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satyricaContinuing our tour of London's old ruins, N & I headed down to Abbey Wood a couple of Saturdays ago, to check our both the abbey and the wood. Like all good abbeys, Lesnes Abbey only exists as ruins (cheers Henry) and there wasn't loads of information about it, the sign-writers seemed more taken by the old black mulberry tree. The wood was really nice, though, and we did quite a long loop round it before I headed back up to Dalston to do various bits of shopping before carrying on home. We had our family zoom and in the evening I caught up with the previous night's livestream from Gaz B, his 80th and last, as real world interactions have now thoroughly taken over from the online.
On the Sunday I niddled around in the morning then headed into town to meet N and go to my old schoolmate A's Michaelmas Party. He dedicates himself to honouring some of Britain's more neglected annual festivals and we've seen posts about his gatherings for years so it was lovely to finally attend one. It was all very convivial, squeezed into his incredibly central but tiny flat, as we celebrated Michaelmas with goose and brambles and pickles.
On Monday I headed to the Sebright Arms to watch King Nun: first up were the enjoyable Public Body, who had choppy guitars and lyrics about the everyday (the repeatedly exclaimed "reset your password" particularly stuck with me), then King Nun were the next support who were good; both times I've seen them recently, I've not noticed them playing any songs off their album, but I guess there's been lots of opportunity to develop new material during the pandemic. I didn't stay for the headliner and thought I could easily pop home and have a bit of evening left to relax, but the overground trains were just coming up as cancelled as I got to the station so I had to get some windy buses instead.
We went back to the pub quiz at The Bell on Tuesday, together with some of N's friends, but I suspect it will be the last time we do it as everyone else was thoroughly fed up of the quiz master's interminable and deafening patter. It had originally been suggested as a way to see J, but she wasn't up to it, however I popped in to see her and E on Wednesday evening, as I was going to a gig at the Boston Music Rooms, just round the corner from them, so they kindly fed me dinner first. The gig was October Drift and Joey came along with a friend too. They were supported by Kid Violet, who were decent, and all-female Swedish trio Junodef who were really impressive. October Drift were utterly sublime, and an encore that comprised of Kiran and Chris singing Like The Snow We Fall standing in the crowd, unamplified, centimetres away from me, was a moment to cherish for ever. I was gutted to hear that, not long afterwards, Covid forced them to put a bunch of their tour dates on hold.
On Thursday I headed up to Mill Hill East for the funeral of one of our guests from last winter's hostel: there were 5 of us there, all from homeless services, although the funeral director said that many services don't even have that. After rushing around to other appointments in and out of the office, I rushed home so that I could join our trustee meeting from there in the evening: there's still a lot of uncertainty about what we are going to do this winter, which is pretty stressful given that in theory we're opening shelters in just a month's time.
On the Sunday I niddled around in the morning then headed into town to meet N and go to my old schoolmate A's Michaelmas Party. He dedicates himself to honouring some of Britain's more neglected annual festivals and we've seen posts about his gatherings for years so it was lovely to finally attend one. It was all very convivial, squeezed into his incredibly central but tiny flat, as we celebrated Michaelmas with goose and brambles and pickles.
On Monday I headed to the Sebright Arms to watch King Nun: first up were the enjoyable Public Body, who had choppy guitars and lyrics about the everyday (the repeatedly exclaimed "reset your password" particularly stuck with me), then King Nun were the next support who were good; both times I've seen them recently, I've not noticed them playing any songs off their album, but I guess there's been lots of opportunity to develop new material during the pandemic. I didn't stay for the headliner and thought I could easily pop home and have a bit of evening left to relax, but the overground trains were just coming up as cancelled as I got to the station so I had to get some windy buses instead.
We went back to the pub quiz at The Bell on Tuesday, together with some of N's friends, but I suspect it will be the last time we do it as everyone else was thoroughly fed up of the quiz master's interminable and deafening patter. It had originally been suggested as a way to see J, but she wasn't up to it, however I popped in to see her and E on Wednesday evening, as I was going to a gig at the Boston Music Rooms, just round the corner from them, so they kindly fed me dinner first. The gig was October Drift and Joey came along with a friend too. They were supported by Kid Violet, who were decent, and all-female Swedish trio Junodef who were really impressive. October Drift were utterly sublime, and an encore that comprised of Kiran and Chris singing Like The Snow We Fall standing in the crowd, unamplified, centimetres away from me, was a moment to cherish for ever. I was gutted to hear that, not long afterwards, Covid forced them to put a bunch of their tour dates on hold.
On Thursday I headed up to Mill Hill East for the funeral of one of our guests from last winter's hostel: there were 5 of us there, all from homeless services, although the funeral director said that many services don't even have that. After rushing around to other appointments in and out of the office, I rushed home so that I could join our trustee meeting from there in the evening: there's still a lot of uncertainty about what we are going to do this winter, which is pretty stressful given that in theory we're opening shelters in just a month's time.
