This is me, dressed to stalk. Sasha wore a tight white mini skirt, low cut white t-shirt and stiletto heels. I felt the more professional stalker.
We met outside the sweet shop, it was 6pm Friday night, we were both clutching a bottle of blue Thunderbirds, a cheap sweet drink for getting drunk quick. We knew the way to his house well now, it was the one just on the corner, we’d skipped lessons during the day to go and watch it. He was at home now. We were very excited. Downing some vile alcoholic liquid for courage we approached the house. Someone was changing in the bedroom above the street door. We breathed in, was it him?! Was he naked! A deep silence came over us. We hung at the gate to the front garden not knowing what to do. Then there was a shriek that made our skin shiver. Who was giving us away? Or was it us loosing control? We panicked and ran down a passage to the side of the house. A small cat slid between our legs. We came upon the dustbins…
As a break from the stalking I’ve been practicing Glass Eye this afternoon in the back garden, with a harmonica and an old plastic flower pot. I’m doing my solo act in Edinburgh at the end of the month, need to get some songs and poems ready. I’m not sure if I’ll use the flower pot.
I like the sound of the trains in the background on this recording, its the District and Piccadilly lines coming into Barons Court station in London.
About a year ago I found some bones in the garden (The Bones in the Back Garden), I will be bashing these together in Edinburgh. They sound good with the song Sin Eater .
I’m also making up a song about Satan having a beach hut.
Below are some pictures of the garden. Its even more over grown now than it was a year ago, but I have made what could almost be described as a patio. I serve afternoon tea and cakes to guests here. If ever you’re around Barons Court pop in. Monty will be pleased to see you.
My overgrown garden about a year agoMy garden from the same angle now.Monty
Please Note: This blog does not in any way advocate stalking!
It was a Wednesday in autumn when we first decided to follow him home. He’d been getting popular at school. The traitor! We’d never actually talked to him, but we knew he knew he was one of us. Now damn it he was beginning to betray us, finding other friends. We had to take action!
We both bunked our last lessons that Wednesday, spent the time wondering round Erith market looking suspicious. We returned to the school gates at five to 4. It was a large school with 2000 students, a lot of them spending time hanging round the school gates, so we weren’t conspicuous. He came out on his own, late, head down, hands in pockets of a well designed overcoat, looking very much alone. We felt a little waft of emotion, he was one of us! Though the overcoat did suggest a level of expensive fashion that we could, despite our shop-lifting escapades, never hope to meet.
We were quite good at stalking. You might think that as teenage school girls we’d be all giggly and silly. We weren’t, we were taking it very seriously. Barely talking to each other at all, just nods and eyebrows.
He walked fast. Down the small roads and alley ways that cover Northumberland Heath. We had to almost jog to keep up with him. It was only because he stopped to get a coke from a grocers that me managed to keep on his track, though Sasha, red faced and gasping for breath, almost gave us away outside the store . We pretended to be fascinated by the marrows. They were big.
On and on he went, till I didn’t know where we were. It was posher than Erith, big houses and large trees lining the roads. He turned a corner into a wide quiet street full of detached houses, and vanished.
We were exhausted, Sasha was almost bent double wheezing and I was feeling very light headed. It was about 6 o’clock and quite dark, we had missed our usual post school activity of stuffing spaghetti hoops in front of horror movies at Sasha’s. We needed replenishment. So it was agreed we’d continue the hunt the following night but right now what we needed was an extra large Mars Bar each and some Nightmare on Elm Street.
Jo Fisher Roberts 