I count my blessings

On Monday I went to a management committee meeting of a white, reasonably entrenched group.  Their housing officer is a Nigerian guy about whom they are dismissive bordering on racist.  He always asks me to wait after I have done my bit while he does his and I do, because I feel he needs my support.  It was raining and it was so sweet because this guy in his mid-30s holds my umbrella and walks me to the station and we talk about the fact that it is a good job he can handle them.  Anyway, it only turns out this guy was something big in the student pro-democracy campaign in Nigeria, hosts a weekly Nigerian politics chat show on sky, has a blog/twitter with tens of thousands of followers.  I was gobsmacked.  There’s me worrying about the management committee being racist to him – he can well handle it himself!  On the same night, the train home got delayed by a suicide (they euphemistically refer to it as ‘a person under a train’) and I got cornered by this slightly batty, but gently engaging solicitor on Kings Cross Station quoting me dates and capitalist plots.  It made me laugh.  I only missed the train because I got delayed prior to him, listening first to a young women’s impromptu choir and then a wonderful pianist in the concourse.  St Pancras is such a magical place – I love it.

 

Tuesday morning I went to look at my photos.  They were totally uninspiring.  I was not really happy with how I looked, but then I have problems with my image in photographs.  I am going to think about it for a little while.

 

Wednesday night FB turned up.  I was so pleased to see him at the station looking cute in his baseball type plimsolls, faded T Shirt and zip up hoodie.  He wears his clothes well.  This is now the second week he has turned up mid-week so I can only assume his feelings are hotting up.  I was delighted to see him too and it was all very passionate and lovely.  The SAME night, as if things could not get better, Layla, a lovely junior school teacher from Farley Hill came to look at the room and has taken it.  She is in one room at the moment and she says she is finding it really hard to switch off so thinks that moving between rooms to sleep will help.  She is ideal.  It will be great for J2 as they can talk shop.  She showers in the evenings so will not clash with Bear and Adele.  I was getting really desperate as I am still struggling to make ends meet (household bills are shooting up) and pay off the debts I incurred before I got a job and was thinking of asking Adele to contribute, but the deal really is with them that psychologically I want it to be such a good deal that it will not be worth their while to leave in the immediate future and for them to have a vested interest in the house as FP did so that if I go away or move to live with FB say, they will look after it for me, which, with a bit of gardening support is what happened when I went to Sri Lanka.

 

Adele lost 7lb last week.  She and Bear are outside in the garden doing their exercises every night.  I find it difficult not to laugh, but will be impressed and envious of her control if she manages to lose the 7st she has set herself.

 

Another amazing thing happened on Thursday.  I have been working with a housing officer called Hilary out in Hillingdon and we work together really well.  She is thoroughly committed and conscientious.  She now realises that she shared a flat with you at Acorn Road when you first moved to Brixton and she has been following you on facebook!  How small is the world?!!!

 

Friday night FB came down and we went and had curry in the Lilley Arms as J2 was cooking for Phoebe and another couple.  She passed her marines band trials so starts in Lympstone/Portsmouth next September.  J2 has spent most of his week off in bed apart from going out and getting pissed with a teacher at his school called Erin.  Don’t ask.  There’s obviously some mutual attraction there.  Sylv said to say ‘Hi!’

 

On Saturday I had to go to a renaming ceremony of a community hall in my patch that has just been renamed after a local community activist who did a lot of campaigning on this particular estate and basically preserved it for social housing rather than it getting sold off.  FB came.  Afterwards we met J1 for a drink and then went to see ‘Book of Mormon’ which is my b’day present to FB.  It was brilliant – such a clever script and so well sung and danced.  Afterwards we went to Chinatown to this incredibly cheap, but good Chinese place FP showed me and then to that wine place by the Embankment tube which was rammed.  The weather has been lovely and they were also setting up for the marathon today.

 

Another guy has gone from J1’s group so there are only 11 of them now.  He is feeling so so about this new woman with sustainability credentials, says she doesn’t excite him, but how can anything be as exciting as what he is doing every day?

 

Today we went to church and afterwards we have taken to going for a pint of Guinness in the Irish pub next door.  Then we walked home and FB cooked dinner while I cut the grass.  Afterwards he fell asleep while I cleared up and went and fed Sean and did some poo-picking.

 

I have had a great week this week A. l am counting my blessings. 

 

The artwork is an early piece of work from Mandy Williams. http://www.mandywilliams.com/galleries.html

We were at university together.