Guerilla guardening is one of those fine-line illegal activites. It's not legal to plant on other people's land. But for a good cause, and on patches of scrub which no one really owns, it's a squishy area. A less contentious version of permitting graffiti on ugly buildings: the definition of nice graffiti or nasty building is a bit floppy, but no one can argue that flowers are not nice. Except perhaps hay-feverists.
I've joined the new Kings environmental society purely to get involved with it. I love caring for plants - they give you the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with taking care of a living creature, with none of the responsibility that comes with people or pets. I wish I was better at it, but so far the only plant that has survived our house is Leon - the "unkillable" cactus that Friend 1 got me a few years ago. If I don't water it, it just curls up dry until I remember at which point it flowers again. Unfortunately, Basil the mint plant was followed into plant oblivion by Sybil the mint plant (named after The Picture of Dorian Gray, not Faulty Towers. Although that's an interesting observation...). I have a low life expectation for Mr Erskine, my new pink plant, though I am now in the habit of checking it every day.
I met up with the rest of the society at the Library, in the rain, before heading forth to make the City pretty. It was a pretty damp exercise, especially because both my pairs of shoes now have holes, and I'm either too busy, too lazy or too cheap to replace them. Maybe all three. I mean, they are still basically functional...if it isn't raining.
We soon arrived at a long thin patch of earth next to a wall, filled with fag-ends and biro caps. We did a little weeding, and then set out planting. There were two trowels and two pairs of gloves between about 10 of us. I made my own shovel out of a metal box I had appropriated earlier in the day for storing my trading cards. Some people had brought actual plants to be transferred from pots - daffodils and grasses - while others had bags full of tulip bulbs.
I soon stopped noticing the rain. That area of London is beautiful when glowy and shiney anyway. The earth was pretty stoney, but I dunno, some plants like that (she said vaguely...). That was when the police drew up in a squad car.
"Is this some sort of political thing?" one asked. I feel like such an idiot hippy in retrospect, but we smiled and said we were merely planting. When put like that, it had the daft innocence of poking a flower into the barrel of a gun. "Because if it was something against the government," he qualified, "we'd have to stop you". You haven't been able to bring down a government with a bag of tulip bulbs since 68', and the cop turned out to be a friendly one - reminding us not to damage anything that wasn't ours before driving off.
"We're only planting". Add tamborine, harmonica and you've basically got a hippy hit.
I also got chatting with some fab folk, including a girl from Ireland with whom I inexplicably bonded over religion. Even though I'm open minded, religion is one of those topics that I wouldn't dare broach with a stranger, and feel rather timid talking about with even people I know well. Then a girl from Malaysia introduced herself, to which I said "?!?!??!?!??!?!?"
Flashback: some context. When I was about 10, I went on Girl Guide camp to Alderney. To celebrate the Commonwealth Games, each pack adopted a Commonwealth Country and had to do a presentation. We had Malaysia, and we wrote a little rap which I have never forgotten:
"Malaysia has 11 states
150 species of frog
the use the Malaysian ringit
and they export lots of logs.
Oh! Let's go fly a "wa"
instead of driving a car
And then lets go eat chicken satay
because it's better than pate!"
I know. Almost Swiftian in its wit, scope and incisive humanity. But the facts have stuck with me, and so I wittered my entire knowledge of Malaysian culture at her in excitement, and it didn't so much break the ice as subject it to disintigrator beam. Far from shrivelling in terror, she thought it was pretty cool that I had studied her country, even in such a superficial way.
You know, the Girl Guiding movement would be so proud of me.
So, this is what I now know about Malaysia. It is very warm, and the population a mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese - so as you might expect, the food is fab. It is predominantly Muslim, but there's religious freedom and diversity: my new friend is a Christian. As well as indigenous telly, they also get Western TV imported, including (bizzarely) Britain's got Talent; and don't really have their own film industry, though she's recommended me an epic that I intend to track down.
The damage? Well, my nice beige coat has assumed the Androzani look: it's covered in mud, but hopefully it'll brush off when dry. The same goes for my muddy rainbow poncho. I should probably wash my trousers though...I'm a little scared to submit them to the washing machine, because they're my only pair and because they're starting to fall to pieces too. Two friends. And it turned out to be an expensive evening - I've since joined the society, and now I want to do it again and properly: I want my own trowel, my own gloves, and I'm gonna go charity shop hunting this afternoon for a nasty cushion to kneel on.
Finally, thinking about trying:
http://heavypetal.ca/archives/2007/04/operation-moss-graffiti/
I've joined the new Kings environmental society purely to get involved with it. I love caring for plants - they give you the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with taking care of a living creature, with none of the responsibility that comes with people or pets. I wish I was better at it, but so far the only plant that has survived our house is Leon - the "unkillable" cactus that Friend 1 got me a few years ago. If I don't water it, it just curls up dry until I remember at which point it flowers again. Unfortunately, Basil the mint plant was followed into plant oblivion by Sybil the mint plant (named after The Picture of Dorian Gray, not Faulty Towers. Although that's an interesting observation...). I have a low life expectation for Mr Erskine, my new pink plant, though I am now in the habit of checking it every day.
I met up with the rest of the society at the Library, in the rain, before heading forth to make the City pretty. It was a pretty damp exercise, especially because both my pairs of shoes now have holes, and I'm either too busy, too lazy or too cheap to replace them. Maybe all three. I mean, they are still basically functional...if it isn't raining.
We soon arrived at a long thin patch of earth next to a wall, filled with fag-ends and biro caps. We did a little weeding, and then set out planting. There were two trowels and two pairs of gloves between about 10 of us. I made my own shovel out of a metal box I had appropriated earlier in the day for storing my trading cards. Some people had brought actual plants to be transferred from pots - daffodils and grasses - while others had bags full of tulip bulbs.
I soon stopped noticing the rain. That area of London is beautiful when glowy and shiney anyway. The earth was pretty stoney, but I dunno, some plants like that (she said vaguely...). That was when the police drew up in a squad car.
"Is this some sort of political thing?" one asked. I feel like such an idiot hippy in retrospect, but we smiled and said we were merely planting. When put like that, it had the daft innocence of poking a flower into the barrel of a gun. "Because if it was something against the government," he qualified, "we'd have to stop you". You haven't been able to bring down a government with a bag of tulip bulbs since 68', and the cop turned out to be a friendly one - reminding us not to damage anything that wasn't ours before driving off.
"We're only planting". Add tamborine, harmonica and you've basically got a hippy hit.
I also got chatting with some fab folk, including a girl from Ireland with whom I inexplicably bonded over religion. Even though I'm open minded, religion is one of those topics that I wouldn't dare broach with a stranger, and feel rather timid talking about with even people I know well. Then a girl from Malaysia introduced herself, to which I said "?!?!??!?!??!?!?"
Flashback: some context. When I was about 10, I went on Girl Guide camp to Alderney. To celebrate the Commonwealth Games, each pack adopted a Commonwealth Country and had to do a presentation. We had Malaysia, and we wrote a little rap which I have never forgotten:
"Malaysia has 11 states
150 species of frog
the use the Malaysian ringit
and they export lots of logs.
Oh! Let's go fly a "wa"
instead of driving a car
And then lets go eat chicken satay
because it's better than pate!"
I know. Almost Swiftian in its wit, scope and incisive humanity. But the facts have stuck with me, and so I wittered my entire knowledge of Malaysian culture at her in excitement, and it didn't so much break the ice as subject it to disintigrator beam. Far from shrivelling in terror, she thought it was pretty cool that I had studied her country, even in such a superficial way.
You know, the Girl Guiding movement would be so proud of me.
So, this is what I now know about Malaysia. It is very warm, and the population a mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese - so as you might expect, the food is fab. It is predominantly Muslim, but there's religious freedom and diversity: my new friend is a Christian. As well as indigenous telly, they also get Western TV imported, including (bizzarely) Britain's got Talent; and don't really have their own film industry, though she's recommended me an epic that I intend to track down.
The damage? Well, my nice beige coat has assumed the Androzani look: it's covered in mud, but hopefully it'll brush off when dry. The same goes for my muddy rainbow poncho. I should probably wash my trousers though...I'm a little scared to submit them to the washing machine, because they're my only pair and because they're starting to fall to pieces too. Two friends. And it turned out to be an expensive evening - I've since joined the society, and now I want to do it again and properly: I want my own trowel, my own gloves, and I'm gonna go charity shop hunting this afternoon for a nasty cushion to kneel on.
Finally, thinking about trying:
http://heavypetal.ca/archives/2007/04/operation-moss-graffiti/