The road that takes you to the places where all the things meet, yeah

I get an email which invites me to a local event with "family activities". It ends "volunteers are needed to help – making cakes or preserves in advance, or helping on the day".

Um... no. The last local event I was invited to happened directly outside my house. It was fun in many ways, but blighted by (let's call him) W, a man who had drunk so much red wine that his mouth resembled a black cave of horror. M was providing the music for the event, and I was very glad that this was controlled a) largely by a prepared-earlier playlist and b) from upstairs, as after a certain point in the evening, whenever the track changed W would shout 'this is shit!'. When something came on that he did like, he would lurch to the amp, on our front path, and try to turn it up to 11 so "everyone" could dance. My job - which I took upon myself, but someone clearly had to do it - was to deflect him from this mission for long enough for him to forget about it. A couple of times this involved physically pushing him out of my front gate.

Later, he came over to me, and told me I was giving him 'a look'. I'm sorry, I said truthfully. You are pissing me off, but I really was trying to keep my face neutral. Ah, he said, but the more you glare at me, the more I want to impress you.

What larks.

At such moments, I also remember the time X years ago, when one of M's chilblains got (temporarily, as it turned out, in the best Blackpool tradition) engaged. There was a party. It was 17 shades of uncomfortable. And several days beforehand there was an awkward phonecall, where it was suggested to M that I might "like to do the vegetarian food".

Um, no, I said. I cannot think of anything I would like to do less.

And I didn't do it, a fact of which I am now rather proud. I did turn up, but I was somewhat dissolute. Like the monasteries.

All the above sometimes leads me to fear that I am not a communal person, not willing to do my bit, etc, whereas generally I think it's fair to conclude that I'm actually dangerously sane, believing as I do that nobody wants to bake cakes, that men like W should be confined in the nearest cellar till they no longer pose a public nuisance, and that engagement parties are a crime against humanity.

But the sometimes bit twinges, so I was very happy today to be part of a plan to have a Reunion Picnic. It is 10 years (give or take) since I spent a year (give or take) working on the smallish but perfectly formed Millennium Project which was my entry into NGO X. Of the seven other people (plus one husband and one son) present, I still see two regularly and one occasionally, but I was mildly and pleasantly surprised to discover how easy it was to lie on a blanket by the river and laugh with all the others as well. There was no plan as such - beyond two of us bringing blankets and several of us knowing how to find the river - but delegations were formed, roles were assigned and a perfectly serviceable picnic was purchased, consumed and later disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion.

I conclude that I can do community, as long as it isn't compulsory, and you get to take a packet of leftover cheese and onion sausage-style rolls home afterwards.

joella

Celebrations

It's been a month of earthly and other-worldly delights.

Walking tours. Two of them. Both on the same weekend, celebrating P's 60th birthday and discovering many things about London. The first one accompanied Radical Nature, an exhibition at the Barbican, which I could not wholeheartedly recommend. The dolphin embassy is hilarious, and Agnes Denes's wheatfield is spectacular, but most of the 21st century 'interventions' are fairly excruciating.

The walking tour, though, was brilliant. We thought we would be visiting private green spaces not normally open to the public. Instead a softly spoken man with a satchel and a passion for tiger moth caterpillars showed us wild plants and flowers growing in obscure corners and crevices around the complex. Catch it if you can... as C pointed out, the botanist who leads it looks like he might disappear back into the brickwork at any moment.

The following day we explored Subterranean London, and learnt how John Snow worked out what was causing the cholera epidemic in Soho in 1854, and how Joseph Bazalgette banished it forever out by sorting out sewers in a big way. Kind of sobering to think about all the cities where people still get cholera because their shit runs down the middle of the street, and then remember that it was only 150 years ago that happened right in the middle of London. Amazing. Also recommended.

Over in art world, for M's birthday I took him to 'experience' Susurrus in the Botanic Gardens. Verdict: hmm. It's a glorious time of year there, so I'd say take your own iPod, stick on something mournful and lovely, like say the new Unthanks album, walk slowly and forget about the play.

I finished Infinite Jest, all 1079 pages of it. I am rather haunted by images of broken, addicted people in a broken, polluted world, but it's also hellishly funny. If you have the time, it's worth the time.

I went out for dinner with my Significant Ex (preceded by beer in the Wheatsheaf where they now have Proper Pint Jugs, very excitingly) and came home with Here Come The Snakes, which I haven't heard for years, since my tape of his album was destroyed by the tape deck of the 2cv. For years that was my very best tape, HCTS on one side and Stone Roses/Stone Roses on the other... but while the latter album is now near-ubiquitous, the former is hard to find except in expanded expensive reissued form. As great lost albums go, they don't get much greater than this one, and I stuck it on, turned it up, and had a large glass of red and a little weep. No shame in that, every now and again.

The allotment produced so much stuff last week (mostly potatoes, but also chard, French beans, carrots, gherkins, and lettuce) that I had to bring it all home in a wheelbarrow. Add this to last month's stellar red onion haul and the squash still to come and I'm coming over all Little House in the Big Woods.

Only *they* didn't have to deal with the annual migration of the Brookesalikes. But I'll save my griping for another day. There's digging to do.

joella

Guerilla plumbing

One of the many medium-level irritants for the politically aware water obsessive who lives in shonky East Oxford is pointless water wastage. You see it quite a lot round here, with our Victorian-era HMOs and their evil tightarse landlords and lazy letting agents. You hear it first... patter patter patter... in the winter it could be snow melting off a pitched roof faster than the gutters can cope with, pretty much anytime it could be broken gutters after heavy rain, but generally it's neither. It's a faulty float valve in a cold water storage cistern or a WC cistern, and it's pouring out of the overflow. 

For days. Weeks. Months, sometimes. Litres a minute, for months. In a region which is water stressed -- hard as that is to believe when it pisses down nearly every day -- because we have few reservoirs Down South, relying on our ground water supplies, and our ground water supplies are not replenished like they used to be because we have paved over every possible inch of land. Meanwhile we put in power showers like there's no tomorrow. Keep on like this, there'll be fewer of them, most def. 

In an occupied house, it's not hard to change a float valve. I've done lots of them in WCs. CWSCs in loft spaces are a bit harder, because of access, but still no big deal. But your evil tightarse landlord can't be arsed to spend the <£100 it would cost. In an empty house, it's even easier to deal with, just isolate the valve, or turn off the water. Deal with it later. But they can't even be arsed to do that. 

Last time there was such a leak on our street, I stomped into the letting agents at least three times. Every time, a smarmy slick wanker with a shiny tie said 'yes, a plumber has been called'. You are lying, I said, on the third occasion. And I *am* a fucking plumber, give me the keys and I'll do it. Oddly, it did get sorted shortly after that. 

And then a month or so ago there was another one round the corner, running down the outside wall of an empty house, day after day, week after week. Marginal plants were beginning to grow in the permapuddles. The letting agents had a sign up but it was broken, so the phone number was incomplete. Every time I saw it, I reached for my phone, sighed, vowed to Google them when I got home, never did. 

Last week, we were walking past the pattering house on our way back from a pizza we went out for because I came home from work needing to sink some red wine and have a big rant. There were wheelie bins littering the pavement -- the students left before their rubbish did and it's left to the permanent residents to put the bins back in the front gardens -- and I had an idea. 

The long-suffering M helped me manoeuvre an empty 240 litre wheelie bin into a position where it would catch the falling water. I'll come back for that, I said, and I'll wheel it down to the allotment and use it on the gherkins. (I had sunk some red wine, so wasn't really thinking through the physics involved here). 

Two days later, I walked past again. The wheelie bin was exactly where I'd left it, and full of water, as I would have expected. But the water had also stopped falling. Someone had turned it off. I wonder if a visible quarter-tonne of water in less than 48 hours (and probably less than 24) finally pressed some shiny-tied bastard's shame button in a way that damp brickwork and environmental sustainability messages just never could. 

I'd like to think it did. 

joella

The May to September Fish Lines

When I was about 12, I had a sort of all in one halterneck top and shorts. It was banana yellow, and every time I put it on, which took a while as it was complicated, I experienced massive dissonance between how I would like to have felt wearing it - leggy, tanned, cartwheeling, glorious - and how I actually did feel -pallid, clumsy, exposed, and profoundly self-conscious. I kept thinking this would change, but it never did.

Summer clothes still have that effect on me. In fact summer itself still has that effect on me - I can't stay long in the sun, I only go to the beach when it's cool and breezy, and when I watch the brown, wiry Palestinian woman who has the allotment a few plots down from mine striding around purposefully in vest, shorts and wellies, I feel 12 years old all over again. Her plants grow tall and strong, mine give up and wilt.

But then there is Hinksey Pool, Oxford's seasonally open municipal lido, which lives in the middle of a park full of towering conifers. Somehow, it's different there. Pale Aquarians emerge blinking from the breezeblock cubicles, pile up their towels, put on their goggles and slip into the water. There, as the children go home for their tea and the shadows lengthen, women of an uncertain age swim up and down, up and down, along the lines of fish painted on the bottom of the pool. Above us is only sky, blue or grey it doesn't matter, because it's warm in the pool, as long as you keep moving.

Hinksey Pool is a strange organic shape, so no two crossings of it are the same length. The fish lines provide general direction, and there are men who plough up and down them, refusing to deflect. The women of an uncertain age travel along the same lines, but differently. Occasionally, I have swum up the longest fish line directly behind my friend H -- one woman can be knocked off course, but two are harder to shift. Eventually, though, one of them kicks you in the cheekbone, because ultimately, you are making an artistic statement, and they are making an autistic one.

There is plenty of shade around Hinksey Pool, and there is also a kiosk which sells chips and ice lollies. It's absolutely English, and absolutely wonderful. Last night, I swam over to the edge to climb out, and another woman was waiting by the ladder so she could climb in. 'This is like a tropical scene,' she said, 'and you're like a dolphin swimming towards me!'. I sort of knew what she meant, but I wasn't quite sure what to say. So I smiled, and said 'I love it here'.

We all do, she said. We all do.

joella

The undulation of an Oxford weekend

(because I don't go into the office till Wednesdays these days, and when people ask how my weekend was I have already forgotten)

A dash to the Marsh after work for drinks with S, who is off on maternity leave. A power walk to the Pegasus, picking up R on the way, for a decidedly weird take on the myth of Orpheus that involved toy theatres and bubble wrap. A wander to the garden of the Chester Arms to talk art and building and music with Greek people in hammocks. A stumble home via felafel at Bodrum Kebab.

An amble to the Farmers Market for a bag of vegetables and a plate of egg and potato curry and reading the paper (and ignoring the smell created by the Modern Parents who think it's ok to change nappies on the grass right in front of people who are eating). A stroll to the allotment to check on the tomato plants, and from there to Silvesters to buy some more: they were properly dead. A wobbly walk home with a flimsy plastic tray, and a wobblier bike ride down the hill with watering can over the handle bars and a rucksack full of tools and slug pellets.

A couple of hours of gentle pottering. A cycle home for tea, then over to meet R&J at the Fir Tree, then to the Orpheus after-party at the Magic Cafe. A decision *not* to cycle home, more of a weave.

A hangover. A slink downstairs in the early afternoon, then a slink back up again to apply more Night Jewels to the walls of the shower room. A girding of loins (successful) for an early evening trip to Hinksey Pool for the first open air swim of the year. A shivery scamper down the side of the pool afterwards to stand under the shower and feel warm and replenished.

A late dinner of lasagne from leftovers and a sliding under a blanket for two episodes of The Wire (one is never enough). A final ascent for the sort of sleep you know will come quickly and be deep.

joella

Candle. Both ends burnt.

It's not often I get up at 8.30 on a Sunday morning, but that's what you do when you're convinced all the punts will be gone by 10.01. They weren't, but it was still worth getting there early.

Punting was in honour of E, W and little F, visiting us from Paris for the weekend. We also managed college sightseeing (New College garden! How have I lived here this long and never seen that before?), a walk in the country, the Boat Inn at Thrupp, smoked salmon in the garden, Nonstop Tango at the Wheatsheaf, Victoria sponge cake in Iffley Fields after lunch at the Victoria Arms, and gallons and gallons of vin rouge. I am *exhausted*.

This week: clean living, steamed vegetables, early nights. Honest. That's fizzy Ribena in the pint glass. It *is*.

joella

Burning issues

Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We went to Luminox last night. Oxford's Broad Street, normally one of the world's most picturesque car parks, was for three nights turned into a part medieval part post-apocalyptic scene featuring fire tubes made of metal stencilled with hieroglyphics, spotlit steam pumps, street lighting made from flaming buckets, and a smell reminiscent of places far, far away in time or space where fire is the only source of heat and light.

It was great. Everyone was hyper and happy, and although the only thing standing between the public and red hot metal was rings of sand and volunteer stewards in fluorescent tabards, all the St John's Ambulance teams had to deal with was a few cases of over excitement. As we left I wanted to have a big button to press which said 'More Public Art Like This Please'.

They are saying, however, that the money pit of the Olympics will drain the provincial left-field art installation pool bone dry. There will be Less Public Art Like This if we are to provide the world's athletes with cutting-edge table tennis facilities for two weeks in 2012. If this is indeed the case, it will be a great shame, and even if it isn't I am beginning to suspect that the whole thing is going to turn out to be a colossal waste of our hard-earned cash.

Spend more on large-scale ephemera, I say. It might not make the world a better place, but it will sure make it feel like it, and isn't that a good enough reason?

But before you do that, oh once brave new government of mine, spend it on food for the destitute. Asylum Welcome, our local organisation supporting asylum seekers and refugees emailed out an appeal this week for food donations* for asylum seekers who have had government support withdrawn and yet are not allowed to work.

I know budgeting is complicated, but it is morally incomprehensible to me that in modern Britain we can have a situation where all that stands between human beings and starvation is the goodwill of small charities and private individuals.

I am reminded of Princess Diana's famous comment when someone said to her that she needed to be aware of all the complicated political issues surrounding landmine laying and clearance. She apparently replied 'I don't see what's so complicated about children getting their limbs blown off'. I wasn't a huge fan of hers, but that was a genius statement. SORT IT OUT. That's what we pay you for.

joella

*For those local enough to do something about it, they are asking for tea and coffee, tinned fruit, tinned vegetables, pasta, rice, couscous, tinned fish, tinned meat, UHT milk, tinned soups, lentils and fruit cake. They can't take fresh food as they have no storage facilities, but working tin openers that you don't need would be very welcome.