Night 0
Test night: Monday 14th November. Hilary and George
I needed to sort safe passage up. The velux window exit up and over the south facing rooftiles was not going to cut it. I imagined a lovely metal ladder secured to the outside of the back of the house – a kind of slimline version of the New York brownstones I romanticise but after many futile calls to ladder and fire escape specialists I began trying scaffolders and ‘Black Eagle’ scaffold were on hand. This was a lucky find. AJ an Albania, university educated nutritionist and former protection detail, proponent of ice barrel dips, meditation and lover of life lived to the full appreciated the project’s intentions and on Friday 11th December a team of massive men moved back and forth and up and down the house installing a ladder route to the roof as we popped our head out of various windows in curiosity and appreciation.
I’ve been up and down these newly installed ladders all weekend becoming more confident with each ascent – using the pulley system to bring up bed parts and desk, enjoying the patient art of furniture assembly imbued with higher consequences, all with views of Canary Wharf . Now it is time to put it to the test. I take photos of the moths and other creatures landing on the old-fashioned fabric lampshades we’ve borrowed from friends and supporters of the project and bought from Ebay in urgency. Our friend Rich says they can see us from the next street - viewing us from the comfort of their bedrooms like some strange cabaret. They say ‘hardy souls’ but we don’t feel that hardy as we embark on this.
E brings us up tea and chocolate as an unconventional bedtime snack. We shout good night down to Pippa walking her dog. I explode with love for George sleeping beside me – his little nose upturned to the sky. I, on the other hand, don’t sleep well as I spend the night checking he’s got covers on, that his hat hasn’t slipped off and making sure he can’t fall out by holding onto his pyjamas. He says it is the best night ever. The ‘mattress’ I found via the local sell or swap isn’t really a mattress as Dan is keen to note but it’s also not the roof and I sink into the thin foam and look up at the sky. The clouds pass quickly tonight. One minute obscuring the moon, the next revealing star constellations unknown to me by name. A childhood of learning bird and plant names from keen ornithologist and botanist parents missed out the stars. I always focused on our home, our earth – until now. Now I see Orion’s belt – Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. I have to check constellation maps and realise I’ve been staring at Bellatrix, a warrior hidden again by cloud cover as weather shifts. Note – dig out astronomy charts and fingerless gloves. Other forms move above me – from unexpected bats to aircraft. Sounds are amplified – there seems to be a disturbance at the dog pound – anguished barks meeting no comfort whilst foxes wail and roam the night.
The rest of the week it is bucketing down and we realise that without the crowdfunder public what are we doing on the roof! I spend a day with students at Stave Hill Ecology Park in Rotherhithe and all this cold fresh air is proving totally exhausting. A journalist writing for the Observer visits and comes up onto the rooftop. We hope that the article will come out soon and help us spread the word and reach our target. We ‘ve been doing really well building this project – growing the paid memberships and selling the greenbacks but this crowdfunder (the first time we’ve used the platform) should hopefully get us over the line for this first critical phase of the POWER STATION – the first 30 houses on the street going solar. Seeing is believing for many and as this is intended as a ‘show and do’ project we will have something to show – that a street by street approach to solar and retrofit is possible and we can build from here – making toolkits for other streets to take action and completing the feature documentary film that will make this travel.
