Thursday, June 23, 2005
hot and sticky
its been rather busy and very hot the last few weeks. England is in the middle of a heat wave, and its been that sticky muggy hot weather here for over a week, Notts is smack bang in the middle of the country so I suspect being nowhere near the ocean doesn't help either, haven't felt the slightest notion of anything breeze like. Shouldn't complain I know, but been working through most of it which is very depressing!
Going back to last week, I spent two (more) days in Sheffield for some protesting - we stayed at a convergence space which was a big old cutlery factory in the central city, so rooms for sleeping, cooking, meetings, banner painting etc, there was even an indymedia centre full of computers all found in skips! I was mighty impressed. We had several rallies and critical masses, couldn't get anywhere near the places the G8 ministers were meeting cos of the very heavy policing. I think they might have outnumbered us at some stages! It really was quite ridiculous and over-the-top though, I loved it when the clowns came along from the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and made a mockery of the whole thing. There was also a great samba band to dance along to so it was really a big street party with cops on the side. (see sheffield indy for photos).
Then it was back to work, which is fine enough. Lots of planning meetings for Scotland though, everyone is frantically getting things ready and doing a million and one things, I am going up next week to help with very last minute stuff before it all starts to kick off on the 2nd July..
Had the G8 bike-caravan stop off here yesterday, they are half way from Brighton to Edinburgh! I helped cook tea for the 40 or so of them.
I went and spent an evening at a lovely allotment garden a few nights back - cos not many houses have gardens to speak of there are big patchs of land (council owned) that are divided up into plots for people to rent out and grow food etc on. This one had about 200 plots and had hedges inbetween then all so moving around all the hedge corridors was like being in a huge maze! Only downer was that it "exaserbated" (my favourite word) my already horrible hayfever.
Hmmm, other ramdon tid-bits... 'scoobies' are the latest kids craze over here, basically bits of plastic rope to tie in knots and make patterns with, like friendship bracelets. But you see them everywhere, not quite sure where they came from!
I still haven't gotten used to the long day light hours, it doesn't get dark till 10pm then there is light streaming in my window by 4am - very annoying actually.
Ok, well, I can't actually think of much else, I never can when I sit down to write these posts.
Sending my love to you all, and hoping everyone is well and happy
:)
Going back to last week, I spent two (more) days in Sheffield for some protesting - we stayed at a convergence space which was a big old cutlery factory in the central city, so rooms for sleeping, cooking, meetings, banner painting etc, there was even an indymedia centre full of computers all found in skips! I was mighty impressed. We had several rallies and critical masses, couldn't get anywhere near the places the G8 ministers were meeting cos of the very heavy policing. I think they might have outnumbered us at some stages! It really was quite ridiculous and over-the-top though, I loved it when the clowns came along from the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and made a mockery of the whole thing. There was also a great samba band to dance along to so it was really a big street party with cops on the side. (see sheffield indy for photos).
Then it was back to work, which is fine enough. Lots of planning meetings for Scotland though, everyone is frantically getting things ready and doing a million and one things, I am going up next week to help with very last minute stuff before it all starts to kick off on the 2nd July..
Had the G8 bike-caravan stop off here yesterday, they are half way from Brighton to Edinburgh! I helped cook tea for the 40 or so of them.
I went and spent an evening at a lovely allotment garden a few nights back - cos not many houses have gardens to speak of there are big patchs of land (council owned) that are divided up into plots for people to rent out and grow food etc on. This one had about 200 plots and had hedges inbetween then all so moving around all the hedge corridors was like being in a huge maze! Only downer was that it "exaserbated" (my favourite word) my already horrible hayfever.
Hmmm, other ramdon tid-bits... 'scoobies' are the latest kids craze over here, basically bits of plastic rope to tie in knots and make patterns with, like friendship bracelets. But you see them everywhere, not quite sure where they came from!
I still haven't gotten used to the long day light hours, it doesn't get dark till 10pm then there is light streaming in my window by 4am - very annoying actually.
Ok, well, I can't actually think of much else, I never can when I sit down to write these posts.
Sending my love to you all, and hoping everyone is well and happy
:)
# posted by claire @ 6:41 AM 
