Thursday 24 May 2007

Glory

It's brilliant to have the opportunity to fine tune what you teach. Rob and I had the second booking for our new programme, 'Hands on Habitat'. The play went well - the better because I swapped roles with Rob. The intention had always been to have a woman scientist in any case, but it meant he had all the difficult lines. (Imagine Dick Dastardly's dog Mutley chuckling) but actually, the boy done good.
We also had better weather so the pond dipping was much more enjoyable. Very enjoyable in fact, one boy enjoyed himself so much that after I'd called them back, he fell in.

Back in October of last year, I mentioned the number and variety of places of worship on No.5 Road. Now, someone else has noticed this, and has nominated No. 5 Road as one of the Seven Wonders of Canada in a national contest. Somehow, it has made it into the final. What this amazing thing is worth is a mention in a blog, not some kind of award. Of course, city officials are crawling out of the woodwork to share in the glory and to bang on endlessly about how this proves what a multi-cultural city Richmond is.

Well it sodding well doesn't. The reason they are all there, down that road, is that they get huge tax breaks. This is designated farming land, and the various religions and cultural centres avoid paying tax by promising that although they are going to build their places of worship there, they will also farm the land. So while the city is allowing its officials to swan around taking credit, the city is also trying to pursue all but one of the faiths for not meeting their obligations.

I was amused to notice that the Celtic month that is equivalent to late May, early June, is Simivisonios. I read this as an entire lunar month dedicated to the way Sleepy sees things.

I slept badly last night, for some reason I dreamt more than once, about the last flat I lived in in Portsmouth. I dreamt that I hadn't moved out, but that my stuff was still there. I also hadn't paid rent since I left, so having discovered that my stuff was still there, I had to get it out before the landlord, an unpleasant knobhead, found out.

That flat was interesting though. It was just a few doors away from a house supposedly haunted by the ghost of the Duke of Buckingham who was murdered there in 1628 during the reign of the ill-fated Charles the first. And there were a series of strange things that happened while I was there. It was difficult not to believe there was some supernatural activity going on. I also continually had vivid dreams there. And yet it was a time of deep emotional turmoil for me, so to that extent, it wasn't surprising.
But there was something about the dreams I had last night, some quality I can't explain. By bizarre coincidence, my horoscope this morning began like this,
"Sometimes it's necessary to return to where you came from in order to appreciate how far you've come."

I wonder who's trying to tell me what.

2 comments:

LentenStuffe said...

Interesting post. Eerie. You know what Tom Waits says in the song, 'Blind Love', about home?

They say if you get far enough away, you'll be on your way back home
Well, I'm at the station, and I can't get on the train ...

Schneewittchen said...

Hmm...and that is also interesting....