Streets of Friday

Friday

Today I woke up with no work needing to be done until next week and a sunny day ahead of me, plus my Bob Marley CD arrived along with my Little Shop of Horrors DVD, so that was a good start. We had arranged to meet Allie, Pearl and Leo in Brighton at 1pm to see some festival street theatre (Streets of Brighton, regular event in the festival and always well worth a look), so we set off earlyish with the intention of doing a bit of shopping.

On the bus, two oldish Sussex men were having such a nice conversation I couldn't stop myself eavesdropping. They covered local and national cricket, the fortunes of a local star player who had been spotted at the age of 16 and was really proving himself now four years later, French films, including those of Jacques Tati and a film I couldn’t catch the name of but they really liked the way that relationships were covered in the film and were intending to seek out more by the same director and/or writer and a female relative of one of them who had been something to do with artillery in World War II and who was wanting to write her memoirs of that time, but was having trouble actually physically writing straight without the words all overlapping. I loved the range of subjects that they spoke about, the friendship between them, genuine interest in many things, lack of point-scoring tone or ego, so many things about this conversation. There was nothing ‘academic’ or ‘educated’ about it, but it was thoroughly intelligent and perceptive and interesting. Put them on Radio 4 and don’t let Melvyn Bragg anywhere near them, he’ll just spoil them.

Anyway, I digress – it’s just that I’ve had a week of quite a number of nice overheard/spotted conversations/scenarios on public transport actually, including the somewhat cliched ‘youth in black with mohawk helps harassed-looking mum off bus with her bags and child’ that makes one go ‘aaah’.

So, in Brighton I attempted the shopping I wanted to do, but:

The Shop Had Changed!

Honestly, I only took a brief break to have a child and raise her to the point that I could take her shopping in a civilized fashion. And they go and stop selling the things I wanted. Tsk. *glares at Brighton but not for long because I love it*

Making our way past a few of the street performers, including 2 who slumped comatosely against a wall with eyes nearly closed, propping up a sign saying ‘Apathy World Record Attempt’, we then successfully met three of the Green House gang. We queued for ice lollies (after a momentary concern that a sign on the kiosk might mean ‘we don’t serve fat people’ – I was considering pushing Allie in front of me and ventriloquizing my order through her) and then ate them on the grass, having already seen a trio of excellent slow-walking astronauts complete with oxygen sound effects and heroic American waves. Whilst eating our lollies, we were visited by the Complete Clothing Solution, a wardrobe wheeled along by two strange men, who then kitted me out in a pair of laminated floor-tile sandals and a pebbledash hat, which apparently was very flattering – I was invited to look in a wibbly mirror. F was not too amused at how much I was enjoying this, but it was all over quite soon and then we went to queue up to go in the street theatre maze. Leo and F were quite excited as were many other children around, so the rope marking the queueing area got tested a bit! While we were queuing 2 men sharing a single ‘smoking’ costume came up, the back of the costume being a (smoked) kipper and the tops being fag-ends and puffs of smoke coming out of bits of the costume. They were quite funny, making lots of conversation, asking Pearl if she smoked. White/grey/yellow make-up.

Once in the maze we came across all kinds of vaguely disturbing characters, including a fifties family with a very jolly six-foot schoolboy who walked up to everyone with great beaming fifties Enid Blyton enthusiasm and said 'Hello, I'm Peter', a woman who suddenly rushed forward every so often offering people sprigs of 'Lucky Hedge?' another woman who did cats cradle in a corner, a walking topiary teapot and a man in his garden who stayed silent but was a master of sinister looks and whose shed we had to go through eventually to exit. It was great fun for adults and children and after we came out, I sensed that F wouldn’t really enjoy anything as much and that it would probably be better to get going, so we did. We're hoping to have the Green House over here some time though, which will be lovely, even if we all end up just watching Dr Who together in the dark.
Back on the bus for my girl and me, and a bit of shopping for food on the way home - Friday curry in particular. Back here, a bit later, M, the youngest of next door's teenagers came round to play with/look after F for a while as pre-arranged (she comes every 2 weeks or so and I pay her - F really likes her) so F did some water-play, a bit of puter stuff and showed M her ponies and Barbies, as you do...

And now we're watching some Star Wars (Episode II) and I'm anticipating curry and relaxation. Weekend is very unplanned and we're glad of it. I already have some more work for next week and some for end of the month, which is also good, as I have already earned my 'basic needs' and am now into the 'fun' money.