shomon2's Journal: day breaks

On my way to work and I'm walking down the hill having said goodbye to Andy, my new neighbour who takes the train with me and will live to the left in our new Daisy road house. I think about Matthew from Exeter with his improvising ensemble meeting in that echoey church and going to work every day to do stuff with Maths when he dreams of caravanning around ireland with a troupe of radical farmers or whatever it was. And yet as strange and unique he is he fits into normal society only in that abstract way - the maths he shares with us normal people.

Lunch break and I go to Fresh and wild. Also a conglomerate but if the people that I'm meant to be protecting with that reasoning are people like the "clifton health food shop" with their terrible staff and service then I'm sorry I'm with dr evil. But evil is not good for messing with and I pay 3.38 for a crappy but tasty malaysian chicken curry in a cardboard container with loads of free lettuce, which I consume to great pleasure with my rice from before. Still some left for tomorrow. At least there's something to look forward to at work. Also at work I organised the Cube Cinema rehearsal before going down to buy food - the Improvised orchestra that I take such an active part in cos I just want to be able to work with that amount of improvisers at a time, and especially at a time like now when improvisation in bristol is starting to get known by musicians. The cube sees us as their mascot band so we have to march from the cinema to the malcom X centre in June for the Venn festival, composing and assembling some kind of moving improvising setup.
And then there's the possibility of playing at Ashton Court in the cube's blackout tent. Maybe to a film. Team brick has invited me to play a gig too - although I can't remember the name of the gig or the same gig but different event that I was supposed to go to to get an idea of the vibe. And I have to play mandolin on it.

Out from work and it's a run to the train and then to Besley Hill, estate agents where our cooperatively bought house is slowly churning in the throes of acquisition. It's 4th time no less. Fourth time it changed hands. And the only slightly tarnishing thing is that it used to be owned by an executioner. After that it's just the beauty and quaintness of living with such active and aware people - although I'm already aware of a certain discomfort at being the only man in the house - A project being done together with E, a lovely irish lesbian organisation-motivation head who is also organising a worker's cooperative to take over the beleaguered Easton community centre - against the evil bid of the city academy and all the labour bureomonstruosity that that implies. She is so confident and interested in the way to be leaders in this world, our little bristol niche of recyclers and fair traders, where cycling and going to the g8 is a regular event. And outside of this haven we have to explain, and we can't even explain carshare. Utopia in inner-city red. Red of the knife in the mugger's hand.

They end up taking the house for 135 - our first offer, so the survey doesn't need re-doing, the numbers don't need re-jiggling, and we can go ahead from here in all the getting together of mortgage and other legal bits and pieces. We all got a marshmallow from Gareth too. This kind of thing wouldn't happen in Spain. I was at my estate agent's office once and some Okupas passed by. He rushed outside to them, but they had gone. He said when they passed they would grab all his flyers and throw them on the ground. I ran into a g8 protestor. His face was covered with a handkerchief. They were setting bins on fire, in our poor Barcelona neighbourhood. THey were turning them over. The police were chasing them with batons and we were running through town to get home. Our portinaia, Nuria? Went to the market and narrowly escaped being beaten in the violence that ensued. We all ended up in a heap at the foot of our outside door. But I remember that boy's stare. I looked at him with a scowl holding my daughter - as if to say - why did you come and burn our bins? We were on your side. Don't you see this girl in my arms?

They must get all caught up in the camaraderie.