frowny baby

I haven’t posted anything to this blog since January!  Even by my standards that’s pretty poor.

So. An experiement. I’m going to see if I can manage to post something to this blog every day this week.  Even if it’s only a couple of words I’ll do it. You watch me.

One of the things that incenses me more than anything else on my daily walk across Manchester is the sight of a group of girls weighed down by Primark bags.  It’s never just one bag, and they are never small bags. Nobody seems to buy just one item from this place and, lets face it, they’re not encouraged to keep the number of purchases to a minimum.  Ever since the store took over the old Lewis’s building, I’ve had a couple of problems with Primark.  Firstly, it has always seemed obvious to me that that selling a t-shirt for two quid equals slave labour somewhere along the line, despite their very public ethical policy. Secondly, I hate the disposable nature of everything they sell.  They’re speaking to ‘more more more’ mentalities and a generation accustomed to excess; eager to add more more more cheap (who cares if it’s shoddy?) clothes to their wardrobes.

So, I can’t say it came as a big surprise to find out that Primark have been found out.

What did come as a surprise was finding out that all this was happening on my doorstep.  Exploitation is still exploitation whether it is happening in Manchester or Mumbai,  but if there’s one factory in Ancoats paying its workforce peanuts so that teenagers can have 12 t-shirts of the same style, but in different colours, then there’ll be more.  And if there are more, how many other retailers are claiming to be ethical by hiding behind a ‘made in Britain’ banner?

One of the things that bothered me more than anything though was that, when I read this story on the MEN website, they were running a poll to ask readers whether they would now think twice about shopping at Primark.  Needless to say, the no vote was miles ahead.  Coupled with the fact that Primark were one of the few retailers to report huge profits in the Christmas period, I’m dismayed that people care more about buying disposable, poorly made clothes than they do about the lives of their fellow human beings.

It was with this in mind that I started looking around the internet for courses in dressmaking.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering the knitting bug since I picked up the habit again last year, and I would absolutely love to turn my attention to mastering a sewing machine this year. I feel less and less inclined to be a part of this consumerism, and learning to make clothes is something that has appealed for a while. Let this be one of my reluctant resolutions.

Making resolutions in the new year always seems a little bit artificial (why can’t we decide to do things in any other month of the year?), and I’ve never really been one to decide on specific goals when the clock chimes.  One thing I have realised recently though, is that I should think about my future a little bit more rather than just leaving everything to fate.  I did an exercise recently, where I was asked to sit down with my felt-tip pens and draw where I’d like to be in five years.  I initially thought I had absolutely no idea, but when I started to doodle, I filled an A1 sheet in no time.  So maybe I should start thinking about how to achieve some of it?  Mind you, if you mention the words “five year plan” to me you won’t see me for dust.

2008 wasn’t exactly an ideal year (then again, how many are?) with financial worries and such, and I ended the year on a bit of a low point despite efforts to deal with my anxiety.  My outlook now is a little more positive though, and I can see good things for 2009.  It should be the year in which Mr D and I finally take the plunge and move in together properly, and the early months will definitely see a new job for me (albeit in the same office!). It might be the year to embark on that M.A. that I keep harping on about, or to learn something new and buy that guitar or that loom.  One thing I can be sure about is that I probably won’t do half of the things I’d like to do unless I give myself some goals.  I can’t bring myself to actually write a list, but they’re in my head and that will have to do for now!

There are times in my life when I wish I was a child again.  Not because I enjoyed being a child.   I just wish I could get away with being grumpy, crying at will, throwing my arms around, whimpering, whinging and whining.   Because that’s how I feel at the moment.

On the plus side, I’m going to see James Yorkston tonight and I think he’s a pretty good match for my mood.   In a good way.

Sitting on a train heading for Heaton Chapel last night, I found myself inexplicably and unreasonably irritated by the haircut of a woman I had never met.

I’m not sure why.  I think I just needed someone to hate. Why?

I had spent the afternoon enjoying the efficiency of the British rail system.  After being turfed from my comfortable train at Crewe and being told to join the train in front, watching the train in front close its doors and leave without me or any of the other people it was meant to convey to Manchester, running across the station to join another train and realising just as it set off that it did not stop at Stockport, and then having to stand in the carriage with the toilet, I was not in the best of moods. Pissed off was I.  So much so that I composed a sternly worded letter of complaint to Arriva Trains Wales in my head. It ended something like this:

Having recently returned from a holiday in Eastern Europe I can inform you, with confidence, that your service is only marginally worse than that of Bosnia.  You may or may not be proud of this fact.  The choice is yours.

I thought about it, and conceded that I would have been unlikely to send Arriva a letter to congratulate them on having a service comparable with that of Italy if my train had been on time.  So I directed my grumpiness elsewhere.

It was a particularly annoying haircut.

I just spent a really lovely weekend in Lancaster with my old housemate.  I’ve only been back to Lancaster a handful of times since I left in 1996, but every time I visit I feel like I’m coming home.  Strange how it feels more like home than Wigan does, and I grew up there.  Lancaster feels so familiar, and walking around the old haunts this weekend felt like falling back into a comfortable routine - almost as though I’d just been home for the vac.

One thing we certainly didn’t do though is visit our old college.  Lancaster is run on a collegiate system.  Listen in on two Lancaster graduates chatting about their uni days, and within the first five minutes you’re bound to hear the question, “so which college were you in?”  We’re all sentimentally and proudly attached to our old colleges, and mine and L’s was Grizedale.  So it was a shock, last year, to hear (from another ex-Lancs person who had just asked the inevitable question) that it’d been demolished and replaced with a whole new and improved Grizedale.  It was really saddening to walk around the bit of Campus where our rooms (B139 and B138) used to stand.  B139, gone.  The bar, gone.  The porter’s lodge, gone.  The quad, gone. Even Depravo the Rat (undoubtedly THE best university college mascot ever), gone!  I don’t mind admitting there were tears in my eyes.

It’s all very swish now.  Nothing like in our day…..oooooh, no!  I remember being shown to my room on my first day by a third year.  “This is you” he said, opening the door to reveal a tiny room with bare brick walls, “it’s not legally big enough to keep pigs in.”  Seeing the look of disbelief on my face, he followed up with, “it’s not.  Honestly, look it up!”  I never did look it up, but do you know what, I believe him.

And do you know what else?  It might say Grizedale on those signs, but Grizedale it ain’t, and Grizedale it never shall be.  It might have been a dump….but it was OUR dump….and a glorious one at that!

*This was the slogan from my old Depravo the Rat college t-shirt - now a very comfy nightie.

I had a wonderful holiday.  Emma and I loved wondering around the streets and alleyways of the Balkans and I have MANY photos to sort through.  I’ll be posting them on Cloudydaze soon, along with my notes from the places we visited (yes, I actually wrote in the notebook this time).  But as a quick summary….Budapest was surprising, Osijek was lovely yet sobering, Sarajevo was chaotic and fascinating, Mostar was beautiful and even more sobering, and Dubrovnik was downright gorgeous….but everyone else in the known universive also seemed to think so….and be there.

So where next?  Well, I still haven’t made it to Albania, or Romania, or Slovenia, or Bulgaria, or Ukraine….

We live in an endlessly fascinating continent don’t we?

This is where I’m off to on Saturday.  My lovely friend Em and I are flying into Budapest, then travelling down to Osijek in Croatia to spend a few days exploring the town where Em’s grandpa was born.  Then it’s on to Sarajevo and Mostar, before ending our trip in Dubrovnik - somewhere I’ve wanted to see since before the Balkan war.

I’m so excited.  Time to dust off the guide books, open up the Thomas Cook train timetable, and figure out how to say “two tickets to….” in Hungarian, Croatian and Bosnian.

Can’t wait.

We’re both off on holiday next week, so we thought we’d better renew our travel insurance.  As D is travelling to India to throw himself down mountains - the Himalayas no less - I decided it would be best to check that he would be covered.  And he is.

But if he wants to race Ostriches we’re buggered.

The only problem with Solfest is that it’s over far too quickly.  We had a fantastic time again this year. There’s something special about this festival  - about as perfect as you could get I reckon.  Far too many highlights to list here, but I’ll have a go….

• Seeing some fantastic music, from cheesy right through to Breton folk.  Alabama 3 were the definite musical highlight and this was a bit of a surprise after their acoustic set at Cambridge a couple of years ago completely failed to impress me.  Absolutely brilliant this time though. Whiskeycats, The Bees, Oojami, Dragonsfly, Nizlopi (yes, I did say Nizlopi), Mutenrohi, and Chris James were all favourites too.
• The hula hoops returned :-).
• Bizarre moments chanting ‘ho ho ho, ha ha ha, hurray’ in unison with a tent full of people and then wagging fingers at strangers in a laugher workshop.  What can I say, it makes you laugh!
• Spending Saturday dressed in beautiful Angels of the North costumes at the bloody marvellous Solfest fancy dress party.  Joining the BFG and a load of nuns to do synchronised dancing to Saturday Night Fever may have been one of the more surreal moments of the weekend!  I think the dancing dominos get my vote for favouite outfit, but the group that came as a full English breakfast come close.
• Making the acquaintance of the freaky dalek and the even freakier mini old men.
• Weirdigans Chai - yum.
• Meeting some lovely people, including the drummer from Bojangles in the chill-out tent on a very wet Saturday night.
• Best of all….being completely myself all weekend and feeling 100% comfortable.  Solfest really is a place with no judgement - a place to let your hair down and be happy.

I was watching the Whiskeycats in the Baa Stage and a man danced over to me for a chat.  “You’re just like me” he said “dancing away with a massive smile on your face.”  And that about sums it up.

Roll on next year.