Clattermonger

From April on, I’m going to be working for Skills Matter, out in Clerkenwell, as a Community Manager. Which means I no longer need a home office. Which means we can convert the 2nd downstairs room into a family room. It is a warm, light room with a garden-facing window and a radiator that keeps the place snug, so it will be a great room to hang out.

At present, the room works very hard to free up the rest of the house. It houses all our CDs, DVDs, videos, my four guitars, a 3-seat sofa, the high-backed armchair that matches the chaise longue, all our paperwork and stationery, umpteen year’s worth of print photos, paper back-ups of all my writing, the printer, the old iMac, all our electronic gear, the telephone and wireless router, our back-up software, the lad’s toys, three shelves’ worth of O’Reilly samples accumulated over the years, the shredder, a dozen years’ worth of receipts and all manner of crap we should have chucked out years ago. And it’s the room we spend most time in, so it generally has two deck chairs taking up the middle of the floor.

Our carpenter Chris Aldridge, who has built us bookcases, wardrobes, and who fixed the fence for us the year before last, which in itself was the catalyst for the great garden revival, fitted us a floor-to-ceiling shelf unit in the alcove by the window on Tuesday, and measured up for more shelving and a desk for the opposite alcove. This unit will house the CDs, DVDs and a home recording studio for me – the 4-octave keyboard and monitors arrived midweek. As pretty much all the music we listen to in the house is played via iTunes and Spotify these days, we don’t need all the CDs around, so we’re pairing them down to just those we might play in the car – the rest will go in the loft, though I’m sure at sometime we’ll ditch them. As far as videos go, we went through the ones we watch most regularly, eg Bowfinger, and ordered them on DVD from Amazon. The rest, but for a few which are unavailable, like Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure, are going into the loft. And we’ll pair down the DVDs to just those we need ready access to.

We’re going to order a new flatscreen tv to go over the fireplace, which might or might not get ripped out, depending on whether we can find a plasterer to patch it up if I pull it out. We’re going to get a small desk for the lad to sit at when he’s a little older, and a box for his toys. Et voila, a family room, carpeted and with interesting pictures on the wall. The TV in the front room will go, which means there will be room for the high-backed armchair in there, making it a real sitting room.

We spent a cathartic Sunday chucking out and shredding old bank statements, O’Reilly documents, catalogues etc, 12 bags of rubbish/recycling all told. That felt good. A lot of the box files with stuff we probably won’t need for a long time, like stuff relating to previous house sales etc, can go in the loft, which is dry and out of the way. We still have to figure out where the iMac is going to go, though the temptation is to buy an iPad when the new one is announced.

This week was half term, and Allyson joined Fi, Mike and myself in work-free, carefree revellry. Monday we went to Hastings for the day, which was just lovely. We ate outside at the same fish and chip shop, The Mermaid, where early last year I was hit by a fish-head thrown by a gull as we were eating. No such incident happened this time, fortunately.

Thursday, we took the train to Peckham Rye to see Lyndon Hayes and Jo Smith. Lyndon did The Scaremongers covers and is doing a drawing of the boy for his Mum’s Christmas present. We had a lovely lunch in Peckham Rye Park and then walked back via Dulwich and Tulse Hill. It was the first gorgeous day of the year, in fact since the boy was born in November, so we got him out of the pram and into his Baby Bjorn. For the first time, we had him facing out toward the world, (rather than in toward my chest) and I think he liked it. He’s such an alert kid with a strong neck, and it seems cruel to keep him pegged in if the weather allows.

Friday, Fi took him off to Balham to see one of his pals, so I got the house to myself for a few hours. I got a *lot* done. In the garden, I planted Jasmine to go around the summerhouse, crocuses and tulips, and I weeded. I need to plant the meadow, which will be all I intended to do out there this summer, I think I’m going to be too busy.

Back inside, I built a small website at smithylad.com, (which at present looks shamefully like Tom Taylor’s site, as I’m leaching his css – sorry, Tom, but yours is exactly how I want mine to look. I *will* change it, but I’m not sure how) and arranged for clattermonger.com to point at this blog. I answered a lot of email, and ordered a new mobile phone, did my washing, which had been piling up. I contacted two venues for Ignite Music, as we are going to have way too many people for the Horse and Groom.

I worry that my 2 month break from work will result in nothing, that I won’t have created anything new, won’t have built anything new, organised anything, finished off any existing projects etc. This is probably the one time in my life where I’m going to get a lump of time like this, and it’s going to break my heart if I waste it. These weeknotes are my way to tell myself I’m doing alright, that there are things I’m doing which I’ll be pleased with myself for doing. It’ll never be enough for me, obviously, but something is better than nothing, and I’m doing a lot more than something.

The pleasure of waking up Monday morning – indeed the pleasure of going to bed on a Sunday night – without the thought that a new week of work is looming was immense. With nothing to do, we took ourselves off to Hampton Court, the three of us and pal Mike, where we visited the maze (rather than the house), the tea shop, (great cakes!) and took a walk through Bushey Park to Kingston. It was fantastic going into Waterstones in the Bentall Centre as a customer and not as work.
I’ve really missed that kind of mid-week, for the fun of it, lazy day – I used to do tons of it when I was younger, but these days there never seems to be time.

Tuesday my colleague Caitlin came around to declassify the Mac that work is letting me keep. It was cathartic to see a pal from O’Reilly, especially someone I’m keen to keep up with. We had biscuits, we had jaffa cakes, we had sausage and egg. A lovely way to sign off from the old place. I think that’s the last dealings I’ll have with them in an official capacity after 12 years. It’s going to take a long time to sink in, I think.

With regards the laptop, I’m going to make it my music computer. I have a dozen projects in my head that I need a proper set up for. I particularly need a decent-sized keyboard – I’ve been trying to work with a two-octave midi thing, and for what it is it’s perfectly alright, but I need to get both my hands on the keyboard. I also ordered an East-West Virtual Orchestra, which is going to be great fun to play with.

Wednesday I made a bit of soup – my first for a few months, predominantly carrot and potato. Chris Aldridge, the carpenter we’ve used for so much of our home improvements, came around to measure up for bookshelves in the office. I won’t be working from home from now on, so the spare room which for 8 years has been taken up with a desk, printer etc is going to become a family room. My music stuff is still going to be in there, but generally we want it to be a fun place that can get bashed about without worry. Of particular concern are the towering, free-standing bookshelves, which we’re fearful could be pulled over once Arlo starts to move around. To get the room right, we need to pull the 1950s fireplace out, (I like it, Fi doesn’t), carpet throughout, and decide what other furniture we need to have. We need to ditch a sofa or two, but they’re proving tough to let go of.

Thursday I was in the Soup Studios in Shoreditch, where ostensibly I was putting the finishing touches to Love Songs from the Feral Park by The Ephemerals. I haven’t dared listen to the mixes yet. I can’t afford the time nor the money to right anything that might be wrong, so I’m stuck with anything I’ve got. I dread them not being good enough, therefore I haven’t had the guts to line them up and press play. I think this anxiousness contributed to the puking session I had on Thursday night, which also meant Friday was a write-off, the best I could do being to sit on the couch holding Arlo while we watched the first series of House. Saturday we babysat Ariadne for friends Zoe and Alex, which was crazy stressful, even though they were lovely and Ariadne was as good as gold. And Sunday we went to a vintage show at Finsbury Town Hall, which Mike and I walked around with Arlo while Fi and Allyson went in to peruse the goods.

A lovely week, though we found a mouse in the kitchen, in the cooker to be precise. I put a jaffa cake on a mousetrap and went to bed!

I’m a big fan of the Weeknotes that various people I admire write at the end of the week. I’m not sure if I have the discipline to keep it up, so this is more liable to work as occasional notes.

The big news as far as I’m concerned is I no longer work for O’Reilly. I was laid off on the 3rd Feb. I’m a bit raw about it as yet, as you might imagine, and I’m not going to go into details in a public place like the Internet, so I’m only going to write about the positive side of it. One of the upsides is I don’t have to work the notice period, so in theory I have 3 months of salary in the bank and nothing to do except make sure I have work to pay the mortgage at the end of it. If you’re a pal of mine, tweet me on smithylad and I’ll let you know of my plans, (which for the record, I’m very excited about).

The 4th Ignite London took place on Tuesday 8th, (my wedding anniversary – my wife took the news rather well. Thanks, Fi) and it was glorious. So many great speakers. The Guest Speakers were all superb – thanks Al, Ant, Max and Tom – and all the people who put themselves forward stepped up wonderfully. I won’t name highlights, because that would be unfair on the people who I don’t name, but no one let us down, everyone got a laugh, a gasp, a hearty round of applause or all of those. The cheer of the night probably belonged to Paul Downey, with a slide showing his Bile Card, which read ‘In the event of my death, it is my wish that my spleen is harvested and thrown forcefully at the editor of the Daily Mail’. Something like that. Paul was at school with Steve Whitfield, who produced The Scaremonger’s album Born in a Barn. Small world.

Equally as exciting is Ignite Music, which I’m putting together with Rob Dix from Partisan PR. It’s going to take place at the Horse and Groom on Great Portland Street in London in the evening of the 19th of April. Matt Sheret of Last.fm has agreed to be a Guest Speaker. The first Ignite Music is bound to be a proof of concept affair, so who knows how it’s going to go. But it’s going to be very exciting finding out. More details to follow.

I got into the garden for the first time this year, in fact for the first time since the lad was born. My good friend Mike helped me plant a plum tree, a pear tree and a nectarine tree. We also shifted a couple of olive trees around. This year’s meadow seeds arrived from Pictorial Meadows – I went for short stalked plants this time around as last year they wrapped around each other and dragged themselves down. Hopefully shorter plants should rectify that. Photos to follow.

Went to see the Boy Armitage talk at Kings Place. He was on a panel with Martin Carthy, Hugh Lupton, Chris Woods and someone from the Times whose name I missed. The topic of their 40 minute talk was Anon – orphaned works. Interesting-ish. After a half hour break, Chris Woods and Martin Carthy did a set, some of which was stunning. Though I did fall asleep 4 or 5 times during the set. Eh, it was warm and cosy and I’m a mammal – what do you expect. We grabbed a pint with Richard Watson and his pal afterward. Richard has just finished recording an album with Bernard Butler, which was great to hear about. And it turns out Richard uses Partisan PR. Everyone knows everyone else.

Saturday afternoon, Arlo and I walked the streets of Pimlico with Rob Jenkinson from my NCT class and his daughter, Matilda, finishing off at The Grapes in Shepherd’s Market. It was a thoroughly lovely afternoon, as was today, around at Mike and Allyson’s, ostensibly to help them with the blog for their block of flat’s website, but they’d done it, so we ate biscuits instead.

These notes have taken about 2 hours, which suggests either a) I’m crap at them or b) they take this long for everyone. I won’t keep it up, I’m telling you!