Leicester Licks

Nick took me on an impromptu outing to Leicester today. What a difference a decade makes. It was very run down and grey last time I was there. Now it has shiny new shopping centres with very high end shops that I feel too unsophisticated to enter. There was a visiting European market from which Nick bought nougat - £16 worth of it - which was embarrassing. We had lunch at the old market cafe to make up for it. Then we got on a bus to pick up the car from the new park and ride car park. It has a massive waiting room considering the bus runs every ten minutes, and am airport style viewing tower as though it is a park and fly.

I honour you, you aspirational folk of Leicester. You built a palace of granite and it was filled with John Lewis and L'Occitane, you pedestrianised and an Italian man with a smug smile was able to sell salamis that were I a lesser woman I would say resembled donkeys' cocks. Hope you get your park and fly.

Rude Girls

It was half past midnight at Victoria coach station in London town. Unable to get seats on an earlier service, we had endured the two hour wait in the chilly hall where posters discouraged vagrancy, and the tannoy discouraged compassion towards beggars of used tube tickets. Legitimate passengers all, we had a homeless look about us though, with our bags and jackets travel dirtied. Above all, we were sullied by tiredness brought on by waiting under strip-lights. The discomforts did not end when the coach pulled in. Air conditioning created unavoidable drafts, our muscles cramped and my hip twinged with the beginnings of some chronic complaint.
In front of us, a young woman had the luxury of two seats. She slung her feet across both, fidgeted with her handbag and leaned against the window. The spaces filled up, voices huffing, dealing with cases and tickets, ‘excuse me’ and ‘anyone sitting here?’. It was mostly quiet though, there seemed a consensus that we might all try to sleep. In front of the woman, a young man settled down, he set his seat to recline, letting it fall back an inch. The woman in front of us let out a squawk and rapped urgently on the young man’s headrest. He looked around. ‘No! No!’ she exclaimed, waving her hands. He shrugged, apologised, and put his seat upright. Contented, the woman leaned back, wriggled, and set her own seat to recline into my companion’s face.

The bus rumbled on through London and on to the motorway. It continued very cold. The music from the radio, an easy listening style station, was torture. Easy listening is never easy for me. Relaxation, is fraught with tension, Pan pipes do not sing of peace. Neither do the bleeps of mobile phones. Into the quiet, rang the woman’s ring tone extra loud. ‘Hello’, she began ‘Yes, it left on time….’ her voice audible, melodious, and capable of clear communication. During the journey, she was telephoned several times. On each occasion, she sat up by hefting herself forward with the support of the young man’s seat in front of her. He looked around, but made no comment until the time when along with the vinyl support she grasped a chunk of his hair. He yelped then, but softly. She let go and went back to her conversation. It was about her shopping.

New Look, as I’ve said before, is no longer the store for me. It seemed a good place to shop for prom shoes for H though. She found a pair of satin dress shoes in champagne. Her first high heels, another watershed, something fun, to be celebrated. Upstairs, two checkouts, both occupied with customers who had faulty items. A queue of perhaps twenty people. Staff on the shop floor glancing in the direction, but carrying on with their hanger shuffling at a steady pace. A slow day, Thursday, after all. ‘We’ll go downstairs’, I said. There won’t be a queue there. One person on the till, the line moving fast until there was a customer returning a poorly stitched top. She operator went off to find her manager, unhurried. Two people carrying clip boards glanced at us, and along the row of ten of us waiting to pay. Our woman came back into view and went up to one of the clipboard carriers (now on the opposite desk, jotting) to take advice. There was more shuffling for pens and cards. At last, to us, ‘That’s twenty’ and a bag, no apology.

Human beings are selfish. I am selfish. Sometimes I am rude. Rude and selfish is no fun. I am reminded to better.

Monday 27.4.09

Today was a day out to end days out. There were lots of good bits, but I'm not sure I'd want another one. If there's a lesson I need to learn its not to overdose on travel sickness pills.

Got up extremely nervous about the possibility of being sick on the coach, in the light of which , I ate nothing and took four travel sickness pills. I expected the pills to be only moderately effective, I've never had side effects from any drug so I wasn't expecting any. We got on the full coach, I plugged in my mp3 player, and started to doze off. I woke up a couple of times, delighted not to be feeling sick, and thinking that the coach was lovely, wasn't it good that I would be refreshed after my nap?

Once we got to London Victoria, Nick and I got some lunch. The afternoon's activity was his choice, so we were going to the Science Museum. I was feeling a bit groggy, and thought a bit of a walk would perk me up. Nick looked at the map and said we could walk if I liked. It was a bit of a miscalculation. We walked through the first rainy day in two weeks. Exhaustion and foul temper set in. I was blaming Nick and inwardly worrying that I seemed to be loosing the ability to walk in the way that an over-tired toddler will. Every parent knows, you have to bring the buggy with you, for the eventuality. Unfortunately, Nick wasn't expecting to do this for me.

I don't remember much about the Science Museum. I walked to each floor with Nick, sat on a bench, and fell asleep. Attempts to wake myself with hot tea and sugary food failed. I slept through the waitress clearing my table in the cafe.

We took the tube over to Piccadilly, and I did wake up a bit. We wondered around China Town, ending up in a tiny cellar restaurant that was very good value, and nice with candles and serviettes and everything. Nick had been kind when I'd been stroppy, and we started to laugh about the sleepiness.

Frank Skinner's Credit Crunch Cabaret was excellent. Nick hadn't been to a West End Theatre, and we were up high with all the gold leaf and the chandelier, so the red velvet and all of that was goiing to his head. I'm glad he enjoyed it much better than he expected. The crowd were really up for it, and I was seated next to two nice looking youngish men, which always helps a night along.

I was pleased that Frank was as good as I thought he would be. It was the first time I had seen him live, and because I like so much of his writing, and the DVD's and much (but not all) of his TV work, there was a lot riding on it for me. He was incredibly warm, quick thinking, and audience fed. There wasn't much of the artfully constructed stuff, but lots of newsy, people gags. If he ever tours a full show again, I want to go. Touchingly, he played George Fornby's Lamppost on the euke as a romantic encore for his girlfriend. The other acts all had something good about them. Lee Mac was funny and sharp in a kind of dad jokes way. I'm not sure that its my thing, but he's good. Miranda Hart seemed a bit under prepared, but had that spark of talent under the surface. Beardy Man, human beatbox was a lot of fun, and while I can't imagine going to a whole show, I was quite into what he did. It was all over too soon.

We got locked out of the coach station, and it was a long wait, but we were happy. Got home for 3am, my usual bedtime.

Sunday 26.4.09

I'm not allowed to stay up for long tonight, because Nick and I are going to London tomorrow, on a coach.

Whilst I'm looking forward to Frank Skinner's Credit Crunch Cabaret, and to a lesser extent to seeing whatever museum Nick fancies, I'm mostly worried about travel sickness. the only way of making the day affordable was to get the coach. The only thing is I may well be horribly travel sick. I've had times when I've had to get off the bus half way to Birmingham, about six miles. Will I go twenty times the distance? I've got the special dozy tablets so I can only hope.

My enjoyment of the BAFTAs this evening was much enhanced by watching various comments appear on Twitter. Graham Norton's jokes sunk badly, awful delivery, but Andrew Collins tells me he won't have written his own stuff, so he will have to be forgiven. My favorite thing, The Inbetweeners, didn't win anything, but hey, there's always next year.

Tuesday 7.4.09

There comes a time in a girl's life when she has to face her problems, get out in the community, take responsibility. Today, I had to collect the car from the MOT place, TPS Autos, about two miles away. I could have taken a taxi, or the bus. I considered driving our spare car, parking it on a street outside of TPS and taking Nick up there later to collect it. I thought this might have been considered a bit lazy though. It was a sunny day, so in the event Darcy and I walked.

As we walked alongside the ring road through the sea of crisp packets breathing in the traffic fumes, I reflected on our plans to move out of Coventry in a few years time. I wondered how I might eventually feel about saying goodbye to these commonplace things about the city I came to twenty-two years ago. The route to TPS took us along a main road through the area of Foleshill. When first I saw it, I was impressed with its glamour. Here was a place where the women wore colours that were brighter, where almost everybody had a tan, and where the architecture was different in places.

In my i-player phase yesterday, I caught up with the excellent Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. He was working on the theme of political correctness, and did it well, being both thought provoking and funny. Having had a career in social care, I'm extremely shy of attempting to address the topic of race. I'm woefully ill-equipped, liable to show my ignorance, and to unintentionally offend. I'm truly sorry. If you're reading on, please read for the intent, and I'll be doing what I can with the effect.

Foleshill feels different. Walk up the Foleshill Road past the big Halfords (which also impressed me as a nineteen year old), and you start to see lots of people whose parents, grand parents, great grandparents, and some of whom themselves came from India or Pakistan. Its an area that's cheap to live so lately there is a bit of an eastern European population too. This doesn't mean its a ghetto. The area used to be the centre for ribbon making and loads of proud Coventry Kids of English lines live there too.

What struck me first today, was that the recession seems not to have hit Foleshill Road. All of the shops were bustling, there weren't many vacant units. Since I was last there there are some shiny new businesses, and the established ones remain. This is in contrast to the centre of Coventry which is very closed down at the moment. We walked past a business where they do car washes by hand. It seems a big operation with several young men working shirts off in production line style cleaning the cars, the gaffer shouting across the forecourt. The spray from the hoses cooled the air on the pavement as I walked.

We slowed down at the Sikh temple. A former cinema, its a prominent building, its bus stop always busy. I was conscious that there were quite a few people , more women than men, who were anxious to avoid Darcy. This made me sad, because although he is only a dog, I love him, and he did sort of save my life. I want other people to love him too. Anyway, I kept his lead short and tried to make room for people. I was told a long time ago that Asian people don't like dogs. I have seen this to be true on occasion, but I don't know if it is because of culture, custom or religion. Its certainly not universal. Our neighbours are very ken to pet Darcy, although they won't touch his food because they are vegan Hindus, they told me this.

I was invited into that temple once. I had been doing a bus count for some student money and was lent a scarf and given dhal and bread on a tray, seated on the floor of a room of women who smiled but did not speak to me. It was a very happy place. One of the male elders spoke to me about how everyone brought something to contribute to the temple and that the food was shared free to anyone who came. The next day, to say thankyou, I brought a punnet of mushrooms and was shown how to offer them. It was a good experience. I thought of the kindness of the people from the temple following the 9/11 tragedy when it was reported that the building had been attacked.

We went on then, past the sari shops, the grocers selling net sacks of onions and thought of my neighbour who taught me what the stranger ingredients were and how they could be cooked. One time, I had to make roti for forty for Diwali. She took pity on me when it became clear that, in spite of her patient instruction, this might take me as many days, and made them for me. Tahim's Drapers is still there. They still sell fabric by the yard. Pure silk chiffon that might be £20 a metre in John Lewis' is £5. The sewer in me loves to visit. I don't know why I'm the only white woman I've ever seen there, I've always felt like any other customer.

I was thinking of all of these things, and other times I've hit good moments and sticky patches with people who have a different skin colour, a different religion. I thought of Nick's dad at our last visit reading an article about the Councillers for Cornwall County Council. "They're all foreigners", he said. Nick and I looked up a bit shocked. Would we challenge it. "This one comes from Bedfordshire". We laughed, it wasn't racism, just xenophobia, like from the Gavin and Stacey programme I'm fond of. I found myself at Longford Park. I had taken a wrong turn and had walked two miles out of my way.

Cursing, I caught a bus back along the way we came. The bus driver, white, my age, Coventry accent said, "One pound fifty. Its fifty p for the dog" I put my £1.50 in the tray. He raised his eyebrows and repeated. Did he mean two pounds then?, "Sorry", I said, "How much all together?" He sighed and repeated himself for the third time. I put an extra 50p in the tray. Getting off, I stood up and we made eye contact. He slowed the bus to the stop. As the doors opened he said, "If I hadn't have seen you, I wouldn't have stopped" Well, he had seen me, we both knew that, otherwise I might have found the bell. Did he expect a blow job for his pains? I said thanks and stepped away.

So there it was, a mini adventure in Coventry. Go outside your own front door, and whoever you meet, its like another country.