(Elliat)
About an hour away from Manchester England Northeast by bus is Leeds, England. We passed through the hills that were spotted with wild flowers and green pastures with cows, sheep and horses. The hills would part to show us valleys with lakes and old stone farmhouses with amazing views of the landscape and it’s expanse.
As the National Express bus pulled into the downtown station of Leeds, Helena and Melanie stood awaiting our now 15 min. late arrival. Margaritte and I were very glad in deed to see these friendly faces and to know that we were going to receive some help in transporting our now a bit excessive amount of luggage to the squat we were staying at with folks we had met at the queer film fest in Manchester.
After greeting, Helena led the speedy way to H.S. where we would spend the next 4 days (which felt like more than a week at least). The address for the squat was in “little wood house,” which we thought was a description of the actual house (how quaint we thought) but in fact it is the name of the district. The space its self was a large brick building that was once an old Sunday school that was then renovated into student flats that had about 30 rooms. The space had been squatted for about 1 year, but when they moved in there was already some furniture and even old food in the refrigerator. The squat included common space of kitchen and living room, an internet lab, 5 bathrooms (including one for dress up), a free shop, a dungeon/workout room, canning/brewing kitchen, art room, library and last but not least the lavender ‘healing room’ with prayer flags, drying herbs and crystals where Margaritte and I would be staying. We got a mattress from the workout room, set up our stuff and got ready for the film screening that evening where ‘Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona’ and the new ‘Gean Jennet’ video “Piss on yourself” would be screened along with others.
People began showing up and we helped to cut garlic and onions outside in front of the building to make a big bean curry diner that was being cooked up in a fire pit in the front of the house where about 20 people were gathering. On a bunch of different kinds of chairs in various states of dis-repair people sat and ate next to piles of potted plants and veggies that needed a bit of watering. We ate and went inside to watch the films in the now transformed living room turned Movie Theater with our plates of food and glasses of cider.
The next day we wondered around the kitchen gathering up breakfast from the dumpstered (or ‘skipped’) bread and tea with amazing homemade soy milk made by a guy at the house from El Salvador. I wanted to get out of the house so I borrowed a bike and rode to the new squat in town with Jack It was so nice to be on a bike again I have to say, and I was also very glad to be riding with another person so that I didn’t get hit by a car. I was still confused about which sides of the road cars were driving on. The new squat in C.T. had a path of black berries leading to the front door where the locks had been replaced and where there was a post put up by the new inhabitants declaring this space theirs now (this is an actual legal posting since squatting is legal in England). They had been there for less than a week and were still moving in the necessary things like dishes and different pieces of furniture. We had skipped (dumpstered) some veggies on our way back and presented them to Sasha who had opened the door for us and was the person on ‘squat sitting’ duty at the moment. Sasha made us some red bush tea and the three of us talked about trans movements in different cultural context (a.k.a. UK and US). It was nice to hear what people were thinking about in other places, to have a fresh perspective to some degree, people talking about being more gender queer and between genders. After finishing tea sasha and me rode back to H.S. since she was late for kickboxing class and I had to return my borrowed bike.
We got back to the H.S. squat and Margaritte and I proceeded to the park across the way to do interview check-ins with each other. We ended as the sun was setting by filming each other prancing through the lawns of the park with pre-teen boys half watching while playing football and finally we left when a drunk man talking to himself went into the bushes near us and started undressing. Soon after we left with Anarchy Bob on another speed walking adventure (the people of Leeds walk like New Yorkers) to a friend of a friend’s house to watch the new UK lesbo TV drama ‘Sugar Rush’ (which is available on DVD… for those interested in lesbo trash TV!!!). We finally went back to the squat again after discussion turned into strange tech. stuff and we were getting tired. The rest of the evening was spent obsessively e-mailing people about interviews in London and talking to some people from the house, eating too many ‘crisps’ (chips) and finally going to bed at 3am, way after Margaritte had already put herself to bed.
Friday we got up a bit early (before 1pm) and got ready for our first Leeds interview with Anarchy Bob. After the interview we spent some time wondering around looking for food and finally came back to the house to eat some soup and bread before catching a bus to C.T. squat for our next interview with Sasha, Jack and G. While we were on the bus a woman in a beaded orange and pink dress got on with a group of random folks and began to talk very loudly on her cell phone to a friend. She was talking about her son who I guess was a toddler or so. He was asking to wear dresses and telling her about how nice her shoes are. Margaritte and I looked back at each other with big smiles. The woman proceeded to say that people could fuck off if they thought certain things he wore were ‘gay’ and how our society was so homophobic and people were “excepting of gay people” unless if was their child, etc. It was a beautiful bus eavesdropping conversation moment!
We finally got off the bus and I found myself back in the blackberry hedge garden front of C.T. where folks were hanging out on mattresses among the brambles. We waited for about half an hour and then finally started our interview of Sasha, G., and Jack. After we went up into the house and interviewed Sasha a bit more about her visual art and ‘The Screaming and Kicking Collective’ (a radical artist collective that puts on shows in squatted spaces, example- an old Nunnery). We put away some of our stuff and headed over to a garden party down the street at a housing co-op where there was a bbq with amazing salads and stuffed peppers and pies and vegan ice cream. We made jokes about being gay, kept on asking ‘what?’ ‘What did you say?’ because we couldn’t understand Sasha (or more that Margaritte and I had trouble understanding the northern dialect, admittedly I had a harder time with it). We went back to the C.T. squat; some folks went back to the garden party, I stayed behind for some bonding time of my own… We spent the night there, becoming better acquainted with our Leeds friends and then woke to an egg breakfast in the morning.
We had planned to go to a waterfall outside of town the next day but in the night there was a big lightening and thunder rain storm, making us less enthusiastic about the treck out to see nature. We compromised and decided to go to a potluck with the ‘Screaming and Kicking Collective’ kids and go for a walk along the ridge in the woods with Sasha.
We began to walk in the light rain the same direction we had gone for our ‘Sugar Rush’ evening and walked through a park that at the entrance had the gayest statue ever. It was a man with a little jacket on (some kind of military uniform) and little tight pants with his hand saucily placed on one hip. With the other hand he held a large feathered hat. His boots, although he was made of gray stone, were painted bright red! He was the faggiest statue Margaritte and I had ever seen and we instantly deemed him one of our main T.Q. mascots!
We then took off on our little adventure walk in the woods. We made our way to the part of the woods called ‘Mean Wood’ where ‘The Holly's’ are, the woods where J.R.R. Tolkin spent much of his time while writing “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”… we had finally found our way to the hobbit homeland!!! Sasha told us about some of the rocks in the woods, how there are some that have very strong energy “Dolmans.” Friends and people go there a lot to get high, but that even being there can make you feel high. We learned how to salute the birds ‘Good morning Mr. Magpie, how is your wife and children,’ saw ponies and chickens and fields of wild flowers and stopped to sit by a little crick with a water fall to eat some pastels (pot pie like pastries). After a pee break in the bushes we headed back to the bbq, with Margaritte jokingly making out with a dolman rock along the way. The bbq moved inside due to the rain again and I passed out on the couch for about half an hour due to lack of sleep. We ate great food, met fabulous people from the KSC and then headed back to the H.S. squat to start packing for our departure to London the next day and for our interview with Leeds hot queer band ‘Jean Genet.’ We set up for the interview in the dungeon/workout room and had Bob and Helena get into ‘costume’ upon arrival (a.k.a. underwear and sparkly ‘tit tape’). The interview went really well and we ended with a little photo shoot and bonding sleepover.
I woke Margaritte in the morning, searching for our films that I lent to someone to copy and we had to leave in a few hours. We rushed downtown and met up again with Helena (of Jean Genet) for a quick breakfast and for Margaritte and Helena to reunite before we got on our lovely Mega bus back to London that had no working toilette. With some lunch snacks and pee break, a half hour dead stop due to an accident and phone calls from Retha in London (a friend from South Africa who I met at Queer Festival Copenhagen); we finally arrived at Victoria Station. We headed over to Liverpool Street where we met Tonia and Retha and then ran into Kate and George (Australian Lesbian twin sisters who we would be staying with) and then hit up a Bangladeshi restaurant for our first big meal in quite a few days….
