Do you think this is right?

It’s been a while since my last entry and I can only blame Christmas, New Year and anyone and anything else who happens to raise themselves into the ‘my fault’ firing line.

But really it has been laziness.  I hate winter.  It saps all the energy and creative juice from me and I am reduced to keeping warm and watching the rain wash the windows and feel the wind rock the lorry.  However, I have been making shelves and a new table so I suppose it hasn’t been total lethargy.

I’ve also been nursing Mimi who has had a knee operation (in case you don’t know, Mimi is one of the two dogs who share my life, my lorry home and my food.  The other is Blue.  More about them another time.)

I’ve also been planning this blog in my head so I do know what I’m going to talk about today.  It’s about people.  The people I meet accidentally while living on the road.  Not the ones who just walk past and ignore me, but the ones who somehow have a view about my lifestyle and want to express it in some way.  And they are generally in two categories; for and against.

I do occasionally park in the same place for more than two nights but I try not to. I also try to avoid built up areas and streets with homes in, but sometimes that’s not possible and I park in a residential street, and that’s what I did one day just before Christmas, in Sheffield, visiting a friend.  Not far from her house, there is a flat, broad residential street with large houses with large front gardens.  There are parking spaces and permit parking (I have and display a Sheffield visitor’s parking permit).  I had parked there a few times and not for more than one night at any one time.

I had been visited by the police one morning whilst parked in this street.  They said they had been phoned by someone complaining about me.  They had been told that there was rubbish left around the lorry and that I was causing a nuisance.  On seeing that there was no rubbish and that I was just carrying on my law-abiding way of life, they wished me good morning and went their way.  But I knew I had made a local enemy.

The next time I parked in the same street, it wasn’t long before a gentleman of about my age caught me leaving the lorry in the morning to walk the dogs.  I felt he had been waiting to see me leave and he was angling for a confrontation.  He had been eying me from his front garden a few yards down and you could tell by his body language he wanted a fight. 

“Do you think this is right?” His first gambit with a wave of his hand which included me, the dogs and my home.

I wish I’d had the foresight to say “You mean morally?” but I just said “I’m sorry?”

“All this”, same gesture again, “do you think this is alright?” He obviously thought there ought to be some law that I was breaking just by my very existence.  I asked him whether it had been him who had phoned the police and he said he had.  I told him they had been to see me and confirmed to me that I was not breaking any law.  He seemed very annoyed and disappointed by that. I said that the lorry was my home and tried to engage him with a discussion about the choice I had made to live in it.  He wasn’t having any of it and turned away muttering something about ‘Why this street?” Classic Nimby. Classic prejudice.

The other meeting was with a guy of about the same age who again stopped me as I was leaving with the dogs another morning a few days later.  Just like Nimby man, he had a look as he saw me emerging from the lorry and stopped a few paces down. 

He turned and said “Do you live in there?”  I thought, here we go again and started to brush up my defensive arguments.

“It’s just that I’m an architect and am doing a long term project on living in small spaces for Sheffield City Council.  Would you mind if I talked to you and took a few photos?”

Adrian has become a local friend and has been the serendipitous link to a space in Sheffield I may be moving to shortly.  But that’s the subject of another blog.

Just for the record, I have never taken any Benefits.  I pay National Insurance and Income Tax and parking fees.  My lorry is fully road legal and I try to live ecologically and I separate my waste and dispose of it correctly.

So do you think this is right?

From a road near you, until next time,

Mr Alexander

On the road again (Machynlleth)

If you've never travelled from Craven Arms to Machynlleth down the A489 as I did today then you should try to make time to do so.

This two hour vintage road to the Ancient Capital of Wales winds through the most beautiful countryside of Europe.  Try to time your journey as serendipity did for me on a Sunday morning in late autumn. If you can also russle up little traffic, a cloudless sky, no wind and the sun behind you, then you are in for a magical journey.  I defy any approaching winter blues to dare show themselves on such a day in these surroundings.  I travelled  from haunting hamlets with wonderfully evocative names like Clatter, Carno, Ceri and Commins Coch to old market  towns like Churchstoke, Newtown and Machynlleth itself with tempting carboot sales, shops and café coffees, through broad glacial valleys with streams, rivers, pools and mills, stunning houses and pubs and the most breathtaking vistas of the sort only the Borders and wonderful Wales can offer.  And if you carry on, you will find the sea creeping up on you beyond Machynlleth as you round the corner North up to the enchanting Aberdyfi which is where I am writing this week’s blog. There’s nothing more to say.  Just do it. I guarantee it. Two hours that will stay with you forever.

I discovered the road totally by accident.  I’m sure there are other roads to West Wales but this one is THE road to travel.  I had stopped off near a friend’s house south of Shrewsbury in a wonderful village called Snailbeach, with superb views of the Marches and a Village Hall with an honesty box charged car park (in case you’re wondering, I paid £2) where I stopped for the coldest night of the autumn so far. This morning, the satnav directed me South then West. I am taking two days to work my way up from Petersfield in Hampshire where yesterday I did an evening’s Mix and Mingle Magic in a Mall called Ram’s Walk.  Actually that reminds me.  On the road today there were wonderful signs.  I love roadside signs on the old A and B roads.  Not the formal official ones but the hastily scribbled or painted efforts trying to catch the passing trade. Today’s second favourite was

Ram’s

for Sale

And of course the mistaken apostrophe shouted at me – Ram’s what for sale? Poo perhaps or maybe even balls! Special attention for ewe?  Any other suggestions?

And the other intriguing first favourite

Morning Sticks for Sale

Apparently it’s an old name for kindling.  Not something that would be made by the man who gave this talk, discovered on a sign at my destination in Aberdyfi;

It is days like today that confirm the simple rightness of my travelling life and the decision I made to live on the road. I found a lovely quiet free carpark in Aberdyfi and after a long beach walk with the dogs, a read of the paper and a delicious Day 2 pasta (always nicer than Day1), I’ve lit a fire and am settling down for a quiet early night and a film before the Cat’s Paw Theatre shows at Twywn School tomorrow. Yes it is a wonderful way of living and I think the thing I love best about it is the simplicity.  In my lorry I only have things I use or are beautiful.  Ideally both.

To see what I mean, try the Teaspoon Test.  Go into your kitchen now, or the next time you’re in there, open the cutlery drawer and count your teaspoons.  The last time I lived in a house I did it. 18 teaspoons.  If I had 18 people in that house at any one time I wouldn’t have been able to move!  And even then they would all have needed to stir their tea at the same time to justify having all those teaspoons.  But there they were  - 18 of them.  And as for all the rest of the clutter of living, well I’m sure you know what I mean.  And I bet the one favourite teaspoon you use all the time is there on the top.  Or maybe it’s still in the washing up bowl…

I now have two teaspoons.  And one coffee spoon.  All three are platonic spoons.  Isobel called them that. What is a platonic spoon?  (Well please don’t do as I once did, go into a silverware shop and ask for a platonic spoon.)  They are just perfect spoons.  Silver plated. Classically simple and, for me, they must be made in Sheffield. And I don’t need more than three.  Arguably I don’t even need three.  It’s just that one teaspoon always loses itself in the drawer. 

Till next week, all the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Mr Alexander’s Travelling Blog

Introduction

Well let’s begin with an introduction.  A good place to begin; a rather formal blog from a rather formal bloke.

I’m Mr Alexander, proprietor, owner and sole performer of Mr Alexander’s Travelling Show.  Magic, juggling, unicycling, balance and illusion.  And occasionally fire.  Eating, juggling and body-burning. Oh and two small white dogs, Mimi and Blue. And no they don’t eat fire and I don't juggle with them! More about them another time but they would be upset if I didn’t mention them early on.

I do have a first name, and you could probably find it out easily enough, but most people call me Mr A or Mr Alexander and I prefer it like that, so let’s continue as we started; rather formally.

If you are reading this because you have seen the show and heard me mention the blog then I hope you enjoyed the show and hope you also enjoy the blog. The blog’s a chance for me to tell you a bit more about myself in a little more of a personal way and also tell you about some of the amazing things I have done in this incredibly lucky life I continue to lead.

If you are reading this for any other reason; accident, curiosity, mistake, then do read on, but please also try and come to see the show soon.  Details of where I am performing are on my website and I try to keep it up to date.  And please don’t feel shy about coming up after the show to say hello – I’ll even show you a personal piece of magic if you ask…

The blog will also be a diary of things I’m up to and am planning so I hope you’ll find that interesting too.  I might also let you into some of those magic secrets magicians go on about.  I don’t mind talking about some of these to my special friends, and if you’re reading this, that’s what I shall consider you are from now on.

Magic of course is brilliant.  Everyone needs a little magic in their lives and I love bringing magic into people’s lives.  The first trick I ever learned was the coin roll.  I hope you’ve seen me do it.  It’s the one where the coin rolls over my fingers and seems to have a life of it’s own. It’s really finger juggling, but most people like to see a little finger juggling as an introduction to the magic. It’s magic too, in a way. You can learn to do it too.  All it takes is practice and the right size of coin.  If you see me after the show I will give you a personal lesson in how to do it.  One of the things I am always saying is Practice makes Progress. Not ‘Perfect’, by the way.  Nobody is. We all make mistakes and I’ve made quite a few which I will tell you about sometime, but making mistakes is almost the best way to learn.  No-one ever learned to ride a unicycle without falling off it a great deal first! Failure is on the road to Success. End of today’s Life Magic Lecture!

A little more about myself and we’ll call it a day for Blog 1. I live in a lorry and it’s a lovely lorry.  It’s  a Ford Iveco 0609 Cargo specially converted from an old NHS screening vehicle.  It’s a B reg, 1985. Here's a photo of it, with my stage trailer in tow.  I have lived in a house but not any more.  The only thing I miss about a house is the garden.  It seems to me though that I can drive to many beautiful gardens and when I do the show in the grounds of a wonderful country house or right by the seaside I have a different garden to look out at every day, and this more than makes up for it.

In the lorry I have a double and a single bed, a sofa and comfy chairs, a wood burning stove, oven, grill, hob, sink, fridge, satellite tv, dvd player, a radio and great sound system, a shower, toilet and wash basin with hot and cold water and loads of cupboards all with useful things in.  Oh and a chandelier. (Well I told you I was formal). I say if it’s in the lorry it has to be beautiful or useful and ideally both.    Some of the things (the sofa and the bed for example) double up.  I have lots of photos and pictures on the walls and it is really cosy, especially on cold nights with the wood burner going.  I like to think I live much closer to nature than most people, but really it feels like living closer to the road.  The road and I know each other very well.  I really don’t understand why more people don’t give up brick houses and take up homes with wheels.  But that’s a story for the next blog.

Until then, goodbye for now. More next week and I’ll write a new blog a week from now on.  Add me as an RSS feed and you will receive it automatically. Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander