A quiet week

An exhibition, Polish lessons, some catching up with friends, and a nearly purchased flat.

What to do?

We talk about what we are going to do when we are finally moved in and most of the house is ‘done’. It will never be ‘done’ as there will always be details, but you can put a lot of minor stuff off.  I am keen to study. I want to find some online courses where I can delve into history, literature, anything that grabs me.

Stefan, I now learn, has always wanted to sculpt. I think he means carve, as he loves wood with a passion. He was especially interested in the Hepworth carvings we saw at the Tate, and they were terrific. We shall see.                                              

    

Crummy pic, as not allowed!

Teaching

I closed the studio and didn’t miss it. I still had a couple of teaching commitments and they were feeling like left overs to the work. Not actually working but still teaching a bit feels like a disconnect and I want now to have a clean break.  I had a gig at West Dean, and a future gig at Morley, and have shifted both onto Peter Binnington, who is every bit as capable as myself. He wants the work, I don’t.

Compare and contrast: interaction between strangers in other European countries and in the U.K.

Laura, my friend, has been spending a lot of time on a course in a small town in  Germany. She compares interacting with strangers over there and in her small town in the UK. It is noticeable to her how much more easily people laugh and smile in the UK than over there.

Growing up in London, which is a big city and in theory should not be compared with a small town, I experienced extreme loneliness, but as an adult I feel it is the easiest thing to smile and get a positive reaction from a complete stranger; the British are a lovely and very friendly people. My earlier loneliness had a lot to do with age and lack of confidence.

My experience in Poland is mixed. I see a lot of dour faces there, and an unwillingness to engage. As a foreigner I cannot read them; even making eye contact can be hard, but familiar interaction in the local shops, for example, is delightful, as you would expect.  I have seen Stefan on many occasions fall into easy conversation with total strangers as if with old friends. So if you are on familiar ground and are sure of yourself, it is easy. I was not sure of myself as a teenager in London, and am certainly on unfamiliar ground in Poland.

It does seem to me, though I could be wrong, the Polish are less willing to talk to each other, which may be due to their history. Those years of communism determined their behavior for generations.  I cannot speak for the Germans!

To buy or not to buy

Listening to an article on radio 4 one morning about oversharing on the internet, I wondered about that. I am not going to talk about my insides or my emotional state, which is what they were referring to, but I could mention money.

I have been extremely lucky in my life and though I have not made loads of money through my work, I have however been fortunate in other ways and have managed, within the last 10-12 years, to find the funds to buy property. In 2004, my second husband and I bought our first London flat, while we were living in San Francisco. I drove that as I could see I would soon need somewhere to live in London. He was 27 years older than I, and in fact he died the next year, at 87. I lived in that flat, then much later, when my mother and father needed care together with Stefan we moved into my parent’s house and rented it out.  Later, I was able with son Laurie, to buy two further flats.  Now all three are successfully rented out.

So, where does the ‘oversharing’ bit come in?

I self-conscious about this. Though I have done nothing wrong, the fact is I am part of the have society. I would guess the great majority of my generation in the UK own property, and many have property they rent out, too. How can I not be aware that many of us are coming from a colossally privileged place? Look at how difficult, impossible it is for young people now to buy. 

However, that said, this week we nearly bought another flat. Laurie wanted to invest some savings and wanted a return on them. I wanted to help, so I said, lets try. I investigated and very quickly found out what has happened in the year since I bought the last flat. The prices for the kind of flat I would want have rocketed! It seems that ex local authority flats are now the most desirable, though they carried a stigma for years as they used to have council tenants, of course. But by now, most of them are privately owned and rented out, so the demand has shot up and driven up the prices.  With oil crashing, people need still to invest, so they are after property. It seems, with government making noises about tax increases and various regulations, things are hotting up and there may be a bubble of some sort forming, and we know what happens to bubbles.  Upshot, I am out of there. Lets leave things as they are, Laurie can invest somewhere else and we carry on.

Next week, maybe some more pictures of something fun.