Yesterday I woke up under a bridge in Sofia Gardens - Cardiff. It's a lovely park with musical instruments dotted about the park for you to play on. There are two lovely trees either side of me and I had enough shelter from the rain to not get wet. The only problem was the mosquitoes during the night, they wait until you're just about to fall asleep and then fly into your face. It happens every time and every night so I don't think you could call this a co-incidence.
There is a silver box under the bridge, no idea what it is or what it is for but the government would have you believe it's something dangerous that could cause a scene if you go near it. Normally they have warning triangles on with a man lying down and a spike coming out of him with an apostrophe and something written like "danger of death".
This one didn't have any danger signs on it at all so I decided to bang it like it's a cross between a drum and a piano which I do quite often and you would be surprised at the sound you get from them. You start to see how everything in the world is linked to vibration and these things are dotted around the country and normally in places that effect vibration. Normally people aren't playing them like instruments though, normally you just hear noisy cars, vans, bikes, etc etc.
I was also able to get a tune out of the bridge itself and the railings around it. Everything is linked to vibration and sound and it's all being used to lower vibration with a lot of unnecessary noise rather than just nice sounds around what should be a peaceful park. Just next to me there was a café selling coffee and snacks so I decided to try and get myself a cheap coffee. Sometimes, if I'm feeling in the right mood and the energy feels right I'll use the line "I'm homeless and wondered if I could get it cheaper or free". They did give me a small double espresso with some hot water for £2 along with a scone / biscuit type thing which was a deal compared to what they were selling things for so I accepted and went on a mission to play some free tennis as it was a nice sunny day.
My next stop was a tennis court I found which seemed to be part of a big sport center called Cardiff Sport
The tennis courts seemed to be closed and I wasn't sure if they were open, what time they opened or if they were even free as there seemed to be nothing of any relevance in the signage. I wasn't even sure who owned or managed the tennis courts or where to go. I asked a local runner that was out on a run early in the morning and she suggested it was the sports center and where to go to find out what time they open. After talking with the receptionist I learned that the tennis courts were not free to the public and were £10 an hour. I always find this strange especially considering nobody is using the recourse and always think from a business point of view it must look better to have people using them in the event that nobody has paid to draw in more customers. That doesn't seem to be the way things are done but I clearly don't know anything about making money! :)
The sports center had a café upstairs which was serving a full breakfast at a decent price to be honest and they were closing at 10am. I always like to find out what these places do with their leftover food when they close as most throw it away and I find it ridiculous when there is someone in need of a meal who is homeless. The lady working in the café confirmed they do in-fact throw it away and was excited that I was there asking, she said there was a new manager and she would ask if I could have a breakfast out of what was left over before they throw it out. She also mentioned that they throw at a lot of sandwiches and we discussed me coming and picking up packages to take into Cardiff city center to help out other homeless people. She seemed excited that she might be able to provide some kind of value or help out of the work she's doing every day and went to speak to the new manager while I waited.
When she came back she looked some what disheartened and perplexed at the managers out right "NO". I think there are several reasons for this, some of it brainwashing, perception of homeless etc but I think most of it is down to policy and in order to own or manage a business like that you have to follow certain orders. One of them being you can't give away free food instead of throwing it away because of policy and because people may come back and make a claim of food poisoning. If you really stop to think about this it is completely ridiculous. Firstly nobody could ever prove it was the food that business gave that made them ill, secondly most homeless people are eating out of bins on a daily bases and would be grateful for some leftovers so wouldn't dream of complaining and also the business is losing money and a potential marketing or advertising opportunity to help the community directly.
What a lot of these places tend to do is set up a scheme where they donate their local food to a local charity, set up by the government claiming to help the homeless, in this instance the manager said he was going to set up something with the Huggard center in Cardiff. I visited this place and will at some point create another blog post about my experience of it as it's long but the general gist is that they still charge the homeless for the food that is donated, they are rinsing government aid to pay for staff and manage people with long term addictions. The whole place is setup like a drug prison to pay for "helpers" who don't actually help and you find this situation in every town you go to which is drawing in all the local attention and government aid to "help" the homeless. As time goes on I will write about my experiences and findings at these centers and frankly it's terrifyingly unhelpful every time.
Tried to be nice but it's easier to be naughty!
In the end I did my naughty by bit and just grabbed to sausages and walked out through the sports center like I was entitled to do so which the member of staff looked very happy about and I'm sure the manager was very upset about! What's he going to do call the police for me eating 2 sausages that were going to be thrown out!
Continuing on my journey to find some free tennis courts to play on I decided to head for Victoria Park which as you can imagine there is no signage for and almost impossible to find unless you have a phone that you stare at constantly. Luckily I managed to speak to some "locals" who seemed to know the direction to go and found myself coming across a campsite which was also part of Sophia Gardens and the castle and was now council run. The chap working their on the reception was lovely and he confirmed to me that Victoria Park tennis courts were in fact free, they also have beach volley ball there and the area is generally quite a nice area and that he lived in that area.
On the journey which was turning into a bit of a walk I came across Thompson's park which was another park on the way and had a little café in there selling coffee and pastries. I can't remember what it was called or find her on the map but she gave me a free filtered coffee and directions to Victoria Park so a very helpful exchange. Funny how you seem to get the best help in the moment from someone who doesn't even need to advertise who they are or follow any agenda's or policies. I also managed to pick up a free Pepsi Max on my way from a Londis just around the corner. Pepsi Max are doing an offer in Cardiff City Centre where they give you a free can and a card to get a free bottle in the shops. The trouble is there is nowhere in the local area to the city that accepts this offer so they are just scattered about all over the floor, I have a few of them! This Londis actually accepted the offer which I was very happy about :)
Now I'm heading for a free game of Tennis with a free Pepsi Max after receiving a cheaper coffee and pastry early on, and a free coffee a bit later on so not a bad morning so far. I eventually reach Victoria Park and it's a lovely park and the Tennis Courts are indeed free, I practiced my serve for a few hours and wasn't able to find anyone to play with so headed to the local library to start this blog as I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while.
The local library was Canton Library which similar to all the other public libraries I visit. Heavily government controlled making it very difficult to get anything of any relevance done which I think I need to right a separate blogpost about as it's a big subject in my opinion and keeps a lot of people stuck outside the system trying to fight their way in.
I decided to stay in Canton for the day and enjoyed it much more than Cardiff City to be honest. There is much more shops available, cheaper prices in the Weatherspoons and I earned a decent amount busking. I was advised that it's not a great place to busk but I've learned on my travels that the places that don't get buskers very often, which are generally the more poorer area's can often be the most giving and I was right. I received about £15 some cookies and a drink of Lucosaze so all in all I can't really complain. I've had better days in the bigger cities but also a lot worse days.
I arranged over email to meet a guy at the tennis courts in Victoria Park for a game at 5pm and he didn't show up but luckily there were 2 guys their who let me join in with them and I had quite a good set with a good player which I won 6-3 and was pretty happy about. They also shared their weed with me so I had some healing from my lovely medicine. All in all it was a good day for me. I also noticed a lot of things happening around me regarding vibration when playing tennis which I think I will blog about another time as this is quite a long post now and I'm in the annoying public library getting booted of the computer every hour by the IT policies! I need to try and get myself a laptop again really to provide anything of any real value and not be in a perpetual state of frustration with computers.
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