Letter from the New Hood
We now live in a Seventies-style house with a palatial open-plan lounge facing out over a two-tier garden through double glazed sliding doors. By rights, this would be a place for children. It is also the first place we inhabited that is ideal for pets—all that we have missed out on in life. Sadly we can’t get a cat because we’re only here for a year and a cat would get too attached to the place. A pet rabbit perhaps. It’s portable and can be left with friends or relatives or, if nobody wants it, eaten. It would also keep the lawn neatly trimmed…
The house is on the affluent side of a brook that divides the neighbourhood. Across are blocks of flats. Their presence and the rubbish strewn about give the neighbourhood a more urban, homey feel. There are plenty of kids and younger people in the area which makes a refreshing change after the previous average age hovered around 75—refreshing because the spacious garden affords us plenty of privacy 😉
There is one thing different about this ‘hood as compared to a proper urban area: it’s all white which nearly triggered a chav-alert, but so far the locals seem nice enough. It does however mean that we only have a local Co-op selling basic Seventies fare. Remarkably, we seem to have found a Seventies time-warp in the already parallel universe of Tadley!
The Co-op doesn’t stock lemons. The most straightforward way to obtain a lemon by public transport is to buy a return ticket to Basingstoke. The bus stop isn’t very far and I have good reason to go, but after the whirl of the last two weeks I can’t bring myself to do it.
Shame on me. This weekend, while I was away on a jolly in Scotland (it was pretty good actually, despite the w*****r who gave me xenophobic abuse—more about the memorable bits later), eleven peaceful activists were arrested at the demonstrations at our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment to mark the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the proposed development of a new nuclear program. According to ‘The Advertiser’ which fluttered through the letterbox this morning, they were due to appear at the Magistrates Court today, so the least I could have done is to attend the hearing. Reasonable numbers of protesters seem to have attended the various vigils at AWE over the weekend. On Monday night the story was even picked up by Meridian News on TV. With all this publicity, I hope the profile of the campaign will be raised. It’s only just beginning. First there were eight, next perhaps there will be hundreds…
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Denni