I keep the front gate squeaky

it's an early warning system so I can decide if I want to answer the door -very handy with last year's Cheesey episodes and continues to be useful. I am currently avoiding Toothless Eric, several chirpy 'just-sign-here-to-give-us-a-direct-debit-donation' people and a spat of very young shark-skin-suited Jehovah's witnesses.


A few days ago the gate squeaked and clanged followed by a slobbery, panting commotion. I looked out to see a pack of excited small horses or maybe big dogs cantering around in little circles, they'd pushed to let themselves in but didn't know how to pull and let themselves out, a man was calling in the distance but he couldn't see them, some of the animals realised they could jump out over the wall until one bouncy Tigger remained making circles and yelping, wondering where his friends had gone. Tigger seemed to be smiling so I went out and wrestled the gate open amid his bouncy greetings so he could go and rejoin the herd.

Sometimes people figure out how to mute the squeak. One night, a human visitor arrived in silence and left an enormous turd by the side of the steps, I didn't notice for a few days because my tin watering bucket had been placed on top of it.

Close inspection of my windows

has revealed more rot than was suspected. A man with a Black Country accent, gold teeth a headscarf and dreadlocks came and took the worst one off to the window workshop leaving a sad boarded-over hole behind, this has coincided with news that the car needs a new radiator AND air conditioning system. 

I must try to  interweave Happy Thoughts among the grim reality of my latest news:
HT 1. I went to see a movie  - 'The Square' at a cinema called The Cube - loved the movie but managed to kick over a full glass of rum as I took my seat

Cheesey* has moved back into our neighbourhood, he appears outside my gate to alternate abusive language with wheedling tones - you and I could get on really well if you'd just give it a chance. On Sunday I was inside the house and heard him swearing at someone in the next road, his choice of words indicated that he was harrassing another woman, I walked out to see him pushing his trolley up the road, he'd tipped over the big rubbish bin in the entrance to her block of flats, she was on the phone to the police saying that this had been going on for weeks.

HT 2. I found some fine-wool-brand-new-never-worn Jaeger trousers at the charity shop - perfect fit perfect length

*clicking on the 'Cheesey' label below will throw up yet more Cheese

I trapped myself in my Gina Lollabrigida dress

I thought that I was going to have to stay stuck and travel to Italy in it and wear the wretched thing all week and that would teach me a fine lesson or two about vanity and ageing gracefully and not eating so much ice cream ... but then a man turned up to remove building rubble and I was able to ask him to help - my predicament embarrassed him but I was too relieved to care.


Yes I am going to Italy - tomorrow at very-early-o'clock, and I was going through my 'Ideal-Me' box of frocks - just in case

still contemplating mortality

Now that Cheesey has vacated his shouting post opposite my house, all the other conversations are drifting back into my windows - yesterday morning I didn't quite catch what the child said but I did hear his mother's response

well - people don't die just because they've run out of breath

I dreamt my room was full of people

On Friday I returned from my London studies to spend a little time with The Man who was home in our house for  a brief moment between his filming trips. The quietness as I turned the corner near my home broadcast the fact that Cheesey was no longer occupying the tree outside my bedroom window. 

The Man left for Sri Lanka yesterday afternoon

While I slept last night a crowd of people wandered in to my bedroom and sat around chatting, laughing, drinking and arguing.  I woke up and challenged them about their intrusion - they said that they'd been doing it for years and had assumed I didn't mind. 

My head, clearly unable to cope with this new solitude, is re-peopling itself when I'm not looking.

my under-the-tree neighbour

continues to expand, there are extra tarpaulins, seating in the lounge area and chequerboard flooring has been installed in the shop where the prize item for sale is a pair of ladies boots. Cheesey's shouting hasn't abated, if there's no-one passing to shout at, he shouts at himself or he shouts across at callers to my house - broadcasting full details about whether I'm in or not - if I'm not in he lets the neighbourhood know when I left the house and by what mode of transport.

Poopy and Sweary

Tarpaulins and pallets have accumulated under the tree opposite my house - also a few pieces of scavenged women's clothing set out with a brown paper 'For Sale' notice, My sinking heart recalled a rooftop squat in the next street from a few years back and I realised that my new neighbour is my old neighbour - Cheesey 


We are three weeks into Cheesey's tree occupation, he's still buttonholing any passersby and now has an assortment of brothers-in-arms who gather to bicker about who owns the bike they just nicked or whether setting the pallets on fire was a stupid move -the tree looks a bit fed up.

The accumulation of Cheesey's sweary vocabulary and other people yelling at him from their windows to Shut the F*** up, has made things very sweary indeed. Cheesey came to my gate last week so he could call me a F****** B**** in close-up, and then, when he thought he was invisible, he came into the front yard to take a series of photos on his smartphone (???!!), surprised that I noticed he shouted at me that it was all part of his 'environmental campaign'.

But I got a break from all that 

last week I was in Switzerland with my chum Mr Attenborough - chauffering him around foresty filming locations - there was chitchat - I told him about Cheesey and we both agreed that the story bore more than a passing resemblance to Alan Bennett's tale of The Lady in The Van and that I'd better watch out.

In other news 

Mrs Blackbird is back. She flies into the kitchen as soon as I  open the garden door, having picked up this habit last year -  despite my putting food outside to keep her out, she still likes to come in, perch on the furniture and poop on the floor - today she brought her children in, which was a whole lot more poopy

Extra Extra
In yet another (probably doomed) bid to get the hang of social media I've made an Instagram account - there's probably a widget that I should stick on the side bar but meanwhile here's a link

A Head of Large Objects

is being sought for London's Imperial War Museum. If this isn't delicious enough, I see that it's based in the department of Narrative and Content.

In other news

I returned to Bristol this week, at the same time as a man-who-can't-stop-talking moved into the tree opposite my house. I heard his monologue as I was moving around the house, opening shutters and windows to air the place out. I ran down the hill for fresh milk and on my way back up a voice came out of the tree

'do you like my treehouse?'

.. he poked his head through the leaves and showed me a squashed phone and started telling me he worked in UX design at Nokia and then there was lots of Narrative and Content about an argument down the road, I tried to move on but  it was impossible because I was trying to do it politely so I finally just had to leave him in full flow.

He's like a faulty car alarm going off the minute he detects someone approach. When a friend came to visit yesterday he followed them to the front door as I opened it he was saying ...

... do you like natural history do you live here can I come in I used to work for the river authority

People always stop the first time he hails them but then they have to work out how to move on. We've got quite a lot of drug dealers and alcoholics in the area so they stop for longer. And when he does find a friend he brings them across the road to sit on the pavement under my bedroom window where they chat on all night in comfort.

Queasy, Cheesy, Japanesey

That man is still on the roof. I called up to him from the street to see how he’s getting on. He disappeared then reappeared inside the house so he could yell down at me from the closer quarters of a window. I now know that his name is Cheesy. I propose that his activity is more of a squat than a protest, Cheesy insists that he is protesting about 50 years of injustice. I say that it's difficult to tell that from the pavement and maybe he should make a banner or something.

I go on to my own house, walk upstairs and look out of the window. He is hoisting a surfboard up on a pole.



Currently feeling a bit queasy due to sampling of dessert recipe trials involving cream and meringue for a cookery demonstration that I’ll be performing at in a couple of days.




This morning I saw an enormous and instantly recognisable shape walking along the street towards me, for the last 10 years this man and I have stopped, grinned and exchanged noises before moving on, his impenetrable West Indian accent means that I have never understood the actual words of what he says, I think of our exchanges as being like a mini episode of the Clangers, so I was quite surprised today when I discerned actual words

Him: Hey how you doin’ ?

Me: I'm Good – where are you off to?

Him: I’m goin’ down the bearpit* to feed the homeless people

Me: What are you going to feed them?

Him: Food

* I don't know what the bearpit is either

Campaigning Via Telepathy

Looking out of my bedroom window this morning I noticed a man on a nearby roof gesticulating, there were banners and whatnot too, but his flags were furled and illegible. Not sure if this was purely for my benefit I decided to try and find out what he wanted to communicate.
The man’s hairdo declared his tribal allegiance so I walked across the street to the cider-drinkers community headquarters and asked them about their friend.

He's protesting about the supermarket, he was throwing the roof tiles off yesterday

Is he doing it alone or are you taking turns?

No we’re all doing it, I’ll be up on a roof this side of the road tomorrow.

I feel the protest lacks clarity.