mammoth sleep after big old move

as i was dropping off last night i said to myself that i wanted to eat @ manolis's today, and therefore to be awake by 2... that would have given me 12 hours, ample...

i finally crawled out of bed @ 4pm... clearly really needed it...

me & josiah had stayed up late on friday night, chatting, smoking & drinking gin with G, K, M...

grace had woken me up @ 9:30am on saturday, five & a half hours sleep that had given me... always nice to see grace, we pootled about for an hour and a half, blowing bubbles, knitting (a tiny bit, me not her - you don't say, almost 2 and she can't knit yet?), playing the guitar ritual (it stands in the corner, one of us strums it, then we sing a vocal line, no words), playing the piano, eating strawberries... before josiah took her to her dad...

i went off to the amazon cafe, ate a hearty breakfast, waited for josiah, then when she didn't make it i brought her a takeaway...

while we were doing the final preparation for the move dr K showed up, i thought she might have done but i forgot all about her, really nice surprise... shortly after that C came, really helpful, in the country for only three days, dr K & C both ex-residents of this house & they never really got on...

auntie E was there by now when Cadiz E showed, the man with his van who i'd hired for the trip... everything went in... the cot wouldn't fit through the bedroom door and there wasn't time to dismantle it there and then so it's coming later... by the time it was almost all packed T from this house came... T & auntie E also not exactly best of friends...

really funny, festive atmosphere, auntie E's 3 year old grandson carrying tiny bits to help... strange that our four helpers (all women) slotted into two pairs of enmities... so many great times, friends made up, arguments had, in the 9 years she lived in that flat... to close it with these two odd pairs...

the other odd thing about it was that grace's dad slept in that flat the night before, he'd been in london going to a gig and lost all his friends and had phoned josiah late on friday night... no electricity in there...

anyway it all fitted in the van, dr K bought josiah & me an espresso and a cup of tea respectively, along with pringles and hobnobs... cadiz E got us going and we rolled off...

took a lovely route through east london, i so love being driven through london when it's a good route... saw a building that looked just like the trellick tower, took pictures of it, (hadn't taken a single picture of the crazy van loading), but actually this is all after the crazy guy:

he was crossing the road slowly in front of us and just as we reached level with him he threw a stone at our window... cadiz E stopped the van, no damage but... crazy guy walks up to the cadiz E's window, shouting violent abuse... claiming we were trying to run him over... cadiz E eventually spitting at him and driving off... no dodgy incident to mess up our move... vary spanish gesture the spitting... crazy thing, random violence, just someone looking for trouble... one more reason josiah really happy to be leaving london...

josiah sang close to you the van, i sang you make me feel so young and new kind of love and almost you'd be so nice to come home to except i don't know the words...

cadiz E said he'd sing but it would start to rain...

he also said he was the best because he had no grandma, a spanish phrase that me & josiah tried to learn in spanish but miraculously had no memory of later that day...

he's doing a one off performance installation thing on friday night... i might take K...

so anyway we reached brighton, took an improvised, windy route and found our way perfectly to the new flat where A & L were working, painting it...

moved everything in, including the sofa which managed to bend spacetime getting through the front door...

we said goodbye to cadiz E, (josiah praising him several times throughout the evening... what a find) & josiah took me & the boys for a pint, really nice pair, reminded me of being seventeen, eighteen, we left the pringles & hobnobs with them as they continued to paint (L a real biscuit man, likes all biscuits), me & josiah drifted down to the seafront... just relaxing, amazed that the move had gone so smoothly, exhausted but not..

i felt the urge to paddle so i rolled up my jeans and did so, the first few waves just perfectly coming up to my knees, then as i heard these 2 girls behind me screaming i saw a succession of much bigger waves going way past my knee...

so i was salty & soggy for much of the rest of the evening, (by the time i was on the tube home around eleven i had just about dried out), we went for bombay sapphire gins overlooking the water, ate a nice meal, just hanging out after the big event, enjoying each other's company...

frank sinatra accompanied my train journey home, i read a bit but was too tired... just grooving away in my small sat down fashion to songs for swingin' lovers

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