Squat bars to Worshipful Companies

My Google blogger dashboard has finally realised that I am no longer in South America and has readjusted itself to English again. How depressing. But come on now Katie, you have been back in blighty for over 4 months. Perhaps we should let it go...

And, as the title suggests, it has been a varied 4 months. Endometriosis UK continues to benefit from my labors and is now £4,600 richer as a result. Fundraising, I have discovered, is an interesting and unpredictable affair and people are a damn sight more stingy than I previously thought. With all the good will in the world they are still reluctant to actually put their hands in their pockets and are always keen to refer the giving to someone else. The scatter-gun approach of numerous letters drew numerous blanks. Believe it or not, people actually want something for their money! Who would have thought it? A heartfelt appeal to the members of the charity (who happen to be both the beneficiaries and the benefactors) came up trumps and £1,700 has flooded in. Vigorous bucket rattling and chasing people down the street seems to produce a result as well. That really is fundraising in its rawest form and its effectiveness is massively increased when executed by an army of professional street fundraisers who get some sort of philanthropic kick out lightening the pockets of passers by. A party! That's another good one. A line up of excellent DJs, a nice bar overlooking Camden Lock, a miniscule entrance fee of £3 and yours truly dressed up as a bunny girl rattling a bucket does the trick marvelously. So what have I learned so far? Don't rely people's desire to give to good causes, challenge them directly and wear revealing clothing? Hmmmmm. 'Anything for a good cause' they say...

So aside from prostituting myself for charity what have I been up to? Thanks to Charlie and Andrew I have been taken behind the scenes, as it were, through the trendily seedy streets of Shoreditch where Banksy's graffiti adorns cracked walls and derelict tube trains loom from the roofs of tatty 'artistic spaces.' Down side streets to knock on half-concealed doors, which are opened only on the uttering of a name, to reveal dark rooms filled with crouching figures bent over fire places, seated on damp sofas surrounded by rubble. We slunk in nodding to the murmuring faces up-turned to greet us, appearing grotesque in the flickering firelight, when a very nice, well-spoken graphic designer called Sean jumped up, greeted us politely, offered us a glass of wine and went out to get bagels. Bagels? What about the crack?! The residents of the Squat Bar, it turned out, were well-educated, artistic people who were just fed up with the extortionate rents charged in London, didn't mind a bit of squalor and rather enjoyed the verity of constant relocation. Since then they were shunted to an abandoned pub, were offered £2,000 to go away by an ambitious property developer and are now, no doubt, formulating plans to break in somewhere else. There is a certain allure to this life-style without constraints. I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon but it must be a wonderful sense of freedom, if perhaps a smelly one.

I have discovered that hob-nobbing with breakbeat DJs and attending small and considerably cheaper parties is much more preferable to being crushed to death in over-priced super-clubs and have renounced them for the time being. I have established and shamelessly exploited contacts for my fundraising party and have found myself truly back and embedded in the London party scene. For the time being at least. But late nights do not go with early starts and I have had several Saturdays when I have been driven out of bed in order to co-ordinate bucket rattling at underground stations, attend writing workshops or drive down to Shropshire for a weekend in the country.

It is rare to get me out of London. Once there the world seems to end at the M25. Gatwick and Heathrow lie within it, I can leave the country but I'm a hard one to get out of London. So when I arrived in a pretty local country pub deep in Shrophire surrounded by rolling hills and old stone walls, I was not surprised to be greeted by people asking me if I was feeling alright. Having already been asked similar when sitting on the ground with a sleeping bag on Streatham High Street earlier that day, you might have considered me to be on a roll. But that is a different story... Wholesome weekends in the country with long walks, delicious food and many giggles are a hearty antidote to the urban circus.

And then there is the Budget Banquet at Lincolns Inn hosted by the Master of the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors, who happens also to be my father. Up the steps to the Great Hall of Lincolns Inn coats removed and champagne quaffed and I wobble uncertainly on my stilettos aware that I am junior to most of my companions by at least 30 years and tower over most of the room. Conspicuous? Yup. Collin Reid gleefully greeted me and I point out that the last time I saw him he was in a seedy St James member's club with 3 members of the Kings College Choir, all of whom had drank a remarkable amount of potent cocktails, I was reminding him that such innocence as theirs was to be nurtured.... Barry the Bugle then bounded up sporting his 107 tassels (The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors is the 107th and youngest Livery Company). My father is fitted with gold chain and absurd 'bauble' and I am summoned to be the first to curtsey to the Master.
"MISS KATIE NORRIS!!!" bellows Barry the Bugle and gives me a little push in the direction of my father who stands there in all his finery and receives my curtsey graciously. I am followed by my mother and we are ushered into a room where the tables are heavy with bowls overflowing with twiglets. Twiglets?!
City dinner will never cease to amaze me...

Never dull and filled with unexpected elements. Life continues to be diverting, how lucky I am! Now all I need to do is find myself a job that actually pays me some money, a flat to live in and pretend to be a grown up... God forbid.