Hello for one last time!
This is really it - the end of our week on the streets. In about six hours time we will be home for the first time in a week. I think it's fair to say that both of us are looking forward to that very much. Morale is at its highest ebb despite slight sunburn for both of us from this afternoon and a pretty disturbed night's sleep (both the sun and the rain conspire against us).
The big news since the last post is that we managed to find ourselves a shower! St Giles Church (on St Giles) has a shower room in its adjacent church hall that they have recently been opening up on a Saturday morning for people who need to use it (like us). Turning up, still slightly damp from the rain, we were handed a basket of shower equipment and ushered through. Both of us are agreed that it was the shortest fifteen minutes of our lives, but were in no mood to complain. It was amazing to notice just how much more human we felt being clean and fresh. To add to this, we were handed a bag of goodies on the way out including a bacon roll, a chocolate bar and a banana. Wow.
Something we have noticed is that we seem to need less food in general - the light lunch provided with the showers proved more than enough for us, even though we are both usually big eaters. After eating this, we spent the afternoon in town, chatting with people we bumped into and keeping on the lookout for anyone who might be kipping in town that night. We gradually were realising that all of the friendly, personable chaps we chatted with had other places to be at night than the centre. It seems that people who can be somewhere else make every effort to do so - basically, the centre of town isn't a good place to sleep, which we slowly came to accept.
After an afternoon entertaining ourselves in town and another wonder-buy of reduced bakery items from the Co-Op in Summertown, we bedded down once again in our usual spot, slightly worried as it had been raining and the wind seemed to be blowing in the one unprotected side of our porch. As hinted at earlier, it was not the best night's sleep as it rained torrentially in the early morning, getting James a bit damp (Chris, on the other side, managed to stay dry); yet it was much less bad than it could have been as the wind changed before the rain began.
In the morning we went to the nine thirty service at our church (the first time James had made it to that service in several years) to report back on the week after eating our breakfast on the
wall outside the front. Then another brief rest in the sunshine of the parks before meeting Micky to take him out for lunch. The two of us, along with Micky, his brother Steph and Tanya the dog, went for a pub lunch at the Bear, which was probably the highlight of the week. Sitting in the sun with a pint and sharing stories over steak and ale pies was a true joy. Sadly, we're not really built for withstanding the sun, and the two of us have come away with red skin and spinning heads, but maybe you have to take the rough with the smooth in some of these things.
Which brings us to here, the last blog post of the week. All we have left is to record another video diary, chill out (somewhere shady) for the afternoon and report back to church this evening. As we've said already, we've found it to be easier than we thought to survive on the streets, though making something meaningful of it is another thing entirely. A word about mittigating circumstances though:
- We know Oxford: having grown up here, we're really familiar with the geography of the place as well as the shops, services and amenities around - to live in a place that is totally alien would be much harder
- We had each other: being with another who you can trust completely is truly an invaluable thing for this kind of living, and we couldn't imagine what it would be like to go it alone or with someone in whom you had less than a hundred per cent confidence
- We have no habits to feed (other than Chris's humous addiction): our money wasn't constantly being drained by cigarettes, alcohol or any other kind of drug
- We are psychologically healthy: a massive factor in the lives of many homeless people is mental health - all sorts of disorders play a major part in putting and keeping people on the streets
- We did this in the summer: hot days and dusty cars made it much easier for us to make money, and the emotional boost of being in the sunshine makes a huge difference; we have noticed so much the days it has rained and we've had to try and find ways to get dry and warm up
- We only did one week: for many people, there is no end in sight to life on the streets, whereas for us we have had today's bath and warm bed to keep us going
So this is just to say that we don't think it's easy to be without a home; it wasn't easy for us despite all these advantages. The circumstances of homeless people are very often far from simple, and there is no quick solution to it all. I know this is really obvious, but it is really impressed upon us right now that each person is an individual and must be treated individually, with different needs requiring different solutions. Most often people don't need food, or money, but people who will really care for them and believe in them and be there with them through the process of working towards a different kind of life. It's wonderful that so many people do give their time and money to help those less fortunate; perhaps this whole thing has just made me think what a difference a little individual commitment might make in so many cases.
Anyway, must go. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported us. Much love,
Chris and James.
Sunday 22 June 2008
Saturday 21 June 2008
Day 6:
It is raining.
I think it is fair to say that if we were not so close to finishing we would be pretty gutted about the weather. We are also both very glad that we made hay while the sun shone on Thursday and have more than enough money to live on, because nobody is going to want to have their car washed in Oxford today! James now has shoe around his holes on his feet, meaning they wet enough washing cars let alone when it is actually raining. Arguably though, the person who suffers most from this is Chris who has to put up with the smell. The process of getting wet stuff dry is proving pretty difficult.
After we left the library yesterday, we headed up to uni parks for a chill in the afternoon. On the way we met Micky again, who we invited for lunch on Sunday. Micky then showed us the left pocket of his tracksuit bottoms in which he had kept his coppers all week and told us that he was planning to donate them to the causes before we left. We both found this incredibly humbling and touching. We then bumped into a few more people on Cornmarket street, as you always do in Oxford, before heading up to the parks to meet John for the video diary. As viewers of this will know, we the called NHS direct to find out if there ways anything that could be done for James's feet. Which at this point were getting rather painful. It turns out that there is no NHS walk in centre in Oxford. James was advised to go to a pharmacist so see what they said and to consult with his GP. Obviously, homeless people don't generally have GP's and the amount of help pharmacists can give is quite limited. Also, when we visited the Gap project the volunteer there said that the visiting doctor and nurse services there were under used. There therefore seems to be, from our experience, a problem in terms of the ability of the homeless community to access health services. There is However a centre on Luther street that is designed for their needs but you need to be both registered and reefed to from the street services.
At the time of writing we have been unable to find any service in the City where we can get a shower. A couple of projects have been mentioned to us but so far our investigation into them has proved fruitless. Last night, in the Market street public toilets we used our spare sponge to try and give ourselves a bit of a clean. Chris, luckily for him, got to go first. Again this experience didn't really seem that bad, we both know that we are about 30 hours away from a nice warm power shower and our beds. The fact that we are pinning for our creature comforts so much does show that despite the experience of and in some parts enjoyment of this week, we are both greatly looking forward to going home.
When we went to use the public toilet this morning, two men were occupying cubicles to inject heroin. James went in did his business, and left asap, wanting to avoid them. But as we were leaving one of them stopped him, recognising him from earlier in the week and asked him if he had found a place to stay and directed him towards the night shelter and the other homeless services. This act of pastoral care served as an important reminder that despite all the problems of drug abuse, heroin does not make you a bad person.
Tonight, we will attempt for the final time to find someone to kip down with in the city centre. Though it does appear and the majority of the people who have befriend us have the sense and the means to stay out of that part of town on a Saturday night.
Thanks for reading, we are looking forward to seeing you all soon!
Chris and James
I think it is fair to say that if we were not so close to finishing we would be pretty gutted about the weather. We are also both very glad that we made hay while the sun shone on Thursday and have more than enough money to live on, because nobody is going to want to have their car washed in Oxford today! James now has shoe around his holes on his feet, meaning they wet enough washing cars let alone when it is actually raining. Arguably though, the person who suffers most from this is Chris who has to put up with the smell. The process of getting wet stuff dry is proving pretty difficult.
After we left the library yesterday, we headed up to uni parks for a chill in the afternoon. On the way we met Micky again, who we invited for lunch on Sunday. Micky then showed us the left pocket of his tracksuit bottoms in which he had kept his coppers all week and told us that he was planning to donate them to the causes before we left. We both found this incredibly humbling and touching. We then bumped into a few more people on Cornmarket street, as you always do in Oxford, before heading up to the parks to meet John for the video diary. As viewers of this will know, we the called NHS direct to find out if there ways anything that could be done for James's feet. Which at this point were getting rather painful. It turns out that there is no NHS walk in centre in Oxford. James was advised to go to a pharmacist so see what they said and to consult with his GP. Obviously, homeless people don't generally have GP's and the amount of help pharmacists can give is quite limited. Also, when we visited the Gap project the volunteer there said that the visiting doctor and nurse services there were under used. There therefore seems to be, from our experience, a problem in terms of the ability of the homeless community to access health services. There is However a centre on Luther street that is designed for their needs but you need to be both registered and reefed to from the street services.
At the time of writing we have been unable to find any service in the City where we can get a shower. A couple of projects have been mentioned to us but so far our investigation into them has proved fruitless. Last night, in the Market street public toilets we used our spare sponge to try and give ourselves a bit of a clean. Chris, luckily for him, got to go first. Again this experience didn't really seem that bad, we both know that we are about 30 hours away from a nice warm power shower and our beds. The fact that we are pinning for our creature comforts so much does show that despite the experience of and in some parts enjoyment of this week, we are both greatly looking forward to going home.
When we went to use the public toilet this morning, two men were occupying cubicles to inject heroin. James went in did his business, and left asap, wanting to avoid them. But as we were leaving one of them stopped him, recognising him from earlier in the week and asked him if he had found a place to stay and directed him towards the night shelter and the other homeless services. This act of pastoral care served as an important reminder that despite all the problems of drug abuse, heroin does not make you a bad person.
Tonight, we will attempt for the final time to find someone to kip down with in the city centre. Though it does appear and the majority of the people who have befriend us have the sense and the means to stay out of that part of town on a Saturday night.
Thanks for reading, we are looking forward to seeing you all soon!
Chris and James
Friday 20 June 2008
Day 5:
Hello once more, gentle reader! Day five has now dawned and the end of our week is fast approaching. The last twenty-four hours have been draining but fairly fruitful, so spirits are high in the camp despite a night of somewhat disturbed sleep. It amazes us both how anxious we get when trying to sleep - even the slightest thing can set us right on edge. Like on the first night, there are times when every car driving past feels like it's almost certainly carrying large men with baseball bats to our little safe harbour in the porch. People standing around in the street shouting doesn't help much, either.
Following our last post we went to Sainsbury's to buy lunch and supplies (tip: cellulose sponge cloths are the way to go when washing cars - our upgrade to them was a tremendous success). Stopping only to chat briefly with Micky and take on some more water (we tend to be carrying four litres around with us most of the time; there aren't too many places to fill up, so we try to make sure not to run out), we then headed back up to Summertown. We figured if we could wash seven or eight cars we'd make around forty pounds which could see us through the rest of the week food-wise.
The sun beat down on us all afternoon making it thirsty work - especially difficult when you have no nearby toilet facilities, so have to strike the balance between needing water and needing to pee (we thought it best not to urinate on peoples' drives). In the end we managed to wash six cars, though it was effectively seven as someone with a massive Audi paid us double. Very pleased with ourselves, we headed back to the Summertown shops for reduced bakery items (about twelve pounds worth of food bought for one pound - awesome).
As we sat whiling away the evening on a bench in Summertown with our friend Jon, we reflected on the whole experience of the week. Something that has really struck us is the whole thing of how to spend the hours. For us, Wednesday was much more difficult than the other days, purely because we didn't feel we had much to do. I guess there's something about life on the streets that makes it hard to pretend that sitting around all day is a clever way to spend your time. You kind of have to face up to the reality that just making enough money to get by is pretty easy but spectacularly unfulfilling. What is there that's worth doing with the rest of the day? And I guess, for many, the answer is getting drunk or high or trying to sleep with someone.
Maybe in our normal lives it's much easier to pretend that whiling away the hours is a good idea - we can cushion it with movies and video games, hours on facebook, watching neighbours, or reaching for that goal of the slightly bigger pay check, the slightly better car, the girl that's just out of reach, the slightly more comfortable lifestyle. Yet what is it that's really worth spending our hours on? After all, a string of hours is all we've got in some ways. Anyway, I hope for myself that I take these thoughts to heart and that this thing that we've done really changes me in a lasting way.
So, for now, the plan is some more Sainsbury's action (supermarkets are possibly our favourite places at present), followed by hanging out in town trying to get to know people - we'd really like to find a little crew to stay with down here tonight. Other jobs are visiting the Big Issue office to check out what goes on there, trying to bathe ourselves as best we can in the sink of the public toilet, and, we hope, to find a drop-in clinic to have someone take a look at James's various discomforts.
Once again, thanks for reading ;)
Chris and James.
Following our last post we went to Sainsbury's to buy lunch and supplies (tip: cellulose sponge cloths are the way to go when washing cars - our upgrade to them was a tremendous success). Stopping only to chat briefly with Micky and take on some more water (we tend to be carrying four litres around with us most of the time; there aren't too many places to fill up, so we try to make sure not to run out), we then headed back up to Summertown. We figured if we could wash seven or eight cars we'd make around forty pounds which could see us through the rest of the week food-wise.
The sun beat down on us all afternoon making it thirsty work - especially difficult when you have no nearby toilet facilities, so have to strike the balance between needing water and needing to pee (we thought it best not to urinate on peoples' drives). In the end we managed to wash six cars, though it was effectively seven as someone with a massive Audi paid us double. Very pleased with ourselves, we headed back to the Summertown shops for reduced bakery items (about twelve pounds worth of food bought for one pound - awesome).
As we sat whiling away the evening on a bench in Summertown with our friend Jon, we reflected on the whole experience of the week. Something that has really struck us is the whole thing of how to spend the hours. For us, Wednesday was much more difficult than the other days, purely because we didn't feel we had much to do. I guess there's something about life on the streets that makes it hard to pretend that sitting around all day is a clever way to spend your time. You kind of have to face up to the reality that just making enough money to get by is pretty easy but spectacularly unfulfilling. What is there that's worth doing with the rest of the day? And I guess, for many, the answer is getting drunk or high or trying to sleep with someone.
Maybe in our normal lives it's much easier to pretend that whiling away the hours is a good idea - we can cushion it with movies and video games, hours on facebook, watching neighbours, or reaching for that goal of the slightly bigger pay check, the slightly better car, the girl that's just out of reach, the slightly more comfortable lifestyle. Yet what is it that's really worth spending our hours on? After all, a string of hours is all we've got in some ways. Anyway, I hope for myself that I take these thoughts to heart and that this thing that we've done really changes me in a lasting way.
So, for now, the plan is some more Sainsbury's action (supermarkets are possibly our favourite places at present), followed by hanging out in town trying to get to know people - we'd really like to find a little crew to stay with down here tonight. Other jobs are visiting the Big Issue office to check out what goes on there, trying to bathe ourselves as best we can in the sink of the public toilet, and, we hope, to find a drop-in clinic to have someone take a look at James's various discomforts.
Once again, thanks for reading ;)
Chris and James.
Thursday 19 June 2008
Day 4:
"We're half way there, oooh oh livin' on a prayer". At 8am this morning reached a significant milestone in our homeless adventure. We are now more than halfway through our week on the streets. This is pretty big for us, not to say that we haven't got a lot out of the experience so far, but the physical toll of the lifestyle is certainly beginning to show.
An observation that's been made is James and Chris both have different attributes suited to different aspects of the homeless life. James larger seize means that he hardly feels the cold at all, where Chris's smaller build means that he can manage the long distances walked in poor footwear much easier.
In many ways the last 24 hours has proved the most challenging of our week so far. Due to a range of factors, including poor weather and a relatively large amount of left over money from the previous two days, we decided against doing any more work. The result was a strange mixture of boredom and climate influenced depression. Until Squiff and Sam turned up for a check up, spirits were rather low. We did get an opportunity to check out the GAP project by the station, and were shown round be a very helpful man called Miguel. It was interesting to see what goes on there and the commitment shown by the volunteers and staff members was very impressive. We did notice that in general the people we met in the GAP were less friendly and open than the people we had met outside, this was mainly due, we believe, to the younger ages of the people in the project.
Given that we still had a bit of left over cash in our pockets, we decided to make the most of orange Wednesday and went to the 2:30 showing of The Incredible Hulk. This move may receive criticism from some quarters, but we are keen to point out that this doesn't brake any of our rules. Almost all the homeless people we've met have got mobiles, some of which will be on orange.
The film itself represented two hours of escapism in a warm and comfortable environment. We left the cinema and then headed over to the Westgate Sainsbury's to fill up on reduced products for diner as well as getting today's breakfast. We then spent the rest of the evening trying to find one of the people we had met in the previous days to kip down in town with. Unfortunately all we found was James's boozed up former rugby team mates! One of which told us not to worry because cold was just a perception. Very helpful. We had previously made the decision that we were not going to sleep in town on our own for safety reasons, so we made our way back up to our regular spot in Summertown somewhat frustrated.
But today is a new day, the sun is shining, the cars of Oxford all look filthy and we are now more that half way there! Thanks for reading,
Chris and James
An observation that's been made is James and Chris both have different attributes suited to different aspects of the homeless life. James larger seize means that he hardly feels the cold at all, where Chris's smaller build means that he can manage the long distances walked in poor footwear much easier.
In many ways the last 24 hours has proved the most challenging of our week so far. Due to a range of factors, including poor weather and a relatively large amount of left over money from the previous two days, we decided against doing any more work. The result was a strange mixture of boredom and climate influenced depression. Until Squiff and Sam turned up for a check up, spirits were rather low. We did get an opportunity to check out the GAP project by the station, and were shown round be a very helpful man called Miguel. It was interesting to see what goes on there and the commitment shown by the volunteers and staff members was very impressive. We did notice that in general the people we met in the GAP were less friendly and open than the people we had met outside, this was mainly due, we believe, to the younger ages of the people in the project.
Given that we still had a bit of left over cash in our pockets, we decided to make the most of orange Wednesday and went to the 2:30 showing of The Incredible Hulk. This move may receive criticism from some quarters, but we are keen to point out that this doesn't brake any of our rules. Almost all the homeless people we've met have got mobiles, some of which will be on orange.
The film itself represented two hours of escapism in a warm and comfortable environment. We left the cinema and then headed over to the Westgate Sainsbury's to fill up on reduced products for diner as well as getting today's breakfast. We then spent the rest of the evening trying to find one of the people we had met in the previous days to kip down in town with. Unfortunately all we found was James's boozed up former rugby team mates! One of which told us not to worry because cold was just a perception. Very helpful. We had previously made the decision that we were not going to sleep in town on our own for safety reasons, so we made our way back up to our regular spot in Summertown somewhat frustrated.
But today is a new day, the sun is shining, the cars of Oxford all look filthy and we are now more that half way there! Thanks for reading,
Chris and James
Wednesday 18 June 2008
Day 3:
Hello again from the streets! (Or, in fact, the public library)
In summary:
- We've continued to do ok for money, food and shelter
- Reactions have been (almost) unaminously positive to the endeavour
- The plan is to check out "the Gap", a service for 16-25 year olds, later today
Following the last post, a quick trip to Sainsbury's yielded three limes, which you can see Chris trying to juggle on youtube. These were much easier than the bottles of water, though people weren't quite as generous as previously - James's theory is that people take pity on you if you keep dropping them. So, following another afternoon nap in the parks, we headed up to Summertown for some more car washing. This proved as successful as it had before, and in a few hours we only managed to get half way down the street, washing four cars in the process. With our new-found wealth, we enjoyed some more bakery produce and some chips from the kebab van. After trying and failing to contact our mate in the city centre, we decided that we couldn't face walking into town and back out again if we couldn't find him, so bedded down in the porch for a third night.
Which essentially brings us to now (following a long sleep - managed to lie in til 8!). A couple of things have been particularly interesting. For one, this morning we arrived at the Summertown public toilets about eight fifteen to find the council employee still in the process of opening up. After a brief exchange (which I can assure you was entirely pleasant natured from our side), he had a rant about homeless people causing trouble before informing us "you're not welcome in Summertown" and proceeding to lock the toilets back up again.
We had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, we were a little proud that he thought we were really homeless - I guess we're starting to look the part a little by now. On the other, it's obviously pretty unpleasant to be treated that way. This is the first negative reaction we've had at all - even the ranger who kicked us out of uni parks the other night was really kind to us. I guess it's pretty easy for us to take it, as we know we can manage (without him or his toilets...) but this sort of thing must really be rubbish for people doing this for real. Right now the rest of the week seems like an eternity; I truly can't imagine what it would be like right now without going home at the end of it to look forward to.
One other thing was something a guy named Steve said to us yesterday. We got chatting to him in the street and explained what we were doing. He said he thought we'd probably get a pretty good idea of what it's like to be homeless by spending a week out, and also that we'd notice a bit of a barrier between us and our friends when we went home. I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but looking back over the video diary we recorded last night (the one with James' feet), I noticed in our faces the same slightly distanced look you see in many homeless people. It was a bit of a shock, really!
Thanks for reading ;)
Chris and James.
In summary:
- We've continued to do ok for money, food and shelter
- Reactions have been (almost) unaminously positive to the endeavour
- The plan is to check out "the Gap", a service for 16-25 year olds, later today
Following the last post, a quick trip to Sainsbury's yielded three limes, which you can see Chris trying to juggle on youtube. These were much easier than the bottles of water, though people weren't quite as generous as previously - James's theory is that people take pity on you if you keep dropping them. So, following another afternoon nap in the parks, we headed up to Summertown for some more car washing. This proved as successful as it had before, and in a few hours we only managed to get half way down the street, washing four cars in the process. With our new-found wealth, we enjoyed some more bakery produce and some chips from the kebab van. After trying and failing to contact our mate in the city centre, we decided that we couldn't face walking into town and back out again if we couldn't find him, so bedded down in the porch for a third night.
Which essentially brings us to now (following a long sleep - managed to lie in til 8!). A couple of things have been particularly interesting. For one, this morning we arrived at the Summertown public toilets about eight fifteen to find the council employee still in the process of opening up. After a brief exchange (which I can assure you was entirely pleasant natured from our side), he had a rant about homeless people causing trouble before informing us "you're not welcome in Summertown" and proceeding to lock the toilets back up again.
We had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, we were a little proud that he thought we were really homeless - I guess we're starting to look the part a little by now. On the other, it's obviously pretty unpleasant to be treated that way. This is the first negative reaction we've had at all - even the ranger who kicked us out of uni parks the other night was really kind to us. I guess it's pretty easy for us to take it, as we know we can manage (without him or his toilets...) but this sort of thing must really be rubbish for people doing this for real. Right now the rest of the week seems like an eternity; I truly can't imagine what it would be like right now without going home at the end of it to look forward to.
One other thing was something a guy named Steve said to us yesterday. We got chatting to him in the street and explained what we were doing. He said he thought we'd probably get a pretty good idea of what it's like to be homeless by spending a week out, and also that we'd notice a bit of a barrier between us and our friends when we went home. I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but looking back over the video diary we recorded last night (the one with James' feet), I noticed in our faces the same slightly distanced look you see in many homeless people. It was a bit of a shock, really!
Thanks for reading ;)
Chris and James.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Day 2:
Hello everybody! I am pleased to report that spirits are high following a very successful last 24 hours. When the last blog entry was submitted we were still completely broke and facing another diner from cafe a la skip if we didn't get our act together! Fortunately we were able to find some plastic bottles in a bin, which we filled with water. Chris then began juggling frantically with some success on Cornmarket Street while James made friends with none other than the city's number one big issue salesman Micky. Micky gave James some helpful insights into life on the streets as well as some encouraging words which I am happy to say have been the only response we've encountered from the homeless community so far. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the only negativity we've encountered has been heckling shouts from friends driving past in their cars (mainly Lucas). I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our communities of St Andrews and the Cherwell alumni for the support and encouragement we've received. From facebook messages to bumping into people on the street, we would have found this time a lot tougher if we didn't know that you guys are right behind us.
Chris then returned from his busking exploits with six, yes six whole pounds! Not bad for half an hour's worth of making a fool of yourself, although the fiver was given as the first donation, which may have been a bit of a fluke, certainly got the ball rolling. Without wasting any time at all we made a bee-line for the West-Gate Sainsburys, where we purchased not only a hearty feast of bread, humous and apples, but also sponges, cloths and washing up liquid that we hoped to put to use washing cars in the afternoon. We ate our meal in pennyfarthing place in the bright sunshine. We had had nothing for breakfast making this the most anticipated and enjoyed meal either of us had eaten in a long time. With the adrenaline pumping, due to our success at getting something to eat and the prospect of earning some more money, we promptly set off for the bright lights of Summertown. We got as far as the University Parks before collapsing in a heap on the grass next to north lodge.
We woke up at about three thirty and after much persuasion Chris managed to get James on his feet and moving in the right direction again. When arriving in Summertown James stumbled across two clean buckets in a skip outside the Woodstock Arms, while trying to find somewhere to wash the dirty one we found the day before. We now had all the equipment necessary to put Hunter/Harlow Car Aesthetics Solutions Plc. into business as we set off down Victoria Road in search of our fortune. To my genuine amazement the first women I asked accepted our offer and we gamely began scrubbing away. We then found two other customers in the next ten houses giving us a tidy fifteen pounds. Feeling very satisfied as well as very tired we made out way to the Summertown shops hoping to make the most of the pre-closing discounts. The car washing venture showed some interesting insights into our characters. Chris appears, in this area, to be a bit of a perfectionist, always making sure that every last inch of the cars was wiped down at the end. Alternatively James, despite demonstrating an invaluable ability to sweet talk old ladies into having their car washed, most certainly is not a perfectionist when it comes to actually cleaning the cars. In one instance, he actually went and had a conservation with a friends mum, leaving Chris to finish the job, though"if it gets an extra donation in then it will surely be worth it."
On arriving at the Summertown shops we were distraught to discover that M&S simply throw out there out of date products rather than reducing them at the end of the day! Disgruntled we promptly headed over to Co-op and filled up on a wide selection of bakery items all reduced to 20 pence. We then headed back up into town to meet Sam Bright, who is providing fantastic IT and fellowship support, to film the latest video diary entry. We then met up with Martin, who was his customary hour late - fortunately we had nowhere else to be! Finally we made our way back to Summertown before bedding down in the porch of the church hall on Portland Road.
Despite the last day being a considerable success on all fronts, we do have a number of concerns at this time. First, we both seem to be developing a condition christened 'athletes crotch', as well as having very painful feet and legs from all the walking we've been doing. James has also been battling his hayfever, while Chris has been battling the noises made by James battling his hayfever. Our hopes for the next day is that the weather would stay good and we would be able to make some more money, as well as have the opportunity to spend more time getting to know other members of Oxford's homeless community. We plan to spend tonight sleeping in a group within the City centre.
That's all for now thanks for reading,
Chris and James
Chris then returned from his busking exploits with six, yes six whole pounds! Not bad for half an hour's worth of making a fool of yourself, although the fiver was given as the first donation, which may have been a bit of a fluke, certainly got the ball rolling. Without wasting any time at all we made a bee-line for the West-Gate Sainsburys, where we purchased not only a hearty feast of bread, humous and apples, but also sponges, cloths and washing up liquid that we hoped to put to use washing cars in the afternoon. We ate our meal in pennyfarthing place in the bright sunshine. We had had nothing for breakfast making this the most anticipated and enjoyed meal either of us had eaten in a long time. With the adrenaline pumping, due to our success at getting something to eat and the prospect of earning some more money, we promptly set off for the bright lights of Summertown. We got as far as the University Parks before collapsing in a heap on the grass next to north lodge.
We woke up at about three thirty and after much persuasion Chris managed to get James on his feet and moving in the right direction again. When arriving in Summertown James stumbled across two clean buckets in a skip outside the Woodstock Arms, while trying to find somewhere to wash the dirty one we found the day before. We now had all the equipment necessary to put Hunter/Harlow Car Aesthetics Solutions Plc. into business as we set off down Victoria Road in search of our fortune. To my genuine amazement the first women I asked accepted our offer and we gamely began scrubbing away. We then found two other customers in the next ten houses giving us a tidy fifteen pounds. Feeling very satisfied as well as very tired we made out way to the Summertown shops hoping to make the most of the pre-closing discounts. The car washing venture showed some interesting insights into our characters. Chris appears, in this area, to be a bit of a perfectionist, always making sure that every last inch of the cars was wiped down at the end. Alternatively James, despite demonstrating an invaluable ability to sweet talk old ladies into having their car washed, most certainly is not a perfectionist when it comes to actually cleaning the cars. In one instance, he actually went and had a conservation with a friends mum, leaving Chris to finish the job, though"if it gets an extra donation in then it will surely be worth it."
On arriving at the Summertown shops we were distraught to discover that M&S simply throw out there out of date products rather than reducing them at the end of the day! Disgruntled we promptly headed over to Co-op and filled up on a wide selection of bakery items all reduced to 20 pence. We then headed back up into town to meet Sam Bright, who is providing fantastic IT and fellowship support, to film the latest video diary entry. We then met up with Martin, who was his customary hour late - fortunately we had nowhere else to be! Finally we made our way back to Summertown before bedding down in the porch of the church hall on Portland Road.
Despite the last day being a considerable success on all fronts, we do have a number of concerns at this time. First, we both seem to be developing a condition christened 'athletes crotch', as well as having very painful feet and legs from all the walking we've been doing. James has also been battling his hayfever, while Chris has been battling the noises made by James battling his hayfever. Our hopes for the next day is that the weather would stay good and we would be able to make some more money, as well as have the opportunity to spend more time getting to know other members of Oxford's homeless community. We plan to spend tonight sleeping in a group within the City centre.
That's all for now thanks for reading,
Chris and James
Monday 16 June 2008
Day 1:
Well, the first night is over and this is to confirm that we have both survived it. We've been out since 8pm last night and are feeling surprisingly fresh really. After a bit of hunting round for bits and pieces and scoping out locations, we had ourselves set up with an empty garage to sleep in and some old carpet and cardboard to sleep on (God bless you, Mick's Skips). After poking around for bins outside the backs of supermarkets, we found that they all seemed to keep their bins locked away inside. Rubbish. So our first meal was taken from the bin outside the back of Starbucks. It consisted of:
- A piece of "tarte au citron" left in its packaging - probably the tastiest bit of dinner
- A sandwich of some description which was slightly damp and thoroughly inedible (we threw it away)
- Another sandwich with loads of mustard on it; James ate most of it, but said it must have tasted pretty rough when it was fresh
- Two pieces of some cake with weird seeds on top; one bit was fairly soggy so we threw it away, and the other bit didn't taste great
- Two muffins; mine was lemon and poppyseed (at least, I hope they were poppyseeds) - these basically made up the majority of the meal
Also, we found a slightly broken chocolate bunny in a pile of stuff left outside scope. Firstly, this made us ask ourselves why someone would give a chocolate bunny to Scope; secondly, as we figured Scope couldn't sell it, it provided us with dessert.
Anyway, on balance we decided that eating out of bins is in general a terrible idea, and that we would only eat things in packets from now on. We sat and laughed at ourselves for eating out of bins for some time, and then went towards our chosen sleeping location. This turned out to be very comfortable - until about midnight, when the owner of the other "empty" garage in little court returned to it. They didn't see us, but from this point on, every distant roar of a vehicle made us jump and our hearts start racing, thinking we would be turfed out. This does not facilitate pleasant sleep. The fear of being caught in someones garage escalated in our minds until it seemed to be abject terror - which we realised was pretty irrational, as they'd probably just ask us to leave and we'd move on. In truth, I'm not sure I've ever prayed like I prayed through that time, which was good as it meant that by about three in the morning when the owner of the garage did return I felt much calmer and more clear-headed about the situation. And of course it was fine - he was very good natured about it and we left quietly and went to sleep in the doorway of a church hall. After that the night was uneventful and we both got some sleep.
So today we've been trying to find ways of making money so as to avoid any more bin-related fiascoes. Looking for local paper rounds proved unsuccessful and the job centre isn't really built to cater for us, so we're about to try a little impromptu busking to raise the money to do some car-washing. If you have any other ideas of how we could get food without begging, borrowing, or stealing, do post them up! That's all for now, thanks for reading.
Chris and James.
PS. Check out our first video diary clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1xvJBT078k!
- A piece of "tarte au citron" left in its packaging - probably the tastiest bit of dinner
- A sandwich of some description which was slightly damp and thoroughly inedible (we threw it away)
- Another sandwich with loads of mustard on it; James ate most of it, but said it must have tasted pretty rough when it was fresh
- Two pieces of some cake with weird seeds on top; one bit was fairly soggy so we threw it away, and the other bit didn't taste great
- Two muffins; mine was lemon and poppyseed (at least, I hope they were poppyseeds) - these basically made up the majority of the meal
Also, we found a slightly broken chocolate bunny in a pile of stuff left outside scope. Firstly, this made us ask ourselves why someone would give a chocolate bunny to Scope; secondly, as we figured Scope couldn't sell it, it provided us with dessert.
Anyway, on balance we decided that eating out of bins is in general a terrible idea, and that we would only eat things in packets from now on. We sat and laughed at ourselves for eating out of bins for some time, and then went towards our chosen sleeping location. This turned out to be very comfortable - until about midnight, when the owner of the other "empty" garage in little court returned to it. They didn't see us, but from this point on, every distant roar of a vehicle made us jump and our hearts start racing, thinking we would be turfed out. This does not facilitate pleasant sleep. The fear of being caught in someones garage escalated in our minds until it seemed to be abject terror - which we realised was pretty irrational, as they'd probably just ask us to leave and we'd move on. In truth, I'm not sure I've ever prayed like I prayed through that time, which was good as it meant that by about three in the morning when the owner of the garage did return I felt much calmer and more clear-headed about the situation. And of course it was fine - he was very good natured about it and we left quietly and went to sleep in the doorway of a church hall. After that the night was uneventful and we both got some sleep.
So today we've been trying to find ways of making money so as to avoid any more bin-related fiascoes. Looking for local paper rounds proved unsuccessful and the job centre isn't really built to cater for us, so we're about to try a little impromptu busking to raise the money to do some car-washing. If you have any other ideas of how we could get food without begging, borrowing, or stealing, do post them up! That's all for now, thanks for reading.
Chris and James.
PS. Check out our first video diary clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1xvJBT078k!
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