Kissing frogs

A very close friend from Witney said to me in an email yesterday that if she could have any superpower, she would choose to magically know who she'd end up being great friends with so that she could invest her time well, and not put a lot of effort into trying to make a good impression and not feeling like her true self.

I know what she means.

Sometimes you can seem to powerfully connect with someone initially, but then it comes to nothing. Other times you can take a strong dislike to someone, but later it develops into a really solid friendship.

So at the moment, I am kissing frogs, toads, newts and any other amphibian that comes my way - and trying to do so without any preconception or prediction - hoping that some of them will turn into proper friends.

Would I fast-forward to just knowing which ones it's worth kissing? Half of me thinks yes, definitely, because it's exhausting. Especially for an old git like me. Half of me thinks no way, because the journey is also fascinating and fun.

And in a new city, I am grateful for the company of any frog who hops my way.

The 'other office'

Let me introduce to you my uvver office. Quite a different kettle of fish

vegan fish alternatives.



This one involves a three-mile journey out into the Lancashire countryside, over hills and dales, like Postman in his little red van.

Till you arrive at this old mill next to the River Lune.

Whilst my other office is called the Hub, the one here is called The Hive ("It's like The Hub except it's got a sting in it's tail!" someone told me. Okaaaay.....) and while The Hub is a quiet place, The Hive is always buzzy with the whirr of keyboards and the slurping of green tea with rose petals.



Because this old mill, you see, is the centre of Lancaster Co-housing - a sort of commune. Except you get your own house - with eco 'passiv' heating and a balcony overlooking the river.

There's a common room where they can eat together en masse.



A yoga room.



A 'makerspace' with potters' wheels and woodworking equipment. A million different events on offer from Non-violent communication courses to a Klezmer ceilidh to Gong Baths. And all sorts of nooks and crannies with all sorts of quirky characters doing clever, arty and planet-savey things.

*I am so way out of my league on the hippy front*

I go on Wednesdays because that's the day the Hivers all have lunch together in the You Can Flourish cafe in the mill which works with people with special needs. This Wednesday it was vegan tomato and red pepper quiche, two salads and a dairy-free muffin (for a fiver).



Lunchtime topics of conversation included whether they should build a composting toilet and whether aiming to be 70% vegan rather than 100% made you be more vegan. I also got to request a personally hand-knitted pair of wooly socks in the colours of my choice in return for a donation to any wildlife charity.

I finished my lunch break with a stroll along the river with another Hiver in the sunshine (yep, a gap in the rain).



I didn't find the signposted beach. But I did see a cormorant.



Not bad for a day at the office.

As long as there's meat for dinner when I get home. 😉

Miss Great Britain

Yesterday I was in Morecambe again. I was walking along the promenade when I saw this.....

and recognized it as the location of the open-air swimming baths I had seen in old photos..... 

Between 1956 and 1989, this pool was the unlikely venue for the Miss Great Britain contest. Thousands of people came to watch.



Wikipedia tells me The contests were aimed at a family audience.....women could have fun backing their favourites and young girls could aspire to be a bathing beauty when they grew up. 

Yeah, right. The look on this man's face tells me otherwise.

Lancaster is..... [complete this sentence]

As a newbie to Lancaster, I am all-ears to what locals have to say about their city. I guess I'm looking for confirmation that I've made a good decision coming here. Here are 10 soundbites I've had so far:

1. "It's like a mini-Bristol"

Yes, I get that. A teeny tiny, less cool and buzzy Bristol. There is even a bridge and a quay of sorts.

2. "It's claustrophobic. Sometimes you just have to get out!"

It is super-small for a city. Population 52,000. Only qualifies because it has a cathedral. But there's a train station, a luxury I did not have before. I can be by the sea in 11 minutes, the Lakes in 30, Manchester in an hour, Glasgow or Edinburgh in two hours, and London in two and a half.

3. "There's just so much going on for such a small place."

Overwhelmingly so. Last Thursday eve, I couldn't decide between a Death Cafe in a pub and a talk in the library from a guy who has set himself the challenge of travelling to and photographing every single postbox in Britain. Couldn't go to either in the end because Jim was going to his Eastern European folk music course. See?!

4. "The people are wonderful."

Cannot agree more. I've lived in Scotland, the Midlands, the South Coast and East Anglia and they all have different versions of friendliness in varying degrees, but I sort of feel like the North has been secretly having a party of its own all these years and didn't tell me!

5. "It's an old hippy town."

You can say that again! I met Lola from school the other afternoon and passed a white middle-aged man and woman in robes walking through the town centre banging a gong and chanting. No-one was batting an eyelid.

6. "Everyone knows everyone."

I have been told this in both a positive way ("I love that you can't go to town without bumping into a million people you know") and a negative way (Sometimes you think, 'where's my privacy?' "). Guess it depends on your personality whether you like it or not.

7. "The weather is the hardest thing to get used to.....but you never ever waste a sunny day!"

Deffo. I have learnt that it will always rain at some point in the day. And if the sun comes out even for a few minutes, I'm straight out in the garden getting every drop of Vitamin D I can.

8. "People are very fond of it. The ones that leave often come back."

I met a woman in Office No.1 in my first week who moved away but said she missed it too much.

9. "You've got the Lakes, the Trough of Bowland, the Yorkshire Dales - and the sea. What more could you want?"

Erm.....nice weather to enjoy them?


And my favourite.....

10. "It's full of good people making good things happen."

Lola gets a word in......

Lola here. So my mum’s told you about her over 55s drama course but I was appalled to find out that there wasn’t even a mention of what I’m doing. I also signed up to a Dukes theatre drama course and  you deserve to know about that too.

I walk there with two friends from school. I have only been once and when I arrived for the first time last week I found that three more girls from my form were doing it as well. That’s a good start!

The session was great. We played a few getting to know you games to start off and then we were put into groups to make our own mini play. Totally my kind of thing!

This was ours: There’s a giraffe who wants to be taller so he goes to a mermaid for help. The mermaid gives him a potion which makes him turn into a dragon. The end. Don’t laugh. It actually turned out quite well.

So that is my guest blog post. Can I watch telly now, mum?

Apple Day

If the result of the Lancaster Experiment is that we decide to settle here, the area I would like to buy a house in is called Fairfield. From Fairfield, it's only a five-minute walk to the city centre (without any friggin hills), a three-minute walk to the station, a two-minute walk to open countryside along the canal - AND it has a nature reserve which includes this lovely orchard.

Today in the orchard it was Apple Day. A sweet little event. Lola bobbed apples, bow-and-arrowed the apple on William Tell's head, cycled a smoothie, and then we both made a felt apple - which was really fun and therapeutic (and it solved the mystery of what Wild, Wet n' Wooly at the Storey Building is - it's this woman who runs felting workshops).

Then I got chatting to a woman who lives in the road I most have my eye on in Fairfield: Sunnyside Close (ironic name for rainy Lancaster?).

"Oh houses rarely come up for sale there," she said. "You have to wait for someone to die!"

"Well then," I said. "I may have to kill you."

The Magic of Human Beans

Today I woke up sad. I had an ache for my long-standing friends. The ones you can share a cup of tea or beer with and slip into conversation like putting on an old pair of fluffy slippers and wiggling your toes. The ones who know your best self and your not-so-good self.

I love the buzz of meeting new people. Of finding out who they are and what makes them tick and if and where you overlap and connect. But when you meet new people - at least if you hope to make friends - you have to present your very best self. You have to entice them a little. Try to be nice, positive, lively, engaging. You can't launch straight into a conversation about the details of a sh*tty row you had with your husband that morning or give them a graphic description of the intimate physical symptoms of your menopause. Well, you could, but they probably wouldn't warm to you!

I also felt at first that I'd lost my confidence. My identity. If I had no shared points of reference with anyone, who even was I? I seemed to be surrounded by Super-clever professors and PhD-ers, Extremely Alternative People with children called Leaf and Whisper, and Very Right-on people who were saving the planet AND feeding the homeless. I worried I was too stupid, too straight, too irresponsible (How would an online shopping delivery from Asda of non-organic sausages go down with the neighbours?!).

At the same time, the friendliness and kindness of the new human beans that have entered into my life over the last two weeks has been heart-warming. I've had cards through the door, cups of tea, glasses of wine, walks, lunches, a birthday party invite, two spontaneous babysitters, an offer of a bike so that I could ride along the canal with someone to my office, even an invite to accompany someone on a Mystery Shopping pub lunch!!!

This morning was no different. Just as I was settling into my achey sadness - abracadabra! - an email came through inviting me to have a coffee (at the most hipster place) in town and then work together there for a few hours.

Human Beans - old and new - are magic.

Drama for Old Ladies

Over the last year or so, I have had a growing urge to try drama, but a weekly two-bus trek to East Oxford (I don't drive) for the type of courses I was interested in deterred me.

So, what do you know, only a five, maybe six-minute walk from my house is the Dukes Theatre that offers - as well as plays and arthouse cinema - all sorts of drama courses: ones for kids, one for people with autism, one for gypsy children.....

Unfortunately, I didn't fit into any of the categories. The closest was the Over Fifty-fives group.

"I'm almost fifty-three," I said in my best old lady voice to the guy on the phone. "Do you think I might possibly be allowed to try it if I promise to wear my most frumpy clothes?"

"Oh, go on then," he said.

So today I tried it - and really liked it. A bunch of feisty and far-from-frumpy people from 55 to 70 (plus?) and a very enthusiastic male teacher from The Wirral. His plan is to team us up after a few weeks with.....eek.....the teenage group (Year 11s to be precise) to work on an inter-generational piece and perform it at the theatre at the university. ("There's loads of funding for this sort of thing," he told us. That's an advantage of living in a more socially diverse area, I guess).

The theme is going to be Time, using true stories from our lives: us
rewinding to our lives as teenagers and them fast-forwarding to their lives as old people.

I'm not sure how excited the teenagers will be about working with old gits, but I'm well up for it!

*Newsflash* Jim had had to leave Lancaster prematurely today and go back to Witney on a rescue mission involving Fred and cars and money and stuff. Fred is fine (if an idiot) but it's all a bit messy.

Lancaster Grammar School Girls Get Sloshed.....?

What did you do at school today, darling? I asked Lola as she bound through the door and sprawled herself on the sofa.

"Wine tasting!" she said, grinning. "It was great!"

"Sorry? You did what?" I asked. "Are you.....drunk?"

She explained that as this week was International Week at school, they were 'off-timetable' a lot and doing all sorts of linguistic and cultural sessions. And the flamboyant drama teacher had decided to introduce them to Italian wine-tasting techniques.

"You pour the wine at a tilt," explained Lola, high as a kite. "Then you swirl it round to release the flavour and take deep sniffs to get the aroma. If you can see little legs down the side of the glass, that means the wine is mature and syrupy and good to drink. But that's for red wine.....it's different for white wines and champagne.....shall I explain what you do with those?"

"But...hang on, hang on," I interrupted. "Were you actually drinking wine? In lesson?"

"Of course not. You're meant to spit it out into a goblet and then cleanse your palate with cheese and crackers before you try the next one. Don't you know anything about wine-tasting, mummy?"

Not as much as you daughter, clearly. Seems I've accidentally sent her to some kind of Swiss Finishing School.

"But tell me, was it actual wine you were tasting?" I asked.

"Oh no," she said. "The red wine was Ribena, the white wine was elderflower cordial and the champagne was apple juice with fizzy water. But I really like all of those."

*Coming soon* 
In the 'other' new office today, but it would be super-weird to start snapping photos on my first try-out, don't you think? Next week I will!

New girl at the office

Living in new place + working at home = don't meet a lot of people at work 

None in fact. Well, except for the old geyser with grey hair who farts a lot.

So I decided to hire a desk two days a week. And it's in a rather cool building called The Storey Institute.



It's next to the castle. 

And it has lots of rather good things in it, like an art gallery, artists' studios, an auditorium and a cafe (bacon butty and a cup of tea £3 to desk hirers). Haven't found out what Wild, Wet 'n Wooly is yet though ...



It even has a secret garden, only open to the public one day a year (where I can sit at lunchtime - on the days it isn't bloody raining).



My desk is in the Creative Hub on the top floor. My journey there takes me up these stairs ...



Past this fantastic stained glass window ...

And through these old gates ...



All this for £7 a day 8.30am-8.30pm. Free tea and coffee  - and a shower - included. Even better, I use it till 3.30 and then go home for Lola, and Jim takes over the warmed-up seat after that.

The only snag? Hardly anyone seems to use the Creative Hub. In the two days I have worked there, I have met a grand total of three people: a woman who is introducing the Dutch mixed-gender game of Korfball to schools and clubs in the city, a man who gives training days in nuclear power stations and a woman who organizes the Light Up Lancaster festival. I often have the whole office to myself.

So tomorrow, I will also be trying out another office, which is in a whole nuvver world altogether.

Watch this space.

The rain is not the boss of me

If I'm going to live in a rainy place, I need a heavy duty raincoat.
If I'm going to have a heavy duty raincoat, it may as well be bright yellow.
If I'm going to wear a bright yellow raincoat, I may as well wear tomato-red boots.
There.
That'll teach it.

Living in a goldfish bowl

The other day I was hanging out in my kitchen semi-naked and quite possibly picking my nose when a man and his kid wheeled their bikes through my back garden RIGHT by my full-length windowed back doors. Flippin' heck. I thought. What's going on?

One of the things I'm adjusting to here is that life is much more 'public'. Down the side of my house runs an alley (or ginnel in northern speak, I'm told) that leads from the street to a path that runs along the length of the back gardens. It is the only way a whole bunch of our neighbours can get their bikes and wheely-bins round to the back of their houses.



Not only that, between our gardens are low, see-through, wire fences, gaps in fences like this one between us and our dreadlocked professor neighbour ...



... or no fences at all - the path you see here to the other side of us is not a path down the centre of someone's garden., but the line between two houses' gardens.



I find all this really refreshing. When we first moved in to our house in Witney, our neighbour knocked on the door, not to introduce themselves as I first thought, but to ask if they could put a high, wooden fence between our back gardens. More recently, our newer neighbours asked if they could put up a chest-high fence up between our front gardens.

The mark-your-own-patch-with-a-f*cker-of-a-fence-and-prevent-all-human-interaction simply does not exist in much of Lancaster. If it did, it might have taken a lot longer to meet our next-door-but-one neighbour who we had a long over-the-garden-fence chat with (turns out his good friends run that lovely bookshop-cum-cafe in Chipping Norton) and 'special' Peter next door wouldn't have been able to have shown Jim the model plane he hadn't quite finished in time to show his dad before he died.

All good.

However, I must learn to 'relax' less in my kitchen. 😉

Village life?

A woman I met said to me "The thing I love about Lancaster is it's a city so there's loads going on, but it's small enough to feel really villagey at the same time."

Villagey? You what?!! For someone who's moved from Twee-honey-coloured-stone-cottage-land, I was dubious.

Then yesterday, I had a lovely example of 'villagey'.

These shops are on a grey, traffic-fumey, utterly unvillagey street in the city centre. One is a home-made ice-cream shop owned by a Chilean-Italian guy who followed his daughter to Lancaster when she came to university. The other is an artisan bakery that entices you in with its smells, run by a vivacious, brightly-coloured-tank-topped woman. You can't see in this picture, but both have similar signs in the window that say:

APPLES? PLUMS? PEARS? DONATIONS FROM YOUR GARDEN WANTED. REWARD AVAILABLE!

True to their word, last night one of our neighbours came over and shared his 'reward' with us: Delicious plum ice-cream made from his own plums. 😉

Incredible Edible (and deadable, if I've got anything to do with it)

Walking through an unremarkable part of the city, Jim and I stumbled across a little veggie/herb garden. Turns out Lancaster has joined the Incredible Edible movement (started in Todmorden) and there are bits and pieces dotted about the city, including a community allotment just up the hill from us. We can join in on a Sunday afternoon if we want to.

Now, while I love the concept, I hate effin gardening with all my might and can kill any living green thing in less than three hours with my Hate-Energy-Vibes. However, I'd be quite good at making arty little plant signs like these. And I'd be good at drinking cups of tea and chatting in polytunnels.
Which is what they do quite a lot, apparently.

Summary so far

TOP 3 LIKES:

1. The friendliness and warmth of people
Neighbours, Lola's new school friends, strangers in the street. Deffo weirder not to talk than talk to people.

2. The astonishing amount of things to do
Music, theatre, art, dance, comedy, One-legged Transvestite Knit-while-you-trainspot club. All within walking distance. Incredible for a tiny city only double the population of Witney.

3. The hillyness
That gives you views of the castle, the sea, the Lakeland hills. Uplifting. Literally.

TOP 3 DISLIKES:

1. The urban-ness 
When it's ugly, it's ugly! And there is some terrible, terrible town planning in Lancaster. I got spoilt for prettiness in Witney.

2 The weather
I would like to wake up one morning and not see raindrops on the bedroom window.

3. The hillyness. 
I frickin hate walking uphill. 

The 'hood

We are living in a Victorian-terraced area of Lancaster called Freehold, a 10-minute walk from the city centre. It is brimming with academics and middle-class hippies - or both (our immediate neighbour is a young Geography professor with dreadlocks down to his buttocks).

The streets are laid out on a rectangular grid, going up a hill, and are all named after places in the Lake District (Ullswater, Borrowdale, Windermere...). Big, posh houses at the top, with the best views of the castle, the sea and the Lakeland hills (well, on a clear day), smaller houses at the bottom.

But every house has a 100 foot garden (very unusual in Lancaster - small rear yards are the norm) because in the 1850s you needed a garden of at least that length to be allowed to vote - so the guy who wanted to be elected gave all his friends a 100 foot garden (or something like that - history is not my thing, innit).

Anyway, let's go on a quick walk and see what we can spot ...

An arty painted front door

a free mini 'library'

 a poster for the (bisexual) Labour MP 

and a penguin.

Two minutes round the corner is the wonderful Gregson Centre, a very relaxed, welcoming pub/place to eat or drink coffee that has all sorts of music-y and community events. It was this place that first made me and Jim think Lancaster might be a place we'd like to live. 

There's a noticeboard in the entrance advertising everything from Mindfulness courses to Babysitting. But I liked this one best today!