strange being there without workmates and the office bantz.

I chose to take the tube home from Oxford Circus so I get a bit of a walk through some of the key London tourist spots. I walked past Westminster Abbey,

Horse Guards Parade,

Trafalgar Square,

Piccadilly Circus,

and up Regent Street to Oxford Street and the tube station.

There were very few people about, less than I expected, though there were  a small number tourists shopping on Regent St, which was the busiest place I walked. If I wasn’t still in the work day I would have walked through Soho as well to check that out. The mid-afternoon ride home on the tube was a lot quieter than the rush hour journey in and if felt a lot more comfortable with less people. I had bought a couple of new masks specifically for today, with adjustable straps; what a difference it made. My old elastic strapped masks hurt my ears after a few minutes, these new ones are fabulous. I guess I will buy more. Shop, shop, shop. Save the economy.

I am glad I went in to the city, it was good to see what it was like and it was good to see how I felt about it. I was not comfortable at all and I am reasonably cavalier in my attitude towards our new way of living; compared to some anyway. I won’t be rushing back in, but at least I can say I tried for myself.

My appointment at the dermatology clinic was for 9:15 and naturally it was drizzling when I left, I chose to walk as I need the exercise and it is always a nightmare parking at hospitals; though there was loads of empty spaces when I arrived. The drizzle didn’t last long and I had a mostly dry walk; though it hammered it down when I was 100 metres from the clinic.

The good news is that my weirdly growing mole looks to be fine, and its behaviour was not anything the specialist was worried, they didn’t ask for a biopsy. So Yay.

Large parts of Whipps Cross Hospital are in a terrible state, fortunately not outpatients were I had just bee. Victorian buildings, like this closed nursing quarters, and abandoned workshops with asbestos warning signs and weeds growing through cracks in the walls and roof. Our glorious government (who have been in power for 10 years and have done diddly for the NHS) have announced that 40 new hospitals will be built, though one of those ‘new’ hospitals will be a complete renovation of Whipps. It needs it.

I drove us back to St Leonards-on-Sea after work. It was good to visit London, but even better to drive back home.

August

August 2020 – St Leonards-on-Sea

Summer. Holidays. Sun (on occasion, I am in England remember) and warmth; beach, swimming, walking, relaxing, lager and rose wine, cheese and salad. Yep, we had all those things, and probably more, though photographically this post is going to be more about clouds than much else. We had some mighty fine clouds in August, and some pretty good rain at times, the inevitable result of some extremely hot days.

The more I thought about the month the more I thought the weather summed up how I was feeling. It was not a bad month, but it had its grey and heavy moments. For most of us the UK relaxed its Covid-19 lockdown rules; we can go to pubs and restaurants, we can get a haircut, we can buy books and records from proper book and record shops and pretty much everything is now open. Admittedly nothing is as open as it would be in more usual times. Masks are compulsory in shops, and bars and restaurants ask for a name and number when you arrive. I have accepted that this is the way it will be for a long time, I still need to accept that not everyone is going to abide by those rules. I am getting closer to acceptance; though still mutter under my breath. Still, it is good to be out and about.

August has been OK at work too. Things do not feel as frantic as they have done, though like the weather I sense a pending storm of demand. August is the eye in the middle of this disruptive year, with Covid-19 mostly behind us. However, the winter demands of flooding, flu and cold are on the radar and the Brexit debacle looms over a horizon that is drawing ever closer.

Some good friends of ours from Walthamstow have just bought a flat in the absolutely lovely Marine Court building. The building needs a ton of work, and the public interior is straight out of The Shining. I love it. The building was constructed in 1938 and was the tallest building in the UK at the time, it is designed to look like a cruise ship, which it does quite well. I can see it from the flat. On one of our visits I took this photo of some fantastic clouds as they moved across the sea. I am going to get a big print of this…




The Listening Ears

August 30 – Dungeness.

Ever since I read about the sound mirrors at Dungeness I have wanted to go and see them. Today I finally got out there. Dungeness is 25 miles from St Leonards, so it is not as if it is miles away and difficult to get to, as always, no excuses for not going before.

I took the coast road from Pett to Winchelsea so I could take a quick look at Pett Level. There are the remains of an ancient dead forest at the low tide line and I have been interested in seeing them. It is not low tide now, but I want to at least see where to go. I took a couple of photos as I was here.

Dungeness and its nuclear power station is just up the coast, though it looks a world away from here.

The Denge sound mirrors were the third in a series of experiments using sound to create an early warning system in times of war. The first two attempts; an in ground system and ‘sound trumpets’ were developed after the first world war, neither were particularly successful and development of both was soon stopped.

Built between 1928 and 1930 the ‘listening ears’ were designed to pick up the sound of approaching enemy aircraft and reflect it back into a microphone that was connected to operators located elsewhere. The three variations of sound mirror are here; a 30ft and a 20ft circular mirror and a 200ft by 26ft curved wall. The smallest being built first. They were of limited success, easily detecting the slow moving aircraft that were common before they were built, but as technology moved on and aircraft got faster their use faded. Eventually they were replaced by new the fangled radar technology and development was abandoned in 1939. There are a couple of other sound mirrors further up the Kent coast near Hythe.

The sound mirrors are to be found behind the village of Greatstone, a couple of miles up the road from Dungeness itself. They are located on an island in a small lake that forms part of a RSPB (Royal Society for Protection of Birds) reserve. I was planning on walking around the lake; getting a bit of exercise as well as seeing things from different perspectives, which is something I like to do. It was not going to be easy, or ultimately even achievable.

The lake is a couple of hundred metres wide and a kilometre or so long. The first ‘side’ was not too bad, mainly pebbles, which is a pain to walk on, but at least you can walk on them. I got my first glance of the sound mirrors and they are pretty cool.

As I made my way around the back of the lake the going got tougher with the pebbled ground overgrown with grasses, scrubby bushes, brambles and thistle. I was beating an ever more erratic path around the denser patches of the scratching prickly scrub. I was wearing long trousers but was not particularly prepared for this kind of scrub and I could feel the brambles catching my skin through the cotton. I was mostly enjoying the walk as doing something with even a mild hint of adventure was a great change from the mundanity of my day to day.

I managed to get to the back of the sound mirrors, but stupidly lost my sunglasses when I was taking photos. At least they were only the cheap plastic ones I leave in the car, so not a financial loss, but annoying all the same. I need to be more careful with things. I tried to find them once I realised they were gone, but I could not find the exact location I stood to take the photos.

I tried to carry on round the lake and made it a bit further along before the scrub just got too dense and too tall to easily push through and I could not see a clear path ahead. With no way around without going way back and then out into the farmland, I reluctantly turned back. It was easier going back through the paths I had made as I pushed through on the way in.

Once back, passed where I had started and at the front of the lake I made my way to the causeway that goes quite close to the mirrors. On special days (pre-Covid) there are organised tours that cross to the island; but realistically this was close enough to see, especially with the 70-200mm lens. It would have been good to have been able to stand in front of the big mirror and see if I could hear anything reflected back. Unlike the far side of the lake there were a few people at the viewing point, I guess not everyone is as adventurous, or stupid as I am.

I had also packed the Polaroid.

On my slow stroll back to the car I stood on some dog poo; fortunately I was still by the lake so was able to wash it all off, walking back with a wet foot was less fun, but better than stinking out the car. I was hoping there was not going to be a third, minor, misfortune today. Though I guess I could say the 90 minutes it took to drive the 25 miles back home was not exactly fortunate!

I love that these listening ears and their cousins in Hythe are still standing, and that there is real interest in preserving these wonderful reminders of our inquisitive nature; and our ability (for some people at least) to learn from apparent failure.

Back on the Tube.

Monday 10 August 2020 – London.

It has finally happened. The inevitability we were going to face one day; the dreaded journey into the belly of the beast, into the hell heat depths of London; AKA the Tube, the underground. We have not been on the Tube or any other public transport in London since early March, and I cannot believe that that was five months ago. Naturally it is over 30 degrees today and the Tube is even more terrible than normal in this heat. However we are not living in normal times and we did not have to travel during, what makes up, the rush hour in these early post lockdown days. That was at least one small mercy.

Eleanor has to complete a medical as part of the New Zealand partner visa application process and the only place in London that the embassy recognises is in Knightsbridge. Naturally.

I have taken three days off work so we could come up to London, and then we could go to the medical together. Tomorrow we will be attending an online funeral service to farewell a good friend of ours. Sadly this is not a holiday trip. I will drive back down on Wednesday and Eleanor will follow later in the week.  It is brutally hot at the moment, day three of a heat wave, that have temperatures in the mid 30s, it was much nicer by the sea than in London. Even the flat was pretty warm on Friday night, last night in London was awful, and tonight is going to be even hotter.

It is now mandatory to wear a mask on public transport and in stations, so we made sure we had those packed before we left to take the underground from Walthamstow to Knightsbridge. As is the norm we left far too early, or were cautious, depending on your point of view. Walthamstow Central was pretty quiet, a good start.

Not everyone was wearing a face covering on the train, as expected I guess, and we did move seats when someone sat down opposite us with no mask on. These are not normal times. Changing trains at Finsbury Park we got on the Piccadilly Line which was a lot quieter.

With so few tourists around the big stations like Leicester Square and Hyde Park were almost deserted, it is quite eerie, though less people around is not unpleasant in this heat.

We stopped for lunch in a small cafe near the doctors rooms in Knightsbridge, a small Italian, and I am guessing, family run for a long time type of place. I really liked it and the coffee and meatball sandwich I had were great. It is my type of cafe.

The doctors rooms in Knightsbridge was slightly different to the doctors room in Walthamstow.

I left Eleanor to her appointment and went out for a walk, I was advised to give it an hour, though Eleanor called me after thirty minutes to say it was done, and all good so far. I am glad it was not the whole hour as it was so hot outside and naturally I had not used sun block and my hats were at the flat, I could feel the skin on my face shriveling under the intense gaze of the sun.

Even the hoardings around the building sites are of a different class to what I am used to…

I crossed the road outside Harvey Nichols and was surprised/not surprised at the lack of people, and particularly the lack of traffic. It is always hideously busy through here and the pollution is awful. But not today, long may this remain!

I was very close to Hyde Park so decided to take my walk there, I have not visited much since that period at the end of 2012 and start of 2013 when I was house sitting Phil’s flat in She Bu and frequently walked the royal parks. I don’t recall seeing it this dry, or empty. I kind of liked it like this, even I was better prepared for the sun I think it would have been more enjoyable.

I stopped to take some photos of the one flower bed I found, though it was very much in need of some water, me too, though I had had the foresight to bring some.

I walked around the Serpentine and was just enjoying a very refreshing ice cream when Eleanor rang to advise her appointment was done. The ice cream started melting, running over my fingers as we spoke, though we only talked for a few short seconds.

We met back in the Tube station and had a very hot, but uneventful journey back to Walthamstow. Hopefully that will be the last Tube ride for a while…

When we back up in Walthamstow ten days ago we had drinks for Eleanor’s birthday at Orford Road Social Club, which we had joined in February. A number of our friends are members and it is a cheap place to go for a drink, they also have a bowling club which seems to be the new thing for our social group. Some of us a had a bowl while we were there, which I very much enjoyed, and surprisingly I was not too bad.

As we were having one for the road back inside the building we heard the terrible news that Doug, one of our group, had succumbed to a virulent cancer he had been fighting for a few short months. Doug was our age and leaves a wife and two university aged children. He was a lovely man, with a great sense of humour and great taste in music and will be missed very much.

His funeral is tomorrow and because of covid related restrictions we are all going to be watching a live stream of the funeral at a friends house, followed by a drink or two in Doug’s honour. It is terribly sad.

Rest in Rock n Roll Dave ‘Doug’ Douglas.  (Kingsdown Beach 2019)

The MV Amsterdam.

Wednesday 22 July 2020 – St Leonards-On-Sea.

Tips of the wooden rib cage of the MV Amsterdam spearing out of the sand of Bylverhythe beach is what I expected to see as I strolled sand exposed by the receding tide on this heavily pebbled beach. I saw nothing but sea, shingle, sand, rock banks; both man and nature made, dogs, dog walkers and families, and the deserted equipment of a fisherman no longer in sight. I carried on my hunt.

Checking my watch as I reached the end of the beach I realised there were still 15 more minutes to low tide. I paused briefly, before turning my back to the setting sun and walking back in the direction of St Leonards and home, stopping when I reached the point where I thought the wreck was buried. Peaking out of the almost full low tide I spot wood not stone and know I have found my objective.

The MV Amsterdam set sail from Amsterdam in January 1749 on her maiden voyage, bound for the Dutch colony in Java, Indonesia. It didn’t get very far, caught in a storm and losing her rudder in Pevensey Bay, it foundered on Bulverhythe Beach, St Leonards. 8 years later the wreck had been swallowed by the sand, leaving an almost intact hull buried, supposedly full of goodies. It has lain there ever since.

I spent the next 30 minutes pretty much in the same spot, taking the occasional photo as the tide continued to go out, hoping that the tide would recede enough to just leave sand and the exposed rib tips.

Others wandered past, some stopping to take a photo on their phone, others seemingly wondering why I was just standing there in the setting sun, camera in hand.

The outline did not fully reveal itself, even at the full low tide. I need to come back when that low tide line is even lower than tonight’s.

It was nice to be out my camera, inspired to take it out after a visit from friends last week. While I didn’t get the image that I wanted I did get to enjoy myself, and took some photos on the way.

Visitors

Friday 17 July 2020 – Bexhill and St Leonards-on-Sea.

Exciting news this week. The desk and the office chair I ordered online both arrived, and the best bit was I liked them both. This gave me the opportunity to do a little rearrange of the sitting room, putting the desk where I had the record cabinet. The room feels better balanced now, and I like working at the desk, it feels good. Hopefully an inspiration to write more.

After a few days of not such good weather we finally had a decent couple of days in row. Nice. Much as I like being here in any weather a nice bit of sun, matched with a gentle sea breeze is all the nicer. We decided to do something we have not done since 8 March. Take some public transport, and catch a train. It was strange to be thinking of these things after so long.

Six minutes down the line is Bexhill. Not the longest journey, but it is better to break the ice in a small and stress free way. Though naturally the train we planned to get was cancelled and the next one was 11 minutes late. Signal failure. Situation normal. It felt good. Wearing masks is now mandatory on public transport, though it is not policed. As our train slowly pulled into St Leonards Warrior Square station from Hastings I looked at the small number of people in the first few carriages, mostly not wearing masks. Our carriage was almost empty and the other passengers were masked up, as were we. The message regarding wearing masks on public transport is out there, some people just do not care.

I took a couple of photos on my phone out of the carriage as we moved along, trying to recapture a little of the project I started before lockdown taking photos out of train windows, though missing the mark a bit.

I don’t mind Bexhill; like Eastbourne it has an older population that Hastings and St Leonards, but in every other way it is more like St Leonards, a little faded, jaded and run down, but with some interesting shops. Not that we were thinking of going to the shops.

We were thinking of going to De La Warr Pavilion to see if there was coffee on offer, but it was all closed up. Though interestingly (to me alone) the little record booth that was inside the pavilion was open on the outside and I must admit I was tempted to go visit. I have been very well behaved in the past couple of weeks, certainly in comparison to the early part of lockdown when I bought a few records more than I should. Working at the flat all day, sitting next to the record player as I have a lot more time to play them, none of the purchases are wasted. I like records.

The walk from Bexhill to St Leonards takes about an hour and a half, and is mostly taken right along the shore line, it is a lovely walk and one I could do any time, especially if we stop for lunch at the vegetarian/vegan Bathing Hut Cafe. Today I had the halloumi burger, which was as good as the full English I had last time.

On Thursday we had our first Walthamstow visitors to the flat, Caroline and Andy, and they were staying the night, which was fabulous. I took Friday off work so I could the day with them. They arrived after work and we immediately packed up and went for a walk to the recently reopened pier. We were hoping for food, but none of the new food huts were there or open so we just stayed for a drink in the late afternoon sun. The pier company has recently tendered the running of the pier to an events company, so there are loads of socially distant tables in a huge beer garden. It was nice to be out and even nicer to be out with good friends.

Andy had recently bought a new camera and brought it along, a full frame Sony. It looks amazing and he loves it, he should know he is a professional tog.

We walked into Hastings to look for food and ended up buying takeout Thai from a street stall and beer and wine from the pub over the way, then eating them on the street watching the world go by. It was a really nice night out, The noodles were excellent and walking home in the dark, through the lit Bottle Alley was really enjoyable.

On Friday we walked down to Bathing Hut Cafe for brunch, and to introduce our guests to the vegan offerings close to home, I had the quesadilla which was as good as the last two things, it is my favourite day time eating place that is certain. After eating we walked in to and around Hastings Old Town, showing our guests the delights of Old Saints Street before stopping for a drink outside one of the bars in George St.

We eventually ended up at Farmyard Cafe for an early evening dinner, ending what was a really enjoyable 24 hours with close friends. Hopefully the start of others coming down to visit, or maybe buy something to…

To mirror the new desk inspiring more writing at the start of this post, Andy’s photos and use of his big camera was an inspiration to get out more and use mine, or at least take a photo from the bedroom window.

Memorial, by Phlegm

Sunday 29 July 2020 – Walthamstow.

As soon as we decided to go to work and stay at my place in St Leonards for a few weeks, my favourite street artist came to Walthamstow to paint some doors. Typical.

I have been a fan of the work of the, primarily, Sheffield based artist, Phlgem for quite some time. I remember trying to find one of his pieces in Sri Lanka when I was there in 2013. There are plenty of great murals all over London to make up for not finding that particular one. There is a fabulous large piece at the end of Walthamstow High Street, and an earlier wall has sadly been painted over, but he does have a history in this area, living in Wanstead for a short period. It was quite exciting to know there has been further work added to the growing collection of high quality street art in Walthamstow.

Now that restrictions are slowly being relaxed and shops are opening Eleanor wanted to come back to visit her hairdresser and for us to spend time with family. I took that opportunity to organise a walk to Blackhorse Lane to check out the paintings, which are possibly called Memorial. It is painted on the doors of the indoor climbing centre Yonder. I loved it, as always.

Photos below. Fabulous as always.

Eastbourne.

Sunday 05 July 2020 – Eastbourne.

The day started like most others this past week; grey low cloud, drizzle and high wind. Coffee in bed seemed like the right thing to do; immediately followed by a second coffee in bed. We made it out of bed just before 9 for an enjoyable video call with my sister in New Zealand. During the hour we were online the rain stopped, the cloud was blown away by the strong wind; clearing the sky. A nice day beckoned. It was time to make the planned, yet to be achieved trip to Eastbourne, a 30 minute drive along the coast.

I last passed through Eastbourne in Jan 2018 when I took a walk along the cliff tops to Burling Gap. I vaguely recall visiting as a child in the 1970s, though that is as likely to be a false memory as it is true. Eleanor has been twice before, and it rained both times. We both wanted to visit on a sunny day.

I parked as soon as I found a spot within an easy walk of the yet to re-open pier. It is very windy.

As we walked towards the pier we came across an oddly shaped white beach hut, which turned out to be shaped as a tooth, and is a memorial to Beachy Head Lady, with this message on it;

‘Along this coast near Beachy Head a young woman of sub-Sarahan African origin was buried one thousand eight hundred years ago. She spent most of her life thriving on a diet rich in the fruits of the sea and from fertile downland fields. Her story is recorded in chemicals hidden within her teeth and in her fragile bones. But how or why she arrived on the shores to make a new home so long ago will probably remain a mystery.’ I really liked this message and it intrigued me enough to try to found out more; as every good message should.

Beachy Head Lady is thought to be the oldest known person from sub-Saharan Africa to be found in the United Kingdom. It is not known when her remains were originally found, though they were recently rediscovered in the museum in a box marked 1956-1959. Further information on the original discovery remain quite sparse, which adds somewhat to the mystery. I chose to not dig much further. Mysteries are good.

It is a funny old day, as many have been in these barely re-opened post-Covid emergency days. It is a sunny, though windy, summer Sunday. There are a few people about, but not as many as expected. The shopping areas are mainly open, so places for people to go. There is an air of reluctance and tension in the air, as well as a touch of the ‘she’ll be right mate’ attitude you get from those who think Brexit is a good idea and social distancing is stupid. I did not see a lot of masks being worn, though they are yet too made mandatory in England.

We walked along the front, past the pier and the place where the street drinkers were gathered in a vaguely intimidating fashion when I was here last time. I don’t remember anything specific, but I knew I was very keen to use the public toilet and they were all bunched outside and I walked for ages till I got to the downs before finding an appropriately unpublic tree. The things you remember.

We walked as far as the Martello Tower where we stopped for a hot chocolate and sat in the sun feeling like our skin was being peeled from our faces by the sun and the wind. The hot chocolate was very nice, as was the Martello Tower and its little peace garden.

Leaving the tower we were walking in the direction of the Towner Gallery when the wind whipped the camera strap that was not around my neck or any other useful (or useless) part of my body and tore the camera from my hand, cracking the rear screen when it hit the ground. Damn. Three camera in three years; all broken by me not being careful enough. Lucking the camera still works,  and it has a viewfinder, though I have to use auto mode as the screen displays(ed) the exposure settings. I could at least take some more photos today.

Auto mode does not suit my style, and with three small scratches on the lens, it is now time to replace the camera. A choice I did not want to have to make again after the stress of finding and buying the small Panasonic GX800 last year, a camera I have not really learnt to love. It may be time to sell that as well and buy a single replacement. Choices and decisions. I hate them both.

The Towner Gallery is fabulous. I have seen photos and read about it, and it was a pleasure to see it at last, I love the look of it, so funky and modern. Sadly it was still closed, but it opening in a couple of weeks, a good reason to come back to Eastbourne.

We picked up lunch from a Mexican food cart, in a very un-social distant queue, not many people wearing masks either. My nachos were tasty, there was an awful lot, though the chips were stale which was a good thing really. They went in the bin, not that I like wasting food!

We walked along the sea front for a while, stopping for an ice cream in a faded little park with a faded little tea-shop and then walked back to the car and I drove us home.

Mission accomplished. A day out to Eastbourne and it wasn’t raining.

St Leonards-on-Sea

Saturday 04 July 2020 – St Leonards-on-Sea.

It has been a couple of weeks since the last post, the daily updates having finished, though life has yet to fully return to normal and we are still in some form of lockdown. Though lock down is not the right term anymore. Under some restrictions is a better term.  I refuse to use ‘new normal’.

El and I are at the flat in St Leonards, we have just entered week four and, apart from rubbish weather in the past week, it has been successful. This is the longest El has been away from Walthamstow since 1988. I find this incredible, but in reality this is more usual then being away from a home  town for any length of time. Before I went travelling and my expectations changed, I had not been away from ‘home’ for longer than a couple of weeks since 1988 either. Anyway I am glad that she is taking this time away from Walthamstow with me, and we are planning on being here for another two weeks before heading back for a few days; El has a haircut and it is her birthday and we will have a small gathering in the garden. Fair reasons for heading back to London, though we will be back here for the foreseeable.

On the subject of haircuts and long periods, El cut mine yesterday, it was the longest it has been since 1986 and the goth phase. I have been moulting everywhere and finally got sick of it being in my eyes all the time. The barbers opened yesterday, along with pubs and restaurants, but I don’t know any barber here and am not sure I want someone breathing on me that closely quite yet. I also like my barber in Walthamstow, we moan about Arsenal for the 30 minutes I am there.

A before and after… I really like it, a good job was done.

I took four days out of work the week before last. I needed it as things were getting stressy and I was grumpy and tired and probably not a lot of fun to be with. We had some glorious days and I managed a swim, some walks and a lot of reading and had a good run at a short story I am writing. I was pleased with the time off and felt a lot better for it.

I am working at the dining table and sitting on a dining chair, the table is fine, but the chair is not good for my back and I am constantly uncomfortable. I have a new office chair arriving tomorrow and I am very pleased about this, hopefully it will be good. I would not normally buy a chair off the internet. I have a desk coming in a couple of weeks and can set up a little work area in the sitting room, El has a desk in the spare room to work at. The hope is to be here all summer, until we both have to go back into the office, so decent working conditions are critical.

El does not work on a Friday so we went for a drive in the Kent countryside to the Chapel Down winery where we bought a couple of bottles of wine and had a little picnic. It was very nice being out and about again and the snacks we bought were very nice. Yay for summer and picnics in the sun.

On Sunday we had breakfast on St Leonards beach.

Then the weather turned to crap and it has been bad ever since, today being the first proper sunny day for over a week, though it is still ferociously windy and was raining when we woke up.

Outside of working we did not get up to much, we walked most days, though not all. I did a few house chores, like stuffing something up the chimney, which El amused herself by taking a photo of being elegant.

El has started painting, so I took a sneaky photo of her in revenge, though she is far more poised than I was.

I have been doing a lot of reading, and some writing, as well as taking the odd photo, like some dead flowers in the living room; now in the bin. I have been trying to do more photography, but the weather was a bit too challenging. I don’t mind the rain, but the wind was too much.

Yesterday the pubs re-opened in England, a decision I think is very premature and I wasn’t going to go to one. However, I saw a message on social media that my favourite little bar ‘1200 Postcards’, the bar mentioned in my last post, was going to re-open, and well I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to go back to show some support for the business, I really didn’t think it would re-open, plus I wanted to re-establish myself there. I waited for the worst of the weather to be over and set off for a walk, taking the little G16 camera with me.

I was very tempted to take this metal stork with me, if I had been on the way home and not out I would have grabbed it from the ‘free to take’ pile outside a house down the road. I may wander past there this week and see if it is still there.

The cloud was very low and the wind was howling down the beach, but it was nice to be walking, there were a few people out, there always is, and Hastings was quite busy.

I found this old spray painted ‘Punx’ in bottle alley, I was listening to punk rock as I walked so it seemed appropriate to take a picture. I have walked though bottle alley dozens of times and have never noticed this before. I am wondering if it stood out more as everything was wet.

I have not seen this before either, though I have seen others from ‘Scrabbleman’, and know there are more around the sea front.

It was great arriving at 1200 Postcards, Dave, the owner welcomed me with a loud ‘Phil!’ and seemed as pleased to see me as I was him, and I felt good that I had made the decision to stop for one pint. I will return when things return to something more like they were before.

My family shared photos on Whatsapp this week, and I love this photo of my eldest son and my granddaughter in Australia and the photo of my mum, sister, son, niece and grandson at his 6 birthday party.

A big news story…

El and I have decided to move to New Zealand! From mid-next year or how ever long it takes to sort El a visa and then for me to find a job there, we expect this to be a long process. Updates as they come in.

Belonging

For a long time I have been thinking about ‘belonging’, I want to identify what or where my place in this new world is. I am not thinking about ‘place’ as a physical location, though that is part of it, nor am thinking about my place on society’s class ladder either. I am thinking about where I belong, what/who my ‘tribes’ are, what/who I am connected to? Where do I fit in? Who are my people? So many question marks, with so few answers.

These questions I am asking myself about connection are not new. I have felt a sense of disconnection for a long time, as far back as when I returned to New Zealand from the UK in 1988, maybe earlier. It was always my desire to return to London, the city of my birth; not necessarily to live, just a visit to weigh up what constantly drew me there and whether my life in New Zealand measured up to the fantasy I had of what could have been. My life in New Zealand was always good. I was very lucky to spend so much of it in green suburban Auckland, to bring up a family in comfort and security, in a good sized house with a big garden. I have no regrets on that front; however the itch was always there.

My family emigrated to New Zealand from North Cheam on London’s southern fringe in February 1973. I was 11. It was a big wrench. I do not remember much of my life in North Cheam prior to leaving, details are vague, but I remember being happy. I have always put it down to a bad memory, but perhaps there is something deeper to it? We settled in the Auckland suburb of Blockhouse Bay and, apart from those couple of years back in London I did not live further than five miles away from there at any point over the next 40 years; until I ended up in London again.

I do not feel particularly English or British, even less so after the 2016 Brexit vote and how this nation and some of its people have responded to it. I do not particularly feel like a Kiwi either. I sort of identify as a British New Zealander, neither one nor the other, a non-committal, half way option, one that flips and flops depending on my mood and how I feel about each location. Right now the Kiwi in me is taking the lead.

A sense of belonging, of connection, is important, but seems to be less available, less of a feature in our lives than it was in for previous generations. I look at my parents, though my father is no longer with us, and I can see their connections, their tribes, and how important those things were to them, and still are for Mum. Whether they recognised them as important or not, I don’t know, I don’t ask. My intuition tells me that when you belong, have a sense of place and a community, you don’t realise it is there or how important it is, until it has gone.

Mum and Dad did pretty much the same jobs all their lives; Mum was a nurse and Dad worked with metal in the aircraft industry. Dad started work at Air New Zealand soon after we arrived in Auckland in 1973 and stayed with the same team until he retired. Mum worked in a variety of departments in Auckland hospitals until she too retired, returning to work part time for as long as she could. I suspect if we had not left the UK, their UK jobs would not have changed, at all.

Their workmates were their work tribe, work was one of their communities, a place they belonged. They went to church; different churches in the end, as their needs were different and their church community was a very important part of their lives, and for Mum it is still is. They had places they belonged, places that gave them security, contentment and purpose. The church was a key part of their social community; Dad mowed the lawn and did maintenance jobs at his church, Mum sings in the choir at hers. It was a place that offered joy, and a purpose outside of just being employees, parents and grandparents.

I believe this community thing, these tribes, are getting harder to create and maintain. I know I am not typical of my generation, career wise I am more typical of the following. I have worked for a lot of companies; in the 30 years I have been in IT I have had nine different employers, and one of those was for nine years. I have never built a work community, workmates come and go, and I can count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over, how many old work friendships I maintain. (Hi Jeff!). Work was never going to be a place of belonging, colleagues were not going to be one of my tribes; even though I liked most of the people I worked with.

I attended a church youth group for a few years, not as a particularly active participant in the religious stuff, it was place of friendship and some of those relationships formed in the late 70s and early 80s remain today. These are the people I routinely see when I go back to New Zealand. There is a shared history, a lot of us spent time in the UK in the mid to late 80s, our kids grew up together back in Auckland; we have common, often shared, experiences. They would be a bigger part of my community if I lived in Auckland.

In Auckland I had my social tribes, places I belonged, communities that were important to me, and occasionally, I was important to that community, happy places. I mountain biked for 10 years, before and during the boom, building tracks, joining and organising (mostly) non-competitive events. In the year or so before I went travelling, I was trail running with a fabulous bunch of people, leaders in what became a huge trail running community. I had the creative side covered and was heavily involved in a small photography group, organising and attending photo shoots with people I liked. Each aspect of my character was fed, supported and enhanced by people I wanted to be with; and of course I had my family around me as well.

So why did I leave? Leave these community, my place of belonging, my tribes, my normality?

The thing in the back of my mind that kept nagging about London, that place of my birth, never left me, it was never on the surface, but neither was it buried so deep I didn’t feel it rise every now and then. In 2007 I got ill with what turned out to be a large abscess growing on my liver; it was removed in a long piece of surgery, along with good sized chunk of liver. I was so unwell I was off work for seven weeks. The day after I started working part time, my dad got sick, passing away a few days later with a blood cancer he knew nothing about. As you can probably imagine, this was a life changing period, with illness and death finally coming to my attention in a direct and unwanted way.

I had been thinking about a visit to Europe as a 50th birthday present to myself for a long time and with life now seemingly more precarious and more precious all of a sudden this trip became more important to me. After my marriage ended, and the older two of my three children had left the country, life was a lot less complicated and there was time to think and reprioritise. I was a bit bored, a bit dissatisfied, and was feeling less like I belonged. I desperately wanted to travel; and to be honest I was single and wanted to meet someone new, and way outside my existing circles. When my youngest started work and was staying at his girlfriends house more often than mine it just seemed like the right time to take the leap towards something new.

Travel over, and the bug largely sated, I have been in London for eight years, most of those in Walthamstow with Eleanor, and in the main I am very happy. I have a good group of friends, a good job; in these Covid-19 circumstances, it has proven to be a very good job, and I now have my own place on the south coast in St Leonards-on-Sea. I am a lucky guy, accept….

I don’t have that feeling of belonging. I don’t have a tribe, a community, something that I feel I completely belong to. It’s not that I feel like I don’t belong, as this is not the case, I just don’t want my sense of belonging to be based around work or other formal structure. I want to belong to something a little different to before, I want to write and I want to take pictures and I want to have some simple recognition for both. I have been sucked into the world of social media, sharing photos and short messages, looking for the quick hit that comes from someone I admire liking something I created, inviting me briefly into their sphere. It comes rarely, the gap between rushes lengthening over time and the idea of belonging to that imagined elite group, no matter how small, just fades away; until the next rush. Rinse and repeat, as the (new) saying goes. No real community there.

I have a job, and that job comes with really nice people. My team are great and I don’t feel like I don’t belong in that team, but it is a different type of belonging. My boss and one of my peers, both of a similar age to me, have been in the department for decades. It is all they know. They belong and they BELONG. I know I am transiting, it is what I do, I will leave on good terms, and I will be replaced. Everyone will move on. No real community for me there.

Yes, I have good friends, our social group are lovely, and I feel nothing but warmth and welcome, but they are Eleanor’s friends and terrible as it sounds, I want some of my own as well, ones I have earned through shared interests and joys. Bonds of my own making.

One of the reasons I wanted to buy somewhere in a small town was to find a community I could insert myself into. I had (have) visions of mornings in a cafe or evenings in a pub talking politics, music or art, anything at all, with a group of regulars. A modern day, seaside Cheers, ‘where everyone knows your name’. I know this is fantasy, these places are rare or don’t exist. Rural or coastal villages that do have a sense of community have those communities through generations of living, of struggle and working together to overcome. They don’t want some London based foreigner turning up, buying a property and wanting instant acceptance.

When I bought the flat in this lovely Victorian building I live in I was hoping there would be a community of interest in the building, keeping it maintained and wonderful, chats on the stairs and a glass of wine in the garden. The reality is most people who live and own flats here don’t care. There are two occupied flats in my part of the block, I haven’t spoken to either of the residents all year, I haven’t even seen them to be truthful. There is little community spirit and shared experience happening there. There are some nice folk on the other side of the building, and the other directors on the board are interested and interesting, but like me most of them don’t live here. At least we have common purpose, to keep the building maintained, a shared ideal, a community of interest. It is just a lot of work.

I have found a bar I like, it is tiny and reasonably new, sells good beer, and is not overly busy, I like the owner and he knows my name (yay, Cheers). I was starting to feel at home there before covid-19, I am hoping it will open again; it is not a certain thing. It was a start of something I think, though basing my sense of belonging entirely on a bar is not such a good idea, it is not a community of like minded folk, just people who like beer.

I want to start building something, finding or starting a photography group being the most likely, but I am constantly wavering on where I (we) should live; I love London and El’s place and our friends in Walthamstow and I mostly love my flat and St Leonards, and a growing part of me would like us to live in New Zealand for a while. This uncertainty is not helping me develop my own circle of interest, my own community, my own tribes; what if I make one in the wrong place?

This may all sound like I am unhappy, and this is absolutely not the case. I just don’t feel I belong anywhere at the moment and I am struggling with this. This is my own fault, I am lazy and I lack confidence to get out and do something. The only person stopping me joining a photography group, or getting my mountain bike out and going to find people to ride with is me.