ECHO 18/2/06

Home like some odd, raggedy palace on the high road eastwards, not far from Marlowe’s haunt, the river a whisper on the other side of a council estate where it branches into muddy creeks and inlets still populated by warehouses and shady alleyways – far lights and balconies – a room facng the road with exposed wooden floorboards throughout and Victorian fireplaces tiled green still cold – a large annexe where the diocese used to hold their meetings and Church dances and which we hope will become our play and party den – the attic space is full of junk and old wooden beams – Pol does so well all day, suffering from almost incapacitating pains and back problems she carries on with barely any complaints pulling at the cases and boxes and bags (our meager possessions this time round), shuffling a new space to make it home – meanwhile we find our feet in the city once again: the totality of people, the hurried and the harried, the spatially inept, the attitudinal street boys n’ gals and hoodies and skaters and gangstas all pursing their lips in some strange universal challenge or trying to stare people out with iron gazes – and then there is the river here, with its one –eyed spies and swindlers, the charlatans of the north bank watching, waiting, asking questions of the south with an arch smile and a nod to the past – strange too that I know this place from before, to be familiar with it from almost a decade ago, the doors and the tavern behind –