Plus ça Change

Update time! But what updates do we have for you? We’ve done bookfair stalls in Manchester and Dorset (and almost in London) – where we hopefully failed to infect other kids with chickenpox – we’ve revived our ‘Capitalism, Anarchism, and Mental Health’ talk, enjoyed Revolution and Tea sessions at BASE Social Centre, and rejoined the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair collective – putting on a bonsai bookfair next month, but also a fully-fledged affair next summer (see bristolanarchistbookfair.uk). Last season also saw us debuting our little quarterling at their first big festivals: Grace Petrie at Beautiful Days was amazing. The little ‘un has initially found it hard adapting to the real world routines of kiddy dance, football, and nursery (they haven’t quite articulated that old pseudo-anarchist standby of “Don’t tell me what to do!”, yet), but they’re working it all out.

In other news, next month should see us starting to host regular singing sessions and board games sessions at the house.

In terms of the physical building, we’ve finally signed off on the extension’s completion, and we’ve all been enjoying the luxury of the new wetroom; but obviously not all at the same time – let’s not go wild. The garden trash-heap is fast retreating, and the last of the surplus building materials have almost all been redistributed. The garden mega-shed is still as yet an imaginary construct, but some of us are now turning our gaze towards kitchen re-organisation: a bigger working oven, proper extractor fan, increased food prep area, less flaking lead paint, relocated appliances, and kitchen cupboards completely devoid of rotting wood fibre – these are all the dreams of the people, and the people have spoken! The corrupt fatcat landlord’s received our demands, and will surely give in! We carry a new kitchen in our hearts, blah blah, and won’t stop the quest until domestic dignity is won, etc. etc…*

Somewhat excitingly**, we’ve recently had an energy company (courtesy of Centre for Sustainable Energy) around doing surveys to get us a grant for wall cavity and loft insulation, and we’ve also signed up to a group buying scheme (Solar Together) to get cheap solar PV on our roof. In the process, we’re already half way to bumping up our EPC rating by two pips, which is pretty sweet. That said, we discovered how our mortgage supplier has seemingly moved the goalposts, and are no longer agreeing to reduce mortgage payments in light of the house’s increased eco-efficiency. So I guess saving the environment has got to be its own reward? Pah. To quote the immortal B*Witched: “c’est la vie”.

FOOTNOTES

*It’s hard to be full of revolutionary fervour when we’re both the underclass tenants and landlord scum at the same time, amiright?

**If that’s your definition of exciting, that is.