Sunshine and Festivals

Really don't have much of an urge to write, but I do want to stay in touch with friends. Always hated the round-robin letters friends sent at Christmas. Part of me said 'if they can't be bothered saying something personal then why bother at all'. Over the years I've lost the urge to be personal and have become increasingly lax about staying in touch. It's been lovely to meet back up with several very old, mislaid friends on Facebook, but I barely manage to stay in contact with them. Friends remain friends, whether you see them or not, whether they're alive or not, even. You love them, they love you. I couldn't even begin to keep in regular contact with all the people who've been my friends over the years. I've moved around a lot; they've moved around a lot. There are some very special friends I'm sad to be unable to contact, on account of having lost a crucial address book many years ago. In truth, I'm one of those people who likes to have a handful of people around me: friends, neighbours and family. Not that I necessarily like them more than other friends who are more distant, but my life meshes with that of those around me. Our daily lives require co-operation and mutual aid for survival.

Having said that, I have sailed free from commitment to any local projects just for the time being. Apart from work and the family/friends thing, my only commitment is to the allotment, which is looking quite stunning as the herbs come into flower, and I do have some actual vegetables growing, mostly covered in netting or fleece to keep the rabbits and pigeons at bay. We are having close to perfect growing weather, with rain arriving just when needed. It is not an easy soil to cultivate and it is very lacking in nutrients, but to see how well Catherine's is doing is to remember that so long as you add manure and compost the soil improves with every year you work it .

Oh yes, I included 'festivals' in the title of this post. Calstock Festival to be precise. Wish I could have been there on the Sunday as well, but I had a long day at work instead. Still, Saturday was as wonderful a day as anyone could have wished for. The photos say it all...

http://picasaweb.google.com/kryskitt

I'm creating a new post for the sole purpose of finding out if I can embed the videos I've been downloading from YouTube via Realplayer, my gorgeous new discovery. The version I used to have was unattractive and unappealing to me. This one is All Singing, All Dancing. Not only does it make sense of and display in an intuitive way the tracks I have stored in my own music library but it also links seemlessly to all the BBC radio channels and via them the BBC web site and iPlayer, along with many other free radio stations. The icing on the cake is a plug-in that places a download button above any recordable video, ie. most things on YouTube.

It seems to be working, though the processing seems to be taking forever. Anyway, this latest spurt of music/IT learning has spun me on a trip back into the sixties. First I acquired a whole batch of soul music - Tamla, Stax etc, and was back to disco nights at the youth club, and listening to Johnnie Walker on Radio Caroline in bed through the earphone. To hear all those old favourites with such pleasure made me realise it was time to come home to them. Yesterday I found a collection of videos on a YouTube users site - his favourites from the sixties. The Animals, Spencer Davis, Chris Farlowe, Dusty Springfield ... Actually Dusty wasn't on his top 200 list. Nor were any other female artists come to that. But I must say I'd be hard-pressed to come up with any other female artists who kicked ass in the sixties.

Assuming the Annie Lennox video ever completes uploading, I doubt if I'll be posting many in here - it takes too bloody long. Didn't take long for me to download them though.

10 minutes later... Was still trying to process so I've cancelled. No way could it have taken that long.

Writing out of boredom really isn't likely to produce anything much in the way of inspired writing, but, well, it IS something to do when what I really want is work. Three shifts in two weeks isn't enough to pay the mortgage, let alone eat and support a large son. It's time for a shake-up. I've even got to the point where the allotment doesn't need any more attention that doesn't involve spending money.

For a while I've really enjoyed having the extra time to myself, but things can't continue like this. Like it or not I've got myself tied into the System and here we are at the second recession of my adult life and I have to be ready to make changes. Change number 1 - Spike has to rent this place from me so that he can claim rent and council tax benefit until he finds work. Once he does find work he can pay the mortgage and council tax just as he'd have to if he was living anywhere else. God knows, he'll never get a better deal. If we don't do this my savings are going to dwindle to nothing and we'll really be in the soup. Jackie's agreed that I can stay with her if I need to, but I don't want to mess up her benefits. Think I'll go to the CAB and housing benefit office next week and get some advice. I've been looking at live-in care agencies on-line and think this would be a solution to my problems, if I can get a job with one of them. The pay's brilliant, all expenses paid. You choose a work pattern - say two weeks on, two weeks off. I'd be able to afford the motor caravan I've been dreaming of and be free to live wherever I choose. It'd be nice to spend more time with Lili and Freya and I've always fancied spending nights at the allotment. Of course in reality there's no reason why I can't just stay here when I want to. I have got in a bit of a rut - a cosy cushion when times have been good, but little scope for really letting my hair down. Being 'available for work' is quite a burden, I realise, now I'm spending so much time 'available' rather than actually 'at work'. I can't even claim working tax credit because my hours have fallen under the minimum, though if I were unemployed for six months I could then go back and get the credit for 18+ hours as I'm over 50. Crazy system! Anyway, the sun's shining today, Jackie's meant to be coming over if I don't get work (which as the minutes tick by is becoming increasingly likely) and there's a whole summer ahead. I'm not prepared to stay in a state of constant anxiety when action is the answer. I could even spend the whole summer being a granny at festivals if the fancy took me, once the mortgage is taken care of. NIHIL DESPERANDUM!

Time - but no Money

Such a long time since I've posted in here. It has replaced my thoughts book as the form of writing I don't do much of these days. I have been so worn out with the work and thinking about fucking community projects. Now, this Beltane week, I'm free from work, commitments and money. Time to go out and have fun, time to lavish care on my allotment and, just for the weekend, time with the house to myself.

Since the Youth Project fizzled out and I gently relinquished responsibility for the Village Hall I have been able to relax, acquire lots more music for my rapidly expanding library, read (a little) spend guilt-free time with friends, have visitors and be around to share time with them. Work shifts are adding up to just enough to get by on, though my first booking so far is on Tuesday. I'm tied by my availability to remaining close to home or carrying uniform with me wherever I go. A couple of weeks ago I was sipping green tea on Catherine's allotment after a productive couple of hours on mine when a call came through for a last-minute and very lucrative shift at Derriford. Somehow I managed it in 1 hour, 10 minutes, though still scraping soil from under my fingernails as I hot-footed it through the corridors and lift to the ward.

I do get jittery whenever shifts are scarce, mainly because I'm having to fork out money for the Garden Project. Spike's built me some great decking which just needs finishing off before he gets going on his cabin, which I've just had to leave him to get on with because whenever I express an opinion it results in an argument, so we agree to differ, I concede to his dimensions and he gets on with it, telling me when something needs ordering, fetching or paying for. I surruptitiously challenge his maths skills by insisting on him giving me exact dimensions and material quantities required. Buggered if I'm doing the calculations for him!

I say I've given up on the community projects, but I realise on reading back in my last blog entries that I rather clammed up after a few positive ones. The clamming seems to coincide with the point where a certain family decided to gang up on me and one member pointed his finger at me in public, blaming me for things about the youth club he was making up as he went along. This was the point where I knew I wasn't the best person to be involved in organising this - for my own sanity. I wasn't the only one! (No names but you know who you are...). But I do have some resources the new committee may find useful - and feel free to read the rest of this blog, some of which expresses my ideas and thoughts about the project. Yes, I've clammed up because a good few years ago I was prominent in local politics and I knew that once folks put two and two together they'd remember that I was the woman who organised the anti-poll-tax march in Tavistock and then went on to squat Shillamill Farm with a load of 'New Age Travellers' and became a born-again peasant. Always gobbing off in the Tavi Times. My ex used to call me Mrs. Henry Root.

Anyway, right now I have to be here at the laptop - I've got an item coming up on ebay so must be ready to pounce at the last minute. My daughter needs a printer and I've earned no money this week... Oh well, lost that one. 2 hours till the next one comes up, but it's a sunny day, I need lunch and I honestly think a walk would be a good idea.