Sorry I haven’t been around much this week – I’ve been preparing for the Big Day – which is today! And guess what? I’ve been looking forward to it so much that last night I couldn’t sleep and now I feel knackered. Not only that, but the weather, having been brilliant all week, has now turned dodgy. God, why do you hate me? The forecast all week was looking good, but now they’re forecasting showers at one. The good news is that afterwards it will clear up and the sun will peep through. But I’m seriously not impressed. It has to clear up by four, OK?
I’ve gone from worrying that we won’t have enough people to worrying that we might have too many; and from worrying that we won’t have enough food to being fairly confident that we do: however I am troubled by the question of cups. Cups! For god’s sake! That’s the trouble with worrying – there’s no end to it; and the thing that you seem to be worrying about isn’t the problem at all.
The problem, I think, is this: this party is more than a party to me; it’s more even than a housewarming: it’s a kind of rite of passage. It has a deeper meaning to me; it represents moving on, in many different ways; ‘coming out’ in so many different ways.
The story went like this: first we lived in a horrid house. It had plaster peeling from the walls, no heating and dodgy electrics. The toilet blocked frequently and nothing that went wrong could ever be fixed. But it was cheap; very cheap, and we could run a business from there. When we were given notice to quit, I was ecstatic, but I was also scared. Where would we end up? We had no more money than we had when we moved in – how could we possibly move on to somewhere nice?
Then this place came up. Mark put some notices in windows on Queen’s Rd, and we got a call. I looked the place up on Zoopla and realised it was far too expensive; still, there was no harm in looking. I came, I looked, and I loved it. The owner was very pleasant; we got on well. Then came the moment of truth; over a cup of tea I asked her to name her price. And when she did, I nearly fell through the floor. It was not only about 2/3 of what Zoopla said; it was within our price range.
We went home; we thought about it; we meditated and we said yes. So the impossible can happen – and yes, miracles do take longer. But they happen too. We have been very happy here and I feel it represents so much to us in terms of moving on in life. So in the end, the rain doesn’t matter: in the end I shall bloody well go out and dance and sing and shout in the rain if I want to. In the end, food doesn’t matter – we will have enough, and if we don’t we’ll send out for more. What matters is sharing this experience, the incredible miracle that this house represents to us.
See y’all later, rain or shine!
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 