I don't know why today feels so good. It started at 6.30 with a smashed bottle of white vinegar to clear up while making the children's lunches and objectively you could say, continued in that strain.
Early morning I went to interview an American women for the ACE project. The camcorder packed in half way through and I'm guessing has given up the ghost for good but what she told me has provided such a contrast to previous contributers, (and I was recording the sound on another piece of equipment), that the time was well spent. In her small council house, with teenagers music blaring in the background, she shared her night time memories of a mostly motherless childhood in her homeland of Michigan, USA and of fearful nights awake as a new wife and mother in the UK.
Efforts to engage an innovative local children s' centre in a rundown area have been frustrating me since Christmas. I finally got in the door today, (emblazoned with 'You are now entering a smack free zone' in the window), offering a free workshop in return for some discussion with the women attending. Despite lots of positive noises they were so absorbed in the middle of a move to a new building that is was clear that their time scale wasn't going to fit mine. Yet another dead end.
On a positive note though Rachel, the American women, wants to put me onto more friends of different nationalities, who live in their small council estate, and who grew up in distant countries. Despite my efforts to organise the research, I love the organic way women and circumstance s are leading me from one persons story to another. Perhaps this is a more interesting and 'true' route to take.
