In this post I described how, aged 12, I used to do my homework on a Singer sewing-machine table in the room next to the kitchen, when I first arrived in a Victorian house on the Isle of Wight.
Fifty-three years later, I move to another Victorian house – this time a little worker’s cottage – and yesterday bought a Singer sewing machine (its capacity to sew not guaranteed) as a computer table for Karleen. Here she can preside over the household, and should she so wish, gaze over the garden fence at the Pastures up on the hill: pastures no longer, for in the late twentieth century, housing was needed more. My own computer will be upstairs, from which I can gaze out on the same view; for if I cannot be actually in the open air, I always wish to be aware of it sensually. Let me see the shared world, breathe its scents, hear its sounds, feel its vibrations! I shall miss the way the other apartment shook slightly when a long freight-train passed. Here, in Jubilee Road, it’s a one-way street and you hear little traffic noise, but the sound of children: there is a public playground at the end of the tiny backyard.
At the front, neighbours greet one another. The mosque is down the street and it being Ramadan there is much activity there. Some of the backyards are wastelands of discarded junk, a sure sign of new tenants getting rid of previous mattresses and unwanted furniture. We are dependent on one another in various ways. If I have a water leak, there is no stopcock to switch it off in my house. I have to turn off a tap down a little hole in an alley that leads to several backyards, and it will turn off the water to the three houses on either side as well as my own. The street is narrow with scarce parking, so if you have a van unloading your goods, it blocks other vehicles: but everyone is patient and forbearing. I keep my parking spot when I can and walk to my destination. Desborough Road nearby has most of what we may need: computer parts, pizza, post office, stationery store, internet cafe, Chinese take-out food, laundromat, bakery, Polish delicatessen, car spares, real hardwood furniture, custom-made sofas, the best old-fashioned ironmonger in the country, etc.
On this first day that Karleen goes back to work, I have the Internet at home, through the kindness of the previous owner in letting me use his account, and the infuriating complexity of Telecomms provision.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Sounds like it will be a beautiful new “fit” for you and K – a perfect blend of separation and independance, with the interdependance/interconnection of neighbors. We buy our *privacy* and insulation from neighbors at a huge human cost.
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Sounds great. I love older homes myself, grew up in one built c. 1800.
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Thanks Hayden, I was thinking of you actually as I was writing it, as the kind of post you might write!
And nice to hear from you too Paul. I was drawn to this house and this proletarian area by impulses that I don't understand, but they have built up over the last year or so: forsaking the middle-class, valuing the traditional, especially in neighbourliness where the local Muslims embody values which seemed to have disappeared amongst the white natives. Example: I had to hire a ladder to fix the TV aerial but my next-door neighbour's son helped me erect it on his way to work and his father later chided me: I should have borrowed his. Much discussion of routing the cables, via which we visited one another's houses, the engineering mission being the front for getting to know one another better. Then he performed some magic. No picture on the TV from the satellite dish. More discussion. He proposed I switch off the decoder box, wait twenty seconds, switch back on. It worked!
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So many gadgets these days are actually small computers.
The switch off-switch on technique is a way of re-booting the device, just like you would a computer.
I have found that the same technique works for my mobile phone.
There is a kind of thrill along with the stress of a move. Getting settled in, finding a home for all your stuff. Discovering all the nooks and crannies. Trying out different configurations of furniture to suit your needs.
Painting, cleaning and sweeping to hide the evidence of the past residents. Finding that you like some of what the previous residents did with the place. On and on it's a discovery process.
Unsettling as it might be, it has always been a joyful thing for me when I move into a new space.
I think we would do better hanging onto less and moving more. We would benefit from a change of scenery once in a while and meet and interact with new people.
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Yes Vincent, enjoy yourself, don't rush, no hurry. I enjoyed this post (as usual), and will be back for more whenever you've the time.
Great looking place, sounds terrific!
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How ingenious to use a sewing machine table as a computer desk! Here you take something that isn't guaranteed to be functional and put it to quite functional use! I bet you'd be good at feng shui.
I hope you and K enjoy your new location.
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Lovely!!!! 🙂
May I put this picture in my blogpost about steampunk?
Cheers,
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O yes, you may, Anna-lys. It would have looked better without the speakers but it was K's workstation, not mine, until she opted for a modernistic one instead: aluminium and frosted glass, which has the virtue of good ergonomics.
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