Wildewire

The biggest night in the calendar of the community centre where I work went off surprisingly easily- thanks to the excellent event management company we hired. I was told that previous years had attracted around 3,500 people, we counted 4,700 people onto the site and a conservative estimate of the people who watched in large groups from nearby was at least another 500. It should be noted that only 2,500 people live on the estate. The last two weeks have been quite tortuous as things I'd been promised since May evaporated. Some of the grant aid was refused- but reinstated on the day of the event! I had become so worried that I began to reduced the programme to what I was confident could be done well. In the event I was walking all over the site passing information etc all through the event and had to wait to the end to lock up. My boss had asked how I was going to capitalise on so many people coming to the centre so we could pass information to them about the programmes etc but...

My godson returned to his family on Friday and I have been through a storm of feelings since. When I was away a couple of weeks ago, I found myself moaning about how unhygienic the was boy to a friend who said that all 17 year olds are like that. Well, I wasn't! I won't go into details here as I am trying to shed the baggage accumulated over the last four years, but there is one detail I WILL share: The boy has long hair. I had no objection as long as he kept it clean etc... He didn't. His hair is EVERYWHERE in my house. When I left him at the airport he thanked me and said he really appreciated what I had done for him, but if that were true he would have made SOME effort to clean his room before he left. He may have been sincere, but I have struggled to accept things that he says because he thinks he should say them rather than because he believes or feels them. As it was: in under TWO MINUTES, I had to switch off the vacuum cleaner because it had begun to smoke: There...

I drove a guy I’d met through theatre and Facebook here on Saturday but he had to go back to work tomorrow so I drive him back today. -It’s a 45 minute journey.   He is coming back on Thursday, I’ll be collecting him from Haltwhistle station. When I dropped him off I had no desire to “pop in” at home- if I’d seen anything upsetting it would have influenced my holiday! I did contemplate going over to Garry’s but when I called him he kept saying he was in Chester Le Street (as if I should know why and what he was doing there etc). I drove through Cowgate and stopped off to have the car cleaned. – Last time from those bastards! I think they’re Eastern Europeans and middle eastern geezers and I think they give not as good a service as they do their white clients! Passing Acomb on the way back to the castle I had this burst of anger and very nearly turned off to march into head office and demand to know what decision they’ve made and when the appropriate people will be in...

On the Sunday before last, I got a message on Facebook from someone I met at Laurieston Hall, asking if I was going to the Albion Faeries Autumn Gathering at Featherstone Castle. It was starting two days later. I immediately realised it was something I NEEDED to do. Work has been... quietly frustrating, but I still enjoy it. A mini-break like this would be just what the doctor ordered. My new-food vehicular-enabled freedom and the fact that the castle was allegedly 45 minutes from my home clinched it. I began hatching plans to cram 5 days of admin into two days, grovelled to my boss, cancelled two meetings and found myself en-route, after a particularly gruelling day with two public events, towards Haltwhistle ("Centre of Roman England" allegedly). It was one of my first night drives with no road lighting which was quite cool. What a trip the next five days turned out to be! I loved the craziness of meeting all sorts of "radical" people from all over the pla...

I joke about being closely related to some habitually hibernating species because I always experience a dull, slowing down and urge to curl up in bed for weeks when it gets to this time of year and the clocks haven't even gone back yet. I've been feeling hemmed in by "domestics" of late which has been the main reason for not writing this blog. I have been forced to accept things with which I disagree and have exploded only once. I attempt to practice serenity around things I cannot change without causing even more turbulence, so, once again I bottle up my annoyance and hold my emotional breath amidst assurances that soon I will be able to live my life in the way I want to and not be restrained by circumstances I have allowed to develop. I laugh at myself to not that, for someone with a reputation for being forceful and strong, how regularly I find myself abdicating my power to the weak and the paranoid. Recently I have done what I tend to do in these situations:...

I wasn't able to do much last week for Bridge House as I had a heavy schedule at work so I was keen at least to meet with the building's owner to let her know what we wanted to do, how we planned to do it and to get a measure of her while I was at it. In the event, I met someone who was pleasant, down to earth and under Garry's spell! She could be getting more than she is from Garry for the building, but she likes what he wants to do and wants to be part of it. She was talking about it being the sort of place she could nip away from her work for a coffee and somewhere she could sell the craft things she makes alongside her core business. I felt able to put all our cards on the table and point out the bits where we know we could be shafted in the future and got assurances from her that she'd be open to legal agreements to protect both sides from the project's potential success. I took away a file full of documents that I think will really help proposals for the ...

Today was the most pleasant day I've had in my job... or any job I've had for a while come to think of it! A dozen workers from the EE phone company came to the community centre where I work to volunteer in the gardens and grounds surrounding the building. They worked with some of the learning-disabled people we serve who also provided them with their buffet lunch. We cleared a whole load of stuff into a mound that we'll burn soon and the bee hives have been freed from their jungle (the bees were trapped in their hives for the day and weren't too pleased by the time they were released!) and it was just a lot of fun. Straight after the gardening volunteers left, we opened the doors to an event organised by the council's housing 'ALMO'. I had been worried that nobody would come, but it was the usual fayre of face-painting, balloon-modelling, children's crafts and free nosh so over 100 people turned up. An added activity was finally being able to...

To call my friend Garry "charismatic" would be a monumental understatement. I met him through the friend from school with whom I stayed when I first came to Newcastle. He is one of those people who seems to be at ease talking with anyone, regardless of their background or... anything. He has always been an ace ducker'n'diver, wheeler-dealer-type who put more energy into being 'off grid' and under the radar that he could have run a multi-national corporation.  He lodged with me for a couple of years and shared some great ideas about businesses based on recycling and living better on the planet. As airy-fairy as that might sound, I can assure you that the simple commercial principles on which his ideas are founded are superbly logical and have every reason to be achieved- if sufficient capital can be found. He has control of a large brick-built building whose history includes a train repair shop and a low-rent car mechanic's yard. It includes a one b...

I am grateful to friend who organises theatre trips for a gaggle of gay men- despite the world of hassle that almost always accompanies these acts. They tend to be musicals, which are not my thing but he invited me to join them to see Jesus Christ Superstar and, as I used to love the film and the recording I had, I said yes. Later I found it clashed with a class I was supposed to be teaching, but that got cancelled at the last minute so off I went. The show was NEARLY there!  It was very rushed at the beginning- songs melding into each other in a seeming effort to get through them rather than to actually tell the story, very little scene-setting. Before I went in I said that for me, the show hinged on Judas and Caiphas in terms of the quality of the voices. The actor playing Judas was overpowered by the part, the "Superstar" number was quite painful! Caiphas was played by a black actor Cavan Cornwall whose Basso Profundo voice was like being bathed in melting maximum ...

It's hard dealing with the lack of communication let alone discussion of my Godson's immediate future. Its hard not to view my part in his recent past as a failure. The point is that it is over and I need to move on whilst there is still some relationship left between us. I'm getting quite 'Zen' in covering my frustrations with calm.  My Godson has always been unwaveringly CERTAIN of any decision concerning his learning that was opposed to mine. He was SURE that the scant attention he gave to his studies would at least yield passes. He dismissed my protestations that higher grades offered greater prospects as irrelevant. In exasperation I finally  reminded him and his father that he was here to go to school and that when that ended he would leave my home. His school career recently ended when he did not secure the grades to enrol into the final year.  My Godson is and always has been capable of cruising through a standard UK education, but it wasn't impo...

I always start with such good intentions but more often than not, I end up doing very little on Saturdays and Sundays. I start looking for my merit badge after cleaning the house! It doesn't help when week ends start like yesterday: it was like Moordor here until about 3pm when there was a moment of sunshine. Last week end I was laid low by gout, it took a whole week to be able to walk without wincing in terrible pain. My godson will be moving out soon and I need to remind my lodger of his responsibilities to maintaining this place- I know for a fact he has never cleaned the bathroom let alone the toilet since he has lived here. Before I went on holiday, I cleaned everything when I returned, the toilet had very obviously not been touched despite him living here alone for that time. Getting back into blogging is part of freeing the intellectual log jam in my mind of things I want to write about. I haven't completed a play in twenty years! All of my creativity goes into pla...

I just stopped blogging! For a year!! It seems to happen when I get busy, which is silly because that's when things are most interesting. Anyway: BIG CHANGES this year include getting a job I really enjoy and the approaching end of my responsibilities to my Godson. In March I got a job working for an organisation that serves adults with learning disabilities: Daybreak Centres Ltd . They've taken over a community centre from Newcastle Council on what was once notoriously Newcastle's "worst" estate. Daybreak use the building Monday - Friday until 3.30pm and at other times its up to me to organise and programme activities to entice the estate's residents back into the building. It is a great, people-centred organisation and I like my boss. What's even better is the fact that my first job was in a community centre and though that was a long time ago and in a different city, it was not like starting a new job but like dusting off some primary skills. I ...