Cabin Fever

I recently came back from a trip to Norway where I visited Brenda and her husband. I have never been there before and I was totally unprepared for Norway. I mean, I know they have mountains and fjords but I didn’t realised that the whole bloody country is build of it!

When Brenda told me that I have to take a bus and then a ferry, I thought it sounded like a small mini adventure. God, I was so naive.

I flew into Bergen which is beautifully located by the sea and surrounded by mountains. At this point I thought that was picturesque.

I arrived to the central bus stop in Bergen 30 minutes before departure of my bus to Kvanndal ferry station. I felt slightly restless by waiting and as a shopaholic I managed to track down a shopping centre within two minutes of arriving to Bergen. I rushed in, thinking I could find a nice folklore or Viking inspired winter coat. I do like to impress people in London with my Scandinavian dressing style.

I found a shop within seconds and there it was - a bright red coat. I tried it on and it fitted! The shop did actually cater for huge sizes. I bought it and run out just in time to catch my bus. When I settled down in my seat I started to think about the exchange rate and brought the calculator out. I had just bought a blooming coat for £220! Shit, I can’t afford that. In London I could get three coats for that price. Sometimes I get so tired of myself.

To make things worse, when I came home I tried my old coat on and realised that I wasn’t as large as I thought I was so I still fit into it. The whole purchase of a new coat was a waste of my scarce cash.

I had a nice front seat on the bus and enjoyed the view as we passed mountains, fjords and waterfalls. In most countries they run over mountains or around them but not in Norway – here they run through the mountains. I never seen so many tunnels in my life and they can be two kilometres long! The Norwegians are a truly tough people.

It was very beautiful but after 2,5 hours you are getting tired of the winding roads. I was happy to arrived in one piece at Kvanndal ferry station so I could stretch my legs and let my nausea settle down.

I got on to the ferry and enjoyed the fantastic scenery and after 20 minutes I finally arrived at Utne.

Brenda picked me up and finally I had arrived after nine hours travel! Amazing trip in a way, I had used all means of transportation. I walked to Brixton, took a tube to Victoria Station, took a train to Gatwick where I took a flight to Bergen. In Bergen I took a bus to Kvanndal where I took a ferry and finally Brenda picked me up in a car. I was exhausted on arrival.

Brenda’s house was fantastic and the view from her sitting room was amazing.

 

 

When you stepped out from the front door you faced a huge mountain with a waterfall on the top. You could hear the water from the doorstep. Powerful stuff!

On the first day Brenda and her husband had to work so I explored Utne on my own. Obviously it was a bit of a trek since everything in Norway is a trek and needs careful planning and proper outfit, which I didn’t have.

You have to struggle to find enough flat land to make a football pitch! I am not surprised the Vikings chose to conquer the Atlantic, they must have been desperate to find some flat land. I was quite prepared to go to sea myself at this point.

But Utne is a beautiful place.

 

 

However, downtown Utne seem to lack something for a Brixtonian like me. Where is the action?

Utne has the oldest hotel in Norway, closed for the season, a food store with ridiculously expensive food, one restaurant open on odd hours and funny enough a museum! Hardanger Folk Museum. That was all the action so I joined in and visited the museum that showcased traditional folk-dresses and they also had an out-door museum with old houses.

They had a longhouse like the Vikings and it was really cool.

On the Friday night Brenda suggested we go to Jondal for a meal out at the local pizza restaurant. Said and done, we got into the car and drove 45 minutes through the winding roads just to find that the restaurant was closed for the season! It was only to get back into the car and drive back to Utne.

On the Saturday, Brenda and I took the ferry to Kinsarvik where we went for a forest walk. With my short, fat legs I am not able to do more than a stroll. Needless to say we were surpassed by Norwegian couples in full trekking gear marching by in a super speed. They horribly fit those Norwegians and no surprise there when you live in a place where you have to trek to the local shop.

 

 

 

The cabin Fever started to set in. I found myself in the middle of nowhere and I dreaded the long journey back to civilisation. But luckily Brenda worked as a GP and she gave me some motion sickness pills for the bus ride back to Bergen.

In May I fancied myself moving to the countryside but I have now reconsidered that and I am quite happy to stay in my dear old Brixton.

As I came back home I got a nice surprise, all the prams blocking up the entrance hall were gone and the space is like a huge ballroom now.

Maybe a should through a house party in the hallway?

Poverty

My mushroom farm is steadily growing, spreading its spores in the air and I have now developed asthma! I really need to move but when you are poor you don’t have any choices but to stay put despite the damage to your health. Show me a landlord that will accept a tenant on housing benefits and with no regular income...

I am not alone in this situation. Everybody in this house lives here because it’s all we can afford. The stink of rising damp is suffocating as you enter the building. And now it’s even damp outdoors with this shitty summer weather, sigh.

There are no affordable housing around and less so now when the middle classes can’t afford to buy a property and has to rent instead which pushes up the rent costs. All new-build flats in Brixton are luxury apartments to buy and the poor people are pressed out of the area. Or, as in my situation, stuck in a dump.

I have contacted the landlord and they sprayed my farm with pesticide (some anti-fungus) which made me cough and reach for the inhaler. Then they sealed the area with some white stuff. So now it continues to grow on the inside of the wall and God knows where it goes from there. I felt their solution was a bit dodgy so I also contacted the council and the environmental health will contact me, any year in the future.

I do my best and try to keep the spirit up and I made a new flower arrangement for the bathroom using my great grandmother’s soap dish as a base. I am quite happy with the result.

I rolled a towel in a black plastic bin bag and put it as a cover over the gap under the door in a desperate attempt to keep the mushroom spores in the bathroom and out of my bedroom. But now I keep forgetting it’s there and trip over it when I go to the loo. Hopefully I learn before I break an arm.

 
Your housing will affect your health as I am now very aware of and it doesn’t really take a brain surgeon to figure that one out! However, Kings College has completed a research project about the health of people living in Lambeth and the result showed that “socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals” (nice formulation) have poorer health.
( Research ) so now it’s scientifically proven. However, I suspect this will not change any of Cameron’s splendid ideas to change NHS.

Now I spend most of my time trying to come up with a scheme to help me to re-locate. Mostly it involves Internet surfing cheap flats for rent in Brighton, Oxford and central London. I let you know as soon as I find something...

A life in the country side?

I just got back from a creative writing course in Headington, a village shortly outside Oxford. It was fantastic to get out of London.
As I got off the bus in Headington I was hit by a wall of smell. I could smell flowers, grass and soil. I was in the nature!
I could smell the nature, despite standing on the busy London Road that leads out to M40 from Oxford.
Then it entered my head for the first time in my life – maybe I should move out to the country?

 I walked through the cute village on my way to the college. It was lovely with the peace and quiet. I passed pretty cottages and started to dream about a slower life.

 

I got a great room with en suite and the college grounds were beautiful.

We were only four students in the class and the teacher was brilliant. However the three other students were very different, if I put it that way.

There was an 83 year old man that had a slight touch of dementia. He had a constant look of surprise on his face and he got lost all the time. He also could wander off in the middle of the class. Funny enough he was sharp as a pencil when he wrote and gave feedback to the rest of us. There were also moments when you could actually have a full rational conversation with him. But in-between that he was lost.

There was a lady in her seventies that had a walking stick and arthritis and she also got lost. She was in pre- Alzheimer’s and she was aware of it. Her memory was patchy. She had a pair of red shoes that was broken and she called them her fancy shoes! She constantly spoke about how she should have brought her walking shoes instead of the fancy shoes.

She had only brought one pair of socks and the other lady in the group was complaining about her feet being smelly. I didn’t really notice but then again I had a cold. Her jumper and trousers were dirty and the second day she showed up in a skirt with a missing button so we could see her underwear through the hole. She was constantly talking and it was difficult to get her to stop. The teacher however was quite good in getting the lady to focus. The last day she turned up in her nightie and said she had nothing clean to wear!

The third lady was really strange. She had anger outbursts and was over sensitive to everything. When the teacher told her to stop rustling her papers and listen to the Alzheimer lady, she got a fit and sneered that she will indeed go out next time she need to sort her papers. As if we cared. Later when I started to cough she said, “So, it’s ok to cough in class then but not to sort your papers!”

She was overactive and couldn’t sit still, she shouted at me once. But again, there were moments when she behaved normal and you could actually have a conversation with her. Then of course, I was in the group...

Despite the strange company I actually warmed to them after four days and was sad to leave them.

One evening I decided to attend the healing mass in the village church. I thought it would be a great way to join village life. But alas there were only three old ladies attending, which made me feel old too. Despite the low attendance the priest wore the full regalia and followed the whole ritual as if the church had been full.

When the healing thing started I joined the three other ladies kneeing at altar as the priest started to put his hand on the first lady’s head. In my head I started think that the priest saw us as his bitches. It took the seriousness out of the situation.
I am in deed a heathen.

The week went fast and before I knew it I was back in Brixton. As I came up from the tube station I was met with the sirens of police cars and the Brixton Road was blocked off because a young man had been hit on his head and there was blood everywhere. His girlfriend was in chock and a police woman spoke with her as the boyfriend was driven off in the ambulance.

Home sweet home, or?

Help!

Can someone please get me out of this dump, I can’t stand it anymore! Sadly, I have no choice but to stay put since I can’t afford to move out. It’s a disgrace that housing could be this poor.

First we have the external area to deal with as in the road the house is located. For example, the other evening when I came home at around 10 or 11 there was a girl across the road. She was wearing only jeans and no top. She was topless!

She was banging on a door and shouting at the guy inside to let her in. She was high as a kite but I was concerned about her wellbeing. Another neighbour came out and talked to the girl. I left it at that and went into my flat. I then looked through my window and more people had come out to discuss the situation with the topless lady. Eventually the guy came out and threw her clothes at her. I can seriously live without the drama.

A few days later the a police car arrived at the halfway house across the street and the dude living there was out on the street shouting at the coppers about some guy kicking the door in. A police van arrived and officers ran into the house and came out with a young man in cuffs. Later a housing association car drove up to the house and boarded it up. Now I wonder where the guys in the halfway house got to live. I hope they are not homeless!

It’s not any better in the back of the building. I try to clean it up every now and then but it just keeps getting filthy. But I don’t give up and I am quite proud with the result. (See the before and after pictures.)

Before cleaning:

After cleaning:

 

When you have tackled the external environment you enter the building itself and are met with a huge pram park. We have at least ten to fifteen prams in the entrance hall. People are clearly overcrowded in the tiny flats!

 

As I walk up the stairs to my flat I have to evade the hoodies that use our building as a hang out place when it rains or is too cold to be outside. After all those obstacles I finally reach my dump of a flat.

I used to think that I live alone but not anymore! I share my little space with mice, cockroaches, spiders and some dumb insect that surprisingly have not been extinct yet. It’s a tiny black little bug that hardly ever moves so it’s dead easy to kill it. Strange little creature. And finally I have my little fungus mushroom growing in the bathroom.

I had enough of this - can someone please get me out of here? Cameron?

Bob Marley

I went to Ritzy and saw a preview of the documentary Marley. It was brilliant. I have seen many documentaries about Marley before but none of them has been as moving as this one. It brought up the darker sides of his character like his problems to trust people, his perfectionism and the effect it had on the people around him and how hard it was for his children to grow up with the phenomenon Bob Marley. It was a loving portrait of a man who lived a difficult life and I balled my eyes out when it came to his illness and death.

It is funny but I just recently saw a documentary about Queen and Freddy Mercury. The two films and the two men had some resemblances. Both had difficult childhoods, both were extremely gifted and talented and both were committed to their music. The tragic is that they both died when they were on the top of their greatness and on the verge of divine proportions. Don’t miss this film!

I think it probably takes a nutter to become really successful. An extreme workaholic, perfectionist and obsession to succeed. All this usually means disaster for the people closest to the genius in question like the partners, children, parents and friends. It’s a good thing I’m just an average person, I am too lazy to be a genius or even going close to develop my potential. I think we all have it in us but as I said it takes a nutter to fully live it out.

In the film, Marley talks about living in Trench Town, the ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica and how people from the ghetto were treated, particular dreadlocks.

The relationship between rastas and the police in the Caribbean are very similar as the situation in the UK between the police and black young men. Brixton has about fifty-fifty of white as blacks and everything in-between but in the ten years I lived in Brixton I have never seen white young men being stopped and searched by the police. But never a week passes without I have seen young black men being stopped. If this is not harassment then I don’t know what is.

I am lucky to never been stopped in this way and if I would I would feel like I have been abused and like to make a complaint somewhere. But for the British people with brown skin colour this is a daily experience, either on personal level or it happened to a friend, a brother, partner or son. This has to stop!

The other day when I was walking back from my GP I saw a road block up the road by the police. As I came closer there were 11 (!) officers investigating a young black man. He was standing on the pavement being questioned by two officers whilst the others were standing around being intimidating. In his car there was an old man sitting in the front, probably his granddad or something. I am pretty sure the two of them had done no crime what so ever. How can this be allowed?

One evening I got disturbed by noise outside my window and I, curious as I am had to take a look and there was a police van that had stopped two black teenage boys. They checked their ID and their pockets and then let them go. How does that make you feel? No wonder we get riots ever now and then. There is an anger brewing in our society and the police are increasing the heat under the pot.

Or as Bob Marley express it: “These are the big fish who always try to eat down the small fish...”

Swenglish

I have lived in England for almost fourteen years now and it makes me feel Swenglish, particularly when I go back to Sweden for visits. The contrast between England and Sweden is enormous. It’s not like travelling between two countries is more like going to a different planet. It takes a lot of time for me to adjust to planet Sweden and I feel like a moron, completely out of touch with how things work.

The living standard in Sweden is so much higher than what I come across in England. I am sure there must be some poor people lurking about somewhere it’s just that I never see them. All my friends and family are firmly middleclass and live in nice houses or flats in amazing neighbourhoods.

Whenever I come to my sister’s house I can spend hours just playing with the water tap in the bathroom. The cheer joy of a tap that actually blends the water! With an easy press the water comes out, mixed to a comfortable temperature, not boiling hot or freezing cold just perfect mix of the two. The toilets always flush with a soft touch on a button. You don’t have to spend five minutes flushing and praying to God that your excrement will disappear!

The first day or so in Sweden, I struggle with the language and usually make words in half-English and half-Swedish. Luckily most people in Sweden do speak English so they are able to decode my homemade Swenglish. My nieces and nephew used to find it hilarious when they were little.

My sister also told me that I use an English sentence structure rather than a Swedish. Strangers must think I am retarded or something. I mean I look Swedish and normal but act as a moron.

The technology is also very advanced. I am not even sure I can manage to do food shopping on my own anymore. It’s too technically advanced for me. I therefore love to go to the supermarket with my sisters. Everybody bring their own bag, designed to fit perfectly into the shopping trolley.

You often start your shopping by going into a side room where you can dispose your empty pet bottles, glass bottles and cans in specially designed holes in the wall. Everybody do exactly as you are told and are very careful not to put the pet bottles in the can hole and so on. For the trouble you get paid in form of a receipt that can be deducted from your total bill at the till. You get about 0.10p per bottle.

When you disposed your bottles you walk into to the proper shop and there you grab a scanning machine from a wall full of scanners and then you simply scan your items before you pack them into to your purpose designed bag. When you come to the till you use another machine to read your scanner and then you slot your card into the machine and out comes a receipt and your shopping is completed. I am amazed!

You can also choose to use a manned till if you do not wish to use a scanner but even then you are met with machines where you slot your coins and so forth and I feel like I am at an attraction at Disney World or something. As a Swenglish person I always do all this things in the wrong order and get confused and that is when I feel like a moron.

My last visit to Sweden was over the New Year and the nature was fantastic. I went up North, about three hours car ride North of Stockholm to a county called Dalarna. My sister is part of a commune there. One of those shared homes that were so popular with the lefties during the seventies. This is a sort of commune second home. It is lovely located on the top of a mountain.

And the views are fantastic!

We slept in bunker beds and each room can fit up to six people but I only shared with my sis and her hubby. You have cute little curtains on your bed and I felt like I was in the film Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe.

The cute sink

My sis I woke up early and had breakfast to the most amazing sunrise in the quiet kitchen heated by a wood burner.

When I opened the cupboard I saw something in the corner of my eye and it turned out to be an exposed little mouse. Since I had opened the door the mouse couldn’t get away so we stood there looking at each other for a while until the mouse made a kamikaze jump down to the floor and disappeared under the sink.

After our breakfast sis went out to collect wood and sort out the pine tree that fell over an electric wire during the storm a few nights previous.

On New Year 's Eve we grilled our meat over the open fire in the dining room and had a great meal over a heated political debate. At twelve we went out and sent off lanterns over the woods and I was terrified we would cause a forest fire!

That’s it. 2011 is over and 2012 is here and my new life is supposed to start.

I’m still waiting...